Google Shares the Story Behind Chromecast on its 5th Anniversary

Jul. 25, 2018

According to Bakar, it was his wife, Carla, who was the inspiration behind Chromecast. Recounting events from 2008, Bakar said that Carla’s struggles with getting a streaming service to play nice with the TV inspired him to“build an interface where everything happens on the phone, and only the video plays on the large screen”.“And let’s make the hardware device that enables this experience as small and as hidden as possible”, he said.

On the occasion of Chromecast’s fifth birthday, Bakar made it a point to thank all his team members for the massive success of the device, and said that he’s‘very proud’of the team.“I feel lucky to be able to work on something like this—it’s very humbling to pitch something and see it from the beginning”.

Having started with a small team of just three members, the hardware division at Google now has“hundreds of people”working on Chromecast and other smart home products.“That is a huge effort. We, as a team, made an impact in this space”, said Bakar.

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