Google Maps

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2019

⏱️ 100 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ben and David cover the series of three 2004 Google acquisitions that formed the core of Google Maps as we know and love it today: Where 2 Technologies, Keyhole and ZipDash. From nearly zero adoption between the three companies at the time of acquisition to well over 1 billion users today, does Google Maps merit admission to the hallowed Acquired A+ pantheon? Tune in to find out!

Sponsors:
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta

Statsig: bit.ly/statsigacquired
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury

Links:

Bret Taylor on “Satellite Mode”: https://twitter.com/btaylor/status/1099370126678253569?lang=en
Justin O’Beirne’s great pieces on Apple vs Google maps: https://www.justinobeirne.com

Carve Outs:

Ben: Marc Andreessen on The Moment with Brian Koppelman: https://overcast.fm/+BgXAjz54o
David: The Expanse books: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077L6GJWW/

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I have like some stuff that I could tell you but I don't want to spoil it
0:05.9	Awesome. Well, Google Maps Google Maps. Welcome to Season 5, episode 3 of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories behind them.
0:29.0	I'm Ben Gilbert and I'm the co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and early stage venture fund in Seattle.
0:36.0	And I'm David Rosenthal and I am a general partner at Wave Capital, a early stage venture firm focused on marketplaces based in San Francisco.
0:45.0	And we are your hosts.
0:47.0	Today we are talking about Google Maps and the acquisition of three companies starting
0:51.9	with Where2 technologies in 2004 that set the whole
0:56.2	thing in motion and David I would not have guessed it when starting the
1:00.4	research but there's a chance this is as big of a success but far less
1:04.8	discussed than our shining example of an A-plus, Instagram. And listeners, over the next hour or so,
1:11.1	we, or at least I, am going to try and build that case.
1:14.0	Oh I can't wait to hear it. Well that's actually a good question which probably
1:19.0	Instagram is used more like in terms of more individual like uses sessions per day than Google Maps. But I don't know if you
1:28.7	count all the APIs of Google Maps like it might be close. Yeah the dual revenue model as one being a different front door to Google then search and two actually now selling that API access but we will get into all of that and more.
1:45.0	Our next sponsor of this episode is Net Suite.
1:48.0	Many of you, especially those at successful large organizations,
1:51.0	likely know the name Net Suite, perhaps because you found NetSuite
1:54.5	when your business was going well, but your infrastructure wasn't keeping up and your team had
1:58.8	to invent a bunch of manual processes and workarounds.
2:02.0	Yeah, and if you don't know of Net Suite, it may be time.
2:05.0	If it is taking forever to close your books,
2:08.0	or if you have multiple sources of truth,
	...

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