5 ms·

$50M over 5 years is a "moonshot"? Let's hope Wired is to blame for such hype; Google surely knows better. Even $50B is no moonshot. Try $500B to $5T and a c

$50M over 5 years is a "moonshot"? Let's hope Wired is to blame for such hype; Google surely knows better. Even $50B is no moonshot. Try $500B to $5T and a commitment of many thousands of man-years. Now THAT's a moonshot. $50M is not even "A War on Heart Disease". At most it's a skirmish. To wit, $50M/5 years is $10M per year. In Silly Valley, that buys you up to 20 staff, with no lab. So in 5 years, 20 Googlers armed only with whiteboards will succeed beyond the thousands and billions and decades of scientific research that have gone before? Gotta love the reality distortion field that is SV.

ma2rten 11y ago
I thought that moonshot just means "unlikely to succeed, but with potential to be big".
tinco 11y ago
They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. I bet in most states and most cities it'll buy you a lab and 50 staff and enough goods for a while. They won't have to actually produce the cure, just develop enough theory and experiments to convince investors to drop a billion on them for going through everything that's needed for human testing.
- InvisibleCities 11y ago
  >They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. Are you suggesting that curing heart disease is an easier and cheaper endeavor than building a mobile app for sharing photos?
- nugget 11y ago
  Statins alone are a >$10b annual market, down from $20b annually before Lipitor's patent expired. Pharma companies have proven that curative treatments can be priced near the net present value of all future disease management costs, making cures the most lucrative area of pharma (a good thing if it leads to more of them). There are billions of private dollars being sunk into heart disease annually. I'm not sure exactly what Google is after here but $50m is not going to move the needle from a funding or incentive perspective.
  - tinco 11y ago
    The way I understood the Google X moonshot strategy is that they put the money behind some idea that seems farfetched or unorthodox. I fully understand $50M doesn't mean anything to the industry as a whole, but you can't tell me it wouldn't impact any single early-stage idea or research direction. Google is not looking to fund heart disease research in general, they're going to fund one particular potential solution. One that's probably not seeing any of that $20B at this moment. Probably because the idea is farfetched, risky and potentially not financially viable.
  - randcraw 11y ago
    Right. "Heart Disease" is a huge space of medical pathologies, from atherosclerosis to stenosis to cardiomyopathy to abnormal signal creation / propagation to so much more. Hoping to "cure" any one of these is a goal greater than even a giant pharma or major medical research institute would entertain, especially in just 5 years. If creating the average new drug to merely treat a disease usually costs an experienced pharma between $2B and $6B, then $50M quite simply will not "cure heart disease". To suggest otherwise is akin to promising a miracle cure to a dying child's mother. It's either clueless or manipulative. Let's hope that foolish verbiage arose from careless reporting, and not from Google.
- jonlucc 11y ago
  Not really. I'd guess a PI and 2 associates in each lab would run $325k. A single drug will touch about 8 or 10 labs in the 4 or so years to get out of pre-clinical development. Without any benefits, managers, equipment, lab space, or animals, you're already eating $10 million. Monkey tox studies are expensive and required before human trials. I'd guess that it'd take 50 capital equipment pieces averaging somewhere around $150k. The barrier to entry is pretty high.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. Precisely. Which do you think is the more difficult one?
