Podcasts about Mapbox

Guillermo Rauch is the founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 (one of the most popular AI app building tools), and the mind behind foundational JavaScript frameworks like Next.js and Socket.io. An open source pioneer and legendary engineer, Guillermo has built tools that power some of the internet's most innovative products, including Midjourney, Grok, and Notion. His mission is to democratize product creation, expanding the pool of potential builders from 5 million developers to over 100 million people worldwide. In this episode, you'll learn:1. How AI will radically speed up product development—and the three critical skills PMs and engineers should master now to stay ahead2. Why the future of building apps is shifting toward prompts instead of code, and how that affects traditional product teams3. Specific ways to improve your design “taste,” plus practical tips to consistently create beautiful, user-loved products4. How Guillermo built a powerful app in under two hours for $20 (while flying and using plane Wi-Fi) that would normally take weeks and thousands of dollars in engineering time5. The exact strategies Vercel uses internally to leverage AI tools like v0 and Cursor, enabling their team of 600 to ship faster and better than ever before6. Guillermo's actionable advice on increasing your product quality through rapid iteration, real-world user feedback, and creating intentional “exposure hours” for your team—Brought to you by:• WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs• Vanta — Automate compliance. Simplify security• LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business—Where to find Guillermo Rauch:• X: https://x.com/rauchg• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rauchg/• Website: https://rauchg.com/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Guillermo Rauch(04:43) v0's mission(07:03) The impact and growth of v0(15:54) The future of product development with AI(19:05) Empowering engineers and product builders(24:01) Skills for the future: coding, math, and eloquence(35:05) v0 in action: real-world applications(36:40) Tips for using v0 effectively(45:46) Core skills for building AI apps(49:44) Live demo(59:45) Understanding how AI thinks(01:04:35) AI integration and future prospects(01:07:22) Building taste(01:13:43) Limitations of v0(01:16:54) Improving the design of your product(01:20:09) The secret to product quality(01:22:35) Vercel's AI-driven development(01:25:43) Guillermo's vision for the future—Referenced:• v0: https://v0.dev/• Vercel: https://vercel.com/• GitHub: https://github.com/• Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/• Next.js Framework: https://nextjs.org/• Claude: https://claude.ai/new• Grok: https://x.ai/• Midjourney: https://www.midjourney.com• SocketIO: https://socket.io/• Notion's lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-notion-ivan-zhao• Notion: https://www.notion.com/• Automattic: https://automattic.com/• Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons• v0 Community: https://v0.dev/chat/community• Figma: https://www.figma.com/• Git Commit: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/saving-changes/git-commit• What are Artifacts and how do I use them?: https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/9487310-what-are-artifacts-and-how-do-i-use-them• Design Engineering at Vercel: https://vercel.com/blog/design-engineering-at-vercel• CSS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS• Tailwind: https://tailwindcss.com/• Wordcel / Shape Rotator / Mathcel: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wordcel-shape-rotator-mathcel• Steve Jobs's Ultimate Lesson for Companies: https://hbr.org/2011/08/steve-jobss-ultimate-lesson-fo• Bloom Hackathon: https://bloom.build/• Expenses Should Do Themselves | Saquon Barkley x Ramp (Super Bowl Ad): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Tgsy7D0Jg• Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time | Geoff Charles (VP of Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/velocity-over-everything-how-ramp• JavaScript: https://www.javascript.com/• React: https://react.dev/• Mapbox: https://www.mapbox.com/• Leaflet: https://leafletjs.com/• Escape hatches: https://react.dev/learn/escape-hatches• Supreme: https://supreme.com/• Shadcn: https://ui.shadcn.com/• Charles Schwab: https://www.schwab.com/• Fortune: https://fortune.com/• Semafor: https://www.semafor.com/• AI SDK: https://sdk.vercel.ai/• DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/• Stripe: https://stripe.com/• Vercel templates: https://vercel.com/templates• GC AI: https://getgc.ai/• OpenEvidence: https://www.openevidence.com/• Paris Fashion Week: https://www.fhcm.paris/en/paris-fashion-week• Guillermo's post on X about making great products: https://x.com/rauchg/status/1887314115066274254• Everybody Can Cook billboard: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/evilrabbit_activity-7242975574242037760-uRW9/• Ratatouille: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382932/—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Brandon Liu is an open source developer and creator of the Protomaps basemap project. We talk about how static maps help developers build sites that last, the PMTiles file format, the role of OpenStreetMap, and his experience funding and running an open source project full time. Protomaps Protomaps PMTiles (File format used by Protomaps) Self-hosted slippy maps, for novices (like me) Why Deploy Protomaps on a CDN User examples Flickr Pinball Map Toilet Map Related projects OpenStreetMap (Dataset protomaps is based on) Mapzen (Former company that released details on what to display based on zoom levels) Mapbox GL JS (Mapbox developed source available map rendering library) MapLibre GL JS (Open source fork of Mapbox GL JS) Other links HTTP range requests (MDN) Hilbert curve Transcript You can help correct transcripts on GitHub. Intro [00:00:00] Jeremy: I'm talking to Brandon Liu. He's the creator of Protomaps, which is a way to easily create and host your own maps. Let's get into it. [00:00:09] Brandon: Hey, so thanks for having me on the podcast. So I'm Brandon. I work on an open source project called Protomaps. What it really is, is if you're a front end developer and you ever wanted to put maps on a website or on a mobile app, then Protomaps is sort of an open source solution for doing that that I hope is something that's way easier to use than, um, a lot of other open source projects. Why not just use Google Maps? [00:00:36] Jeremy: A lot of people are gonna be familiar with Google Maps. Why should they worry about whether something's open source? Why shouldn't they just go and use the Google maps API? [00:00:47] Brandon: So Google Maps is like an awesome thing it's an awesome product. Probably one of the best tech products ever right? And just to have a map that tells you what restaurants are open and something that I use like all the time especially like when you're traveling it has all that data. And the most amazing part is that it's free for consumers but it's not necessarily free for developers. Like if you wanted to embed that map onto your website or app, that usually has an API cost which still has a free tier and is affordable. But one motivation, one basic reason to use open source is if you have some project that doesn't really fit into that pricing model. You know like where you have to pay the cost of Google Maps, you have a side project, a nonprofit, that's one reason. But there's lots of other reasons related to flexibility or customization where you might want to use open source instead. Protomaps examples [00:01:49] Jeremy: Can you give some examples where people have used Protomaps and where that made sense for them? [00:01:56] Brandon: I follow a lot of the use cases and I also don't know about a lot of them because I don't have an API where I can track a hundred percent of the users. Some of them use the hosted version, but I would say most of them probably use it on their own infrastructure. One of the cool projects I've been seeing is called Toilet Map. And what toilet map is if you're in the UK and you want find a public restroom then it maps out, sort of crowdsourced all of the public restrooms. And that's important for like a lot of people if they have health issues, they need to find that information. And just a lot of different projects in the same vein. There's another one called Pinball Map which is sort of a hobby project to find all the pinball machines in the world. And they wanted to have a customized map that fit in with their theme of pinball. So these sorts of really cool indie projects are the ones I'm most excited about. Basemaps vs Overlays [00:02:57] Jeremy: And if we talk about, like the pinball map as an example, there's this concept of a basemap and then there's the things that you lay on top of it. What is a basemap and then is the pinball locations is that part of it or is that something separate? [00:03:12] Brandon: It's usually something separate. The example I usually use is if you go to a real estate site, like Zillow, you'll open up the map of Seattle and it has a bunch of pins showing all the houses, and then it has some information beneath it. That information beneath it is like labels telling, this neighborhood is Capitol Hill, or there is a park here. But all that information is common to a lot of use cases and it's not specific to real estate. So I think usually that's the distinction people use in the industry between like a base map versus your overlay. The overlay is like the data for your product or your company while the base map is something you could get from Google or from Protomaps or from Apple or from Mapbox that kind of thing. PMTiles for hosting the basemap and overlays [00:03:58] Jeremy: And so Protomaps in particular is responsible for the base map, and that information includes things like the streets and the locations of landmarks and things like that. Where is all that information coming from? [00:04:12] Brandon: So the base map information comes from a project called OpenStreetMap. And I would also, point out that for Protomaps as sort of an ecosystem. You can also put your overlay data into a format called PMTiles, which is sort of the core of what Protomaps is. So it can really do both. It can transform your data into the PMTiles format which you can host and you can also host the base map. So you kind of have both of those sides of the product in one solution. [00:04:43] Jeremy: And so when you say you have both are you saying that the PMTiles file can have, the base map in one file and then you would have the data you're laying on top in another file? Or what are you describing there? [00:04:57] Brandon: That's usually how I recommend to do it. Oftentimes there'll be sort of like, a really big basemap 'cause it has all of that data about like where the rivers are. Or while, if you want to put your map of toilets or park benches or pickleball courts on top, that's another file. But those are all just like assets you can move around like JSON or CSV files. Statically Hosted [00:05:19] Jeremy: And I think one of the things you mentioned was that your goal was to make Protomaps or the, the use of these PMTiles files easy to use. What does that look like for, for a developer? I wanna host a map. What do I actually need to, to put on my servers? [00:05:38] Brandon: So my usual pitch is that basically if you know how to use S3 or cloud storage, that you know how to deploy a map. And that, I think is the main sort of differentiation from most open source projects. Like a lot of them, they call themselves like, like some sort of self-hosted solution. But I've actually avoided using the term self-hosted because I think in most cases that implies a lot of complexity. Like you have to log into a Linux server or you have to use Kubernetes or some sort of Docker thing. What I really want to emphasize is the idea that, for Protomaps, it's self-hosted in the same way like CSS is self-hosted. So you don't really need a service from Amazon to host the JSON files or CSV files. It's really just a static file. [00:06:32] Jeremy: When you say static file that means you could use any static web host to host your HTML file, your JavaScript that actually renders the map. And then you have your PMTiles files, and you're not running a process or anything, you're just putting your files on a static file host. [00:06:50] Brandon: Right. So I think if you're a developer, you can also argue like a static file server is a server. It's you know, it's the cloud, it's just someone else's computer. It's really just nginx under the hood. But I think static storage is sort of special. If you look at things like static site generators, like Jekyll or Hugo, they're really popular because they're a commodity or like the storage is a commodity. And you can take your blog, make it a Jekyll blog, hosted on S3. One day, Amazon's like, we're charging three times as much so you can move it to a different cloud provider. And that's all vendor neutral. So I think that's really the special thing about static storage as a primitive on the web. Why running servers is a problem for resilience [00:07:36] Jeremy: Was there a prior experience you had? Like you've worked with maps for a very long time. Were there particular difficulties you had where you said I just gotta have something that can be statically hosted? [00:07:50] Brandon: That's sort of exactly why I got into this. I've been working sort of in and around the map space for over a decade, and Protomaps is really like me trying to solve the same problem I've had over and over again in the past, just like once and forever right? Because like once this problem is solved, like I don't need to deal with it again in the future. So I've worked at a couple of different companies before, mostly as a contractor, for like a humanitarian nonprofit for a design company doing things like, web applications to visualize climate change. Or for even like museums, like digital signage for museums. And oftentimes they had some sort of data visualization component, but always sort of the challenge of how to like, store and also distribute like that data was something that there wasn't really great open source solutions. So just for map data, that's really what motivated that design for Protomaps. [00:08:55] Jeremy: And in those, those projects in the past, were those things where you had to run your own server, run your own database, things like that? [00:09:04] Brandon: Yeah. And oftentimes we did, we would spin up an EC2 instance, for maybe one client and then we would have to host this server serving map data forever. Maybe the client goes away, or I guess it's good for business if you can sign some sort of like long-term support for that client saying, Hey, you know, like we're done with a project, but you can pay us to maintain the EC2 server for the next 10 years. And that's attractive. but it's also sort of a pain, because usually what happens is if people are given the choice, like a developer between like either I can manage the server on EC2 or on Rackspace or Hetzner or whatever, or I can go pay a SaaS to do it. In most cases, businesses will choose to pay the SaaS. So that's really like what creates a sort of lock-in is this preference for like, so I have this choice between like running the server or paying the SaaS. Like businesses will almost always go and pay the SaaS. [00:10:05] Jeremy: Yeah. And in this case, you either find some kind of free hosting or low-cost hosting just to host your files and you upload the files and then you're good from there. You don't need to maintain anything. [00:10:18] Brandon: Exactly, and that's really the ideal use case. so I have some users these, climate science consulting agencies, and then they might have like a one-off project where they have to generate the data once, but instead of having to maintain this server for the lifetime of that project, they just have a file on S3 and like, who cares? If that costs a couple dollars a month to run, that's fine, but it's not like S3 is gonna be deprecated, like it's gonna be on an insecure version of Ubuntu or something. So that's really the ideal, set of constraints for using Protomaps. [00:10:58] Jeremy: Yeah. Something this also makes me think about is, is like the resilience of sites like remaining online, because I, interviewed, Kyle Drake, he runs Neocities, which is like a modern version of GeoCities. And if I remember correctly, he was mentioning how a lot of old websites from that time, if they were running a server backend, like they were running PHP or something like that, if you were to try to go to those sites, now they're like pretty much all dead because there needed to be someone dedicated to running a Linux server, making sure things were patched and so on and so forth. But for static sites, like the ones that used to be hosted on GeoCities, you can go to the internet archive or other websites and they were just files, right? You can bring 'em right back up, and if anybody just puts 'em on a web server, then you're good. They're still alive. Case study of news room preferring static hosting [00:11:53] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. One place that's kind of surprising but makes sense where this comes up, is for newspapers actually. Some of the users using Protomaps are the Washington Post. And the reason they use it, is not necessarily because they don't want to pay for a SaaS like Google, but because if they make an interactive story, they have to guarantee that it still works in a couple of years. And that's like a policy decision from like the editorial board, which is like, so you can't write an article if people can't view it in five years. But if your like interactive data story is reliant on a third party, API and that third party API becomes deprecated, or it changes the pricing or it, you know, it gets acquired, then your journalism story is not gonna work anymore. So I have seen really good uptake among local news rooms and even big ones to use things like Protomaps just because it makes sense for the requirements. Working on Protomaps as an open source project for five years [00:12:49] Jeremy: How long have you been working on Protomaps and the parts that it's made up of such as PMTiles? [00:12:58] Brandon: I've been working on it for about five years, maybe a little more than that. It's sort of my pandemic era project. But the PMTiles part, which is really the heart of it only came in about halfway. Why not make a SaaS? [00:13:13] Brandon: So honestly, like when I first started it, I thought it was gonna be another SaaS and then I looked at it and looked at what the environment was around it. And I'm like, uh, so I don't really think I wanna do that. [00:13:24] Jeremy: When, when you say you looked at the environment around it what do you mean? Why did you decide not to make it a SaaS? [00:13:31] Brandon: Because there already is a lot of SaaS out there. And I think the opportunity of making something that is unique in terms of those use cases, like I mentioned like newsrooms, was clear. Like it was clear that there was some other solution, that could be built that would fit these needs better while if it was a SaaS, there are plenty of those out there. And I don't necessarily think that they're well differentiated. A lot of them all use OpenStreetMap data. And it seems like they mainly compete on price. It's like who can build the best three column pricing model. And then once you do that, you need to build like billing and metrics and authentication and like those problems don't really interest me. So I think, although I acknowledge sort of the indie hacker ethos now is to build a SaaS product with a monthly subscription, that's something I very much chose not to do, even though it is for sure like the best way to build a business. [00:14:29] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people can appreciate that perspective because it's, it's almost like we have SaaS overload, right? Where you have so many little bills for your project where you're like, another $5 a month, another $10 a month, or if you're a business, right? Those, you add a bunch of zeros and at some point it's just how many of these are we gonna stack on here? [00:14:53] Brandon: Yeah. And honestly. So I really think like as programmers, we're not really like great at choosing how to spend money like a $10 SaaS. That's like nothing. You know? So I can go to Starbucks and I can buy a pumpkin spice latte, and that's like $10 basically now, right? And it's like I'm able to make that consumer choice in like an instant just to spend money on that. But then if you're like, oh, like spend $10 on a SaaS that somebody put a lot of work into, then you're like, oh, that's too expensive. I could just do it myself. So I'm someone that also subscribes to a lot of SaaS products. and I think for a lot of things it's a great fit. Many open source SaaS projects are not easy to self host [00:15:37] Brandon: But there's always this tension between an open source project that you might be able to run yourself and a SaaS. And I think a lot of projects are at different parts of the spectrum. But for Protomaps, it's very much like I'm trying to move maps to being it is something that is so easy to run yourself that anyone can do it. [00:16:00] Jeremy: Yeah, and I think you can really see it with, there's a few SaaS projects that are successful and they're open source, but then you go to look at the self-hosting instructions and it's either really difficult to find and you find it, and then the instructions maybe don't work, or it's really complicated. So I think doing the opposite with Protomaps. As a user, I'm sure we're all appreciative, but I wonder in terms of trying to make money, if that's difficult. [00:16:30] Brandon: No, for sure. It is not like a good way to make money because I think like the ideal situation for an open source project that is open that wants to make money is the product itself is fundamentally complicated to where people are scared to run it themselves. Like a good example I can think of is like Supabase. Supabase is sort of like a platform as a service based on Postgres. And if you wanted to run it yourself, well you need to run Postgres and you need to handle backups and authentication and logging, and that stuff all needs to work and be production ready. So I think a lot of people, like they don't trust themselves to run database backups correctly. 'cause if you get it wrong once, then you're kind of screwed. So I think that fundamental aspect of the product, like a database is something that is very, very ripe for being a SaaS while still being open source because it's fundamentally hard to run. Another one I can think of is like tailscale, which is, like a VPN that works end to end. That's something where, you know, it has this networking complexity where a lot of developers don't wanna deal with that. So they'd happily pay, for tailscale as a service. There is a lot of products or open source projects that eventually end up just changing to becoming like a hosted service. Businesses going from open source to closed or restricted licenses [00:17:58] Brandon: But then in that situation why would they keep it open source, right? Like, if it's easy to run yourself well, doesn't that sort of cannibalize their business model? And I think that's really the tension overall in these open source companies. So you saw it happen to things like Elasticsearch to things like Terraform where they eventually change the license to one that makes it difficult for other companies to compete with them. [00:18:23] Jeremy: Yeah, I mean there's been a number of cases like that. I mean, specifically within the mapping community, one I can think of was Mapbox's. They have Mapbox gl. Which was a JavaScript client to visualize maps and they moved from, I forget which license they picked, but they moved to a much more restrictive license. I wonder what your thoughts are on something that releases as open source, but then becomes something maybe a little more muddy. [00:18:55] Brandon: Yeah, I think it totally makes sense because if you look at their business and their funding, it seems like for Mapbox, I haven't used it in a while, but my understanding is like a lot of their business now is car companies and doing in dash navigation. And that is probably way better of a business than trying to serve like people making maps of toilets. And I think sort of the beauty of it is that, so Mapbox, the story is they had a JavaScript renderer called Mapbox GL JS. And they changed that to a source available license a couple years ago. And there's a fork of it that I'm sort of involved in called MapLibre GL. But I think the cool part is Mapbox paid employees for years, probably millions of dollars in total to work on this thing and just gave it away for free. Right? So everyone can benefit from that work they did. It's not like that code went away, like once they changed the license. Well, the old version has been forked. It's going its own way now. It's quite different than the new version of Mapbox, but I think it's extremely generous that they're able to pay people for years, you know, like a competitive salary and just give that away. [00:20:10] Jeremy: Yeah, so we should maybe look at it as, it was a gift while it was open source, and they've given it to the community and they're on continuing on their own path, but at least the community running Map Libre, they can run with it, right? It's not like it just disappeared. [00:20:29] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. And that is something that I use for Protomaps quite extensively. Like it's the primary way of showing maps on the web and I've been trying to like work on some enhancements to it to have like better internationalization for if you are in like South Asia like not show languages correctly. So I think it is being taken in a new direction. And I think like sort of the combination of Protomaps and MapLibre, it addresses a lot of use cases, like I mentioned earlier with like these like hobby projects, indie projects that are almost certainly not interesting to someone like Mapbox or Google as a business. But I'm happy to support as a small business myself. Financially supporting open source work (GitHub sponsors, closed source, contracts) [00:21:12] Jeremy: In my previous interview with Tom, one of the main things he mentioned was that creating a mapping business is incredibly difficult, and he said he probably wouldn't do it again. So in your case, you're building Protomaps, which you've admitted is easy to self-host. So there's not a whole lot of incentive for people to pay you. How is that working out for you? How are you supporting yourself? [00:21:40] Brandon: There's a couple of strategies that I've tried and oftentimes failed at. Just to go down the list, so I do have GitHub sponsors so I do have a hosted version of Protomaps you can use if you don't want to bother copying a big file around. But the way I do the billing for that is through GitHub sponsors. If you wanted to use this thing I provide, then just be a sponsor. And that definitely pays for itself, like the cost of running it. And that's great. GitHub sponsors is so easy to set up. It just removes you having to deal with Stripe or something. 