AdTech AdTalk

Adam and Gareth

Buy Side Meets Sell Side. Live Q&A with CEOs telling the truth about where Ad Tech is headed.

  1. 1 DAY AGO

    The Juice is Dripping

    It’s earnings season in AdTech, and the juice is definitely dripping! Adam and Gareth tackle a jam-packed news cycle, starting with the mess that is Supply Path Optimization (SPO) and why the industry’s "transparency" efforts, like sellers.json and ads.txt, are causing buyers to blindly block legitimate publisher agents.Then, the duo dives into the explosive Digiday whistleblower report exposing the "Carnage" of Principal-Based Buying and the clandestine world of agency rebates. Are advertisers getting played by their own procurement departments? And why is the biggest player in the market conveniently avoiding the mud?Finally, they break down The Trade Desk’s soft earnings guidance. Is TTD in a death spiral, or just returning to earth after years of insane market froth? Adam and Gareth debate how TTD won the DSP wars of 2015 via "bid expressiveness" and whether performance alone is still a big enough moat in the modular, AI-driven landscape of 2026.00:00 Intro: Earnings Season is a Dumpster Fire01:57 The Mess of Supply Path Optimization (SPO)05:25 The History of ads.txt and "Resellers"12:23 News: The Whistleblower & Principal Buying18:02 How Rebates Warp Media Planning22:19 Defending Against Principal Buying25:21 The Bizarre Pricing Inefficiency of CTV30:55 The Logic of DSP Bidding & Valuation37:25 The "Two Markets" of Ad Tech41:50 TTD Earnings: Is The Trade Desk in a Death Spiral?47:28 How Trade Desk Won the Consolidation Wars53:35 Bid Expressiveness: The Original TTD Pitch58:24 Can Open Path Survive the Backlash?

    1h 1m

  2. 20 FEB

    Coverage of the Carnage

    Adam and Gareth are back to sort through the noise in an episode packed wall-to-wall with industry drama. From the Pentagon to the Cayman Islands, it’s a pure news day on AdTech AdTalk, and the theme is "Carnage."First up, the guys unpack Anthropic's "woke AI" feud with the Pentagon and Palantir, complete with a bizarre Gen-X fun fact about Peter Thiel's childhood in Namibia. Then, they tackle the slow adoption of AI by CMOs, debating whether "Agentic AI" is actually driving innovation or just finding new ways to cut jobs.The drama heats up as they cover Jeffrey Epstein's strange (and brief) connection to programmatic futures, the controversy over ICE buying location data, and the explosive Digiday report about WPP and Dentsu pulling out of The Trade Desk's Open Path over hidden fees. Plus, Adam and Gareth weigh in on the ADCP vs. ARTF standards "showdown," Mark Zuckerberg's landmark child safety trial, and why LinkedIn's search bar remains the worst product on the internet.00:00 Intro: Cold Weather & Ad Tech Carnage02:34 Anthropic, The Pentagon & Woke AI06:04 Peter Thiel's Namibian Childhood09:44 CMOs & Slow AI Adoption11:53 The Day of the Yellow Square16:41 Sheep Dogging the Algorithm22:40 Agentic Buzzwords vs. Real AI27:18 Jeffrey Epstein's Ad Tech Connections30:42 ICE's RFP for Location Data36:56 Digiday Scoop: Agencies Exit Open Path46:01 Agency Rebates to the Cayman Islands49:22 Showdown: ADCP vs. ARTF Standards53:41 Zuckerberg Testifies on Child Safety58:24 Intent IQ's Cross-Device Patent Lawsuit01:01:00 StinkedIn: The Worst Search Bar Ever

    1h 7m

  3. 13 FEB

    Instead of Or, It's And

    Gareth is in "manic sales mode" as Gamera and Chalice both celebrate investments from The Trade Desk’s venture arm (TD7). The duo breaks down why the future of ad tech isn't about blocking competitors, but playing in the same "sandbox"—moving from a philosophy of "Or" to "And."They dive deep into the IAB Tech Lab's Agentic Realtime Framework (ARTF), debating if these new containerized solutions are just "smarter ad networks" without the grift. Adam defends the new MRC auction transparency standards (despite grumpy publishers), arguing that "Universal Price Floors" were meant to trap Google, not squeeze the open web.Plus, a roast of LinkedIn’s algorithm (Lou Paskalis’s legs vs. actual news), a Creative Corner on the Gen Z trend of "Friction Maxing," and Adam’s conspiracy theory that Elon Musk’s entire business roadmap is just the plot of the movie Total Recall.00:00 Intro: Manic Sales Energy03:41 Sell-Side Decisioning & ARTF Adoption07:09 Re-Imagining the Ad Tech Company11:00 Are These Just Smarter Ad Networks?16:10 TD7 Investments & The "Sandbox" Mentality21:46 StinkedIn: Lou's Legs vs. Industry News31:01 News: MRC Auction Standards Controversy38:18 Cross-Platform Measurement Hope43:42 Creative Corner: Friction Maxing52:15 Theory: Elon Musk is Re-enacting Total Recall53:49 Segment: Gateway to the Soul

