John Hanke

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John Hanke
John Hanke by Gage Skidmore.jpg
Hanke at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con
Born1967 (age 5657)
Cross Plains, Texas
Alma mater University of California, Berkeley
University of Texas at Austin
Occupation(s)Businessman and entrepreneur
Known for Keyhole, Inc., Google Earth, Niantic, Inc., Pokémon Go

John Hanke (born 1967) is an American technology executive. Hanke led Google's Geo product division, which includes Google Earth, Google Maps, StreetView, SketchUp, and Panoramio. He is founder and CEO of Niantic, Inc., a software company spun out of Google and the creator of Pokémon Go .

Contents

Early life and startups

Born in 1967, Hanke was raised in the small central Texas town of Cross Plains and graduated from Cross Plains High School in 1985. [1] [2] He attended the University of Texas, Austin and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1989. [3]

In his first post-college role, he spent four years with the United States Foreign Service in Washington, DC, and overseas in Myanmar working on foreign policy issues. [4] [5]

He moved across the country to attend the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. [6] He joined Steve Sellers and his video game design startup Archetype Interactive, which was developing Meridian 59, one of the first commercial massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). [4] They sold the firm to The 3DO Company on the day he graduated from Berkeley with an MBA. [4] [6] Hanke and Sellers created another entertainment startup, The Big Network, which was acquired in 2000 by eUniverse for $17.1 million. [7]

Keyhole

Hanke became the co-founder and CEO of geospatial data visualization firm Keyhole in 2001. [8] Early funding was provided by the corporate venture group within Sony, the CIA's venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, and the technology company NVIDIA. [4] The startup was able to garner significant attention from its mapping technology use early in the Iraq War. [4] Keyhole's mapping technology was also noted by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and Google acquired Keyhole in 2004 in a deal worth $35 million in stock. [6]

Google

Hanke joined Google as a part of Keyhole's acquisition, and he became the vice president of product management for Google's Geo division. [3] During this period, he oversaw the transformation of Keyhole's technology into Google Earth and Google Maps in 2005. He also negotiated an agreement with Apple to include Google Maps on the iPhone. [9] Other products followed, including StreetView, SketchUp, and Panoramio. His team would later found Niantic. [10]

Niantic

In 2010, Hanke was given resources to staff an augmented reality gaming unit within Google and the new internal startup was dubbed Niantic Labs. [6] [10] Returning to his gaming roots, the company crafted an augmented reality location-based multiplayer game called Ingress . The game had a million players within a year of its 2013 release, and seven million by 2015. [1]

Hanke led Niantic's split from Google in late 2015 and raised $30 million from Google, Nintendo and Pokémon. [8] He stayed as the company's CEO and guided the firm through the release of Pokémon Go in July 2016, which generated over $4.2 billion in revenue. [10]

Related Research Articles

In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability. The name "In-Q-Tel" is an intentional reference to Q, the fictional inventor who supplies technology to James Bond.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Earth</span> 3D Internet global map program

Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and GIS data onto a 3D globe, allowing users to see cities and landscapes from various angles. Users can explore the globe by entering addresses and coordinates, or by using a keyboard or mouse. The program can also be downloaded on a smartphone or tablet, using a touch screen or stylus to navigate. Users may use the program to add their own data using Keyhole Markup Language and upload them through various sources, such as forums or blogs. Google Earth is able to show various kinds of images overlaid on the surface of the Earth and is also a Web Map Service client. In 2019, Google revealed that Google Earth now covers more than 97 percent of the world, and has captured 10 million miles of Street View imagery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Panoramio</span> 2005–2016 geotagging photo sharing service owned by Google

Panoramio was a geo-located tagging, photo sharing mashup active between 2005 and 2016. Photos uploaded to the site were accessible as a layer in Google Earth and Google Maps. The site's goal was to allow Google Earth users to learn more about a given area by viewing the photos that other users had taken at that location. Panoramio was acquired by Google in 2007. In 2009 the website was among the 1000 most popular websites worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian McClendon</span> American businessman

Brian A McClendon is an American software executive, engineer, and inventor. He was a co-founder and angel investor in Keyhole, Inc., a geospatial data visualization company that was purchased by Google in 2004 to produce Google Earth. Keyhole itself was spun off from another company called Intrinsic Graphics, of which McClendon was also a co-founder. McClendon was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2015 for strategic, technical, and managerial leadership resulting in widespread accurate and useful geographic information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unity Technologies</span> American software developer

Unity Software Inc. is an American video game software development company based in San Francisco. It was founded in Denmark in 2004 as Over the Edge Entertainment and changed its name in 2007. Unity Technologies is best known for the development of Unity, a licensed game engine used to create video games and other applications.

