Ad Tech

The business and infrastructure of buying and selling ads online. Where I spent 15 years of my career at DoubleClick and Google.

Summer Field Trip 3: Of Platforms And People

Aug 29, 2025

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10 min read

Summer Field Trip 3: Of Platforms And People

It’s the super-sized finale of our trilogy: everything gets bigger, true motives are revealed, and hope returns to the galaxy.

Summer Field Trip 2: Publishers and Middlemen (The Dark Middle Episode)

Aug 22, 2025

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8 min read

Summer Field Trip 2: Publishers and Middlemen (The Dark Middle Episode)

How the rise of the Internet unleashed sharks, short-term thinking, and shady practices.

Summer Field Trip Part 1: Sell-Side Superhero Spectacular

Aug 15, 2025

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6 min read

Summer Field Trip Part 1: Sell-Side Superhero Spectacular

Join me for an IMAX-sized epic of online advertising. Perverse incentives! Corporate culture clashes! Ad blockers! It’s all here, for three weeks only.

Bonus issue: I’m in a book! "Yield" by Ari Paparo, about Google’s ad business

Aug 6, 2025

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6 min read

Bonus issue: I’m in a book! "Yield" by Ari Paparo, about Google’s ad business

From Project Wolf to the “spaghetti football,” Ari tells a gripping story previously known only to insiders. Plus jokes!

Reader Mailbag #1: A Role For Blockchain? Plus Ad Fraud Debate And The Small Platform Struggle

Jun 27, 2025

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7 min read

Reader Mailbag #1: A Role For Blockchain? Plus Ad Fraud Debate And The Small Platform Struggle

Current and former luminaries from Harvard, ROOST, and the ad tech world weigh in on my first few weeks.

Cannes Special: How Google’s Ad Spam Secrecy Alienated A Generation Of Creators

Jun 13, 2025

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8 min read

Cannes Special: How Google’s Ad Spam Secrecy Alienated A Generation Of Creators

In its prime, AdSense could give you financial freedom — if you could survive the spam police.