The Best Idea Yet - 🌎 Google Maps: The *Actual* ‘Everything App’ | 31

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

When out-of-work coder Jens Rasmussen couldn’t find directions to a cafe in Copenhagen, he wound up changing navigation forever. Alongside his brother Lars (also an out-of-work coder), Jens developed a radical vision—not just for a faster map, but a vibrant, multi-dimensional platform to help plan your entire life. With maxed-out credit cards, these Danish brothers built a prototype that caught Google co-founder Larry Page's eye—but faced HUGE technical issues to get it over the line. From CIA-funded satellites, to a ""Mad Max"" desert race, the road to Google Maps was a journey in itself that created an $11 billion revenue generator powering everything from Uber to Airbnb. Discover why you should never correct your customers when they make a wrong turn, the power of an SNL name check, and why Google Maps is the best idea yet.Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterFollow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the best idea yet early and ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Jack, would you say that the world breaks down into two types of people? Those who have a sense of direction and those who simply do not. Yeah, I think that's pretty accurate. Although anyone who comes out of the subway in the Lower East Side of Manhattan doesn't have a sense of direction. There's no grid, there's no numbers, it's just chaos down there. It's a vortex. But in general, we all have that buddy Timmy who knows exactly where their

car is parked and then the other buddy who thinks Southwest is just an airline. Geographic literacy, if you will. Right. But Jack, I discovered that there is also a behavioral element here on your sense of direction based on where you grew up. Is that so? It is so, Jack. If you grew up in a urban situation versus a rural one.

So if you grew up in like a farm environment, you have a better sense of direction. Kind of like your upbringing, man. Okay, because we grabbed onto landmarks as a way to orient ourselves? Yeah, like, you know, meet me by that tall hill by the oak tree across from the Sunset Pond kind of a thing. Meanwhile, I like grouping in cities, so like, if I had to meet someone on Fifth Avenue and 14th Street, as long as I could count numbers, I was going to be fine. Right. But yet is, whether you are geographically literate or not, especially though if you are not, you're going to need a good map.

And today we are talking about the single most popular map of all time. Nick, you're talking about a product that ushered in a new era for humanity. One where you will never get lost again. Unless your phone dies. Simply put, without this product, Google wouldn't be nearly the company it is today. And so many of the apps we rely on, like Uber, Airbnb, Strava, and others, they wouldn't even exist. This invention, it lets you zoom out and view Earth from orbit or zoom in and find your nearest coffee shop and then gives you step-by-step

directions on how to get there, see the menu, read the customer reviews, show you the vibe with a virtual tour, and even tell you how long you're gonna have to wait for that mocha cookie crumb frappuccino. We're talking about Google Maps. More than 2 billion people use Google Maps every month. 800 people use Google Maps every second. And helping all those people also helps Google. Because it's estimated that Google Maps sneakily generates $11 billion a year of additional ad sales for that tech giant. But Google Maps' impact goes beyond navigation. It helped transform maps and the internet itself from something you read into something you interact with,

turning the map from a single-dimensional tool into a multi-dimensional economy. But few people know the true story of how Google Maps began. Its origin takes us from the quiet coffee houses of Copenhagen to a Mad Max-style road race between self-driving cars. On the way, we'll discover how Google co-founder Larry Page found inspiration for Google Street View

in the middle of the desert. No, we're not talking about Burning Man. And even the CIA is gonna get involved. So besties, let's hit the road. Jack, I'm calling shotgun. The destination is on your left. Here's why Google Maps is the best idea yet. From Wandery and T-Boy, I'm Nick Martell. And I'm Jack Kraviche Kramer. And this is the best idea yet. The unsold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. And the bold risk takers who made them go viral. Familiar but new, we got it coming to you. I got that feeling again.

They changed the game in one move. Here's how they broke all the rules. Thinking about the misfortunes your small business could suffer doesn't seem very Zen. But meditate on this for a moment. Thinking leads to preparation. Preparation leads to peace of mind. You could call it ZenSurance.

