The Trade Desk is cutting roughly 15% of its global workforce as part of a major restructuring aimed at making the company “smaller” and more focused.
In an email to employees, CEO Jeff Green said the company wants teams organized into smaller groups with “greater agility, focus, ownership, and speed.”
Why This Matters:
This is the largest recent workforce reduction at TTD and follows a series of reorganizations at the company.
In December 2024, TTD underwent what Green later called “the largest reorganization in company history.” Then, in December 2025, the company reorganized again, with reported layoffs affecting less than 1% of employees. At the time, Green pushed back on the layoff framing, noting that TTD had hired roughly 750 people that year and was “still hiring.”
This time, the reduction is significantly larger and comes one month after a difficult Q2. TTD reported revenue growth of just 3% year over year, while adjusted EBITDA fell to $241 million from $271 million. Green acknowledged that the quarter “did not meet the standard we set for ourselves.”
Experts React:
Here’s how X is reacting to the news, also, it’s getting quite a bit of media coverage, even with the long weekend upon us:
Our Take:
There are two things that can be true here. TTD remains a large, profitable adtech company, and Green stressed that its balance sheet includes $1.5 billion in cash with no debt. This, of course, isn’t being positioned as a company in financial distress.
But the scale of this restructuring is notable, particularly after reorgs in both December 2024 and December 2025. Coming immediately after a quarter that Green himself characterized as below TTD’s standards, the 15% reduction looks like a bigger attempt to reset how the company operates.
TTD says the goal is to become faster, more focused and better positioned for growth. The question now is whether a substantially leaner organization can deliver that.
Note that the company is also pushing forward on the product side, recently announcing Zuma, a new UI for Kokai with expanded AI and agentic capabilities.
