There's A Meta Diaspora Building The Fastest-Growing Ad Platforms

0:04Welcome to The Big Story, a roundtable featuring members of the AdExchanger editorial team. Every week, we bring you an in-depth discussion of key developments in digital marketing and media.

0:21This episode is sponsored by Verve, an ad solution that helps brands activate consumer intent in real time across platforms. As AI reshapes how people plan vacations, Verve helps travel brands show up when it counts.

0:41ex-meta employees are everywhere and they're taking roost in new trees if you look at both the senior leadership and the rank and file of open ai tiktok amazon ads roku and more you'll find many meta employees i wrote about this trend in ad exchanger this week so joining me today is our managing editor anthony vargas who will interview me about this meta migration thank Thank you, Anthony, for putting me in the hot seat today. Yeah, my pleasure. It's always good when we get a story by you to kind of pick your brain about it because you have such a great perspective on how all this stuff has kind of unfolded over time.

1:19So really excited to kind of dig in here with you. I'm very excited to be in the hot seat. Of course, I'm Sarah Sluice, our editorial director. And before I hand the mic over to Anthony to interview me, I just want to mention that we've got Programmatic I.O. New York City coming up. It's on September 28th and 29th in New York City, the Marriott Marquis, where we almost always are. It's the established place to talk about disruption. Ad tech is upending the media ecosystem. And you can attend to surf the wave and new tech and not get sucked under the surge. And we have the code POD10, P-O-D-10, to shave an extra 10 % off your ticket price.

2:00Thank you for being a listener of The Big Story. And with that, Anthony, hand it back over to you. All right. And I'll take it from here. So, so yeah, really interesting story. And you did a really awesome job kind of like sketching out this, I guess, this, you know, executive and also rank and file, not Exodus, but like, I guess, migration from from meta to all these various other different platforms. So where did the idea for this story initially come from, Sarah? And how would you say it came? It all came together? Well, it came together or the idea came at Cannes, of course, or maybe not, of course.

2:35But I believe I was going from a meeting with Kelly McLean at Amazon Ads, who worked for more than a decade at Meta, to a meeting with David Kaufman at TikTok. And meanwhile, Allison's over talking to David Dugan for the OpenAI presentation. I'm like, oh, all of these people spent a lot of time at Meta. And now they're, you know, scattered across the Quasette. And you're kind of seeing all these people, especially in like all the installations that they have. And you're like the difference between the Meta Beach and the Amazon ads port and the, you know, and the TikTok setup and OpenAI. You kind of I had this sense of like this cultural transference and migration and what it meant when you have all these people move from one place to another.

3:26And I feel like hearing, for example, Kelly talk about simplicity and how important it is to make a platform simple and easy to use, it brought to mind meta and how it's been so successful and bringing in SMBs and just making it, you know, the platform your local dry cleaner can use and how those different types of goals, like what happens when they're applied to a different type of platform. Mm hmm. And yeah, so like on the one hand, we have like, you know, the major executives who like, you know, we would see at industry events like can and who like, you know, their career moves would be covered in the trade press.

4:04So I mean, those were already on our radar. But then when it comes to kind of like figuring out like the more like rank and file piece, I understand you did a little bit of LinkedIn sleuthing and sniffing around. So I love a little bit about that. I love my LinkedIn sleuthing. I'm also a Glassdoor fan. I don't know that I've ever, that's one of my secrets. That's one of my secrets. It's no longer a secret, but I love those Glassdoor reviews. Not so helpful for this particular piece, the Glassdoor more for layoffs and so forth. But yeah, I've got my LinkedIn premium. Obviously, it's pretty rough, pretty directional, but just doing some searches of people who worked at the companies that I mentioned who also have Meta listed as a former company.

4:49The one that stood out the most was actually OpenAI. They've hired really heavily. It had about 10 % of people who also had Meta on the resume. Of course, that could be across different types of roles, not just the ad platform. But when you compare that to Amazon or even TikTok, you might think TikTok would hire a lot of meta employees. And while there's certainly a lot of ex-meta employees there, including ones I mentioned in the piece, I think OpenAI, my guess is that kind of its rise has also coincided with a lot of people wanting to peel off from meta. So I think the timing might've been right.

