Ventura’s Rob Caruso on building a user-first TV OS in a world of walled gardens
The battle for the living room is heating up. From Google and Amazon to Samsung and Apple TV, every major tech player wants to control the TV experience. But what do consumers really want from their TV operating system?
Rob Caruso, vice president of product management and user experience at The Trade Desk’s Ventura, a new TV OS, believes the answer is simpler than most platforms make it out to be: Serve the viewer first. With a career built at HBO, Netflix and Google, Rob has seen firsthand how the industry’s incentives don’t always align with consumer needs.
In this Q&A, he shares why Ventura’s neutral stance is its greatest advantage, how the company is rethinking the TV user experience and where the TV OS market is headed next.
As the “TV OS wars” intensify, Ventura is betting that objectivity and user-first design will win out over walled gardens and self-serving agendas.
For Ventura, the opportunity isn’t just about competing in the OS market — it’s about restoring simplicity, trust and choice to the living room, and not just for consumers, but for TV manufacturers (OEMs), publishers and advertisers as well.
The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
We often hear about the “TV OS wars.” From your vantage point, what is the battle really about and what do you think most people misunderstand about it?
First and foremost, I think it’s misunderstood that it’s a “war.” I don’t think there’s going to be a winner-take-all outcome, which a war would typically connotate. There’s definitely room for more than one. We also won’t see a duopoly like we have with mobile. Still, it’s very hard for all of them to be successful. There will likely be a shakeout and some consolidation.
But what is the “battle,” so to speak, really about? Now that these operating systems have become more focused on revenue generation year over year, there’s a desire to get their base as large as possible because that revenue is typically fueled by advertising. So, at the core, the battle is really about who can generate the largest footprint, the largest scale, in support of these new recurring revenue models that have evolved over the years.
With so many big players in the TV OS space — Google, Amazon, Samsung, Vizio — how does The Trade Desk’s Ventura approach the market differently?
Our goal, our mission, is a sustainable ecosystem. We are not looking to compete with the same content providers that we are distributing on our platform. We do not have ownership of any of the ad inventory or ad supply from our content partners, nor do we create or license our own content, so we really don’t have any conflicting incentives. That is what differentiates our value proposition to content owners, publishers, OEMs and retail relationships, all of which are part of the TV ecosystem.
What do you see as the top frustrations consumers face today with their smart TVs?
Over the past, call it five to eight years, consumers are more comfortable with their smart TVs. There is less of a need for dedicated streaming devices as the integrated smart TV has become a trusted and largely satisfactory device. That’s the good news. What still isn’t fully solved is the organization of all that content and the ease of access to it. When you know exactly what you want, it’s not always super easy to get straight into that content. And no one has truly solved the discovery problem, when you don’t know what you want to watch, but you don’t want to spend 20 to 30 minutes searching.
Yeah, it’s a common fatigue issue — the need to spend so much time just to find what you want to watch.
It is very tricky to really nail that discovery and personalization aspect. I do think it’s clouded and compounded by the fact that there are other goal states on a lot of these platforms that are sometimes in conflict. Even if the TV OS knew exactly what you wanted to watch next, is that necessarily the next best thing to watch for the platform? And when those two things come into conflict, I think it takes away from reaching that truly personalized end state for the consumer.
What does a truly “user-first” interface look like, in your mind, and how far away is the industry from achieving that?
There’s a real place for discovery, for promotion of new services, if it’s targeted and the frequency is responsible and palatable. Advertising done well is an art form and it truly elevates not only the viewing experience, but the shopping experience. It elevates everything. The true user-first TV interface is one that biases towards trust and maximizes your subscriptions and content you already have access to while responsibly promoting content you may enjoy, but don’t currently have access to.
Having worked with premium publishers like HBO and Netflix, how do you see Ventura trying to address these issues and creating a more publisher-friendly environment?
There’s nothing about Ventura TV OS itself that competes, whether it be on buying dollars or on just engagement time overall. Ventura is a distribution platform that ultimately looks to promote and allow content to win based on user preferences. As a result, I think it puts us in a much more objective place to truly get to what the consumer may want to watch next.
How about for the advertisers hoping to reach viewers?
In a world of more and more fragmentation on the TV OS side, it’s become a bit more murky from an advertiser perspective as to exactly what you are buying, how you are targeting and what you are gaining access to, especially when a lot of this inventory is starting to be repackaged and repurposed. It’s ultimately, in many cases, the very same users.
At the end of the day, what we aim to do is take some of that murkiness out and increase transparency. It is dependent on our publisher relationships and their buy-in to Ventura TV OS, which should then flow through to the buy side where they’re seeing everything with more clarity and a lot less hops in between.
It sounds like retailers also stand to benefit from the uptick in streaming.
OEMs and retailers are a key part of the overall TV ecosystem. They deserve to win too. They are the ones producing and selling the devices, but subject to razor-thin margins. If you look overall at consumer electronics devices over the past decade, most devices have increased in price as they’ve become more powerful. TV is the one category that’s absolutely gone the other way. The ecosystem has shifted its focus to recurring revenue models to make up for lower margins on device sales.
That’s another key differentiator for Ventura; unlike other platforms, we won't participate in ad revenue-sharing in order to preserve our objectivity. That rev-share will happen between the content provider and the OEM, retailer or operator, offering more revenue opportunities for our partners. Plus we offer more customization and control along the way.
Where do you see the TV OS market heading in the next three to five years?
At the macro in the next three to five years, I think you’ll see a few less than you see today as the landscape consolidates. If your TV OS is built with goals towards a mission and model that sustains growth, and it is driving value back to other aspects of your business, and all parts of the TV ecosystem, I think those will be the winners.
Here’s one last fun one: If you could pick any show, movie, et cetera, what would exist at the very top of your OS?
I am a huge Major League Baseball fan. We’re in peak season right now. I’m probably watching a New York Mets game on the MLB app most days. As soon as the season ends, I go to my watch list where I have all the great shows that everybody’s been talking about. Right before the season started, I finished The Righteous Gemstones on HBO Max, which I think is one of the most underrated, most hilarious shows ever produced.
You must love all the live sports coming to streaming.
It is exciting, but it’s also creating a bit of chaos as to where users can find their favorite teams from game to game. In the next three to five years, virtually all sports will be accessible via streaming, but the question will be, “where do I even watch the game?”
That’s where Ventura might help?
That’s the goal.
The Current is owned and operated by The Trade Desk, Inc.