Anthropic IPO or BUST!
Burning Cash, Ditching Desks, and Buying Anthropic's Extinction Event
Grab a pint and brace for impact: Chad Sowash, a thoroughly waterlogged Stephen McGrath, and Lieven Van Nieuwenhuizen gather for an “all-European” circus of HR tech, corporate drama, and existential dread.
The Tech Stack Graveyard & Free Hooch: Stephen dishes on his directory, TA Tech Finder, designed specifically to rescue confused Fortune 500 talent leaders currently drowning in a sea of overlapping HR software.
The "Get Out or Get In" Corporate Shuffle: Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to a modest 60,000 employees, while Skydance serves up a generous combo platter.
Who’d You Rather: The 2 AM Startup Edition: The hosts stumble into the dating pool of enterprise tech. In one corner: Town, flaunting a $108M Series B, an army of AI “Townies” and ZenZapp, which promises to draw a hard line between your miserable work life and personal sanity.
Dayforce Goes Speed-Dating: Dayforce snaps up AI-interviewing startup Ribbon.
Anthropic’s Casual $80B Bonfire: Wrapping up the show, the gang tackles Anthropic filing for an IPO. Sure, revenue skyrocketed past $16B, but it comes bundled with an eye-watering $80 billion net loss in the first half of 2026.
"I probably don't understand enough about top level business to know how companies like Anthropic and OpenAI can consistently publish country wealth defining losses and still operate for years and years and years." - Stephen McGrath
Chad caps off the episode retreating into the fetal position with his Guinness to wait out the apocalypse.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Chad Sowash (00:30.939)
Yeah, welcome to the podcast your toppled dictator warned you about. It's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm Chad. Check my stack so wash.
Stephen McGrath (00:42.22)
I'm Stephen, I've just about dried out, McGrath.
Chad Sowash (00:45.748)
Yeah.
Lieven (00:46.976)
And I'm leaving. I should have been working at TechWolf. Van Nivenhuizen.
Chad Sowash (00:52.307)
And on this week's show we have Microsoft Buys Out, Skydance Mandates, Anthropic IPOs, Day Force Got Her Groove Back and Hood Ya Rather. Let's do this.
Chad Sowash (01:09.543)
Woohoo, welcome back. It's an all European show. Look at this. Look at this, huh? I know you're all s you're you're all smirking because you don't see me as a European.
Stephen McGrath (01:14.35)
Yep.
Stephen McGrath (01:20.002)
If you do the rest of the podcast in Portuguese, I'll let you off.
Chad Sowash (01:23.04)
yeah. Well see that that would be very rough. That would be that would be very
Lieven (01:23.256)
Hmm
Lieven (01:27.63)
Maybe you can try a Scottish accent.
Stephen McGrath (01:30.671)
Yes.
Chad Sowash (01:30.783)
That would be even harder. I think people would understand me speaking Portuguese more than they would in a Scottish accent. So what's up, McGrath, man? Last time we saw you was in Amsterdam at the Musikabou. How's it going? Yeah? Yeah.
Lieven (01:34.254)
Probably.
Stephen McGrath (01:47.032)
Yeah, yeah, no good. As per my middle name, I've just about dried out my nickname. It's been horrible here. We have had, you know, towns across all of the West Coast of Scotland flooding with like knee and waist deep water. We've had 88 and 90 mile per hour winds. We've been told to stay indoors, get three days worth of food.
Chad Sowash (01:52.593)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:02.383)
wow, okay.
Chad Sowash (02:12.553)
So you're drinking a lot.
Stephen McGrath (02:13.742)
Well, three days worth of food for a fellow like me is a lot more than it is for somebody like you guys, so it's a challenge.
Lieven (02:19.15)
So with a nine monster will be lots of little Scots.
Stephen McGrath (02:23.002)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, not any from this house, I've had enough.
Chad Sowash (02:23.359)
So Levin, you you we we've gotten a little a little you know distance from you know the musique about from the e recruitment congress. So when's the next one? Do you have the next one scheduled? Because we're all we're all excited. We want to get it on the on the books, man. When's it coming on?
Lieven (02:25.046)
Okay.
Okay.
Lieven (02:46.432)
I hope I can do the next one next year in Brussels. So would like to alternate between Amsterdam and Brussels, but it's not sure yet. So I'll keep you posted. Definitely within two years again in Amsterdam, but I hope to make it annually instead of bi-annually.
Chad Sowash (02:49.412)
I like that.
No, I
Chad Sowash (03:00.883)
Gotcha. Okay, cool. Cool. Well let's go ahead. Let's go ahead and let's let's move this on along. And shout outs brought to you by Proven Base. everyone loves Free Bourbon, and Free Bourbon is spreading the love with two bottles. Not just one bottle, two bottles, one from Chad and one from Cheese of Chicken Cock. That's right.
You know you do. but you can't you can't win unless you play. You gotta go to chadcheese.com slash free to get some bourbon brought to you by provenbass comes right to your front door. provenbase, the AI-powered deep search, which helps recruiting and sourcing teams uncover and engage specialized hard-to-find talent beyond traditional platforms across thousands of sources at provenbase.com.
Levin, you you've got one that's you've got a a shout-out that's close to home, one that's close to your your heart and your pocketbook. Why don't you go ahead and talk about that?
Lieven (04:03.593)
That's right, in fact. So you've been talking about the recent acquisition by SAP from the Belgian company TechWolf. And was even to international standards pretty big, 500 million euros. Not officially, but that's something, it's a number which is accepted. But I'm not going to talk about actual acquisition. I'm not going to talk about what TechWolf is doing.
Chad Sowash (04:09.299)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (04:21.055)
Especially for them.
