{"id":44410,"date":"2023-10-20T15:35:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/x-man-advice-for-entrepreneurs-from-the-captain-of-moonshots-google-xs-astro-teller-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:35:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:35:46","slug":"x-man-advice-for-entrepreneurs-from-the-captain-of-moonshots-google-xs-astro-teller-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/x-man-advice-for-entrepreneurs-from-the-captain-of-moonshots-google-xs-astro-teller-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"X man: Advice for entrepreneurs from the \u201cCaptain of Moonshots\u201d Google X\u2019s Astro Teller – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Moonshots are about solving real-world issues on Earth, not trying to get to Mars, Google X lead Astro Teller says.<\/p>\n

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Moonshots have come into the spotlight recently with the advent of the slightly secretive Google X, an organisation that in Teller\u2019s words is a group that takes a \u201chuge problem\u201d and finds some kind of \u201cradical solution by using a science-fiction sounding service\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Although many Google X projects are kept under wraps, the organisation is currently working on driverless cars, stratospheric balloons and connected contact lenses.<\/p>\n

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During a visit to Fishburners in Sydney recently, the \u201cCaptain of Moonshots\u201d gave a wide-ranging talk (video below) covering everything from Google Glass\u2019s supposed failure, how startups should deal with regulators, and stopping self-driving cars from hitting the elderly. You can watch the full video below, but here are some highlights from the speech<\/p>\n

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You have to embrace failure<\/b><\/h2>\n

When you\u2019re trying to solve an immense problem, like those Google X is trying to tackle, there\u2019s always going to be a lot of failure.<\/p>\n

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Teller spoke about recently shutting down a 25-person project, and instead of reprimanding the group for \u201cfailing\u201d, he gave them all a bonus.<\/p>\n

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He says this readiness to fail and learn from experience can be applied to all startups and entrepreneurs, not just moonshots.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhatever you\u2019re working on, it\u2019s probably wrong. If you want to lose, just keep your head down, stay in a conference room that has a whiteboard, order a lot of pizza and believe that you can simulate the real world well enough that if you just naval gaze for long enough, your design will eventually reach perfect,\u201d Teller says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you want to win, make it bad. Make it quickly and get out into the world. It won\u2019t work, but you will learn something interesting when it doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s the secret: go have experiences. You can\u2019t simulate the world in your brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Strive for 10 times better, not an extra 10%<\/b><\/h2>\n

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According to Teller, the biggest part of being a successful entrepreneur is being audacious.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWork on things that are 10 times better than existing solutions, rather than things that are 10% better,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo do that, you\u2019re going to have to take some part of the playbook and tear it up. Instead of having to be smarter, work harder or have more money than everyone that\u2019s tried this before, you\u2019re going to have to bring bravery, creativity and perspective shifting to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMost really gorgeous new ideas come from perspective shifting, not from people just staying up later.\u201d<\/p>\n

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You don\u2019t have to do it alone<\/b><\/h2>\n

Despite the secretive Google X being appearing as a \u201cdo it alone\u201d place, Teller says it\u2019s crucial to know when to partner up with another organisation in order to achieve success.<\/p>\n

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He says that if there are 100 assumptions about what a startup is trying to do, the entrepreneurs may look to \u201ctear up\u201d three of these, then partner with people that know how to do the other 97.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen you can go faster by doing it yourself, when you\u2019re working on those three things of the hundred that are weird, those are the things you should do by yourself,\u201d Teller says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen you go to the other 97, go find partners, go find people who are already the best in the world at those things and work with them.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have made our own cars in the self-driving part of Google X, but we didn\u2019t go make our own brake systems, we didn\u2019t reinvent batteries for cars. That would\u2019ve been crazy. On top of making cars be able to understand how to drive we didn\u2019t also have to go figure out how to drive cars in the first place.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe weird bits, the parts you want to be the best in the world at, go hide in the corner and solve those problems yourself.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDon\u2019t reinvent every single wheel \u2013 you\u2019ll drown trying to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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You have to learn how to properly accept feedback<\/b><\/h2>\n

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Taking in constructive feedback, both internally and externally, is crucial to gaining experience and developing a product, according to Teller.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou have to be hungry for honest feedback, and we don\u2019t get honest feedback in our lives unless we make it easy for people to give honest feedback,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe way we ask matters \u2013 if we\u2019re really listening to what they\u2019re saying, we\u2019ll hear something different than if we don\u2019t really want to hear what they have to say.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you do anything other than shower them with praise and positive reinforcement when they tell you the hard things, then that\u2019s the last time they will ever tell you the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Look for the weaknesses as early as possible<\/b><\/h2>\n

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Teller says there is a difference between motion and progress.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you\u2019re not breaking stuff you\u2019re not really discovering the thing that\u2019s most important to discover,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf someone was to tell you to get to the moon and you build a ladder and climb up it, you\u2019d be closer to the moon but you\u2019re not really closer to the moon. You\u2019re not going to make it to the moon by making the ladder.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s what a lot of people do when they develop products though. They work on the easy stuff first, because they\u2019re looking for investors and want to show progress.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut that\u2019s motion. Motion and progress are not the same thing.<\/p>\n

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\u201cReal progress is finding the list of things that might be Achilles\u2019 heels for your thing, and starting to take them off the list. If you find one you can\u2019t take off the list \u2013 good, you found it out now. The alternative was that you were going to discover it three years down the road.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou want to discover it right now \u2013 time is the thing you can\u2019t get back. You can get more people to work with you, you can get more investors, but you can never get that time back.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t take yourself too seriously<\/b><\/h2>\n

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Despite the important and real-world implications of some of the things Google X is working, Teller says you can\u2019t take it all seriously.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe take our work seriously but we don\u2019t take ourselves seriously,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s something about humour that I believe unlocks creativity. If you make your people believe that staying up until three in the morning every night is their job, that they need to salute and say they\u2019re soaring and that every bit of work for them feels militaristic, you won\u2019t get the best parts of them to come to work.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI would encourage you to think about humour and creativity, and how they\u2019re linked.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you can teach them to be responsibly irresponsible, to ask forgiveness rather than permission, magical things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

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