Internship Spotlight: Lindsey Weilminster ’26, X, The Moonshot Factory
Lindsey Weilminster ’26 furthered her post-SOM goal of working in climate technology through an internship at Alphabet’s innovation lab.
Internship: X, The Moonshot Factory; Mountain View, California
Hometown: Ellicott City, Maryland
Pronouns: she/her/hers
The SOM class you’re using on the job: The Innovator and Climate Tech Innovation & Commercialization
Go-to work lunch: Luna Cantina, our free office version of Chipotle 🙂
After-work routine: Take the shuttle from Mountain View back to San Francisco, stroll through Noe Valley, grab dinner or drinks with friends, go hiking in the Bay Area, or relax and catch up on The Real Housewives of Miami.
Favorite thing about internship city: I love the unique character of San Francisco—the beautiful urban topography, diverse culture, walkability, amazing food and people, and skyline at night. The city holds a special place in my heart!
X, The Moonshot Factory is Alphabet’s innovation lab, where teams work on ideas that create a 10x impact, not just a 10% improvement, by tackling massive problems in radically new ways. Every project must meet three criteria: addressing a huge problem, proposing a radical solution, and leveraging breakthrough technology.
As a business innovation intern at X, The Moonshot Factory, I worked with early-stage, ambitious “moonshot” projects to advance their path to commercialization. That meant supporting teams with market sizing, business model development, customer discovery, and go-to-market strategy.
My primary project was with X’s Moonshot for Circularity, which is developing technology to eliminate waste materials, starting with plastics. I conducted market sizing to assess the value of key waste streams, modeled the potential value gain if these materials were shifted to a circular economy, and evaluated revenue potential of X’s solution. I also identified areas for further research, from customer discovery to business model testing, and developed targeted recommendations to inform the team’s investment thesis.
Beyond the Moonshot for Circularity, I supported other projects with external stakeholder research and market mapping, work that required translating technical breakthroughs into viable market opportunities and balancing big visions with grounded, data-driven strategy
I’m passionate about impact-driven innovation and intend to work in climate innovation after graduating from SOM. Having worked on climate projects at Google, I was eager to see how moonshots were built at X within Alphabet’s ecosystem. Unlike venture-backed tech startups, X’s projects benefit from access to extraordinary resources and patient timelines, yet they also face unique constraints as part of a large tech company. I wanted to understand both dynamics and learn how ventures grow in this environment. I was also inspired by recent moonshots like Waymo and Tapestry, which have already made meaningful real-world impact.
This internship deepened my interest in working at the intersection of technical innovation and business strategy in climate tech. Collaborating closely with scientists and engineers showed me both the necessity and the challenge of marrying technical breakthroughs with market realities, which is something I want to focus on in my career.
At SOM, the course Climate Tech Innovation & Commercialization gave me a strong framework and real-world context for understanding the challenges climate entrepreneurs face, from financing models to scaling strategies. Through business cases, classroom discussions, and guest lectures, the course put me directly in the shoes of a climate tech entrepreneur. I found myself revisiting many of these conversations at X, especially when evaluating the implications of different strategic partnerships, business model choices, and go-to-market paths. In The Innovator, I honed core skills like market sizing and customer discovery that I applied daily during my internship.
Beyond coursework, Yale SOM’s climate-focused community provided valuable perspectives on the complexities of building and scaling impact-focused ventures. My work with the Climate Tech research team at the Center for Business and the Environment, and with the student-run Meng Impact Investing Fund, equipped me to succeed at this internship.
Throughout my summer, the extraordinary people and a culture at X stood out to me. I was able to invest deeply in my own learning and left with a renewed belief in my ability to innovate and in innovation’s potential to create real impact. I pitched a moonshot idea, explored X’s many lab spaces (known as the “Design Kitchen”), and joined sessions on topics like bringing play into work and building exceptional relationships. In a workplace that encourages people to chase bold concepts with honesty and curiosity, I saw how ideas can be quickly tested against reality, de-risked, and either pursued or shut down without ego. That mindset gave me a repeatable tool kit for innovation and reignited my creativity for brainstorming, problem-solving, and asking questions.
