sTaffen Ma has every right to claim the rights of boasting to help to hatch the world’s most famous online mapping platform. Instead, for the past two decades, one of the four co -founders of Google Maps, MA has buried himself in a major black hole for not disclosing himself. But not because of any shame or regret – just that he is not going to blow his trumpet.
“I am a very private person,” says in a rare interview. “I find the light anxious.”
In the years since the launch of February 8, 2005, Google Maps have eliminated their paths in our daily lives, such as water or electricity – an essential service. It is a pocket atlas, compass, restaurant guide, bus timetable and a search and recommendation engine for all our geographical questions.
Google Maps has become an online Joggernat that is proud of more than 2 billion monthly consumers worldwide, on the path to a scope and scale. It also strengthens countless third -party platforms, including Airbon B, Uber, real estate portals and food delivery and e -commerce platforms that rely on Google Maps’ location and navigation.
This technology is now an important pillar of the Google/Alphabet Technology Complex, a company writer and philosopher Yuwal Noahi described as one of our “incredible, algorithmic Overlords”.
Now, on the 20th anniversary of Google Maps, the 54 -year -old Australian software engineer has changed. He wants to write himself in the Foundation’s story – as well as acknowledge others whose contributions have been ignored or brought to the fore.
Recognizing Google Maps as the founder of the Steam community – especially in Australia, which was born in Australia, where Google Maps was born. It may not make you a household name but it can open the door.
MThe story of A starts in the New South Wales Country Town Cooma, where his family runs a Chinese restaurant. By the mid-1980s, Dragon’s Gate Gate was a reality on the main street of Kooma, which served the Kentonian-Australian favorite, which included chicken chow and sweet and sour pork.
He provided a living for the expansion family and everyone entered. When he was not going to school, the MA worked so far, taking orders for payment, booking and take -time. However, in all other cases, he remembers her as a normal childhood – most of which were spent in front of the screens.
They recall, “I have done a lot of stereotypical tech nerves such as playing video games and learning how to program Apple II computer.”
Until 1998, MA had graduated from the University and was working in Sydney when he got a job in the Silicon Valley, just as the dot com was working towards madness at the boom. Then the bubble exploded and until the early 2000s, with thousands of others in the MA, the tech sector, found themselves unemployed.
After returning to Sydney, he was contacted by a former colleague and colleague named Australian named Noel Gordon, who invited MA to join him and two other unemployed software engineers – Danish Brothers Jeans and Lars Rasmussen. Their big idea was to create a new type of mapping platform.
At that time, online mapping was the non -controversial market leader Map Coast, which was acquired by the Internet giant AOL in 1999 for a surprising amount of $ US1.1bn.
But the map was crushed and the digital and analog lived halfway between the world: a user who planned the path had to print turns by -turn directions from his desktop or laptop computer. It was a digital dinosaur, completely unaware of the nearby destruction.
Wherever he calls himself 2 technologies, the four partners were based in the Gordon’s apartment spare bedroom in Hunters Hill, a suburb of Sydney, and began creating a Windows application program, which he called the campaign.
A 2004 prototype MA screenshot shows me that I have a familiar look and feeling. There is an address bar in the top and center, a map of the city’s San Francisco, which has a route above the Bay Bridge after the Intritic 80, which has been highlighted as the red line. Two locations, in the form of a US -style letter box on the pole, mark specific locations.
“I’m really surprised that nowadays looks like Google Maps,” says MA, MA says for the first time in many years, inspecting a screenshot.
It was the demo that he presented to Sequoia Capital, a famous Silicon Valley Venture Capital Firm, which has been banning the world’s largest names in the 1970s. Where 2 staff were hoping to get some seeds financing and pressure their diminished personal savings and more and more credit cards.
But in March 2004, the Yahoo Maps launched a new feature called Smart View, which enables users to conduct map -based search for restaurants and entertainment locations. Today, this is a standard feature on all online maps. At that time, it was largely grounded to plug the sequel to the contract.
As a consolation prize, where two team sequel’s star client was introduced to Google. And no one in Google: They had to present their demo on the Larry page, one of Google’s co -founders.
