Life at X
X is a team of inventors, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs working to make 10X progress against the world’s toughest problems.
The world’s biggest problems can’t be solved with conventional, incremental ways of thinking and behaving.
At X, we’ve learned that breakthrough innovation happens when passionate teams of people have the audacity to challenge each other’s perspectives and aim for the seemingly impossible.
Focus Areas
Focus Areas
Tackling hard problems
One of our mantras is to fall in love with the problem, not the technology. We seek deep understanding of problems that affect millions of people so we can explore creative new approaches to help solve them.
Food Supply
Sustainable nutrition for a growing planet
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By 2050, we’ll need to feed 2 billion more people – without further damaging the environment. A mix of better data, machine learning, robotics, and yet-to-be developed technologies may unlock moonshots that help us produce more nutritious food, more sustainably.
Food Supply
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Clean Energy
Achieving 100% renewable energy
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The production and use of energy is the single biggest contributor to global warming. We’re developing clean energy generation and grid-scale storage solutions to help decarbonize the energy sector and harness the full power of renewables.
Clean Energy
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Connectivity
Connecting the unconnected
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Billions of people still don’t have reliable, affordable access to the Internet. This is especially true in rural and remote areas, where setting up traditional internet infrastructure can be challenging and costly. X is developing technology to help overcome these barriers and extend connectivity to all.
Connectivity
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Mobility
Rethinking how we get from A to B
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Getting around could be much safer and more convenient than it is today. X started the self-driving car project to help solve this. It’s now Waymo, an independent Alphabet company working to improve road safety and offer new mobility options to millions of people.
Mobility
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Logistics
Taking the friction out of moving goods
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It’s never been easier for people and businesses to move goods from place to place, but environmental costs are high and current methods are inefficient. We’re working on technology to make the delivery and tracking of goods faster, cheaper, and more sustainable than what’s been possible before.
Logistics
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Health
Advancing life sciences
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Much of the human body and brain remains a mystery, creating inherent limits for health care. Recent advances in data science, machine learning, and the miniaturization of sensors may help us better understand, predict, and treat diseases.
Health
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Approach
Approach
Finding radical solutions
Our small, focused project teams bring together deep expertise across disciplines and industries, searching for sci-fi sounding ideas and turning them into real-world impact as quickly as possible.
AI and Machine Learning
AI and machine learning specialists work across our projects, bringing perspectives from different backgrounds and applying them to solve real problems.
Robotics
Robotics software and hardware experts are teaching machines new skills to help extend humanity’s capabilities.
Hardware Engineering
Many of the problems we’re tackling are physical in nature, requiring hardware engineers who love dreaming and prototyping things that have never been built before.
Software Engineering
Our software engineers are essential players in projects at X, developing large, complex software systems to take on equally complex problems.
Business Strategy
Strategy and operations teams here lay the foundations for the independent businesses that X projects aim to become.
Operating Principles
Operating Principles
Engineering a cultural moonshot
X is a moonshot in and of itself. Our breakthrough idea isn’t a technology; it’s our people. It’s about designing a culture with the values and practices that can resist the pull towards the comfortable and conventional, and make radical, purpose-driven creativity the path of least resistance.
Teams
Teams
Assembling diverse teams
Everything we do requires teams of people with diverse perspectives and backgrounds, so we can generate more creative ideas and ask hard questions. At X, you’ll find former rocket scientists working alongside concert pianists and puppeteers, and marine biologists mingling with machine learning experts.
Neil
General Manager of Tidal
“When it came to my career, I always had this idea in the back of my mind that I would have to work really hard for a lot of years, hit some measure of success, and then that would allow me to give back. I quickly realized that I didn't have to do it in that order. I came here because I wanted to have a positive impact on the world now, and I didn't want to wait.”
Gabriella
Hardware Engineer
“What keeps me here is not only the growth that I’ve experienced on projects but also the individual impact I’ve been able to have on technologies as they develop. We’re able to think at a much bigger scale here which is why it’s such a great place to work on really risky, out-of-the-box ideas.”
Miguel
Roboticist
“When I first decided I wanted to be an engineer, I started to think about what the ideal job would be. All the other engineering kids in school would say, ‘Have you seen what they’ve been working on?’ It was always this nebulous ‘they.’ I’ve now realized that ‘they’ are the people in this building. From smart contact lenses to self-driving cars to wind energy kites, I can’t think of another place in the world that’s able to do things like this.”
Nicole
UX Researcher
“I love the unpredictability and diversity of ideas and disciplines that are represented here. We have people who are best in their fields - whether it’s psychology or neuroscience or material science, you name it. I always feel like I’m learning.”
Michael
Technical Program Manager
“X is a very unique place to work because it’s similar to a startup, but the resources that we have and the people on staff are amazing. I’m always blown away by the people that I meet here, what they’ve done, what they’re interested in, and how passionate they are about the problems they’re tackling.”
Emily
Project Lead
“There’s this unparalleled belief here that anything is truly possible. I remember a time when Loon had something like 12 people and they knew nothing about ballooning. Then, five years later, they’re world experts in ballooning. What company would do this? Ideas and ways of working that would otherwise be laughed out the door can actually be entertained here.”
General Manager of Tidal
Hardware Engineer
Roboticist
UX Researcher
Technical Program Manager
Project Lead
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Experience
Experience
Life at a moonshot factory
There’s no such thing as a “typical day” at a moonshot factory. Some days we’re 3D printing prototypes in our Design Kitchen. Other days we’re out in the field, flying drones in the Australian bush or testing our underwater vision skills in the Arctic Circle. X teams deliberately break away from the routine and ordinary and run toward the unexpected and unknown.