Get affordable insurance for as little as $19 per month. Quick and easy, whether you're self-employed and entrepreneur, a contractor, or small business owner, ZenSurance offers the unique coverage you need in a snap. Get an instant price today at ZenSurance offers the unique coverage you need in a snap. Get an instant price today at ZenSurance.com. Jens Rasmussen frowns at his computer screen in Denmark as he drums his figures against the desk as he waits. He's searching for directions to a tiny cafe on the outskirts of Copenhagen, one that he

remembers from his childhood, tucked away on a side street whose name escapes him. Finally, the website he's using, MapQuest, starts slowly loading a featureless maze of streets, their names crammed along them in squashed font. Jens squints a bit, and he thinks he recognizes the area if only he could zoom out a little to get some context, but he hesitates. If he clicks the zoom button, he'll have to endure another frustrating wait as MapQuest redraws and then reloads the entire map. Jens exhales sharply, then he curses in Danish. It's 2003. There has to be a better way, he thinks. Now, a lot of people would get up from

their computer in frustration and just pick out a different closer coffee shop But yen's he's the type of guy who gets Fixated on things and right now the wheels in his mind are cranking. What if digital maps could be better? What if they weren't just static pictures? What if you could freely pan scroll and explore them and then get more than just direction, but information, like movie listings, restaurant menus, opening hours. Maps could be more than just a way to help you find your way. They could help you live your life. So Yenz, he's got some momentum now, and he gets on the phone with his big brother Lars. Both these guys, they are talented coders.

They actually both worked in Silicon Valley, and they both recently lost their jobs in the dot-com crash. Once again, nothing kicks off an entrepreneurial innovation quite like an economic downturn, the recurring supporting character of our podcast. Jens recently returned to Denmark and money is tight, so he's moved back in with his mom. But Lars stayed in California's Bay Area. He's sharing a house in Berkeley

and trying to land a new tech job. Jens and Lars, what great Danish names for a couple of brothers, right, Jack? They sound like a couple of contestants in the World's Strongest Man Competition. They probably grew up engineering Legos together. They look really similar. I mean, they could both fit into a police lineup

of Nordic lumberjacks, but they have very different vibes. Lars is more by the book. He's got a PhD in computer science. While Jens, he's more of a tear up the book kind of thinker. Creative, brilliant programmer. He's a pessimist who dropped out of college, but he also channels his pessimism into finding solutions to problems. So when Lars in California gets a collect call from Jens, he's happy to accept the

charges. Because he knows if Jens is making an effort Yenz, he's happy to accept the charges. Because he knows if Yenz is making an effort to call, he's probably found a massive problem and more importantly, a brilliant idea for how to fix it. Yenz just goes off on how crappy MapQuest is. I mean, he's just shredding this software. Do you remember MapQuest, by the way? I just remember printing MapQuest from my printer. Yeah, we would like have a youth hockey game on Long Island,

and my dad would have 12 sheets of paper printed out just to get us off the LIE. But back to our two brothers here. Yens hits Lars with the solution. It's a solution that actually comes in two parts. The first part is tiles. Not the kind you have in your bathroom. We're talking digital tiles, each containing the image of part of a map. Jens thinks tiles are the solution to making an online map service that's

way faster than MapQuest. Now yeah, it is. You may not remember MapQuest, even though technically it is still around. But back in the early 2000s, this was by far the biggest online map service. But it did share the same problem as its competitors at the time. You type in your starting point and your destination, and that request was then sent to a server, which then drew a new static map image. And then they would send this back to your computer browser

along with a long list of text based directions. Pretty basic, but also pretty complicated. Also pretty slow. Yeah. It's like the Flintstones version of a Polaroid camera. Yeah, I don't see the scale in Jack. I don't see the scale. Drawing the map each and every time like this is slow. And when it loads onto your computer screen, you can't scroll around. If you want to see one block east, you need to wait for the entire map to get redrawn and then sent to your computer again. But remember our guy, Jens, he's a solutions dude

and he's got an idea. He wants to pre-draw the maps in small manageable pieces called tiles. Think of it like a giant digital jigsaw puzzle, but only the pieces you need get sent to you. Now you don't have to wait for the server to painstakingly draw a new one. Instead, the different pieces are sent to you in the background and snap together instantly when you start scrolling. It means creating a seamless scrollable map in

real time. That's part one of the idea. And you know what? This idea sounds promising, but Jens isn't finished yet. Because now he's on to part two of his new idea for a better digital map. The tiles idea is a leap in the technology of how to deliver digital maps. But Yen's also has a conceptual leap that even us liberal arts majors can appreciate. An entirely new way of thinking about digital maps. In fact, his idea is an entirely new way to think about how people can use the internet to go about their daily lives. He asked Lars to imagine planning a trip to the movies, but instead of searching just

for the theater's address, you search the map for the movie you want to see. And then the map would show you where you can see it, the show times you can watch it, and even let you buy the tickets with a few clicks again directly in the map. He basically wants to take the two-dimensional static map from something you just read into a multi-dimensional canvas that you can truly interact with. Like it's a digital concierge that helps you plan your business trips, plan your night out, plan the coffee shop you're going to stop at on the way to the train station. Basically plan out your entire life through the map. And what does Lars think, Jack? He's sold.

