Zvika Netter has the kind of clarity that’s rare in adtech. While others pitch “disruption” with buzzwords, he quietly reminds the industry what it should already know: television must be kept open for everyone and controlled by no one. He insists, “we always stayed outside of media,” and says bluntly that he doesn’t understand why ad tech has to skim a slice off every media dollar. “Price software like software,” he says, and you can almost hear the exasperation from a guy who’s watched the same bad habits repeat for 17 years.

And yet, when asked what his long-term plan was in Innovid’s early days, he’d grin and say, “world domination.” Everyone laughed. He wasn’t kidding.

Zvika co-founded Innovid in 2007 with a deceptively simple idea: video could be more engaging, measurable, and dynamic. As he put it, “When we started the company in 2007, it was clear that the world was heading toward a more digital experience, and we saw an opportunity to reinvent how advertising could show up in that environment.”

That conviction powered Innovid through milestones few independent platforms can claim: an IPO, the acquisition of TVSquared to deepen measurement capabilities, and, most recently, the merger with Flashtalking under Mediaocean. He doesn’t dress it up: “Innovid was focused on CTV, Flashtalking was focused on display and omnichannel. We took number two and number three and created a bigger number two.”

This isn’t just M&A chest-thumping. It’s a strategic bet. “We used to be public,” he explains, “so part of this was to become private, which allows us to invest more in innovation and be more aggressive than we could as a public company.” That’s the subtext: freedom to move fast and reshape the rails of modern TV advertising.

Zvika doesn’t mince words about where CTV is today. “CTV is at a critical inflection point. It’s growing fast, but unless we act now, we risk repeating the mistakes of early digital advertising—fragmentation, lack of transparency, excessive tech taxes, and a handful of dominant players controlling everything.”

That’s why he launched Harmony, which he describes as “our blueprint for what CTV should be—a collaborative, data-driven, outcome-oriented ecosystem.” Harmony isn’t just branding; it’s a set of products designed to clean up the swamp.

Take Harmony Direct. He’s explicit: “It eliminates wasteful ‘hops’ between buyers and sellers in guaranteed media, increasing working media by 8% on average for agencies and boosting yield for publishers by up to 15%. That’s more than $1B in potential value if applied across the U.S. CTV market.” In a space notorious for inefficiency, he’s literally handing the industry a billion-dollar efficiency play.

Or Harmony Frequency. For years, frequency management was a band-aid, siloed and reactive. Zvika flips the frame: “Powered by our ad server, which sees every impression across platforms, publishers, and households, we provide DSPs with real-time exposure data before they place a bid.” Translation: fewer consumers pummeled with the same truck ad twenty times a night, more budget shifted to net-new households. It’s the first time frequency management works across the entire ecosystem, not just inside one walled silo.

Zvika doesn’t view TV as “digital with bigger screens.” He sees it as something new altogether. “The TV budget is about $200 billion a year,” he points out, “and all that money is shifting through digital channels as connected television. Instead of just broadcast and spray-and-pray, you’re having a one-on-one conversation with the audience.”

That’s not rhetoric—it’s already happening. He proudly points to Innovid’s work during the Super Bowl: “Last year we worked with Paramount+, and it was the first time there were interactive TV ads. You could click a button that said ‘save to watch later.’ Imagine like a shopping cart for content.”

The implications are massive. If CTV is no longer a one-way shouting match but a feedback loop, the entire funnel collapses. Brand awareness and performance live in the same screen. A QR code here, a click-to-engage there, and suddenly TV isn’t the last walled garden—it’s the ultimate commerce engine

Of course, no 2024 conversation is complete without AI. But while most executives wave their hands and mutter “automation,” Zvika is specific. “What drives AI is data,” he says. “Now that TV has shifted from linear broadcast to digital, there’s massive information about different households. AI allows you to create frameworks and then generate all the permutations of ads at scale.”

He doesn’t stop at personalization. He insists the AI engine must optimize outcomes for clients—not Innovid’s margin. “The pricing for this should be software pricing,” he argues, “not a hidden cut of the media.” It’s a strikingly different vision from the platform giants whose algorithms quietly maximize yield for themselves.

If you think this is just tech bravado, Zvika pulls it back to culture. “It’s always about people,” he says. “You can last 17 years in this industry only if you have credibility. It’s about who you are, your culture, and what people can count on.”

That credibility, he argues, comes from never touching media, never hiding behind a black box, and never pretending that adtech magic solves problems it doesn’t. Innovid and Flashtalking share that DNA. “Both companies have never touched media,” he stresses. “We never bought or sold a single impression, never took a cut.” It makes the merger less about clashing tribes and more about uniting kindred spirits.

Zvika keeps returning to a comparison with banking and fintech. Why, he asks, does advertising still run on murky transaction fees while every other software industry charges transparently? “This industry transacts hundreds of billions of dollars with no clear path, no clear workflow. That’s intentional, because more money gets lost in the middle.” Fraud, over-frequency, misattribution—it’s all enabled by that opacity.

His mission is clear: “We’re just going to keep building software that makes this industry better. Hopefully we’ll make our customers, employees, and families happy along the way.”

It’s the kind of statement that sounds almost quaint in a sector addicted to quick flips and sky-high valuations. But that’s exactly why Zvika Netter deserves credit. He’s not selling a fantasy of disruption. He’s building the rails of CTV with the stubborn conviction that software should serve clients, not exploit them.

World domination? Maybe. But if the world he’s imagining is one where CTV is efficient, transparent, and actually delivers value to marketers and viewers alike, maybe that’s the kind of domination the industry needs.