The Exchanges

Q And was this part of the end toggle acquisition? Is that really the tech that they had?

A No, uh, in toggle. So in toggle helps solve a problem with header bidding. One of the problems of header bidding is that bidders, these DSPs, these demand side platforms, they now can see the same impression from us. They can now see it from other platforms, meaning they, their costs to actually Consume a bid request has doubled, tripled, sometimes even 10 times higher. What Intoggle does for us, it allows us to take this explosion of traffic and then shape it down and only send the buyer the exact impression they want so that they don't have to listen to all of our inventory. We process, we see tens of billions of ad impressions per day. We process, you know, tens of trillions of ad requests per month, and as a result of that, The more efficient we can be with matching supply with demand, the lower the cost comes for all of the buyers on our platform.

AI assessment note: “What Intoggle does for us, it allows us to take this explosion of traffic”

Q And how are you locking down the inventory on the Wall Street Journal? Do they literally set aside some pixels for your ads each, each day or what?

A Yeah. So, uh, take, take, uh, uh, you know, an average good publisher probably has a billion ad impressions per month. Um, they have a sales team, uh, whether that's a regional or a national, uh, or local, uh, based sales team, uh, Uh, contacting, you know, maybe tens of advertisers, maybe a couple hundred advertisers, but typically that average publisher does not sell out all of their available ad space, uh, each day. So instead, uh, they use technology platforms like ours to sell this inventory. Um, going back 10 years ago, it was their unsold inventory. Uh, now the buyers that we have on our platform rival, uh, kind of the buyers they sell direct to, and so a publisher will still sell some inventory to a direct advertiser, and then the rest of their inventory, they'll leverage platforms like ours. Uh, some of the inventory is exclusive just to our platform, uh, or other publishers will use many partners like us to fulfill their, their inventory.

AI assessment note: “they use technology platforms like ours to sell this inventory”

Q You probably have to operate in much more confined space. You as an entrepreneurial thinker, I mean, how do you think about your opportunity cost right now? You had a publicly traded company, but you could be going off and doing your own thing and you own a hundred percent of it and you could easily get funding because of your success. How do you, how do you weigh that?

A Yeah, it's a great question. So, uh, I think, you know, a lot of young entrepreneurs always think the grass is, you know, the grass is greener. Um, and so that's kind of one thing that I think is really important to think about. Second, most importantly, the number one reason why I love being here at UberCon Project is because every single year, this industry changes. Sometimes multiple times per year. I have never stopped learning in 10 years. Um, and as a result, it's, I feel like we are still, uh, a startup. Even though we have 500 employees, we got one hundred fifty million in cash in the bank. We're a publicly traded company. This industry is changing so rapidly, and I've never stopped learning, and that's why I'm super jazzed to still be here.

AI assessment note: “number one reason why I love being here at UberCon Project”

Q one hundred and sixty billion is what they're gonna pass this year, and he talked about one of the reasons they've been able to grow is because they undercut folks, I think like you, because they're able to go so low on the cut they take, Especially when they want to win strategic accounts that no one else can compete with them profitably. How do you beat somebody like that?

A Yeah, well, we, we are operating very different businesses. And so they do media planning, uh, and buying, uh, uh, services for, uh, for advertisers. And so they can charge a really low fee just to process the transaction, um, for, you know, for those services. We operate a much different technology. So our, our technology, uh, Uh, is actually creating these transactions in real time, allowing bidders to bid on the inventory in real time. Uh, our, our technology has to process an entire transaction, uh, in less than 300 milliseconds. Um, as a result of all of that, you know, we charge fees for all of that and the fees, um, you know, to do that, you know, need to need to know to cover our cost to process that kind of high frequency, low latency infrastructure.

AI assessment note: “we are operating very different businesses. And so they do media planning”

Q Yep. How many other acquisitions have you guys done since you've been public or is that the only one?

A Uh, we've done quite a few. Uh, we've probably done, uh, somewhere between three and four, um, as a public company and we've done, we did probably three or four prior to that. Uh, typically, uh, I mean, I think for us, the execution risk of a large acquisition is, is high. Um, in toggle is a great example because their mission was so closely aligned to our mission. Uh, and it's around 20 or so employees, so it wasn't, you know, biting off too much. Uh, we've had other, um, acquisitions that were, you know, between four and five employees, and then those are great to manage. You know, when you're talking 102 hundred folks, then you're, you know, then you're, uh, you know, the challenge is exactly.

AI assessment note: “we've probably done, uh, somewhere between three and four, um, as a public company”

Q It's almost like, it's almost like, Cohort treatment, right? For ad servers.

A I think the most, the most important thing is we're no longer treated a single price point. All of our pricing is now represented accurately in the ad server. So that allows, uh, our, you know, so we have a technology we've led for many years called private marketplaces. Um, it's, it allows a buyer and a seller to agree on a price and transact that on more premium inventory or on first party data segments that they kind of keep back and only sell in a more premium direct, uh, kind of direct channel. Um, well, that, that inventory needs to run at a higher price point than the ad server. Therefore, header bidding allows us to transact on more premium supply Allowing us to bring more premium demand into our platform. Um, and so header bidding has really kind of, you know, turned the, the world upside down. It's a really exciting evolution for the business.

AI assessment note: “we're no longer treated a single price point. All of our pricing is now represented accurately”