Experience interviews with Tim Armstrong and other digital visionaries at IGNITION: Future Of Digital. Reserve your seat now »
Business Insider/James Cook
Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in London on Monday, AOL's CEO Tim Armstrong poured cold water on the idea of a merger between AOL and Yahoo.
Armstrong told TechCrunch's Joshua Constine that there are "no explicit talks about a deal with Yahoo." Instead, Armstrong said the company is focusing on partnerships and growing the company ad revenue in 2015.
AOL's CEO said he's flying back to New York Monday for the company's board meeting where he is going to be delivering a 30- to 40-page deck about the coming year. Armstrong said "Yahoo is not mentioned once" in the dek.
Armstrong also talked about the future of advertising."Everything in the middle is going to die," he said. Ads in the future are either going to be programmatic or custom-made, and everything in between is going to struggle.
Speaking about TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, Armstrong made it clear that he was welcome to re-join the company. Arrington left his role at TechCrunch in 2011 after AOL announced its purchase of the company in 2010. Since then, many questions have been raised about the possibility of Arrington's return. Armstrong said on stage that "Mike has an open job offer to be Chairman of TechCrunch. I keep in touch with him. Mike knows how I feel about him eventually coming back."