5:28They're also both based in the San Francisco Bay Area. So that one definitely stood out. And what is it about Meta's ad platform that these other companies are seeking to emulate and hence bringing in all this talent from former Meta talent? Yeah, I'm talking in the story I'm talking about really from like a people standpoint, like here are all the people that move from one place to another. But I think for a long time, even maybe predating this talent migration, there was this idea that whenever a new ad platform was launched, it needed to reverse engineer the basically the meta ad platform, maybe I'd throw Google in there as well, because there's certain kind of basics that ad buyers want, they want third party measurement, they want some kind of way to measure conversions, they want, you know, to be able to upload their audiences.

6:22They want to buy on maybe a CPC or a CPM. Like they kind of have all of these things that they want. There's all these boxes they need to check. You saw that with Netflix as well, where it kind of had to put all these basics in place, different types of audience targeting. So I think one way to do that is to look at the meta ad platform and try to build everything yourself. And I think another component of that is to also hire the talent who knows how to do that reverse engineering, who knows how to prioritize, who knows how to get things done. So I think that's what we're seeing. And I think in particular, OpenAI, when people are looking at this platform, they feel like there's a lot of close similarities between meta and OpenAI.

7:09And I don't think I mean that in like a bad way or copycat type of way. It's just like they kind of basically probably looked at the meta platform and some of the other big platforms out there. And we're like, these are the features we need to build. And I'm sure they're using a lot of AI coding tools to build them just at incredible speed. Laura Coded from Mike, she's like, every time I go in, there's like a new feature. Like every time. Like she was very astonished at the pace with which they're able to build a platform that obviously Meta has spent decades building. And then, yeah, we already kind of like alluded to some of like the, you know, the big players that have made the jump from Meta to OpenAI.

7:50And, you know, you just kind of sketched out how like, you know, we're already seeing some of that influence from Meta manifest itself in OpenAI's user interface. and the speed at which they're rolling out these platform updates, as Lara Koenig pointed out. Are there any other kind of like big ways that we're seeing that meta influence in open AIs, like, you know, nascent ad platform already that you'd shout out? Or does that kind of cover the big pieces? I think, you know, not to be that person who's answering an AI question with more AI, but just to kind of list, I think, you know, it's, does it have a self-serve ad platform, different types of product carousels and it's, it's ad units.

8:33Can you upload audiences? How do you measure conversions? Can you do the CPC and CPM bidding? Do you have some kind of AI powered creative tool that can kind of make Zhezhepa creative and kind of make it work in a few different ways. So I think that OpenAI is, you know, pretty much has or is working to build a lot of these kind of basic categories without going too deep into the nuances of each one. I think the difference is, yeah, Meta's been doing it for much longer. But I think maybe the gap is probably a lot smaller than you might think. Someone challenged me on that who's listening to this podcast, but, you know, sometimes you can, you can build something from scratch and it, the whole idea of someone coming up with it to begin with and doing it for the first time is much harder than being repeating it.

9:28So, um, and then, you know, Amazon's another company that's also been very active in hiring former meta personnel. Um, and we've been hearing for a while now that Amazon ads has built one of the better platforms out there, particularly when it comes to its DSP. But as you point out in your story, it hasn't always been that way. So how would you say that, you know, you've seen Amazon evolving its ad platform and how has the meta influence kind of played a role there? Yeah, Amazon ads, I think it could have its own story. It both fits in with this trend. And I think it has a completely different story to tell as well, which I alluded to a bit in my piece.

10:08But for a long time, I mean, they had this, you know, other business that wasn't even broken out as their ads business. And it was very much independent from independent ad tech, if that makes sense. it was a lot of, I think Amazon likes to move people around a lot. So like there were these people who were doing commerce stuff who were like, sure, I can build an ad platform. Like I'm a Amazonian, like that's, that's just what we do. So it kind of had this like house built ad tech. And I think at some point they made the decision that they were going to hire a ton of people from the industry. So you saw a huge migration, I would say from a lot of independent ad tech players, you know in addition to there are some some meta leaders but there's a lot of people I would just say from like kind of the ad exchanger core indie ad tech and they kind of built a platform that's more standardized more more friendly to the industry instead of kind of having everyone kind of conform to the Amazon way I think they had a more open maybe dare I say customer friendly approach where they're trying to make make their platform more usable to the ad industry so I think I think meta is one ingredient to that.

11:24But I think the meta is a much larger ingredient to open AI at this early stage. But I think one big change that we saw with Amazon is just, yeah, becoming this more easy use, industry friendly, industry collaborator type platform where in the past it hadn't been like that. And I think it used to just be, you know, now here it's like people or investors are asking about Amazon and the trade desk earnings calls. And it's really helped it accelerate its position in the market. So I think it's kind of more of an example of what happens when you kind of bring in this industry expertise. And I think OpenAI is doing this more at the outset.