'cause a lot of people, their credit card information is already in GitHub. GitHub sponsors I think is awesome if you want to like cover costs for a project. But I think very few people are able to make that work. A thing that's like a salary job level. It's sort of like Twitch streaming, you know, there's a handful of people that are full-time streamers and then you look down the list on Twitch and it's like a lot of people that have like 10 viewers. But some of the other things I've tried, I actually started out, publishing the base map as a closed source thing, where I would sell sort of like a data package instead of being a SaaS, I'd be like, here's a one-time download, of the premium data and you can buy it. And quite a few people bought it I just priced it at like $500 for this thing. And I thought that was an interesting experiment. The main reason it's interesting is because the people that it attracts to you in terms of like, they're curious about your products, are all people willing to pay money. While if you start out everything being open source, then the people that are gonna be try to do it are only the people that want to get something for free. So what I discovered is actually like once you transition that thing from closed source to open source, a lot of the people that used to pay you money will still keep paying you money because like, it wasn't necessarily that that closed source thing was why they wanted to pay. They just valued that thought you've put into it your expertise, for example. So I think that is one thing, that I tried at the beginning was just start out, closed source proprietary, then make it open source. That's interesting to people. Like if you release something as open source, if you go the other way, like people are really mad if you start out with something open source and then later on you're like, oh, it's some other license. Then people are like that's so rotten. But I think doing it the other way, I think is quite valuable in terms of being able to find an audience. [00:24:29] Jeremy: And when you said it was closed source and paid to open source, do you still sell those map exports? [00:24:39] Brandon: I don't right now. It's something that I might do in the future, you know, like have small customizations of the data that are available, uh, for a fee. still like the core OpenStreetMap based map that's like a hundred gigs you can just download. And that'll always just be like a free download just because that's already out there. All the source code to build it is open source. So even if I said, oh, you have to pay for it, then someone else can just do it right? So there's no real reason like to make that like some sort of like paywall thing. But I think like overall if the project is gonna survive in the long term it's important that I'd ideally like to be able to like grow like a team like have a small group of people that can dedicate the time to growing the project in the long term. But I'm still like trying to figure that out right now. [00:25:34] Jeremy: And when you mentioned that when you went from closed to open and people were still paying you, you don't sell a product anymore. What were they paying for? [00:25:45] Brandon: So I have some contracts with companies basically, like if they need a feature or they need a customization in this way then I am very open to those. And I sort of set it up to make it clear from the beginning that this is not just a free thing on GitHub, this is something that you could pay for if you need help with it, if you need support, if you wanted it. I'm also a little cagey about the word support because I think like it sounds a little bit too wishy-washy. Pretty much like if you need access to the developers of an open source project, I think that's something that businesses are willing to pay for. And I think like making that clear to potential users is a challenge. But I think that is one way that you might be able to make like a living out of open source. [00:26:35] Jeremy: And I think you said you'd been working on it for about five years. Has that mostly been full time? [00:26:42] Brandon: It's been on and off. it's sort of my pandemic era project. But I've spent a lot of time, most of my time working on the open source project at this point. So I have done some things that were more just like I'm doing a customization or like a private deployment for some client. But that's been a minority of the time. Yeah. [00:27:03] Jeremy: It's still impressive to have an open source project that is easy to self-host and yet is still able to support you working on it full time. I think a lot of people might make the assumption that there's nothing to sell if something is, is easy to use. But this sort of sounds like a counterpoint to that. [00:27:25] Brandon: I think I'd like it to be. So when you come back to the point of like, it being easy to self-host. Well, so again, like I think about it as like a primitive of the web. Like for example, if you wanted to start a business today as like hosted CSS files, you know, like where you upload your CSS and then you get developers to pay you a monthly subscription for how many times they fetched a CSS file. Well, I think most developers would be like, that's stupid because it's just an open specification, you just upload a static file. And really my goal is to make Protomaps the same way where it's obvious that there's not really some sort of lock-in or some sort of secret sauce in the server that does this thing. How PMTiles works and building a primitive of the web [00:28:16] Brandon: If you look at video for example, like a lot of the tech for how Protomaps and PMTiles works is based on parts of the HTTP spec that were made for video. And 20 years ago, if you wanted to host a video on the web, you had to have like a real player license or flash. So you had to go license some server software from real media or from macromedia so you could stream video to a browser plugin. But now in HTML you can just embed a video file. And no one's like, oh well I need to go pay for my video serving license. I mean, there is such a thing, like YouTube doesn't really use that for DRM reasons, but people just have the assumption that video is like a primitive on the web. So if we're able to make maps sort of that same way like a primitive on the web then there isn't really some obvious business or licensing model behind how that works. Just because it's a thing and it helps a lot of people do their jobs and people are happy using it. So why bother? [00:29:26] Jeremy: You mentioned that it a tech that was used for streaming video. What tech specifically is it? [00:29:34] Brandon: So it is byte range serving. So when you open a video file on the web, So let's say it's like a 100 megabyte video. You don't have to download the entire video before it starts playing. It streams parts out of the file based on like what frames... I mean, it's based on the frames in the video. So it can start streaming immediately because it's organized in a way to where the first few frames are at the beginning. And what PMTiles really is, is it's just like a video but in space instead of time. So it's organized in a way where these zoomed out views are at the beginning and the most zoomed in views are at the end. So when you're like panning or zooming in the map all you're really doing is fetching byte ranges out of that file the same way as a video. But it's organized in, this tiled way on a space filling curve. IIt's a little bit complicated how it works internally and I think it's kind of cool but that's sort of an like an implementation detail. [00:30:35] Jeremy: And to the person deploying it, it just looks like a single file. [00:30:40] Brandon: Exactly in the same way like an mp3 audio file is or like a JSON file is. [00:30:47] Jeremy: So with a video, I can sort of see how as someone seeks through the video, they start at the beginning and then they go to the middle if they wanna see the middle. For a map, as somebody scrolls around the map, are you seeking all over the file or is the way it's structured have a little less chaos? [00:31:09] Brandon: It's structured. And that's kind of the main technical challenge behind building PMTiles is you have to be sort of clever so you're not spraying the reads everywhere. So it uses something called a hilbert curve, which is a mathematical concept of a space filling curve. Where it's one continuous curve that essentially lets you break 2D space into 1D space. So if you've seen some maps of IP space, it uses this crazy looking curve that hits all the points in one continuous line. And that's the same concept behind PMTiles is if you're looking at one part of the world, you're sort of guaranteed that all of those parts you're looking at are quite close to each other and the data you have to transfer is quite minimal, compared to if you just had it at random. [00:32:02] Jeremy: How big do the files get? If I have a PMTiles of the entire world, what kind of size am I looking at? [00:32:10] Brandon: Right now, the default one I distribute is 128 gigabytes, so it's quite sizable, although you can slice parts out of it remotely. So if you just wanted. if you just wanted California or just wanted LA or just wanted only a couple of zoom levels, like from zero to 10 instead of zero to 15, there is a command line tool that's also called PMTiles that lets you do that. Issues with CDNs and range queries [00:32:35] Jeremy: And when you're working with files of this size, I mean, let's say I am working with a CDN in front of my application. I'm not typically accustomed to hosting something that's that large and something that's where you're seeking all over the file. is that, ever an issue or is that something that's just taken care of by the browser and, and taken care of by, by the hosts? [00:32:58] Brandon: That is an issue actually, so a lot of CDNs don't deal with it correctly. And my recommendation is there is a kind of proxy server or like a serverless proxy thing that I wrote. That runs on like cloudflare workers or on Docker that lets you proxy those range requests into a normal URL and then that is like a hundred percent CDN compatible. So I would say like a lot of the big commercial installations of this thing, they use that because it makes more practical sense. It's also faster. But the idea is that this solution sort of scales up and scales down. If you wanted to host just your city in like a 10 megabyte file, well you can just put that into GitHub pages and you don't have to worry about it. If you want to have a global map for your website that serves a ton of traffic then you probably want a little bit more sophisticated of a solution. It still does not require you to run a Linux server, but it might require (you) to use like Lambda or Lambda in conjunction with like a CDN. [00:34:09] Jeremy: Yeah. And that sort of ties into what you were saying at the beginning where if you can host on something like CloudFlare Workers or Lambda, there's less time you have to spend keeping these things running. [00:34:26] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. and I think also the Lambda or CloudFlare workers solution is not perfect. It's not as perfect as S3 or as just static files, but in my experience, it still is better at building something that lasts on the time span of years than being like I have a server that is on this Ubuntu version and in four years there's all these like security patches that are not being applied. So it's still sort of serverless, although not totally vendor neutral like S3. Customizing the map [00:35:03] Jeremy: We've mostly been talking about how you host the map itself, but for someone who's not familiar with these kind of tools, how would they be customizing the map? [00:35:15] Brandon: For customizing the map there is front end style customization and there's also data customization. So for the front end if you wanted to change the water from the shade of blue to another shade of blue there is a TypeScript API where you can customize it almost like a text editor color scheme. So if you're able to name a bunch of colors, well you can customize the map in that way you can change the fonts. And that's all done using MapLibre GL using a TypeScript API on top of that for customizing the data. So all the pipeline to generate this data from OpenStreetMap is open source. There is a Java program using a library called PlanetTiler which is awesome, which is this super fast multi-core way of building map tiles. And right now there isn't really great hooks to customize what data goes into that. But that's something that I do wanna work on. And finally, because the data comes from OpenStreetMap if you notice data that's missing or you wanted to correct data in OSM then you can go into osm.org. You can get involved in contributing the data to OSM and the Protomaps build is daily. So if you make a change, then within 24 hours you should see the new base map. Have that change. And of course for OSM your improvements would go into every OSM based project that is ingesting that data. So it's not a protomap specific thing. It's like this big shared data source, almost like Wikipedia. OpenStreetMap is a dataset and not a map [00:37:01] Jeremy: I think you were involved with OpenStreetMap to some extent. Can you speak a little bit to that for people who aren't familiar, what OpenStreetMap is? [00:37:11] Brandon: Right. So I've been using OSM as sort of like a tools developer for over a decade now. And one of the number one questions I get from developers about what is Protomaps is why wouldn't I just use OpenStreetMap? What's the distinction between Protomaps and OpenStreetMap? And it's sort of like this funny thing because even though OSM has map in the name it's not really a map in that you can't... In that it's mostly a data set and not a map. It does have a map that you can see that you can pan around to when you go to the website but the way that thing they show you on the website is built is not really that easily reproducible. It involves a lot of c++ software you have to run. But OpenStreetMap itself, the heart of it is almost like a big XML file that has all the data in the map and global. And it has tagged features for example. So you can go in and edit that. It has a web front end to change the data. It does not directly translate into making a map actually. Protomaps decides what shows at each zoom level [00:38:24] Brandon: So a lot of the pipeline, that Java program I mentioned for building this basemap for protomaps is doing things like you have to choose what data you show when you zoom out. You can't show all the data. For example when you're zoomed out and you're looking at all of a state like Colorado you don't see all the Chipotle when you're zoomed all the way out. That'd be weird, right? So you have to make some sort of decision in logic that says this data only shows up at this zoom level. And that's really what is the challenge in optimizing the size of that for the Protomaps map project. [00:39:03] Jeremy: Oh, so those decisions of what to show at different Zoom levels those are decisions made by you when you're creating the PMTiles file with Protomaps. [00:39:14] Brandon: Exactly. It's part of the base maps build pipeline. and those are honestly very subjective decisions. Who really decides when you're zoomed out should this hospital show up or should this museum show up nowadays in Google, I think it shows you ads. Like if someone pays for their car repair shop to show up when you're zoomed out like that that gets surfaced. But because there is no advertising auction in Protomaps that doesn't happen obviously. So we have to sort of make some reasonable choice. A lot of that right now in Protomaps actually comes from another open source project called Mapzen. So Mapzen was a company that went outta business a couple years ago. They did a lot of this work in designing which data shows up at which Zoom level and open sourced it. And then when they shut down, they transferred that code into the Linux Foundation. So it's this totally open source project, that like, again, sort of like Mapbox gl has this awesome legacy in that this company funded it for years for smart people to work on it and now it's just like a free thing you can use. So the logic in Protomaps is really based on mapzen. [00:40:33] Jeremy: And so the visualization of all this... I think I understand what you mean when people say oh, why not use OpenStreetMaps because it's not really clear it's hard to tell is this the tool that's visualizing the data? Is it the data itself? So in the case of using Protomaps, it sounds like Protomaps itself has all of the data from OpenStreetMap and then it has made all the decisions for you in terms of what to show at different Zoom levels and what things to have on the map at all. And then finally, you have to have a separate, UI layer and in this case, it sounds like the one that you recommend is the Map Libre library. [00:41:18] Brandon: Yeah, that's exactly right. For Protomaps, it has a portion or a subset of OSM data. It doesn't have all of it just because there's too much, like there's data in there. people have mapped out different bushes and I don't include that in Protomaps if you wanted to go in and edit like the Java code to add that you can. But really what Protomaps is positioned at is sort of a solution for developers that want to use OSM data to make a map on their app or their website. because OpenStreetMap itself is mostly a data set, it does not really go all the way to having an end-to-end solution. Financials and the idea of a project being complete [00:41:59] Jeremy: So I think it's great that somebody who wants to make a map, they have these tools available, whether it's from what was originally built by Mapbox, what's built by Open StreetMap now, the work you're doing with Protomaps. But I wonder one of the things that I talked about with Tom was he was saying he was trying to build this mapping business and based on the financials of what was coming in he was stressed, right? He was struggling a bit. And I wonder for you, you've been working on this open source project for five years. Do you have similar stressors or do you feel like I could keep going how things are now and I feel comfortable? [00:42:46] Brandon: So I wouldn't say I'm a hundred percent in one bucket or the other. I'm still seeing it play out. One thing, that I really respect in a lot of open source projects, which I'm not saying I'm gonna do for Protomaps is the idea that a project is like finished. I think that is amazing. If a software project can just be done it's sort of like a painting or a novel once you write, finish the last page, have it seen by the editor. I send it off to the press is you're done with a book. And I think one of the pains of software is so few of us can actually do that. And I don't know obviously people will say oh the map is never finished. That's more true of OSM, but I think like for Protomaps. One thing I'm thinking about is how to limit the scope to something that's quite narrow to where we could be feature complete on the core things in the near term timeframe. That means that it does not address a lot of things that people want. Like search, like if you go to Google Maps and you search for a restaurant, you will get some hits. that's like a geocoding issue. And I've already decided that's totally outta scope for Protomaps. So, in terms of trying to think about the future of this, I'm mostly looking for ways to cut scope if possible. There are some things like better tooling around being able to work with PMTiles that are on the roadmap. but for me, I am still enjoying working on the project. It's definitely growing. So I can see on NPM downloads I can see the growth curve of people using it and that's really cool. So I like hearing about when people are using it for cool projects. So it seems to still be going okay for now. [00:44:44] Jeremy: Yeah, that's an interesting perspective about how you were talking about projects being done. Because I think when people look at GitHub projects and they go like, oh, the last commit was X months ago. They go oh well this is dead right? But maybe that's the wrong framing. Maybe you can get a project to a point where it's like, oh, it's because it doesn't need to be updated. [00:45:07] Brandon: Exactly, yeah. Like I used to do a lot of c++ programming and the best part is when you see some LAPACK matrix math library from like 1995 that still works perfectly in c++ and you're like, this is awesome. This is the one I have to use. But if you're like trying to use some like React component library and it hasn't been updated in like a year, you're like, oh, that's a problem. So again, I think there's some middle ground between those that I'm trying to find. I do like for Protomaps, it's quite dependency light in terms of the number of hard dependencies I have in software. but I do still feel like there is a lot of work to be done in terms of project scope that needs to have stuff added. You mostly only hear about problems instead of people's wins [00:45:54] Jeremy: Having run it for this long. Do you have any thoughts on running an open source project in general? On dealing with issues or managing what to work on things like that? [00:46:07] Brandon: Yeah. So I have a lot. I think one thing people point out a lot is that especially because I don't have a direct relationship with a lot of the people using it a lot of times I don't even know that they're using it. Someone sent me a message saying hey, have you seen flickr.com, like the photo site? And I'm like, no. And I went to flickr.com/map and it has Protomaps for it. And I'm like, I had no idea. But that's cool, if they're able to use Protomaps for this giant photo sharing site that's awesome. But that also means I don't really hear about when people use it successfully because you just don't know, I guess they, NPM installed it and it works perfectly and you never hear about it. You only hear about people's negative experiences. You only hear about people that come and open GitHub issues saying this is totally broken, and why doesn't this thing exist? And I'm like, well, it's because there's an infinite amount of things that I want to do, but I have a finite amount of time and I just haven't gone into that yet. And that's honestly a lot of the things and people are like when is this thing gonna be done? So that's, that's honestly part of why I don't have a public roadmap because I want to avoid that sort of bickering about it. I would say that's one of my biggest frustrations with running an open source project is how it's self-selected to only hear the negative experiences with it. Be careful what PRs you accept [00:47:32] Brandon: 'cause you don't hear about those times where it works. I'd say another thing is it's changed my perspective on contributing to open source because I think when I was younger or before I had become a maintainer I would open a pull request on a project unprompted that has a hundred lines and I'd be like, Hey, just merge this thing. But I didn't realize when I was younger well if I just merge it and I disappear, then the maintainer is stuck with what I did forever. You know if I add some feature then that person that maintains the project has to do that indefinitely. And I think that's very asymmetrical and it's changed my perspective a lot on accepting open source contributions. I wanna have it be open to anyone to contribute. But there is some amount of back and forth where it's almost like the default answer for should I accept a PR is no by default because you're the one maintaining it. And do you understand the shape of that solution completely to where you're going to support it for years because the person that's contributing it is not bound to those same obligations that you are. And I think that's also one of the things where I have a lot of trepidation around open source is I used to think of it as a lot more bazaar-like in terms of anyone can just throw their thing in. But then that creates a lot of problems for the people who are expected out of social obligation to continue this thing indefinitely. [00:49:23] Jeremy: Yeah, I can totally see why that causes burnout with a lot of open source maintainers, because you probably to some extent maybe even feel some guilt right? You're like, well, somebody took the time to make this. But then like you said you have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out is this something I wanna maintain long term? And one wrong move and it's like, well, it's in here now. [00:49:53] Brandon: Exactly. To me, I think that is a very common failure mode for open source projects is they're too liberal in the things they accept. And that's a lot of why I was talking about how that choice of what features show up on the map was inherited from the MapZen projects. If I didn't have that then somebody could come in and say hey, you know, I want to show power lines on the map. And they open a PR for power lines and now everybody who's using Protomaps when they're like zoomed out they see power lines are like I didn't want that. So I think that's part of why a lot of open source projects eventually evolve into a plugin system is because there is this demand as the project grows for more and more features. But there is a limit in the maintainers. It's like the demand for features is exponential while the maintainer amount of time and effort is linear. Plugin systems might reduce need for PRs [00:50:56] Brandon: So maybe the solution to smash that exponential down to quadratic maybe is to add a plugin system. But I think that is one of the biggest tensions that only became obvious to me after working on this for a couple of years. [00:51:14] Jeremy: Is that something you're considering doing now? [00:51:18] Brandon: Is the plugin system? Yeah. I think for the data customization, I eventually wanted to have some sort of programmatic API to where you could declare a config file that says I want ski routes. It totally makes sense. The power lines example is maybe a little bit obscure but for example like a skiing app and you want to be able to show ski slopes when you're zoomed out well you're not gonna be able to get that from Mapbox or from Google because they have a one size fits all map that's not specialized to skiing or to golfing or to outdoors. But if you like, in theory, you could do this with Protomaps if you changed the Java code to show data at different zoom levels. And that is to me what makes the most sense for a plugin system and also makes the most product sense because it enables a lot of things you cannot do with the one size fits all map. [00:52:20] Jeremy: It might also increase the complexity of the implementation though, right? [00:52:25] Brandon: Yeah, exactly. So that's like. That's really where a lot of the terrifying thoughts come in, which is like once you create this like config file surface area, well what does that look like? Is that JSON? Is that TOML, is that some weird like everything eventually evolves into some scripting language right? Where you have logic inside of your templates and I honestly do not really know what that looks like right now. That feels like something in the medium term roadmap. [00:52:58] Jeremy: Yeah and then in terms of bug reports or issues, now it's not just your code it's this exponential combination of whatever people put into these config files. [00:53:09] Brandon: Exactly. Yeah. so again, like I really respect the projects that have done this well or that have done plugins well. I'm trying to think of some, I think obsidian has plugins, for example. And that seems to be one of the few solutions to try and satisfy the infinite desire for features with the limited amount of maintainer time. Time split between code vs triage vs talking to users [00:53:36] Jeremy: How would you say your time is split between working on the code versus issue and PR triage? [00:53:43] Brandon: Oh, it varies really. I think working on the code is like a minority of it. I think something that I actually enjoy is talking to people, talking to users, getting feedback on it. I go to quite a few conferences to talk to developers or people that are interested and figure out how to refine the message, how to make it clearer to people, like what this is for. And I would say maybe a plurality of my time is spent dealing with non-technical things that are neither code or GitHub issues. One thing I've been trying to do recently is talk to people that are not really in the mapping space. For example, people that work for newspapers like a lot of them are front end developers and if you ask them to run a Linux server they're like I have no idea. But that really is like one of the best target audiences for Protomaps. So I'd say a lot of the reality of running an open source project is a lot like a business is it has all the same challenges as a business in terms of you have to figure out what is the thing you're offering. You have to deal with people using it. You have to deal with feedback, you have to deal with managing emails and stuff. I don't think the payoff is anywhere near running a business or a startup that's backed by VC money is but it's definitely not the case that if you just want to code, you should start an open source project because I think a lot of the work for an opensource project has nothing to do with just writing the code. It is in my opinion as someone having done a VC backed business before, it is a lot more similar to running, a tech company than just putting some code on GitHub. Running a startup vs open source project [00:55:43] Jeremy: Well, since you've done both at a high level what did you like about running the company versus maintaining the open source project? [00:55:52] Brandon: So I have done some venture capital accelerator programs before and I think there is an element of hype and energy that you get from that that is self perpetuating. Your co-founder is gungho on like, yeah, we're gonna do this thing. And your investors are like, you guys are geniuses. You guys are gonna make a killing doing this thing. And the way it's framed is sort of obvious to everyone that it's like there's a much more traditional set of motivations behind that, that people understand while it's definitely not the case for running an open source project. Sometimes you just wake up and you're like what the hell is this thing for, it is this thing you spend a lot of time on. You don't even know who's using it. The people that use it and make a bunch of money off of it they know nothing about it. And you know, it's just like cool. And then you only hear from people that are complaining about it. And I think like that's honestly discouraging compared to the more clear energy and clearer motivation and vision behind how most people think about a company. But what I like about the open source project is just the lack of those constraints you know? Where you have a mandate that you need to have this many customers that are paying by this amount of time. There's that sort of pressure on delivering a business result instead of just making something that you're proud of that's simple to use and has like an elegant design. I think that's really a difference in motivation as well. Having control [00:57:50] Jeremy: Do you feel like you have more control? Like you mentioned how you've decided I'm not gonna make a public roadmap. I'm the sole developer. I get to decide what goes in. What doesn't. Do you feel like you have more control in your current position than you did running the startup? [00:58:10] Brandon: Definitely for sure. Like that agency is what I value the most. It is possible to go too far. Like, so I'm very wary of the BDFL title, which I think is how a lot of open source projects succeed. But I think there is some element of for a project to succeed there has to be somebody that makes those decisions. Sometimes those decisions will be wrong and then hopefully they can be rectified. But I think going back to what I was talking about with scope, I think the overall vision and the scope of the project is something that I am very opinionated about in that it should do these things. It shouldn't do these things. It should be easy to use for this audience. Is it gonna be appealing to this other audience? I don't know. And I think that is really one of the most important parts of that leadership role, is having the power to decide we're doing this, we're not doing this. I would hope other developers would be able to get on board if they're able to make good use of the project, if they use it for their company, if they use it for their business, if they just think the project is cool. So there are other contributors at this point and I want to get more involved. But I think being able to make those decisions to what I believe is going to be the best project is something that is very special about open source, that isn't necessarily true about running like a SaaS business. [00:59:50] Jeremy: I think that's a good spot to end it on, so if people want to learn more about Protomaps or they wanna see what you're up to, where should they head? [01:00:00] Brandon: So you can go to Protomaps.com, GitHub, or you can find me or Protomaps on bluesky or Mastodon. [01:00:09] Jeremy: All right, Brandon, thank you so much for chatting today. [01:00:12] Brandon: Great. Thank you very much.