Chad Sowash (04:28.564)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (04:29.259)
Good to know is we were the first customer. So the very first customer TechWolf had was House of HR. So we know them pretty well. Yeah, we believed in them. the founder of House of HR, Connie van Andrisse, also invested in TechWolf. was one of the first, she actually was the first investor in TechWolf. So we made TechWolf big, just that's a flex indeed. But something I really liked, and this is why my shout out goes to TechWolf is seven or eight years ago, the
Chad Sowash (04:32.009)
Ha ha ha.
Chad Sowash (04:36.265)
That's a flex. There it is.
Chad Sowash (04:48.361)
Wow, okay.
Ha ha ha
Stephen McGrath (04:51.842)
You
Chad Sowash (04:56.35)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (04:59.735)
current CEO and the founder of TechWolf, Andreas de Neve, he said his big ambition was, of course, to become rich, but also to make all his employees rich. And he said, the moment we have an exit, I want all of my employees to be rich. And actually, eight years later, he succeeded. So 150 people got all option plans and they all got a substantial amount of money. And this is something I like. It's about sharing the wealth you create as an entrepreneur, as a...
And this is something I love. And this is why I really, really love this company. Not because of what they're doing, are plenty of companies doing great stuff, but the way they treat their people is just something you should admire.
Chad Sowash (05:36.063)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (05:43.005)
Yeah. I mean what a what a great way to keep people on too. It's like, look, I'm here to make you a millionaire. Yes, I'm going to be a millionaire as well, though, but but I'm here to make you a million. That's a great retention plan. That's a great retention plan.
Lieven (05:46.646)
Also.
Lieven (05:53.835)
Yeah, together. Just stay on board and the moment I exit, you all exit. Something like that. But they're not exiting, they're staying, but they get the money.
Chad Sowash (05:58.611)
Yes, exactly.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Steven, he's he's exiting left and right as well. but before we get to that, your your your your shout out, Steven. What you got going on?
Stephen McGrath (06:13.141)
My shout out is to all the absolutely bamboozle T.A. leaders out there that are crying out for help on LinkedIn with stack help, understanding of tools. I think we've seen the dust settle a little bit over the past kind of six months. And there's just basically cries for help with people giving it, hey, I bought like five things in past two years and I don't know.
Chad Sowash (06:18.247)
Ooh, that's a word.
Chad Sowash (06:29.135)
huh. Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (06:39.095)
I'm doing with any of them, help me. And I think like that's a big thing. So, you know, I'm actively really active on the platform, trying to like comment and kind of share my knowledge and that space and just try and kind of help people out. But it's big companies, Fortune 500 company leaders of TA that are just giving it, hey, what is better here and what can we get rid of and what am I using? And I've just seen that noise swell. I think I'm probably seeing it swell because I've engaged with a few of them and the algorithms now rewarding me with all of them.
Chad Sowash (06:55.324)
yeah.
Stephen McGrath (07:08.921)
as a result of it, but you know, it is what it is. I'm here for the discussion anyway.
Lieven (07:15.149)
And Steven Kramski something, you used the word bamboozled and I have no clue what it means, but Eels, which is a band I really love, they just released a new album and one of the hit singles, not a hit single yet, but one of the singles is called Bamboozled Again. And I took note, I need to check what bamboozled means. So now you can explain what does bamboozled mean.
Stephen McGrath (07:18.434)
Yes.
Chad Sowash (07:20.563)
Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (07:32.163)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:32.991)
Ha ha ha.
Stephen McGrath (07:35.117)
Bamboozle means to be confused. Yeah, so yeah, there you go.
Lieven (07:37.805)
So confused again, bamboozled again. Okay, nice. Cool, cool.
Chad Sowash (07:39.881)
Yep. Bamboozled. And or you've been bamboozled, which means kind of like in a sales standpoint, like you've been sold elixir, right? You've been sold something that really doesn't fit what your need is, or it's really not so you've been bamboozled. So you can be confused being bamboozled, or you can have been bamboozled. One of the one of the two.
Stephen McGrath (07:44.364)
Yes.
Lieven (07:52.001)
Okay.
Lieven (08:00.407)
So under saying bamboozled again, they probably mean I've been repped again, repped off again. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Okay. Thanks a lot.
Chad Sowash (08:03.817)
Screwed over.
Stephen McGrath (08:04.633)
screwed over again, yeah, something like that, Scrumboo, yeah.
Chad Sowash (08:11.423)
Well, Stevens, I last week JT and I actually talked about Tatechfinder.com because there are so many platforms that are out there and JT is on a tear right now, especially on the can't the candidate experience side of the house. And I totally get that. but at the end of the day, it before an employer really can can can focus on one aspect.
Stephen McGrath (08:24.003)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (08:37.207)
of their process they have to focus on the full process and in most cases they just as you've said they're bamboozled they have no fucking clue what's going on it's just crazy you go to ta techfinder.com and and there it says stephen it's a better way to discover ta technology i know that because it says it on the website yeah right on the website but but so why did you start it in how how is it better i guess that's the how does it make things better
Stephen McGrath (08:40.11)
Yes.
Stephen McGrath (08:55.948)
Yeah
Stephen McGrath (09:06.201)
Okay, so really simply I started it because I've sat on both sides of the house. So I've sat on committees that were responsible for buying things or being part of new tools, never responsible for the decision, but part of the wider discussion that was going to take place. And I've been a vendor, right? I've been a vendor that has had to position themselves against other people when knowing fine well that they can't do that thing that they said that they can do, or certainly that they can't do it well.
Chad Sowash (09:21.319)
Right. So all this tech.
Chad Sowash (09:32.627)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen McGrath (09:35.193)
And certainly that our product marketing, not necessarily, well, not at all at Poetry, because we don't have a product marketing department, but certainly at others, that our product marketing is 12 months ahead of what our capabilities are. And actually, we need to know what we can do right now and what we're capable of. And I felt like I've seen a lot of posts of people being genuinely confused about what AI could do for them, what their current tech stack has in terms of that, where that lines up, what tools they need to buy.
