Alphabet’s X company has announced that it is spinning off Loon and Wing into their own independent businesses which will directly fall under Alphabet. Loon, which is attempting to connect rural areas of the world to the net will continue its operations and so will Wing. Wing is building a drone delivery system to improve the speed, cost, and environmental impact of transporting goods.
In a blog post discussing the new, Astro Teller, “Captain of Moonshots” at X, said:
“In a lot of ways, they’re representative of any X team’s path to a moonshot: the journey is rarely predictable and it’s never easy, but it’s always amazing to realize that with audacity, bravery, and willingness to learn and struggle, the seemingly impossible can actually be possible. Today, unlike when they started as X projects, Loon and Wing seem a long way from crazy — and thanks to their years of hard work and relentless testing in the real world, they’re now graduating from X to become two new independent businesses within Alphabet: Loon and Wing.”
Just like other companies that fall under the wider Alphabet company, Loon and Wing will each have their own CEOs. Alastair Westgarth is set to become the CEO of Loon while James Ryan Burgess will become the CEO of Wing in partnership with Adam Woodworth as Wing’s CTO.
Loon and Wing join the growing list of business leaving X to be turned into their own companies. Others include Waymo, Chronicle, and Verily. Going forward, X said that it will now turn its resources to new moonshot projects as well as its on-going work in robots, free-space optics, and of course, Glass.