Tom MacWright is a prolific contributor in the geospatial open source community. He made geojson.io, Mapbox Studio, and was the lead developer on the OpenStreetMap editor. He's currently on the team at Val Town. In 2021 he bootstrapped a solo business and created the Placemark mapping application. He acquired customers and found steady growth but after spending two years on the project he decided it was financially unsustainable. He open sourced the code and shut down the business. In this interview Tom speaks candidly about why geospatial is difficult, chasing technical rabbit holes, the mental impact of bootstrapping, and his struggles to grow a customer base. If you're interested in geospatial or the good and bad of running a solo business I think you'll enjoy this conversation with Tom. Related Links Tom's blog Placemark Play Placemark GitHub Placemark archive geojson.io Valtown Datawrapper (Visualization tool) Geospatial Companies mentioned Mapbox ArcGIS QGIS Carto -- Transcript You can help correct transcripts on GitHub. [00:00:00] Introduction Jeremy: Today I'm talking to Tom MacWright. He worked at Mapbox as a, a very early employee. He's had a lot of experience in the geospatial community, the open source community. One of his most recent projects was a mapping project called Placemark he started and ran on his own. So I wanted to talk to Tom about his experience going solo and, eventually having to, shut that down. Tom, thanks for agreeing to chat today. Tom: Yeah, thanks for having me. [00:00:32] Tools and Open Source at Mapbox Jeremy: So maybe to give everyone some context on, what your background was before you started Placemark. Um, let's talk a little bit about your experience at, at Mapbox. What did you work on there and, and what would you say are like the big things you learned from that experience? Tom: Yeah, so if you include the time that I was at Development Seed, which essentially turned into Mapbox, I kind of signed the paper to get fired from Development Seed and hired at Mapbox within the same 20 seconds. Uh, I was there for eight and a half years. so it was a lifetime in tech years. and the company really evolved from, uh, working for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and the World Bank and doing these small, little like micro websites to the point at which I left it. It had. Raised a lot of money, had a lot of employees. I think it was 350 or so when I left. and yeah, just expanded into a lot of different, uh, try trying to own more and more of the mapping stack. but yeah, I was kind of really focused on the creative and tooling side of it. that's kind of where I see a lot of the, the fun and programming is making these tools where, uh, they can give people the same kind of fun like interaction loop that programming has where you, you know, you do a little bit of math and you see the result and you're able to just play with, uh, what you're working on, letting people have that in other domains. so it was really cool to figure out how to get A map design tool where somebody changes the background color and it just automatically changes that in your browser. and it covered like data editing. It covered, um, map styling and we did, uh, three different versions of that tool over the years. and then Mapbox is also a company that was, it came from, kind of people who are working on the Howard Dean campaign. And so it was pretty ideological and part of the ideology was being pretty hardcore about open source. we hired a lot of people who were working on open source projects before and basically just paid them to work on the open source projects, uh, for their whole time there. And during my time there, I just tried to make as much of my work, uh, open as possible, which was, you know, at the time it was, it was pretty great. I think in the long term it's been, o open source has changed a lot. but during the time that we were there, we both kind of, helped things like leaflet and mapnik and openstreetmap, uh, but also made like some larger contributions to the open source world. yeah, that, that's kind of like the, the internal company facing side. And also like what I try to create as like a more of a, uh, enduring work. I think the open source stuff will hopefully have more of a, a long term, uh, benefit. [00:03:40] How open source has changed (value capture by large companies) Jeremy: When I was working on a project that needed offline maps, um, we couldn't use Google Maps or any of the, the other publicly available, cloud APIs. So yeah, we actually used a, a tool, called Tile Mill that I, I hadn't known that you'd worked on, but recently found out you did. So that actually let us pull in OpenStreetMap data and then use this style, uh, language called carto to, to basically let us choose what the colors would be and how the different, uh, the roads and the buildings would look. What's kind of interesting to me is that it being open source really let us, um, build something we otherwise wouldn't have been able to do. But like, at the same time, we also didn't pay Mapbox any money. (laughs) So I'm, I'm kind of curious, like, if it's changed, like what the thinking was in terms of, you know, we pay for people to build all these things. We make it open source. but then people may just not ever pay us, you know, for all these things we did. Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I think that the main thing that's changed since the era of tilemill is, the dominance of cloud platforms. Like back then, I think, uh, Mapbox was still using, we were using like a little bit of AWS but people were still just on like VPSs and, uh, configuring things in cPanel and sometimes even running their own servers. And the, the danger of people using the product for free was such a small thing for us. especially when tile Mill was also funded by the Knight Foundation, so, you know, that at least paid half of my salary for, or, well, sorry, probably, yeah, maybe half of my salary for the first year that I was there and half of three other people's salaries. but that, yeah, so like when we built Tile Mill, a few companies have really like built on those same tools. Uh, there's a company called Carto coincidentally, they had the same name as Carto CSS, and they built on a lot of the same stack they built on mapnik. Um, and it was, was... I mean, I'm not gonna say that it was all like, you know, sunshine and roses, but it was never a thing that we talked about in terms of like this being a brutal competition between us and these other startups. Mapbox eventually closed source some stuff. they made it a source available license. and eventually Mapbox Studio was a closed source product. Um, and that was actually a decision that I advocated for. And that's mostly just because at one point, Esri, Microsoft, Amazon, all had whitelisted versions of Mapbox code, which, uh, hurts a little bit on a personal level and also makes it pretty hard to think about. working almost like it. You don't want to go to your scrappy open source company and do unpaid labor for Amazon. Uh, you know, Bezos can afford to pay for the labor himself. that's just kind of my personal, uh, that I'm obviously, I haven't worked there in a long time, so I'm not speaking for the company, but that's kind of how it felt like. and it yeah, kind of changed the arithmetic of open source in this way that. It made it less fun and, more risky, um, for people I think. [00:07:11] Don't worry about the small free users Jeremy: Yeah. So it sounds like the thinking was if someone on a small team or an individual, they took the open source software and they used it for their own projects, that was fine. Like you expected that and didn't worry about it. It's more that when these really large organizations like a, a Microsoft comes in and, just like you said, white labels the software, and doesn't really contribute significantly back. That's, that's when it, the, the thinking sort of shifted. Tom: Yeah, like a lot of the people who can't pay full price in USD to use your product are great users and they're doing cool stuff. Like when I was working on Placemark and when I was like selling. The theme for my blog, I would get emails from like some kid in India and it's like, you know, you're selling this for a hundred dollars, which is a ton of money. And like, you know, why, why should I care? Why shouldn't I like, just send them the zip file for free? it's like nothing to me and a lot to them. and mapping tools are really, really expensive. So the fact that Mapbox was able to create a free alternative when, you know, ArcGIS was $500 a month sometimes, um, depending on your license, obviously. That's, that's good. You're always gonna find a way for, like, your salespeople are gonna find a way to charge the big companies a lot of money. They're great at that. Um, and that's what matters really for your, for the revenue. [00:08:44] ESRI to Google Maps with little in-between Jeremy: That's a a good point too about like the, my impression of the, the mapping space, and maybe this has changed more recently, but you had the, probably the biggest player Esri, who's selling things at enterprise prices and then there were, or there are like a few open source options. but they feel like the, the barrier to entry feels a little high. And so, and then I guess you have stuff like Google Maps, right? That's, um, that's very accessible, but it's pretty limited, so. There's this big gap, it feels like right between the, the Esri and the, the Google Maps and open source. It's, it's sort of like, there's almost like there's no sweet spot. guess May, maybe it's just because people's uses are so different, but I'm, I'm not sure, um, what makes maps so unique in that way Tom: Yeah, I have come to understand what Esri and QGIS do as like an extension of what CAD is like. And if you've used CAD software recently, it's just as crazy and as expensive and as powerful. and it's really hard to capture like the people who are motivated enough to make a map but don't want to go down the whole rabbit hole. I think that was one of the hardest things about Placemark was trying to be in the middle of those things and half of the people were mystified by the complexity and half the people wanted more complexity. Uh, and I just couldn't figure out how to get it to the right in between spot. [00:10:25] Placemark and its origins in geojson.io Jeremy: Yeah. So let's, let's talk a little bit about Placemark then, in terms of from its start. What was your, your goal with Placemark and, and what was the product itself? Tom: So the seed of the idea for Placemark, uh, is this website called geojson.io, uh, which is still around. And, Chris Fong (correction -- Whong) at, at Mapbox is still, uh, developing it. And that had become pretty useful for a lot of people who I knew in the industry who were in this position of managing geospatial data but not wanting to boot up ArcGIS uh, geojson.io is based on, I just tweeted, I was like, why? Why is there not a thing where you can edit data on a map and have a GeoJSON representation and just go Back and forth between the two really easily. and it started with that, and then it kind of grew to be a little bit more powerful. And then it was just a tool that was useful for everyone. And my theory was just that I wanted that to be more useful. And I knew just like anything else that you build and you work on for a long time, you know exactly how it could be so much better. And, uh, all the things that you would do better if you did it again. And I was, uh, you know, hoping that there was something where like if you make that more powerful and you make it something that's like so essential that somebody's using every day, then maybe there's some some value in that. And so Placemark kind of started as being like, oh, this is the thing where if you're tasking a satellite and you need a bounding box on a specific city, this is the easiest way to do that. Um, and it grew a little bit into being like a tool for collaborating because people were collaborating on it. And I thought that that would be, you know, an interesting thing to support. but yeah, I think it, it like tried to be in that middle of like, not exactly Google my Maps and certainly a lot, uh, simpler than, uh, QGIS or ArcGIS Jeremy: something I noticed, so I've actually used geojson.io as well when I was first learning how to put stuff on a map and learning that GeoJSON was a format that a lot of things were using, it was actually really helpful to, to be able to draw, uh, polygons and see, okay, this is how the JSO looks and all that stuff. And it was. Like just very simple. I think there's something like very powerful about, websites or applications like that where it, it does this one thing and when you go there, you're like, oh, okay, I, I, I know what I'm doing and it's, it's, uh, you know, it's gonna help me do the, this very specific thing I'm trying to do. [00:13:16] Placemark use cases (Farming, Transportation, Interior mapping, Satellite viewsheds) Jeremy: I think with Placemark, so, one question I would have is, you gave an example of, uh, someone, I think you said for a satellite, they're, are they drawing the, the area? What, what was the area specifically for? Tom: the area of interest, the area where they want the, uh, to point the camera. Jeremy: so yeah, with, with Placemark, I mean, were there, what were some of the specific customers or use cases you had in mind? 'cause that's, that's something about. Um, placemark as a product I noticed was it's sort of like, here's this thing where you can draw polygons put markers and there's all these like things you can do, but I think unless you already have the specific use case, it's not super clear, who uses it for what. So maybe you could give some examples of what you had in mind. Tom: I didn't have much in mind, but I can tell you what people, what some people used it for. so some of the more interesting uses of it, a bunch of, uh, farming oriented use cases, uh, especially like indoor and small scale farming. Um, there were some people who, uh, essentially had a bunch of flower farms and had polygons on the map, and they wanted to, uh, mark the ones that had mites or needed to be watered, other things that could spread in a geometric way. And so it's pretty important to have that geospatial component to it. and then a few places were using it for basically transportation planning. Um, so drawing out routes of where buses would go, uh, in Luxembourg. And, then there was also a little bit of like, kind of interesting, planning of what to buy more or less. Uh, so something of like, do we want to buy this tract of land or do we wanna buy this tract of land or do we wanna buy access to this one high speed internet cable or this other high speed internet cable? and yeah, a lot of those things were kind of like emergent use cases. Um, there's a lot of people who were doing either architecture or internal or in interior mapping essentially. Jeremy: Interior, you mean, inside of a building Tom: yeah. yeah. Jeremy: Hmm. Okay. Tom: Which I don't think it was the best tool for. Uh, but you know, people used it for that. Jeremy: Interesting. Yeah. I guess, would people normally use some kind of a CAD tool for that, or Tom: Yeah. Uh, there's CAD tools and there are a few, uh, companies that do just, there's a company that just does interior maps especially of airports, and that's their whole business model. Um, but it's, it's kind of an interesting, uh, problem because most CAD architecture work is done with like a local coordinate system, and you have like very good resolution of everything, and then you eventually place it in geo geospatial space. Uh, but if you do it all in latitude and longitude, you know, you're, you're moving a door and it's moving the 10th or 12th decimal point, and eventually you have some precision problems. Jeremy: So it's almost like if you start with latitude and longitude, it's hard to go the other way. Right? you have to start more specific and then you can move it into the, the geospatial, uh, area. Tom: Yeah. Uh, that's kind of why we have local projections for towns is that you can do a lot of work just in that local projection. And the numbers are kind of small 'cause your town's small, relatively. Jeremy: yeah, those are kind of interesting. So it sounds like just anytime somebody wants to, like you gave the example of transportation planning or you want to visually see where things are, like your crops or things like that, and that, that kind of makes sense. I mean, I think if you just think about paper maps, if somebody wants to sketch something out and, and sort of track the layout of something, this could serve the same purpose but be editable. and like you said, I think it's also. Collaborative so you can have multiple people editing the same, um, map. that makes sense. I think something that I believe I saw on your website is you said though that it was, it's like an editing tool, but it's not necessarily a visualization tool. Uh, I'm kind of curious what you, what you meant by that. [00:17:39] An editing tool that allows you to export data not a visualization tool Tom: Yeah, I, when you say a map, I think there's, people can interpret that as everything from raw data to satellite imagery and raster data. and then a lot of it is like, can I use this to make a choropleth map of the voter turnout in our, in my country? and that placemark did a little bit, but I think that it was, it was never going to be the, the thing that it did super well. and so, yeah, and also like the, the two things kind of, don't mesh all that well. Like if you have a scale point map and you have that kind of visualization of it and then you're editing the points at the same time and you're dragging around these like gigantic points because this point means a lot of population, it just doesn't really make that much sense. There are probably ways to square that circle and have different views, but, uh, I felt like for visualizations, I mean partly I just think data wrapper is kind of great and uh, I had already worked for observable at that point, which is also, which I think also does like great visualization work. Jeremy: Would that be the case of somebody could make a map inside a placemark and then they would take the GeoJSON and then import that into another visualization tool? Is that what you were kind of imagining people would do? Tom: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Jeremy: And I could see from the customer's perspective, a lot of them, they may have that end, uh, visualization in mind. So they might look for a tool that kind of just does both. Right. Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Certain people definitely, wanted that. And yeah, it was an interesting direction to go down. I think that market was going to be a lot different than the people who wanted to manage and edit data. And also, I, one thing that I had in mind a lot, uh, was if Placemark didn't work out, how much would people be burned? and I think if I, if I built it in a way that like everyone was heavily relying on the API and embeds, people would be suffer a lot more, if I eventually had to shut it down. every API that you release is really a, a long-term commitment. And instead for me, like guilt wise, having a product where you can easily export everything that you ever did in any format that you want was like the least lock in, kind of. Jeremy: Yeah. And I imagine the, the scope of the project too, you're making it much smaller if you, if you stick to that editing experience and not try to do everything. Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I, the scope was already pretty big. as you can tell from the open source project, it's, it's bigger than I wish it was. the whole time I was really hoping that I could figure out some niche that was much more compact. there's, I forget the name, but there's somebody who has a, an application that's very similar to Placemark in. Technical terms, but is just a hundred percent focused on planning septic systems. And I'm just like, if I just did this just for septic systems, like would that be a much, would that be 10,000 lines of code instead of 40,000 lines of code? And it would be able to perfectly serve those customers. but you know, that I didn't do enough experimentation to figure that out. Um, I, that's, I think one thing that I wish I had done a lot more was, pivot and do experiments. Jeremy: that septic example, do you know if it's a, a business in and of itself where it can actually support one person or a staff of people? Or is it, is that market just too small? Tom: I think it's still a solo bootstrapped project. yeah. And it's, it's so hard to tell whether a company's doing well or not. I could ask the person over DM. [00:21:58] Built the base technology before going public Jeremy: So when you were first starting. placemark. You were, you were doing it as a solo, developer. A solo entrepreneur, reallyyou worked on it for quite a while, I think before you announced, right? Like maybe a year or so? Tom: Yeah, yeah. Almost, almost a year, I think, maybe, maybe 10 months in the dark. Jeremy: I think that there's, there was a lot of overlap between the different directions that I would eventually go in and. So just building a collaborative editor that can edit map data fairly quickly and checks all the boxes of being able to import and export things, um, that is, was a lot of work. and I mean also I, I was, uh, freelancing during part of it, so it wasn't a hundred percent of my time. Tom: But that, that core, I think even now if I were to build something similar, I would probably still use that work. because that, whether you're doing the septic planning application or you're doing a general purpose kind of map editor or some kind of social application, a lot of that stuff will be in common. Um, and so I wanted to really get, like, to figure out that problem space and get a few solutions that I could live with. Jeremy: The base. libraries or technologies you were gonna pick to get the map and have the collaborative aspect. Those are all things you wanted to get settled first. And then you figured, okay, once I have this base, then I can go find the, you know, the, the, the customers or, or find the specifics of what I'm gonna build. Tom: Yeah, exactly. Jeremy: I I think you had said that going forward when you're gonna work on another project, you would probably still start the same way. [00:23:51] Geospatial is a tough industry, no public companies Tom: if I was working on a project in the geospatial space, I would probably heavily reference the work that I already did here. but I don't know if I'll go back to, to maps again. It's a tough industry. Jeremy: Is it because of the, the customer base? Is it because like people don't really understand the market in terms of who actually needs the maps? I'm kind of curious what you feel makes it tough. Tom: I think, well there are no, there are no public mapping companies. Esri is I think one of the 10 largest private companies in the us. but it's not like any of these geospatial companies have ever been like a pure play. And I think that makes it hard. I think maps are just, they're kind of like fonts in a way in which they are this. Very deep well of complexity, which is absolutely fascinating. If you're in it, it's enough fun and engineering to spend an entire career just working on that stuff. And then once you're out of it, you talk to somebody and you're just like, oh, I work on this thing. And they're like, oh, that you Google maps. Um, or, you know, I work at a font type like a, you know, a type factory and it's like, oh, do you make, uh, you know, courier in, uh, word. It's really infrastructure, uh, that we mostly take for granted, which is, that's, that means it's good in some ways. but at the same time, I, it's hard to really find a niche in which the mapping component is that, that is that useful. A lot of the companies that are kind of mapping companies. Like, I think you could say that like Strava and Palantir are kind of geospatial companies, both of them. but Strava is a fitness company and Palantir is a military company. so if you're, uh, a mapping expert, you kind of have to figure out what, how it ties into the real world, how it ties into the business world and revenue. And then maps might be 50% of the solution or 75% of the solution, but it's probably not going to be, this is the company that makes mapping software. Jeremy: Yeah, it's more like, I have this product that I'm gonna sell and it happens to have a map as a part of it. versus I'm going to sell you, tools that, uh, you know, help you make your own map. That seems like a, a harder, harder sell. Tom: yeah. And especially pro tools like the. The idea of people being both invested in terms of paying and invested in terms of wanting to learn the tool. That's, uh, that's a lot to ask out of people. [00:26:49] Knowing the market is tough but going for it anyways Jeremy: I think the things we had just talked about, about mapping being a tough industry and about there being like the low end is taken care of by Google, the high end is taken care of by Esri with ArcGIS. Uh, I think you mentioned in a blog post that when you started Placemark you, you, you knew all this from the start. So I'm kind of curious, like, knowing that, what made you decide like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for it and, you know, do it anyways. Tom: uh, I, well, I think that having seen, I, like I am a co-founder of val.town now, and every company that I've worked for, I've been pretty early enough to see how the sausage is made and the sausage is made with chaos. Like every company doesn't know what it's doing and is in an impossible fight against some Goliath figure. And the product that succeeds, if it ever does succeed, is something that you did not think of two or three years in advance. so I looked at this, I looked at the odds, and I was like, oh, these are the typical odds, you know, maybe someday I'll see something where it's, uh, it's an obvious open blue water market opportunity. But I think for the, for the most part, I was expecting to grind. Uh, you know, like even, even if, uh, the odds were worse, I probably would've still done it. I think I, I learned a lot. I should have done a lot more marketing and business and, but I have, I have no regrets about, you know, taking, taking a one try at solving a very hard to solve problem. Jeremy: Yeah, that's a good point in that the, the odds, like you said, are already stacked against you. but sometimes you just gotta try it and see how it goes, Tom: Yeah. And I had the, like I was at a time where I was very aware of how my life was set up. I was like, I could do a startup right now and kind of burn money for a little while and have enough time to work on it, and I would not be abandoning an infant child or, you know, like all of the things that, all the life responsibilities that I will have in the near future. Um. So, you know, uh, the, the time was then, I guess, [00:29:23] Being a solo developer Jeremy: And comparing it to your time at Mapbox and the other startups and, and I suppose now at val.town, when you were working on Placemark, you're the sole developer, you're in charge of everything. how did that feel? Did you enjoy that experience or was it more like, I, I really wish I had other people to, you know, to kind of go through this with, Tom: Uh, around the end I started to chat with people who, like might be co-founders and I even entertained some chats with, uh, venture capital people. I am fine with the, the day to day of working on stuff alone of making a lot of decisions. That's what I have done in a lot of companies anyway. when you're building the prototype or turning a prototype into something that can be in production, I think that having, uh, having other people there, It would've been better for my mentality in terms of not feeling like it was my thing. Um, you know, like feeling detached enough from the