PubMatic

How it happened

PubMatic runs a programmatic-advertising sell-side platform that helps publishers sell digital ad inventory through automated auctions. It went public in December 2020 and its stock soared to an all-time high near $70 in March 2021, lifting its market value to roughly $3.5B. A weak digital-ad market, ad-tech consolidation and pricing pressure from giants like Google then ground the stock down about 89%, to around $0.4B, though the company stayed profitable. Glassdoor reviews mark the mood shift: staff who once bragged that PubMatic avoided layoffs began describing repeated small cut rounds after growth stumbled in late 2023, plus years of flat, cost-of-living-style raises that they said pushed engineers out the door.

Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.