Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share AI Journey with Google Maps | In conversation with Miriam Daniel
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
AI Journey with Google Maps | In conversation with Miriam Daniel
Miriam Daniel, VP and General Manager of Google Maps, joins Mala Ramakrishnan to discuss building and scaling one of the world’s most used consumer platforms in the age of AI.
From her early engineering career in India to leading Google Maps with over 2 billion monthly users, Miriam shares lessons on career pivots, the power of sponsors, learning from failure at Amazon’s Fire Phone, and helping build Alexa from the ground up. She also explains how Google Maps is evolving with Gemini, voice, and generative AI—while maintaining accuracy, trust, and privacy at planetary scale.
This episode covers product-market fit, platform leadership, AI in consumer products, and what it takes to operate and innovate at global scale.
-----------------------------------------------
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and background
01:00 Growing up in India and engineering at BITS Pilani
02:00 Early career and move to the US
03:00 From engineering to product leadership
04:10 Why sponsors matter in big companies
05:20 Platform and mobility work at Intel
06:30 Taking a risk and joining Amazon
07:15 Fire Phone failure and leadership lessons
08:40 Building Alexa from the early days
10:10 Finding product-market fit with voice
11:40 How users shaped Alexa’s evolution
13:20 Ecosystems, developers, and scale
15:00 Why Google Maps and its mission
16:40 Gemini, AI, and the future of Maps
18:40 Accuracy, data, and trust at scale
21:00 Operating and innovating for 2B+ users
23:00 Personal inspiration and final advice
-----------------------------------------------
🔗 Connect with Miriam → https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriam-daniel-38596b/
🔗 Connect with Mala Ramakrishnan → https://www.linkedin.com/in/malaramakrishnan
🎧 Subscribe to the podcast
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnL3D6aI60R-cCvypFIkh4
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NIDE4cT5fuVjC3HaGbCDK?si=eoSTNmhqQNKHQl9d1Jx0UQ
Apple Podcast: https://podcastsconnect.apple.com/my-podcasts/show/talking-to-the-leaders-of-ai-the-ceo-series-with-mala/22ad2bae-502b-4eb1-aa74-53bc79754db7
Visit our Website: www.malaramakrishnan.com | www.founderscreative.ai
View all episodes
By Mala RamakrishnanMiriam Daniel, VP and General Manager of Google Maps, joins Mala Ramakrishnan to discuss building and scaling one of the world’s most used consumer platforms in the age of AI.
From her early engineering career in India to leading Google Maps with over 2 billion monthly users, Miriam shares lessons on career pivots, the power of sponsors, learning from failure at Amazon’s Fire Phone, and helping build Alexa from the ground up. She also explains how Google Maps is evolving with Gemini, voice, and generative AI—while maintaining accuracy, trust, and privacy at planetary scale.
This episode covers product-market fit, platform leadership, AI in consumer products, and what it takes to operate and innovate at global scale.
-----------------------------------------------
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and background
01:00 Growing up in India and engineering at BITS Pilani
02:00 Early career and move to the US
03:00 From engineering to product leadership
04:10 Why sponsors matter in big companies
05:20 Platform and mobility work at Intel
06:30 Taking a risk and joining Amazon
07:15 Fire Phone failure and leadership lessons
08:40 Building Alexa from the early days
10:10 Finding product-market fit with voice
11:40 How users shaped Alexa’s evolution
13:20 Ecosystems, developers, and scale
15:00 Why Google Maps and its mission
16:40 Gemini, AI, and the future of Maps
18:40 Accuracy, data, and trust at scale
21:00 Operating and innovating for 2B+ users
23:00 Personal inspiration and final advice
-----------------------------------------------
🔗 Connect with Miriam → https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriam-daniel-38596b/
🔗 Connect with Mala Ramakrishnan → https://www.linkedin.com/in/malaramakrishnan
🎧 Subscribe to the podcast
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnL3D6aI60R-cCvypFIkh4
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NIDE4cT5fuVjC3HaGbCDK?si=eoSTNmhqQNKHQl9d1Jx0UQ
Apple Podcast: https://podcastsconnect.apple.com/my-podcasts/show/talking-to-the-leaders-of-ai-the-ceo-series-with-mala/22ad2bae-502b-4eb1-aa74-53bc79754db7
Visit our Website: www.malaramakrishnan.com | www.founderscreative.ai