Trade Desk CEO Jeff Green Invests $150M in Stock Purchase
"Yesterday, I announced that this week I made the biggest purchase of my life. I purchased ~$150M of TTD stock. Some called it a record. I said I'd explain why. In short, I'm putting my money where my mouth is," Trade Desk CEO, founder and Chairman Jeff Green said in a blog post. "At The Trade Desk, we have strong convictions about where value in digital marketing is shifting and why... I've never been more convinced that our approach is the right one, and that our people - our greatest asset - will deliver on that promise. That conviction and that promise are what I'm investing in. Let me go a click deeper on why I'm so convinced that future is bright: 1. The AI present. 2. The bigger TAM. I believe in 2026 and 2027 the advertising industry will think about inventory differently - we already do. In addition to CTV and audio (the most effective forms of advertising today), over time TTD will also have access to two new types of highly effective inventory - chatbot inventory and sponsored shopping listings. 3. Wall Street is wrong... Right now, Wall Street has an unprovable bear thesis - "software is dead." There is fear that Claude and tools like it will enable developers to duplicate Salesforce or The Trade Desk. During a time when the market can't prove that thesis wrong, the market and the sector go down. What I think they're missing is that the best companies in the world work hard every day looking for an edge...Of course, there will be new companies and new innovation, but that will usher in new competition. Just as with the rise of the internet, not everything else went away. 4. The trade press is wrong... Some journalists in our industry are unfortunately trying to monetize struggling businesses - and in that environment, clicks are perhaps more important than a deep understanding of our admittedly esoteric industry... 5. Open will make a comeback... The chatbots and operating systems of the future will be more open than closed - in large part because of the innovation that AI ushers in. 6. Our innovation in OpenTTD and agentic. 7. Measurement. Measurement is the most important unsolved problem in advertising. And it's about to change. 8. Amazon DSP is overrated... Interestingly, I suspect Amazon has made more profit from TTD in AWS over the last 16 years than they've made buying non-O&O using their DSP. 9. Our people. 10. Clients and partners."
