Our Amazing Sponsor
🔥 “The champion of the open internet wants to turn it into their own walled garden.”
🚨 How to Start a War Without a Press Release
Chris Vanderhook isn’t just trolling The Trade Desk — he’s declaring war on its entire operating model.
We already noted last month he was taking them on but now he’s gone full war
Forget sanitized press releases. The gloves are off in public now, and the battlefield isn’t an earnings call — it’s Linkedin
Chris Vanderhook, co-founder of Viant, keeps taking swing at The Trade Desk (TTD), accusing it of executing one of the greatest sleight-of-hand moves in adtech: building a walled garden while branding it as a revolution.
And here's what’s got the industry whispering:
💣 The Alleged Strategy
TTD is quietly assembling a vertically integrated empire:
🖥 Ventura: its own CTV operating system
🛠 A CMS layer à la Wurl or Amagi
🪪 UID2/OpenPass to control identity resolution
📦 A full-stack adtech suite to eat the pipes it once claimed to open
This isn’t speculation.
It's been pitched in closed-door meetings. Floated in agency DMs.
One exec described it as “Google’s playbook, but with better lighting and no press release.”
Even Sonos, once rumored to be TTD’s hardware partner, has exited stage left — pulling the plug on its CTV hardware ambitions and leaving Ventura with no clear entry point into the living room.
🧠 Let’s Call It What It Is
The Trade Desk isn’t trying to power the open internet.
It’s trying to own it — one layer at a time.
UID2 gives them the identity lock.
OpenPath puts the squeeze on SSPs and publishers.
JBPs cozy them up to Fortune 100 brands — often at the expense of agencies.
And Kokai? It’s an AI margin engine disguised as automation.
Jeff Green doesn’t need a turtleneck. He’s already building his own version of Apple — for adtech.
“The champion of the open internet wants to turn it into their own walled garden.”
⚠️ Why This Hits You Now
TTD’s earnings stumble cracked the halo.
Wall Street blinked.
And Viant smelled blood.
Three holding companies are already re-evaluating JBP agreements.
One global CPG brand has paused its Kokai rollout.
And multiple agencies are quietly shifting test budgets to platforms that aren’t quietly eating their role in the ecosystem.
If your Q4 strategy includes major TTD spend, you should be asking:
“Am I still the customer? Or am I just the pass-through?”
🔒 This Is Where ADOTAT+ Begins
You’ve just read the first 10% of one of the biggest shakeups in adtech strategy.
What comes next?
Screenshots from execs warning, “We’re getting locked out.”
The internal pitches that are turning agencies against their own DSP contracts.
Viant’s play-by-play strategy to siphon off TTD’s mid-market accounts.
A full breakdown of which publishers are refusing to sign OpenPath terms.
This isn’t LinkedIn speculation. It’s inside-baseball strategy, seen from the trench.
👉 Subscribe to ADOTAT+ for $50/month
Because if your competitors already read this — you’re 12 hours behind.
Subscribe to our premium content at ADOTAT+ to read the rest.
Become a paying subscriber to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.
Upgrade