Josh Durst and Laura Elkayam are all smiles: Happy 500 Billion team!

Last Friday, January 22nd 2010 was a BIG day for us at the Rubicon Project. After 2 and a half years in business (and going from zero to 100 miles an hour) we hit a milestone we are very proud of. As of the evening before, we had officially served 500 billion ads. That’s a big number, and none of us forget what it took to get here.  As a way to acknowledge the hard work of our entire team, we treated everyone to bagels, Starbucks coffee, mimosas, and a kick ass email to the whole team from founder and Chief Operating Officer Craig Roah about our huge milestone. Our team responded with the trading and sharing (through email and in person) of stories and dreams of what is to come. We are charging ahead, looking to the future, and ready for our next big adventure.

Since we want to use our culture blog as a way to give you insight into what we are doing here and the personalities of our team members, there is no better way than sharing a few of the facebook status updates that our team members shared with their family and friends on this glorious day!

Marin Steinbrenner: 500 billions impressions…. go RUBICON!! Starbucks, mimosas, and bagels. SOOOO happy it’s Friday!
Erin Mayo: 500 billions impressions served!!! Mimosa and Bagel Friday @ tRP, my favorite day!!!
Mallory Portillo: Huge milestone at work today! 500 Billion impressions served and counting. Great job Rubicon! To many more…
Ryan Dranginis: rubicon project just passed 500 billion impressions optimized!

The Rubicon Project recently celebrated its two-year anniversary and we’re as busy as ever. But it’s important to us to take a moment to recognize how far we’ve come. We’re so thankful for the successes that we’ve experienced and we truly believe that our intense focus on honing our company culture has contributed significantly to this well-oiled machine. Building a great culture starts with amassing a great team of people, but it survives with a lot of dedication and strategy. Here are a few ways that we effectively shaped our engaging, fun and productive workplace.

1. Survey your team: Find out where the pockets of unhappiness on your team lie and what the common theme is. For us, it was communication and appreciation and that is where we focused our efforts.
2. Don’t try to do too much at once: Adopting 4 different programs to communicate will not work, but rather, will overwhelm people. Move quickly but introduce one at time.
3. Lead by example: Management (all the way to the top) sets the tone for how seriously the new systems will be used. If they don’t take it seriously or see it’s value, no one else will either.
4. Hire team players: People who like to work on things alone are the same type of people who will never see the value in shared communication and collaboration. A team is more innovative and valuable than any one person could possibly be. Make sure you hire people who also believe that to be true and embody it in all that they do.
5. Breathe new life: If things start to get old and interest is lacking, think of new ways to use the system or get a few folks to lead by example. Once this happens, the value is easy to see for the rest of your team.

Because we hit our Q1 company goal, we celebrated with an afternoon at the races. We piled into a red double decker bus at the beginning of April, the ladies all dolled up, the gents in fine attire, and everyone wearing their fanciest hats.

Our transportation to Santa Anita

Our view of the track

Enjoying ourselves

Go go go!

Even though only one horse comes out the winner in these races, after a day of friendly gambling, cold beers and warm hot dogs, we can declare this a team victory.