Inside the Magnite C-Suite with Chief Product Officer Adam Soroca

In this Q+A, we sit down with Chief Product Officer Adam Soroca to get a behind-the-scenes look at product development at Magnite, his insights on the future of ad tech, and what keeps him motivated and excited about the industry. 

Magnite’s C-Suite series provides a unique opportunity to gain firsthand perspectives on critical industry trends and strategic initiatives shaping Magnite’s core values and future. 

What are you most passionate about in your role as chief product officer at Magnite? What drives your product vision and innovation strategy?

So, this answer has two dimensions: the work we do and the team we get to work alongside. One is Magnite’s role and the scale at which we operate. Magnite has incredible scale across all the leading media formats. Our ability to connect buyers with sellers’ inventory and influence consumers is immense. It’s a real privilege and an honor to build and innovate on this stage. 

I enjoy the mix of creativity and problem-solving. I like to sit at the dreaming level and think about things that don’t exist and the detailed technology needed to make them work. We often flip-flop between those two categories before merging them together. 

Our approach is a constant mix of “What does the market say? What do our clients say that they think they need? What do they not say that you have to interpret?” From there, our vision unfolds. Sometimes, these are linear, incremental innovations. And sometimes, these things are brand new and bring something to the market that hasn’t been asked for. Some of the most interesting things come from that because you show up with something, and clients say, “I didn’t even know I needed that.” You have to convince the market and help the market evolve in a certain way. 

The other part of my role that motivates me is building the team and developing not just a product team but a cross-functional team to innovate, think differently, and bring these products to market.  

Magnite operates in a rapidly evolving landscape. How do you approach product development to ensure Magnite stays ahead of the curve?

That is the delicate art and dance that we have to do. It’s a constant balance of doing what is requested by clients specifically and pushing forward things on our own that we believe the industry needs. There’s really no perfect science to it. You have to be able to say “no” to a lot. In product management, we say “no” or more like “no, not this quarter” way more often than we say “yes.”

With so many stakeholders in ad tech (advertisers, publishers), how do you balance their needs when prioritizing product features?

We balance the portfolio and allocate our resources towards our different product lines, dedicating percentages of our product and engineering resources to work on each. That rebalancing happens at the executive leadership team level. However, once that allocation is set within the product lines, those product managers and engineering leaders are free to prioritize however they see appropriate. As a company, we first build heavier on the ad server and publisher side. We balance that out with products that benefit our marketers, whether it’s for the brands, the agencies, or the DSPs so that they can buy our inventory fairly, transparently, and advantageously. 

What exciting product innovations are currently in the pipeline at Magnite? Can you give us a sneak peek?

We’re excited about a lot of things coming to market. We are working on a single sign-on and universal navigation between Magnite Streaming and SpringServe for a seamless user experience. We want our publisher clients who use both products to feel like it’s one product. We also are building out our identity suite and scaling it to suit the needs of our clients. Curated Marketplaces is on track to add targeting and features to DV+ and add capabilities to our self-service workflow for streaming inventory. 

We have advanced forecasting that’s hitting the market. We’re also looking into new investments, specifically in live television, and expanding upon our initial success with Tiles into other formats. This is innovation and the redefinition of the advertising experience for connected television.

Now for something fun! Tell us about the first concert you ever attended.

Rolling Stones at Shea Stadium. Living Colour opened up for that. It was a great concert with a bunch of my friends from high school, and we had a blast!