This is a follow-up to my piece from last year. And my piece from yesterday. If you haven't read either, go read them. If you did read them and thought things would get better, welcome to the sequel nobody wanted.

You're on the Croisette. The Mediterranean is doing that thing where it looks like a screensaver. Some guy whose title is "Chief Growth Officer" hands you a glass of something pink and expensive. LinkedIn is going to love this photo.

Now do the math on the room you're standing in.

35,000-plus accredited bodies at the Cannes Film Festival. Cannes Lions dumps another 12,000 into town. Senior ranks run 55 to 65 percent male. Among the over-28 crowd at Lions, women are maybe a quarter of the room.

And here's the number that should make you put the glass down: research consistently finds that as many as 15 percent of men have committed acts that legally qualify as sexual assault.

They'll cop to it in surveys.

They just don't use the word "assault." They say "persistence" and "misread signals" and "it was a different time" even though the time was last Tuesday.

That guy talking to you about connected TV attribution? One in six or seven odds he's done something that would make your stomach turn. That's not me being dramatic. That's peer-reviewed research being extremely inconvenient at your beach party.

One female CMO told me 2025 was the worst Cannes she's ever experienced. Another said she was propositioned multiple times, refused drinks from men entirely, and stayed sober the whole week.

That's not paranoia. That's a survival strategy. At a marketing conference. In 2026.

Last year I wrote about the groping, the propositions, the "that's just how he is" shrugs, the executives fired for harassment who showed up on the beach like nothing happened. I wrote about the podcaster I know is a predator, the threats from billion-dollar companies, all of it.

People shared it. People said "wow, brave." People clicked the little heart on LinkedIn.

And then absolutely nothing happened.

But you know what DID happen after yesterday's piece? Something that should make every executive in this industry lose sleep tonight.

Woman after woman after woman sent me a message on LinkedIn. Not publicly. God forbid publicly. That would be career suicide and they know it. Privately. Horror stories. Bosses who explicitly refused to let them speak. Sexual assault. Being forced to work alongside men they had reported, men everyone in the building knew were predators, but the predator had a quota and a Rolodex so tough luck, sweetheart, hit your numbers.

My inbox looked like a crime blotter dressed up in corporate language.

These women aren't silent because they have nothing to say. They're silent because they've been ordered to shut up by the people who sign their paychecks. Your industry isn't failing to protect women. It's actively gagging them.

It's not just the predators. I expected them. What I didn't expect, what genuinely shook me, is what happened with the men.

Yesterday, men I respected, leaders in this industry, dismissed this. I'm not calling them out. I'm not exposing them. They told me in private and I'll honor that. But I am deeply, profoundly disappointed.

The ones who said things like "You know some women are lying..."

Yeah. Some people lie. About all kinds of things. Most people don't lie about being sexually assaulted. The research is overwhelming on this. False reports are in the single digits. But sure, let's build our entire industry response around the tiny percentage of liars instead of the massive percentage of victims.

That's definitely the move. Great leadership. Really inspiring stuff.

These are men with titles. With influence. With the ability to actually change things. And their instinct, their first gut reaction to women sharing stories of assault, was to question whether the women were telling the truth. Not to question the men. Not to question the system. The women.

That tells you everything you need to know about why nothing changes.

And look, I need to say something here because I refuse to be a hypocrite. I was part of the problem once. One of the first ad:tech conferences, back when they were still in the US, one of my companies had "sexy police officers" giving out summons at our booth. The cringe is physically painful. But that was the culture and I was swimming in it.

The difference?

I grew up. I learned. I changed.

A staggering number of people in this industry didn't. A staggering number don't want to.

"I had a supervisor who everyone in the company openly acknowledged was trying to sleep with me." This is a C-Level executive. Of a major company. Her boss was known, by everyone, to be pursuing her. Employees talked about it like entertainment. She had to report to this man every day. Every single day. And I know this guy. Multiple complaints yesterday.

