Moonshot Thinking

How to Make 10X Thinking Your Default Operating Mode

Oct 22, 2025

Long considered unfeasible by much of the aerospace industry, the idea of landing and reusing an orbital rocket was the stuff of science fiction until SpaceX made it real. On December 21, 2015, the company stunned the world by landing a Falcon 9 booster vertically after delivering a payload to orbit. Just over a year later, in March 2017, that same booster flew again, proving that reusability wasn’t just possible, it was the future (1).

SpaceX began its pursuit of reusable rockets in 2011. Between 2013 and 2015, SpaceX attempted multiple vertical landings with Falcon 9 boosters, most of which ended in spectacular crashes or ocean splashdowns. Each failure was a learning opportunity: from hydraulic fluid shortages to landing leg malfunctions, the team iterated relentlessly. The first controlled ocean landing came in April 2014, but the booster couldn’t be recovered. Then came the infamous “hard landings” on drone ships; one exploded on impact, and another toppled over due to a landing leg lock failure.

These setbacks didn’t deter SpaceX; they fuelled its resolve. Moonshot thinking isn’t about avoiding failure; it’s about embracing it as part of the journey. Moonshot thinkers pursue goals that sound impossible, while everyone else optimises the familiar.

The term “moonshot” originated from President Kennedy’s 1961 declaration to land humans on the moon within a decade, a goal NASA engineers initially considered unachievable (2). Today, companies like Alphabet’s X division apply this same audacious thinking to solve humanity’s biggest problems.

Master moonshot methodology, and you’ll redefine what’s possible while rivals optimise yesterday’s solutions.

🚀What Moonshot Thinking Means

Astro Teller, director of X (formerly Google X), defines a moonshot as the intersection of three bold elements:

1. A massive global problem, one that threatens the survival or quality of life for millions or even billions. This isn’t about fixing a market inefficiency or streamlining operations; it’s about tackling humanity’s most fundamental challenges.

2. A radical solution, something that feels like science fiction today. It must break entirely from conventional approaches, not improve them incrementally. If it doesn’t sound impossible to seasoned experts, it’s not a moonshot.

3. A recent technological breakthrough, one that makes the previously impossible suddenly plausible within a 5–10 year horizon. Without this enabling tech, you’re chasing fantasy, not a moonshot.

This framework reveals why many “innovation initiatives” fall short. They aim at small problems with conventional solutions using proven technology. That’s optimisation, not moonshot thinking.

Peter Diamandis frames the economic logic bluntly: “Why settle for 10% gains when a 10X breakthrough could achieve 100X the benefit? A 10X improvement can be one-hundred-fold more worth it than a 10% improvement, yet it’s not one-hundred-fold harder to accomplish” (4).

The counterintuitive truth? Pursuing 10X is often easier than achieving 10% because it forces you to abandon constraints and reimagine solutions entirely.

The Innovator’s DNA framework reveals why this works. Moonshot goals force activation of all Five Discovery Skills:

• You must Associate across unrelated domains

• Question every assumption

• Observe problems from fresh angles

• Network beyond your industry

• And Experiment radically

Incremental goals let you avoid this disruptive work. Moonshots make it mandatory.

X’s own definition drives the point home: “Pursuing things that sound undoable, but if done, could redefine humanity.” (5). This isn’t hyperbole. It’s the threshold for moonshot thinking. If your goal doesn’t sound impossible to experienced practitioners in your field, it’s not a moonshot.

🔧How X Turns Impossible Into Operational

X, formerly Google X and now a division of Alphabet, calls itself a “Moonshot Factory”, a place where bold ideas are engineered into reality through disciplined experimentation and a culture that embraces failure as fuel for progress (6). Their track record shows how moonshot thinking can be operationalized.

Waymo, X’s autonomous vehicle project, exemplifies moonshot success.

The problem: Over 1.3 million people die in traffic accidents each year, with human error responsible for 94% of them.
The radical solution: Eliminate human drivers through fully autonomous vehicles.
The breakthrough: Advances in machine learning, sensor fusion, and real-time computing.

Waymo graduated from X in 2016 and now operates commercial autonomous ride-hailing services in select U.S. cities (7).

Project Loon illustrates moonshot learning through failure.

The problem: Nearly half the world lacked internet access.
The radical solution: Deliver connectivity via high-altitude balloons floating in the stratosphere.
The breakthrough: Machine learning for autonomous navigation, solar-powered systems, and ultra-light materials.

After nine years of development and successful pilots, Loon was shut down in 2021. The tech worked, but the economics didn’t scale (8).

Makani, X’s airborne wind energy project, pursued renewable power from stronger, high-altitude winds.

The problem: Limited access to consistent, affordable wind energy.
The radical solution: Use energy kites to generate electricity from high-altitude wind.
The breakthrough: Autonomous flight control, tethered power transmission, and lightweight turbine design.

Despite technical progress, Makani was shut down in 2020 due to commercial viability challenges. The learning: technical feasibility doesn’t guarantee commercial viability (9).

These stories reveal moonshot discipline. X doesn’t celebrate only successes. They institutionalise learning from failures, using each shutdown to refine their understanding of which impossible problems are actually solvable. X doesn’t chase every bold idea at once. They sequence experiments deliberately, using constrained sprints to test core assumptions before scaling resources.

🧠 The Moonshot Operating System

X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, operates on a set of operational principles that any organization can adopt, not as lofty ideals, but as rigorous disciplines. These principles, championed by Astro Teller, are designed to make radical innovation repeatable (10):

Aim for 10X, not 10%

Pursuing 10X improvement forces you to question every assumption and abandon incremental thinking. You gain freedom to change fundamental rules because small optimisations won’t achieve the goal. This creates what X calls “permission to think differently.”