12:07And I think Amazon's an example of a company being further along on its journey there. And TikTok's also been on a big meta alum hiring spree. Although like you kind of said before, to a lesser extent that you might expect and to a lesser extent than OpenAI or Amazon. But also, as you pointed out in the story, TikTok seems to be more interested in forging its own path rather than really like hewing to Meta's playbook as closely as some of these other companies have. Is that the case? Yeah, I think, I mean, I'm actually a TikTok user myself. Like I have, I have that on my, on my phone more than, uh, than Instagram at this point, um, for a variety of reasons, I won't, I don't need to fully get into, but if you, I think maybe while TikTok a few years ago was more similar to Instagram in terms of it, just kind of having these interstitial video ads, like that kind of feels very Instagram and Facebooky.

13:06I feel like it's gone in a different direction. It's much more, I don't want to say potpourri, I'm coming up with my example on the spot, but it's got this commerce platform. It's got this whole creator network. If you look at even just the features it has around, you can click on videos and it will show you the t-shirt that someone's wearing. And then, oh, you can buy the t-shirt there. Like the way it's, it's thinking about its user experience and then the ad products that can go along with it, or maybe the future ad products that could go along with it. I feel like the meta playbook is just like one of like 10 playbooks it's running at the same time.

13:49So I got that in my interview with David Coffin of TikTok, who I spoke to at Cannes. I think that's one piece of it. I think he also spent some time at Google Meta. So you have people who understand the Meta playbook, but I think they're further along where they're not just trying to copy those basic features. They're actually trying to get people on board to like completely different ways of structuring their buying. And I think in particular, I think the shopping and what they're doing on the creator side is very interesting. And I would say the creator stuff is different than Instagram, which I think built this whole ads business.

14:27And then all of the creator work is not something that it really was taking a cut of from the outset. Whereas I think because TikTok came to the game later, it's like, oh, we actually need to make sure we get a cut earlier on. Because look what happened on these other platforms that didn't really have it as part of their initial DMA. Mm hmm. And, you know, continuing on the video front, let's shift over to CTV for a bit, because we've been hearing for a while that CTV platforms are looking to small and midsize advertisers for that next wave of CTV ad revenue growth. And Sarah Caputo, who has quickly become one of the more outspoken voices on the buy side in the trade press, she kind of pointed out that dynamic and how it's kind of influencing how CTV platforms are adopting the Meta playbook.

15:20and as you point out Roku which was recently acquired by Fox their new SVP of advertising and partnerships is Patrick Harris who had a stint at Meta a dozen years at Meta actually not more than a stint and then a shorter stint at Snap so how are we seeing like you know this Meta playbook kind of migrate over into CTV to try and get some of those like small and mid-sized advertisers into the fold Yeah, so Roku was not initially on my radar for this story. But as I was asking around for other examples, Sarah brought Roku and Patrick on my radar. And I was like, yes, like, absolutely got to add it to the piece.

16:05because not just Roku, but pretty much all of the programmers have been launching self-serve CTV ad platforms in recent years that definitely are emulating meta. And so then to see talents be brought on to the programming side as well was really interesting to me. And I feel like the people side was what I was focusing on for this piece. So I think CTV is, yeah, like 1000 % trying to do the, you know, the dry cleaner aspect of CTV ads. And I think we, we all grew up seeing those kind of like cheesy CTV or cheesy TV ads for like your auto dealership and the carpet King and all of those different things.

16:54So yeah, all those hilarious local businesses. Yeah. And I feel like it's gotten, it hasn't really showed up at least for me to the same extent on CTV, maybe I'd count like local political ads as like part of that transition, because those are for a smaller audience. But it absolutely could be a massive opportunity for these CTV companies. And actually, with Amazon is working on this as well. When you look at some of what they're doing with AI creative, totally could be a new market for them and their CTV ads. So I I think we're going to see meta-like ad platforms on CTV continue to try to attract audiences.

17:36And I think a talent migration is part of that as well. All right. And I think that's a good spot to take a quick break.

17:50Hello, listeners. I'm Sarah Sluice, Editorial Director of Ad Exchanger. and I have with me today Anna Slater, VP of Global Brand Partnerships at Verve. Welcome, Anna. Thanks so much, Sarah. It's great to be here. So we know that AI is changing how people plan trips. I've heard the anecdotes from my friends. I've done it myself. So can you give some insight into traveler behavior right now? Yeah, absolutely. I really don't want to date myself, but I've been in the travel industry now for almost 20 years. And having worked so long in one particular industry, it's been amazing to see the overall progression.