Chad Sowash (09:57.972)
Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (10:04.009)
And going out there, like I just said, two minutes ago, grabbing a whole bunch of things and seeing what sticks. So I decided to have this kind of like the sales methodology of what is the problem that your customer is trying to solve for, and then let's work backwards and then let's present how we can solve that problem to them. I just decided that it was time that TA technology as a whole displayed itself that way. I, know, yes, yeah, I just built it.
Chad Sowash (10:22.535)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (10:28.383)
So you just built it is what you're saying.
Stephen McGrath (10:32.985)
But built it with people in mind that are going to go through the process.
Chad Sowash (10:35.859)
Yeah. Yeah. And process and process in mind. So how many vendors are currently in the platform?
Stephen McGrath (10:42.009)
1,510 at the last count.
Chad Sowash (10:44.809)
Holy shit. And how many of them are applicant tracking systems? There's gotta be a nice core of applicant tracking systems.
Stephen McGrath (10:48.441)
Well, I actually told you a number, I think a couple of days ago, has gone up since then. It's 277 that are applicable ATSs. Now, there's actually an additional piece of information to that. HRIS suites that have built-in ATSs, 326 is the total, so it goes from 277 to 326.
Chad Sowash (10:58.195)
Holy shat.
Chad Sowash (11:04.107)
huh.
Yeah. holy shit. So you weren't even counting those in the first place. that's why I thought you were counting those. And those are kind of like free, you know, gift with purchase when you buy an HSAM, but no, you were holy shit. So so the problem is usually bigger than one than just one platform, right? And so
Stephen McGrath (11:15.733)
No. No.
Nope. No, so there's an extra 50 of those. Yeah, there's an extra 50 of those.
Chad Sowash (11:34.471)
You have your check my stack feature. Now, a couple of different things. First off, for all the the TA people that are out there, you can check your stack, you can do all this stuff in TA Tech Finder. is it free?
Stephen McGrath (11:48.845)
Yes, absolutely, for anybody that's coming to use it.
Chad Sowash (11:50.879)
So you're not gonna answer like you answered on WhatsApp? It's as free as your your balls on a Friday night.
Stephen McGrath (11:59.258)
That doesn't sound anything like I would say. That's strange, I don't even know where you've come up with that.
Lieven (12:02.143)
You
Chad Sowash (12:05.501)
Okay, sure, sure. Moving on, moving on. Anyway, so Levin, quick question. You I mean you guys and your companies, 'cause you guys at House of HR, you have fifty plus companies underneath the House of HR umbrella. Do you guys go through a process like that often to take a look at your stacks, see how everything connects, process methodology, those types of things?
Stephen McGrath (12:08.889)
You
Lieven (12:19.255)
Mm.
Lieven (12:29.033)
Yeah, but thank God, that's not my problem. It's a problem, problem of our CIO. So I can come up with fancy new ideas and he has to figure out how to make it work for the whole company. yeah. No, but
Chad Sowash (12:39.263)
that's it's it's beautiful to be able to hand that off. That's very beautiful to to to hand that off. I love it.
Lieven (12:49.281)
But actually we do, we do have some kind of a program to make some things mandatory so we can all benefit from the scale.
Chad Sowash (12:57.735)
Nice. Very nice. Okay. Well we're gonna go ahead, we're gonna jump into
And it's not working 60% of the time for me. It's fantasy football time brought to you by our friends at Factory Fix, right? The number one recruiting platform for skilled trades and manufacturing talent. So there's lots of movement this week. Unfortunately, mine was down. Jarrett, I'm still number one Jadorsman. Saginaw Scott Clark is up one spot to number two.
Lieven (13:06.797)
Thank
Chad Sowash (13:30.153)
Ben by six. Kunts takes over the third position. Joel shut the front shador. Cheesman up four slots. He was eighth. He went to fourth. Nicholas Go Bird's Tyshak moves up by one. He beat my ass, dummy. DeJan, better than pretty good. Amare plummets from second to sixth. Bosco Ballers moves from second to, or I'm sorry, up two to seventh.
Mackenzie Mack attack Maitland moves up two spots. I got beat by Taishack, as I just said. So I'm down two spots to number nine. Nick laces out Livingston down from five to ten. That's a big move. That's a bad move. And rounding out the bottom two are the same, are the same. Hale, Molly, Sly, and any given Desiree Goldie. That rounds it up.
Stephen McGrath (14:13.401)
don't say it.
Chad Sowash (14:28.36)
And it's it's it's it's it's kinda sad for those two. It's kinda sad for those two.
Stephen McGrath (14:34.233)
Yeah, I love Molly, so it's sad to see her down at the bottom end of that. Not so keen on Joel, so it's a real shame to see him rising to the top yet again. Listen, I was involved last year. I didn't think I'd miss it. I do. But it's just, I can't stay up till three in the morning watching games anymore.
Chad Sowash (14:42.435)
Yeah, but he got knocked down a few slots last week and he's he's pinballing back and forth, so
Mm.
Chad Sowash (14:57.609)
Dude, I don't I don't do that. I watch the highlights in the mor and it's the p most beautiful thing 'cause they're like twelve minute cuts and it gets most of the good stuff and then I get to watch most of the games. Anyway, we're gonna we're gonna get on to the the important stuff.
Stephen McGrath (15:04.067)
Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (15:07.544)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (15:15.859)
So is it weird hearing your sound effect while you're on? Your voice. Okay, we gotta have gotta have Levin Levin doing some sound effects sometime soon. yeah, of course. No, we dep we have to do that. That's for the AI, Levin. Okay, anyway, anyway, anyway. we have how do you say you're prepping for layoffs without saying you're prepping for layoffs? Well
Stephen McGrath (15:17.689)
It's really weird. Yeah, yeah, don't like it at all. Yeah, I actually hate it, but that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Stop trying to take my job.
