Lou was an engineer on the launch team at Netscape in the 1990s and helped build the cookie, animated GIFs and the web as we know itMore
13. Dave Morgan – keeping it Real(Media), TACODA and Simulmedia
After practicing law the intrepid Morgan pitched a VC in an elevator and went on to found ad server and network Real Media, TACODA and SimulmediaMore
12. Kevin O’Connor – on co-founding DoubleClick and more
Kevin O’Connor is the co-founder with Dwight Merriman of DoubleClick in 1995 and was its CEO until 2001 when he left to become a VC and entrepreneurMore
11. Auren Hoffman – building a LiveRamp to the info highway
Auren is a serial entrepreneur best known for co-founding middleware giant LiveRamp which was spun out of his people-data company Rapleaf in 2012More
10. Chris O’Hara – getting to the Krux of DMPs and ad data
Chris is a marketer and author with a colorful career spanning Traffiq, Bionic Ads, Nielsen, early DMP nPario and Krux, which was acquired by Salesforce in 2016More
9. Beth Wallace – you’ve got AOL’s ad-tech advocate
Wallace grounded herself in direct marketing at Meredith and joined AOL in 2001 to apply the principles of DM to the new world of online acquisitionMore
8. Ratko Vidakovic – the SiteScout becomes an AdProf
Ratko worked in IT and ran a website for Toyota fans which sparked an idea for a self-serve ad server and DSP that became SiteScout – he is now at AdProfsMore
7. Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan – raising the Drawbridge
Kamakshi is the founder of Drawbridge, alumna of AdMob and expert in applying ML to identity graphsMore
6. Cory Treffiletti – agency guy to BlueKai, Oracle and beyond
Cory was an agency guy from the beginning of the internet and became a well-known CMO at BlueKai, Oracle and others while writing a weekly column for MediaPostMore
5. Paul Bannister – gamer turned prophet for the publisher
Paul Bannister is an ex-professional video gamer turned champion of the long-tail publisher via almost two decades with CafeMom and now CafeMediaMore
4. Joanna O’Connell – evangelist of the trading desk
Via CNN and Hollywood, Forrester analyst Joanna OConnell was an early programmatic evangelist and co-architect of the first big agency trading deskMore
3. Joe Zawadzki – the original (Media)math man
Joe Zawadzki started optimizing commerce sites and ad traffic at Poindexter / [x+1] before founding the pioneering DSP MediaMath, where he is CEOMore
2. Zach Rodgers – the voice of AdExchanger talks
Zach Rodgers is the editorial director of AdExchanger and long-time ad tech pundit, observer, journalist and podcasterMore
1. Eric Franchi – the many overtones of Undertone
Eric Franchi started as a rep at About.com and went on to co-found the Undertone rich media-premium ad network in the depths of the dot com bustMore
“It Wasn’t a Job, It Was a Cult!”
The Paleo Ad Tech podcast was inspired in part by an ‘oral history’ project one of us (Marty) worked on for a couple of years while he was a Gartner analyst, covering ad tech. (They are archived here.) He interviewed a number of the key players in the industry about their experiences and committed write-ups…More
Hello, World!
What is Paleo Ad Tech? It’s quite simple, really: a passion project by a couple of people who work at a big software company and come from the world of ad agencies, creatives and dreamers. The topic: the history of advertising technology from 1995 to 2015 — aka the glory years. NetScape, DoubleClick, AdECN, Invite…More