[upbeat music] Welcome to a special bonus episode of the Rebooting show. I'm Brian Morrissey.
This episode features highlights from the TRB conversations at CES that we just held. It was a live podcast recording that we did in collaboration with xCo at their lovely suite in Las Vegas. Thank you to xCo.
In the first conversation, I spoke to Tom Pacas, the CEO of xCo, about how it is adapting its monetization solutions that were built for websites to the world of streaming, and why Tom is skeptical about all the talk at CES about agentic advertising taking over.
It was good to hear some realism from Tom.
Next, I sat down with Manas Mittal from Uber to discuss why mobility ads are a completely new context, and also how they might change once inevitably ride-sharing becomes mostly autonomous.
And finally, Andrea Sullivan of VaynerMedia spinoff Vibe joins me to discuss why professional development needs to adapt.
Thank you again to xCo for its support in making this program possible, and thank you to everyone who came out for the live recording. Here's the conversations.
[upbeat music] Welcome to TRB Conversations at CES, powered by xCo. We are here in the xCo bungalow suite. I'm joined by Tom Pacas, the CEO of xCo. Tom, thank you for having us. Really appreciate it.
Thank you all for joining. So we wanna talk-- We're gonna have a series of, of rapid-fire conversations.
I wanted to have one with you abou-a-about the year ahead, and I wanna talk about CTV because you guys are kinda new to CTV. We talked about... a year ago, actually- Yeah...
about this, and now it's about, like, ten percent of your business, but you're forecasting it to be quite a bit more.
What is the macro trend that you see happening when you're taking basically what you were doing in, on, on pages in the open web and taking it to the other part of the open web, which is CTV?
So first of all, the growth for us, I'll just, you know, mention that is, is actually not about getting more business, right?
I think there is a huge appetite which, you know, hopefully we'll touch on, on the reason for what xCo does, you know, improving the efficiency of yield and, and monetization in general.
But I think, you know, we're taking our steps slowly, carefully, you know, making sure we can deliver on what we promised.
You know, we have many years in online, so we're not in a rush, you know, to take, conquer the market and so on. We wanna do things right.
I think there is a lot that translate between online and CTV, but there are also significant di-differences, I would say. And, you know- What are the biggest differences you're seeing?
So I'd say as, almost as a newcomer, it's way more chaotic. It's, it's- Way more chaotic. Yeah. It feels like, you know, the best analogy I can have is, you know, a start... I don't know.
You know, I'm a startup, so the, the, these, these are my analogies. But a startup company finding product market fit, it all booms. You know, it grows very quickly, but it's very, very messy.
And the messy in CTV that we're seeing is launching of new apps and channels and inventory splits between so many people that you almost lose track. Everyone is monetizing everyone else's inventory. Loss of signals.
Not even loss, I would say just missing signals or broken signals.
So it really looks like there, there is obviously a huge opportunity, it's obviously a huge market, but I think you can see that it's not as mature as online. Okay. So I mean it... But it is a...
There is a similar story of, like, walled gardens versus a, a larger ecosystem, and the larger ecosystem is trying to compete with the simplicity of, of walled gardens. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Absolutely.
And I think, you know, it's...
We're in a very interesting point in time where we can take the lessons from online and do things better from the get-go to not lose, quote-unquote, that, that competition, you know, on the buyer a-and the user. Okay.
So this, uh, this year is gonna be the year where people talk repeatedly about agentic advertising. We did some discussions yesterday. You were-- You came- Yeah... to it.
I, I get the sense that you are a little bearish on the near-term potential for, quote-unquote, agentic advertising. Yeah. So I, I...
You know, first, just a disclaimer, I don't want what I'm saying to be as a reference to what people said yesterday. Okay.
But I think, you know, I would start with anyone that says agentic ne-needs to explain what agentic is. And I think, you know, just by- Well, this is ad tech. This is how it goes.
