I've spent ten years keeping the internet's split-second ad auctions running. Now I help small businesses put AI to work, and I build apps of my own.
Working from the Chain O'Lakes with teams anywhere.
Scroll down to watch one auction in slow motion.
What I do, in ten seconds
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Ad tech at scale
I keep the systems that sell website ads fast, profitable and working, for publishers with huge audiences.
See how it works -
AI for small businesses
I find the repetitive work in a small business and set AI up to handle the first draft, with a person still checking.
See what that looks like -
Building and shipping apps
I take my own ideas from a sketch to a live product: design, build, launch, and keep improving.
See what I've built
One ad, slowed down
- 0 msYou open a news article. There's an empty spot on the page waiting for an ad.
- 8 msFirst the page checks what you agreed to in the cookie pop-up. If that check breaks, nothing else works.
- 20 msThe page asks a crowd of buyers at once: who wants this spot? That's header bidding, run by Prebid.js.
- 45 msBids start landing. Each one is a price for showing one ad to you, right now.
- 80 msAmazon TAM sends its bid alongside the ad exchanges.
- 125 msGoogle Ad Manager lines up every bid and picks the winner.
- 160 msThe winning ad loads into the spot. The publisher gets paid.
- 190 msYou never noticed. This happens billions of times a day, and keeping it fast and profitable has been my job for ten years.
So what was I actually doing?
Keeping that machine honest, fast and paid.
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Plugging publishers in
Connecting big news and media sites to the auction so their ad space gets real competition from buyers.
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Finding what broke
When ads stop showing, the cause is often hiding in a cookie pop-up, a line of code or a partner's setup. I track it down.
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Following the money
Reading the numbers to see where revenue leaks, and which settings earn a publisher more for the same page.
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Teaching it to others
Training teams to run complicated systems themselves, so they don't need me on every call.
Same instincts, much smaller scale.
From billions of ad auctions a day to one workflow at a time.
Now I help small businesses use AI.
Find the slow, repetitive part. Fix it. Teach people to own it. That works for a five-person office as well as it does for a global publisher.
Through MFCIUS, my consultancy, I help small US businesses pick one safe workflow, let AI draft the first pass, and keep a person in charge of the final say.
An accounting workflow: AI drafts client summaries from approved data, and a person reviews them before anything goes out.
Based on an anonymized client's estimate.
Things I've built and run
Shipped, live, and mine.
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MFCIUS
AI adoption for small US businesses.
Team training, ongoing support and managed automations. Practical help with real workflows, without the hype and without handing your business to a robot.
Visit mfcius.com -
Chain O'Lakes AI
My local AI program for Fox Lake and nearby towns.
A Chamber workshop called AI for Main Street, training for local teams and ongoing help, so neighborhood businesses can try AI safely, one workflow at a time.
About the local program -
Magic Friends
An AI creativity app for kids.
Kids aged 4 to 10 draw, design characters, invent recipes and make bedtime stories by dragging and dropping, with no typing needed. Settings and purchases sit behind a grown-ups-only gate.
Visit magicfriends.com
- With friends
- I also consult and build alongside friends on their products, including Zibys and Dupli, an AI version of you that handles the first chat with a match on a dating app.
- On the shelf
- Outfit Cast (metehora.com) suggests what to wear based on the weather, your taste and your schedule. It's shelved for now.
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Ad Tech Bites
Short pieces on how ad tech really works, written so you don't need ten years in the industry to follow along.
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Ad tech puzzle, AI idea, or just saying hi?