[MUSIC PLAYING]
MALE SPEAKER: The actual moonshot is wonderful,
inspirational, poetic, beautiful, involved.
Great technical challenges, genuine heroism.
It brought the world together.
But think about the Polynesian islander on the dugout canoe,
deciding one day they were going to that way.
No one had ever been that way before.
No one even knew if there was anything that way before.
It was amazing, and it changed the world.
MALE SPEAKER: People can set their minds to magical,
seemingly impossible ideas.
And then through science and technology,
bring them to reality.
And that then sets other people on fire, that other
things that look impossible might be accomplishable.
MEGAN SMITH: Galileo's such a hero in thinking big.
And what he represents to me is both curiosity and wonder
that humanity had that he had that pushed him and drove
himself to invent and work on the first telescopes that
allowed us to see the moon.
And here we are.
MALE SPEAKER: These aviation pioneers were figuring it out
as they went.
No one really knew how to build an airplane, right?
No one knew how to fly an airplane.
It was amazing and crazy and wonderful, and
they wanted to explore.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: Many years ago, the great British
explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mt.
Everest, was asked, why did he want to climb it?
He said because it is there.
MEGAN SMITH: There are so many challenges in the world.
And you can feel daunted by that and oppressed by that.
Or you kind of say, how might we think
differently about this?
MALE SPEAKER: Everyone else in the world is working
on that next 10%.
If you can be the one that delivers that 10 times
improvement, you have a chance to really change things.
MALE SPEAKER: If you want cars to run at 50
miles per gallon, fine.
You can retool your car a little bit.
But if I tell you it has to run on a gallon of gas for 500
miles, you have to start over.
MEGAN SMITH: You need a lot of courage in this work and you
need a lot of persistence.
One of the things that's really critical is not only
having the courage to keep trying every
day or thinking big.
Even if you don't really 100% believe it's possible, you
might think, this might be possible.
Have the courage to try.
That's how the greatest things have happened.
MALE SPEAKER: You don't spend your time being bothered that
you can't teleport from here to Japan because there's a
part of you that thinks it's impossible.
Moonshot thinking is choosing to be bothered by that.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: We choose to go to the moon in this decade
and do the other things.
Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
MALE SPEAKER: Humanity's progress has been a series of
amazing, audacious things from the very small and personal up
to the great big and grand, and we are
a species of moonshots.
And to me, that's the really amazing, poetic,
inspirational thing.
MALE SPEAKER: I think our ambitions are a glass ceiling
in what we can accomplish.
MEGAN SMITH: When you find your passion, you're
unstoppable.
You can make amazing things happen.
It's been true through all of history.
MALE SPEAKER: I believe in the human spirit.
And I believe that there are always going to be crazy
people who get out of bed one morning and
say, you know what?
I think I can build a space cylinder.
And they'll just go do it.
But I think that if we become afraid to take these great big
risks, we stop inspiring people.
We stop achieving things.
And the biggest nightmare scenario is that we won't have
what it takes to solve the really big challenges.
MALE SPEAKER: When Kennedy said that we would put a man
on the moon, it's about the fact that he said, we don't
know how to do this yet.
And we're going to do it anyway.
And that sends chills up everybody's spine.
Because if that happens, what couldn't we do?
MALE SPEAKER: And cue.
LOUIS GRAY: Welcome back to Google Developers Live at I/O.
Welcome Megan Smith.
MEGAN SMITH: Thank you.
It's great to be here.
LOUIS GRAY: Thank you for joining me.
I'm really excited about moonshots.
We've been talking about some really incredible things.
We just heard from Larry about all the work that Google has
been doing.
We've heard from Vic and Sundar, and really trying to
change the world through technology.
Can you tell me a little bit about what a moonshot is?
MEGAN SMITH: Sure.
Sometimes we think of it as 10 X better versus 1 X better.
And in fact, we just watched this film
with some of us talking.
Often, doing a 10 X can be, not easier, but easier than
you think than 1 X. We just try to look at--
I think I have a graphic.
We launched a thing called Solve for X, which is trying
to get more moonshot thinking in the world.
And sometimes you think about, there's a huge
problem in the world.
If we put up that graphic there's three circles.
Technology that maybe it appears like science fiction,
but it's coming online or there's a new way to think
about some technology, and let's apply it in some way.
Not unlike the original moonshot.
We want to get here by the end of the decade, get started,
start with Mercury and move.
LOUIS GRAY: And the initiative Solve for X really tries to
solve global problems.
One thing that really excited me about Google in the first
place was that we take on these things that people say
is impossible.
How do we let the impossibility of
things get in the way?
What do people say that they can't do, and what do you
think makes Google a great place to say,
yes, we can do this?
MEGAN SMITH: We stand on the shoulders of giants and
amazing moonshot folks.
I'm from Buffalo, New York where Nikola Tesla took a
moonshot to use Niagara Falls to light Buffalo years ago to
demo modern electrification.
So many people have been thinking like that, but it
maybe hasn't been the majority.
And certainly Larry and Sergey in founding Google thought
about, what's the big idea?
What we can do?
They were passionate, of course, about Search in the
beginning but have taken us in a lot of directions.
I think also in some ways there's some moonshot work
around how we do our work, how we collaborate.
I love that Larry just did a full open Q&A, very--
transparency is a fundamental thing, and collaboration.
LOUIS GRAY: That's something that's really important to us
in Google Developers Live.
I want to break those barriers down so all of the people on
the live stream can not only see us and talk to us, but
engage with us and have that kind of Q&A that we honestly
get as employees from Google.
To hear from Larry, it's really exciting to see Larry
and all the other engineers engaging with developers here.
When I look at Google and we talk about moonshots,
obviously things like self-driving cars come to
mind, and other bits like Gmail.