Yeah, no, but I- Come up with a term and then debate what it, it means for- Yeah... twelve to 18 months. Yeah, I think everyone is throwing all their- [laughs]...
you know, whims and wishes and, and, and on a term that they can barely explain.
So I think, you know, agentic is gonna solve, you know, campaign optimizations, and agentic is gonna sol- We, we wouldn't need to talk to each other.
It will just all work, and us humans, you know, we'll have time to shine and be creative and so on.
I think y-you know, even technically, let's start with having the right data in place, 'cause by the way, otherwise n-no AI is gonna save that.
And I think the biggest gap between, let's call it the open onli- the open everything versus the closed garden, I think the biggest- We're still calling it the open web, I think. Is, is it the open web? I think so, yeah.
Yeah? We have no other terms. Okay. So someone needs to come with that term. [laughs] But, but I think the, the biggest gap is that in...
when you, like, try to, you know, connect different systems to speak with each other-Trust is the, is the... And you're not even in control of that, right? Yeah.
AI and, and prompting, there is a lot of black boxing there. Trust is a key component in that. And I think, you know, one of the biggest problems in the open web is the lack of trust between supply and demand.
We, we, we could have, or, you know, as an industry, we could have bridged that gap before AI. Mm-hmm. We didn't.
So I just hope that, you know, people don't throw a gen tech as a solution to a much more fundamental problem that is really trust between the two sides. Yeah. And it's like, it's a business practices problem.
It's a business model issue versus a technical issue, it seems. You can associate the, the problem with commercials and, and incentives, I guess, and the way it was done before.
I think the situation didn't get that worse for us to really come as a group and, and solve some of the key problems. So to what I heard yesterday, you know, people talk about performance and SKUs and so on.
I think the open web with the companies we have today can deliver performance. I... We, we just need to- Yeah... start working together on that. I- So I mean, I always... I associate Exco with, like, the open web, right?
I mean, and, and, you know, historically, you know, helping publishers to, to monetize more of your business. I mean, the open web has, has expanded the definition, right? Yeah. Yeah.
More of your business is moving to CTV- Yeah... right? Like, and you expect probably the majority of your business to be in CTV, not in its, I don't want to say legacy. I think we'll have to say legacy. Yeah.
No, don't, let's not say legacy. [laughs] I think there is a convergence that is happening. Okay. And I think also the definition of CTV is sort of e- evolving, right? Is out of home CTV? Yes, no.
You know, when you see videos and video ads in different apps, you know, transportation apps and food delivery apps. So, you know, w- what exactly is CTV in...
from a, from a programmatic standpoint is, is becoming a bit more amorphic. I think Exco vision is to be able to monetize every screen.
I, I think these differences are internal and in the end of the day, you know, the, the, the brands, the, their, you know, agencies, they, they wanna see results.
And I think, you know, a lot of, of the ways we describe things in different buckets and so on are counterproductive to deliver results for the brand, and we see a more holistic picture where Exco could be used across any digital screen, may it be CTV, online- Yeah...
and so on. Well, I would just say this, I think you should get inventory on the sphere. I think it's the greatest ad placement around right now in the world. Yeah. I would be clamoring to, to, to advertise on the sphere.
I... It is outside of my hotel room, and I, I actually turned a chair around the other night and was just, like, watching, watching the sphere. So, you know, the sphere actually can be seen from space.
So, you know, I think the- There you go. That's impressions... the brand impact, you know, the impact- Absolutely... is, is, you know, out of this world. It's unbelievable. [laughs] Literally. Yeah.
On that note, thank you, Tom. Appreciate it. Thank you. [upbeat music] Okay. Welcome back to TRB Conversations at CES, powered by Exco.
Joined by Manas Mittal, Senior Director of Product Management at Uber Ads. Give us a sense of the scale of, of Uber Ads. Yeah.
So our ads business today is about o- one and a half billion dollars, is what we announced in Q3 last year. It's also growing tremendously fast, so 60% growth year on year. Yeah.