"I was forced by my boss to allow an industry 'expert' to interview me. His Instagram is full of photos of him shirtless, in bed." She didn't have a choice. Her boss made her do it. Come on. Dude is a thirst trap and you made her work with him?

"An older man at Cannes said: 'If I were younger, I'd have sex with you right now.'" As if the only thing standing between him and her body was his age, not her consent. This man will be speaking at Cannes again. On a "media quality" panel. Media. Quality. You can't write satire this good.

"Men couldn't keep their hands off me at the white party. There are dozens of photos of them grabbing me. The company posted the photos. I asked them to take them down. They told me I was 'too sensitive.'" She gets grabbed. It's photographed. It's published. She objects. And she's the problem.

These are not outliers, a few bad apples.

This is the damn orchard.

I know what happens next. I've been through this cycle before.

Some of you will ignore this entirely. The big adtech publications will pretend this column doesn't exist because the companies doing this are also the companies buying their ads. Can't bite the hand that feeds you, right?

Even when that hand is groping someone.

The adtech podcasters, the ones with the VC friends and the brand panel invites, will either say nothing or they'll do what they always do: they'll make me the story. "Oh, there goes Pesach again. Causing problems. Stirring the pot. Being difficult."

I'm the difficult one. Not the man who told a woman he'd have sex with her at a business event. Not the supervisor everyone knew was trying to bed his direct report. Not the guys grabbing women at parties while cameras roll. Me. For writing about it.

Some of you will comment, very carefully, that "this is an important conversation" and then never actually have the conversation.

Some of you will post a supportive emoji and then book the same predators for your next panel.

Some of you will DM me privately saying "you're right but I can't say anything publicly."

I know who you are. You know who you are. And your silence is noted.

And to the podcaster bros who will frame this as Pesach being a troublemaker? I am a troublemaker.

That's the point.

Someone has to be.

Because the "non-troublemakers" have had decades to fix this and they've done exactly nothing.

I also expect a few to attack me, the same people who claimed last year, and really someone emailed me this, that I was “throwing men under the bus.”

No, really — an actual expert in the industry, a well-known podcaster who does events frequently, accused me of “throwing men under the bus” by exposing rapes at Cannes.

That’s why he hates me.

For throwing predators under the bus.

Let's do this chronologically so nobody can play dumb.

2022. The UK's TimeTo campaign had to RE-launch warnings about sexual harassment at Cannes Lions. Not launch. Re-launch. Because apparently the first go-round in 2019 didn't stick. Shocking. An awareness campaign that didn't fix systemic predation. Who could have predicted.

2023. French actors' collectives published open letters accusing the festival of literally rolling out the red carpet for alleged abusers. Their word for the problem was "endemic." Not "concerning." Not "an area for improvement." Endemic. Like malaria, but with lanyards.

2024. Two American undergrad marketing students filed a police report after being groped in the garden of the Carlton Hotel during Lions. A guy in his thirties. His alleged justification? That "accepting men's forwardness" is the price of making it in this business.

Read that again. A man allegedly sexually assaulted two college students and framed it as career advice.

They reported it. Filed with police. Told festival security. He wasn't even a registered delegate. Was he banned? No. Was he invited to every party the following year? You already know the answer.

2025. Organizers rolled out "Safe Zones." Three of them. Staffed. Nearly 24/7. Trained professionals. Which sounds great until you realize it's the festival equivalent of putting a lifeguard at a pool party where the host keeps pushing people in.

Emily Roberts and the Women in Programmatic Network collected about 500 signatures on a petition calling harassment at Lions "pretty rife." They demanded actual codes of conduct for the yacht parties and beach activations. You know, the places where the real business happens, and also the real harassment.

The Cannes Film Festival itself finally started barring talent facing sexual violence allegations from the red carpet. In 2025. Only took the better part of a decade and a few hundred accusers. Bravo. Standing ovation. Truly groundbreaking stuff.