<i>Ingress</i> (video game) Location-based augmented reality mobile game

Ingress is an augmented reality (AR) mobile game developed and published by Niantic for Android and iOS devices. The game was first released on December 14, 2013, for Android devices and then for iOS devices on July 14, 2014. The game is free-to-play, uses a freemium business model, and supports in-app purchases for additional in-game items. The mobile app has been downloaded more than 20 million times worldwide as of November 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Location-based game</span> Game which reacts to the players location

A location-based game is a type of game in which the gameplay evolves and progresses via a player's real world location. Location-based games must provide some mechanism to allow the player to report their location, usually with GPS. Many location-based video games are video games that run on a mobile phone, using its GPS capability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niantic, Inc.</span> Mobile app and video game development company

Niantic, Inc. is an American software development company based in San Francisco. Niantic is best known for developing the augmented reality mobile games Ingress and Pokémon Go. The company was formed as Niantic Labs in 2010 as an internal startup within Google. The company became an independent entity in October 2015 when Google restructured under Alphabet Inc. Niantic has additional offices in Bellevue, Los Angeles, Sunnyvale, Seattle, Lawrence, Tokyo, London, Hamburg, and Zurich.

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Spark Capital is a venture capital firm in the United States which specializes in funding early-stage startups of consumer, commerce, FinTech, software, frontier, and media sectors. It has branches in San Francisco, Boston, and New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magic Leap</span> American augmented reality hardware manufacturer

Magic Leap, Inc. is an American technology company that released a head-mounted augmented reality display, called Magic Leap One, which superimposes 3D computer-generated imagery over real world objects. It is attempting to construct a light-field chip using silicon photonics.

<i>Pokémon Go</i> 2016 mobile game

Pokémon Go is a 2016 augmented reality (AR) mobile game, part of the Pokémon franchise, developed and published by Niantic in collaboration with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for iOS and Android devices. It uses mobile devices with GPS to locate, capture, train, and battle virtual Pokémon, which appear as if they are in the player's real-world location. The game is free-to-play; it uses a freemium business model combined with local advertising and supports in-app purchases for additional in-game items. The game launched with around 150 species of Pokémon, which had increased to around 800 by 2024.

GoMeta is an American software company headquartered in San Diego. The company was founded by Dmitry Shapiro, Sean Thielen, and Jonathan Miller in September 2016.

<i>Harry Potter: Wizards Unite</i> Defunct location-based augmented reality mobile game

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was an augmented reality (AR) mobile game developed by Niantic and WB Games San Francisco, and published by Niantic, under license from Portkey Games. The game is based on the Harry Potter series and part of the Wizarding World media franchise, created by J. K. Rowling. Wizards Unite begins as the player creates their avatar and starts their journey at the player's real world location. The player character engages with the world by casting spells, discovering artefacts and facing known characters and beasts of the Wizarding World universe.

Field Trip was a location-based mobile app developed by Niantic Labs for the Google Glass, Android, and iOS devices. The application was first released in September 2012 and utilized user location and various databases to provide information and recommendations about various points of interest in their surroundings.

Since its release in 2016, multiple real-life events and gatherings based on the augmented reality (AR) mobile game Pokémon Go have been held by its developer Niantic Labs outside of unofficial player gatherings. Typically, the events involve increased in-game rewards for participating players and are often held in cooperation with local organizations or governments.

Tsunekazu Ishihara is a Japanese video game designer, director, producer and businessman who is the president of The Pokémon Company. Prior to working with the Pokémon series, Ishihara was part of Ape Inc. and worked on titles such as EarthBound, and then years later he founded Creatures Inc.

Tatsuo Nomura is a Japanese software developer. Born in China with partial Japanese descent, he moved to Japan as a child and studied computer science. He worked in the Google Maps development team before moving to Niantic Labs, where he directed the video game Pokémon Go.

<i>Pikmin Bloom</i> 2021 mobile game

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<i>Monster Hunter Now</i> 2023 mobile game

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References

  1. 1 2 Ward, Marguerite (27 July 2016). "How the mastermind behind 'Pokemon Go' got his start". CNBC. Archived from the original on 3 October 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
  2. Chipp, Timothy (7 July 2016). "'Pokemon Go' company led by Cross Plains' Hanke". Abilene Reporter-News. Archived from the original on 17 September 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
  3. 1 2 Bailey, Brandon (4 November 2012). "Mercury News interview: John Hanke, vice president and head of Google's Niantic Labs". The Mercury News. Archived from the original on 19 July 2014. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Jerome S. Engel (26 September 2014). Global Clusters of Innovation: Entrepreneurial Engines of Economic Growth around the World. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 56–58. ISBN   978-1-78347-083-9.
  5. Ratliff, Evan (26 June 2007). "Google Maps Is Changing the Way We See the World". Wired. Archived from the original on 24 August 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Mac, Ryan (23 August 2016). "The Inside Story Of 'Pokémon GO's' Evolution From Google Castoff To Global Phenomenon". Forbes. Archived from the original on 9 October 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
  7. ""eUniverse to Acquire BigNetwork.com, A Premier Online Entertainment Hub"". Archived from the original on 2016-09-15. Retrieved 2016-09-03.
  8. 1 2 Shute, Joe (24 July 2016). "Meet John Hanke, the eccentric, board game-loving visionary who runs the mysterious firm behind Pokémon Go". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 29 August 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
  9. Bradshaw, Tim (15 July 2016). "John Hanke: The man who put Pokémon Go on the map". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 13 September 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
  10. 1 2 3 Severson, Dana (22 July 2016). "What Overnight Success? Pokémon Go Took 20 Years to Succeed According to its Creator". Inc. Archived from the original on 25 July 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2016.

Further reading