And, you know, a- again, like, the business metrics is one angle of it. The other aspect in terms of the consumer, et cetera. Like, our consumer base is also growing very fast.
Trip volumes, et cetera, are growing, and the ads business is a layer on top of that which is growing faster than even that core part, the core business as well.
And most of that is showing, is, is showing ads to people while they're being matched to drivers who are within, uh, as... during their ride. Yeah. So we have- So I see ads in a few different ways in Uber. Yeah.
We have multiple kind of ad placements and products. So I think overall, Uber has the Eats business, which is- Yeah... our, you know, marketplace, food, grocery, retail-oriented business.
We do have ads there, which is a substantial part of our business. And then we have the rides business where we show ads, you know, while you're on the trip, et cetera, which is the other part of the ads business.
And this is kind of like a new category in some way. It's like mobility ads. Yeah. Right? So what are the unique data assets that you're bringing? 'Cause I'm like, a lot of times if I'm in, like...
I remember one time I was, like, in an Uber- Yeah... and I was getting just a completely contextual ad and, like, the- Yeah... the... There was a screen, like, on the...
like, right in front of me, and I was just thinking to myself, "Oh man, publishers can't compete with this." Because you guys have- Yeah... a ton of data, and it's a, it's a unique... Coming from the air...
You know I'm coming from the airport- Yeah... in Miami. You've got, like, all this data. But what, what are the data sources that you're using? Yeah. So, you know, there's...
We have, obviously, a lot of relevant information about the user. So I think if you look at this example of travel, I know that you took a flight to... You took a Uber from your home in New York- Yeah... to the airport.
Then I know that you got to Vegas. I know you t- went to the airport. You went from the Vegas airport to your hotel. I have a lot of... I, I know now that you are, you know, a CES aficionado, right?
I have some context around that. I know you're staying at a high-end hotel, so I know more things around- Well, it's the MGM Grand. [laughs] I wouldn't go that far.
[laughs] So, you know, so there's, like, based on places where you've been, obviously, we have information. Now, the, you know, it's also, you know...
The, the other opportunity here is-In addition to the data, the placements of the app, et cetera allow for kinda contextual real-time advertising that's hard for other partners.
Like, that's-- You kinda have a captive audience in a car, for example. And so those assets become quite important as well as, as you look as the ad portfolio. Yeah. How do you balance the user experience?
I mean, uh, you're, you, you- Yeah... have experience working for very user-focused, you know, companies like Facebook, right? Yeah. And balancing that is, is difficult. Like, there are- Yeah...
some retail media executions I don't love. Yeah.
Instacart, my friends at Instacart, I'm sorry, I don't love that, that, that ad experience because it, it does-- I'm putting in what I want, and they're telling me like, "Here's something else," and I didn't-- I don't think that, that it's, it's- Yeah...
completely well executed. How do you end up balancing that? I was, like, joking with you before asking- Yeah... if you delay matching me with a driver so I can, I can see an ad. For the record, we don't.
[laughs] And we don't intend to. Yeah. Q4- Yeah... you're gonna be waiting five minutes- Uh... for, for your match. Go on. [laughs] Yeah. No, I think, look, you know, these-- Uber is a very user-first company, right?
So you'll see that in all kind of the ethos that we follow around ads as well.
On the rides product, the ads-- First of all, the ads in general, right, in our business, they only work if they're relevant for the user, if they're not annoying and inter-interruptive to the user.
They don't work otherwise, right? It leads to erosion of the user experience.
In, in this case, we don't want you take, you to take less Uber trips or less Uber-- place less Uber Eats orders because of the erosion that ads cause, causes, right?
So as a principle, it's, it's not just good philosophical standard, it's also good for business to ensure that the ads are high quality. Managing that, I think in the, there are two contexts.
The rides context, which is, you know, tends to be brand advertising. There, we put our placements in non-interruptive kind of places, right? So we definitely don't delay your trip matching. Yeah.
But we do see a high attention once the driver is matched, so we'll show you an ad then.
