Failing on Purpose: Changing the Way We Think About the World's Biggest Problems | Astro Teller, CEO of X

The Dumbest Guy in the Room

It’s almost impossible to keep up with all the crises in America today. There’s inflation, energy costs, drug prices, mental health, supply chains, inequality, and so much more. Even COVID is raging again. Meanwhile, we’ve just kind of accepted the political animosity. Then there are the existential catastrophes on the horizon: climate change, food shortages, geopolitical crises.

But what are we supposed to do about it? Those problems take science, and a boatload of money, and an almost reckless amount of courage to tackle. Thankfully, we also have those in America.

In this episode of The Dumbest Guy in the Room, host John Dick welcomes Astro Teller, the head of an organization simply called X – the so-called “moonshot factory” of Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube. Astro and John talk about how X is trying to solve seemingly unsolvable problems by failing as quickly and shamelessly as possible.