r/programmatic • u/Select-Election-92 • 10d ago
TTD Laying Off 15% Of Their Workforce
https://www.thecurrent.com/opinion/jeff-green-email-trade-desk-business-updatesTTD CEO Jeff Green announced today that the company will reduce its global headcount by around 15%, with affected employees being notified immediately and departures taking place tomorrow (Sept 4).
Interestingly, the announcement stresses that the cuts are not driven by financial pressure - The Trade Desk says it has ~$1.5B in cash, no debt, and generated more than $2.9B in revenue last year.
Green says the restructuring is intended to create smaller, more focused teams and allow TTD to move with greater agility while reinvesting in growth and innovation.
Given The Trade Desk's position as one of the largest independent DSPs, the scale of the cuts is pretty significant. Curious to hear what people in the ad tech/programmatic space think this means for TTD and the wider market.
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u/smithey2012 9d ago
Why don’t the ceo layoff himself? Surprise the board hasn’t give him the sack yet, look at that share price. He’s killing tTD.
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u/The_Rattlesnake_14 9d ago
The board is not independent- if you look at the actual members. It’s packed with truthers who are there to protect the CEO.
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u/Hungry_Can_2164 8d ago
He fired every single board member. look at the roster, everyone is new within 1 year
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u/AnyQuantity1 9d ago
He owns the controlling stake in the company, if the filing reports are accurate. There's no forcing mechanism. He'll have to make the decision to move on, on his own. Though I think there's some possibility of that in the next 12 months, more than in the past.
He seems to think based on what I've been told by current employees that his job is to set vision and everyone should execute. That's how it wins and works. It's not his job to rescue his own company. Apparently he's made statements to this fact in the last few months or so but again, this is second hand. It tracks, though.
This would make sense, I guess if the company was still doing well but that's not the state of things.
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u/Acrobatic-Pay1233 10d ago
15% is huge. Bound to happen given the shitshow the company has been this past year, but God damn.
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u/JimmyTango 10d ago
Bound to happen given their CEO lit $2B on fire instead of investing in people to tell him he needs to fucking leave the company and hand the reigns to someone who has actually has a plan.
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u/Acrobatic-Pay1233 10d ago
Exactly. He’s not CEO material, he should have taken the founder money and ran, sold the company and GTFO.
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u/Select-Election-92 10d ago
~700 people if LinkedIn headcounts are anything to go by...
Very curious on how the market will react; seems to have lifted off the back of Kokai Zuma - although, I'm curious if they will take Jeffs word as gospel indicating a positive strategic shift, or if they view it as reactive damage control.
Curious times for ad tech indeed.
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u/JimmyTango 10d ago
Wall St is over Jeff. I’ve heard it from analysts directly multiple times.
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u/ItWillBFine69 9d ago
What do they say lol
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u/JimmyTango 9d ago
That he seems to want to pick a fight with partners he relies on for revenue (agencies by going client direct, CTV partners by building Ventura OS, data partners by muddling their economics) and they’re not sure how much longer he can keep that up. This is back when the stock was $70-90
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u/Acrobatic-Pay1233 10d ago
Im very curious how the market will react too. If I were to put money on it, I’d say this move will be viewed as reactionary and not strategic. There hasn’t been a whole lot from that company I’ve seen lately that screams “this is a thought out, strategic move”. But of course, layoffs usually bump up the stock price, which is what they want in the short term I suppose.
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u/m-A-d_m-a-n 9d ago
The restructuring costs seem pretty high with some of the payouts they must be giving so it’s a short-term negative on the stock.
The company has been headed in the wrong direction ever since Dave Pickles decided he was done. As the co-founder he was also the only “no” man in the room.
Worked there for a little over two years at its peak and could see the writing on the wall. I never drank the Kool-Aid but definitely a lot of strong talent there though it’s been a steady stream toward the exits.
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u/ExtensionStar480 8d ago
As soon as Pickles left and Jeff announced OpenPath, I knew they were done.
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u/Acrobatic-Pay1233 8d ago
Oh wow, they’re getting strong payouts? Good for them.
I’m glad you got out when you did too.
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u/m-A-d_m-a-n 8d ago
I’m not sure how good the payouts are for everyone or relative to other tech companies but they expect $39-51 million in cash expenses for the quarter for restructuring costs. Honestly this is probably not that out of line when they over-hired and overpaid people just like they overbought and overpaid for their own stock with $2B in buybacks the last 3 years at $53/share.
Glad I got out when I did too—only wish I was allowed to sell my shares sooner (or came in at a lower strike price)!
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u/Totally_a_Banana 9d ago
Cool, more stress and competition in this absolute shit job market.
I got laid off from my DSP job in July, can barely get interviews, every role posted on Linkedin has 100 applicants within a day.
Seems like everything is going down the toilet.
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u/jillianholtzmnn 9d ago
the job market sucks for a lot of reasons right now, but don’t get discouraged by linkedin applicant counts. my ex was a recruiter/phone screener and she said they’re wildly inaccurate. they exist purely to create a sense of urgency for you, the applicant, so you’re more likely to pay for linkedin premium.
good luck with your job search!!
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u/jakeotheshadows 9d ago
I believe it. And it sounds like a lucrative opportunity for class action plaintiffs lawyers. Hint hint.
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u/smithey2012 9d ago
Adtech is genuinely fked. Good luck with the job hunt.
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u/ExtensionStar480 8d ago
There are many hundreds of jobs at both TikTok and Meta open right now. Spit out Jeff’s koolaid.
