Jeff Green

Career AdECN and Microsoft (2000-2008) Green received his securities broker license after college, and subsequently spent a year working for an insurance company in investments. He also worked as a technical account manager in the MSN division of Microsoft, based in Salt Lake City. In 2001 he joined 411 Interactive, a digital advertising company, and worked as a digital media buyer. Around this time he founded two ad tech startups. to bring programmatic trading to digital advertising. AdECN was the first demand-side advertising exchange service, joining Microsoft and becoming COO of AdECN Exchange. Apart from overseeing AdECN, at Microsoft he advised on strategy for the Online Services Division and oversaw all of Microsoft's reseller and channel partner business, which included the monetization of "Facebook ads, Fox Sports, MSNBC, Hotmail and several other large Internet sites." He left Microsoft in 2009 to found a new company. The IPO's opening day was reported to be “a huge vote of confidence for the demand-side platform,” and has since been cited as one of the best-performing stocks in the market, In 2023, Forbes estimated his wealth at $6 billion. Green and The Trade Desk support NPOs Water.org, The Charity Defense Council, Thorn, and Not Impossible.

Speaking and appearances As CEO of The Trade Desk, Green has appeared on Bloomberg TV, Business Insider, CNBC, Fox Business, NPR and The Wall Street Journal. In 2017, he appeared on 60 Minutes to discuss how consumers can avoid fake news and, in 2019, Green launched an instructional video series on digital advertising concepts. In 2025, he spoke at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Annual Leadership Meeting. He was a Global Conference Speaker at the Milken Institute in 2025.

Green has advocated the concept of an open internet, a fragmented market outside of major companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon. He stated in 2020 that Trade Desk was trying to "string together a healthy ecosystem in the open internet, so that all the disparate pieces . . . can compete with [the big tech groups]." He has been an outspoken critic of Google's dominance in the online advertising market, and has argued that Google exiting the open internet could be the remedy for its antitrust ruling in 2025.

Awards and recognition In 2015, Green was among the American Marketing Association 4 Under 40 Emerging Leaders. Also, Forbes named The Trade Desk to its top 10 of America's Most Promising Companies in 2015, and Green and Pickles were also both named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award recipients in the Greater Los Angeles region, for which Green had been a finalist in 2014. He has an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from California State University Channel Islands.

Personal life Green lives in Newbury Park, California, in Thousand Oaks, northwest of Los Angeles. He is divorced and has two sons and a daughter. He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the California Ventura Mission, but is now disassociated, having publicly criticized the church in 2021 for hindering equality and global progress, and donating $600,000 to an LGBTQ rights organization, Equality Utah.

Philanthropy Described as an "aggressive philanthropist" by the Wall Street Journal, promising to donate 90 percent of his wealth during his lifetime. With the motto "Dismantling Disparity Through Data," in 2019 and 2020, the foundation made donations to California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI) to support mentorship programs, and in 2021 his family foundation's giving arm. DataPhilanthropy has funded the Ruth Cheatham Foundation to provide scholarships to young people with cancer. In 2023, Green was involved in creating the Scholarship Data Dashboard database at California State University, Northridge (CSUN).