After reporting its slowest quarterly rate of sales growth since the early days of the pandemic, advanced advertising company the Trade Desk confirmed that it laid off 15% of its workforce, more than 500 employees.
“Our company is very healthy — our financials and business model are very good,” TTD Founder and CEO Jeff Green said in a letter posted in TTD publication The Current. “We have approximately $1.5 billion of cash and no debt on our balance sheet. In the 10 years we’ve been a public company, our revenues have gone up dramatically.”
The Ventura, Calif.-based company has long been a leader in providing software that allows digital advertisers to buy, manage and optimize ad space across websites, apps and video channels in real time.
The company controlled over a quarter of “demand-side platform” (DSP) programmatic advertising as recently as 2023.
But it’s had a tough 2025-26, with second-quarter revenue growth falling to just 3%, to $715 million, in the second quarter.
For what has been one of the most powerful companies in streaming video ad tech, the problems are myriad.
For starters, important advertising sectors including packaged goods and automotive, which make up 25% of TTD’s business, have been spooked by tariffs and inflation.
Fierce competition has emerged from walled gardens, with Amazon and Google able to lever their own proprietary inventory and first-party user data.
Rival DSPs have also leveled up their games. After TTD and advertising agency giant Publicis had a a disagreement over an audit early last spring, for example, Viant swooped in with an aggressive attempt to poach TTD clients.
The Trade Desk internal drama
Beyond market forces, there’s been plenty of internal drama.
Since the beginning of 2026, TTD has seen most of its C-level management team turn over, with the departed including Chief Financial Officer Alex Kayyal, Chief Revenue Officer Anders Mortensen, Chief Strategy Officer Samantha Jacobson and Chief Marketing Officer Ian Colley. Four board members have also left this year.
Late last month, SVP of engineering Aravind Chandrasekharan, a 12-year company veteran described as part of Green’s inner circle, departed to mobile attribution platform Branch.
That came right after now-former Senior Director of Financial Planning Jesse Mitchell was arrested for allegedly making $338,000 in profit off insider trading.
The company’s troubles have been magnified on Wall Street. Trading at nearly $140 a share as recently as December 2024, TTD finished Tuesday priced at just $14.02 a share.
Share prices haven’t been helped by guidance suggesting that Q3 revenue will drop to around $650 million.
In addition to raw cuts, Green said there will be actual restructuring.
“We want our teams to be organized into smaller pods and smaller scrums, but with greater focus,” he wrote in his Current missive. "Our aim is to position the Trade Desk team to move with greater agility, focus, ownership, and speed.”
He also tried to strike a reassuring tone for the survivors.
“While [layoffs have been] a common practice in big tech, this has not been a common practice at TTD. We don’t expect it to become one,” Green wrote in his letter to staff.