Lieven (15:27.3)
Ooh, can I, can I?
Let me check.
Stephen McGrath (15:36.554)
Yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (15:45.019)
Microsoft just ordered 60,000. Yes, that's a six with four zeros behind it. Sixty thousand employees, voluntary buyouts, while Skydance offered employee buyouts with the healthy helping of get your ass back to the office. That's right, a mandatory return to office and buyouts announced right after the Paramount and Warner Brothers merger. Okay.
Steven, do you think AI had anything to do with this?
Stephen McGrath (16:14.284)
Yep.
I think that Microsoft is doing that thing I used to do when I was in my late teens and I wanted to break up with a girl. And I was like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna annoy her a little bit more and hopes that she goes. It was that, yeah, I'll just leave the cupboard door open so she bangs her knees. She's like, goodness. And then she, know, don't open the car door and be like, she's not chivalrous anymore. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But like, that is that kind of thing of like, you know, the writing has been on the wall for,
Chad Sowash (16:29.409)
Ha ha ha.
Stephen McGrath (16:46.275)
quite a few years now, you know, with a lot of their employees. So much so that I'm now actively seeing people speak about that on LinkedIn as well. You know, saying like, listen, this looks like it's not gonna go well for me regardless of whether I say yes or no right now. And look, AI of course has an influence on how all these large tech companies work and how they move, I think over hiring during, you know, post COVID era.
Chad Sowash (17:02.023)
Mm.
Stephen McGrath (17:15.897)
has still a lot to do with that. And I think that they live to regret it, much like many of the other companies before them have as well. So it's unfortunate to see, because it's a lot of lives being affected, and you can't escape from that. But AI is definitely not all of the cause. I could say that with some confidence, I think.
Chad Sowash (17:16.191)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (17:39.615)
So what do you think on the Sky Dance side of the house?
Stephen McGrath (17:42.829)
I it's not, I've not had a chance to really go into it in as much detail, so I probably wouldn't add loads of value to that, to be honest with you.
Chad Sowash (17:52.903)
Well, I I gotta tell you, I tried watching a few episodes of an AI generated series on YouTube this morning. It was bad. I mean it was it was really bad. But it was bad because it was from a small studio. It looked really good, but the storyline was total shit, right? And I think that this tech is evolving and getting better at a rate that we've never seen. So yes, Skydance will be betting on AI on the content side.
Lieven (18:00.333)
You
Stephen McGrath (18:06.009)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (18:19.879)
of the business, no doubt. And from the from a major standpoint is if they have storytellers, really damn good storytellers, they can actually get the AI to match the story in itself. What are your thoughts, Skydance and and Microsoft there, leave it?
Lieven (18:38.847)
first association I made was a Skynet from Terminator. So yeah, when it's about AI and you're called Sky, then people should start worrying. But I'm not sure if it's really their purpose to let people go. And that's the reason why they make people going back to the to the office. Probably it is, but it's not official. It could be. But I think it's really risky because
Chad Sowash (18:41.887)
And that would probably be close to true, yes.
Chad Sowash (18:48.798)
Mm.
Lieven (19:07.797)
The people most likely to leave are those with the best alternatives, those who are getting the opportunity to get in maybe even a better job. And those you probably would like to let go are going to stay because they don't have those alternatives. So if that's the case, if that's the reason why they are calling people back to the office, then they made a big, big mistake, I'm afraid.
Chad Sowash (19:11.412)
Yes.
Stephen McGrath (19:29.219)
I've worked at companies where they've done that, right? Like that's, I've worked at companies where they've mandated return to office for everybody but the CEO. And, you know, it's not worked out in their favor. Yeah, it's not worked out in their favor at that time, right? And they've moved on beyond that now. So, which is good, they've really worked really well since then. So, but the thing is I would say from the creative standpoint in that, you know, it's not,
Lieven (19:37.431)
You
Chad Sowash (19:37.583)
Okay.
I suspect.
Stephen McGrath (19:58.91)
Remember when, what, 2022, every AI image that you generated had six fingers and like three eyes and, you know, all that kind of stuff? We're only, you know, three and a bit years past when that was first a thing. And now you cannot tell, you know, is obviously you can tell because you see so much of it in our world. But for people like my grandparents who are walking down the street or my parents who aren't heavily involved, they don't they don't see it the same way that I see it.
Chad Sowash (20:06.351)
Yeah.
Lieven (20:16.672)
No.
Chad Sowash (20:24.765)
No clue. Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (20:28.409)
So ultimately it has just, you know, self-improve through learning, you know, the design techniques that will come for companies like this. But I think that you're absolutely right, Chad, in terms of like the, if they get good storytellers in there, then, you know, that's what's going to make the difference. But then how long do those people last? That's the question, right?
Chad Sowash (20:50.013)
Yeah. That's a how much do they pay them? I mean, that's a lot of things.
Stephen McGrath (20:53.665)
Once you've got the grips with that over a year or two, do you really need them anymore? So, yeah.
