E132: How Maps Quietly Control the Modern Economy

Most of us open our map apps every day, but have you ever stopped to think about how they actually work, or how little they’ve changed in a decade?

In this episode, Jianggan and Shaolin (co-founder of NextBillion.ai) dive deep into the invisible world of mapping technology , the infrastructure powering everything from ride-hailing to food delivery, and explore why keeping maps accurate is one of tech’s most expensive and underappreciated challenges.

Tune in to discover:

• Why maps haven’t really evolved in 10 years — and why that’s a problem;

• The hidden cost of keeping maps alive (and how they “decay” without constant updates);

• How local players like Grab and Naver build their own maps;

• The role of AI in fixing global address chaos

Timestamps:

05:30:00 – Why maps stop improving once they’re “good enough”

10:00:00 – Local vs global: who should build the world’s maps?

15:30:00 – AI, addresses, and the promise of smarter navigation

22:00:00 – The future: AR maps and new ways of seeing the world

Featured materials:

Inside Luckin Coffee: How they launch 119 drinks a year | Impulso E131

WTF is Carbon Accounting?! | Impulso E89

E33: [Unfiltered CTO talks] US vs China team culture, business design, loneliness, the future