We show you an ad when, you know, while the trip is en route, et cetera, and that's like, you know, that's again, the user is in the car at that time. We also now have ads in tablets- Yeah... Journey TV, right?
And so those, if you just experience that, you will see how delightful it is. It's just a larger screen experience. Very, very user, user-first, right? But we run- I could turn the sound off on, like, Taxi TV. Yeah.
It's off by default, actually. [laughs] But, [chuckles] you know.
But I think the, the key there is there's a lot of algorithmic optimizations to determine which ad to show to which user to maximize relevance to the user, right?
And in fact, for a small percentage of users, we don't show ads, and we see the impact.
We always evaluate the impact that ads is having on that user base, so we can tweak and adjust our algorithms to ensure maximal user outcomes. So when you think about self-driving, right?
That's clearly the direction these things are going. Like, I see, you know, the, the Waymos are, are, like, around Miami learning and, and they'll launch there. You guys are gonna partner with- Yeah...
a lot of people, but I think the, the rideshare experience is, is going to be increasingly self-driving in, in five years- It's evolving, yeah... or something. That's clear, right? How does that change the ad business?
Yeah. Um, 'cause I think it, it, it does make it a slightly different context. I haven't been in a Waymo yet or any of, any of them. I've seen Zoox's around here. Yeah.
I don't know if you've seen those little, crazy little things. Yeah. We, we do have them in SF.
And by the way, Uber just, in this CES, we announced one of the partnerships with Nvidia and Lucid, and we'll have cars out, Uber cars out by end of this year in SF.
So the, Uber is going to be partnering with very, very diverse set of kinda third-party and, you know, third-party autonomy providers.
In terms of how the ads business will, will evolve, I think, again, going back to the notion of user experience, Uber is going to-- we'll first be optimizing kinda the base experience in the car for you, right?
So ads will actually come later for autonomous.
Once we get the base experience being done really well, then there's a notion of, like, both in-app while you're on the trip, as well as, you know, when the, when the 16 screens that you might have in one of these devices, one of these smart cars, we'll be figuring out, like, where is the right ad placement, et cetera- Yeah...
to, to show. But what I wonder is- Yeah... is I can see a big screen experience making sense in, in a car that you're in by yourself- Yeah...
versus, like, I would never put on, like, a big screen with, [chuckles] like, sound on while- Yeah... someone is driving. Like, that would be- Yeah. So there is-... completely obnoxious...
definitely the social contracts as they- Yeah... evolve with this, right? Will you be, you know, will you feel more comfortable just, like, even shopping more, you know- Yeah...
or, or, you know, uh, transparently, will you be-- How will the user behavior evolve, I think, is how we will, we will build around those, rather than necessarily build a ads product or trying to change that experience first.
[upbeat music] Right. Okay. Cool. Manas, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. [upbeat music] Welcome to TRB Conversations at CES, powered by Exco.
Andrea, thank you for joining to talk a little bit about Vibe. And also, I think one of the macro trends of 2026 to me is people who are going to smaller communities. Like, I think that is a big trend.
So tell us a little bit about, about Vibe. Yeah. Well, it's interesting also being here at CES, right, where everybody's- I know, it's the opposite... big, yeah. It's the opposite. Big ideas.
They're trying to plan their futures. But at the same time, I think we're all having conversations with ourselves and with others about- Mm-hmm... you know, "What am I doing here? What is my next chapter?"
You know, there's a lot of, like, fearful- Vegas is a good place to have those conversations with yourself.That's right.
So I, what we do is we try to help people in really identifying how can they build and live their best life, both from a business standpoint, but also personally.
And so we have everything from leadership in a mastermind, where we bring together founders as well as C-suiters to help them really do the work in arriving at that state.
We also run something called the CMO Podcast- Sure...
with Jim Stengel, former chief marketing officer of Procter & Gamble, who really lives that kind of full life and has a lot of stories, and we bring together different communities to be able to tell those stories and be inspirational.
