As the story goes Marissa Mayer was "demoted" to take charge of Maps/Places group that till that point no one much cared. To keep her into "leash", she got the

As the story goes Marissa Mayer was "demoted" to take charge of Maps/Places group that till that point no one much cared. To keep her into "leash", she got the budgets she wanted and she truly threw herself at Maps. She went out and bought enormous amount of expensive data and eventually setup the team with more than thousand people. Until that time still no one much cared. It wasn't unlike iPhone came out and everyone woke up to maps and Mayer's efforts paid off. After Mayer left, Google Maps has stagnated. There is not much of next horizon chase, big bets any more. Budget growth had been slowing down as well. However, I'm doubtful Apple will ever leap from Google Maps. You don't see hundreds of cars mapping the alleys all over the world. OSM gets better but last 1-3% is unattainable for them. More importantly, Apple significantly lacks in AI/ML skill sets. Siri is still shit show precisely for same reason.