SXSW keynote: Astro Teller on moonshots, Google X Labs and good failures

Teller spoke Tuesday afternoon at the Austin Convention Center as the final keynote speaker on the last day of South by Southwest Interactive. Drawing the largest keynote crowd of the festival, Teller spoke in a solo presentation about Google X Labs projects that are both well-known (Google Glass, self-driving cars) and those that are not household names, like Flux, which is hoping to revolutionize construction and architecture and Project Loom, balloons for providing Internet access where it doesn't exist,

Though there are plenty of secret projects Google X is working on that he likely couldn’t discuss, Teller was forthcoming about some of the challenges and failures he’s experienced. For instance, Google Glass benefited greatly from its bets “Explorers” program that got the hardware in the hands of early adopters. But it was hurt by too much attention and press. That product has now graduated into Google itself, but it’s unclear where that much-derided eyewear technology will end up as a product.

He said that the factory (a word he prefers over others) if focused on finding ways to make huge improvements in areas where they can make a long-term impact. Google X researches and problem, prototypes solutions and then focuses on it “With the maniacal focus of a startup,” he said.

Teller warned that technology is doing nothing but speeding up and that we need to figure out better ways to respond to that. But he was hopeful in encouraging attendees to take risks and follow their own moonshots and learn not to fear failure, but embrace it. “Success has happened because we’ve harnessed our failures,” Teller said. “I just wish we could have made our mistakes faster.”

Session hashtag: #moonshots