Fall in love with the problem, not your solution

Moonshot teams obsess over root causes, not pet technologies. Solutions are disposable; the problem is sacred. Many organisations cling to their initial ideas even when evidence mounts against them. Moonshot thinking demands problem obsession and solution flexibility.

Communicate with the real world early

Test assumptions immediately through customer contact, prototype deployment, or market pilots. Waiting for perfection means learning slowly. X prioritises “learning velocity” over “solution elegance.”

Work on the hardest part first

Most teams tackle easy wins to build momentum. Attack the most difficult, most uncertain part of the problem first. This accelerates organisational learning, allowing teams to decide quickly whether to persevere or redirect resources.

Make failure safe and visible

Psychological safety is non-negotiable. X celebrates failed experiments as publicly as successful ones. This cultural norm prevents teams from hiding risk or defaulting to safe bets. As Teller puts it, “We spend most of our time trying to kill our own projects.”

Love the ugly prototype

X calls the earliest version “v0.crap,” a deliberately raw prototype built to expose flaws, not impress stakeholders. Most organisations delay showing a prototype until it’s polished. Moonshot thinking demands showing ugly prototypes immediately to accelerate learning.

Shift perspective constantly

Big problems don’t always require big solutions. X encourages teams to reframe assumptions, borrow ideas from unrelated fields, and explore unconventional angles. Often, the breakthrough comes not from complexity, but from a surprising simplicity.

These aren’t innovation slogans. They’re operational filters X uses to evaluate whether teams genuinely pursue moonshots or disguised incremental projects.

Questions That Expose Your Moonshot Readiness

Does your biggest innovation goal meet Teller’s three criteria? If you can’t identify a huge world problem, a radical solution, and a breakthrough technology enabling it, you’re not pursuing a moonshot. You’re pursuing optimisation.
Are you working on the hardest part first? If your team completes easy tasks while postponing the most difficult technical challenge, you’re signalling that you don’t actually believe the moonshot is achievable. Moonshot teams attack uncertainty immediately.
Do you celebrate failures publicly? If your organisation only rewards successes, you’ve structurally guaranteed that teams will avoid moonshots. Risk aversion is rational when failure damages careers. Moonshot thinking requires rewarding intelligent failures.
Can you name what you learned from your last killed project? If you can’t articulate specific, valuable learnings from failed initiatives, you’re not extracting moonshot value. X shuts down projects specifically to capture and institutionalise learning.
Does your 10-year vision sound impossible to industry experts? If experienced practitioners in your field consider your goal achievable through conventional means, it’s not a moonshot. Moonshots must sound impossible initially, or you’re aiming too low.

Your Moonshot Launch Blueprint

Week 1 to 2: Identify Your Impossible Problem

Apply Teller’s three criteria rigorously. Map the huge world problems affecting millions, where recent technological breakthroughs create an opening for radical solutions. Use the Innovation Navigator framework to scan horizons systematically. Don’t ask “what can we improve?” Ask “What impossible problem could we solve that would redefine our industry?”

Frame as a specific target: “Reduce customer acquisition cost from $500 to $5” or “Enable service delivery to customers earning under $2 daily.” Vague aspirations aren’t moonshots. Impossible-seeming specifics are.

Week 3 to 6: Attack the Hardest Part Immediately

Identify the single most difficult technical, operational, or market challenge in your moonshot. Assign your best team exclusively to proving or disproving that element within 90 days. Postpone all easier components. This creates what X calls “learning sprints,” rapid experiments that reveal whether your moonshot is achievable or requires a pivot.

Apply the five Discovery Skills from The Innovator’s DNA intensively. Associate across unrelated industries for solution approaches. Question every assumption about why the problem remains unsolved. Observe extreme users facing similar challenges. Network beyond your domain for breakthrough insights. Experiment ruthlessly with v0.crap prototypes.

Week 7 to 12: Build Moonshot Culture Infrastructure

Establish explicit failure celebration mechanisms. Institute monthly “failure forums” where teams present killed projects and extracted learnings with the same prominence as success celebrations. Create a ringfenced moonshot budget, typically 10 to 20% of innovation resources, protected from quarterly performance pressure.

Implement X’s “shift perspective” discipline through mandatory multidisciplinary team composition. Include people from completely unrelated domains in moonshot discussions. Their “naive” questions often expose assumptions experts take for granted.

Moonshots Make Markets Obsolete

Your competitors pursue 10% improvements while their markets transform underneath them. SpaceX didn’t optimise rocket costs by 10%. They reimagined reusability and achieved 90%+ cost reduction, making competitors’ business models obsolete. Waymo didn’t improve driver safety by 10%. They removed drivers entirely, creating autonomous mobility.

The old model, steady improvement of proven approaches, worked when change was gradual. That world ended. Market leaders now pursue moonshots that sound impossible, work on the hardest parts first, and celebrate failures that generate learning velocity.

Stop funding incremental innovation disguised as transformation. Start demanding goals that meet Teller’s three criteria. Work on the hardest problem first. Kill projects fast when learning reveals insurmountable barriers. The moonshot that succeeds doesn’t just beat competitors. It makes competition irrelevant.

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After 25+ years working with companies, I’ve learned one truth: companies don’t die from failed moonshots. They die from successful optimisation of obsolete strategies while moonshot thinkers redefine their markets.

Your empire doesn’t need better incrementalism. It needs one moonshot that makes your competitors’ 10% improvements meaningless.

Comment below: What’s your moonshot? Use Teller’s three criteria to describe it. If you don’t have one, I’ll help you design it.