Oh yeah, partly because this is a truly special idea. And partly because he's picturing a day when his idea of fine dining isn't mixing together two flavors of instant ramen. As for Jens, well, he's ready to move out of his mom's place despite the hearty Danish home cooking. So Jens and Lars decide to go all in and bet their future on a whole new way of thinking about maps. They call their new project Expedition. Jens and Lars are both ace coders, but pretty quickly they hit a hurdle. A four-letter hurdle. H. T. M. L. What a buzzkill.

The key reason why existing map websites are so painfully slow is what they're made out of. They run on HTML. The thing is, HTML wasn't designed for interactive experiences. HTML was originally built for a super simple function, text, like a blog post. It is not what you would use to build a map of planet Earth.

So using HTML to build a seamless scrollable dynamic map is kind of like trying to build a life-sized Chrysler building out of Jenga blocks. It's technically possible, but the foundations will be so shaky, even Tom Cruise wouldn't dare climb it. Oh, he wouldn't go near a check.

And that's why the digital maps of the 2000s era feel so stiff and slow. They're really web pages first and maps second. So Yen's and Lars, and they are other buddies from this ragtag team, Noel Gordon and Stephen Ma, decide the way around the limitations of HTML and the web is ditch them altogether. Instead of running Expedition in a web browser, they decide to make it a standalone program that users download and install. They've got their concept, an interactive map that's much more than just a map. Now it's time to build a prototype and they immediately hit another wall. This time, it's not a tech problem. It's a money problem.

Yeah, so it turns out map data costs a fortune. Like the kind of fine detailed street level mapping data that Jens and Lars need. It's owned by just a handful of companies with names like Navtech and Tela Atlas. And these companies, they want a whopping 100 grand a month just for the data on California. Jens and Lars obviously don't have that kind of cash. They barely have enough Kroner for meatballs and the occasional Friday night Carlsberg, but they don't give up. They managed to sweet talk a contact at one of these mapping companies into giving them the data of just a few blocks of Berkeley, California. Look, it's not much, but it is just enough to build a prototype. So they spend the next 18 months working around the clock on this single square-shaped map of downtown Berkeley.

Yens cashes in on his pension, they max out their credit cards, the meatballs. These things are on pause till Christmas. Eventually, they land a pitch meeting with Sequoia, which in our opinion is the most prolific and certainly one of the biggest venture capital firms on on And the pitch? It goes smoothly. Our Danish bros, they are vibing. But sadly, Sequoia passes on the deal. Sequoia only invests if all of its partners are in agreement together. And in this case, there is one single holdout who just doesn't see a future in expedition. But after the meeting, something unexpected happens. Jens and Lars are handing in their lanyards at the Sequoia front desk. But as they turn to leave, one of the Sequoia investors dashes out and grabs Yens by the

arm. And he says, hey, I see something in your expedition idea. Now he can't fund them individually, but this guy knows someone who just might be able to. A guy by the name of Larry, a guy who co-founded one of the funds portfolio companies, a company that goes by the name Google. Today, Google is a $2 trillion conglomerate known by its corporate name, Alphabet. But let's sprinkle on some context about where Google was when it was just six years old. You're talking about the year

2004. Yes, I am, Jack. Google has gone from two guys in a garage in Menlo Park, California, to the most popular search engine on the planet. But at this point, Google is mainly just that, a search engine. There's no Gmail, no Google Docs, no Android. But Google has figured out what no one else has figured out before. How to make Internet search into a profit puppy. They're actually pulling in $1.6 billion in revenue at this time thanks to Google AdWords, their innovative pay-per-click advertising

system that Google launched back in 2000. It's the early 2000s, so if you search for shoes, you might see ads for Ugg boots, and every time you do, it means more advertising dollars going to Google. But Jack, we should point out there is one type of search that isn't making Google any money at all. This one search makes up 25% of all searches, directions. People are Googling, how long will it take me to get from Paris to Chicago because I left my kid home alone?