18:28And I really feel now that the adoption of AI and this trip planning process is the most impactful transformation we've seen over that time. And looking at our own LLM data here at Verve, consumers are using it for general discovery. Around 28 % of the prompts that we're seeing relate to these types of inquiries. And this is growing. And AI use for travel inspiration has doubled in the past year, especially amongst a 25 to 34 year old audience, which has grown to around 18 % adoption. And we're also noticing there's a shift away from keyword searches like cheap flights to Spain and treating AI now more like a travel agent, which is adapting in real time.

19:08However, there's still an element of nervousness around utilising AI to book, you know, since the prompts that we're seeing here are certainly dominated by that discovery, the timing, the itinerary building. But I'm sure if we're going to have this conversation this time next year, that will have all changed. So if I'm a brand and I know that AI is owning Discovery, people are using it as a travel agent, but not for the booking part of the equation, where does that leave brands who are trying to reach travelers? Good question. Travelers are using AI to navigate every stage of their holiday planning.

19:41But the biggest challenge with this new way of researching is having on brands is the pace at which it's takes consumers from dreaming to consideration. Prompts get incredibly specific and in a very fast way. Someone can go from give me trip ideas straight to a shortlist without ever touching a brand's website. And we're also seeing really heavy vendor comparison with travelers using AI to sort of audit those travel providers and then benchmark prices. So by the time the brand actually shows up in the conversation, the shortlist may already be set. So it is a very difficult moment for travel brands at this time.

20:19And then furthermore, that intent is scattered across more and more devices and platforms. But these conversations, they're carrying some of the richest signals that we have ever seen on intent. And AI is forcing the conversation to accelerate the decision making. And if they can tap in to use these signals to target, they're going to get better performance overall and have a chance at winning that conversion of the traveler's itinerary. So you just described a very complicated, complex, scattered and rapidly changing set of consumer behavior. So what steps do you recommend to brands who are trying to capture this consumer intent at this moment in time?

21:01Yeah, absolutely. And this is conversations that we're having with our clients daily at the moment. And the answer really is twofold. Firstly, travel brands need to see the intent and then also follow up and ensure that they show up in it. But there are a lot of brands that are still missing out on both right now. So on the seeing side, you know, that's LLM data, the conversational signals that we're pulling from AI chat tools. We layer them on top of actually search and zero zero party signals. And when you combine this, it provides a bigger, fuller picture of consumer intent. And importantly, you know, the LLM data shouldn't be seen as a replacement.

21:36it's a real complimentary intent signal. So obviously we're encouraging brands to sort of see what's out there in market. And then on the showing up side, it means being present inside the AI conversation itself and not just hoping that the LLM happens to mention you in the brand. Well, thank you, Anna, for those concrete steps and recommendations. And thank you to Verve for supporting AdExchange Your Podcast. Thanks so much, Sarah.

22:10All right, we're back. So to pick up the conversation, I mean, there's something to be said about copying a successful playbook. But to be fair, it's not like following Meta's footsteps always works, right? Like you mentioned in your story, Pinterest had previously tried to do so with some mixed success. So what was the issue that Pinterest ran into? And does that apply to some of these other platforms that are also looking to, I guess, take a cue from Meta. Yeah, the glory of being in this industry for a long time. I should also add, in addition to reporting on this at Cannes, I ended up deciding to rewatch The Social Network on my flight home.

22:50And that was just another piece. I was like, oh, wow. It just really brings you back. And then the movie ends with it having this astronomical valuation. It was valued at like 500 million added series be around and it's like this is incredible it's like oh it's actually worth like just like a trillion now like no big deal um so yeah so i think there's um a certain inevitability feeling to meta's rise um sometimes where we don't we we got to give the people behind the ad platform some credit for making these tough calls along the way. The fact that the transition to mobile could have left Facebook behind, the Cambridge Analytica, all of the ad boycotts.

23:42It's had some really steady leadership that has helped its ad platform in addition to having just insane user growth because you can't have an ad platform without user growth. So I think to bring it all back to the Pinterest example, I think early on when Pinterest was taking off, there was a lot of people who jumped ship from meta to Pinterest being, you know, super excited, get a lot of equity, we're going to build this amazing ad platform. And a lot of those people just like boomeranged right back to meta because they were kind of faced with this, this thing where they're like, Oh, wait, like, it wasn't me.

