The Leadership Letter

Real correspondence from the people running real companies — and what it reveals about leadership.

Build the Pipeline First, Then Fill It With Revenue

The smartest strategy documents don't just show where you're winning — they name exactly where the work isn't done yet.

Thanks again for making the time to meet re: our display ads strategy today. A few follow-up notes:

Current State of product strategy (three pillars):

a) Platform to ACCESS the desired inventory. I think we have both the strategy as well as detailed roadmap figured out. We also completed a detailed pricing review and refresh across all products.

b) Ad Exchange to AGGREGATE the inventory that the platform piece gives us access to. Here I think we have the strategy (including positioning to advertisers and publishers) and the roadmap features and timing mostly figured out. One major component we are working on is AdX pricing.

c) Google Content Network to MONETIZE the inventory we aggregate via Ad Exchange and all our AdSense deals. Here we believe that our high level strategy is in place (focus on performance: targeting and optimization) but the roadmap is NOT ready yet. We are working hard on this part and hope to have an initial plan covering the first half of 2009 in place in the next few weeks. It is my highest priority across all the elements of the display strategy.

Based on Omid's feedback, one of the items I am preparing is a quarter-by-quarter review that will include: detailed roadmap for each pillar; our positioning and value proposition to advertisers and publishers; and suggested specific objectives related to display for that quarter.

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Court Exhibit
United States v. Google LLC (Ad Tech)
1:23-cv-00108 (VAED), Trial Ex. PTX0032 — DOJ public archive
September 3, 2008
Public domain
View the primary source →