Kevin! Well, Google doesn't have a map and that's the fundamental problem here. So when someone searches, show me the way from San Jose to Santa Barbara, Google search results give them links to MapQuest or Yahoo Maps. Oh, I forgot about that one. Now, this is bad for Google because in their eyes, it turns you from a user into a loser. Once someone clicks that link away from Google's search

engine, they are taking their valuable eyeballs away from Google over to a competitor. And on the internet, where the eyeballs go, the ad revenue flows. So Larry Page welcomes Yens and Lars to the Googleplex. Larry has been wanting to make his own map to keep that 25% of direction-seeking users in the Google ecosystem. Because 25% of his-seeking users in the Google ecosystem.

Because 25% of his users, that's a gigantic proportion. And the pitch? It doesn't disappoint. Jens whips open his laptop and shows off their software's smooth panning thanks to those tiles. And then Lars shows Larry something that really grabs his attention.

Lars types in the word theaters. And then a bunch of dots appear on the map. Lars then clicks on one of those dots, and boom, up pops a list of movie showtimes. There's Shrek 2, The Incredibles, Garfield, the movie. Hell of a triple feature. To Larry, this is the answer he's been looking for. If Google had a map just like this, people looking for directions wouldn't click away to a competitor. They could stay in the Google ecosystem.

Plus, to top it off, they could charge businesses to get featured placement on the map. But one thing, Larry thinks for this to work, the map can't be a separate program that people download. It needs to be a web page so that people can click straight through from Google search results. So just as Jens and Lars think they've got the deal in the bag, Larry asks them a question they haven't prepared for. Can you make this run in a web browser? Jens musters all his Danish

matter of factness and replies, yeah, no problem. Jack, I gotta ask, is this actually no problem? Actually, Nick, he has no idea whether this is even possible. Oh, boy. But honestly, that's not important right now. What is important is that Yens and Lars have the deal of a lifetime right before their eyes. If they can make Expedition work on a web browser, Google will buy their startup.

However, if they can't, they're both going to be fighting over who has top bunk when they move back in with their startup. However, if they can't, they're both going to be fighting over who has top bunk when they move back in with their mom. Shopping local might seem like a tough cookie, but truthfully, finding Ontario Made products is a piece of cake. That's why supportontariomade.ca exists. With over 17,000 products listed everything from cars to cosmetics it's never been easier to shop local and support ontario manufacturers of all sizes when you choose ontario made you're supporting your neighbors strengthening our economy and celebrating the incredible products ontario sells with pride discover what's made right here visit support ontario made dot ca

supportontariomade.ca. After three weeks of all-nighters and cranking code, Yen's and Lars and their small team finally have a version of Expedition that works on the web. Time to give Google a call. And Jack, what is Larry Page's reaction? Elation. Yes. This is exactly what Google needs.

And the moment could not be better. Because Google happens to be in the middle of a huge media frenzy. Since their last meeting, Google has raised $2 billion by going public in August 2004. Silicon Valley, it's recovered from the crash. So just two months after the IPO, Google buys Expedition. Yens and Lars, they hit their payday, baby. They can finally pay off their credit cards, which they maxed out during those 18 months of development.

To this day, Google has never said how much it paid for Expedition, this little prototype of a digital map. But we've seen estimates that it was just under $50 million. And since Google knows it needs their brains just as much as they need their software, Yenzen Lars get jobs and salaries at Google, too, as part of a new team called Google Maps. But there is no time to celebrate yetis because Larry and his Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, they want to move fast. Insanely fast.

Every day, they're thinking about the 25% of users they're losing, the one out of four Google searchers who have to click away to other websites when all they want is simple directions. So Sergey and Larry set an ambitious deadline. Google Maps needs to launch publicly by February 2005. That's just four months after the acquisition. Four months to go from mapping one square mile of Berkeley

to mapping the whole of North America. Okay, so there's a couple of problems here with that deadline. Yeah, I'm stressed just talking about this right now, Jack. The first is actually an easy problem to solve, and that's the cost. Because Google is flush with cash. They have no problem shelling out $100,000 for map data from one of those companies for California. Even the millions it needs to map out the rest of the United States and Canada. Okay, but Jack, the second problem is the prototype

that Jens and Lars managed to build. This thing is just a proof of concept. It is slow and it crashes a lot. So when tech companies have a product problem just like this, they know who to call. They need a product manager. when tech companies have a product problem just like this, they know who to call. They need a product manager. Yeah, they need a PM, baby. The Liam Neeson of the tech industry. So Google brings in a guy named Brett Taylor. Brett has a baritone voice as deep as his confidence. He is firing off ideas for this new map like he's a young James Cook. Oh, and one more thing. Brett is just 24 years old. Barely has six bullets on his resume. Now, this is actually pretty typical over at Google, giving huge amounts of responsibility to

relatively inexperienced people just out of college and then fueling them with free catered lunches. You get tossed in the deep end. We're talking big projects, big responsibility, sink or swim. And our guy Brett, the new product manager for Google Maps, is a swimmer. He single-handedly rewrites the Google Maps code in one weekend. He makes it 10 times faster with much more streamlined code.