product to really see its flaws and really be open to, taking more radical shifts in approach. whereas when it's just you, you know, it's like you and the customers and your email inbox and, uh, your conscience and your existential dread. Uh, and you know, it's not like a co-founder or, uh, somebody to work with is gonna solve all of that stuff for you, but, uh, it probably would've been maybe a little bit better. I don't know. but then again, like I've also seen those kinds of relationships blow up a lot. and I wanted to kind of figure out what I was doing before, adding more people, more complexity, more money into the situation. But maybe you, maybe doing that at the beginning is kind of the same, you know, like you, other people are down for the same kind of risk that you are. Jeremy: I'm sure it's always different trade offs. I mean, I, I think there probably is a power to being able to unilaterally say like, Hey, this is, this is what I wanna do, so I'm gonna do it. Tom: Yeah. [00:31:52] Spending too much time on multiplayer without a business case Jeremy: You mentioned how there were certain flaws or things you may not have seen because you were so in it. Looking back, what, what were some of those things? Tom: I think that, uh, probably the, I I don't think that most technical decisions are all that important, um, that it never seems like the thing that means life or death for companies. And, you know, Facebook is still on PHP, they've fought, fixed, the problem with, with money. but I think I got rabbit holed into a few things where if I had like a business co-founder, then they would've grilled me about like, why are we spending? The, the main thing that comes to mind, uh, is real time multiplayer, real time. It was a fascinating problem and I was so ready to think about that all the time and try to solve it. And I think that took up a lot of my time and energy. And in the long term, most people are not editing a map. At the same time, seeing the cursors move around is a really fun party trick, and it's great for marketing, but I think that if I were to take a real look at that, that was, that was a mistake. Especially when the trade off was things that actually mattered. Like the amount of time, the amount, the amount of data that the, that could be handled at. At the same time, I could have figured out ways to upload a one gigabyte or two gigabyte or three gigabyte shape file and for it to just work in that same time, whereas real time made it harder to solve that problem, which was a lot closer to what, Paying customers cared about and where people's expectations were? Jeremy: When you were working on this realtime collaborative functionality, was this before the product was public? Was this something you, built from the start? Tom: Yeah. I built the whole thing without it and then added it in. Not as like a rewrite, but like as a, as a big change to a lot of stuff. Jeremy: Yeah, I, I could totally see how that could happen because you are trying to envision people using this product, and you think of something like Google Docs, right? It's very powerful to be typing in a document and see the other cursors and, um, see other people typing. So, I could see how you, you would make that leap and say like, oh, the map should, should do that too. Yeah. [00:34:29] Financial pressures of bootstrapping, high COL, and healthcare Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, you know, Figma is very cool. Like the, it's, it's amazing. It's an amazing thing. But the Figma was in the dark for way longer than I was, and uh, Evan is a lot smarter than I was. Jeremy: He probably had a big bag of money too. Right. Tom: Yeah. Jeremy: I, I don't actually know the history of Figma, but I'm assuming it's, um, it's VC funded, right? Tom: Uh, yeah, they're, they're kind of famous for just having, I don't think they raised that much in the beginning, but they just didn't hire very much and it was just like the two co-founders, or two or three people and they just kept building for long time. I feel like it's like well over three years. Jeremy: Oh wow. Okay. I think like in your case, I, I saw a comment from you where you were saying, this was your sole source of income and you gotta pay for your health insurance, and so you have no outside investments. So, the pressures are, are very different I think. Tom: Yeah. Yeah. And that's really something to on, to appreciate about venture capital. It gives you the. Slack in your, in your budget to make some mistakes and not freak out about it. and sadly, the rent is not going down anytime soon in, in Brooklyn, and the health insurance is not going down anytime soon. I think it's, it's kind of brutal to like leave a job and then realize that like, you know, to, to be admitted to a hospital, you have to pay $500 a month. Jeremy: I'm, I'm sure that was like, shocking, right? The first time you had to pay for it yourself. Tom: Yeah. And it's not even good. Uh, we need to fix this like that. If there's anything that we could do to fix entrepreneurship in this country, it's just like, make it possible to do this without already being wealthy. Um, it was, it was a constant stress. [00:36:29] Growth and customers Jeremy: As you worked on it, and maybe especially as you, after you had shipped, was there a period where. You know, things were going really well in terms of customers and you felt like, okay, this is really gonna work. Tom: I was, so, like, I basically started out by dropping, I think $5,000 in the business bank account. And I was like, if I break even soon, then I'll be happy. And I broke even in the first month. And that was amazing. I mean, the costs were low and everything, but I was really happy to just be at that point and that like, it never went down. I think that probably somebody with more, uh, determination would've kept going after, after I had stopped. but yeah, like, and also The people who used Placemark, who I actually chatted with, and, uh, all that stuff, they were awesome. I wish that there were more of them. but like a lot of the customers were doing cool stuff. They were supportive. They gave me really informative feedback. Um, and that felt really good. but there was never a point at which like the, uh, the growth scale looked like, oh, we're going to hit a point at which this will be a sustainable business within a year. I think it, according to the growth when I left it, it would've been like maybe three years until I would've been, able to pay my rent and health insurance and, live a comfortable life in, in New York. Jeremy: So when you mentioned you broke even that was like the expenses into the business, but not for actually like rent and health insurance and food and all that. Okay. Okay. can you say like roughly how much was coming in or how many customers you had? Tom: Uh, yeah, the revenue initially I think was, uh, 1500 MRR, and eventually it was like 4,000 or so. Jeremy: And the growth was pretty steady. [00:38:37] Bootstrapping vs fundraising Tom: Um, so yeah, I mean, the numbers where you're just like, maybe I could have kept going. but it's, the other weird thing about VCs is just that I think I have this rich understanding of like, if you're, if you're running a business that will be stressful, but be able to pay your bills and you're in control of it, versus running a startup where you might make life changing money and then not have to run a business again. It's like the latter is kind of better. Uh, if stress affects you a lot, and if you're not really wedded to being super independent. so yeah, I don't know between the two ways of like living your life, I, I have some appreciation for, for both. doing what Placemark entailed if I was living cheaply in a, in a cheap city and it didn't stress me out all the time, would've been a pretty good deal. Um, but doing it in Brooklyn with all the stress was not it, it wasn't affecting my life in positive ways and I, I wanted to, you know, go see shows at night with my friends and not worry about the servers going down. Jeremy: Even putting the money aside, I think that's being the only person responsible for the app, right? Probably feels like you can't really take a vacation. Right. Tom: Yeah, I did take a vacation during it. Like I went to visit my partner who was in, uh, Germany at the time, and we were like on a boat, uh, between Germany, across the lake to Switzerland, and like the servers went down and I opened up my laptop and fixed the servers. It's just like, that is, it's a sacrifice that people make, but it is hard. Jeremy: There's, there's on call, but usually it's not just you 24 7. Tom: Yeah. If you don't pick up somebody else [00:40:28] Financial stress and framing money spent as an investment Jeremy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess at what point, because I'm trying to think. You started in 2021 and then maybe wrapped up, was it sometime in 2024? Tom: Uh, I took a job in, uh, I, I mean I joined val.town in the early 2023 and then wrapped up in November, 2023. Jeremy: At what point did you really start feeling the, the stress? Like I, I imagine maybe when you first started out, you said you were doing consulting and stuff, so, um, probably things were okay, but once you kind of shifted away from that, is that kind of when the, the, the worries about money started coming in? Tom: Yeah. Um, I think maybe it was like six or eight months, um, in. Just that I felt like I wasn't finding, uh, like a, a way to grow the product without adding lots of complexity to it. and being a solo founder, the idea of succeeding, but having built like this hulking mess of a product felt just as bad as not succeeding. like ideally it would be something that I could really be happy maintaining for the long term. Uh, but I was just seeing like, oh, maybe I could succeed by adding every feature in QGIS and that's just not, not a, not something that I wanted to commit to. but yeah, I don't, I don't know. I've been, uh, do you know, uh, Ramit Sethie he's like a, Jeremy: I don't. Tom: an internet money guy. He's less scummy than the rest of them, but still, I. an internet money guy. Um, but he does adjust a lot of stuff about like, money psychology. And that has made me realize that a lot of what I thought at the time and even think now is kind of a rational, you know, like, I think one of the main things that I would do differently is just set a budget for Placemark. Like if I had just set away, like, you know, enough money to live on for a year and put that in, like the, this is for Placemark bucket, then it would've felt better to me then having it all be ad hoc, month to month, feeling like you're burning money instead of investing money in a thing. but yeah, nobody told me, uh, how to, how to think about it then. Uh, yeah, you only get experience by experiencing it. Jeremy: You're just seeing your, your bank account shrinking and there's this, psychological toll, right? Where you're not, you're not used to that feeling and it, it probably feels like something's wrong, Tom: Yeah, yeah. I'm, I think it, I'm really impressed by people who can say, oh, I invested, uh, you know, 50 or a hundred thousand dollars into this business and was comfortable with that risk. And like, maybe it works out, maybe it doesn't. Maybe you just like threw a lot of money down into that. and the people, I think with the healthy, productive, uh, relationship with it. Do think of it as like, oh, I, I paid for kind of a bet on a risk. and that's, that's what I was doing anyway. You know, like I was paying my rent and my health insurance and spending all my time working on the product instead of paying, uh, freelance work. but if you don't frame it that way, it doesn't feel like an investment. It feels like you're making a risky gamble. Jeremy: Yeah. And I think that makes sense to, to actually, I think, like you were saying, have a separate account or a separate thing set aside where you are like, this is, this is this money for this purpose. And like you said, look at it as an investment, which with regular investments can go down. Tom: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Jeremy: Yeah [00:44:26] In hindsight might have raised money or tried smaller bets Jeremy: Were there, there other things, whether technical or or business wise, that, that if you were to to do it again, you would do differently? Tom: I go back and forth on whether I should have raised venture capital. there are, there's kind of a, an assumption in venture capital that once you're on it, you have to go the whole way. You have to become a billion dollar company, uh, or at least really tell people that you're going to be a billion dollar company and I am not. yeah, I, I don't know. I've seen, I've seen other companies in my space, or like our friends of my current company who are not really targeting that, or ones who were, and then they had somewhere in between the billion dollar and the very small outcome. Uh, and that's a little bit of a point in the favor of accepting a big pile of money from the venture capitalists. I'm also a little bit biased right now because val.town has one investor and he's like the, the best venture capitalist that I have ever met. Big fan. don't quote me on that. If he sacks me in like a year, we'll see. Um, but uh, yeah, there, I, I think that I understand more why people take that approach. or I've understood more why people take like the venture capital but not taking $300 million from SoftBank approach. yeah, and I don't know, I think that, trying a lot of things also seems really appealing. Uh, people who do the same kind of. of Maybe 10 months, but they build four or five different products or three different products instead of just one. I think that, that feels, feels like a good idea to me. Jeremy: And in doing that, would that be more of a, like as a solo entrepreneur or you, you're thinking you would take investment and then say, I'm gonna try all these things with, with your money. Tom: Oh, I've seen both. I, that I, yeah, one friend's company has pivoted like four times between very different ideas and yeah, it, it's one way to do it, but I think in the long term, I would want to do that as a solo developer and try to figure out, you know, something. but yeah, I, I think, uh, so much of it is mindset, that even then if I was working on like three different projects, I think I. My qualifications for something being worth, really adopting and spending all my time doing, you just have to accept, uh, a lot of hits and a lot of misses and a lot of like keeping things alive and finding out how to turn them into something. I am really inspired by my friends who like started around the same time that I did and they're not that much further in terms of revenue and they're like still, still doing it because that is what they want to do in life. and if you develop the whole ecosystem and mindset around it, I think that's somewhere that people can stay and, and be happy. just trying to find, trying to find a company that they own and control and they like. Jeremy: While, while making the the expenses work. Tom: Yeah. Yeah. that's the, that's the hard part, like freelancing on the side also. I probably could have kept that up. I liked my freelance clients. I would probably still work with them as well. but I kind of just wanted the, I wanted the focus, I wanted the motivation of, of being without a net. Jeremy: Yeah, I mean, energy wise, do you think that that would've worked? I mean, I imagine that Placemark took a lot of your time when you were working full time, so you're trying to balance, you know, clients and all your customers and everything you're doing with the software. It just feels like it might be a lot. Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe with different freelance clients. I, I loved my freelance clients because I, after. leaving config. I, I wanted to work on climate change stuff and so I was working for climate change foundations and that is not the way to max out your paycheck. It's the way to feel good about your conscience. And so I still feel great about those projects, but in the future, yeah, I would probably just work for, uh, you know, a hedge fund or something. [00:49:02] Marketing to developers but not potential customers Jeremy: I think something you mentioned in one of your posts is that you maybe could have spent more time or had a different approach with marketing. Maybe you could kind of say what you did do and then what maybe worked and what didn't. Tom: Yeah. So I like my sweet spot is writing documentation and blog posts and technical stuff. And so I did a lot of that and a lot of that like worked in a way that didn't matter. I am at this point, weirdly good at writing stuff that gets on Hacker News. I've written a lot of stuff that's gotten to the top of Hacker News and unfortunately, writing about your technical approach and your geospatial project for handling errors, uh, in your JavaScript code is not really a way to get customers. and I think doing a lot of documentation was also great, but it was also, I think that the, the thing that was missing is the thing that I think Mapbox does fairly well now, in which the homepage really pushes you toward use cases immediately. and I should have been saying to each customer who had anything compelling as a use case, like, let's write an article about you and what you're doing, and here's how you use this in your industry. and that probably would've also been like a good, a good way to figure out which of those verticals was the one that was most worth spending all the time on. yeah. So it, it was, it was a lot of good marketing to nerds. and it could have been better in terms of marketing to actual customers and to people who are making the buying decisions. Jeremy: Yeah. Looking at the, the Placemark blog, I can definitely see how as a developer, a lot of the posts are appealing to me, right? It's about how you worked on a technical challenge or decisions you made, but maybe less so to somebody who they wanna. Draw a map to manage their crops. They're like, I don't care about any of this. Right. Tom: Yeah, like the Mapbox blog used to be, just all that stuff as well. We would write about designing protocol buffer layouts, and it was amazing for hiring and amazing for getting nerds in the door. But now it's just, Toyota is launching with, Mapbox Maps or something like that. And that's, that's what you, you should do if you're trying to sell a product. Jeremy: Yeah. And I think the, the sort of technical aspect, it makes sense too. If you're venture funded and you are looking to hire, right? You wanna build your team and you just want to increase like, the amount of stuff you're building and not worrying so much about, am I gonna have a paycheck next Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I, I just kind of do it because it's fun, which is not the right reason to do it, but, Yeah, I mean, I still write my blog mostly just because it's, it's a fun thing to do, but it's not the best way to, um, to run a business. Jeremy: Yeah. Well, the fun part is important too though. Tom: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's maybe the whole thing. May, that's maybe the most important thing, but you can't do it if you don't do the, the money part. [00:52:35] Most customers came from existing audience Jeremy: Right. So the people who did find you, was it mostly word of mouth from people who did identify with the technical posts, or were there places that surprised you, that people found you? Tom: Uh, a lot of it was people who were familiar with the Mapbox ecosystem or with, with me. and then eventually, yeah, a few of the users came in through, um, through Hacker News, but it was mostly, mostly word of mouth also. The geospatial community is like fairly tight and it's, and it's not too hard to be the person who writes the article about some geospatial challenge that everyone finds. Jeremy: Hmm. Okay. Yeah, that's a good point about like being in that community, especially since you've done so much work in geospatial and in open source that you have this little, this built-in audience, I guess. Tom: yeah. Which I appreciate. It makes me nervous, but yeah. [00:53:43] Val.town marketing to developers Jeremy: Comparing that to something like val.town, how is val.town marketing? How is it finding users? 'cause from what I can tell, it's, it's getting a lot of, uh, a lot of people coming in, right? Tom: Yeah. Uh, well, right now our, our kind of target user, or the user that we think of is a hobbyist, is somebody who's, sometimes a pro developer or somebody, sometimes just somebody who's really interested in the field. And so writing these things that are just about, you know, programming, does super well. Uh, but it, we have exactly the same problem and that that is kind of being revamped as we speak. uh, we hired somebody who actually knows marketing and has a good sense for it. And so a lot of that stuff is shifting to show you what you can do with val.town because it, it suffers from the same problem as well. It's an empty text field in which you can type, type script, code, and it runs. And knowing what you can do with that or what you should do with that is, is hard if you don't have a grasp of TypeScript and web applications. so pretty soon we'll have pages which are like, here's how to connect linear and GitHub with OW Town, or, you know, two nouns connect them, for all of those companies and to do automations and all these like concrete applications. I think that's, you have to do it. You have to figure it out. Jeremy: Just briefly for someone who hasn't heard of val.town, like what, what does it do? Tom: Uh, val.town is a social website, so it has comments and likes and all of that stuff. but it's for writing these little snippets of TypeScript and JavaScript code that run. So a lot of them are websites, some of them are automations, so they receive emails or send emails or connect one service to another. And yeah, it's, it's like combining some aspects of, GitHub or like a code platform, uh, but with the assumption that every time that you save, everything's instantly deployed. Jeremy: So it's maybe a little bit like, um, like a glitch, I guess? Tom: Uh, yeah. Yeah, it takes a lot of experience, a lot of, uh, inspiration from Glitch. Jeremy: And I, I think, like you had mentioned, you enjoy writing the, the technical blog posts and the documentation. And so at least with val.town, your audience is developers versus, the geospatial community who probably largely doesn't care about, TypeScript and the, the different technical decisions there. Tom: Yeah, it, it makes it easier, that's for sure. The customer is, is me. [00:56:30] Shifting from solo to in-person teams Jeremy: Nice. Yeah. Looking at, you know, you, you worked as a, a solo developer for Placemark, and then now you've got a team of, is it like maybe five Tom: Uh, it is seven at the moment. Jeremy: Seven people. Okay. Are you all in person or is it, remote Tom: We all sit around two tables in Brooklyn. It's very nice. Jeremy: So how did that feel? Like shifting from, I'm in, I don't know if you worked from home while you were working on Placemark or if you were in coworking spaces, but you're, you're shifting from I'm like in my own head space doing everything myself to, to, I'm in a room with all these people and we're like working on this thing together. I'm kind of curious like how that felt for you. Tom: Yeah, it's been a big difference. And I think that I was just talking with, um, one, one of our, well an engineer at, at val.town about how everyone kind of had, had been working remote for obvious pandemic world reasons. And this kind of privilege of just being around the same table, if that's what you like is, a huge difference in terms of, I just remember having to. Trick myself into going on a walk around the block because I would get into such a dark mental head space of working on the same project for eight hours straight and skipping lunch. and now there's a little bit more structure. yeah, it's, it's been, it's been a overall, an improvement. Some days I wish that I could go on a run at noon 'cause that's the warmest time of the day. but, uh, overall, like it makes things so much easier. just reading the emotions in people's faces when they're telling you stuff and being able to, uh, not get into discussions that you don't need to get into because you can talk and just like understand each other very quickly. It's, it's very nice. I don't wanna force everyone to do it, you know, but it it for the people who want it, they, they, uh, really enjoy it. Jeremy: Yeah. I think if you have the right set of people, it's definitely more enjoyable. And um, if you don't, maybe not so Tom: Yeah, we haven't hired any, like, extremely loud chewers yet or anything like that, but yeah, maybe my story will change. Jeremy: No, no one microwaving fish. Tom: No, there's, uh, yeah, thankfully the microwave is outside of the office. Jeremy: Do you live close to the office? Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Like most of the team is within a 20 or 30 minute walk of the office and it's very fortunate. I think there's been something of a mass migration to New York. A lot of us didn't live in New York before four years ago, and now all of us do. it's, it's, uh, it's very comfortable to be here. Jeremy: I think that makes, uh, such a big difference. 'cause I think the majority of people, at least within the US you know, you're, you're getting in your car, you're sitting in traffic. and I know people who, during the pandemic, they actually moved further, right? Because they went, oh, like, uh, I don't need to come into the office. but yeah, if you are close enough where you can walk, yeah, I think that makes a big difference. Tom: Oh yeah. If I had to drive to work, I think my blood pressure would be so much higher. Uh, especially in New York. Oh, I feel so bad for the people who have to drive, whereas I'm just walking with, you know, a bagel in hand, enjoying listening to the birds. Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. well now they have, what is it, the congestion pricing in Tom: Yeah. Yeah. We're all in Brooklyn, so it doesn't affect us that much, but it's supposedly, it's, it's working great. Um, yeah. I hope we can keep it. Jeremy: I've never driven in New York and I, I wouldn't want to Tom: Yeah. It's only for the brave or the crazy. [01:00:37] The value of public writing and work Jeremy: I think that's probably a good place to, to wrap up, but is there any other thoughts you had or things you wanted to mention? Tom: No, I've just, uh, thank you so much. This has been, this has been a lot of fun. You're, you're very good at this as well. I feel like it's, uh, Jeremy: Thank you Tom: It's not easy to, to steer a conversation in a way that makes awkward people sound, uh, normal. Jeremy: I wouldn't say that, but um, what's been actually pretty helpful to me is, you have such a body of work, I guess I would say, in terms of your blogging and, just the amount that you write and the long history of projects that, that there's, you know, there's a lot to talk about and I'm sure it helps, helps your thought process as well. Tom: Yeah. I, I've been lucky to have a lot of jobs where people, where companies were like, cool with publishing everything, you know? so a lot of what I've done is, uh, is public. it's, it's, uh, I'm very, very thankful for like, early on that being a big part of company culture. Jeremy: And you can definitely tell, I think for people who look at the Placemark blog posts or, or now your, your val.town blog posts, like there's, there's a clear difference when somebody like is very intentional and, um, you know, it's good at writing versus you're doing it because, um, it's your corporate responsibility or whatever, like people can tell. Yeah. Tom: Yeah. You can't fake being interested. so you gotta work on things that are interesting. Jeremy: Tom, thanks again for, for agreeing to chat. This was fun. Tom: Yeah thank you so much.

