How the Best Engineers Build a World Model (Google Earth Creator & Niantic Spatial CTO)

About this episode

Niantic Spatial CTO Brian McClendon on how the best engineers solve problems most give up on — from a 4D model of the world to shipping research in months. He built Google Earth and ran Google Maps for over a decade, and he's been there, done that. What he's building now is harder, and it's already live for customers. Along the way: who makes it on his team and who doesn't, and the one piece of advice he'd give every engineer using AI. In this video, we cover: - The 4D model of the world: visual positioning, change detection, and treating a pile of photos like a database - Gaussian splats and real-to-sim: capturing a room and loading it into Nvidia Isaac to train robots - Turning a research idea into a production service in six months - What Google Maps taught him about building for robots instead of humans - Designing problems AI can self-check, and why token maxing is a waste For engineers and engineering leaders who want to work on problems that don't have a known answer yet — and who want to know what a CTO who's built the definitive product in his field looks for in the people he hires. Recorded at the AI4 conference 2026. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Google Eart