The Trade Desk 在增长困境中请回联合创始人 Dave Pickles 组建并领导 CTO Council

Three years after he stepped away, Dave Pickles is coming back to The Trade Desk amid the worst stretch in its history as a public company. 

The co-founder and former chief technology officer, who left his role and the company’s board in 2023, will establish and lead a new CTO Council, The Trade Desk announced today. He has stayed on as advisor since leaving.

The council will work with The Trade Desk’s engineering and product teams on its core technology and product roadmap. The company, in a blog post, said that work includes “architectural direction, operational excellence, and key engineering investments—including agentic capabilities and advanced AI-powered advertising workflows.”

“I’m so excited Dave is back. I’ve missed working with him,” CEO Jeff Green said in a statement. “We’ve had so many successes together over the years, and I’m energized to take all of that history and point it toward the future. This is a pivotal crossroads for our company and the industry.”

The announcement lands a week before The Trade Desk is expected to report third-quarter earnings on Nov. 9. 

The Trade Desk went public in 2016, hitting $1.1 billion market capitalization on its first day, betting the open web would hold against the walled gardens. Pickles ran the company’s technology through most of the climb that followed.

The company he is rejoining has slowing revenue growth, partners pushing back on its products, and a stock sitting 91% below its peak. 

In August, TTD reported second-quarter revenue of $715 million, up 3% year-over-year but about $37.6 million short of analysts’ forecast. It guided third-quarter revenue to at least $650 million, roughly 12% below the same quarter a year earlier, which would be its first YoY revenue decline as a public company. 

Pickles framed his return around the company’s existing team. “I’m thrilled by all the progress our engineering and product teams have made in recent years,” Pickles said in a statement. “The foundation here is strong, and I’m excited to support the team and help guide them through a new era of rapid change and opportunity.”

Green and Pickles founded The Trade Desk in 2009. Pickles came from AdECN, an ad exchange Microsoft acquired, where he led a team that built its real-time building exchange. 

When he stepped down in 2023, he handed day-to-day technical leadership to Sairaj Uddin, then SVP of engineering, and Gruia Pitigoi-Aron, then SVP of product, both reporting to Green.

The Trade Desk’s technology has been at the center of its troubles since then. The adtech company launched the Kokai platform in 2023, around the time Pickles left. ADWEEK reported that advertisers frustrated with Kokai moved millions of dollars in ad spend away from the platform to Amazon, and the company later sunsetted Kokai. 

The Trade Desk has also seen turnover in its finance leadership, including a string of CFO departures. More recently it pushed into AI agents with Koa, its conversational AI interface.

The company did not say whether Pickles is returning full time, rejoining the board or holding an officer title, or how the CTO Council will divide authority with the company’s current engineering and product leaders. The Trade Desk declined to comment on those details and pointed to its blog post announcing the move.