Trade Desk job cuts hit 15% of staff as growth slows to 3%

The Trade Desk job cuts announced this week take out about 15 percent of the company’s staff. That is roughly 575 roles at one of the largest independent buyers of online advertising space.

Jeff Green told staff by email on 3 September

Chief executive Jeff Green sent the message the evening before the cuts took effect, PPC Land reported. People losing their jobs were told within about 15 minutes. Adweek put the number at about 585 roles out of some 3,900 staff. PPC Land counted about 575, using the 3,843 full-time employees the company reported for the end of 2025.

Green told staff the smaller company would move with “greater agility, focus, ownership, and speed”, according to Adweek.

Revenue grew 3 percent in the second quarter of 2026

The Trade Desk sells software that buys advertising space automatically. The trade calls this programmatic, which means ads bought by machines in a split second instead of by people on the phone. In the second quarter of 2026 the company reported 715 million dollars of revenue. That was 3 percent more than a year earlier, its slowest growth since the early months of the pandemic. For all of 2025 revenue was 2.9 billion dollars, up 18 percent. Guidance for the third quarter is at least 650 million dollars, which would be a fall against last year.

The company still holds about 1.5 billion dollars in cash and says it carries no debt.

Google and Amazon cases are reshaping the same market

The pressure is not only on one company. A US judge decided that Google would not have to break up its ad tech business, ordering changes to its rules instead. Days earlier a US regulator sued Amazon over the way it ran its ad auctions. Agencies are shrinking too, and WPP said it would cut up to 1,000 more jobs by the end of 2026.

Fewer staff may mean slower answers for media buyers

Buyers who use the platform should ask who now handles their account. It is worth writing down which reports and settings only one person knows how to run. Teams that share that knowledge usually cope better when a supplier changes shape.