When open source projects shift to proprietary licensing, forks and new communities often emerge. Such was the case with MapLibre, born from Mapbox's 2020 decision to make its map rendering engine proprietary. In conjunction with All Things Open 2024, Seth Fitzsimmons, a principal engineer at AWS and Tarus Balog, principal technical strategist for open source at AWS shared that this engine, popular for its WebGL-powered vector maps and dynamic customization features, was essential for organizations like BMW, The New York Times, and Instacart. However, Mapbox's move disappointed its open-source user base by tying the upgraded Mapbox GL JS library to proprietary products.In response, three users forked the engine to create MapLibre, committing to modernizing and preserving its open-source ethos. Despite challenges—forking often struggles to sustain momentum—MapLibre has thrived, supported by contributors and corporate sponsors like AWS, Meta, and Microsoft. Notably, a community member transitioned the project from JavaScript to TypeScript over nine months, showcasing the dedication of unpaid contributors.Thanks to financial backing, MapLibre now employs maintainers, enabling it to reciprocate community efforts while fostering equality among participants. The project illustrates the resilience of open-source communities when proprietary shifts occur.Learn more from The New Stack about forking open source projects:Why Do Open Source Projects Fork?OpenSearch: How the Project Went From Fork to FoundationJoin our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. 

In this episode, I share the story of creating the world's highest-resolution urban heat island maps in collaboration with the team at NASA JPL, available at http://urbancanopy.io. I share the process of taking raw thermal satellite pictures from the NASA archive, using GIS software and data to get a heat island score for each land parcel, using Mapbox to show the map, and running NASA's custom machine learning algorithm to increase the image resolution. Sign up for my free climate action design tips at http://helloworlde.com/actiontips * * * How to Save the World is a podcast about the psychology of what gets people to do eco-behaviors and take climate action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to rapidly get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Get inspired with positive eco futures art prints, organic t-shirts, hoodies, and calendars at ⁠⁠ecopiastore.com⁠⁠ Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon ⁠⁠https://amzn.to/2Z4jivL⁠⁠  Follow Katie on:  Instagram ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/katiepatrickhello/ LinkedIn ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-patrick/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/katiepatrick/message

Volodymyr Agafonkin is the creator of Leaflet, an open-source JS mapping library started in 2008 that is used pretty much everywhere on the Internet today. We end up nerding out on what makes building simple open source software & rendering maps online tricky but also so endlessly interesting. Volodymyr lives in Ukraine, a country shaken by a war for the past few years, which we also talk about.Sponsor: Nimbo by KermapTry out Kermap's monthly mosaic viewer Nimbo for yourselfSupport the podcast on PatreonAbout VolodymyrTwitterLinkedInWebsiteShownotesNote: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.LeafletMapbox blogpost on adaptive map projectionsCloudMadeHow Simplicity Will Save GISBooks & PodcastsThe Storyteller by Dave Grohl (Affiliate Link)My Effin' Life by Geddy Lee (Affiliate Link)Reply All podcastSearch Engine podcastHeavyweight podcastTimestamps(00:00) - Intro(01:50) - Sponsor: Nimbo(03:26) - Volodymyr Describes Himself(04:22) - The story behind Leaflet(13:31) - Cloudmade Backstory(16:42) - From closed software to open source(23:43) - Maintaining high quality code(27:56) - Cloudmade today(31:21) - Leaflet, funding, sustainable(35:09) - Raster vs Vector maps(41:34) - Map projections(46:36) - Current main challenges to mapping(50:52) - Future of Leaflet(51:54) - Leaflet and Ukraine(01:05:39) - Book & Podcast recommendation(01:09:35) - Support the podcast on PatreonSupport the podcast on PatreonMy video on an introduction to satellite imagesWebsiteMy TwitterPodcast TwitterRead Previous Issues of the NewsletterEdited by Peter XiongFind more of his work

In an illuminating discussion on the Retail Podcast, Nick Patrick, Co-Founder and CEO of Radar, sheds light on how his company is reshaping the retail industry through advanced geolocation services. Radar, self-described as the all-in-one location platform, has emerged as a cornerstone in the retail sector, offering solutions that bridge the digital and the physical realms. Patrick, a stalwart in the New York tech scene with a legacy rooted in Foursquare, has leveraged his extensive experience to pilot Radar into uncharted territories of location-based services. Since its inception in 2016, Radar has evolved from a geofencing specialist to a comprehensive location platform, challenging the dominance of giants like Google Maps and Mapbox with cost-effective alternatives. For more information goto: RetailNews.AI Radar Articlehttps://retailnews.ai/category/technology/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theretailpodcast/message

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT The UK startup PassageWay operates with the interesting mission of using technology that nudges people to make well-informed and more sustainable decisions about how they get from A to B. That's done by thinking through and developing the presentation layer for Real-Time Passenger Information content that's then run on digital signs, most notably for the bus systems around the city of London. PassageWay's business model is - in simple terms - taking the rich, real-time data available for routes and stops and making it presentable and digestible for transport authorities, like Transport For London, which pays the start-up to do so. The logical notion is that the more that good, real-time information is made available to people, the more the transport services will be used. While London Underground stations are well-equipped with information and the services are pretty predictable, there's not as much available to the millions who use less-predictable surface transport services like the iconic double-decker red buses. I had a good chat about all this recently with PassageWay co-founder Chris Johns. Subscribe from wherever you pick up new podcasts. TRANSCRIPT Chris, thank you for joining me. Can you tell me what PassageWay is all about?  Chris Johns: Thanks so much for inviting us to your podcast today. PassageWay is all about generating demand for public transport by leveraging real-time information. We do this by putting it onto digital signs that are displayed on host-supplied screens and typically these screens only require a modern browser to display the digital sign.  You made a point of saying the host supplied. There's been a history through the years of companies who've done things like put in the infrastructure, the screens, and so on and then run content on them with the idea that content would be Interrupted so to speak by advertising. You're not going down that path.  Chris Johns: No, we're not. Typically those sorts of plays are similar to JC Decaux or Clear Channel who have long had this relationship with transport authorities whereby they will fund the deployment of bus shelters in return for an ad revenue share. We supply transport for London with digital signs that are displayed at bus shelters but also within their other infrastructure like bus stations. But really we're more citywide about putting digital signs into places such as schools, hospitals, workplaces, offices, and such in order to generate demand from the sort of non-traditional locations and encouraging the people within those locations to consider public transport. So this doesn't sound like a traditional business, you said, this is about generating demand to use public transport services and so on versus, more traditionally, this is about making money somehow or other.  Chris Johns: Yeah. I think that's the difference, a lot of those traditional plays actually put the real-time information secondary to their primary objective which is to earn revenue from the display of ads. And to my mind, that means a poor customer experience and the poor customer experience means reduced demand. If you think about traditional bus shelters, they are actually incredibly complex for many people trying to navigate the public transport information. If you're coming to London, for example, trying to find out which is the right bus? Is it going to go to your preferred stop? How long is it going to take? Is there any disruption information? If you don't have it, it will make you want to go and choose a different mode of transport. So, you probably take a taxi or you may end up using your own car, for example. Actually what we're trying to do is to show people that public transport is really easy to use. It's really accessible. It can get you from A to B pretty fast. And if you're aware of the onward travel information from the stop you're trying to get to, then actually, you can make the whole journey much easier and less stressful, for many people. So this almost seems like a community initiative but there is a business model behind this, right?  Chris Johns: Yeah, there is. The business model is pretty straightforward, to be honest. We are paid by the transport authority or their contract partners and our job is to provide these digital signs and the digital signs generate demand. So in a different way of thinking, you might consider the real time information as being the best form of advertising for public transport. Certainly better than a static advert, in my opinion, anyway.  Your company's efforts are to aggregate the data, make sure it's handled accurately and always up to date, and so on. Why would transport for London not do that themselves?  Chris Johns: Yeah, they do. Transport for London is the world's largest integrated transport network and they have the global leading data strategy. And they're famed the world over for their open API strategy. That means we can access their data and we pretty much have unfettered use of that data. And so do many other developers as well and we can Be sure that the data we've got is true and accurate. What we do is that we take that information and we plot it around a particular location and we bring it together with a legible London-style wayfinding map, where we plot the access points onto it and then we bring it all together into a sort of nice looking digital sign that's easy to understand and act upon.  So we're not generating data or we're not modifying data, all we're doing is bringing data together into an easy-to-understand format.  So you're doing the presentation layer that in theory, transport for London could do themselves but you're good at it. it's not what they want to focus on. So they're happy to work with you to do that part of it.  Chris Johns: That's right. Yeah. We are a supplier to TFL and they use lots of other different tech suppliers whether it's to build their award winning TFL go app or to build bus shelters whatever it may be. They have lots of different suppliers bringing their individual skill sets into play and that's basically what we do. But I think that one of the things that we do bring to the party because we're a tech startup is innovation and the ability to pivot quickly and come up with sort of entrepreneurial new ideas that we can bring into play and throw them out to TFL and say, listen, what do you think about this? And so we can move quite quickly.  Did you have to go to them to sell into this or is your company kind of a result of being in discussions with them and starting the company because this opportunity existed? Chris Johns: It's a mix between the two actually. So TFL actually issued a tender some time ago that we want to produce the platform and we've taken it on from there and given it a life of its own and extended the service beyond London as well. So working with other transport authorities and other partners outside of London.  So this is audio, so it makes it a little difficult to visualize things. But can you give me some sense of how this manifests itself within the transport system? And then in public and private buildings.  Chris Johns: Okay. I'll give you a couple of examples. For example, in every bus station across London, there are digital totems. And those digital totems are a bit like an airport or a train station where you've got a central totem and it shows all the services where they're going and whereabouts within the bus station they're leaving from and if there's any disruptions. So we look after all of those for London. Another example would be smart bus shelters, whereby you could have a large format digital screen with detailed route maps for each of the services that are running via that bus shelter with real time information on all those routes plotted not on a fixed JPEG of a route but actually plotted live onto a legible London style map. With onward time estimation to reach all the onward stops, onward travel information such as the tube status, any disruption notifications and more so that people can quite easily contextualize their journey and see if it's going to be running smoothly all the way through. Another example, could be at a bus stop itself. So across London, there are about 18,000 bus stops and only about 2000 bus shelters. So only about 2000 of these locations have any real time information. So what we can do for those ones is put in QR codes and customers can scan the QR codes and open up a real time digital sign on their personal device with no registration, no login, no heavy download. It's just a purely web based solution that shows all the upcoming departures for that particular stop with detailed route information, onward stop information et cetera and then links to download the official apps. So it's like an interstitial page where it's easy for everyone to access. Hopefully you're going to convert more people into downloading the official apps. Now the official app is the TFL official app or yours?  Chris Johns: No, we don't do apps. I'm afraid. One of the points about what we're doing is about trying to make everything as open and as accessible as possible. So there is no registration, there's no login, there's no download. All you need Is a modern web browser and you can access the information. We don't ask anything from the customers. We don't track them. We don't do anything really about that.  Yeah. That's one of the problems when you go to an unfamiliar city and you decide I'm going to use their transport system. You go to the app store to find the app for the mass transport system in that city. And there's five or six of them and you don't know which one is official or which one's riddled with ads or not updated or God knows what. Chris Johns: Yeah. In London, I can't really speak for other cities because our primary focus is London, that's our area of expertise. But there are hundreds of thousands of people who are digitally excluded. People who don't have smartphones at all and then there is a whole another segment that are extremely low digital users and I think in London, there's about 2 million of those, according to a Lloyd's report. You've got about 2.5 million people that are not going to be using smartphones or not downloading apps and you've got to provide real time information to those people because those are also a core audience for the transport authority because they tend to be looking at the demographic. They match perfectly the sort of TFL bus user type. But at the moment they're somewhat excluded from the service or the latest developments of promoting those services.  Is the focus more as a result on road transport, buses and so on, as opposed to the London underground? Because the underground has maps. It's got covered areas and everything else. It's easier to convey information.  Chris Johns: That's right. Like train stations and tubes, they're fairly straightforward. You go onto the platform, you take a train going one way or the other way or if you go to a train station, it's all linear. But if you're taking buses or you want to go get a bicycle, they're within the built environment itself. And they could be going pretty much any direction. And you really need to know where the best location is for you to find your particular service and then how long you're going to wait and if there's any problems with that particular service. Also the other thing is that the tube services are linear again. They're always getting the district line, for example and are always going to go to those particular routes, one way or the other. They might stop slightly earlier but generally, they're always going to follow that same path. And if you wait one minute, then the next one's coming along for two or three minutes. So what we do is that we just show on the tube status. We show if there's any problems on any particular line. And then we say all of the lines are running fine, which is the sort of TFL standard approach to displaying the statements  Yeah. This year I've spent a couple of weeks in London, doing interviews and then I was there semi holidaying as well and I was struck by the amount of real time information that you could get on. I was taking the Elizabeth line more than anything else and it was terrific in terms of telling me, I definitely don't want to go on the Circle line right now. Chris Johns: Yes. the Northern line.  The really old ones. Chris Johns: Yeah, some of them are better than others, to be honest. Also you've got to pick the right one. It's freezing in London at the moment and some of them have heating and some of them don't. Like in the summer, some of them have air con and some of them don't as well. We don't flag that as much. I couldn't tell you offhand which ones are which. Toko on here is stifling.  Chris Johns: Yeah. It could be useful information to many people.   What you're doing is a little reminiscent of a US company called TransitScreen.  Chris Johns: Yeah, I know. I've heard of TransitScreen. Yeah. They would sell a service into a building and they would also layer in things like the availability of Rideshare, Dockless bikes. I'm not sure what their status is right now but probably scooters as well. Do you do any of that? Chris Johns: Not at the moment. It is something that we are quite interested in. But we are dependent on the data sources that are available to us. And obviously we are primarily funded by TFL as well. Our modus operandi is to really promote TFL services. When we've looked at it before there are Lime and Forest e-bikes for example, across London. But they don't actually have an open API that we can access. The other thing I think separates us from the transit screen service, I think they've rebranded actually now. But I think they don't tend to have maps or contextual maps on their screens. They tend to be very linear in terms of saying information is available on this particular site type of service at this particular place. And that it's 500 meters where you have to go and work out which direction it is, whereas in London, we've got what's called the legible London wayfinding scheme. So across London, you find all these Totems which are just flat totems, they're not real time information. But they've got localized maps with all the local highlights on it. So, there's a sort of native way of expecting maps and how they should appear to people as they're moving through the built environment that we've tried to replicate. Ultimately, what we'd like to do is to take over those totems and convert them from being static information locations to being real time digital totems with wayfinding public transport information and other information as well.  I suspect the barriers, there are steady advances in e-paper. As that gets better versus using LCD or things like that require a lot of energy to be visible in daylight.  Chris Johns: Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head there or bleakly by saying, really the issue is cost and technology. There are hundreds of legible London totems around London. Not all of them have power nearby and the cost to convert each and every one of them would be very substantial but if we can bring in as technology advances and things become cheaper, solar power and other sort of lower energy burn options come into play then that's where we're hoping that there's an opportunity. So, I think I saw you guys have your offices or technical location and the Battersea area. If the Battersea power station which is now a kind of a multi use mall and other things, wanted to put your content on a large screen in their main access areas, would they need to do what's involved? Chris Johns: It's really quite straightforward. They just need to install a screen of any particular size, it can be small or super large. We put a 75 inch screen into an office complex, Paternoster Square, just a week or so ago. But you can go for pretty much any size screen. The larger ones tend to be ethernet connected rather than Wi Fi connected. As long as that screen has browser capability then we can deploy a digital sign onto it. And it will be suitable for displaying both small scale and large scale. So you could have it within a stadium. If you've been to the power station, they've got the huge sort of warehouse-y style engine rooms there which are now full of shops but you could put one at the end of one of those engine rooms and it would look fantastic.  Yeah. I was there three-four months ago. It's a great reworking of that building. Outside they could really use wayfinding but that's somebody else's problem.  Chris Johns: Yeah. Also there's boats there as well. So Uber has taken over the boats in London. So, unfortunately they no longer provide data onto the TFL data feed. And so we're trying to work with them to get data from them. But at the moment, they're not included within the TFL API feed. I'm understanding this correctly, there's a URL per geo-specific site.  Chris Johns: That's right.  And if it was a digital sign in a building that was also showing, if we're using the Battersea Power Station as an example, also showing sales promotions for some of the retail tenants, could your information be scheduled in or does it need to be on there full time? Chris Johns: No, it doesn't need to be full-time. Obviously, we're very aware that digital screens need to pay for themselves and often that's through advertising. Our content can be part of a playlist and run for 15-20 seconds every 40 seconds or whatever the host decides is best. So, we're working on another project at the moment which is actually something very similar to that, whereby the content will rotate with other content about walking routes, heritage and other information that takes to a particular place. Because obviously, public transport information is not the only thing that's of interest to people as they're moving through the built environment. But it's one of the time sensitive things that is important to them.  Because it's web based information, is it responsive? Chris Johns: Yeah, We do smartphone friendly signs as well but usually they're going to be QR code based. So, someone will scan a QR code and then it will open up a smartphone or other personal device friendly version. Some of the other signs that we've designed particularly for larger format digital signage screens. So what I've seen examples of was a portrait mode screen but you could do a landscape screen, no problem.  Chris Johns: Oh yeah. We've got loads of them. It's roughly 50-50 at the moment in terms of deployment between landscape and portrait. I don't really have a preference. I think they look good. I think the one we put in last week into Paternoster Square was a portrait and I think it looks really quite nice in portrait style.  And have you done the design and everything to mirror or parrot the transport for London colors and so on? Chris Johns: We've built it to meet the TFL brand guidelines. So that was very important. Obviously, because we're paid by TFL and the map is styled to look as close as possible to the legible London guidelines but without copying it. We use a service called Mapbox to do that which allows us to play with the layers and the design of the layers on the maps very efficiently. And we actually did a project for Melbourne as well, Transport for Victoria in Australia where we came up with a similar whole range of concepts for Melbourne and again using their sort of legible Melbourne guidelines or Transport for Victoria guidelines with their branding and their mapping as well. So is there a consulting wing to what you do as well?  Chris Johns: Basically we can provide just consulting but really what we're hoping to do is to build long term relationships with transport authorities where we can deploy the platform, make the signs available across their estate and out to their community. And if that option is available to us then we'll do the consulting bundled into a longer term agreement with them.  But it's not fundamental to your offer?  Chris Johns: No. No, not at all.  My next question is, are you working outside of London? So you're in Australia. Are you elsewhere as well? Chris Johns: So, we're one of the winners of a global innovation tender for Transport for Victoria and we developed a whole range of concepts for them. Unfortunately, their data wasn't quite a state as yet to enable the concepts to be deployed. So that one very much watches this space. We've also had discussions with others, both, in Europe and also in North America as well. We're quite keen on working internationally. I think on the international side, we're much better when we work with a bigger technology partner. So, usually with transport authority tenders, they put them out there and there's big organizations which pitch for them. We're typically too small to pitch for them but we can go in with those larger organizations and bring that element of innovation and entrepreneurialism and some design to give them an extra edge in their tender over and above everyone else. So you might be going with an IBM or somebody like that?  Chris Johns: Yeah. The big one in America is VIX Technology and they're a nice bunch of guys. But we've also partnered previously with Trapeze which is in the UK. And also, there's a one in the UK who we work with very well called True Form Engineering as well. We've done stuff with them both in London and outside of London as well.  You mentioned at the start that you're working with the London authority which has a world reputation for its data API and everything else. And you also mentioned that Melbourne isn't quite at the same level. Is that a big challenge when you look at other jurisdictions? Chris Johns: Yeah, totally. Basically, the world is changing and it's changing very rapidly. The data is becoming less of a problem. But one of the problems that remains is the cost of data which means that actually using our service may be prohibitive to smaller towns or organizations outside of London. With the CFL API, we have free Access to that but if it was outside of London, for example, in Bristol, then we would have to partner with a third party data provider. And there are a small number of those that can provide that service. But it's not free and their costs are extensive. And then we have to layer our costs on top of that and it may be that for that transport authority which they look at that and say, we can't do that sort of cost at the moment. Indeed somewhere Bristol actually used to have their own API and then took it offline. Because they said, we can't justify the cost of maintaining this open API strategy which to my mind is insane because surely the biggest way of generating demand for public transport authority is telling people what services there are there. And you can only do that if you've got real time information. So if you suddenly say to all the developers and even your own services, we're not going to have an API anymore. It just means that you're going to have a natural impact on demand.  I don't know if this is a simple answer or way too involved to even get into but I'm curious if I'm a transport authority, let's say in Kansas city, Missouri, Winnipeg, Manitoba, or Munich, Germany. Do you need the shape and structure of data to make this workable?  Chris Johns: It's what we call a JSON API and then documentation around it and we'll take it from there. So, most of the APIs follow a common standard these days and we can work with any of them, really. We've not done any multi-language so digital sign designs as yet. So we do need to consider the elements of user experience for trying to work in something like Japanese, for example, would be challenging for us at the moment because we'd have to consider how they interpret information which is different to how we might interpret information in the UK. But somewhere like Missouri and Munich would be fairly straightforward for us.  Okay. So if people want to know more about your organization, where do they find you?  Chris Johns: So the best thing to do is to look at our website, which is at passage-way.com, or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm quite chatty on LinkedIn, and I post a fair amount, and also the company is on LinkedIn as well. That's how I found you.  Chris Johns: Yeah, and the more the merrier, really.  All right. Chris, thank you very much for spending some time with me.  Chris Johns: Thank you. Have a great day.  

