ADSN

James Borow and Daniel Druger
  • 4.8 (16)
  • Tech News
  • Updated Biweekly

ADSN (The Ads Network) is a weekly show for people building and investing in ads, media, and monetization products. Every Tuesday, join James Borow and Daniel Druger as they bring over 30 years of experience to discuss the headlines and the why and how behind them. They also welcome industry leaders to go deep on topics in a fun and approachable format. Join the ADSN crew every Tuesday 🗓️

  1. 22h ago

    Will Shopping Agents Break Retail Media? ft. Ari Paparo | 30 Minutes

    Daniel and James welcome back Ari Paparo, author of Yield and host of Marketecture, to debate where advertising and commerce go next. Ari shares his impressions of Amazon's combined retail-media and DSP buying experience, explains why purchase signals can be more useful than broad search histories, and makes the case for Walmart's advertising ambitions. As an early Vibe investor and board member, he discusses how retail data, television distribution, and tools for advertisers outside Walmart's stores could work together. The conversation gets sharper when Ari challenges James's enthusiasm for consumer agents: after two weeks and roughly 10 projects, is Muse delivering lasting value or just entertaining experiments? They explore whether agents undermine retail media by skipping browsing, where sponsored recommendations belong, and why affiliate fees could become a major battleground. Daniel adds a retailer's concern about agents failing to build coordinated multi-item carts. Ari closes with his account of the Google ad-tech remedies discussion and his ambition to write more explanatory business books. Thank you to our sponsors: AdQuick – Making OOH advertising as easy to plan, buy, and measure as digital. adquick.comThrad.ai — Building the advertising infrastructure for AI. thrad.aibeehiiv — The all-in-one platform for newsletters, websites, and every tool you need to grow and earn. beehiiv.comThe Farm — Fraction commercial legal with an in-house approach to outside counsel. thefarmllp.com STAY CONNECTED James on Twitter & LinkedIn – /jamesborow Daniel on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok – /danieldruger Subscribe & leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

    Will Shopping Agents Break Retail Media? ft. Ari Paparo | 30 Minutes

  2. 2d ago

    Run-on-Ones, Career Advisors, and Unlimited PTO | Ladies Who Launch

    Pinterest and Crexi Executives Chloe Wix and Mary Bloom introduce Ladies Who Launch, a new ADSN conversation about the products, careers, and friendships people build along the way. They revisit their early Snapchat days, how a connection through Mary's future husband became a working relationship, and why moving their meetings outside helped them solve problems. Their “run-on-ones” along Venice Beach became both a brainstorming ritual and the foundation of a friendship that still serves as a trusted sounding board for career decisions. In their first “Kill, Launch, or Iterate” segment, they weigh Spectacles, flavored Philadelphia cream cheese, and unlimited PTO. Chloe explains why a defined vacation allowance helped her take more time off, while Mary argues that unclear expectations make unlimited leave harder to navigate. Alongside stories about wearables and wedding footage, they return to a practical theme: strong relationships and clear agreements help turn good ideas into action. Thank you to our sponsors: AdQuick – Making OOH advertising as easy to plan, buy, and measure as digital. adquick.comThrad.ai — Building the advertising infrastructure for AI. thrad.aibeehiiv — The all-in-one platform for newsletters, websites, and every tool you need to grow and earn. beehiiv.comThe Farm — Fraction commercial legal with an in-house approach to outside counsel. thefarmllp.com Subscribe & leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

    Run-on-Ones, Career Advisors, and Unlimited PTO | Ladies Who Launch

  3. 6d ago

    Dorm Room Ads, Consumer AI Economics, and Apple's Big Opportunity | THE RUNDOWN

    Daniel and James start with a student selling ad space on her wall to pay tuition, then take the idea of “everything is an ad network” straight to James's hat and Daniel's family-photo background. They discuss an X Money appeal that reportedly raised more than $10,000 toward a Cybertruck and debate a cited figure showing only 2.2% of US households paying for AI. Daniel sees a promising starting point; James sees a consumer market that will largely be funded by ads and commerce. The conversation moves into reported visual ad tests in ChatGPT, why advertising can be relevant to the person without matching the surrounding content, and whether AI generation wait time creates a new placement opportunity. They also debate TikTok's off-platform expansion and argue that Apple could build an advertising business connected to payments. The episode closes with a discussion of food-industry concentration, a speculative Tech Trades segment, James's account of a Dallas conference, and Primary Posts about collaboration and a stadium singing Blink-182 to Tom DeLonge. Thank you to our sponsors: AdQuick – Making OOH advertising as easy to plan, buy, and measure as digital. adquick.comThrad.ai — Building the advertising infrastructure for AI. thrad.aibeehiiv — The all-in-one platform for newsletters, websites, and every tool you need to grow and earn. beehiiv.comThe Farm — Fraction commercial legal with an in-house approach to outside counsel. thefarmllp.com STAY CONNECTED James on Twitter & LinkedIn – /jamesborow Daniel on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok – /danieldruger Subscribe & leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

