The Moonshot Podcast S2, Episode 1: Supercharging Human Health
A deep dive into three X moonshot projects—Skip's powered "movewear", Project Iris's journey from smart contact lenses to revolutionizing glucose monitoring, and Verily's mission to enable precision healthcare through AI and comprehensive data aggregation.
In a discussion on the future of healthcare, Astro Teller and guests explore three projects from X, the Moonshot Factory, that aim to seamlessly integrate breakthrough technology into daily life. The projects—Skip, Iris, and Verily—illustrate a progression from wearable hardware to sophisticated data and AI platforms, each tackling fundamental challenges in human health and mobility.
Skip: An “E-Bike for Walking”
Skip’s origin lies in addressing the decline in mobility that often accompanies aging, which profoundly impacts mental and social well-being. The initial inspiration came from observing how a loss of confidence in walking could shrink a person’s world, isolating them from their community.
The project set out to create a new category of technology called “movewear”—a hybrid of clothing and robotics designed to provide a physical boost, much like an e-bike assists a cyclist. The key requirements, derived from the shortcomings of existing solutions like canes and walkers, were that the device had to be:
- Hands-free: Allowing users to carry groceries or interact with their environment.
- Non-stigmatizing: Feeling like an evolution of everyday clothing rather than a medical device.
- Genuinely useful daily: Providing tangible value in the moment, such as helping climb a flight of stairs.
The AI and Controls Challenge
The core technical hurdle was not just providing power, but doing so intuitively. The system needed to understand human intent in real-time using only on-body sensors. This is a complex AI problem, similar to that of self-driving cars.
Like how do you differentiate between someone who’s squatting down to pick up a box? you want help to stand up. Someone who is squatting down to tie up their shoelace, the last thing you want is your pants like forcing you upright when you’re trying to tie your shoelace. So like the AI component here is something which again is only possible in the last 10 years and allows us to create products that feel really intuitive.
From Lab to Landmark
To prove the technology’s effectiveness, the team set a non-technical, ambitious goal: race to the top of the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco. An “averagely fit” team member, wearing the powered pants, was able to finish within 10 seconds of the world record set by an elite tower runner. This demonstrated that the device could more than compensate for its own weight, providing a significant performance boost.
After spinning out of X, Skip has partnered with Arc’teryx and is developing products for both general mobility challenges and a specific hip-based device for Parkinson’s patients, demonstrating the platform’s adaptability through software and AI.
Project Iris: From Smart Contact Lens to CGM Revolution
Project Iris was born from a major healthcare moonshot: creating a non-invasive, continuous glucose monitor. The goal was to empower individuals with pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes to manage their condition through lifestyle changes, potentially reversing its course and mitigating its enormous cost to individuals and the healthcare system.
The project’s central hypothesis was that glucose levels in tears correlate with blood glucose. To test this, the team faced a classic “chicken and the egg” problem: they couldn’t measure the glucose without a device, and they couldn’t build a device without knowing if the measurement was possible.
Technology: A Computer in a Contact Lens
The team developed a smart contact lens containing three key components:
- Sensor: An electrochemical sensor using a glucose oxidase enzyme to detect glucose.
- Compute: A miniature system-on-chip (SoC) to process signals.
- Power: Initially, an antenna ring that drew power wirelessly from a pair of glasses.
This first prototype proved the fundamental concept: there was a measurable, clinically relevant correlation between glucose in tears and blood. However, the glasses-based power system was unreliable, as blinking and eye movement would interrupt the connection. This led the team to develop the “world’s smallest batteries” (1x1 mm) to power the lens directly.
The Pivot: Falling in Love with the Problem
While the contact lens faced significant comfort and wearability challenges, the underlying technology platform—the miniaturized sensor, compute, and power system—was a breakthrough. The team realized this platform could be repurposed to solve a more immediate problem: the poor user experience of existing Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs).
At the time, CGMs were bulky, invasive, and stigmatized, used almost exclusively by people with Type 1 diabetes.
The Iris team applied their miniaturized electronics platform to a standard CGM sensor. Clinical trials showed their system was “indistinguishable” in performance but could be packaged into a dramatically smaller, more user-friendly form factor. This work became the technological foundation for the Dexcom G7, transforming the CGM from a niche medical device into a mainstream tool for metabolic health. It stands as a powerful example of X’s mantra: “fall in love with the problem, not your solution.”
Verily: A Precision Healthcare Platform
Verily addresses the invisible, systemic problem of data fragmentation in healthcare. An estimated 97% of a person’s health data is trapped in silos behind the firewalls of various hospitals, clinics, and labs. This makes it impossible to achieve a holistic view of a patient’s health.
Verily’s mission is to democratize precision healthcare by creating an “urgent clinic in your pocket.”
The Approach: Data Aggregation and AI
Verily’s platform is built on two key innovations:
- Data Aggregation: The Verily Me app overcomes data silos through a unique strategy. Because Verily is structured as both a technology company and a medical provider, it can legally request a user’s complete medical records on their behalf, consolidating a lifetime of health history in one place.
- Personalized AI: The Violet AI engine runs privately and securely on this aggregated data. Unlike public chatbots, Violet can have a contextual conversation about a user’s specific medical history. It can help a user prepare for a doctor’s appointment, analyze their blood sugar trends, or check for potential interactions with a new supplement.
The entire system is powered by Verily Pre, a “purpose-built hyperscaler for healthcare data.” This medical-grade cloud is designed to process and understand the vast and varied types of medical information at scale.
The Vision: Autonomous Healthcare
The ultimate goal is to enable the healthcare equivalent of “full self-driving”—a future of full autonomous care. While the technology is advancing rapidly, the primary barrier is the lack of comprehensive, longitudinal data needed to train robust AI models. Verily’s platform is a foundational step toward solving this data access problem, aiming to provide high-quality, specialist-level care to anyone, anywhere, particularly in underserved communities.