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A Niantic spokesman said Hanke was too busy working on “Pokemon Go" to comment for this story. The Niantic name is a reminder that “there is lot of cool stuff beneath the surface of things," Hanke told The Associated Press in a 2013 interview. The remains of the original ship were later found buried near a current San Francisco landmark, the Transamerica Pyramid. With the goal of building mobile apps and games that encouraged “adventures on foot with others," Hanke named Niantic after a grounded whaling vessel grounded during the San Francisco Gold Rush of 1849 and converted to a storage building.

He’d overseen a number of maps-related projects until 2010, when he hit upon the idea of using maps to lure people outdoors to explore neighbourhoods, see notable places and discover new places to eat, drink or just hang out. Hanke was at Google because he’d sold it a digital mapping startup called Keyhole in 2004, providing the 3-D satellite imagery used in Google Earth. The enthusiastic reaction to Google’s fake “Pokemon Challenge" video resonated within Niantic Labs, a little-known startup that had been incubating within the company-particularly with its founder John Hanke. Its goal, the company said, was to hire the world’s best Pokemon Master-because it valued technically savvy risk takers who can “navigate through tall grass to capture wild creatures." In a mischievous 2014 post, Google announced a new training tool, created in conjunction with Pokemon and Nintendo, for hunting Pokemon using Google Maps. Google unwittingly planted the seed for “Pokemon Go" two years ago in one of the many April Fools’ Day jokes the Internet company is famous for.