In this Better Satellite World podcast series, we explore the exciting developments in space-based data analytics and the absolutely game-changing nature of this relatively new part of the industry. The fourth episode features a conversation with Mike Collett, Founder and Managing Partner of Promus Ventures and Joe Fargnoli, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the New York Space Alliance and co-host of the monthly New York Space Business Roundtable alongside SSPI's Lou Zacharilla. Mike and Joe join Lou to talk about space-based data analytics and the role satellites play. Mike Collett is Founder and Managing Partner of Promus Ventures. Since its inception in 2012, Promus Ventures invests in DeepTech early-stage startups, with offices in Chicago, San Francisco and Luxembourg. Mike has been a venture capital investor for over 20 years. Mike has invested in over 100 startups, including Rocket Lab, AngelList, Whoop, Mapbox, ICEYE, Bellabeat, FLYR, Kensho, Swift Navigation, Spire Global and others. Prior to Promus Ventures, Mike was Founder and Managing Partner of Masters Capital Nanotechnology Fund, a venture capital firm. While working at Masters Capital, a hedge fund, Mike invested in software and hardware startups. Prior to venture capital, Mike was a Vice President in Merrill Lynch's Mergers & Acquisitions group. Mike holds a BA in Math and BA in English from Vanderbilt University. He also holds a MBA in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis. Mike and his wife Paige have four children and live in Chicago. Joe Fargnoli is one of the co-founders of the New York Space Alliance (NYSA), a Public Benefit Corporation focused on bringing the immense and diverse resources of New York City and State to the New Space Economy. NYSA offers programs in tactical entrepreneurship such as an accelerator, a bootcamp in conjunction with Founder's Institute and a Hacking for Space Program in development as well as an online Innovation Exchange community connecting the many different space impacting industries with the New Space Economy. He also serves as a Solutions Architect for Raytheon Intelligence & Space and SMA, Inc. and Managing Partner for both NYSA and Innovation Acceleration Capital in Rochester, New York. Together with SSPI, Joe co-founded the New York Space Business Roundtable, a monthly dialogue and real New York style conversation about the space & satellite industry and its many facets, including where the investments are going. January's edition of the New York Space Business Roundtable - 2024: What We Want! - is coming up later this week on Wednesday, January 17. You can learn more and register for the Roundtable on SSPI's website. His previous career background includes Northrop Grumman Electronic Sensors and Systems group working on both National Electro-Optical as well as SAR system and Kodak/ITT/Exelis/Harris with focus on National and Commercial systems.  He also served as a Technical Fellow within the NRO. Joe holds an MS in Optics from the University of Rochester, an MS in Telecommunications and Computers from the George Washington University a BS in Mathematics and MS degree in Electrical Engineering from The State University of New York.

Happy 2024! We appreciated all the feedback on the listener survey (still open, link here)! Surprising to see that some people's favorite episodes were others' least, but we'll always work on improving our audio quality and booking great guests. Help us out by leaving reviews on Twitter, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts!

Summary Yuri Astrakhan, co-founder of Map Libre, discusses the project's evolution from a fork of Mapbox to a community-driven initiative covering data generation, packaging, visualization, and more. The Map Libre ecosystem includes projects like Map Libre GJS, Map Libre RS, and Martin, a tile server supporting various formats. Yuri emphasizes the importance of community involvement, stability, and the challenges of maintaining both native C++ and JavaScript/TypeScript codebases. The talk explores Map Libre's achievements, goals, and advanced features like 3D terrain, contour maps, and future plans for Map Vector Tiles (MVT) with enhanced capabilities. Highlights

No bitalk de hoje vamos falar de cibersegurança, afinal quão seguros estão os nossos dados? Sabes a diferença entre Hacker e Cracker? Quão seguros são os sistemas informáticos dos nossos bancos? Já ouviste falar de Bug Bounty? Todos os governos têm uma equipa de hackers a trabalhar para eles? André é um hacker ético que se destacou no mundo da cibersegurança, sendo reconhecido como o "hacker mais valioso do mundo" e já recebeu a alcunha de "o Cristiano Ronaldo da segurança". Tudo começou aos 12 anos ao ler um livro de programação que descobriu, na biblioteca do pai, um livro que lhe traçou o destino. Aos 24 anos, ganhou o título de "hacker mais valioso do mundo" numa competição nos Estados Unidos, Segundo o André, “a ideia era descobrirmos falhas de segurança num cliente real [Mapbox, empresa líder na produção de mapas]. Não foi o participante que mais problemas identificou (ao todo eram 25 participantes): cinco, contra 12 do concorrente que mais falhas detetou. Mas, entre essas cinco, houve uma que lhe garantiu a vitória. “Detetei uma falha através do qual consegui obter um ‘token' da administração.” No fundo, uma porta de acesso a todo o sistema. Acredita que ser um hacker ético é mais do que simplesmente encontrar vulnerabilidades; é sobre resolver quebra-cabeças e abordar desafios de segurança de maneira criativa. Razão pela qual fundou a ETHIACK, uma startup sediada em Coimbra, que disponibiliza uma plataforma automática de testes de segurança para auxiliar as empresas na identificação de vulnerabilidades nos seus sistemas informáticos. A empresa combina inteligência artificial e conhecimento humano para detetar e resolver proativamente vulnerabilidades, prevenindo possíveis ciberataques que se tornam cada vez mais frequentes com a evolução da tecnologia e, consequentemente, do cibercrime. O André também se dedica a programas de "bug bounty," que incentivam hackers éticos a encontrar e relatar falhas de segurança e que empresas chegam a pagar mais de 250 mil euros por cada falha descoberta. Aqui ficam alguns dos melhores momentos: 00:00 — Intro 00:58 — O que é um Hacker? 04:04 — Leonardo Da Vinci era um Hacker? 05:10 — O que é hacking? 07:29 — Hacker VS Cracker 13:32 — Corrida de gato e rato 15:15 — Bournout de vulnerabilidades 19:43 — Hackers estúpidos 21:10 — Cibersegurança: Estado Vs Privado 27:24 — Ninguém investe em Cibersegurança 34:40 — +250Mil Dólares em Bug Bounty 37:00 — Hackers do DarkSide 39:55 — Já foste hackeado? 44:50 — State Actors: Hackers dos Governos 47:18 — Entrar na cabeça de um Hacker 48:51 — Hacking com Inteligência Artificial 50:19 — FRIGIDEIRA 54:27 — Cibersegurança em Web3 57:55 — Hacking de Bancos 01:01:28 — Cibersegurança dos Bancos VS Blockchain 01:03:02 — BioHacking 01:04:20 — Cibersegurança em risco 01:17:39 — Vodafone hackeada 01:20:17 — Falha de segurança do Lastpass 01:23:28 — P*rngrafia na vanguarda da tecnologia 01:25:12 — Controlados pela tecnologia Aproveitem para subscrever o nosso canal e ficarem a saber tudo sobre os nossos episódios: http://youtube.bitalk.pt Oiçam-nos no Spotify: http://spotify.bitalk.pt Oiçam-nos no Apple Podcasts: http://apple.bitalk.pt E sigam-nos nas redes sociais: • Instagram: http://instagram.bitalk.pt • TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@bitalk_podcast • Linkedin: http://linkedin.bitalk.pt • Facebook: http://facebook.bitalk.pt Uma produção GAFFVisuals https://gaffvisuals.com/

Sean Brophy is the Head of Global Sales at Pigment. He's a proven sales executive having lead high-performing teams at Tableau, Alteryx, and Mapbox. He joins Chad Pyke on The EPM Show to share his take on the EPM industry and how to build an impactful career. In this episode you'll learn:  → The 5 “Ins” for impactful leadership. → Why knowing thyself is essential for making the most out of your career.  → How he evaluates taking smart career risks having spent most of his time at startups. → What he's most excited about when it comes to Pigment's journey and product.  Visit all the pertinent links + find out how much Anaplan professionals are getting paid ($$$): cothryve.co/links

Show Notes Migrate your Xamarin.iOS Binding Library (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/migration/ios-binding-projects) Migrate your Xamarin.Android Binding Library (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/migration/android-binding-projects) Auth0 Documentation for .NET MAUI (https://auth0.com/blog/add-authentication-to-dotnet-maui-apps-with-auth0/) Mapbox .NET MAUI Support (https://github.com/tuyen-vuduc/mapbox-maui) Minnesota Enterprise Mobile UG: Party On with 3rd Party Binding Libraries in .NET MAUI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJMoaH2Tzn0) .NET MAUI API Browser (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/?view=net-maui-7.0) Reuse Effects in .NET MAUI (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/migration/effects?view=net-maui-7.0) Upgrade a Xamarin.Forms app to a .NET MAUI app with the .NET Upgrade Assistant (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/migration/upgrade-assistant?tabs=vswin) Migrate a Xamarin.Forms custom renderer to a .NET MAUI handler (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/migration/renderer-to-handler) Follow Us: * James: Twitter (https://twitter.com/jamesmontemagno), Blog (https://montemagno.com), GitHub (http://github.com/jamesmontemagno), Merge Conflict Podcast (http://mergeconflict.fm) * Matt: Twitter (https://twitter.com/codemillmatt), Blog (https://codemilltech.com), GitHub (https://github.com/codemillmatt) * David: Twitter (https://twitter.com/davidortinau), Github (https://github.com/davidortinau)

00:09 | OpenAI up 200% at $90b- In discussions for a share sale at $80b to $90b valuation- Revenue project at $1b in 2023, multi-billion in 2024- Employees will sell shares in round, CEO Altman signaled no desire to IPO or be acquired01:13 | Jony Ive's AI hardware with OpenAI's Sam Altman- Jony Ive, renowned iPhone designer, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are reportedly exploring the development of a new AI hardware device- SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son involved- Altman is investor Humane, a company focusing on developing innovative AI-incorporated wearable devices02:02 | Microsoft moves from OpenAI (a bit)- Microsoft is developing cost-effective, “distilled” AI models as a contingency against rising costs of running advanced AI (i.e. OpenAI)- Could provide Microsoft with more negotiating leverage with OpenAI03:08 | $4b raise for Anthropic from Amazon- Amazon invests $4 billion in Anthropic, minority take, over $10b+ valuation?- Also strategic partnership btwn Amazon/Anthropic to allow AI models accessible to AWS customers- AWS becomes Anthropic's primary cloud provider, use Amazon chips04:18 | Faire takes Shopify $s- Shopify invests in wholesale e-commerce site Faire, Faire valuation not disclosed- Shopify similarly invested $100m investment in Klaviyo in 2022- Faire last raised $816m in May 2022 at a $12.6b valuation05:10 | 16% layoff at Epic Games- 830 employees impacted- Divesting Bandcamp (music platform) and spinning off SuperAwesome (tools fro brands to target kids)- Moves are an attempt to move the company back to profitability06:13 | Big capital raises- Cato Networks (www.catonetworks.com) | $238m Series F, $3.0b valuation- Mapbox (www.mapbox.com) | $280m Series E, $1.8b valuation- bolttech (www.bolttech.io) | $246m Series B, $1.6b valuation- JOKR (www.jokr.com) | $50m Series D, $800m valuation- ReCode Therapeutics (www.recodetx.com) | $260m Series B, $700m valuation07:22 | Pre-IPO 0.65% for week- Week winners: Anthropic +33.7%, OpenAI 15.2%, Brex +4.6%, Stripe +2.8%, Plaid +1.2%- Week losers: Discord -11.4%, Klarna -5.0%, Airtable -4.4%, Neuralink -3.3%, SpaceX -2.5%- Top valuations: ByteDance $211b, SpaceX $152b, Stripe $53b, Databricks $45b, OpenAI $37b lead in current valuation

This week's new #LocationWeekly episode is out now. Sams Club launches Sales Media Performance dashboard, Amazon expands it's Just Walk Out tech to apparel retailers, eBay UK launches The Authenticity Lab for sneakers + Mapbox raises $280M from SoftBank. Tune in now!

In episode 90 of The Gradient Podcast, Daniel Bashir speaks to Miles Grimshaw.Miles is General Partner at Benchmark. He was previously a General Partner at Thrive Capital, where he helped the firm raise its fourth and fifth funds, and sourced deals in Lattice, Mapbox, Benchling, and Airtable, among others.Have suggestions for future podcast guests (or other feedback)? Let us know here or reach us at editor@thegradient.pubSubscribe to The Gradient Podcast:  Apple Podcasts  | Spotify | Pocket Casts | RSSFollow The Gradient on TwitterOutline:* (00:00) Intro* (02:48) Miles' background (note: Miles is now the second newest GP at Benchmark)* (06:07) Miles' investment philosophy and previous investments* (12:25) Investing in the “decade of deep learning” and how Miles became interested in AI* (18:53) Miles' / Benchmark's investment in Langchain* (24:29) On AI advances and adoption* (39:25) Hardware shortages, radically changing UX for LLMs* (48:12) Opportunities for AI applications in new domains* (50:15) Miles' advice for potential founders in AI* (1:00:00) OutroLinks:* Miles' Twitter* Benchmark homepage* LangChain homepage Get full access to The Gradient at thegradientpub.substack.com/subscribe

Fredrik chats with Daniel Eke about creative visual coding, learning through side projects, and a lot more. The discussion revolves around Daniel's apps: the visualizer Ferromagnetic, polygon drawing tool Handstract, and photo polygonizer Centroid. Code lets you create art which is interactive and immersive in a way many other art forms can't. Develop your side projects so that you save time - re-use code, structure it in ways which make things easy and fast for you. Focus on hard problems rather than getting all caught up in low-hanging fruit and simple feature requests. Learn the systems you are using, look at others to learn more tricks. Try stuff out, and don't worry too much about the tools. Build it inside something you already have. Or, use Apple's Shortcuts - that might be much easier than setting up some service to run a script. The magic of programming is that you can create something valuable by thinking through problems and expressing the solution in code. Thank you Cloudnet for sponsoring our VPS! Comments, questions or tips? We are @kodsnack, @tobiashieta, @oferlundand @bjoreman on Twitter, have a page on Facebook and can be emailed at info@kodsnack.se if you want to write longer. We read everything we receive. If you enjoy Kodsnack we would love a review in iTunes! You can also support the podcast by buying us a coffee (or two!) through Ko-fi. Links Daniel Winamp Ferromagnetic Daniel's blog Sine function Code for Winamp visualizers Lots of Winamp visualizers Daniel Ek - founder of Spotify, loser of the surname game Handstract Centroid Kaleidosync Spotiffy's audio analysis API Replaykit Mapbox VLC Blog post by Daniel about getting started with creative coding Static objects Metal shaders Scenekit Opengl Crashlytics Firebase Gradle Daniel's home dashboard application WWDC presentations from 2023 - previous years are also available Flappy bird Singleton Shortcuts Mapbox unboxed: location technology - video with Daniel - among others - talking about measuring rendering performance of Mapbox maps Titles Your hand as a polygon Vector graphic finger painting The best thing is to listen to slow songs Start with a desktop application Use the whole capability of the phone All the secondary things The whole software is in your hand I like creating art more than playing games Value out of nothing A totally even distribution

Fredrik chats with Daniel Eke about creative visual coding, learning through side projects, and a lot more. The discussion revolves around Daniel’s apps: the visualizer Ferromagnetic, polygon drawing tool Handstract, and photo polygonizer Centroid. Code lets you create art which is interactive and immersive in a way many other art forms can’t. Develop your side projects so that you save time - re-use code, structure it in ways which make things easy and fast for you. Focus on hard problems rather than getting all caught up in low-hanging fruit and simple feature requests. Learn the systems you are using, look at others to learn more tricks. Try stuff out, and don’t worry too much about the tools. Build it inside something you already have. Or, use Apple’s Shortcuts - that might be much easier than setting up some service to run a script. The magic of programming is that you can create something valuable by thinking through problems and expressing the solution in code. Thank you Cloudnet for sponsoring our VPS! Comments, questions or tips? We are @kodsnack, @tobiashieta, @oferlund and @bjoreman on Twitter, have a page on Facebook and can be emailed at info@kodsnack.se if you want to write longer. We read everything we receive. If you enjoy Kodsnack we would love a review in iTunes! You can also support the podcast by buying us a coffee (or two!) through Ko-fi. Links Daniel Winamp Ferromagnetic Daniel’s blog Sine function Code for Winamp visualizers Lots of Winamp visualizers Daniel Ek - founder of Spotify, loser of the surname game Handstract Centroid Kaleidosync Spotiffy’s audio analysis API Replaykit Mapbox VLC Blog post by Daniel about getting started with creative coding Static objects Metal shaders Scenekit Opengl Crashlytics Firebase Gradle Daniel’s home dashboard application WWDC presentations from 2023 - previous years are also available Flappy bird Singleton Shortcuts Mapbox unboxed: location technology - video with Daniel - among others - talking about measuring rendering performance of Mapbox maps Titles Your hand as a polygon Vector graphic finger painting The best thing is to listen to slow songs Start with a desktop application Use the whole capability of the phone All the secondary things The whole software is in your hand I like creating art more than playing games Value out of nothing A totally even distribution

Just about everyone has heard of ChatGPT, Midjourney and Dall-E, but these just scratch the surface of all the wild and cool AI tools out there. So the Unbounce team has taken it upon themselves to review nearly 150 AI tools, and they are bringing you their recommendations for best in class. In this episode, co-hosts Pete Housley and Garrett Hughes welcome special guest Saba El-Hilo as they review a plethora of AI tools and answer the questions: Would we use it? Do we see value in it? Or is it junk? Tune in to find out for yourself, and you might just walk away with your new favorite AI-powered marketing tool.Meet The Unprompted CrewPete Housley is host extraordinaire and CMO at Unbounce. His co-host this episode is Unbounce's Manager of Content Marketing Garrett Hughes. This episode also features special guest Saba El-Hilo. Saba is Unbounce's SVP of Data & Engineering, and leads the company's engineering and data teams. Saba's career includes more than 10 years of experience building top performing and innovative products. She has deep experience working with Big Data, ML technologies and building web applications and services. Most recently, Saba was the Head of Data Platform at Mapbox where she built and led multiple teams responsible for producing data products from a user base of more than half a billion monthly active users. Saba's ability to build performant and highly scalable systems, mentor engineers, and foster diverse and healthy engineering teams will help Unbounce deliver valuable products to its customers.Key Quotes*”Who am I sharing my data with? That's really important, because at the end of the day our huge value at Unbounce is on our data set. And every company is trending that way. So who am I giving my value to, and am I getting that value in return?” - Saba El-Hilo*”This is like, ‘Are robots coming for your jobs?' I feel like as a marketer, I could be more of a one man band if I had to be. And for smaller marketing teams where you wear many hats, some of these tools to me are just blowing my mind.” - Pete HousleyTime Stamps[2:29] AI in the news: Congress works to regulate AI[4:49] What are economists predicting the result of AI use on the job market will be?[6:42] Introducing special guest Saba El-Hilo, SVP of Data and Engineering at Unbounce[10:39] How is Unbounce leveraging AI tools? [11:52] How is AI impacting developers?[13:25] How does Saba evaluate new AI tools?[14:47] Introducing today's theme: Try AI. The team tries out new AI tools and gives us their honest review.[16:34] Market Muse[17:36] Any Word[20:32] Synthesia[22:33] Munch[25:08] Wondercraft[27:21] Soundraw[28:59] Uizard[33:32] Descript[37:01] Lightning round of AI tool reviews[38:48] What lessons did the team learn about new AI tools?LinksConnect with…Pete HousleyFaye CampbellBreedon GrauerCheck out the AI tools we explored…Copywriting/Content Marketing: MarketMuse: AI analysis of content against the SERP.Anyword: AI copy generator specifically built for “marketing” use cases.Video Marketing:Synthesia: AI-generated videos with human-like actors.Munch: Cut long-form videos into social shareable snippets.Design:Uizard: Generate multi-screen mockups for websites, apps, and more from a text prompt. Podcasting:Wondercraft: Turn existing content into professional podcasts.Music:Soundraw: Instantly generate royalty-free music.Influencer Marketing:Affable.ai: “An AI companion for influencers.”Social MediaLately: An AI-powered social content generator.ContentStudio: AI-generated text/images for social posting.And more:Otter: AI transcription that includes a AI-powered chatbot (to search and summarize the content).Forms.app: AI form generator.TLDR This: Summarize long pieces of content into just a few sentences.Tome: AI-generated presentation decks.Quick Draw: Demonstration of Google'sd6f ability to detect doodles. Cleanup Pictures / Magic Studio: Remove elements from a photograph in-browser.Let's Enhance: Upscale low-resolution photos with AI. FormulaBot: Generate custom Excel formulas through text prompts.Magical: AI writing assistant via browser extension.Descript: Text editing for audio files.Lumen / Fliki: Create videos summarizing text content (like blog posts).Learn more about UnbounceThis podcast is brought to you by Unbounce. Most AI marketing tools are… kinda the same. That's because they're built on the same, generic machine learning models—and they get you generic results in your marketing.Unbounce is different. It's trained on data from billions of conversions, which means it gives you content and recommendations proven to get you more leads, sales, and signups.If you're a marketer (or just someone doing marketing), you need Unbounce. You can build beautiful, high-converting landing pages for your ads and emails, plus get AI copywriting and conversion optimization tools—all powered by more than a decade of marketing data.Get the most conversions with Unbounce. Learn more at unbounce.com/unprompted.

