Waze started as blank screens drivers had to fill in themselves.
In 2006 Ehud Shabtai, an Israeli programmer, launched FreeMap Israel to crowdsource a free Hebrew map of the country. Drivers installed an app, drove across empty grids, and watched roads draw themselves. Shabtai wrote that the maps belonged to the community, not him. In 2013 Google bought Waze, and its roughly 100 employees came away with about $1.2 million each.
Waze on Brandseum