Ep 68: Amit Sharan - SVP, Marketing at Tatari

Connected TV took over the living room. Amit Sharan, SVP Marketing at Tatari, joins Matt Wurst and Valerie Vespa to break down how brands plan, buy, and measure TV across linear and streaming, and where AI actually helps versus where it's still hype. Amit built marketing at LiveRail, took it through the Facebook acquisition, ran product marketing inside Meta for four-plus years, and has spent nearly eight years at Tatari. He gets into convergent TV, why programmatic is an access point and not a strategy, performance TV versus brand building, competing against The Trade Desk and MNTN and Simulmedia, the SEO bet he skipped early, and the advice every first marketing hire needs: it's your job to teach the founder what marketing is for. Plus a lightning round, a sub-$40 wine worth writing down, and a wine-party game worth stealing. Topics: • Why the line between linear and streaming is fake (your YouTube TV sports feed is technically linear) • Selling LiveRail to Facebook, and the "winter's coming" logic that drove the deal • What marketing actually looks like at Meta scale • Where AI helps in TV today (media planning) versus where it's still theater (creative) • "Programmatic is an access point, not a strategy," and why 90% of CTV impressions go to 10 publishers • Performance TV versus brand building, and the ceiling every in-market strategy hits • Advice for the first marketing hire: your real job is educating the founder on what marketing is for • The one bet Amit skipped early (SEO) and why AEO changes the math now