Yeah. But we're talking about, like, macro trends. What is the sort of... And, and you'd worked with Gary Vaynerchuk for a while, and, like, he, he catches on to trends, like, pretty early, and he's tracking this.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, I mean, that's what we, we gave birth to VIVE, and this was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, in part because I think what we were seeing, and this was about two years ago, is that people were really having a crisis of confidence in terms of what did their what's next look like and who did they wanna become.
And a lot of leaders act like everything's okay, and they, on paper, everything looks great, but at the same time, they feel like they have a crisis of confidence in themselves.
A lot of people are going through different kinds of identity shifts, questions around, you know, who do I wanna be, what's my legacy, all of that kind of thing, and Gary didn't have a place where you could go and actually do the work around that.
And so two years ago we launched, at the time, VIVE by Vayner to really help executives and founders address those kinds of big, big questions. Right.
And so it's like, I mean, it's, it's sort of, I don't wanna say piggybacking, but it's, it's playing off of, like, you know, Gary's got, like, an unbelievable following, particularly among the sort of entrepreneurial, I would call it the hustle-hustler class.
I don't mean in a bad way. Yeah. You know, he hates that word, the hustle now. Does he? I think he loves it, but he hates it at the same time, so people- I mean, he wrote it on the way up, so he's gonna...
[laughs] That's right. Yeah. No, I think, you know, what is it, like, 50 million plus followers? And yeah, he's got a lot of people that- I don't think it's a negative thing. Like, I think you have to...
Like, I think if there's, like, a word of the year for 2026, I think it's gonna be, or maybe it's, like, a hyphenated word, but it's, like, high agency. Like, high agency is basically a rebranding of hustling.
Yeah, I think that everybody's trying to figure out how are they hacking their lives- Right... and how are they living into something that...
And if they can, you know, just sort of muscle their way through into happiness, that that would be ideal because that's with stuff that we can control.
I think the problem is there's so much that we can't control now, that how do we, back to your earlier point, have intimate communities where we can be ourselves, have a safe place to really explore what that is, and, you know, deal with all kinds of stuff, all the crisis of confidence, but also build the tools that allow us- Yeah...
to live into our best and happiest selves. But I think also these, when I think about, like, macro trends, like, this, like, plays into more of the, like, smaller and private communities that are...
I mean, look, in New York, I mean, Gary, like, has one. I mean, I went there. Yeah, he has his own, the, the Flyfish Club. Yeah. Yeah. Was it on Houston? Yeah, it is.
It's- And, you know, but I, I, and you see it all over New York, and maybe this is part of, like, you know, the inequality story, but, like, there's so many of these, like, private restaurants, private clubs and whatnot, but I do think that there, there is something happening where people are going into smaller spaces where they can be more, I guess, authentically themselves.
Yeah, I think people are looking for their tribe, right? Right. And that, you know, we're going out into this big world of AI, and we're, you know, the, the, you know, the stakes are, are big out there.
And so we, I think the more that folks can feel like they can be surrounded by people who inspire them, but also they connect with in a way that's truly human, I feel like there is gonna be more of that drive to something that's, you know, that's very, very personal.
And so there, yeah, th- we see there's no shortage of different communities out there and opportunities for connection, and it's interesting to see CES this year and just the frenzy of, you know, interest in connecting and all those kind of things.
And yet people are pretty worn out. It's, today's Wednesday. Yeah. It looks like people have been here for three weeks if you're, you know, kind of walking by them [laughs] at this moment.
36 hours in Vegas is three weeks. That's right. It's enough. Yeah. Let's, let's pack it in. But yeah. But I think that we all have to do the work in order to really, you know, sort of reach for the stars.
And so that's, we try to bring together everything from, you know, members of Shark Tank, like Daymond John and Bobbi Brown, to talk about the rise and sometimes fall of that journey around especially being an entrepreneur or a C-suiter that's on the climb, and to be really honest about what, what does that, what did that journey look like.