It wasn't too long ago that Gmail came out.
It came out on April Fools' Day of all things.
I didn't even know if it was real.
But they promised us a whole gigabyte of email when
everyone else was offering 20 or 40 megs.
What is your thought in terms of what are some moonshots
that Google's done so far, and what comes to mind in terms of
something that we can really deliver on
to change the world?
MEGAN SMITH: Well there's a range of moonshots that
Googlers have taken.
And I always think that moonshots are both the idea
and the people, or the team.
Who and what are never separate.
You know Maps and Geo would be a good example.
This incredible team of Keyhole and Where2 Tech, other
small acquisitions we've made.
And the teams came and we got together and really pushed it
and wanted to have free full mapping to everybody.
And some of things we've just seen demonstrated are on that
path of really thinking big.
LOUIS GRAY: I know you talk about big.
It's really incredible to think about the millions of
miles that are in Street View, and the fact that just a few
years ago, you wouldn't have thought of having the entire
globe in a little smartphone in your pocket that you take
with you everywhere.
And the moonshot really takes the impossible, the
incredible, and makes it real, and makes it happen.
For somebody who's going to the Solve for X website, how
can they get started?
What is it that they can do to find other people with similar
dreams like them?
MEGAN SMITH: Right.
On our website the main thing is we want
people to put up proposals.
What are their moonshots?
We want to celebrate people and process.
Of course we want the historic stuff and hear what great
people have done and inspire us that way.
But also let's help people and teams and process, and let's
get inspired by each other to think of new things.
So a lot of things to watch and collaborate on there.
And in general, Larry's saying, think big.
That's what we're trying to do.
The other thing that we're trying to do is that ideas
come from everywhere.
Bill Clinton says, 21st century is really about
creative collaboration.
Back to the Maps example, we are doing things in Maps but
then there's things where people are adding edits and
things on top, layers, amazing innovations.
Ushahidi is such a fabulous innovation on top of mapping
to help with crisis around the world.
So collaboration together, and I love that we're on
Developers Live, because it's all about the
interconnection of us.
I have to give a talk this summer.
It's called the next greatest generation.
I think the next greatest generation is actually all of
us networked.
LOUIS GRAY: Right.
And so one thing, [INAUDIBLE] we looked at Google.
Google's a business.
We're not a nonprofit.
Is it possible to do a moonshot without first
thinking of revenue?
Like, how can we do something that is not only incredible,
but does it have to make money?
How do you separate the business side of things from
the actual want to change the world ideals of doing things?
MEGAN SMITH: I always think there's for profit, nonprofit.
But there always needs to be revenue coming towards
something even if it's gifted revenue, donations, or
philanthropic, or
kickstarterly things or others.
So I think the most important thing is not to start with the
money, to start with the big idea.
We did that with Google, we've done that
with so many products.
And then the money can follow if it's incredibly valuable.
And sometimes innovating how the money should follow is a
big part of the design.
The internet is such an example of freemium.
It's the idea that free things and then add ways to pay for
some part, or media-based advertising, et cetera.
So there's a lot of different models out there
that you can use.
But I think the most important thing is find something you're
really passionate about doing and something that's really
needed in the world.
Those two things together let the business plan follow that.
LOUIS GRAY: As Vice President of Google x, you see
incredible things every day.
Things that the world knows about, things that I know
about, and then things that almost nobody knows about.
And you must have an incredibly busy time.
Now, what else are you doing at Google I/O in addition to
speaking with us today?
MEGAN SMITH: The Google X team is here with Google Glass, of
course, and Larry was talking about the
self-driving car ambitions.
And then we have a lot of other things we're thinking
about and working on.
We're still cooking them, they're still early.
So we're working on those.
And then of course Solve for X, sort of sharing this.
I'm also personally working a lot on diversity.
And we have a session later today at 5:30 on live stream
that I hope people join, Seven Tech Makers and a Microphone.
The Women Tech Makers Live at [? I/O. ?]
LOUIS GRAY: We've had a number of sessions on Women Tech
Makers on GDL.
It's been really a key focus for us to make sure that we're
highlighting incredible women.
I was really pleased to make sure that you went first and
would be our first guest.
Not because you're a woman but because you are an incredible
executive who has a proven track record, who happens to
be a woman.
And you're doing a lot of great stuff with WTM as we
call it, with Woman Tech Makers.
And I'm glad that that's been an incredible focus.
MEGAN SMITH: Yeah, and Larry was just answering a question
about getting more girls and boys, but girls into STEM
technologies.
There are so many jobs open that we don't have people for.
We need a lot of people to come into our field.
And a friend of mine, Nicholas [? Nicaponi ?]
once said, have you ever had a job?
Meaning this is passion work that we do.
It's not required work.
And so for young people to know about this
work is really important.
And the visibility of technical women is important.
Because technical women, for whatever reason through media
and others, have not been as visible as they should be.
Including later today, we're going to talk about a history
story at 5:30 Pacific that nobody has ever heard, pretty
much at [? scale ?], so that should be fun.
LOUIS GRAY: For sure.
Well I definitely appreciate you coming and
talking with me.
We're going to be producing a lot of exclusive interviews
with Googlers throughout the day.
On Google Developers Live, we're going to be highlighting
some of our partners in the sandboxes and we have a lot
more content.
What we're going to be doing right next is we're going to
be going back to the sessions, so start to see the live
sessions from all of the streams that you're looking at
from Android, Chrome, and other technical topics.
And then we'll be right back here at the GDL at I/O stage
around 1:30 to talk about Blink with Chrome.
So thank you very much, Megan.
MEGAN SMITH: Thanks Louis and thanks everyone online for
joining us.