Google Maps changed the way we get around. It all began in a spare bedroom in Sydney

This weekend, Google Maps turns 20 – and Stephen Ma is writing himself and his friends back into its origin story

Stephen Ma has every right to claim bragging rights for helping to hatch the world’s most popular online mapping platform. Instead, for the past two decades Ma, one of the four co-founders of Google Maps, has buried himself in a big black hole of anonymity. But not because of any shame or regret – it’s just that he isn’t one to blow his own trumpet.

“I tend to be a very private person,” Ma says in a rare interview. “I find the limelight uncomfortable.”

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