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Google Maps Origin Story – 20-Year Anniversary

This weekend the mapping platform turns 20 – and Stephen Ma is writing himself and his friends back into its origin story

After returning to Sydney he was contacted by a former colleague and fellow Australian called Noel Gordon who invited Ma to join him and two other unemployed software engineers – the Danish brothers Jens and Lars Rasmussen – to work on a startup. Calling themselves Where 2 Technologies, the four partners based themselves in the spare bedroom of Gordon’s apartment in the Sydney suburb of Hunters Hill and began building a Windows application program they dubbed Expedition. The Where 2 sale price has never been revealed but there are clues in Google’s 2004 annual report: it disclosed that US$66m had been outlaid in a combination of cash, future performance bonuses, shares and options for four small acquisitions, including Where 2.

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