The page was affected but was not interested in desktop software. “We Really Like the web, “he told Rasmussen Brothers – which means Google is only interested when the map features work in the web browser.
Where the 2 team used a web version of its program together together used a small set of web development techniques known by AJAX, which is short for a web language, unprecedented JavaScript and XML. This meant that a already filled web page could take new data – in other words, update itself – without need to refresh the whole page.
Instead of loading a map of a map, the webpage will load several small map tiles and show them as needed. He made a dynamic, without friction that you now experience on all online mapping platforms.
The demo was a hit. Where Google hired 2 teams and then bought their intellectual property at an unknown price.
“Google was very good at choosing good teams at very low prices because there was no competition in the pursuit at the time,” MA says.
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Where 2 sales price has never been disclosed but Google’s 2004 annual report indicates: it has revealed that US $ 66 million in cash, future performance bonuses, shares and four small pursuit options The combinations have joined, including 2. It was divided between several owners.
Since then, Google’s holding company’s alphabetical shares have increased. Adjusting for the stock tapet, when the company was flown in 2004, its shares were priced at US $ 2. This week, shares are trading from US $ 200 to US $ 200.
On June 7, 2004, where two staff came out to work as Google employees at the company’s Sydney Office, which included only six sales people at the time. Eight months later, Google Maps started.
“IMedia and Communications Professor Scott McCare at Tea Melbourne University says T is a great product and did what he did very successfully. “[But] Google Maps operates based on data extraction. It is getting location information, so it is a lot of valuable figures for all kinds of people who want to collect information about you.
The MA says that when they were working on the maps, the commercial and data was not on the mining radar. They came out in 2006 after going to other projects. “I don’t think we were thinking about it at the moment,” he says.
“The prevailing belief was that once you would add users to the board, you can detect the strategy.”
He recognizes confidentiality concerns: The task of keeping companies honest and transparent is partly in the hands of the consumer and is partially the responsibility of the governments. “The biggest problem is that the technology landscape changes so quickly. It is very difficult to maintain these regulatory mechanisms.
It is not just privacy that is raising the red flags. The dependence on satellite navigation is also an emerging anxiety about the high dependence-and is on the function of Google-the maps of Google.
Scientific studies suggest that the extended dependence on the assistants of these drivers may be associated with a decrease in the hippocampus, which dealt with a portion of the brain with local memory. This can be an element of academic decline.
The MA acknowledged that there are potential risks to the use of many new technologies, but they believe we should be more aware of the relevant. “I think as a human being, we are very compatible. But are we shielding it in a way that can overcome the potential damage? I don’t know “
MA is not the type of larger vision character, usually associated with the startup scene. It is a bit unoccupied, a bit traditional and not one for chit chat. But he is proud of his role in removing Google’s maps from the ground.
He says, “There are ways to feel rewards.” It can be monetary, it can be recognized. But knowing that many people are using something that I helped, this is probably the most satisfying part of it. “
In terms of who gets credit, Ma says that while there were actually four people, where 2, mostly Kudo Jeans and Lars Rasmussen should go to: It was their opinion that they first thought.
But there are others whose contributions have been ignored. In particular, he cited Brett Taylor, James Norris, Andrew Cermisi and Seth Lufforj, whose names were included in the original Google Maps Patent. If there are any arguments about the real story of Google Maps, the MA says the list should resolve the dispute.
“I think it’s important because it is often the idea that one or two people are mostly responsible for work, while almost always it is going to be a team.”
Nol Gordon, co -founder of MA Google Maps, describes MA as a “rock star software engineer” who can write beautiful code with “no fat on it”.
“Stephen is one of the people who get straight to the place that needs to be solved, really.
These days, Ma is working with a colleague in a project called Regie Health. It uses AI to automatically make management tasks for healthcare providers and anyone else who need to geogle, manage patients and send reminders to reminders.
Since leaving Google 14 years ago, MA has worked only in the startup: By that time, no one has succeeded. But it does not refrain from it. He is someone who gives a sensation by dealing with problems and finding solutions.