This Brett Taylor guy went into the zone. He probably had a huge headset on, was pounding red bulls, taking breaks only to use the bathroom. Honestly, what this guy pulls off is so impressive, but it is nothing compared to what he goes on to do after Google Maps. Brett Taylor eventually becomes

Chief Technology Officer of Facebook, and he's the last Twitter board chairman before it gets sold to Elon Musk, and he's the co-CEO of Salesforce, and he's the chairman of the board at OpenAI right now. That's basically the EGOT of tech. As for Yens and Lars, they stayed with Google Maps for a while as the digital landmass expands, but eventually both move on.

Lars leaves Google in 2010 to join Facebook, while Yens later joins Apple. But Jack, let's get back to the Google Maps launch. Thanks to PM Brett, they make their February 2005 deadline just in time. And when Google Maps launches to the public, it is the greatest step forward in cartography since the Compass rose. Oh, legendary. First, Google Maps is an expandable map. You can scroll and zoom effortlessly across entire cities and beyond. Second, Jack, it's a navigator. You enter an address and you get directions in seconds. You're never getting lost again. And finally, and this is where the real money is made, you can engage with businesses. Click

on that movie theater, tap on that landmark, or finally find that one particular coffee shop just outside of Copenhagen without having to cross-reference multiple websites or dig through clunky search results. And this all happens in the web browser just like Google wanted. No need for clunky software or extra downloads. MapQuest, Yahoo Maps, and all the others, they immediately start looking and feeling like 15th century Spanish treasure maps, but without the charm of Captain Jack Sparrow. So Jack, how do people actually react to this? And like, how revolutionary is this new thing? I think one cultural data point

captures the public's response, Nick. Okay, what are you thinking? Within just a year of its launch, Google Maps gets a shout out in an SNL sketch, Lazy Sunday. Yo, where's the movie player? Up on West Side, dude. Let's hit up Yahoo! Maps to find the dopest route. I prefer Mac Quest. That's a good one, too.

Google Maps is the best. Do that, go for two. Now, there's no better entrepreneurial validation than a name check and an Andy Sandberg sign. I mean, Jack, I think getting referenced in an SNL skit is the definition of product market fit, is it not? It's better than getting a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor named after you. But as powerful as the Google Maps launch is, what really pushes it into the stratosphere

is a feature that Google adds a few months after launch. It's a feature that gives people a dizzying new way of looking at their world. We're sitting in a cubicle in an office supply company. Let's call it Munder Difflin. A customer service rep named Kelly is looking up the address of a supplier. So she opens up her browser, clicks over to the Google Maps and spots a new icon.

Satellite view? What? What is that? So she clicks on it, the map flickers, and then, oh my god. The map is replaced by a photo of the whole area from above. Kelly leans in. She starts scrolling, and she starts zooming, and boom. There it is.

That's her neighborhood. Wait, wait, one sec. That's her street., there it is. That's her neighborhood. Wait, wait, one sec. That's her street. That's her house. That's her yard. That's her treat. No way. Within minutes, everyone in the office is gathered around Kelly's screen. Try the Grand Canyon.

Wait, can you see area 51? Soon everyone has Google maps pulled up on their computer. This is the most focused the entire office has been in living memory. Productivity, dead for the day. The unanswered orders for printer paper and legal pads, they're gonna just have to wait because Munder Difflin is lost

in Google Maps new satellite view. It's just two months after Google Maps launched and it's already got an upgrade and it's a big one, Satellite View. But the tech that makes it possible wasn't built by Yens, Lars, or the team. In fact, it comes from another recent Google acquisition, a company called Keyhole.

Keyhole, it becomes the secret ingredient to Google Maps' virality. But if we tell you anymore, we'll have to kill you. Because Keyhole was actually funded by the CIA. Yeah, that's CIA. Keyhole they actually specialize in 3D flyover maps that let you zoom over landscapes like you're piloting a drone, leveraging satellite imagery from NASA with images refreshing every 30 minutes.

Keyhole software was mostly being used by real estate firms to show off properties, but they were actually an early investment from the CIA's venture capital arm. That's right, CIA VC. Our nation's spy agency has been running a venture firm since the early 2000s called In-Q-Tel. The CIA venture capital arm has dropped $1.2 billion into 750 startups so far. And this VC firm has a win percentage that gives even Sequoia FOMO. But again, keep it on the hush hush.

