Astro Teller, the captain of Alphabet’s experimental “moonshot factory” known as X, laid out his philosophy in a remarkable presentation at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Yet what Hooper did turn his attention to were lessons from the most successful moonshots. Teller pointed to the complexities of moonshot projects, distilling what makes them special and the mentality needed to chase them down.
In his presentation, Teller described a moonshot as having three indispensable elements. “A moonshot attempts to solve a huge problem in the world, presents a product or service that could eliminate that problem, and is inherently unlikely to succeed,” he stated. Further, this framework highlights the often ambitious nature of the projects X pursues.
X accelerates the launch of more than 100 projects annually. Only about 2% of them ever make it to a successful exit five or six years down the road. Teller pointed to a remarkable detail. Even with such a low success rate, 44% of X’s financial plunder goes to projects with ludicrously big – their word, not mine – potential. As he put it on the importance of creativity and innovation, we can’t lose sight of this fact: folks can learn to be creative.
Astro Teller emphasized that creativity is often lost over time, as he observed, “Every single person was creative when they were children, but that creativity is often unlearned.” He emphasized that the pursuit of moonshots must be guided by a mix of audacity and humility. “If you don’t have really high audacity, you won’t start on these really unlikely journeys,” he said. He cautioned that without humility, you run the danger of getting lost on paths that you can barely even imagine existing. “If you have anything less than really high humility, you’ll go luminously far down that unlikely journey,” he added.
Aisha, consumer news reporter at TechCrunch, live tweeted the joyous event. She highlighted some of Teller’s big picture thoughts on the trial-and-error learning dynamic that’s crucial to moonshot pursuits. She pointed out that Teller pushes for new, experimental takes on ideas that might first seem crazy. “If you propose something and it sounds pretty wild, that has those three components that I just described, and it’s a testable hypothesis, for a small amount of money, we can learn something about whether it’s a little bit more crazy than we thought, or a little bit less crazy than we thought,” he explained.
Teller painted a vivid picture of how X handles unsuccessful projects. If it’s crazier than we thought, great! Let’s throw up a high five in celebration, course correct with some bold moves, and go on our way. And if it is a bit less crazy than we imagined, great, here’s a smidge more cash. Go out there and hunt down the next big chance to crush it and just rinse and repeat. This attitude of philosophy conveys X’s sense of humility—integral to the company’s ethos and operations—learning and adapting as they face challenges.
Astro Teller’s insights into moonshot projects resonate with Aisha’s background in journalism, having previously served as a telecom reporter at MobileSyrup before joining TechCrunch in 2021. She graduated with an honours bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Western University. Aisha Malik can be reached by email at aisha@techcrunch.com or encrypted message through Signal at aisha_malik.01
