Inside AppLovin’s $100B Ad Engine
Aug 14, 2026 · 1:26:38
AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi and CTO Giovanni Ge explain how AppLovin rebuilt its ad engine with Axon 2 after a 92% post-IPO stock drop, driving recovery from $5.5B to a $100B+ company. Ge details replacing tree-based models with neural embeddings so predictions became more accurate and GPU-cheaper, and says Axon 2's success came from deciding what not to build. Foroughi describes keeping engineering at ~100 people, using AI to elevate rather than replace engineers, expanding from mobile gaming into e-commerce via a napkin-designed data pipeline, and moving ads into connected TV and open web. They discuss why AI-generated ads need human guardrails, why taste matters more than building speed, and the path to a trillion-dollar valuation requiring $30B+ annual cash flow, plus buybacks during the downturn.