Chad Sowash (20:56.179)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean on on the on on the Microsoft side, I see this happening for two main reasons. And and this is just my thoughts. You know, the cost of AI. you know, we'll be talking about anthropics IPO later in the show, but Microsoft is putting their chips all over the fucking board. They've invested 13 billion
In open AI, about 5 billion in anthropic, over a billion in inflection AI, 15 to 16 million in France's Mistral, and nearly 700 million in figure AI. And and there's more. Trying to keep pace with AI while spreading your chips all over the place is burning cash and cutting headcount. apparently feels like it's gonna stem some of the burn. Now, second point.
is more political, I believe. It is it is cost, but it's also bli political. This feels like a big old fuck you to the US Department of Labor. Because remember, the Department of Labor called out Microsoft specifically.
to stop the use of H1B visas to fill positions in the US, which impacts over 6,000 positions. So personally, this feels like the start of a massive global restructuring for Microsoft. Yes, they they they did mention Canada and UK in the announcement as well, but to me that felt more like a smokescreen. so to to to review, cost of AI is high.
DOL shit themselves live on TV by forcing Microsoft to I offshore to at least think of offshoring these positions. so it's literally, you know, it's it's it's it's it's two pronged it's a two-pronged issue right now. I I see. I'm sure there's many more than that. But from the guy outside looking in, that's what I'm saying.
Stephen McGrath (22:37.304)
it.
Stephen McGrath (22:47.347)
I certainly had a look at quite a lot of these large companies and enterprise kind of level companies all the way up to the Microsoft's of the world, but starting kind of much smaller than that. What you found quite often is big layoffs were announced and then silent hiring in offshore positions were happening at the same time and kind of like ushering people in the door at like a third of the cost. And that was never talked about.
you know, it just kind of, it just displaced each other. So that certainly wouldn't surprise me, you know, what you've just said there.
Chad Sowash (23:15.251)
No, of course not. Yep.
Chad Sowash (23:22.301)
Yeah, and I mean, as we as we look at politicians who prospectively have never been in business before, they might be attorneys, they might have been in politics for most of their lives, they don't understand the levers that companies actually use to to to win against countries, right? That give them tax breaks, that do all these different things.
So it's really weird. Now leaving in and around your area and and in Belgium and in Doc and and those those types of areas, do you see companies moving that much at all just for tax breaks?
Lieven (24:01.013)
Actually, Yeah. And it's a problem. Belgium is becoming too expensive concerning taxes. So they're leaving their headquarters to, for example, Luxembourg, where it's much cheaper and they don't actually do anything there, but they just have some kind of a postal office or a post bus, what's it called? And, and then, and then suddenly they have to pay less taxes. We have the same thing with Ireland, for example.
Chad Sowash (24:02.121)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (24:10.42)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (24:14.484)
Yes.
Chad Sowash (24:20.637)
Yeah, post office, yeah. Box.
Stephen McGrath (24:21.219)
Yeah, peel box.
Chad Sowash (24:29.63)
Yes.
Lieven (24:29.695)
Everything in Ireland is, I'm sorry. Texas is much cheaper. So it happens.
Chad Sowash (24:33.917)
Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (24:36.705)
Isle of Man is the UK's version, it? Things like that. It's just tiny little islands that have flat rates of 10, 15, 20 percent.
Chad Sowash (24:44.447)
Well all I can say is
Lieven (24:44.706)
Hmm.
Chad Sowash (24:51.941)
We will be right back. All right, kids. it's time to play our favorite show, Who'd You Rather? For the audience out there, here's how we play. Steven and Levin. they're going to imagine themselves in a bar at 2 a.m. you're a little tipsy, and you have two choices. You can only go home with one of these. Okay, we have contestant number one.
Town, an AI assistant startup. Town NABS Unicorn Valuation four months after launch. A two-year-old San Francisco-based startup developing AI assistance. Town targets businesses, giving each employee an AI assistant called a townie that that's so bad. That helps.
with tasks by connecting to tools such as email and calendars as well as other core work systems. Employees townies can talk to each other and share approved information. I don't know if that's good. they can also now work with customers and other
Outside the company, others outside the company. Town Nav Day Unicorn valuation announcing a 108 million dollar series B. That is town. Now contestant number two. We have Zen Zap. Yes, I'll have another Guinness, please. Zen Zap. I think it's you know
I don't know where these names come from, okay? I don't know where they come from. But I don't know that I'll forget it. So maybe it's good. ZemZap, a private messenger with AI that wants to help companies communicate with their staff and arm them with their organiz their organization's context. That is
Lieven (26:31.981)
you
Chad Sowash (26:51.357)
It doesn't seem like you're arming them with much. You're arming them with your organization's context. Okay, while staying in line with IT and security rules, I do like that. The company has raised $44 million in funding. One of the founders said, quote, ZenZapp is not focused on developers like Slack, but on the other 99% of employees using personal messaging apps and waiting for an agent of their own.
People desperately want a clear separation of work and their personal lives, and the adoption of personal and work agents make it imperative that separation happen now. That's right, kids. So that's Zen Zap, and that is town. Stephen, it's who'd you rather? It's two in the morning. Who you going home with?
Stephen McGrath (27:38.169)
you
Yeah.
going home with town, simply because I would say that Zenz app had me. love company context in products. I think it's really important that guardrails are set. I think it's really important that AI is used safely and in context and all that kind of stuff. But does giving all your employees really not blur the lines between home and company life?
Chad Sowash (27:47.907)
Stephen McGrath (28:12.461)
giving them all access to this AI kind of like widget that's going to be live 24 seven. Does that give you a hard stop? And does that, you know, provide, so like the kind of, can you read the end of what you had said about Zen's app again, just so I can remind myself of that.
Stephen McGrath (28:34.7)
I've lost you.
Lieven (28:38.027)
You're muted.
Chad Sowash (28:39.088)
There we go. Yes. They're moving beer around here, so it's kinda loud. One second, one second.
Stephen McGrath (28:42.606)
Yeah, we'll just.
Lieven (28:48.557)
.
