Five Trends, Two Guys, and a Lot of Opinions

The Financialization of Media

The media market is broken — and it's broken by design. In this episode, Corey and Joe sit down with Marc Guldimann, co-founder and CEO of Adelaide, to unpack why digital advertising operates like a classic "lemon market," where buyers can't assess quality so sellers have no incentive to provide it. Marc explains Adelaide's AU metric — a placement-level quality score built on attention research and outcome validation — and how it's beginning to function as a genuine market currency, moving from the buy side to the sell side much like credit ratings did in financial markets. The conversation goes deep on the financialization of media: forward contracts, securitization, and why a CMO who can't answer "what will it cost to reach my audience in six months?" is structurally disadvantaged compared to every other executive in the boardroom.

The Index Cloud with Andrew Casale

Andrew Casale, founder and CEO of Index Exchange, joins Corey and Joe to discuss the launch of Index Cloud — a new infrastructure paradigm that allows DSPs and ad tech companies to run bidders, custom algorithms, and data models directly on Index's edge infrastructure. Andrew explains how containerized bidding eliminates the massive cost of internet egress (up to 80% of a DSP's cloud bill), dramatically compresses latency, and opens up time for smarter, feature-rich AI models that could finally let the open internet compete with the walled garden giants. The conversation covers the implications for CTV and live sports advertising, the early partnership with Bedrock Platform and Chalice, the vision for GPU inference at the edge enabling real-time contextual creative, and why Andrew believes the open internet — if it can collaborate as one — is on the verge of a dramatic competitive rebound.

Modern MMM

Mike True, founder and CEO of Prescient AI, joins Corey and Joe to discuss how the company built a modern media mix modeling platform — starting with an unlikely origin measuring Cardi B's streaming performance during COVID. Mike covers why MMM has had a resurgence, how Prescient is helping brands move from static quarterly budget reviews to dynamic weekly optimizations, and why search is dramatically over-credited in most media mixes. The conversation also gets into where brands should be putting more dollars right now, the emerging complexity of TikTok Shop and omnichannel measurement, and what measuring AI-driven discovery channels like AEO will require next.

Identity, Measurement, and What AI Actually Changes at TransUnion with Matt Spiegel

Matt Spiegel, Head of TrueAudience Growth Strategy at TransUnion, joins Corey and Joe to discuss what nearly nine years at the intersection of credit data and marketing technology has taught him about identity, measurement, and the limits of AI. Matt traces TransUnion's evolution from a credit bureau into a full-stack marketing data platform — covering the Neustar acquisition, the build-out of identity resolution, audience discovery, and marketing performance analytics — and explains why having all three capabilities sitting on a common dataset is what makes the offering different. The conversation tackles the cookie deprecation reality check, the ongoing challenge marketers face in demonstrating C-suite credibility through measurement, and why AI will transform the speed and economics of mixed media modeling long before it removes humans from the loop. Matt also offers a frank read on AI adoption.

Building An Empire, Not A Holdco

George Popstefanov, founder and CEO of PMG, (also Koddi, Further, and the Momentum Group), joins Corey and Joe to discuss how he's built and managed a portfolio of independent, technology-first companies across advertising, commerce, and data. George walks through the three pillars that define every business he builds  and how those principles drive everything from product development to acquisition strategy. The conversation covers how PMG's Ali operating system and Alli Marketplace are becoming central infrastructure for Fortune 500 brands navigating the shift to agentic marketing. George also addresses the AI cost reality check hitting enterprise organizations, the gap between AI usage and AI impact, and why he believes education at the C-suite level — not technology deployment — is the single most important first step for companies trying to transform.