Signal & Noise

Everyone says they want growth. Very few organizations are actually built to deliver it. In this episode of  Signal & Noise , we sit down with George Musi—former executive across Publicis, WPP, IPG, and Horizon, now an advisor to Fortune 500 and high-growth companies—to unpack why growth consistently breaks inside large organizations. This is not a conversation about frameworks or slideware. I...

Most B2B companies don’t fail because the product is bad. They fail because the system around it is broken. In this episode of  Signal & Noise , we sit down with  Marc Sabatini , Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer at HighSignals, to break down what Brett has been calling the  GTM Slop Problem —and why so many launches stall before the market even has a chance to decide. Marc has spent 30+...

In Part 1, we talked about bots. In Part 2… we follow the money. Brett and Rio sit down again with Dr. Augustine Fou, and this time the conversation goes deeper—and gets a lot more uncomfortable. Because the real issue isn’t just fraud. It’s the system that quietly profits from it. We break down what actually happens between the moment a marketer places a bid and the moment a publisher gets paid....

Careers in AdTech don’t follow a straight line. They follow the market. In this episode of  Signal & Noise , we sit down with  Evgeny Popov , a global media operator whose career cuts across  publishers, agencies, AdTech platforms, and now television data —from News Corp to Lotame, Verve, and today at Samba. This isn’t just a career story. It’s a map of how the industry actually works. Because...

In this episode of  Signal & Noise , we sit down with  Leighton Welch (CTO)  and  Sarah Martinez (CCO)  from Tracer to unpack a fundamental shift happening across enterprise data, marketing, and advertising: The stack is being rebuilt around data—not applications. And at the center of that rebuild? The semantic layer. This conversation goes beyond the usual “data unification” talking points. I...

The CDP isn’t dead—but it’s definitely not what it used to be. In this episode, Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Dale Renner, CEO of Redpoint Global—and one of the earliest architects of the space—to revisit the rise, fragmentation, and uncertain future of the CDP. From helping shape the  first-ever CDP deal  to navigating today’s fractured landscape, Dale unpacks what actually happened—...

AdTech has built some of the most sophisticated technology in the digital economy — and some of the most forgettable marketing. In this episode of Signal & Noise, we sit down with Joe Zappa, Founder & CEO of Sharp Pen Media, to unpack a hard truth the industry rarely confronts:You can’t outsource belief. For decades, AdTech companies have treated marketing as something downstream — polish...

Lucas Longacre officially joins  Signal & Noise —and in his debut episode as an Executive Voices contributor, he starts exactly where great product work begins: in the mess. In this conversation, Lucas sits down with Zach Grumet—product leader, operator, and one of the key figures behind Lucas’s own transition into product—to unpack what it actually means to “structure the ambiguity.” This isn...

Programmatic advertising has spent the last 15 years optimizing for one thing: speed. But somewhere along the way, we lost something more important—control, transparency, and true decisioning intelligence. In this episode of Signal & Noise, we sit down with Adam Heimlich, Founder & CEO of Chalice AI, to unpack what happens when an operator who spent decades inside the system decides to reb...

What if dashboards are dying—and analytics is about to feel more human? In this episode of Signal & Noise, hosts Brett House and Rio Longacre sit down with Adam Greco, one of the most influential voices in digital and product analytics, to unpack a provocative idea: Vibe Analytics. Adam—former Omniture and Amplitude leader and current Product Evangelist at Hightouch—argues that the future of a...

Every year, leaders from across advertising, technology, and media gather in San Francisco for  RampUp , the annual conference hosted by LiveRamp. Over the past decade, RampUp has become one of the most influential events in the AdTech ecosystem—bringing together brands, agencies, publishers, data providers, and technology platforms to discuss the future of identity, data collaboration, and respon...

In this episode of Signal & Noise, Rio and Brett sit down with Crystal Santos Wallace — enterprise operator, data leader, and longtime architect of modern marketing infrastructure across global holdcos — for a candid conversation about what AI is actually doing inside agencies. Crystal has worked across the major networks and now operates at the intersection of data, identity, and transformati...

For decades, user experience has been built around a simple assumption: the human is the operator. We click, swipe, navigate, and tell systems what to do. But that assumption is breaking down. In this episode of Signal & Noise, hosts Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Drew Burdick to explore what happens when AI systems stop waiting for instructions and start acting on our behalf. As a...

