Christine Cook has navigated nearly every major shift in modern media, from early digital days at The New York Times, to to the rise of mobile and social at Flipboard, the scale and speed of CNN, and now Bloomberg Media, where she serves as Chief Commercial Officer overseeing one of the most influential audiences in the world. In this episode, she joins Michael Kassan to explore why trust and context are reasserting themselves in an AI-saturated media landscape, and what it means that audiences are gravitating toward human-curated sources precisely when algorithmic convenience is at its peak. They unpack Bloomberg's multidimensional evolution across video, live events, data, and original content, and why the live experience business is most powerful when it's built around journalism first, not sponsorship dollars.

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As media, commerce and technology converge, Nili Klenoff is helping shape one of the most consequential shifts in modern marketing. She joins Michael Kassan to explore commerce media, AI-powered decision-making, consumer trust, and the challenge of driving innovation at global scale, offering a rare look inside the systems increasingly influencing how people discover, choose and buy.

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Bill Wise and Zvika Netter have spent decades building the invisible machinery that powers modern advertising — and now, with Mediaocean and Innovid under one roof, they’re creating a rare alternative to the industry’s increasingly closed ecosystems. In this candid conversation, the two architects of modern ad tech unpack the collapse of the traditional marketing funnel, the AI revolution reshaping media and creativity, and how they’re positioning advertisers to reclaim greater control, transparency, and independence in a market increasingly dominated by big tech.

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Don Kurz has lived enough lives for three careers - from championship lacrosse fields to Studio 54 dance floors to Wall Street trading desks to the boardrooms of modern advertising - and in this candid conversation with Michael Kassan, he reflects on the chaos, reinvention, and hard-earned instincts that shaped them all. With the release of his new book, Do the Hustle, Don opens up about resilience, risk, leadership, and why the most valuable lessons rarely come from the wins, but from the moments when everything veers off script.

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Music is no longer just something we listen to... it’s something we interpret, share, and use to make sense of the world around us. In this episode, Michael Kassan sits down with Jackie Vignone, CRO of Genius, to explore how the platform has evolved from a lyrics destination into a powerful meeting point for artists, fans, and brands. Together, they unpack what music reveals about culture, why context now carries as much weight as content, and how the relationship between artists and audiences is evolving in a more participatory world.

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Christian Muche has built his career on a contrarian instinct: when the world pulls back, he builds opportunities that bring people together. From co-founding DMEXCO during the 2008 financial crisis to launching POSSIBLE in the middle of COVID, Christian has consistently bet on one idea: real progress happens when the right people are in the same room.

In this episode, he joins Michael Kassan to unpack the limitations of the traditional conference model, why scale is no longer the defining metric of success, and how curated connections, not crowded stages, drive business forward. They explore what makes POSSIBLE different, the growing complexity of the marketing ecosystem, and why in a world of AI, remote work, and constant digital noise, showing up in person may be more valuable than ever. At the center of it all is a simple idea: “POSSIBLE” It is so much more than the name of an event, it’s a mindset. One that reframes complexity as opportunity and focuses the industry on what can be built, together.

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What if the most powerful growth strategy isn’t another ad, but a simple “thank you”? Nift Founder and CEO, Elery Pfeffer, joins Michael Kassan to unpack why gratitude may be the most overlooked engine in modern commerce, how AI can create meaningful discovery instead of digital noise, and why the brands that recognize customers as people (not just wallets) will win the future.

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Serge Matta, President of Global Ad Sales at LG Ad Solutions, is turning the TV from a passive box in the corner into the most valuable real estate in media - an interactive command center where content, data, and commerce meet in real time. In this episode, he joins Michael Kassan to talk candidly about making connected TV accountable to real business results, why independent measurement and true partnerships matter, how smarter TV operating systems could reshape how we shop and watch, and the same grounded values that drive his philanthropy off-screen.

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Childhood friends turned Cognitiv co-founders, Jeremy Fain and Dr. Aaron Andalman, went from zebrafish brains and ad-tech trenches to rewiring how brands predict human behavior in an AI-saturated marketplace. Together, they draw a sharp line between predictive and generative AI, show what first-party data can really do, and demystify context and “agents” so marketers can push performance further without losing the plot ... or their customers’ trust.

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Lynnwood Bibbens isn’t chasing viewers; he’s owning the traveler. While most brands struggle to capture this high-intent audience, he built ReachTV around winning that moment. From “dreaming-only” sessions that reshaped the company to rewiring the travel ecosystem with live sports, precision data, and relentless service, he lays out his entrepreneur’s code: bet on what others ignore, turn relationships into resilience when everything’s on the line, and stay fiercely disciplined about what matters.

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Tom Freston turned a bohemian streak, entrepreneurial hustle, and serious wanderlust into one of the most consequential runs in modern media. He co-founded MTV, busted through gatekeepers with an original DTC playbook, and built a creative-first house of brands that reshaped music, fashion, art, politics, and advertising. In this episode, the legendary architect of the MTV generation joins Michael to unpack losing it all and rebooting with a single self-help book, what it really takes to empower brilliant misfits and wield cultural power with humility, and what his journey from building a business in South Asia to steering a global media empire to helping fight extreme poverty reveals about balancing instinct, responsibility, and relentless curiosity in an age of disruption.

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