  - tinco 11y ago
    Indeed.
- firebones 11y ago
  > just develop enough theory and experiments to convince investors to drop a billion on them for going through everything that's needed for human testing. Not even close. The Stowers Institute for Medical Research [0] is a good comparison for how to do it right--$2 billion donated over a decade gets you in the door of creating a sustainable entity, facility and environment that has a chance of attracting the kind of top scientists (and their staffs) to do the type of basic research you describe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowers_Institute_for_Medical_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowers_Institute_for_Medical_...
dragonwriter 11y ago
> 50M over 5 years is a "moonshot"? Let's hope Wired is to blame for such hype; Google surely knows better. "Moonshot" appears to be a Google term of art for a focused project with a long expected period between initiation and potential payout (reflected in, e.g., the identification of many Google X, and some non-X, projects as "moonshots", and in Astro Teller's "Captain of Moonshots" title.) So, even though this is Google funding to an external team, I can see how it shares the traits of Google-internal "moonshot" and why Google might use the term.
x0x0 11y ago
Even in silly valley, people do not cost $500k/year. That said, 20 people or fewer once you pay for a wetlab.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Even in silly valley, people do not cost $500k/year. And Silicon Valley isn't exactly a hotbed of basic biomedical research, so I'd be surprised if the team that writes the application that wins the grant is based there.
bbarn 11y ago
Wouldn't they likely award the money to a group with a good chance of success? People with some experience, and per chance ideas they think would work if they had the money to test them out? Wouldn't those people already work in an existing lab?
dguaraglia 11y ago
"Moonshot" is a Google term for "we are going to put some money into this really long-shot idea, with the hope that even if we don't achieve the stated objective we'll get some cool technology/IP out of it." Take a look a Project Loon and (initially) Google Fiber for other "moonshots." That said, Google projects benefit from having a huge infrastructure and amazing academic links (you can collaborate with Stanford/MIT/etc. to generate research.) It's not just a startup starting from scratch with $50m, but an established player with deep pockets and amazing connections. Wanna collaborate with the leading specialist in this field? Google can make it happen. Wanna try some algorithm in 20k cores for a few weeks? Go for it. Wanna lobby around to get government involvement? There's a whole department for that.
- mikeash 11y ago
  But it's an analogy to Apollo, right? Which wasn't just a long shot, but one with enormous funding. Maybe they should pick a new term if they want to describe a long-shot that gets almost no funding.
  - randcraw 11y ago
    How about "Shot in the Dark"? Or "1024:1 Shot"?
    - mikeash 11y ago
      "Long shot"? English already has a good shot-based idiom here.
  - dguaraglia 11y ago
    I actually don't know the timeline. I wonder if people were using the expression "shooting for the moon" before Apollo happened, or if the moon race was what generated the phrase?
    - mikeash 11y ago
      From what I can dig up casually, it looks like "moonshot" is from the space race, dating to 1958, but "shoot for the moon" might be earlier. And according to this, "shoot the moon" means to leave without paying rent: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=&search=shoot+for+the+moon&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=&search... Which is kind of funny.

