From the Publisher
Kilday makes you feel like you were there in person for the incredible rise of Google Maps and the geolocation industries that were built on top of it. Get the inside scoop on this world-changing technology from a talented storyteller who makes every page fun.” — Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory
“In Never Lost Again, Kilday takes us back to the origins of the Google mapping revolution, offering a personal, insider’s account of the startups, people and technologies behind it all. It’s a wild ride, and they don’t always take the most direct route, but they end up changing the way we navigate the world. It’s a five-star trip!” — David Richter, Global Head of Business and Corporate Development, Uber
“the author crafts an engaging, blow-by-blow account of people and events that made mapping an unusually powerful tool...Informative, entertaining reading for nontechies.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Will appeal to those looking for the inside scoop on the business side of tech. But Kilday provides enough detail on the development of Google Maps—from CD-ROMs to negotiating prices of data sets to the development of “geocoding”—that this will also appeal to tech geeks and map nerds.” — Booklist
“Every would-be founder should take advantage of the hours saved by map technology and read this book. It is an epic of tradeshow demo hell, cash flow struggles, engineering brilliance and sheer perseverance that delivered one of the miracles of our age. It’s a captivating yarn with insider details and story-telling other start-up books rarely seem to capture and bring to life.” — Bing Gordon, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and previous CCO of Electronic Arts
“Never Lost Again is an entertaining and inspiring story of perseverance and determination.” — Inc.
Joshua Baer
Kilday makes you feel like you were there in person for the incredible rise of Google Maps and the geolocation industries that were built on top of it. Get the inside scoop on this world-changing technology from a talented storyteller who makes every page fun.
Inc.
Never Lost Again is an entertaining and inspiring story of perseverance and determination.
Booklist
Will appeal to those looking for the inside scoop on the business side of tech. But Kilday provides enough detail on the development of Google Maps—from CD-ROMs to negotiating prices of data sets to the development of “geocoding”—that this will also appeal to tech geeks and map nerds.
Bing Gordon
Every would-be founder should take advantage of the hours saved by map technology and read this book. It is an epic of tradeshow demo hell, cash flow struggles, engineering brilliance and sheer perseverance that delivered one of the miracles of our age. It’s a captivating yarn with insider details and story-telling other start-up books rarely seem to capture and bring to life.
David Richter
In Never Lost Again, Kilday takes us back to the origins of the Google mapping revolution, offering a personal, insider’s account of the startups, people and technologies behind it all. It’s a wild ride, and they don’t always take the most direct route, but they end up changing the way we navigate the world. It’s a five-star trip!
Booklist
Will appeal to those looking for the inside scoop on the business side of tech. But Kilday provides enough detail on the development of Google Maps—from CD-ROMs to negotiating prices of data sets to the development of “geocoding”—that this will also appeal to tech geeks and map nerds.
Inc.
Never Lost Again is an entertaining and inspiring story of perseverance and determination.
Kirkus Reviews
2018-04-24
An insider's account of the mapping technology that gave rise to Google Maps.Google's mapping service provides satellite imagery, street maps, panoramic street views, real-time traffic conditions, and route planning for about 1 billion users monthly. A popular app on iPhones and other devices, it has spurred industries from Yelp to Priceline to Uber. In this bright, highly personal debut, Kilday, a vice president at Niantic, which developed the augmented reality game Pokemon Go, describes his role in the mapping story, from the 1999 inception of a struggling tech startup named Keyhole, through the technology's enormous exposure as part of CNN's 24/7 coverage of the U.S.-led Iraq invasion, and the 2004 acquisition of Keyhole by Google, which turned the software into wildly popular Google Maps and Google Earth. Drawing on his experiences as marketing director at both Keyhole and Google Maps, the author crafts an engaging, blow-by-blow account of people and events that made mapping an unusually powerful tool for the military and intelligence communities, for commercial real estate interests, and eventually for anyone looking for a street address or just curious to see his or her house from the vantage of a satellite. A constant note taker, Kilday offers colorful details on life inside the Googleplex (turf wars, pool and dart games, and walk-ons by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, etc.), where the Keyhole team realized only gradually that "Google was launching a moonshot mapping effort to transform how we find our way in the world." In recounting the effort, he describes the technology's role in saving lives during Hurricane Katrina and in the advent of self-driving cars, and he offers accessible descriptions of satellite imagery and the operation of Google's hundreds of Street View vehicles. Writing with warmth and humor, the author has great fun recalling life as a state-college alum working among intense Stanford graduates.Informative, entertaining reading for nontechies.