Chad Sowash (28:55.795)
Hey Sara Gay, make sure you get that out there, buddy. Okay, so the last part is in zap. Okay, so people desperately want a clear separation of work from their personal lives and the adoption. Go ahead. Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (28:58.115)
Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (29:04.697)
Okay, so stop. So people want a clear separation of work in their personal lives. So for me, how is that tool gonna be used? Is it gonna have clear boundaries of time being on and off? Is it only gonna be on when you open up your laptop? Is it gonna be on your phone? Like I understand the process of it, right? But like, if that's the point of the tool existing, it feels like it blurs those lines more than makes them steadfast to me.
Chad Sowash (29:21.865)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (29:28.819)
Next time we can do that.
Stephen McGrath (29:32.791)
I like the concept, I like the idea of it, but I'm going with town, although I really wish we could change names of both if possible.
Chad Sowash (29:41.311)
I'm leaving. Town or Zen Zap. Yeah?
Lieven (29:45.591)
Same here, same here. I'm going home with town. Yeah, because ZenZap is asking me to move my team into some kind of a new chat app, which they will not be using because they have plenty of other apps and they will forget about it. And town promises me to give everyone an assistant that's going to work across the tools they already use. So I bet on the assistant. And the interesting part to me is that one assistant can talk to the other. So we basically don't have to do anything, which is a great thing.
I have my assistant talk to your assistant and go to the beach or something. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect.
Chad Sowash (30:16.411)
And then then I don't have to talk to you. That that escalated quickly and that's beautiful. So a couple of different things. So, you know, I I think on the Zen Zen Zap side, I think it's it's really smart to pull together a newer version of Slack that was built in an age of AI and agents. Totally get that. Feels really like like a smart play to get acquired.
Stephen McGrath (30:20.697)
Yeah
Chad Sowash (30:38.587)
And that's exactly what they're looking to do, much like Slack did with Salesforce a few years ago. So many huge platforms need new tech and smart people to keep them ahead of the competition. Now town, dude, their domain is town.com, a four-letter dot com. I mean, come on, that's fucking crazy. Plus, they have an agent that's a paperclip called Cliff.
Stephen McGrath (30:38.712)
Yes.
Stephen McGrath (30:56.856)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (31:08.767)
Plus they have a an agent that's a paperclip called Cliff, an homage to Microsoft's 1997 Clippy. I remember remember Clippy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well clippy's back? Well, it's not Clippy, it's Clippy's it's Clippy's you know, nephew or nephew, Cliff, okay?
Lieven (31:16.493)
Clippy.
Stephen McGrath (31:17.113)
Yeah Clippy, yeah, yeah. Did you? I loved Clippy but I would have been about eight at the time when I saw.
Lieven (31:19.507)
Yeah, I hate this clappy. God, I hate this clappy. Yeah, awful.
Stephen McGrath (31:29.239)
Brother. Yeah.
Lieven (31:32.684)
Okay.
Stephen McGrath (31:33.337)
Is a townie not... are they from Boston? Is a townie not something? Do you want us to wait a second?
Chad Sowash (31:46.432)
They're going back and forth. so a towny, I mean, it's like out a a towny is known as somebody who never really leaves a town. I mean, they just they they just stay in that town their entire life, which I mean it's all good. I mean, what if you're in a Boston? I mean, shit, Boston's fucking huge. but like it's usually like small town America is like when you're in a small town, you stay there your whole life. so you ha you have a towny. now.
Stephen McGrath (31:47.417)
Yeah, that's right.
Stephen McGrath (31:55.309)
Okay.
Stephen McGrath (31:59.758)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (32:13.659)
What I do like about this the most is their if you if you saw their videos and and how they've actually marketed is their Dr. Seuss like storytelling around the product, which makes it easy to understand. It's comfortable. And hell, tell a company, I mean, tell me a company that's not shopping agents right now, right? So it doesn't have to it's for me, it doesn't have to be two a.m. in the morning. I don't have to be in the bar and or drunk. I would
Stone cold sober in the middle of the day. Take home. Take home a townie. Take home a townie baby. Every day. That's
Stephen McGrath (32:46.585)
Pick up a Tony!
Now, you know, we'll do another segment on this another day, which is who wins out of all of us to get the townie. But that's, you know, that's for another day. All right. OK. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (32:59.551)
There's more than one townie, so I think they can spread them around. I think they can spread around. we're moving to Day Force, which we don't talk about enough around here. Day Force announced that it has agreed to acquire Ribbon, an AI native recruiting technology company that helps organizations source, screen, and engage qualified talent more quickly and efficient efficiently. The acquisition will add specialized agent.
Agentic, yeah. Agentic recruiting capabilities to day force, including ribbons, conversational voice and video AI technology, helping organizations conduct high quality candidate interviews at scale. Steven, you you're all over this. What do you think?
Stephen McGrath (33:46.263)
Yeah, I mean, the first thing is I thought I was having a bit of Dave Javu when I seen the news. Thank you very much. Anybody that knows Ribbon knows that one of the co-founders is called Dave Vu and I just had to get that in there. But yeah, look, I love it, right? What did we speak about at the start, which was recruitment leaders being lost in this kind of like myriad of like
Lieven (33:54.037)
Mm-hmm
Chad Sowash (34:00.543)
Nice. Very good.
Stephen McGrath (34:14.585)
What does my tools do? There's too many things to choose from. You know, through KTA TechFinder, I'm seeing this massive kind of tools are spreading across multiple categories, right? So before, you know, in 2005, one thing did one thing and that was it. It did the thing. We still did that thing 10, 15 years later, right? We still were, okay, no, no, we're the really good people at recruitment marketing or sourcing or this or that.
Now, and I'll just use my own stats again, not that this is all about me, but now the average company on that website has 5.2 categories that it covers across all 1500 vendors, which means, yeah, so they could fit into five different categories. so like Dayforce, by acquiring something like Ribbon adds a really useful tool to their arsenal.
