Oct 7, 2026 · 57 min · 11 segments
What does Domino's, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have in common? If you answered *"Moloco's Artist in Residence"* you'd be right. Curious? You should be. Pat Copeland, technically a software "guy" has…
Pat CopelandGuestNickHostElizabethHostUm, before Microsoft, before some of the amazing things you've done in your career, what did young Pat think he was gonna be? I think when I was, like, seven or eight, my great aunt did an interview like she did every year with us, and I said I wanted to become a chef, but I clearly missed that mark.
But what did young Pat wanna do? What, what were you thinking was gonna be your career as you were, you were coming up in school?
[laughs]
But, um, yeah, for me, I mean, I, I think I got imprinted early, uh, by my dad, actually.
Um, there was kind of always the expectation that I was gonna go into medicine, and he was a, a heart surgeon, and at the time, like, a kind of a famous one.
Mm
he was in the news and in the media all the time, and I admired that a lot, you know? And I kind of thought, like, how am I ever gonna, you know, be able to meet those kind of expectations in whatever I do? And medicine was kind of the thing.
I went pre-med, um, in college, and at some point I had this, uh, kind of, uh, like, oh- kind of horrible, uh, re- you know, realization that that wasn't where I wanted to be, and I'd always been coding and stuff.
Okay.
That's, that's super fascinating.
I mean, in some ways you're kind of a, uh, you know, a surgeon of, of retail media now, but I could imagine that was a very, uh, inspirational, uh, parent to have, and somebody that pro- Did that drive w- like, w- when you saw what he was doing, did that drive you into more of, like, STEM early education or, um-
I mean, I, I d- I definitely was into science, and so a lot of the stuff was, like, transferable, so it wasn't, you know, terrible to move.
I remember sitting down with my dad at one point at dinner and telling him, "You know, I'm not gonna do..." It was, and it was very pressure-filled, you know-
Mm-hmm
... where you're telling your parent that you're gonna kind of destroy their dreams for you as a kid.
And it was interesting because computer science wasn't as big of a deal, like, in, you know, in the early '90s.
Um, before Microsoft, before some of the amazing things you've done in your career, what did young Pat think he was gonna be? I think when I was, like, seven or eight, my great aunt did an interview like she did every year with us, and I said I wanted to become a chef, but I clearly missed that mark.
But what did young Pat wanna do? What, what were you thinking was gonna be your career as you were, you were coming up in school?
[laughs]
But, um, yeah, for me, I mean, I, I think I got imprinted early, uh, by my dad, actually.
Um, there was kind of always the expectation that I was gonna go into medicine, and he was a, a heart surgeon, and at the time, like, a kind of a famous one.
Mm
he was in the news and in the media all the time, and I admired that a lot, you know? And I kind of thought, like, how am I ever gonna, you know, be able to meet those kind of expectations in whatever I do? And medicine was kind of the thing.
I went pre-med, um, in college, and at some point I had this, uh, kind of, uh, like, oh- kind of horrible, uh, re- you know, realization that that wasn't where I wanted to be, and I'd always been coding and stuff.
Okay.
That's, that's super fascinating.
I mean, in some ways you're kind of a, uh, you know, a surgeon of, of retail media now, but I could imagine that was a very, uh, inspirational, uh, parent to have, and somebody that pro- Did that drive w- like, w- when you saw what he was doing, did that drive you into more of, like, STEM early education or, um-
I mean, I, I d- I definitely was into science, and so a lot of the stuff was, like, transferable, so it wasn't, you know, terrible to move.
I remember sitting down with my dad at one point at dinner and telling him, "You know, I'm not gonna do..." It was, and it was very pressure-filled, you know-
Mm-hmm
... where you're telling your parent that you're gonna kind of destroy their dreams for you as a kid.
And it was interesting because computer science wasn't as big of a deal, like, in, you know, in the early '90s.
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