Google X's Astro Teller: The $1B Bet No CEO Will Back, Moonshots 3x Cheaper in 16 Yrs, and Clean Water at 1¢/L| EP #300

X's Astro Teller says moonshot costs have fallen 3x in 16 years, but culture—not capital—remains the real bottleneck to replicating it.

• Defining a moonshot: Teller's framework requires a huge world problem, a science-fiction-sounding solution, and a breakthrough technology giving at least a sliver of a chance of achieving it.
• Hit rate and scale: X starts 100-200 code-named ideas yearly, graduating only ~2 moonshots five-to-six years later; over 16.5 years, ~2,000 projects produced 35-50 graduates.

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