Well, once Google integrates the keyhole tech with Google Maps, they buy up all the satellite imagery they can get their hands on. This is massive amounts of data that until now has been locked away behind paywalls and inside of high priced corporate databases. And now anyone can zoom out into space and then dive down and see their own house, their street, their town, their yard. It feels like you're operating

your very own CIA spy satellite. It does, yeah. And don't forget, Nick, for millions of people, this was the first time they'd ever seen their corner of the world from above. So they're coming to Google now for the novelty of Google Maps. But then they stay when they see just how useful

Google Maps can be in their everyday lives. This is what happens when a product delivers a feature so compelling that it pulls people in, literally. Before Satellite View, Google Maps was a solo tool. You used it to find directions on your own. But Satellite View made Google Maps go viral because it gave people a reason to gather in groups and stare at a map. That keyhole tech also powered Google Earth, which launched a few months later.

But there is one heavy, heavy catch. Keeping all this mapping data updated is costing Google millions. They're stitching together different sources and trying to keep up with a world that never stops changing. New roads get built, the bodega around the corner closes down, relying on third-party data just isn't sustainable. Even though it's what put Google Maps on the map. Google needs a way to map the world on its own terms.

And its solution, it's not just going to save Google money. It'll give Google Maps another feature, as mind-blowing as satellite view from outer space, but from the totally opposite perspective. The view from the street. Deep into the Mojave Desert, a motley lineup of all-terrain vehicles, rally cars, and family SUVs rev up their engines at a starting line. They look like rigs from Mad Max built for battle, ready to take on 132 miles of brutal sun-scorched terrain. But there is one thing that each of these cars happens to be missing. A driver. That's because this is the 2005 Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, grand challenge. It's actually a Pentagon-sponsored competition where the world's brightest engineers push the limits of self-driving technology. Up for grabs today? Two million bucks as the prize for the first self-driving car winner. Each vehicle is packed with sensors, cameras, and AI-powered navigation systems to help them dodge the rocks and navigate the ditches and somehow stay the course without any help from a human. The car looks like a Fiat designed by Frankenstein. Well, the starting flag drops and they're off. But instead of racing off into the distance, these vehicles slowly inch forward. Yeah, the tech is exciting, but this isn't racing Formula One style. It's 2005.

Self-driving cars are in their very infancy, so these babies are literally crawling as their lidar, radar, and camera systems scan the route ahead for obstacles. And after a six hour and 53 minute wait, Jack, we got a winner, a blue Volkswagen named Stanley, created by a team straight out of Stanford University. On the sidelines, there's a familiar face. It's Larry Page. He's trying to get inside the minds of the people building the future of autonomous navigation.

After the celebrations die down, he gets talking with the minds of the people building the future of autonomous navigation. After the celebrations die down, he gets talking with the leader of the Stanford team, a German robotics expert named Sebastian Thrun. Sebastian's broad grin, bald head, and love of loud shirts definitely make him stand out. But what really pulls Larry in is Sebastian's early conviction that autonomous driving is the future. Sebastian pulls Larry aside and says, hey, I'm starting a company to build a massive

database of streets to train autonomous drivers. And to do this, Sebastian happens to have an absolutely, I'm trying to think how to put this, Jack, stupid, crazy idea. Sebastian wants to send cars across America to map every single mile of road, each equipped with special 360-degree cameras capturing pictures of everything as they drive. The cars will also have GPS trackers to accurately record the routes, allowing each picture's location to be precisely pinpointed. They'll also eventually have laser scanners so that they can build 3D models of the car's

surroundings. Larry immediately thinks how Sebastian's image database could be extremely valuable to Google Maps. In fact, if Google had enough of these special cars taking enough pictures and data, it wouldn't need to buy so much third-party map data. In fact, Google could go from a buyer of map data to a seller. So Larry does what Larry does. He makes Sebastian an offer.

Google will buy Sebastian's photo-taking drive-the-world company and make Sebastian the head of a new secret project division called Google X. His first project, Street View. Its aim? To record and photograph every single street on planet Earth. That's more than 13 million miles of asphalt, and we're not even counting dirt roads. At a constant 60 miles per hour with no fuel, sleep, or bathroom breaks, it would take you 25 years to record those 13 million miles of road.