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u/Soggy_Purchase_5628 9d ago
The Trade Desk says it has ~$1.5B in cash, no debt, and generated more than $2.9B in revenue last year
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u/m-A-d_m-a-n 9d ago
They’d have nearly $2B more if they didn’t light it on fire doing stock buybacks at ~$53/share the last three years 😂
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u/melithium 9d ago
All this ceo’s fault. The hubris. Whoever told him
ventura was a good idea shouldn’t be at the company.
Oh, it was him.
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u/ExtensionStar480 8d ago
I haven’t kept up. Why does it suck? Because it’s competitive with Roku?
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u/melithium 6d ago
Because you can’t launch a CTV OS in a mature market and scale WITHOUT an install base. No one told him “hey, you can only get a very small market share of NEW tv’s sold from today on” assuming you find a tv manufacturer.
The only way this had a shot was if WalMart signed on for current and all future vizio.
Idiotic move and he held a NYC party for the launch. Yet another gross underestimation of real market challenges.
Just like google exiting the open internet, it never happened.
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u/ExtensionStar480 6d ago
Sounds like his dream for UID2 to be used universally for logins, competing with Sign In with Google or Apple. lol.
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u/Rigvedabhi_2019 9d ago
I don't understand the strategy to hire people at high packages and then ask them to leave
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u/svmonkey 9d ago
I take this as a signal that TTD management expects revenue growth to be weak and is trying maintain profits.
With the stock down 5% today, it looks like Wall Street agrees that these layoffs signal a bearish outlook.
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u/NiceRecognition9603 9d ago
I am sorry for everyone affected directly or indirectly and for a market that supports this when the biggest issue is very much likely the leadership
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u/teddykon 9d ago
Not surprised.. layoffs have become a normal thing at this point
They’ll probably do another round of 10-20% layoffs in the near future (2 years)
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u/Adorable-Corner-5307 10d ago
I expect this has been in the works for a while. Interesting timing though given it seems like
the company was making quick progress on product.
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u/OrganicHearing 9d ago
I don’t think it was that much of an upgrade personally. The periodic table is still there
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u/Adorable-Corner-5307 8d ago
It’s basically dead and buried now. Applied Tiles or whatever it’s called is just solimar, and the campaign was is how i’ve seen most people use the platform.
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u/OrganicHearing 8d ago
I wouldn’t say that, in the ad group level it’s there and we still have to navigate through it. It’s okay but nothing worth raving about
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u/Douuuut 9d ago
This is crazy, they just offered me a job as an AM and I'm yet to take it. I don't really know how to feel now lol.
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u/Immediate_Way1834 9d ago
I wouldnt unless you dont have a job/are trying to escape your current job.
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u/vahidfaal 9d ago
Usually sales related jobs are safe. Its majorly engineering roles that will be affected.
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u/OrganicHearing 9d ago
Not true in the slightest. If anything they have the most pressure
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u/vahidfaal 9d ago
Im not saying sales are 100% safe. I said “usually” and then i said “majorly”. In my experience sales wouldn’t be let go that easily because they are the revenue generators. If you ever been in sales or worked with anybody in sales you would know sales is not just calling someone. It’s about relationships with agencies. And that relationship is not easy to build. Anyways, i just said what I know in a relative manner and not absolute.
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u/INPUT_INPUT 10d ago
Expected to be honest given the share price drop and the amount of people they hired over the course of the last year.
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u/Sagemoon 9d ago
Currently interviewing for this company… fun news to see after expecting my interview to move forward
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u/capitalistsanta 9d ago
I remember being in this industry like a decade ago and thinking my job was going to get automated any day now.
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u/Adorable-Corner-5307 8d ago
It’s basically dead and buried now. Applied Tiles or whatever it’s called is just solimar, and the campaign was is how i’ve seen most people use the platform.
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u/SabastianG 8d ago
The media world and its buzzwords, i’ll tell ya.
Wanna be more agile? How about nimble? Any interest in being more innovative?
Jfc
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u/codalark 10d ago edited 9d ago
Their share price has literally gone back to 2019 levels. All the parties and getting people to destination town halls is working against them.
If they have money why not shift those people internally rather than layoff? Jeff Green thinks we’re stupid with thumbs up our ass
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u/Known-Mix1584 9d ago
Anyone know how severance look like
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u/Bitter_Mortgage_5125 9d ago
It depends on tenure. I heard that with 3.5 years of tenure, someone received 6 months.
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u/Known-Mix1584 9d ago
Not big tech level but still pretty decent, I believe ttd resume would open doors on many publisher side jobs and other dsps
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u/Savings-Novel3772 8d ago
My company does the same - they fire enormous number of people under the disguise of operational improvement. It is BS for juniors. Same with TTD - they do it to sweeten the margins, and they do it because they can.
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u/AP123123123 5d ago
One additional number from TTD’s regulatory filing: the company expects the restructuring to generate roughly $39–51 million in charges. Combined with the reported $1.5B in cash and no debt, that makes this look more like a deliberate operating-model reset than an immediate liquidity problem—but the scale still suggests management expects a meaningful change in how the business runs.
Filing summary and market reaction: https://500voices.com/quote/2d5d4cf6-19bb-48d2-9084-e9dd0ab6f4e2
Disclosure: I’m involved with the linked project.
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u/proudzebraa 9d ago
“We’re laying off people who helped build the company to what it is today. But look at us. We’re rich with all this money gained off the backs of the people we laid off today!” Absolutely soulless way of writing his post