John Hanke

John Hanke is the Founder and CEO of Niantic Spatial, a geospatial AI company building a living map of the world that people and machines can talk to. Previously, John was CEO of Niantic, Inc., where he led the creation of a global geospatial technology platform that powered hit games including Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, Monster Hunter Now, and Ingress. In 2025, Niantic’s games business was acquired by Scopely, while the company’s geospatial AI platform was spun out as Niantic Spatial. John founded Niantic Labs at Google in 2011 after serving as Vice President of Google’s Geo division, where he led the development of products including Google Maps and Street View. Earlier in his career, he co-founded Keyhole, the pioneering digital earth company whose technology became Google Earth after its acquisition by Google. He holds a BA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.