There are few better placed to critique and narrate the history of the digital media landscape, never mind the sub-sector of ad tech, than Ari Paparo.

The serial entrepreneur and ‘first influencer of ad tech’ – sorry @AdtechGod – now helps to demystify and humanize the often dry milieu of digital media PR in his missives over at Marketecture.

This week, he speaks with Digiday reporter Ronan Shields in the second installment of Digiday’s Oral History Of Ad Tech in a conversation that focuses on the state of the industry during the opening decade of the 21st Century. His insights include:

• The hustle that was ad tech in the 1990s
• Paparo’s input to DoubleClick’s turnaround, and eventual sale to Google
• The incredible business model of ad networks in the 2000s
• How the rise of the ad exchange became the fall of the ad network
• And just who invented what in ad tech

In the coming weeks, Digiday’s History of Ad Tech, produced by Digiday Media’s audio producer Sara Patterson, lifts the lid on some of the key undercurrents in ad tech over the last 20 years with Seb Joseph, senior news editor, and Ronan Shields, senior reporter, advertising technology, in conversation with some of the key players during that time.