2026. French parliament is now on record calling abuse in entertainment "endemic" and explicitly telling Cannes to take the lead on fixing it. The government. Is telling a film festival. To stop enabling assault. That's the bar. And Cannes is still tripping over it.

For the "it's not that bad" crowd, and I know you're out there because you're always out there, here are some numbers. Sit with them.

45% of women report being sexually harassed or receiving unwanted advances at professional conferences.

That's almost half. Flip a coin. That's worse than a coin flip.

At tech events specifically? 29 to 39 percent. Among event industry professionals, the people who literally build and run these things? 80 percent have experienced sexual harassment on the job. Eighty. Eight-zero. The vast majority never reported it.

And reporting? Roughly 5 percent of sexual assaults get reported to anyone official. Five. So whatever horror story made it to your LinkedIn feed, understand that it represents a tiny, tiny sliver of what actually happened.

A review of 195 conferences found fewer than 25 percent even had a code of conduct. Many of those didn't mention sexual misconduct. At all. Not even in the fine print.

Not even as a throwaway line.

This isn't a broken system. This is a system that was never built. You can't fix what was never there. You can only build it. And this industry has shown zero interest in picking up a hammer.

I said this last year. I'm saying it again. Louder. Because you didn't listen.

Keep your FUCKING hands off of women.

Don't hug them. Don't put your arm around them during a photo. Don't rest your hand on her lower back. Don't grab her waist. Don't "jokingly" pull her in for a conversation. Don't do the lingering hand near the hip thing that you think is subtle. It's not subtle. Everyone sees it. She definitely feels it.

Be a gentleman. It's not hard. JUST. STOP.

I was taught early in my career, thank G-d, by decent mentors who understood a basic concept: you do not touch people without their consent. Full stop. At events, in meetings, at happy hours, at after-parties, on yachts, on beaches, in hotel lobbies, everywhere, always, forever.

You don't put your arm around her. You don't rest your hand on her back. You don't grab her waist for a photo.

You keep your hands to yourself like every kindergartner on the planet is taught to do.

"But it's friendly." No it's not.

"But everyone does it." That's the problem.

"But she didn't say anything." Because women are conditioned to smile through discomfort. To de-escalate. To play along. To protect YOUR feelings while you're violating THEIR boundaries.

She might not say a word in the moment. She might smile. She might even laugh. And then she might go home feeling uneasy, or dirty, or furious, wondering why she didn't feel safe enough to tell you to get your hands off her.

If you're unsure whether your contact is welcome, that's already your answer. The answer is no. It was always no. Stop asking the question with your hands.

And to every man who reads this and thinks "well I would never do that," great. Wonderful. Gold star. When's the last time you stopped someone who did? Not in a group chat after the fact. Not in a DM the next morning. In the moment. To his face. When it was awkward and expensive and might have cost you something.

Because if you saw it and said nothing, you didn't "not do it." You helped.

Want to know if we've moved past the booth babe era? Go to any Affiliate Summit. Walk the floor.

Booth babes. Still. In 2026. Women hired as set decoration for mediocre SaaS products.

And the official after party last year? Strippers. On stage. While a rapper performed songs about "bitches" and "hoes." At an official industry event.

Paid for with company credit cards. And expensed.

We write blog posts about diversity. We put "inclusive" in our LinkedIn bios. We sponsor panels about women in leadership. And then we throw a party with strippers and call it networking.

The panels are for show. The parties are for real. The DEI commitment is for the press release. The stripper budget is for the P&L.

There are a bunch of adtech events coming up in the next few months. You want to know something interesting?

Guess how many of them invited me.

Go on. Guess. Think really hard. How many events are there? Programmatic IO? Affiliate Summit? Martechture? How many of them have the guy who owns the largest newsletter in adtech, media, and marketing right now on their speaker list?

I'll save you the math. Basically none.

I've created multiple companies worth billions. Sold them. Thirty years of experience in this industry. And I can't get a keynote. Not because I don't have anything to say. Because I have too much to say. Because I say the stuff that makes sponsors nervous. Because I write columns like this one.