The marketing industry spends more than $4,000 per U.S. household every year. Analysts estimate that 20–30% of that spend may be lost to waste, inefficiency, and outright fraud — tens of billions of dollars annually. So here’s the uncomfortable question: If everyone knows the plumbing is broken… Why does the system keep running? In this episode of  Signal & Noise , Rio Longacre and Brett House...

Part 2 of this series. If you haven’t watched Part 1, start there for the core framework on aligning GTM and CX as one operating system. In this episode, we look at real-world examples of companies that either connect—or fracture—GTM and customer experience. We reference operator-driven clarity at DoubleVerify, premium ecosystem consistency at Apple, channel fragmentation in Auto, mature orchestra...

GTM is not messaging. It’s the operating system that turns value into adoption. GTM is the promise you make to the market. Customer experience is the proof the customer lives with. When GTM and CX are disconnected, you get three predictable failures: Story drift: sales sells one thing, onboarding delivers another, CS explains the gap Adoption drag: the product may be good, but the experience doesn...

Commerce media is exploding—projected to surpass $100B in US ad spend by 2028—but beneath the hype, a harder question is emerging: is this truly incremental growth, or just a rebranded tax on brand dollars? In this episode of Signal & Noise, hosts Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Amie Owen, Global Chief Commerce Officer at IPG Mediabrands, to cut through the noise surrounding retail...

The Customer Data Platform, or CDP, was supposed to be marketing’s system of record. Instead, it’s become one of the most fragmented—and misunderstood—categories in the stack. In this episode of  Signal & Noise , hosts Brett House and Rio Longacre sit down with  Matthew Niederberger , Founder of  MarTech Therapy , for a candid, practitioner-level conversation about where the CDP market actuall...

In this episode of Signal & Noise, hosts Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Erez Levin—former Google leader, ad quality advocate, and cultural reformer—for a wide-ranging conversation about speech, norms, and the dangerous space between censorship and permissiveness. Erez has spent his career challenging broken incentives—from paid media’s obsession with outcomes over quality to workpl...

Ad verification is no longer just about blocking bad ads—it’s becoming a core input into how media is planned, optimized, and measured. In this episode of Signal & Noise, hosts Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with Mark Zagorski, CEO of DoubleVerify, to unpack how verification is evolving in the age of AI.Mark brings a rare perspective, having led multiple AdTech companies across market c...

From the show floor to the executive suites, CES 2026 wasn’t just another technology expo — it was a global turning point for AI, media, data, and the future of digital experiences. In this special edition of Signal & Noise, co-hosts Rio Longacre and Brett House bring you their top takeaways, on-the-ground interviews, and operator-first analysis straight from Las Vegas. In this finale episode...

Recorded live in Las Vegas during CES 2026, this special Signal & Noise conversation brings together Rio Longacre and Brett House with one of the industry’s most trusted—and outspoken—voices: Lou Paskalis. In this wide-ranging discussion, Lou digs into the future of the industry in light of the rise of a tidal wave of AI-generated content, synthetic versus authentic signals, regulatory changes...

What actually mattered at  AWS re:Invent 2025 —once the keynotes ended and the hype faded? In this belated, boots-on-the-ground debrief from Las Vegas,  Signal & Noise  hosts Brett House and Rio Longacre break down the real signals from re:Invent 2025, drawing on executive conversations, daily floor recaps, and firsthand time with partners and practitioners across the ecosystem. Joined through...

Signal & Noise: Live from Advertising Week 2025 dives into the most urgent conversations shaping modern advertising — from AI enablement and data transparency to the evolution of streaming, publishers, and the creator economy. Hosts Rio Longacre and Brett House speak with industry leaders to unpack how technology, innovation, and authenticity are redefining outcomes and quality in media. Tune...

Hearst Consumer Media Chief Data Officer, Jessica Hogue, joins us to unpack how a 137-year-old publisher is rebuilding its data foundation—linking first-party identity, contextual intelligence, and tighter supply paths—to grow revenue beyond the open auction. We tackle AI’s “zero-click” squeeze, brand-safety overblocking, and the push for outcomes without backsliding into last-click. Enjoy!