24:19It was the ad platform or like even or even me doing a great job is not going to help if the user growth and engagement isn't there. You know, maybe the platform had different nuances that where they couldn't find the special version of advertising that that would work. It's always been, you know, commerce friendly platform um the only thing i can think of is i know like when i when i'm going into pinterest i'm kind of like deeply researching something and then i kind of buy shortly after and then i might not use it for a long time so i wonder that's just my own personal anecdotal behavior like i think it's great while you're there but i i'm not like constantly i'm not a constant pinner right i've got other things i've got other things uh other priorities in my life besides browsing, you know, living room chairs or whatever.

25:17Like, no, no shame to people who do like to just browse for fun forever and ever. So I think that's part of the, I think you could say Snap. I didn't really look into like who anyone had Boomerang there. I think that's another example of a platform that was building capabilities that were quite similar to Meta, was really off to an amazing start and then just kind of faltered along the way. So I think that, you know, anyone who's jumping ship from meta or other platforms, you know, is it also a platform that has enough user growth that will give you a lot to play with? Because what you don't want is to like, you know, it took meta like several years to run out of ad inventory that it could place.

26:03And then it just like, you know, whatever is piling more and more ads, I suppose. Google, same deal. So does the platform you're jumping ship to also have a lot of momentum on the organic side before you do that thing? Yeah. And, you know, the user growth piece is super important. Also, like, as you kind of alluded to with like the I don't spend that much time like, you know, shopping for furniture and stuff like the stickiness of the engagement level is also really important. And as we both know from countless conversations with digital publishers, when you're dealing with advertisers, that scale piece is just as important as the ease of use of like your tech stack.

26:40So like you really have to have that scale to compete. And not every platform can bring the level of scale that Meta can. And some of these other incumbents like TikTok, like Amazon, and increasingly OpenAI can, right? Yeah. And I'll also give a little credit to Pinterest because I feel like they're on a bit of a roll. Now they've got a really interesting integration with Amazon. And I think they're making a lot of right decisions that are going to help them out a lot. So that was the Pinterest then with the boomerang. But I think there are some people unlocking some things right now that will be stay tuned on that.

27:18Yeah, to be clear, like what you were describing in the story was like Pinterest, maybe like a decade ago, but like more recently, Pinterest is like had like an even more renewed push and like, you know, shoring up its ad platform and introducing all kinds of AI features. And, you know, so there's more to come from Pinterest, too. And yeah, now we, you know, we've kind of discussed how other companies are benefiting from people who cut their teeth at Meta. So let's kind of pivot back to Meta for a second. um and you know some of these things you kind of alluded to a little bit ago when you were kind of talking about some of like the the growing pains that meta had but like why are all these people leaving the company and seeking other opportunities rather than continuing to build on meta's platform right now yeah so i think i think this is the um a really interesting nuance to the the story i think i'm sure a lot of people in the industry here have their their contacts that meta know how things are on the ground i think for a long time well first off meta was considered like an amazing place to work and then i think when you got to cambridge analytica in 2018 which is maybe eight years ago at this point morale was really bad um from you know talking to people on the inside who are you know maybe frowning over their their free lunch um over what they have to go back to I think that it was a golden handcuffs type situation where people had these amazing jobs, really highly paid, probably more highly paid than they would get if they jumped ship to elsewhere.

28:53Great benefits. It was a golden handcuffs type situation. And I think even then they really were not having trouble recruiting new people even after that. But definitely kind of this mixed feeling where morale was bad. People were questioning what they were doing, why they were doing it. And then I think at some point after that, you start having a lot of the senior leadership leave. Carolyn Everson, Sheryl Sandberg leaving more recently. and then it becomes no longer golden handcuffs type situation where you have this huge pandemic hiring uh boom and 2021 and then now it's just been rolling layoffs where people are kind of in this weird like situation where they're like because they have i believe it's because of the war act that you get like notice whenever you're laying off thousands of people so people are like oh there's layoffs coming on this date like we'll see if I stick around let me just go put the finishing touches on this deck may not be here tomorrow like it's led to this kind of I think a different type of morale issues than in the past and I think a lot of people who work there just don't feel very disillusioned or like the other shoe will drop at any time maybe they're going to get laid off again.