This sounds like an SAT question. But Street View does eventually happen, and soon it expands to parks, to pedestrian routes, and even to the inside of buildings like museums. Like Satellite View, it becomes a fun feature that draws more people into Google Maps. But there also is another upside here. All of those photos we just mentioned and all the other data captured by the cars, it means that Google now has its very own up-to-date map data. And since they had 200 cars to do it, it didn't take 25 years. And they also uploaded Street View gradually, not all at once when it was completed.

But project launches, they're like Bravo shows. You always got to prepare for a little bit of drama. Someone's going to flip a table. And when it comes to street view, not everyone's happy about it. Some argue that because something is visible from the street, doesn't mean it should be searchable online. Okay, so then Google's gotta deal with that.

So they roll out automatic blurring for faces and license plates. And they even allow homeowners to request their houses be blurred. Barbara Streisand, you can breathe a sigh of relief. But while Google is busy mapping every lane, driveway, and cul-de-sac in the world, another revolution is brewing. One that will create Google Maps' biggest rival. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps?

The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, and each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr.

Bolland's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondryies on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Spotify or Apple podcasts. When the iPhone launches in 2007, it's Google Maps that's one of the biggest selling points. Apple doesn't have its own map product yet, so they strike a deal with their rival Google. And Steve Jobs actually uses Google Maps to wow the audience at the iPhone unveiling. I remember that. Steve Jobs prank called a Starbucks that he found using Google Maps in front of everyone.

Yeah, it was kind of a beautiful moment. You had Apple and Google just hugging it out. And within 18 months, iPhones account for more Google Maps usage than all other phones and computers combined. The ability to access Google Maps when you're out and about on a phone is the true magic of this Maps technology. But there's another upgrade to Google Maps that was made possible by having all these new iPhone users. Before Google Maps, live traffic reports came from helicopters and radio stations, but tuning into your local AM station to catch the traffic between songs just wasn't super efficient. Google Maps changed all that with crowdourced traffic data. Every phone was a data point that lets Google Maps track congestion in real time

and then overlay it on the map and even alter your route if it sees that there's a traffic jam ahead. So add all this up and this seems like a huge win-win for Apple and for Google. But Google is about to mess with Apple's compass and turn this whole partnership from friendly to frenemy. Here's the tech tea. When Google announces Android, its own mobile operating system for a rival to the iPhone, Steve Jobs calls it grand theft. And he declares thermonuclear war against Google. Those are actual quotes. You do not want to mess with Steve Jobs. And then in 2009 Google escalates things even further with a

huge new feature, turn-by-turn navigation. This means you didn't have to memorize routes or check your phone at red lights. Now your phone would speak to you, guiding you with real-time voice directions. And crucially it never corrected you if you made a wrong turn. It just updated the route. Recalculating. More on that feature in a minute. Okay, but Jack, that's where Apple lost it, right?

Yeah, because Google makes turn-by-turn navigation available only on Android. Oh boy. They gate this awesome new feature. iPhone users, you still gotta memorize the directions. It made the iPhone in some ways inferior to Android phones. Steve Jobs, not a fan of looking inferior. So that was a breaking point for Steve Jobs. And that's when he orders Apple Maps into development. He was determined to cut out Google entirely. He never again wants to be dependent

on someone else's software. No he does not. Now sadly Steve passes away in 2011 and when Apple Maps actually launches in 2012, oh this was a disaster. Do you remember this? Misplaced towns, misplaced landmarks, like I think at one point they wrote interstake 280 instead of interstate. Now Apple fixes the issues pretty quickly, but to this day, Google Maps is still on top. Now, neither Google nor Apple give exact user numbers, but the best estimate we could find is that Google Maps has 2 billion monthly users. On the other hand, Apple Maps has somewhere between 200 and 600 million users. Oh, and remember how Google wanted a map to support its search engine?

Well, the map actually became just as important as search. For many local businesses, coming out on top in Google Maps searches is essential to their profitability, and so they are willing to pay Google for the placement on the map. And by 2018, business listings on Google Maps were more than an address and a phone number. They were more like mini websites, with reviews, photos, opening hours, and even a button to book a table or to order food. That Danish pastry-fueled vision that Jens Rasmussen had back in 2003, it actually came true.

And it's not just brick and mortar stores, because Google Maps ends up powering a huge part of the entire app economy from Uber to DoorDash to Tinder Anytime you need to find something it's probably using Google Maps technology. No Google Maps. No Tinder weddings All right Magellan So we've gone from Copenhagen with Danish brothers to Google's IPO to the Moave Desert, to driving across every road on the planet. Jack, we are almost at the finish, baby. This has been a journey, man. Oh, it's been a journey with no bathroom breaks.