Chad Sowash (34:56.681)
So like a platform has five plus categories? gotcha.
Stephen McGrath (35:11.235)
puts it under the day force umbrella, gives their customers instant access to it and means that they start to play against the bigger players that are already doing the same thing or the more well-known players rather than the bigger players in their space. So I think for me, I'm always a fan of this. I'm always a fan of streamlining, bringing in more tools to one belt and giving people that option.
Chad Sowash (35:35.805)
So Levin, do you guys have you dealt with Day Force at all? Yeah. Okay. Talk about that. Cause you obviously did a little research around them. Ribbon, obviously a startup. they were bought not ribbon, but Day Force was bought by Tama Brava earlier this year. so I mean it seem seems like seems like things are changing around that that place.
Lieven (35:39.157)
No, I didn't even know him, to be honest.
Chad Sowash (36:07.549)
Nothing you nothing to add? You don't have anything to add?
Lieven (36:10.283)
No, I really don't know Dayforce. I of course didn't know Reben.ai. And thing is, if they're focusing on the staffing industry, which is our business, then I think they're too late because what they are trying to integrate now is something we already have automated job interviewing, transcribing from audio to written text and parsing it to the ATS. If you don't have it as a staffing company by now, you're far too late.
So you're probably going out of business because of the market getting smaller and consolidations coming up. But I don't know, they force maybe they are aiming to the multinationals, which probably don't have this kind of technology yet. And then this might be a very good addition to their portfolio. I don't know.
Chad Sowash (36:53.087)
Could be, yeah. Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (36:56.505)
Yeah, I mean, day force are so we we did a little bit of work with day force items for kind of joint customers. They're in like almost 200 countries. They have like 50,000 customers or something like that. So that's the that's the base that I'm speaking to is like that kind of global base of if it's going to be really helpful for your people to have access to something that is infinitely better than the experience that you give them today, then great. If you're adding technology to try and
Lieven (37:10.541)
Hmm.
Stephen McGrath (37:26.627)
take market share, then that's an entirely different thing.
Chad Sowash (37:26.879)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I it's the the the the land and expand. you know, you want to land the customer, you wanna keep the customer, you wanna expand the customer within and and if you've bought a human capital management system for God's sakes, you don't you don't wanna choose another one. And and I don't think Day Force has made an acquisition since twenty twenty four.
Lieven (37:29.613)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (37:55.023)
and after being acquired by Tom O'Brabo, which I'd said earlier this year, it's about fucking time. I mean, it feels like Day Force really needs this. I mean, being the fun and quirky human capital system management system only goes so far. but I mean, adding specialized agenc recruiting capabilities to an H CM. Wait a minute.
They're an HCM platform. They they're not even known for recruiting. So what are they doing buying high volume, top of funnel, technology? wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Time out. Workday bought paradox. SAP bought smart recruiters. Okay, okay. It's this is feel it so it's kind of like a me too buy. but it's pretty amazing to see.
recruitment tech and top of the funnel get some attention around this this freaking joint and believe
It's getting the most attention because it's low risk t compared to talent management, payroll, and any of the perceived boring yet essential shit. So the question is, will Day Force follow behind work Dan SAP by elevating Ribbon's CEO to lead all their recruitment tech? Because that's exactly what SAP and Workforce did. And and I guess time will tell. to me, inter interesting, interesting move.
Stephen McGrath (39:15.597)
Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (39:19.705)
Yeah, they flirted with that world. They have for a while. You know, when I say we're involved in deals with them, like it wasn't from them being the HGM, it was from them providing recruitment technology that they had acquired or partnered with. So it was not like they've been standing completely on the outskirts. They have been and, you know, they've dipped a toe in, they've dipped a foot in. This looks like we're maybe going to jump in in the near future. That'll be...
Chad Sowash (39:32.21)
Mm-hmm.
Stephen McGrath (39:48.067)
that'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
Chad Sowash (39:50.589)
Well I'll tell you who is jumping in. my god. It's anthropic. We'll be right back.
All right. Joel is creaming his jeans right now because Anthropic is going IPO and that's initial public offering for you non acronym users out there. Anthropic's first half of twenty twenty five revenues was one point one six billion dollars. Well it first half of twenty twenty five compared to twenty twenty six, which was sixteen point three billion. So they went from one point si about one point two
To over 16 billion. Now that is amazing revenue growth, but what's even more amazing is the anthropics net loss of over 80 billion. That's 80 billion in the first half of 2026. So I'll say that again. 80 billion in losses. Okay. Are we finally at the point of the AI bubble bursting? McGrath, what's going on here?
Stephen McGrath (41:00.055)
Yeah, I mean, I saw anthropic files come up on my phone because I have the I have the text a bit big because I'm, you know, got eye issues these days. And I was like, no way. And I was expecting to click on it and say for bankruptcy as that is the next few words. And I thought, no, the whole house of cards has fallen down. And this is just the start of it. But, you know, obviously, it's not that that's not the news. I mean, look.
Chad Sowash (41:05.019)
Ha ha.
For divorce.
Chad Sowash (41:21.203)
Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (41:28.537)
I probably don't understand enough about top level business to know how companies like Anthropic and OpenAI can consistently publish country wealth defining losses and still operate for years and years and years.
Chad Sowash (41:45.149)
I that's that's a great way to put it. Country wealth defining losses. Yes.
Stephen McGrath (41:51.001)
And I think it's just interesting to me that like, you know, it's just sit back, get the popcorn, let's see how it all kind of works out. But I just don't see a world where it's going to work out that great, to be honest with you. It's like my immediate feelings and that great for anybody that is involved, you know, involved with it. But yeah.
Chad Sowash (42:01.725)
Oof.
