Kurt Donnell once tried to swap CPMs for chakras.

He bailed on adtech, went all in on yoga, took a company public, and discovered the industry was less about mindfulness and more about messy mergers. “It becomes this interesting guru–follower relationship,” Kurt told me, half amused, half traumatized. Translation: the kombucha was strong, but the P&Ls were weak.

So, he came crawling back to adtech like a DSP chasing a publisher with 90% viewability. Why? Because even if we’re “just putting spots and dots on a page,” those dots keep journalism alive, staff employed, and mortgages paid. As Kurt admits, “We get to keep the world’s information free… I can lay my head on the pillow pretty peacefully that we’re doing something, even if it is putting ads on the internet.”

Kurt’s not sugarcoating it. Ads are annoying, sure, but they’re also oxygen for the internet. “My kids play games and complain they hate ads. I tell them: A) ads pay your mortgage, and B) ads make the world go round.”

That’s the part too many in digital forget: value exchange isn’t a TED talk, it’s reality. Pay, or see ads. Pick your poison.

Everyone in adtech loves slapping “AI-powered” on their decks. Kurt’s not impressed. “AI has to be the frosting on the cupcake, not the sprinkles. Sure, sprinkles look nice, but they don’t add much value.”

In other words: stop replacing humans with bad chatbots that make you want to throw your laptop out the window. Use AI to exceed human potential—not trap people in an endless loop of machine-driven mediocrity.

Long before Zoom fatigue was a meme, Freestar went remote. Cameras on, radical transparency, no hiding. “You want people to act like adults and show up? You have to treat them like adults.”

The mantra is simple: we, not me. And yes, that includes executives cleaning up after the holiday party. As Kurt puts it, “It’s not your trash, it’s not my trash, it’s our trash.”

Freestar may be shaping the future of programmatic, but internally? The biggest debate is culinary. “Every other all-hands, someone brings new evidence on whether a hot dog is a sandwich,” Kurt laughs.

For the record: “It stands alone. It is its own unit of food.”

Sorry, Subway.

The digital gospel for publishers has always been simple, loud, and wrong: more is better. More partners. More bid paths. More display slots stacked like Jenga blocks until the page collapses under the weight of ads no one wants to see. If one bidder drives yield, then surely ten bidders will mint gold.

If three display units deliver, then surely seven will fill the coffers.

But Kurt Donnell has the receipts to torch that old religion.

He’s been running the numbers inside Freestar and the results are not just surprising—they’re damning to the “pile it higher” mindset that has dominated adtech for two decades. “More has always been more. We’ve been systemically removing people, removing ad units… and we’ve seen performance improve.”

Think about that. Remove ads, revenue climbs. Sounds insane until you dig into the data. When you cut the noise, the signal becomes clearer to buyers.

Instead of chasing a blurry herd, they can actually spot the prize. Kurt’s test-and-trim playbook proves the point: take away two display slots, drop in one high-quality video, and RPM doesn’t just hold—it stabilizes while CPMs rise.

Why? Because buyers aren’t shotgunning anymore.

They’re hunting with sniper rifles. The demand side has enough signals and enough sophistication to cherry-pick the inventory they want.

They don’t need to be blasted with endless duplicated impressions.

They want clarity, not clutter. Less noise. More precision. More money.

And this rebellion against “more” doesn’t stop at the ad stack. It runs through people and culture too. At Freestar, Donnell insists on running lean where it counts. Hiring isn’t a coin toss—it’s a discipline. They lean on tools like the Culture Index to read personality fit. They don’t fall for softball-buddy references; they dig for the boss who fired the candidate and will actually tell the truth. Leadership isn’t a bloated executive committee where everyone gets a title and no one gets anything done. It’s small, bonded teams that have been through the trenches together, that trust each other enough to argue about llama yoga retreats or whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich. (For the record, Kurt says it doesn’t. “It is its own unit of food.”)

This is the turning point. Publishers who keep worshipping the cult of “more” are dragging around dead weight. Their pages are bloated, their partners redundant, their supply toxic to buyers who now have the tools to tell the difference. Meanwhile, operators willing to cut, clean, and clarify are already pulling ahead—higher CPMs, healthier long-term deals, and a seat at the grown-up table when agencies and DSPs ask for premium supply.

The question is: which side of this rebellion are you on?

This is where the free ride ends. If you want to go from theory to execution, here’s what’s behind the paywall:

👉 ADOTAT+ Subscribers Only: Parts 3–5

The Freestar Revenue Playbook: Fewer Ads, More Money
Kurt Donnell and Freestar are out here committing heresy: fewer ads can actually make you more money. While most publishers are still stuffing pages like a Thanksgiving turkey, Freestar’s cutting units, pruning partners, and walking away with higher CPMs and happier users.

Consolidation Heat Map 2025–2027: The Coming Cull in Adtech
Spoiler: half the logos you know will be roadkill by 2027. Identity vendors? Toast. SSPs and DSPs? Merging like teenagers at summer camp. The PE sharks are circling, and the discounts are about to get brutal.

The Operator’s Culture Kit: Remote, Real, and Revenue-Tied
Forget corporate kumbaya. Donnell’s culture playbook is scars over résumés, cameras on or don’t bother, and hot dog debates at all-hands. Remote culture isn’t about branded hoodies—it’s about brutal honesty, tighter teams, and rituals that actually stick.

👉 If you’re only reading the free side, you’re basically at the kiddie table. ADOTAT+ is where we tell you who’s getting acquired, who’s faking lift, and who’s quietly cleaning house while everyone else plays buzzword bingo.

Stay Bold, Stay Curious, and Know More than You Did Yesterday.