    Dorm Room Ads, Consumer AI Economics, and Apple's Big Opportunity | THE RUNDOWN

  4. Oct 15

    Alex Hormozi, Shelby Sapp, and Noah Kagan All Have This One Things in Common | SPECIAL EPISODE w/ Jay Yang

    "Volume negates luck." That is one of the many Jay-"isms" we get into on this episode of No Permission. Jay Yang is the author of You Can Just Do Things and the upcoming Work With The Best. He's on a mission to show people they can create their own opportunities through permissionless action (No Permission!!!). And it's not just his mission, it's also how he lives his life. Jay cold emailed Tyler Denk at Beehiiv at 16 and landed an internship while still in high school. At 17, he spent 50 hours building a pitch deck for Noah Hagan and became his head of content. At 18, he built a six-figure ghostwriting agency. At 19, he dropped out of college, joined Alex Hormozi's ⁠acquisition.com⁠, helped set a Guinness World Record for their book launch, and published his own bestseller, You Can Just Do Things. Now at 20, he has 500,000 followers across platforms, a newsletter with 50,000 subscribers, 55,000+ tweets, and a second book dropping September 30, 2026. Links from the episode: ⁠Amazon: You Can Just Do Things (Book)⁠⁠Amazon: Work With The Best (Book)⁠⁠https://jayyanginspires.com/⁠⁠Jay's YouTube⁠ 🤝 Partner with No Permission: ⁠daniel@nopermissionpodcast.com⁠ 🎤 Your host: Daniel Druger – 3x exited founder / operator, Fortune 50 product exec, ex-Snapchat, startup investor. 15+ years working as a founder and with founders. 📫 STAY CONNECTED Instagram: /danieldruger TikTok: /danieldruger LinkedIn: /danieldruger Newsletter: ⁠theadsn.com⁠ 👉 Hit Subscribe & tap the 🔔, then leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts. This only takes seconds and helps more people discover No Permission and the this generation of great builders.

    Alex Hormozi, Shelby Sapp, and Noah Kagan All Have This One Things in Common | SPECIAL EPISODE w/ Jay Yang

  5. Oct 1

    ADSN RUNDOWN | America.gov, McDonald’s Ads and Data Centers in Space

    This week on the ADSN Rundown, Daniel Druger and James Borow examine how artificial intelligence is moving from software into hardware, commerce and public infrastructure. They break down Meta’s Apple-like hardware moment, Google and SpaceX testing TPUs in orbit, and the future of advertising when agents shop on a consumer’s behalf. They also explore X’s phone-number strategy, Amazon’s new Ads Agent and why James believes the next operating-system war will be Meta and Muse against Grok, Tesla and Starlink. Daniel and James also cover McDonald’s billion-dollar media ambitions, DoorDash’s surprising enterprise adoption of CLI and MCP ordering, major personnel moves at Instinct and Astro Digital, and the launch of America.gov as an AI front door to the federal government. They close by making the case for bringing fun and wonder back to technology, then examine how Ken Griffin’s $2 billion higher-education investment became a major win for Miami and a painful loss for Chicago. Thank you to our sponsors: AdQuick – Making OOH advertising as easy to plan, buy, and measure as digital. adquick.comThrad.ai — Building the advertising infrastructure for AI. thrad.aibeehiiv — The all-in-one platform for newsletters, websites, and every tool you need to grow and earn. beehiiv.comThe Farm — Fraction commercial legal with an in-house approach to outside counsel. thefarmllp.com STAY CONNECTED James on Twitter & LinkedIn – /jamesborow Daniel on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok – /danieldruger Subscribe & leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