ma2rten 11y ago

I thought that moonshot just means "unlikely to succeed, but with potential to be big".

tinco 11y ago

They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. I bet in most states and most cities it'll buy you a lab and 50 staff and enough goods for a while. They won't have to actually produce the cure, just develop enough theory and experiments to convince investors to drop a billion on them for going through everything that's needed for human testing.

InvisibleCities 11y ago
>They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. Are you suggesting that curing heart disease is an easier and cheaper endeavor than building a mobile app for sharing photos?
nugget 11y ago
Statins alone are a >$10b annual market, down from $20b annually before Lipitor's patent expired. Pharma companies have proven that curative treatments can be priced near the net present value of all future disease management costs, making cures the most lucrative area of pharma (a good thing if it leads to more of them). There are billions of private dollars being sunk into heart disease annually. I'm not sure exactly what Google is after here but $50m is not going to move the needle from a funding or incentive perspective.
- tinco 11y ago
  The way I understood the Google X moonshot strategy is that they put the money behind some idea that seems farfetched or unorthodox. I fully understand $50M doesn't mean anything to the industry as a whole, but you can't tell me it wouldn't impact any single early-stage idea or research direction. Google is not looking to fund heart disease research in general, they're going to fund one particular potential solution. One that's probably not seeing any of that $20B at this moment. Probably because the idea is farfetched, risky and potentially not financially viable.
- randcraw 11y ago
  Right. "Heart Disease" is a huge space of medical pathologies, from atherosclerosis to stenosis to cardiomyopathy to abnormal signal creation / propagation to so much more. Hoping to "cure" any one of these is a goal greater than even a giant pharma or major medical research institute would entertain, especially in just 5 years. If creating the average new drug to merely treat a disease usually costs an experienced pharma between $2B and $6B, then $50M quite simply will not "cure heart disease". To suggest otherwise is akin to promising a miracle cure to a dying child's mother. It's either clueless or manipulative. Let's hope that foolish verbiage arose from careless reporting, and not from Google.
jonlucc 11y ago
Not really. I'd guess a PI and 2 associates in each lab would run $325k. A single drug will touch about 8 or 10 labs in the 4 or so years to get out of pre-clinical development. Without any benefits, managers, equipment, lab space, or animals, you're already eating $10 million. Monkey tox studies are expensive and required before human trials. I'd guess that it'd take 50 capital equipment pieces averaging somewhere around $150k. The barrier to entry is pretty high.
jacquesm 11y ago
> They're going to cure heart disease, not write the next snapchat. Precisely. Which do you think is the more difficult one?
- tinco 11y ago
  Indeed.
firebones 11y ago
> just develop enough theory and experiments to convince investors to drop a billion on them for going through everything that's needed for human testing. Not even close. The Stowers Institute for Medical Research [0] is a good comparison for how to do it right--$2 billion donated over a decade gets you in the door of creating a sustainable entity, facility and environment that has a chance of attracting the kind of top scientists (and their staffs) to do the type of basic research you describe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowers_Institute_for_Medical_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowers_Institute_for_Medical_...

dragonwriter 11y ago

> 50M over 5 years is a "moonshot"? Let's hope Wired is to blame for such hype; Google surely knows better. "Moonshot" appears to be a Google term of art for a focused project with a long expected period between initiation and potential payout (reflected in, e.g., the identification of many Google X, and some non-X, projects as "moonshots", and in Astro Teller's "Captain of Moonshots" title.) So, even though this is Google funding to an external team, I can see how it shares the traits of Google-internal "moonshot" and why Google might use the term.

x0x0 11y ago

Even in silly valley, people do not cost $500k/year. That said, 20 people or fewer once you pay for a wetlab.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> Even in silly valley, people do not cost $500k/year. And Silicon Valley isn't exactly a hotbed of basic biomedical research, so I'd be surprised if the team that writes the application that wins the grant is based there.

bbarn 11y ago

Wouldn't they likely award the money to a group with a good chance of success? People with some experience, and per chance ideas they think would work if they had the money to test them out? Wouldn't those people already work in an existing lab?

dguaraglia 11y ago

"Moonshot" is a Google term for "we are going to put some money into this really long-shot idea, with the hope that even if we don't achieve the stated objective we'll get some cool technology/IP out of it." Take a look a Project Loon and (initially) Google Fiber for other "moonshots." That said, Google projects benefit from having a huge infrastructure and amazing academic links (you can collaborate with Stanford/MIT/etc. to generate research.) It's not just a startup starting from scratch with $50m, but an established player with deep pockets and amazing connections. Wanna collaborate with the leading specialist in this field? Google can make it happen. Wanna try some algorithm in 20k cores for a few weeks? Go for it. Wanna lobby around to get government involvement? There's a whole department for that.

mikeash 11y ago
But it's an analogy to Apollo, right? Which wasn't just a long shot, but one with enormous funding. Maybe they should pick a new term if they want to describe a long-shot that gets almost no funding.
- randcraw 11y ago
  How about "Shot in the Dark"? Or "1024:1 Shot"?
  - mikeash 11y ago
    "Long shot"? English already has a good shot-based idiom here.
- dguaraglia 11y ago
  I actually don't know the timeline. I wonder if people were using the expression "shooting for the moon" before Apollo happened, or if the moon race was what generated the phrase?
  - mikeash 11y ago
    From what I can dig up casually, it looks like "moonshot" is from the space race, dating to 1958, but "shoot for the moon" might be earlier. And according to this, "shoot the moon" means to leave without paying rent: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=&search=shoot+for+the+moon&searchmode=none http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=&search... Which is kind of funny.