Yeah.
And then, you know, what is the, what is the stuff that's n- it's not just a matter of me having my aura ring and my, you know, doing, the, we've sometimes have to do a little bit deeper work in order to recognize how we can become- Yeah...
become our better selves. And those things don't happen in big, in big groups, you know? 'Cause then, and particularly people I believe in, in, you know, your target, you know, they're gonna be more...
It doesn't happen on social media. They're gonna be more manicured. That's right. Like, I mean, I think where it's being... It's funny, 'cause, like, Gary has seen this.
Like, you know, I think he really took off for being, like, authentic in social media, right?
And where the social media went, I believe, it became more just, like, a manicured version, sometimes based on a true story, sometimes not, that you put out there in the world.
And the algorithms, you know, basically incentivized you to be-I think they have and they continue to, to be inauthentic in some ways. Yeah, I think that's right.
Uh, but I think the other thing that's interesting is to see the different trends even in social media, where now it's not necessarily just about the number of followers, but it's, it's, you know, the algorithms are supporting engagement, and that oftentimes it's better to have more engagement with a select group and almost deprioritize just having big numbers and seeing the, you know, kind of the authentic exchange that you're having and that a lot of the, you know, the platforms are incentivizing that.
I think the other thing, you know, back to your point about having intimate groups of communities, research shows that people tend to be able to make more of habitual changes in their lives that are meaningful and impactful in groups of about 12 people, that anything more than that- Yeah...
is, you know, is something where it's not a true... You're not creating lifelines and, you know- Yeah... kind of long-term, you know, friendships and supportive constructs.
So people have to, like, apply to be part of this, right? That's right. Absolutely. Yeah.
I mean, that's the most important thing, is that we're not only identifying people that are ambitious, but they're incredibly devoted to curiosity, but also generosity, and we can't run the risk that we're bringing people on for the wrong- Right...
reasons because y- as, as you know, if you've got, you know, 12 people and one person is sort of a- abusing the, you know, kind of the value system of the group, that that- Right...
that's kind of the, the death of the, you know, the vibe, if you will- [laughs] Yeah... of the vibe of the community. I got you. I got it. I got that. Yeah, 'cause I think this is a macro trend, right?
Like, whether that's, like, you know, invitation only... Invitation newsletters are gonna be a thing in- Mm-hmm... 2026. I think for a lot of people,
a WhatsApp group or a group text is probably their most valuable form of media, and I think it's, it's instructive to, like, think about that. I'm doing... I have, like, a small text group that- Yeah [laughs]...
you know, relative, it's a few hundred people, that I'm doing, like, from these events and, and whatnot, and I think it's just... That smaller, those smaller spaces are going to become...
It's ironic to be saying this at CES, where there's a... surrounded by- It's okay. We'll keep it-... 140,000 people. But these, those smaller spaces are gonna be more valuable, for sure. Yeah.
And isn't it funny that, yeah, just these WhatsApps where you can actually say, "Help," you know- Yeah... "911, I need help. I'm looking for, you know, talent. I...
You know, here's a challenge that I haven't, you know, sort of been able to crack," and to have an ability to be able to connect i- in, in a second with those people because you already have that trust, right?
And I think that's the most important thing, is, you know, we've gotta have trust with one another, and then you can have all kinds of technological overlays that allow you to facilitate something quickly.
But if you don't have the trust, then you don't have anything. Yeah. Excellent. I know I'm gonna need a group to, like, text the, the help to when I'm, like, at my gate at Vegas Airport tomorrow. We are here for you.
And I hear those slot machines. Oh. That's the moment I really need help. [laughs] Andrea, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining.
I'm there with you, 'cause I'm the one that's always getting lost in the casinos as we're going out. [laughs] Yeah, exactly. And I have my Judy over here who- That is intentional...
pulls me aside and, and- That is intentional... promises to get me home. [upbeat music] So thank you so much for this conversation. All right. Thanks. [upbeat music]