Does the world need another mapping project and an open source one at that? Meta, Amazon web Services, Tom Tom & Microsoft think so and teamed up to create the Overture Maps Foundation, with Marc Prioleau at the helm.The Overture Maps Foundation is a new organization within the open source Linux Foundation. It aims to improve mapping services by focusing on open map data that meets evolving market needs. By collaborating and sharing data, the foundation seeks to avoid duplication of efforts and allow businesses, governments, and organizations to concentrate on developing unique and value-added mapping applications. The foundation acknowledges the importance of proprietary data but emphasizes the benefits of open data for innovation and efficiency. While not currently seen as a major threat, the foundation's position aligns with the idea that proprietary mapping data should be distinct enough to provide value and not easily replaceable by freely available alternatives.Introduction to Overture Maps Foundation 00:02The Overture Maps Foundation is a new organization started within the Linux Foundation, aimed at open map data. It focuses on meeting the evolving market needs and improving map data quality. The foundation caters to individuals and organizations building map services, whether they are commercial entities, government entities, or NGOs. Marc Prioleau's Background in Mapping 00:19Marc Prioleau, the executive director of the Overture Maps Foundation, has a long history in the mapping world. He has worked in the GPS and mapping space for over 20 years, starting with Trimble Navigation and later working for companies like Telcantar, DeCarta, and Mapbox. His experience lies in developing large volume mapping applications and working with companies to improve their mapping services. The Need for Overture Maps Foundation 02:41The need for the Overture Maps Foundation arose due to the increasing demands of map data. As mapping applications have evolved, the requirements for map data, including attributes, refresh rates, and spatial accuracy, have continuously risen. To keep up with these demands, the foundation focuses on providing open map data to enable companies to build richer and more differentiated mapping services. Changing World and Data 14:08The world is constantly changing, and data plays a crucial role in keeping up with these changes. Different industries and sectors require specific data to meet their unique needs. Companies, businesses, and governments utilize data to make informed decisions and build upon existing data layers. Collaboration and Open Source 14:32Collaboration and open-source initiatives have proven to be valuable in enhancing data quality, efficiency, and resource allocation. Open data, when combined with other data sources, becomes even more powerful. Removing barriers and sharing resources can lead to collective improvement and focus on more innovative aspects. Utilizing Ambient Data for Map Building 23:18AIS is exploring various sources of ambient data to enhance its map building capabilities. These sources include GPS traces, imagery, computer vision, and other signals. AI technology, such as computer vision, can extract valuable map data from imagery. Additionally, signals like movement data and other unique sources can contribute to accurate and up-to-date maps. Indoor location challenges 28:36Indoor location, particularly in multi-story buildings like shopping malls and airports has been challenging. It was difficult to determine the floor level and detect when someone entered a business on a different level. The speaker mentions that visual positioning systems are being explored as a solution, using the world around you for positioning.Subscribe to our 3x per week newsletter at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Shortly before Christmas the Overture Maps Foundation was announced, a collaboration between tech giants Amazon Web Services, Meta, Microsoft, and TomTom to "create reliable, easy-to-use, and interoperable open map data". The geospatial world exploded with speculation about what this might mean for OpenStreetMap and for players like Google and Apple. Is Overture a threat, an opportunity, both, or something else entirely? Our guest today is Marc Prioleau, geospatial industry veteran (having worked at deCarta, Cloudmade, Mapbox, Uber, and as a consultant for many others) and currently Meta's head of business development for Mapping and Location, to discuss exactly what Overture Maps hopes to be, why it was formed, and its intended place in the geospatial ecosystem. This is the first time one of the members of the OMF consortium has spoken publicly about the initiative. Show notes on the Geomob website, where you can also learn more about Geomob events and sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Preamble rant:The recent collapse of FTX, a large crypto exchange, and its associated entities, left many of us disappointed and disgusted with flashbacks to Enron and Lehman Brothers. Nothing is new under the sun. Unfortunately, whenever humans are involved, there is a potential for bad actors to make poor choices that wreak havoc. This has proven true across industries, countries, and time. But regulation and controls can help safeguard the little guy. I expect more regulation, legislation, and guidelines in the months and years to come.Still, I worry that the wrong lessons are being learned. Some folks might see the FTX implosion as vindication that “crypto is bad”. Others might see it as the death knell for crypto and blockchain technology at large. This is a mistake. Technology is neither good nor bad. Humans use technology for good or bad. That's an important distinction. One of my takeaways is to double-down and continue uncovering ways in which crypto and blockchain technologies can solve real-world problems. Let's go!Giant maps and summer road tripsWhen I was a kid, my family would go on road trips every summer. It was a great adventure. From time to time, we would pull over to the side of the road while our parents struggled and fumbled through giant fold-out maps. This was Nigeria in the 1990s. There was no internet. The maps were sometimes outdated. As you can imagine, we got lost a couple times. One day, we narrowly escaped being detained by the military because we inadvertently were driving towards Aso Rock, which was then the presidential palace of Abacha, one of Nigeria's brutal dictators! Yikes!! Today, I can't remember the last time I opened up a giant fold-out map. Thank God for Google Maps! I now use it every day to find the optimal route for my commute. It's been a massive time-saver as I've learned to deal with the joys of New Jersey's clogged up highways. If you are like me, you might not have realized that some companies such as Uber pay Google to embed Maps in their products. Some other companies use Google Maps to optimize the distribution of their products. It's really important for these companies that Google Maps is accurate and frequently updated.As much as I love Google Maps, it's not perfect. Google Map's gapsI am going to highlight two gaps with existing mapping services: (1) Updates and (2) Ownership.1. UpdatesGoogle has done a great job mapping out the world. However, new roads and buildings are constructed every day, new businesses emerge with new signage. Logically, Google Maps prioritizes map updates for high population cities. Thus, Google updates Street View and Satellite pictures of big cities like London at least every year while smaller cities like my ancestral hometown, Ijebu-Ode, might be updated every couple of years. Is there a better solution?2. OwnershipIn 2013, Google acquired Waze for $1B. Waze was a fast-growing Google Maps competitor that utilized an army of volunteers to submit real-time traffic updates and review maps. Over 420,000 people volunteered to edit Waze's maps. Additionally, Waze had ~100 employees at the time of acquisition. But get this: the average Waze employee received $1.2M after the acquisition but the volunteers received nothing. Ouch. Is there a better solution? Introducing HivemapperHivemapper is a decentralized map built by people using dashcams. It solves both of the problems - updates and ownership - outlined above by providing crypto-incentives and technology to anyone interested in participating. Did you know that each photo in Google Maps' Street View was taken by a Google employee in a specialized car with a 3D camera? One can imagine that the cost would be astronomical. Wouldn't it be better if we could crowdsource images from drivers on their daily commute or road trips? Imagine if just 1% of all drivers did this. They would continually map every new highway off ramp, new small business, freshly created pothole, etc. But that's not all. In the future, these drivers could also collect other types of data such as air quality, weather, noise, wireless coverage, and so on. These contributors would be rewarded with HONEY, the native token of Hivemapper. The best part is that it does not require any change in behavior, contributors need only install a dashcam the size of a deck of cards. The Hivemapper Network recently launched on November 3, 2022. There are two dashcam models available priced from $549 (larger design) to $649 (smaller, more compact design shown above). If you order before January 7, 2023, you will be airdropped 500 Honey tokens. Then you will earn more tokens as you drive once the dashcam is activated.Behind HivemapperHivemapper is led by executives at the confluence of tech, logistics and crypto. The team has individuals who built and scaled global maps and geospatial products at Yahoo Maps, Scale AI, and Mapbox. They are mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, logistic experts, artists, and designers working together to create a decentralized mapping network. Hivemapper raised over $18M in its Series A from investors including Spark Capital, Multicoin Capital, Solana Ventures, and Founder Collective. Today, the company has a number of esteemed advisers including the current or former CEOs of Solana, Helium, Masterclass, Zillow, Tinder, and the former head of Apple Maps.ConcernsWhile Hivemapper sounds interesting, it also set-off a number of alarm bells in my head. My concerns are centered around privacy, hacks and the HONEY token.A. PrivacyEvery website you visit and every click that you make on the internet is being monitored. Advertisers take that information to market new products and services to you. Now, imagine if your offline activities were being similarly tracked. Kinda scary, right? But I guess Google Maps is already tracking wherever I go.Hivemapper says it has privacy by design. The dashcams only collect the minimum required information. Furthermore, the company blurs licenses plates and people's faces in the pictures and videos captured. B. HacksEven if Hivemapper does what it says it would do to protect privacy, imagine if a bad actor hacked the dashcams and started collecting unauthorized information. It could be ugly. Hivemapper needs to have in place strong information security protocols to safeguard its contributors and collected data. C. HONEY tokenIf a contributor successfully earned 1,000 HONEY tokens while driving across the country, what can they do with it? Worst case scenario, they might sell it. But what is supporting the underlying value of HONEY? For starters, there is a cap on the total amount of HONEY. Thus, if demand increases over time, the price of the HONEY tokens should rise. I also think Hivemapper could establish partnerships with major brands then enable HONEY holders to trade them in for Uber Eats credit or airline loyalty points. Some others have raised eyebrows about HONEY's tokenomics. About 60% of the total HONEY supply has been pre-allocated to insiders with 20% going to employees, 15% to the company itself and 5% to the affiliated foundation. HONEY's initial allocation of tokens to insiders is unusually high. For context, Ethereum only had 15% allocated to insiders while newer blockchains like Avalanche and Solana had 42% and 48% respectively. But one of the golden rules of tokenomics is to avoid projects with high concentration of token ownership amongst a few owners:Early successesDespite some of these misgivings, Hivemapper has achieved some early wins. During the alpha launch, the Hivemapper Network covered 95% of all roads in Manila, the capital of the Philippines in 6 months. It mapped 110,000 miles of road. Crucially, 75% of the map of Manila was refreshed every month. This is much higher than Google Maps. Additionally, the city of Shreveport, Louisiana has also become a Hivemapper customer. The city paid $7,000 for dashcams to be put in the city's fleet of garbage trucks. Shreveport hopes the frequently updated maps will provide greater visibility into residents' challenges ex potholes etc. Ideal customerI have considered getting a Hivemapper dashcam just to test it out and engage with the network. But I don't think I drive enough to accumulate a significant amount of HONEY tokens. I think the ideal customers might be owners of large fleets of vehicles. For instance, cross-country trucking companies, school buses, taxi companies, and mail delivery services. These large fleets cover a lot of miles on an ongoing basis and could generate a lot of HONEY tokens. Nonetheless, it might still be worthwhile for a regular Joe who moonlights as an Uber driver to try it out. What do you think?I hope you have a wonderful week ahead. Stay grounded and seize the day. All the best,Afolabi This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit afolabio.substack.com

Heute: Finanzierungsrunde von Jua und Net Purpose In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Otto Birnbaum, General Partner von Revent. Otto hat die Runde von Jua und Net Purpose kommentiert: Das Schweizer Startup Jua hat seine KI-gestützte Plattform auf den Markt gebracht, die der meteorologischen Industrie maßgeschneiderte Wettermodelle zur Verfügung stellt und der Branche einen besseren Überblick über die zunehmend unberechenbaren Wettermuster gibt. Jua sammelte 2,5 Millionen Euro ein, um den Start zu beschleunigen. Die Runde wurde von Promus Ventures angeführt, einer VC-Firma, die in Deep-Tech- und Space-Tech-Unternehmen investiert, darunter Spire, Mapbox, ICEYE und Rocket Lab. Net Purpose, eine Plattform für nachhaltige Investoren, hat in einer von ETF Partners geleiteten Serie-A-Runde 11 Millionen US-Dollar aufgebracht, die für den Ausbau des Produkts und des Teams verwendet werden sollen, so das Unternehmen. An der Investition beteiligten sich auch M-Tech Capital und Exceptional Ventures sowie die bestehenden Geldgeber Jim O'Neill, ehemaliger Vorsitzender von Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Kevin Gould, Mitbegründer von IHS Markit, die Louis Family, Illuminate Financial und Revent.

Steve Coast is the Founder of OpenStreetMap, one of the most successful open source projects; started in 2004 and now used everywhere from Apple's Maps, Mapbox and even Pokemon Go recently. Steve has worked at places like Microsoft, TomTom, Telenav & Digital Globe.We talk about the future of mapping and Tech in general as well as how Steve thinks maps will disappear.Buckle up this is a long one, but well worth it.I highly recommend you watch this one on YouTube---Episode Sponsor: OpenCageUse OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API. They have a generous Free trial you can sign up to!---About Steve:LinkedInTwitterShownotesOSM timelapse over England from GeofabrikPeter Thiel: Zero to OneMark Zuckerberg on The Joe Rogan ExperienceNavalCellular AutomatonRule 110 (not 238 as I eluded to)John BoydThe book of OSMStephen WolframNeal Stephenson: The Diamond AgeJames Dyson: Invention: A LifeThe 48 Laws of PowerJonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard BachPodcast Recommendation: EconTalkBook Recommendation: Travels by Michael CrichtonTimestamps03:47 - Conversation begins, Steve Describes Himself 06:30 -Why Does Steve think he's Good at Predicting Trends 12:22 - Steve's Predictions for the Future of Maps 21:36 - Maps will Disappear 26:46 - Incentives for a Location Based Social Media 33:26 - Steve's Detachment to Maps 38:17 - Past Achievements as Mental Frameworks 50:37 - The Start of OpenStreepMap 59:33 - Why Did OpenStreetMap work (and not other projects)? 01:04:44 - Simplicity Over Anything Else 01:17:05 - How does one build Simple Products? 01:20:35 - The influence of Cellular Automaton 01:25:18 - Pushing One's Self to Think Outside the Box 01:32:53 - Steve's Understanding of Maps when he started OSM 01:36:38 - Everything is Illegal, Except Tech 01:52:40 - Steve's Current Interests 01:58:00 - Crypto, Why it's At Least Worth Paying Attention To 02:03:22 - Putting Maps on the Blockchain, and Why You'd Even Want to Do That 02:12:13 - The Next Thing that Will Kill OpenStreetMap 02:21:10 - All the Maps are the Same Today, But Don't Need to Be 02:31:28 - Believing (or Not) in Early Projects02:33:38 - Advice for (not Only) Young People 02:44:53 - Steve on Podcasts 02:49:02 - Steve's Book RecommendationsFeel free to reach out! - Website- My Twitter- Podcast Twitter- Previous Newsletter: Why I want to do more interviews in person- Sponsor the Podcast- Edited by Peter Xiong. Find more of his work

The digital screens in the car are the latest battleground in the battle for the driver's attention. The main competitor? The mobile phone. Each time you choose to connect your smartphone to your car's infotainment system using CarPlay or Android Auto, the mobile phone wins. The car's digital surfaces are reduced to dumb screens that mirror the phone's apps and use the phone's processing power. Your usage data and analytics are no longer accessible to the car maker, putting them at a significant disadvantage.So, can car makers, famously still on the software learning curve, compete with the Apples and Googles of the world - companies that build software for a living - in this software-led automotive world?In this episode of the AI in Automotive Podcast, we are hosting Alex Barth, VP of Automotive and Mobility at Mapbox. Mapbox is a mapping and location cloud platform that offers the building blocks; the SDKs and APIs to power navigation. Their new product, Mapbox Dash, helps car manufacturers create brand-specific in-car digital experiences anchored to navigation, and generate subscription revenue. Alex shares some amazing insights on how automotive manufacturers can use the power of AI to deliver compelling in-vehicle digital experiences. 

HERE Technologies has just been recognised as thehttps://www.here.com/company/press-releases/en/strategy-analytics-ranks-here-no-1-for-location-data-and-services ( top ranked location platform by industry analysts at Strategy Analytics). The annual report benchmarks the world's largest location companies and ranks HERE, Google, Mapbox and TomTom across seven categories. We were lucky to speak with two experts in the location technology industry recently, and our discussion dives into why HERE Technologies outperforms other companies when it comes to data and maps for the emergency services industry.  This episode of Location Matters features guest Jeeten Chauhan, General Manager from https://www.nextmilelt.com.au/ (Next Mile Location Technology) and Nick Preston, ex-https://www.here.com/ (HERE Technologies) Product Portfolio Manager. With podcast host Claire Wilson, they discuss the unique challenges that emergency services face in data ingestion, storage and updates. HERE Data is imperative for emergency services organisations to have the most up to date data feeding into their CAD system and due to their commitment to quality data and regular updates—HERE Data is the best available on the market to fulfil this requirement.  With up to date data, customisability features and real-time traffic visualisation, the HERE Geocoding, Routing and Map Data products are the best available on the market for emergency services organisations. Listen in to this episode to find out why.  Read more:  https://www.nextmilelt.com.au/newsroom/optimise-your-emergency-management-cad-system (Data with benefits: Optimise your emergency management CAD system)

In der Mittagsfolge begrüßen wir heute Matti Niebelschütz, Co-Founder und MD von CoachHub, und sprechen mit ihm über die erfolgreiche Series-C-Finanzierungsrunde in Gesamthöhe von 200 Millionen US-Dollar. CoachHub ist eine Talententwicklungsplattform, auf der Coaching-Programme für die Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter aller Karrierelevel erstellt werden können. Der globale Coach-Pool umfasst mehr als 3.500 zertifizierte Business-Coaches in 90 Ländern, die Coachings in über 60 Sprachen anbieten und mehr als 500 Kundinnen und Kunden betreuen. Die Programme basieren auf der Forschung und Entwicklung des Coaching Labs, das von Prof. Jonathan Passmore geleitet wird und 30 Verhaltenswissenschaftlerinnen und -wissenschaftler beschäftigt. Im September 2021 übernahm Das Coaching Startup den französischen Digital-Coaching-Pionier MoovOne und im Februar 2022 die Coaching-Sparte von Klaiton in Österreich. CoachHub wurde im Jahr 2018 von den Brüdern Matti und Yannis Niebelschütz in Berlin gegründet. In einer Series-C-Finanzierungsrunde hat CoachHub nun 200 Millionen US-Dollar eingesammelt. Dabei haben Sofina und Softbank Vision Fund 2 die Runde angeführt. Sofina ist eine familiengeführte Investmentgesellschaft, die an der Euronext Brüssel notiert ist und ein Vermögen von ca. 11 Milliarden Euro verwaltet. Zum Portfolio von Sofina gehört u.a. Gorillas, Typeform, Ankorstore, Moody, Lemonilo, DeHaat, SellerX, Tessian, Oviva, Petkit, Twin, Reetoo, Dott, Vinted, K12, Forma, Lenskart, Graphcore, Medgenome, ThoughtSpot, Act, PineLabs, Spartoo und Labster. Softbank ist ein japanischer Tech-Konzern, der mit seinem zweiten Vision Fund über 108 Milliarden US-Dollar in Startups investiert. Neben den 38 Milliarden US-Dollar, die Softbank diesem Fonds selbst beisteuert, beteiligten sich auch Unternehmen wie Microsoft oder Apple an dem Kapital. Mit den Vision Fonds wurde u.a. in Unternehmen wie Uber, eToro, Nvidia, ByteDance, Cruise, Fanatics, Flipkart, Rappi, Swiggy, WeWork, Katerra, Mapbox, Opendoor, DoorDash und Slack investiert. Des Weiteren beteiligten sich auch die bestehenden Investoren Molten Ventures, Speedinvest, HV Capital, Signals Venture Capital und Silicon Valley Bank/ SVB Capital. Mit dem frischen Kapital möchte CoachHub sein Produkt weiterentwickeln und den Vertrieb ausbauen, um die globale Expansion zu beschleunigen.