30:17And plus they work for this company where maybe they don't even want to tell, tell people they work there anymore. So it's just become, um, not as great of a place to work where people are more willing to leave and more excited about these new opportunities out there. And, you know, and I would say, you know, meta is a hard place to get hired, uh, right. Like a lot of really highly talented people who are maybe looking for their their next act and uh and yeah like you said you know like maybe it's like one of those things where it's like you know once you've kind of like proven that you're meta caliber and you've worked there then it's like okay that's like that's something that looks good on your resume for some of these other companies as well right um and you know right now like everybody else meta is undergoing its own end-to-end agentic AI overhaul, complete with introducing creative generation features, all kinds of automated optimizations and black boxy tools that our readers love so well.

31:17But as we discussed, Meta right now is doing without a lot of the talent that helped build its platform into the success it was today. So what are the implications for Meta's AI evolution now? Yeah, I mean, that's something I can really only speculate on versus something I covered in the piece itself. But I think that the question that's on everyone's mind is like, how much can you build and maintain a platform using AI? Like, how much talent is required to do that now versus in the past? And to what extent is AI going to replace people? Or I think raise the bar and kind of sharpen things and kind of require people to execute at a higher level or offer more features or services to keep up.

32:14It probably will be a mix of both, I think. I think the other part, which I think I touch on a bit more in the piece, is maybe using AI, it's much easier to catch up to Meta than it would be in the past. So where is Meta's advantage and does it have less of an advantage than it did in the past because it's easier to build a feature set? And I think the speed with which OpenAI is building out all of these features, I think, is testament to the fact that you can just build this stuff a lot faster than you used to. And, you know, from all initial reports, like, it's not like it's a vastly inferior product or something where it's like, oh, but they just don't got that, like, special specialness.

33:06I think the issue is probably with the platforms themselves, right? And how sticky is the OpenAI ad experience? And I would suspect that probably in the long run, OpenAI should look more to TikTok, which is kind of building these more unique feature sets that are really an ad products that are like reflective of its own ad platform. I think you got to move from being the meta copycat to then figuring out like what is your what is your version of the infeed ad you know what is what is the thing that's going to make your platform uh go and maybe even make agency buyers want to do something specific for you instead of being like oh we need like the same infeed ad unit across all the ad platforms because we just want it simple like something that they're willing to work harder um on in order to take advantage of your platform and yeah all that being said about like kind of like you know the tech pieces and like the um you know the actual like ad inventory and the value for advertisers like there's also a lot of value in the human piece too which is why all these companies are kind of going after these former meta people who have those relationships to bring to bear right thank you anthony yes the human humans matter and i i think that um all of the things that people have learned all the the nuances of how to handle different situations, whether it's PR or product issues or performance, I think that that's where the, that's where it really helps to have great talent and why they're in demand.

34:46Love it. And then, you know, we've given meta to do quite a bit here when it comes to building an ad platform that's clearly the envy of a lot of big players. So let's look at this from a different angle. What are some things that you would say these other companies should learn from where meta has gotten things wrong rather than right um i i will i would love to buy some meta employees um ex-meta employees a drink and hear about all of their experiences there um i'm sure i'm sure there's a a lot um so so i think instead of maybe talking about things that were like big public successes or failures.

35:30I'll just say from the talent perspective, there's probably so many internal stories to be told that have made these people better employees and better able to handle these kind of nuanced situations as they come up in their new jobs. And yeah, buy some of them a drink. So I've had a drink or two. I've got, I think sometimes it's actually like these little, little things more than it's the big things, like just how different teams are collaborating or not collaborating, what people are asking for, not asking for. It's kind of, you know, death or success by a thousand cuts. Yeah. And just to clarify for our, for our listeners, you meant you've had a drink or two with former meta people, not before recording this podcast.

36:21just a drink or two of coffee and there you go so yeah there's something to be said for having people who are battle tested for sure and who have been through those kind of controversies and come out at the other side you know more experienced and more capable so uh so yeah that that pretty much uh you know covers everything i wanted to get into anything else uh that you weren't able to include in the story or that uh you know that was like really important to kind of you know, shout out here on the podcast? I think we got through it all and more, but you know, I'm always interested in an email after if anyone wants to email me, Sarah at AdExchanger and tell me their own battle story or where I should look that maybe there's a meta migration I haven't noticed yet.

37:03That'll be the follow-up. All right, great stuff. So yeah, we'll keep an eye out for any outreach that we get on that. And thanks so much for listening.

37:19This episode was sponsored by Verve, an ad solution that helps brands activate consumer intent in real time across platforms. As AI reshapes how people plan vacations, Verve helps travel brands show up when it counts. Find out more at www.verve.com. That's V-E-R-V-E.com.

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