Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at X, on the Future of AI, Robots, and Coffee Makers

Astro Teller has an unusual way of starting a new project: He tries to kill it. Teller is the head of X, formerly Google X, the advanced technology lab of Alphabet. At X's headquarters not far from the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., Teller leads a group of engineers, inventors, and designers devoted to futuristic "moonshot" projects like self-driving cars, delivery drones, and Internet-beaming balloons. To turn their wild ideas into reality, Teller and his team have developed a unique approach. It starts with trying to prove that whatever it is that you're trying to do can't be done--in other words, trying to kill your own idea. As Teller explains, "Instead of saying, 'What's most fun to do about this or what's easiest to do first?' we say, 'What is the most likely reason this project won't make it?' The ideas that survive get additional rounds of scrutiny, and only a tiny fraction eventually becomes official projects; the proposals that are found to have an Achilles' heel are ...