This episode features an interview with Aneal Vallurupalli, CFO at Airbase,  the only truly comprehensive spend management platform available to small and midsize companies.Aneal has spent more than five years in executive-level finance running companies such as Mattermost and Mapbox. He received his Bachelor of Science in Finance from Santa Clara University and is a member of the Forbes Finance Council.On this episode, Aneal addresses the impact that the pandemic had on the finance world, the importance of holistic data in finance, as well as how the current role of the CFO is changing.Quotes*“The really awesome part that I love, and something that I've kind of just embraced... is you know, we've all worked at businesses where we end up needing to build the support functions, FP&A, accounting, capital markets, stock administration, all these things for a company for which we may not be the ideal customer or the product for which the company builds. Well, at Airbase, we are fortunate enough to be a part of a business where we do have input into the product that's being built because we are the number one users. We are the groups that you're selling to at other businesses. And so that has been probably one of my biggest joys of being here.”*“A few things changed right when the pandemic hit. Number one, you saw a big shift in the financial markets. You saw a big shift in terms of folks trying to understand, 'Is this here to stay? How long is this thing here to stay? Do we need to reconsider our operating plans that we had put in place?' Keep in mind, I think COVID hit around the March timeframe, right in 2020. Right around March, the majority of companies are already done with their annual planning and into their Q1. So, having to replan and retune their model and ultimately their plan for the year, many companies did that. And I don't claim to be an expert as a CFO, but I do claim to have really good people around me that I've seen a lot, that I can call upon, and that was one consistent thing that was occurring across my network was folks were double-clicking on the models that they had built on the assumptions that they had made for growth, for burn, and ensuring that the company could downside protect itself.”*“Do I have conviction that being data-driven is a good investment for a company? I do have conviction about that. I think that there's a lot of merit to it. Because I think what it instills is the idea that from an early stage of a company you start paying attention to the metrics that drive success for your company. And in the long run, that means that you're able to build a higher predictability around your business. The managers around the company are paying attention to that data consistently and making decisions off of it. So that last part there is the most important piece.”*“I think that the first thing finance needs to accept is the idea that they can be that agent of change, that catalyst for change at a business... And so I think one of the biggest things that finance leaders need to have conviction about is that they can help the company get to a better place when it comes to being data-driven. And it's not just a finance issue. Everyone else around the company is feeling it, but finance is in a unique position to actually steward that change and be a catalyst for it. And I think that once you accept that, then we become truly a strategic partner to the rest of the business in ways that a sales leader or a marketing leader, our go to market leader, a product leader will embrace finance versus just being the budget stewards.”Time Stamps*[01:32] Why Aneal got into finance*[03:19] How the role of the CFO is changing*[05:04] Operations at Airbase*[08:34] Segment: Cash Crossroads*[11:20] Adjusting business for the pandemic*[14:58] Segment: The Playbook*[17:25] The importance of holistic data in finance*[20:04] Segment: Report From the Future*[22:18] CFOs are agents of change for the future*[26:19] Segment: Quick HitsSponsorThe Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.comLinksConnect with Aneal on LinkedInFollow Aneal on TwitterFollow Daniel on Twitter

Roy Ng moved to LA from Hong Kong when he was 10 years old, first with his Mother, with his Father following on a year later. His family moved to the stats to build a future for him, with education and opportunity. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley, doing into finance with Goldman Sachs. He eventually made his way back to Hong Kong, to help Goldman with cool deals (like taking Baidu public). Post Goldman, he stepped into the startup world. His first startup sold to SAP, and he then went on to help Twilio grow and go public, followed by maturing the developer platform at MapBox.Roy connected with his a college friend, and now co-founder, to discuss his experience at SoFi. What they realized was that developers are having to build the "plumbing" of financial products over and over again, because there isn't a developer platform to enable them to focus on their end products. After some market validation at the Money 2020 conference, they set out to build this foundational platform.This is the creation story of Bond.SponsorsImmediateOrbitPostmarkStytchVerb DataWebapp.ioLinksWebsite: https://bond.tech/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/royandrewng/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

En este episodio nos acompañan Antonio Zugaldía y Pablo Guardiola, dos compañeros en Mapbox, y con los que charlamos sobre cómo es trabajar en un SDK, los challenges para sincronizarse con otros equipos, las diferencias entre desarrollar SDK y producto y mucho más.A los mandos está Nicolás Patarino y si querés conocer de primera mano qué es ser un creador de contenido en Android metele play y escuchá todo lo que tienen para contar. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/chimichurri/message

Securing the environment and scaling operations of the world's leading streaming entertainment service is massive. Srinath Kuruvadi is the head of cloud infrastructure security at Netflix. Before Netflix, he spent more than 15 years building security solutions and leading teams at Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Lyft, and Mapbox. In today's episode, he shares how his leadership skills have evolved over time, where he puts his focus when approaching infrastructure security, and what he believes are the key ingredients any security team should have today. Topics discussed in this episode: How Srinath got his start in security and landed as head of infrastructure cloud security at Netflix  Lessons in leading a team that's 10+ years old ConsoleMe and why they built it  Srinath's unique approach to infrastructure security  Why ‘people challenges' carry more weight than ‘technical challenges' when it comes to infrastructure security  Why security teams should seek out the open source tools big tech companies use His take on trends and tools in the cloud security space  3 pieces of advice to succeed in detection at scale 

Map features in Snapchat and other popular mobile apps, including The Weather Channel and Citi Bike, referred to New York City as “Jewtropolis” on Thursday in what appears to have been an anti-Semitic act of digital vandalism. Each of the affected apps uses mapping company Mapbox for their mapping features. Mapbox in turn relies partially on user-generated information, apparently opening the door to such attacks. “Snap Map relies on third party mapping data which has unfortunately been subject to vandalism,” Snapchat said in a tweet Thursday. “We are working with our partner Mapbox to get this fixed immediately.” Mapbox also provides mapping data and services to companies like Uber, Foursquare, and Instacart. W.H.O. Middle Eastern Division does not list Israel among other Middle Eastern nations such as Egypt, Syria, and Jordan but does list the country of, Occupied Palestinian Terrority. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/yaar-ben-emmett/support

In our latest podcast episode, we spoke with T Antonio, Senior API Sales Manager at Mapbox. Previously, T's had experience as an API partnerships director and as an Enterprise Accounts & Partnerships Manager at Postman. In a change of pace for this podcast, we discussed advice on where early API companies should start when building brand recognition and developer affinity. We talk about the importance of API partnerships and operating on a "freemium" model when it comes to getting started in APIs.Do you have a question you'd like answered, or a topic you want to see in a future episode? Let us know here:https://stoplight.io/question/

Welcome back to another episode of Minds behind Maps!In this episode I sit down with Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño, the Program Director of the Planetary Computer at Microsoft as well as the author of "Impact Science: The science of getting to radical social and environmental breakthroughs". About Bruno:Twitter: https://twitter.com/brunosanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nasonurb/Website: https://brunosan.eu/Bruno's book "Impact Science, The science of getting to radical social and environmental breakthroughs": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46137268-impact-science?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=jvKJBnRM5k&rank=1"Impact Science" on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SN1L4L2/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1 Timestamps:4:20 : Conversation starts, Bruno presents himself10:30 : How Bruno entered Academia14:20 : Science / Engineering duality18:05 : Skills over Knowledge21:15 : How education could be more skill centered29:05 : How Bruno entered geospatial31:51 : At the edge of human knowledge of the Sun36:07 : Leaving NASA to focus on more applied projects40:04 : Trying to work for an NGO: “Bruno we don't need a rocket scientist”47:53 : Cheap Data Science51:20 : Limitations & Playfulness for clever ideas55:18 : Writing “Impact Science”1:05:01 : From outputs to outcomes: a missing layer in Data Science1:11:08 : Data Informed instead of Data Driven1:17:44: Bruno's work at Microsoft as Program Director of the Planetary Computer1:33:18: Partnerships within the Planetary Computer project1:38:25 : Books & media recommendations Show notes:OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.orgFast.ai : Applicable Machine Learning framework & lessonsKaggle.com: Data Science competition platformOrigin of the term data science (under 'Etymology'): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_scienceBruno's Medium blog post “In Defense of Cheap Data Science”: https://towardsdatascience.com/in-defense-of-cheap-data-science-f630f248d400Chai time data science interview of Jeremy Howard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=205j37G1cxwIndia's night light mapping project: http://india.nightlights.io/Microsoft's Planetary Computer: https://planetarycomputer.microsoft.com/Book recommendations:A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill BrysonThe Martian by Andy WeirHumankind by Rutger BregmanFactfulness by Hans RoslingBruno's Goodread: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19228134.Bruno_S_nchez_Andrade_Nu_oI'm sorry I couldn't find the story related to Youtube's video loading times! Please feel free to reach out!My Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaxLenormandReach out by email: minds.behind.maps@gmail.comFor news about the podcast: https://twitter.com/MindsBehindMaps

Edith Yeung, general partner at Race Capital, joins us for a discussion on portfolio construction, capital concentration, and exit strategies. She has invested in over 50 startups including Lightyear/Stellar (valued $1.2B), Silk Labs (acquired by Apple), Chirp (acquired by Apple), Fleksy (acquired by Pinterest), Human (acquired by Mapbox), Solana, Oasis Labs, Nebulas, Hooked, DayDayCook, AISense, and many more. Enjoy!

John Bonney oversees the Harness company's finance, IT, legal, and accounting functions. Prior to Harness, he oversaw rapid growth as the CFO at Mapbox as well as FinancialForce, the latter quadrupling revenues to over $100M during his tenure. Prior to that, he was the Division CFO of the Cloud Business Unit at SAP, where he oversaw over $1B of Cloud revenues across multiple business units, products, and geographies. Bonney joined SAP from Ariba as a senior finance executive, and helped drive rapid expansion and, ultimately, the sale of Ariba to SAP for $4.3 billion.

02:45 - Rudo's Superpower: Being Pretty Good At Lots of Things! * Learning How to Learn on the Fly * Digital Democracy (https://www.digital-democracy.org/) * Earth Defenders Toolkit (https://www.earthdefenderstoolkit.com/) * Ruby For Good (https://rubyforgood.org/) * Problem-Solving & Mastery: “Fake it until you make it!” 13:14 - Digital Democracy (https://www.digital-democracy.org/) & Terrastories (https://terrastories.io/) * The Amazon Conservation Team (https://www.amazonteam.org/) (ACT) * Matawai People (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matawai_people) * Capturing & Recording Oral History * Ruby For Good (https://rubyforgood.org/) * Mapbox (https://www.mapbox.com/) * Indiginous-Requested, Indiginous-Led * Taking Action When Invited * Listen Before Action * Co Creation * Mapeo (https://www.digital-democracy.org/mapeo/) 27:39 - Defining an “Earth Defender” * Earth Defenders Toolkit (https://www.earthdefenderstoolkit.com/) 30:40 - Community Collaboration/Development Best Practices Without Overstepping Boundaries * Tech Literacy 35:52 - Getting Involved/Supporting This Work * Digital Democracy (https://www.digital-democracy.org/) & Earth Defenders Toolkit (https://www.earthdefenderstoolkit.com/) * Stakeholders & Ownership 45:03 - Experiences Working w/ These Projects * Anyone Can Contribute * Meeting Fellow Dreamers 47:33 - Oral Traditions & Storytelling: Preserving History Reflections: Jacob: Getting involved and connecting virtually. Mandy: Register for Ruby For Good! (https://ti.to/codeforgood/rubyforgood) Happening in-person this year from September 23-26 at the Shepherd's Spring Retreat (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=39.5070593%2C-77.7891734+%28Shepherd%27s+Spring%2C+16869+Taylors+Landing+Rd%2C+Sharpsburg%2C+MD+21782%29), in Sharpsburg, Maryland! Mae: Being able to adapt and learn as a superskill. Be proud of the things you can do. Rudo: It's inspiring to build community around software and the needs that it serves. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: Coming soon! Special Guest: Rudo Kemper.

One of our regular episodes in which we catch up our projects, and discuss the geonews. Ed is a week away from some much-needed holiday, but first racing to close out a project for a new large enterprise client at OpenCage. Meanwhile Steven is back from a week in the country and enjoying having Arnaud helping him on Mappery. We dive into the recent geonews, starting with Lego word maps. The common theme in this month's geonews is that the neogeo scene is growing up: OSM makes it on the Guardian homepage, Mapbox employees form a union, India cracks down on Twitter India showing "incorrect" maps. Finally we discuss the recent article from Joe Morrisson. Have a great summer, everyone. Show notes on the Geomob website, where you can also learn more about Geomob events and sign up for our monthly newsletter.

タイムライン 00:55 Algolia, Mapbox, TwilioでストアロケーターReactアプリを構築 14:20 Algoliaの新しいUI Kit - eコマース Search and Discovery体験 関連リンク (Algoliaブログ) Building a Store Locator in React using Algolia, Mapbox, and Twilio – Part 1 (Algoliaドキュメント) what is Autocomplete? (Github Repo) algolia-samples / store-locator-with-algolia-mapbox-twilio (Algoliaブログ) Using UI kits for creating great ecommerce Search and Discovery experiences (Algoliaドキュメント) UI Design Kits (Figmaコミュニティ) eCommerce Search & Discovery UI Kit Youtube - Building a Store Locator in React using Algolia, Mapbox, and Twilio パート1 パート2 パート3

In this episode we speak with Zack Rosen, the CEO and co-founder of Pantheon. We chat about how Zach's curiosity and early experiences at the intersection of society and technology eventually led to building the leading WebOps (Website Operations) platform - one that empowers marketing and development teams to take control of their websites, while giving them the agility to win in the dynamic world of digital marketing. Pantheon powers over 300,000 sites and is trusted by thousands of marketing and development teams around the world. The company is backed by $100M of venture investment from Sageview Capital (Avalara, Demandbase), Scale Venture Partners (ExactTarget, Box, DocuSign, Bill.com), Foundry Group (SendGrid, Mapbox), as well as Baseline Ventures, First Round Capital, and Floodgate. We hope you enjoy the show

タイムライン 01:10 パネルディスカッション『Shopping at the edge: Solving for infinite customer experience journeys』 14:35 Livecodingセッション『Building a store locator in React using Algolia, Mapbox and Twilio』 23:10 Algoliaの新しいPodcast『Developer Experience』 関連リンク (Algolia Resources) Shopping at the edge: Solving for infinite customer experience journeys. (Amplienceのホームページ) Amplience (AlgoliaのTwitch) algoliatv (Clement SauvageさんのTwitter) @clementsauvage (Algoliaの新しいPodcast) Developer Experience 関連Youtube

Síguenos en: Follow up del episodio de Perspectiva WP de ACF Con la celebración de los 10 años de ACF Elliot anunció la adquisición del plugin por parte de Delicius Brains, creadores de creadores de WP Migrate DB Pro o WP Offload Media . Elliot comenta que se había hecho más grande que él y que quería pasar más tiempo con la familia (hija de 2 años). Buscaba compañía de la esfera WordPress que también fuera developer focus y a ser posible conocidos. Los 2 puntos fuertes de ACF: UI/UX y material educativo para desarrolladores lo son también de Delicius Brains. Brad Touesnard, el fundador, ha asegurado/aclarado que no tienen intención de cambiar el pricing a corto plazo y que van a respetar las licencias lifetime. Del equipo de +14 personas ya tiene 5 asignadas al proyecto de ACF y van a fichar a product manager y a un desarrollador. Perspectiva WP: FacetWP FacetWP es un plugin que proporciona un sistema de filtrado de contenidos de WordPress creado por Matt Gibbs. Le dedicamos un episodio de Freelandev a él. Matt es ingeniero informático, trabajó durante casi 9 años como programador en Forum One donde empezó a trabajar en proyectos con WordPress (13 años de experiencia). En 2008 creo el plugin Pods (que luego paso a dirigir Scott Kingsley Clark) y en 2010 Custom Field Suite (+40.000 instalaciones activas) Se «enganchó» al sistema de hooks de WordPress. 2013 Lanzamiento de FacetWP a finales de 2013 como un hobby. Cambios de pricing y enfoque de negocio El precio inicial era de 29$ para sitios ilimitados. El problema es que tenía demasiado soporte. A los 6 meses subió a 39$ y poco después lo volvió a subir a 59$. La idea de subir el precio era principalmente para no ser accesible para usuarios demasiado noveles. Ahora ya deja más claro que es un producto para consultores y freelance WordPress. Gestión de soporte Empezó con un foro público (2013-2015) pero empezó a ser complicado de gestionar. Pasó a utilizar HelpScout para soporte, con el cual está muy contento. Comenzó a crear tutoriales para responder a las preguntas más frecuentes. En la actualidad dedican aproximadamente más del 70% del tiempo a dar soporte. Ahora también les sirve para planificar mejoras o nuevas funcionalidades. Para acceder al soporte accedes desde los ajustes del plugin en la instalación de WordPress. Solo se puede enviar una consulta en su horario de trabajo, sino te da la opción de buscar en su documentación (utilizan Algolia como buscador) 2015 Decisiones de negocio Pasó a dedicarse a tiempo completo a FacetWP. La mejor decisión que ha tomado ha sido fichar a Jenny Ragan (2017?) y la segunda mejor activar la autorenovación de licencias. Esta última le costó muchos años aplicarla pero le ha permitido tener mucha más estabilidad en los ingresos. Detalles del plugin y su futuro De los + 15 addons que tiene el de SearchWP es el más popular. Se planteó crear un addon como alternativa a Google Maps usando Mapbox pero los servicios de geolocalización no son suficientemente potentes. A nivel de actualizaciones del plugin destaca la versión 3.8 donde eliminaron todo el código relacionado con jQuery. Reescribieron todo lo que relacionado con JavaScript. Y la siguiente versión mayor incluirá una mejor integración con el editor de WordPress. Sobretodo la parte de diseño de la parte frontal y la utilización del Query Block. Según Matt el plugin a tenido un crecimiento lento pero mantenido en el tiempo Precio actual. 79€ → 99€ por 3 sitio 199$ → 229$ por 20 sitios Gracias a: Este episodio está patrocinado por StudioPress, los creadores de Genesis Framework, el entorno de trabajo de temas más popular de WordPress. Ya está disponible Genesis Pro para todo el mundo, 360$ anuales que dan acceso a: Genesis FrameworkChild themes de Genesis de StudioPress1 año de hosting en WP EnginePlugin Genesis Pro (Diseños y secciones, restricción de bloques por usuarios…) y Genesis Custom Blocks Pro.

On DevDC Episode 7 we have Johnny Ray Austin the CTO of Till. Till is a DC based startup that is helping all of our communities by transforming the rental experience. Till had to scale tremendously during COVID and is hiring! Johnny launched his Software Engineer career at Lockheed Martin. He speaks to how he retooled himself to break into the startup space.  We also talk about his passion for helping others better position themselves for the future and how technology can get them there.How many people are cool enough to openly talk about bombing an interview as well as theoretical physics? I would consider working for him! Johnny has served as an Individual Contributor all the way up to CTO. He has worked at the likes of Lockheed Martin, Capital One and Mapbox. He is a Board Member of multiple organizations, including Byte Back which provides a pathway to inclusive tech training which leads to living-wage careers.

This Week in Apps: ATT (App Tracking Transparency) is here and already in use by 10K apps and games Apple takes down another (scam?) app Audible's best month of revenue ever! Who's using Mapbox, and SDK that's about to IPO Vrbo is giving Airbnb a run of its money Links: Read online: https://appfigures.com/resources/this-week-in-apps/20210430 Get App Intelligence: https://appfigures.com/app-intelligence My ATT survey: https://twitter.com/appfigures/status/1387750958244016131 ATT Prompts: https://attprompts.com Sylvain's twitter: https://twitter.com/sylvainww

In the final episode of the B.Next Outbreak Analytics & Forecasting series, Drs. Dylan George and Caitlin Rivers are joined by Mikel Maron, Community Team Lead at Mapbox, a company offering location data platform for mobile and web applications. The rise in ubiquity of mobile devices has enabled the power of location-based tools. This episode explores how these tools can help us better understand and combat COVID-19. References: mapbox.com Humanitarian OpenStreetMap

Building Social Proof, Moving to a new city, Getting the President of UVM as a mentor with Sean Breen. Sean graduated from UVM just 2 or so years ago, but he has a lot to share on today's episode. We talk about how a double major in economics and environmental chemistry got into a sales career. We talk about what social proof is and why it matters. We deconstruct LinkedIn networking, and talk about handling high-stakes conversations. We talk about what it's like to move to a new city and how Sean handled being laid off 2 1/2 months into his first job after school! Sean shares the story of how the UVM president at the time became his mentor. This episode is a great one, I hope you enjoy!

Wherever the future of driving leads us, Porsche is sure of one thing: We're going to need some excellent maps. And not just for navigation, either. That's why Porsche is announcing today a collaboration with open source mapping platform Mapbox. Designers from the two companies are working together to explore new ways of using in-car maps, making them more than tools for getting from one place to another as efficiently as possible.

Добрый день уважаемые слушатели. Представляем новый выпуск подкаста RWpod. В этом выпуске: Ruby Ruby 2.5 allows creating structs with keyword arguments и The Ruby 2.5.0 feature nobody talks about, Intro to Arel: The Database Agnostic SQL Abstract Syntax Tree for Ruby и Things I wish ActiveRecord had after using Ecto Materialized views in Ruby on Rails with scenic, Mapbox for Rails и Sinator Version 3.0.0 JavaScript jQuery 3.3.0 released, Bootstrap 4 released и How to write and build JS libraries in 2018 Keep webpack Fast: A Field Guide for Better Build Performance, Debugging Electron Memory Usage и Learn css grid After.js - next.js-like framework for server-rendered React apps built with React Router 4, Wobble - spring physics micro-library that models a damped harmonic oscillator, Using a a virtual DOM with Backbone views и JS Paint - a nice web-based MS Paint remake Скринкаст CSSNext и CSS custom properties (variables)

Location is an increasingly relevant aspect of software systems as we have more internet connected devices with GPS capabilities. GIS (Geographic Information Systems) are used for processing and analyzing this data, and fortunately Python has a suite of libraries to facilitate these endeavors. This week Sean Gillies, an author and contributor of many of these tools, shares the story of his career and contributions, and the work that he is doing at MapBox.