John Hanke, MBA 96 and CEO of Niantic Labs, is the driving force behind Pokémon Go, the hottest craze to hit smartphones—ever. Since its release just a week ago, the “augmented reality” game has sent millions of phone-toting players to the streets on the hunt for animated Japanese characters that pop up with the help of location services. The crush of downloads nearly crashed Niantic’s servers, and the number of active users is nearly on par with Twitter.
John has been active as both as an MBA student and a supporter of the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program.