
The Founding of Google Maps (2015) - ycombonator
https://medium.com/@lewgus/the-untold-story-about-the-founding-of-google-maps-e4a5430aec92
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mcrady
I sold my mobile maps startup to Google around the same time and worked
closely with the where2 guys. This article sounds like the result of a casual
conversation with Noel and not a well researched piece. A number of
inaccuracies as far as I can remember. (not blaming Noel to be clear)

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hk__2
> A number of inaccuracies as far as I can remember.

Do you mind clarify these?

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mcrady
Two clear inaccuracies are that the team worked out of the mountain view
office and they joined months before the ipo.

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tech-historian
For an in-depth visual history of Google Maps, check out Version Museum's
coverage (48 images):

[https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/google-maps-
website](https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/google-maps-website)

~~~
catchmeifyoucan
This is such a cool website! Thanks for sharing

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zuhayeer
'But Larry Page and Google were not interested in application software. “We
like the web,” he is said to have told Lars Rasmussen, one of the Gordon’s
fellow co-founders. And he set the team a deadline to get their idea working
in a web browser.'

Building for web still underrated

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echelon
Now you can build for Google Amp or Google Play, and soon another of Google's
walled gardens, Google Stadia.

Long live the web!

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th0ma5
I was hoping for a little more detail around the beginnings of AJAX. I know it
was added to IE to support Outlook in IE but I thought Maps was the first big
use of it outside of Outlook.

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anon1m0us
Whenever people talk about how IE ruined the internet, I think about AJAX. I
actually thought IE was _great_ for the web. A poignant example I remember
was, if you got a /TR /TD out of order, Netscape wouldn't show the web page at
all. It'd work fine in IE though.

IE just made it so much easier to move fast in web development. People blast
IE, but I really don't think the web would be as good as it is today without
it.

Contrast that with what Chrome has done to the web. Not good.

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SquareWheel
AJAX is the one feature people can point to as something good that came from
Internet Explorer. That and maybe their take on the box model. But virtually
everything else they got wrong. Worse yet, they got complacent with their lead
and web development stalled for years as a result.

Other browsers have done far more to get us to where we are.

Chrome introduced a modern security model and many useful APIs and protocols
(including HTTP/2). Firefox popularized the concept of browser extensions and
developer tools like Firebug. Safari made much possible by opening WebKit,
such as Chrome and mobile browsers. Opera invented half of the original
browser concepts including tabbed browsing.

AJAX was largely responsible for the initial push to modern, dynamic websites,
but it doesn't score enough points to make Microsoft the good guy in this
history.

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jraph
> Safari made much possible by opening WebKit

Just to give credit where it is due: they had to, since they used KHTML, under
LGPL, a pretty good browser engine at the time.

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mongol
Does anyone remember Microsoft Terraserver? An extremely slow mapping solution
that predates Google maps.

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bluedino
Yup - [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-
content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-
content/uploads/2004/07/tr-2004-67.doc)

~~~
nolok
Wordpress really is everywhere

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thecodemonkey
Great read! I recently read Bill Kilday’s book: Never lost again[1] which is a
fantastic read if you want to learn more about the pre-google-maps and google
earth days.

[1]:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062673041](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062673041)

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Animats
Not to be confused with Google Earth, which was purchased from Keyhole.

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ambicapter
I was about to say. The book about Keyhole, Never Lost Again, is a great read.
I burned through it in less than 48 hours.

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sdan
Someone unrelated but I met Luc Vincent, an instrumental leader in developing
Streetview. Although he's at Lyft L5 now, it's amazing to see how Google is
able to expand to so many domains.

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localhost
This story is told really well in one of my favorite podcasts, the Acquired
Podcast: [https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/google-
maps](https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/google-maps). Highly recommended as are
all of the other episodes.

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jimmyvalmer
The two co-hosts' valleyspeak inflections became intolerable. I'm sure their
story was more complete than the medium article, but it was like Guy Raz times
two.

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jimmaswell
The good old days when it had a from: and to: by default instead of needing
extra steps.

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graphicsRat
Typical medium article. Scant and clickbaity (fell for it this time).

Is there a way to block all medium articles from my feed?

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baxtr
I am sure you’ll find an article on medium about that. Probable title: “7
great ways to block all medium articles from your feed”

Sorry for the irony... I hate medium too :)