    1 hr

  4. 6 FEB

    Container Explainer

    In this special episode, Adam and Gareth present a deep dive into the industry's most complex new standard: The IAB Tech Lab’s Agentic Realtime Framework (ARTF).The duo uses three distinct metaphors to break down how "Containerization" is moving the ad auction to the edge. They explain how High-Frequency Trading (HFT) infrastructure revolutionized finance (and why ad tech is next), why the modern DSP should be treated like a Bento Box rather than a prix fixe meal, and how the history of Shipping Containers predicts who will actually get rich from the AI boom (hint: it’s probably not the AI companies).Featuring guest commentary from Index Exchange and OpenX, this episode cuts through the noise of "Agentic AI" to explain the actual plumbing, how 1-millisecond microservices are unbundling the stack and restoring yield to publishers.00:00 Intro: The "Container Explainer"01:08 Metaphor 1: High-Frequency Trading & Flash Boys04:46 Containerization vs. Colocation06:08 The Meditation (100ms vs. 1ms)08:50 Metaphor 2: The Bento Box (Unbundling the DSP)11:00 The Agentic Framework Architecture12:56 Metaphor 3: Shipping Containers & Value Capture16:09 Prebid’s Legacy: Moving Integration to the Edge19:10 The DSP Identity Crisis: Enterprise vs. SMB21:08 Intro to ACRONYM (Non-Profit)22:00 Index Exchange on Sell-Side Decisioning24:54 OpenX on Unbundling & Data Security26:00 Future Use Cases: Mutations & Bid Shading29:12 ARTF vs. ADCP: What’s the Difference?32:50 Closing Thoughts: Collaboration is Key

    37 min

  5. 30 JAN

    Ask an Expert (ft. Tylynn Pettrey, Chalice AI)

    Gareth is out, and the "most interesting person on the planet" is in. Adam is joined by Chalice AI’s SVP of Data Science, Tylynn Pettrey, for a high-speed masterclass on the history of predictive modeling, from 19th-century planetary orbits to the transformer architectures powering 2026’s agentic workflows.Tylynn breaks down complex math into plain English, explaining why "more data" isn't always better (the curse of dimensionality), why some algorithms break the bank on computing costs, and why AdTech is finally catching up to High-Frequency Trading. Plus, we answer audience questions on Quantum Computing, the death of the R programming language, and why Tylynn kept a mass spectrometer in her garage during the pandemic.00:00 Intro: The Data Science Takeover02:40 Linear Regression: Connecting the Dots05:37 Logistic Regression & The S-Curve09:12 Decision Trees: The Medical Diagnosis Logic10:56 K-Nearest Neighbors & Lookalikes13:13 Neural Networks: The Factory Assembly Line16:18 Back Propagation: Learning from Error18:32 Random Forests: Crowd-Sourced Math19:50 Support Vector Machines (SVM) & Big O Notation22:25 Skills for 2026: Python vs. R vs. Rust24:54 Deep Learning & Sparse Data28:40 Transformers & Attention Mechanisms33:18 The Imbalance Problem: Synthetic Data38:54 Scoring: AUC and Probability41:42 Q&A: Is Agentic AI Hype?43:10 Q&A: Quantum Computing in AdTech48:25 Q&A: Is R Dead?51:15 The Mass Spectrometer in the Garage53:20 Curate AI: Low Latency Scoring in Rust

    1h 1m

  6. 23 JAN

    Cynicsthesia (ft. Mike McNeeley, Index Exchange)

