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: 

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