    ADSN RUNDOWN | America.gov, McDonald’s Ads and Data Centers in Space

  6. Sep 30

    30 minutes: AI-Powered Scams Are Exploding and No One's Ready ft. Rob Leathern

    Rob Leathern, CEO and founder of Infohawk and the creator of the Facebook Ad Library, joins Daniel and James to break down the rapidly escalating world of AI-powered scams and online fraud. Rob explains how scammers are now vibe-coding their own analytics dashboards, producing 60-minute deepfake celebrity endorsement videos, and scraping public data to send hyper-targeted phishing messages. He shares why online fraud, estimated at nearly half a trillion dollars annually, is almost certainly underreported, and why the pullback in trust and safety teams at major platforms has made the problem worse. Rob walks through how Infohawk is using AI to fight back, why protection needs to come from both the client side (on-device models) and the server side (B2B tools), and why the internet is going to fundamentally change around verification and identity in the next two to three years. The conversation also covers the regulatory landscape, including proposed US scam liability legislation modeled after UK and Australian frameworks, why platforms need to open up ad transparency without giving bad actors an oracle, and Rob's argument that education and red teaming should come before any vendor purchase for companies worried about social engineering attacks. Daniel and James note that Rob is one of the few people who has worked on these problems from inside both Facebook and Google and is now building the tools to solve them from the outside. Thank you to our sponsors: AdQuick – Making OOH advertising as easy to plan, buy, and measure as digital. adquick.comThrad.ai — Building the advertising infrastructure for AI. thrad.aibeehiiv — The all-in-one platform for newsletters, websites, and every tool you need to grow and earn. beehiiv.comThe Farm — Fraction commercial legal with an in-house approach to outside counsel. thefarmllp.com STAY CONNECTED James on Twitter & LinkedIn – /jamesborow Daniel on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok – /danieldruger Subscribe & leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

    30 minutes: AI-Powered Scams Are Exploding and No One's Ready ft. Rob Leathern

  7. Sep 24

    ADSN RUNDOWN | Meta, Shopify and Stripe Build the New Open Web

    This week on the ADSN Rundown, Daniel Druger and James Borow unpack Meta’s decision to open Muse to developers and why connectors from Shopify, Stripe, Expedia, Instacart and others could turn it into a new consumer platform. They explore a potential open-web coalition between Meta, Shopify and Stripe, debate whether Meta will eventually acquire Shopify, and explain why the combination of social distribution, commerce data and advertising could reshape how people discover and buy products. Daniel and James also cover Alex Heath’s move into investing, Peter Sellis’s 90-minute product masterclass, Ramp’s Broadway musical, the widening US-China divide around AI and robotics, and the $42 million Horowitz and Andreessen Academy. They close with tech trades at Pinterest and Crexi, Toby Lütke’s approach to high-stakes decisions, and Nikita Bier’s argument that probabilistic AI products will favor builders who are not constrained by decades of deterministic software thinking. Thank you to our sponsors: AdQuick – Making OOH advertising as easy to plan, buy, and measure as digital. adquick.comThrad.ai — Building the advertising infrastructure for AI. thrad.aibeehiiv — The all-in-one platform for newsletters, websites, and every tool you need to grow and earn. beehiiv.comThe Farm — Fraction commercial legal with an in-house approach to outside counsel. thefarmllp.com STAY CONNECTED James on Twitter & LinkedIn – /jamesborow Daniel on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok – /danieldruger Subscribe & leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

    ADSN RUNDOWN | Meta, Shopify and Stripe Build the New Open Web

  8. Sep 22

    30 minutes: The Millionaire Meme Maker and Humor Arbitrage ft. Jason Levin

    Jason Levin, founder and CEO of Meme Lord, joins Daniel and James to break down how he turned internet humor into a legitimate B2B SaaS business. Jason explains his concept of "humor arbitrage," the idea that the boringer your company, the more you stand to gain from being funny, and how that thesis has landed Meme Lord enterprise clients with ACVs of $60-80K across HR, legal, and tech. He walks through how the company helps brands launch secondary accounts to take creative risk off their main channels, why his contracts explicitly ban NSFW and political content (think Seinfeld, not shock value), and how niche virality crushes mass virality every time. Jason also gets candid about feeling like he's "cheating on marketing" with vibe coding, why he thinks the world is only going to get stupider (and why that's bullish for his business), and his journey from wanting YouTube fame to being happiest in a CRM and a notebook. Thank you to our sponsors: AdQuick – Making OOH advertising as easy to plan, buy, and measure as digital. adquick.comThrad.ai — Building the advertising infrastructure for AI. thrad.aibeehiiv — The all-in-one platform for newsletters, websites, and every tool you need to grow and earn. beehiiv.comThe Farm — Fraction commercial legal with an in-house approach to outside counsel. thefarmllp.com STAY CONNECTED James on Twitter & LinkedIn – /jamesborow Daniel on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok – /danieldruger Subscribe & leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

    30 minutes: The Millionaire Meme Maker and Humor Arbitrage ft. Jason Levin
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4.8
out of 5
16 Ratings

About

ADSN (The Ads Network) is a weekly show for people building and investing in ads, media, and monetization products. Every Tuesday, join James Borow and Daniel Druger as they bring over 30 years of experience to discuss the headlines and the why and how behind them. They also welcome industry leaders to go deep on topics in a fun and approachable format. Join the ADSN crew every Tuesday 🗓️

Information

  • Creator
    James Borow and Daniel Druger
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    134
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © James Borow and Daniel Druger
  • Show Website
    ADSN

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