What if the keys to solve the world’s hardest problems – food security, energy resilience, the digital divide – were already within our grasp?
Welcome to The Moonshot Podcast, where we go behind the scenes at X, The Moonshot Factory, to celebrate 15 years of Google’s innovation laboratory. Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, this series gives you unprecedented access to the radical ideas and fearless inventors working to build a future we want to live in.
Explore real-world moonshots—from self-driving cars to AI-powered disaster prediction—and discover the messy, exhilarating journey of creating breakthrough technologies with the potential to reshape our world.
Some ideas will succeed. Some will fail. But every moonshot moves us forward.
Subscribe now to The Moonshot Podcast, a Blanchard House production for X, The Moonshot Factory.
All content for The Moonshot Podcast is the property of X, The Moonshot Factory and is served directly from their servers
with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
What if the keys to solve the world’s hardest problems – food security, energy resilience, the digital divide – were already within our grasp?
Welcome to The Moonshot Podcast, where we go behind the scenes at X, The Moonshot Factory, to celebrate 15 years of Google’s innovation laboratory. Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, this series gives you unprecedented access to the radical ideas and fearless inventors working to build a future we want to live in.
Explore real-world moonshots—from self-driving cars to AI-powered disaster prediction—and discover the messy, exhilarating journey of creating breakthrough technologies with the potential to reshape our world.
Some ideas will succeed. Some will fail. But every moonshot moves us forward.
Subscribe now to The Moonshot Podcast, a Blanchard House production for X, The Moonshot Factory.
Deep Dive: Ivy Ross & Isabelle Olsson on the Early Days of Google Glass
The Moonshot Podcast
52 minutes
1 month ago
Deep Dive: Ivy Ross & Isabelle Olsson on the Early Days of Google Glass
In this installment of the Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive series, Astro Teller explores the origins of Google Glass with designers Ivy Ross and Isabelle Olsson.
They discuss the unexpected design and tech challenges the team faced creating such a bold new form factor, the surprising ways people ended up wanting to use Glass, how their backgrounds in art influenced their approach, and the importance of timing when creating new technologies.
For more on Glass’s early days, tune into Episode 9 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Supersenses”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlpF2QJNL5Y
00:00 - Introduction
01:43 - How Isabelle wound up at X
03:37 - How Ivy came to X
07:25 - The big challenges Glass was solving
11:04 - The origins of the Glass Explorer Program
11:43 - Glass’s public debut
14:46 - Ivy’s earliest memories of Glass in action
18:37 - How art influenced the design of Glass
22:19 - Glass’s second generation design
27:20 - From sunglasses to monocles: Early design debates
31:30 - Surprising “fringe” uses of Glass in industry
34:33 - Reinventing Glass for industry
35:47 - Why timing matters
41:45 - Memorable team traditions
44:50 - When Glass moved from X to Google
47:41 - Early explorations with the Google Watch
49:37 - Lessons learned from taking moonshots
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Moonshot Podcast
What if the keys to solve the world’s hardest problems – food security, energy resilience, the digital divide – were already within our grasp?
Welcome to The Moonshot Podcast, where we go behind the scenes at X, The Moonshot Factory, to celebrate 15 years of Google’s innovation laboratory. Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, this series gives you unprecedented access to the radical ideas and fearless inventors working to build a future we want to live in.
Explore real-world moonshots—from self-driving cars to AI-powered disaster prediction—and discover the messy, exhilarating journey of creating breakthrough technologies with the potential to reshape our world.
Some ideas will succeed. Some will fail. But every moonshot moves us forward.
Subscribe now to The Moonshot Podcast, a Blanchard House production for X, The Moonshot Factory.