Chad Sowash (42:16.317)
Yeah, I mean we can sit back and watch, but I mean we're all mired up in this, right? I think it's like seven companies that are driving the stock market right now. Seven. And if this one topples, it's a it's it's fucking house of cards, dude. I mean, welcome to the upside down. We are literally in bizarro world. Not only is AI going to bring us to an extinction level event, which how many of these CEOs have actually said? We are actually going to buy stock.
Stephen McGrath (42:20.995)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (42:46.471)
In that extinction level events. This gets fine. This gets vital under humans are really stupid. but back to the math, okay, and the business model, because that's what humans obviously believe in. roughly 80% of anthropics revenue come from business businesses paying for use of processed information, aka token tokens, right? Those prices
Stephen McGrath (42:49.112)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (43:16.297)
Have been at bargain basement levels. We're talking NCAP prices. The question is now, now that they're moving public, everything is public, including this crazy 80 billion in losses that I mentioned. That's 80 billion in losses. What's gonna happen from the standpoint of driving revenue? So I actually dug into it, and this is what their current base is and what their current market opportunity is. So
they have 50% of Fortune 500 companies currently paying as currently paying customers. 70%, 70% of Fortune 100 companies who have bought into Cloud Business Ops. Of the global two thousand, over thirty percent of the global two thousand are high value customers. Now Anthropic has over fourteen thousand enterprise customers, nearly twelve thousand clients.
are they're spending about a hundred thousand a year. you have close to two thousand spending a million, and then you have like two hundred and fifty clients spending ten million a year. So Anthropic has to unseat major competitors to gain market share and expand spending from clients. Plus, at the start of 2026.
OpenAI's developer share was below twenty-five percent. By the end of Q three, twenty twenty-six, it was back up to fifty percent with their launch of their new tools. So open AI ain't having all of that. So during a single week in September of twenty twenty-six, China's deep seat captured over twenty-four percent.
of all text requests on open router, actively pulling budget away from Anthropic and Google. This I mean, this is a hell of a fight, right? But the thing is, are are they tearing the house down around us, leaving? This is a lot of information. I'm gonna sit back and breathe a minute and maybe go in the fetal position. go ahead and tell me you think.
Lieven (45:22.125)
you
Lieven (45:27.821)
First of all, the growth in revenue is impressive and it's going to grow much faster the coming years. And I know I can't project on my own company, but if I look at the spending we do at Anthropic at Claude, the last months compared to the last year, it's growing very fast. Everyone is starting to use it and it's, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it'll be exponential, think even, yeah, because those
Chad Sowash (45:36.073)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (45:49.033)
Do you think it's gonna continue at that level though? At that hockey stick? Okay.
Lieven (45:57.043)
those tokens are becoming more expensive. We just keep using more and it's addictive. that's the problem and they get us hooked up. That's one thing. And then you were talking about a loss of 80 billion. That's not exactly what's happening. mean, it's in the books, it's a loss of 80 billion, but in fact, it's investments. It's 72 billion out of the 80 billion is some kind of a financial thing, but it's not cash burn. Totally not.
So this is something they'll carry on the coming years and it will make them financially stronger. I remember when Tesla went IPO, the shares were overvalued and I looked at it and I'm never going to invest in something like this. It's a crazy idea. And one guy is going to, okay. And each year those shares only got more expensive, more expensive. So I never bought them and our private banker invested in them and my funds or what's it called? 4 % was Tesla. I I was talking to him. I like, are doing this? mean,
He believed in it. Okay. So, in the end, now they're pretty much making money. So it's, it's possible. And this is what's going to happen with Antropic. It's going to be extremely overvalued and it's going to stay overvalued valued for years and years to come. But shares will only get more expensive. I believe in it. And I think Microsoft, just were talking about Microsoft investing in all these tools. They were first investors. they'll get rich from this IPO, even richer.
Stephen McGrath (47:26.201)
Yeah. Do you think it's one of those things where like we're almost as a human race, we're not going to be given the choice whether these companies succeed or not, right? Like essentially we are kind of being forced down an alleyway, which is this is the way the world just works now. And you're going to contribute to our exponential growth as a result of that.
Lieven (47:28.005)
well.
Lieven (47:39.479)
Hmm. No.
Stephen McGrath (47:54.042)
To your point, I use these tools at a very small scale, leaving for the stuff that I do. My subscriptions a year ago were $30, they're now $150, $200, $300. And that's just one guy in a room doing it. But it's funny how it's like, you just don't mind doing it because the results are better than they were the last time that you did it. And it becomes that kind of... So you put that as...
Lieven (48:07.949)
Mm.
Lieven (48:18.614)
Absolutely.
Chad Sowash (48:18.63)
Much better. Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (48:22.763)
company scale, an enterprise scale, then that's a lot of money going out the door. I think for me, the only thing that could potentially slow anything like that down would be a real environmental impact assessment that comes from the government down. And when I say slow it down, mean, like, it up for about five seconds and then it just gets back up and starts running again.
But there is maybe something around that that's kind of capped from either a country level or a global level where we say that you can't exceed X, Y or Z.
Lieven (49:02.217)
Yeah, but as we speak, it's an American company. The current government won't give a shit about environmental issues.
Stephen McGrath (49:06.905)
Yeah, yeah, but that's the only thing I can see slowing it down.
Lieven (49:12.119)
Hmm.
Chad Sowash (49:12.445)
Yep. Yep. Well and again, we've been told there's a possibility of extinction level events. And we're buying stock in extinction level events. There's no dad joke to get us out of this. They're just great job. Thanks guys. Appreciate you coming on. I'm gonna go in the feudal position over here in the bar, finish my my Guinness. but thanks for joining. We out.
Lieven (49:32.203)
Yeah.
Stephen McGrath (49:37.027)
You
Yeah. Cheers. Thank you.
Lieven (49:42.415)
We out.
Comments