    Things are getting spicy on AdTech AdTalk. Adam (Buy Side) and Gareth (Sell Side) are joined by the industry’s unofficial oracle, Mike McNeeley (SVP of Product, Index Exchange), to tackle the erosion of trust in the programmatic supply chain.The trio dives deep into the controversy of "publisher-declared fields", why letting sellers grade their own homework is leading to ID spoofing, and why the OpenRTB spec is long overdue for a rigid overhaul. Mike pulls back the curtain on how Index Exchange polices inventory quality and why "friction" is a necessary feature, not a bug.Later, the crew pivots to product management philosophy, debating how to build for "fragmolidation" without over-engineering. Plus, they break down the massive news that Amazon is adopting Prebid (a win for open standards?), and Gareth roasts the "robotic m-dash" plaguing everyone's LinkedIn feeds.00:00 Intro & The Ad Tech Oracle02:39 The Lying Field Problem 04:41 OpenRTB Specs 10107:32 The Stock Market Fraud Analogy 10:56 Who Is Accountable for Fraud? 12:44 Index Exchange’s Quality Gates 17:45 Fixing the OpenRTB Spec 22:25 Brand Safety Lag Kills News 26:14 Salience vs. Suitability 29:49 Scaling Product Teams 35:48 The "Loss URL" Rabbit Hole 43:00 Agentic Frameworks & Sidecars 46:11 WSJ: CEOs vs. Workers on AI 48:03 Stop Using AI for LinkedIn 53:45 The "Tinder for Networking" Idea 58:07 News: Amazon Adopts Prebid1:02:30 A Win for Open Standards 1:08:21 Rapper Wars & Snowfalls

    1h 11m

  7. 16 JAN

    Working Media, So Hot Right Now

    In this episode, Adam and Gareth embrace the chaos of 2026. Adam recounts a hilarious (and almost illegal) run-in with the NYPD at a "massage parlor," while Gareth laments the inflation of a $75 midtown haircut.The duo announces the formation of ACRONYM (The Ad Tech Coalition to Restore Openness and Normalize Yield Markets) and declares "Working Media" the buzzword of the year. They dive deep into the latest industry debate sparked by Brian O'Kelley, arguing whether OpenRTB is for "day trading" while Agentic AI is for "investing", and review a technical rebuttal from former Chalice engineer Will.Plus, the debut of the Kreative Korner with Marley and Sasha breaking down the "uncanny valley" horror of the AI-generated McDonald's ad, a check-in on Grok's disturbingly specific bikini generation capabilities, and a look at why AI might actually lead to marketing layoffs (per the WSJ).0:00 Intro & Pontiac Intelligence Shoutout 03:06 Adam’s "Illicit" Massage Parlor Story 07:46 Gareth’s $75 Haircut & Ad Tech Inflation 13:58 The Data Quality Problem (Serge AI & Human Review) 17:50 Announcement: Launching ACRONYM (The Ad Tech Coalition) 20:15 Why "Working Media" is the Buzzword of 2026 22:30 Grok and Trolls: Pete Hegseth in a Bikini 25:43 Kreative Korner: The Creepy AI McDonald's Ad 31:39 Is AI Art? (The "Drawing a Chair" Analogy) 43:59 Post-Mortem: Brian O'Kelley: "OpenRTB is Day Trading" 50:51 Post-Mortem: Will’s Rebuttal: Recommendation Systems vs. Agents 59:43 Q&A: Affiliate Links in Custom GPTs 1:04:13 Prediction Check-In: Amazon vs. The Trade Desk 1:11:44 News: WSJ on AI-Driven Marketing Layoffs 1:17:27 Outro

    1h 10m

  8. 9 JAN

    Gamera the Brave

    It is officially 2026, and Ad Tech Ad Talk is back from CES with a massive announcement. In this episode, Gareth Glaser finally unveils Gamera, his new inventory quality company that has officially moved out of stealth and into the funded startup phase.Gareth delivers his "investor spiel," breaking down why Facebook generates $130B with only 25% of the internet's traffic, while the Open Web lags behind. The thesis? It’s not just about audience data; it’s about inventory taxonomy. Gareth explains how Gamera uses code-on-page technology to automate inventory description, replace archaic manual tagging, and verify impressions in real-time.Adam and Gareth also debate the "Agentic" buzzword fatigue coming out of Vegas, review Pubmatic's new "Agentic OS" (is it Hot Sht or Horsesht?), and discuss the existential threat to search traffic as AI reshapes the web.

    1h 15m
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About

Buy Side Meets Sell Side. Live Q&A with CEOs telling the truth about where Ad Tech is headed.

Information

  • Creator
    Adam and Gareth
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    39
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Adam and Gareth
  • Show Website
    AdTech AdTalk

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