When it comes to starting a new business, you have to be very careful with how you name your brand, as it will set the tone for all your future initiatives. For instance, if the Google Maps team hadn’t ignored their boss’s suggestion for what we know now as the “Satellite View”, then we would have been calling it “Bird Mode” for the rest of our lives.
Last Saturday, co-creator of Google Maps and current Salesforce President Bret Taylor shared a “silly Google Maps origin story” on Twitter.
Okay, story time.
Here’s a silly Google Maps origin story about how “Satellite” was almost named “Bird Mode” pic.twitter.com/wj7CRJUEyx
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) February 23, 2019
Out of boredom, Taylor went into detail about the crazy back story of how Google Map’s satellite view was almost called “Bird Mode.”
Back in 2005, Google’s executive team would always have a weekly product review. After they had successfully launched Google Maps in February, they now had to add satellite imagery to the web’s mapping service. Taylor recalled that in one of these “meaningful” meetings, the team also had to decide on what to call this feature.
Of course, they wanted it to be as straightforward as “Satellite View”, but the images—when switched between maps and imagery — were actually taken through aerial photography.
There was a geeky holy war on the Maps team. When Lars checked in the code to switch between maps and imagery, he called it “Satellite.” We were quickly informed that a significant % of the images were taken from airplanes — “Aerial Photography.” Our name was factually incorrect.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) February 23, 2019
Since the Google Maps team couldn’t come up with an official name, they had no choice but to face Google’s big bosses with an unnamed feature. Because of that, the meeting that was supposed to be about running all sorts of crazy experiments turned into a name-that-feature session.
I could not resolve the disagreement before our launch review, so we come into the meeting room with an unnamed feature. As you might expect, the meeting devolved from a “launch review” to every Google exec and their mother naming the feature on our behalf. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/siiA4u0ElZ
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) February 23, 2019
Apparently, these ‘executive reviews’ were Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s favorite place. And according to Taylor, the bosses would always decide on things using a huge countdown clock.
Now, these exec reviews were Larry and Sergey’s favorite place to experiment with crazy meeting ideas (kind of fun, actually). I had attended one review where one founder spent the entire meeting on an elliptical machine. Their new experiment was a huge countdown clock. pic.twitter.com/OvZWSZZoOX
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) February 23, 2019
The rule was very easy: when the clock ticked zero, the buzzer would ring and the meeting was over and the decisions were final.
The rule was: the review had to end on time. When the clock ticked zero, the buzzer would buzz, and like an NBA game, the meeting was over and decisions final.
So here we are, throwing out names like “Airplane View,” “Superman,” “I Feel Picture-y,” and this clock is ticking down
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) February 23, 2019
From “Airplane View,” and “Superman” to “I Feel Picture-y”, everyone was just throwing out names while the clock was ticking down. Just when Brin proposed “Bird Mode,” the buzzer buzzed—and that was it. Whether they agreed with it or not, the feature had officially been named.
Clearly, the meeting was over and no more questions asked.
I think it was Sergey who spoke last. “Let’s call it Bird Mode.” Bzzzzzzzz.
I start to speak and am cut off — meeting over.
I look around, and it’s clearly evident the feature has officially been named “Bird Mode” in the most insane way possible.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) February 23, 2019
However, Taylor and his team thought that the name was either silly or horrible. Instead of being a yes man, Taylor ignored his bosses’ strange ideas and just named it “Satellite” instead—hoping that they wouldn’t even notice what he did.
It turns out, when you write the code, you have a fair amount of power. 😏
We pocket vetoed the decision and launched with “Satellite.” And literally no exec noticed or remembered our review.
And we have been deceiving people with our not-really-satellite imagery ever since.
— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) February 23, 2019
Sometimes, not following your boss’s terrible ideas can save you from a lot of troubles.
