Rich Silverstein, co-founder of Goodby Silverstein & Partners is stepping down after 43 years at the San Francisco-based agency. 

He’s credited with creating some of pop culture’s most iconic advertising, from “got milk?” to the Budweiser lizards.  

Silverstein and his partner Jeff Goodby, two of Adland’s brightest luminaries, have spent most of their careers creating work that has shaped brands, entered the cultural lexicon and inspired generations of creatives. 

"I'm so proud of everyone who has come through GS&P and everyone who's still here," said Silverstein. "It has always been about the people, and it always will be." 

Silverstein leaves the agency on a high note as it posted double-digit revenue growth in the first half of 2026 and added ten new brands including Rao's (Campbell's), NBA 2K and Asian noodle brand Maruchan to its roster.  

Silverstein will officially step down at the end of the year. Going forward, he will carry the title of Founder/Chairman Emeritus in recognition of his decades of creative leadership and contribution to the agency. 

Outside of Silverstein, the agency's leadership team remains in place with Goodby as Founder and Chairman, Margaret Johnson as Chief Creative Officer, and Sarah Thompson as CEO. Chief Strategy Officer Christine Chen and managing director Brian McPherson also remain in their roles.  

“You can’t imagine what it’s like to be around the always-on, 200-mph high standards machine that is Rich Silverstein,” said Goodby. “He has made me intensely better for 43 years, and he has given me a license of freedom I never gave myself...Rich makes everyone around him better." 

Both Goodby and Silverstein began their careers in journalism. Goodby worked as a reporter and illustrator at the Boston Herald American, Time and Mother Jones, while Silverstein was an art director during the heyday of Rolling Stone. 

Silverstein grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York, and graduated from Parsons School of Design before moving to San Francisco, where he worked as an art director at Rolling Stone, Bozell & Jacobs, McCann Erickson, Foote, Cone & Belding and Ogilvy & Mather. 

Silverstein first met copywriters Jeff Goodby and Andy Berlin at Ogilvy before opening Goodby Berlin & Silverstein in 1983, later changing the name to Goodby Silverstein & Partners in 1993. Their first client, Amazin’ Software, was renamed Electronic Arts, and thus began a creative partnership that would endure for more than four decades.  

Memorable work included “Invent” for Hewlett-Packard, Polaroid’s “See What Develops,” the NBA’s “I Love This Game” and Nike’s “Skateboarding.” 

In recent years, Silverstein has been instrumental in some of BMW’s breakthrough work, including the 2022 Super Bowl spot “Zeus & Hera,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Salma Hayek, and 2024’s Super Bowl spot “Talkin’ Like Walken,” starring Christopher Walken. 

Along the way Silverstein has developed notable side projects like “13 Days: The Musical (Or The Most Dangerous Moment in Human History),” an AI-aided experiment exploring the 13 harrowing days of the Cuban Missile Crisis through the surreal lens of a Broadway musical in development. He presented the work at this year’s Cannes ad festival. 

Silverstein was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 2002 and the One Club Creative Hall of Fame in 2004. Together, Silverstein and Goodby received the Cannes Lion of St. Mark lifetime achievement award in 2019. In 2020, the pair brought their approach to creativity to a global audience through an 18-part MasterClass on advertising and creativity. 

Outside the agency, he serves on the board of Specialized Bicycles and, after 15 years of service, retired from the board of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy while continuing to develop creative work for the group. Silverstein also led the 2023 campaign to rebrand San Francisco with “It All Starts Here,” a multimedia campaign asserting San Francisco’s role as an innovative and thriving hub for business and the arts. 

Silverstein may be leaving the day-to-day world of agency life, but creatives can still get his advice via an AI bot called GPTRich. Be prepared for a very candid critique.  

The agency says the “experience” builds on the tech behind GS&P's Dial Dalí for The Dalí Museum. GPT Rich was trained on decades of Silverstein’s interviews, talks, and speech patterns, pairing his creative persona with real-time voice synthesis from ElevenLabs and a live phone line powered by Twilio.  

It launches with a tongue-in-cheek film, a mock infomercial complete with a sped-up pharma-style disclaimer that shows creatives calling Rich for help and getting exactly the brutal honesty the industry knows him for.