And why? Because they want to control what I say. That's it. That's the whole reason.

What I want to do is talk about programmatic. About fraud in the industry. About the things that actually matter to the people spending money in this ecosystem. But I also want to point to the audience and note the horrible, obvious, inexcusable lack of diversity. I want to ask this industry to do better. To its face. In a room full of people. With a microphone.

Not a single conference will let me do that.

They call it "politics." They call it "disruptive." Talking about the fact that women are being harassed and pushed out of an entire industry is "disruptive." You know what's actually disruptive? Groping someone at a networking event. That's disruptive. But sure, I'm the problem. The guy with the microphone and the opinions. Not the guy with the wandering hands and the VIP lanyard.

Maybe I'll show up at your event uninvited. With pictures of you with Epstein. We know who you are.

Now guess how many of them invited the women who spoke up last year. The ones this industry quietly labeled "troublemakers." The women who filed reports. Who signed petitions. Who went public with what happened to them. How many of those women got a speaker slot? A panel invite? Even a comp'd ticket?

Meanwhile, the guys they reported? The ones everyone knows about? The ones whose names get whispered at every happy hour from Cannes to CES? They're on the agenda. One of them is literally moderating a "media quality" panel. You cannot make this up. I have tried to write fiction less absurd than this and failed.

This industry doesn't punish predators. It punishes the people who point at them.

The message is crystal clear: shut up, smile, take the drink, and don't make it weird.

And if you do make it weird, if you dare to say something, you don't get invited back.

But he does. Every time. Every single time.

That's not an accident. That's a policy. It's just not written down anywhere because writing it down would make it harder to pretend it doesn't exist.

This industry will spend $400,000 on a beach activation to talk about "brand safety" and won't spend a single dollar making sure the women at that activation are safe. Zero dollars. Not one.

Every year, the same executives who got fired for harassment show up again. New title. Same behavior. Celebrated. Toasted. Handed VIP passes. The "he's changed" whisper tour, sponsored by cowardice and LinkedIn engagement.

The sponsors know. The brands know. The holding companies know. They choose access over accountability because the predator brings in revenue. The woman he harassed does not have a Super PAC.

That's not a system. That's a protection racket.

What Has to Happen

Every brand sponsoring a Cannes activation needs a code of conduct as a condition of the deal. If your logo is on it, you own what happens at it.

Real, independent, staffed reporting mechanisms. Not a QR code. Not a pamphlet. An actual system with actual consequences. Someone gets thrown out. Today.

The industry needs a blacklist. Right now the woman who reports gets whispered about. The man who assaults gets a panel slot. If that math doesn't make you sick, you're part of the problem. If you want to do this, let’s talk — I’ll host it in Sweden, where there are extensive protections for this.

Men need to stop being bystanders. Say something when it's happening. Not after. Not in a think piece.

Now. There. To his face. Go to that guy at Experian and tell him that he’s a creep. Oh, yeah… I am giving hints. Experian, call me before this goes public on the wire, take this serious, because I assure you, my contacts at Justice and SEC will.

I didn't want to write this again. I wanted to come back and write about CTV measurement or something boring and forgettable. I hate being the truth-teller about this shit.

But here we are. Same industry. Same problem. Same silence. Same men. Same victims.

Same people telling me I'm the problem for talking about it. They will go on slack channels after this, post this, and expect the bros to make jokes about “what a woman Pesach is.” Like they did last year.

Count the women in the room. Think about the ones who stopped coming. Ask yourself where they went. You know where. They went home. Because it wasn't safe to stay.

Think about the women flooding my inbox because their own companies won't let them speak. Think about the men I respected who responded to all of this by questioning whether women were lying. Think about the predators who've been known for decades and still get standing ovations.

Am I part of the problem, or am I just watching it happen?

I wrote this last year. This industry didn't prove me wrong. So I wrote it again. And I'll keep writing it. Every year. Until something changes or until every last one of you is too ashamed to show your face on the Croisette.

Your move.