Jack, could you please pull over this podcast for a moment though and tell us what's your takeaway from the Google Maps story? If you build a platform, others may do the work for you. Google Maps became way more than just directions. It became an essential discovery platform, matching customers with businesses. Nick, couple summers when I was in high school, I had to intern for my dad,

and he wanted to make sure that he would show up if someone Googled lawyer in Vermont. Obviously, he made me set up this business account on Google Maps. That checks out. But Nick, it wasn't just my dad. Thousands of businesses quickly realized how critical Google Maps was, so they set up their own listings on the platform.

Because if you don't appear on Google Maps, then you may as well not exist for thousands of customers. So this basically incentivized businesses to keep their information on Google Maps up to date. Combined with the customer reviews, it made for like a rich new type of content that get people coming back to Google Maps even if they weren't getting directions to go anywhere. And you saw how expensive it can be to update the data on your map. They had to pay those external providers.

Well, if you have a platform, people will update the map for you. Yes. What's your takeaway, Nick? Jack, my takeaway is simple. Don't correct the customer. Look, one of the most surprising innovations in Google Maps wasn't that technical. It was actually behavioral. Early turn-by-turn navigation systems, remember, they would insist that you turn around or backtrack if you missed a turn. Well, the researchers at Google Maps realized people hate being told they're wrong. So instead of forcing users to follow a rigid route, Google Maps recalculated on the fly, seamlessly adjusting to whatever direction you wanted to go in.

By removing the frustration of a must-do-it-our-way approach, Google Maps made navigation smarter and more likeable. So remember, whenever possible, don't correct the customer, redirect them instead. All right, it's time for my absolute favorite part of the show. The best facts yet. The best facts yet. The hero stats, facts and surprises we discovered in our research, but we just couldn't fit into the story.

Jack, let them rip. What do you got for Google Maps? Google Maps once accidentally deleted an entire country. They caused a war in the year 2010. Google Maps accidentally erased Costa Rica's border, causing a military conflict between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Nicaragua invaded a section of land,

citing Google Maps as proof that it was theirs. Google's war room got to work and they had to fix the border as soon as possible, but they had to do it manually. Now, Jack, remember when I was telling you about how rural folk are better at the directions than us urban folk over here? I remember that. Well, if you rely on Google Maps too much, that could create a cranial problem. Really?

Research has shown that reliance on GPS directions like Google Maps could reduce the functioning of your hippocampus, the part of your brain that is critical for forming memories and learning. I do feel very accomplished every time I actually read the signs on the highway, instead of just using my Google Maps. Sometimes I'm like, I'm trying to prove it to myself.

They're like, I can still do this. In the meantime, Jack's the one who could actually tell us where the oak tree is next to the small hill across from that sunrise pond. You've arrived at your destination. Well, we did make it to the end of the episode, Jack. And you know what? I feel smarter for doing so.

And that, my friends, is why Google Maps is the best idea yet. Coming up on the next episode of the best idea yet, quite possibly the most refreshing episode we've ever done because we're popping open a can of La Croix sparkling water. Pample mousse, please. If you've got a product you're obsessed with but wish you knew its backstory, drop us a comment right here and we'll look into it for you. Oh, and don't forget to rate and review the podcast. That's how we grow the show. Follow the best idea yet on the Wondery app,

Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of the best idea yet early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wonderi.com slash survey. The best idea yet is a production of Wondery hosted by me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Kraviche-Kramer. Our senior producers are Matt Beagle and Chris Gaultier. Peter Arcuni is our additional senior producer. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan and Taylor Sniffin is our managing producer. Our associate producer and researcher is H. Conley. This episode was written and produced by Adam Skewes. We use many sources in our research including acquired podcast episode on Google Maps,

ACTAI Ventures fireside chat with Lars Rasmussen and Never Lost Again by Bill Kilday. Sound design and mixing by Kelly Kramarik. Fact checking by Erica Janek. Music supervision by Scott Velazquez and Jolina Garcia for Freesan Sync. Our theme song is Got That Feeling Again by Black Alack. Executive producers for Nick and Jack Studios are me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Ravici Kramer. Executive producers for Wondery are Dave Easton, Jenny Lauer Beckman, Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Lewis. Even the smallest business can face big risks. Get a business insurance quote in minutes at zensurance.com slash podcast and receive a $20 gift card. Zensurance policies starting at $19 a month.

Be protected. Be Zen.