Moonshots of the Intelligent Age: XLabs’ Raison d’Etre

50 years ago human beings walked on the moon.

We have never been back¹.

When Kennedy announced to the world the launch of a new space age, Americans were transfixed. The world palpated with excitement and nations doubled down on the race. It was 1962 and John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America, had announced the first moonshot: literally shooting for the moon. A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind. That is the characteristic of a true moonshot, something which when achieved changes the perception of what people think of as possible. It changes the perception of reality’s limitations and therefore changes reality itself.

Since the 1960s, however, something weird has happened in our cultural zeitgeist: we have become less ambitious. Ironic as that seems in this digital age, thinking itself has been limited narrowing the scope of what is possible. And when human imagination itself is constrained, tinkering follows, not visionary accomplishments, not new industries and definitely not a new age. With the focus of corporations on short-term quarterly returns, venture capital on near-term returns and academia on no returns, moonshots are out of favor. The underlying assumption is that next-gen technology risk is just too risky and it requires decades and conglomerates of people to bear fruit.

We are surrounded by abundance. Abundant food, abundant resources and even more abundant technology, and yet this increase in abundance has narrowed our perception of what is possible using this abundance.

XLabs is a call to action, a rallying cry to build more moonshots, to think bigger and to unlock higher levels of civilization. The timing couldn’t be more real: we stand on the doorstep of a new phase for humanity: the intelligent age. Three super accentuating technologies are poised to change the world and amplify everything that is human: Artificial Intelligence (AI), unconventional Quantum Computing, and Neurotechnology. Each of these technologies have been around for decades, and yet the world is yet to see anything truly amazing. This is what XLabs is about. We are building massively impactful companies powered by these three super accentuating technologies that amplify each other.

Some have incorrectly categorized business oriented moonshots as being outlandish ideas that have little or no founding in reality, but this is not the case. President Kennedy didn’t make this challenge on a whim. The idea was researched, feasibility assessments were made, and then an educated challenge was proposed. There was no guarantee of success, but that does not mean that the idea was something he snatched from fiction. They are grounded in the expertise of daring but very-much hands-on technologists. The Harvard Business Review describes a good moonshot as having three key ingredients: it inspires; it is credible; it is imaginative. We add a fourth element: time. The original moonshot took 8 years to achieve. From Kennedy’s speech to a man landing on the moon, 8 years. It was the 1960’s, with mainframe computers, manual calculations, slide rules and pencils. Before AI, quantum or neurotechnology or any of the other technology that has now become part of our episteme. At XLabs we ask, what moonshots are possible now?

XLabs allows for the rise of genius men and women who can truly unlock a new age. This involves:

1. A novel kind of approach to next-gen technology development: moonshot thinking and a new methodology
2. A home for the operation of genius
3. An asset class to line up the right scaffolding for moonshots.

This is XLabs. A new kind of technology company, which above all else is about unlocking a new age for humanity: the Intelligent Age. And someone way before us has articulated even better than us why we see what we see:

“We have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides — time for a great new American enterprise, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.”
— President John F. Kennedy, on the original moonshot.

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1. Technically, it has been 50 years since the 1st landing and 46 years since the last.