Dry January? Hold My Big Mac & Scooter

Like a good fight? Well, you're in luck. This episode is for you. This week, the boys are covering fights between OpenAI and The New York Times, Elon Musk and Mark Cuban, and Miller Lite and Bud Light. Good thing Chad is back from Europe and in a fighting mood. We take on challenges to DEI and the rise of minimum wages in New York and California, while beer mints are hoping to be a thing. (It's not.) What's more snarky TikTok'ers, Big Macs, and Bird scooters ... Oh, my. Grab a cold one and enjoy. Again, what the hell is Dry January?

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Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad & Cheese Podcast.

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Joel: Oh, yeah. Two guys who will not be head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide next season. What's up kids? You're listening to the Chad & Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Flacco Cheesman.

Chad: And I'm Chad living in America Sowash.

Joel: And on this episode, OpenAI versus the New York Times. Miller Lite versus Bud Light and Elon versus Mark Cuban. Let's do this.

Joel: You're back.

Chad: It's good to be back to work, my friend.

Joel: You're back and it's only 38 degrees, so you're good, man. It's golden. You brought some sunshine with you to the Midwest. Very nice.

Chad: Yep, some sunshine, but yes, it's fucking cold. This is not cool. This is not cool. I was prepared for this, but I wasn't prepared for this.

Joel: Yeah. What, Tim, did you leave like '70s, '80s? What?

Chad: Well, first off we flew back to Paris because that's where we came in. So we spent the night in Paris and we loved the Algarve and the Algarve was I don't know, it was close to 65 degrees, 70 degrees.

Joel: Lovely.

Chad: Nice, nice.

Joel: Lovely.

Chad: Flying to Paris, motherfucker, it was snowing in Paris. That's bullshit. That's bullshit. I was not ready for that, but it got me ready. So, coming back here, at least it wasn't snow as of yet. It wasn't snow so it was all good. It was all good. Got a lot of rest, slept well, got up this morning, had a pot of coffee...

Joel: There you go.

Chad: And I'm back in America in Chad mode right now. I am work, getting to my emails, I'm doing all this shit that I don't do when I'm in Europe.

Joel: Were your dogs happy to see you? Did they remember who you are?

Chad: Oh yes. Oh yes. The dogs love it, especially the first few days. 'Cause I don't let them sleep in the bed with us. We got three big dogs. The first few days though, acclimate, come on back in. And it's a good thing. So all good in the hood. One thing I do wanna say though, it's like Christmas in fucking January around this bitch. I had a ton of industry friends send gifts, mainly booze while I was gone. So it was all just piled up, ready for me. So I'll be doing some TikToks and some videos and whatnot thanking people.

Joel: Yeah, some unboxing videos is that what we have to look forward to? So we're going from like...

Chad: Yeah, somewhat.

Joel: We're going from Club Med swinger videos in Portugal to box opening videos in Columbus, Indiana.

Chad: First off, don't be projecting your wishes and your dreams on me as what... I'm doing that shit.

Joel: Dude, there's a video you put up, it looks like the Grotto from the Playboy mansion, but it's big and outside. And there are dudes in Speedos relaxing on the beach and...

Chad: Fucking Europe. It sounds like Europe.

Joel: It's Club Med swingers action is what I'm saying.

Chad: No, that's just Europe.

Joel: Oh man. Oh man. Well, welcome back...

Chad: Good to be back.

Joel: Good for you. We go to San Diego in a couple of weeks, so you get to...

Chad: Can't wait.

Joel: It's gonna be a cold weekend. It's gonna be a cold weekend here in the Midwest.

Chad: Thank God.

Joel: I get to go to Montreal today, so that's...

Chad: Lucky bastard.

Joel: Oh, we'll get to that in traveling but let's get to shoutouts, 'cause we've got a lot of stuff going on this weekend. My shout-out.

Chad: Hit it.

Joel: Is a triple thread food shout-out. You're gonna love this. All right.

Chad: Really? Okay.

Joel: Number one, let's start off with this. Mikal Bridges, NBA basketball player plays for the Nets. My new favorite basketball player, and I'm sure you wanna know why. He admitted this past week that he has eaten Chipotle every day for the last 10 years. 10 years, 365 every day. I'm not sure it's every day, but it's a lot. Yes.

Speaker 3: Chipotle is my life.

Joel: Chad, not all heroes wear capes. Some of them order the Barbacoa bowl with extra queso. So that's my number one. My number two, Chad, as a kid of the '80s, you remember the Wendy's commercials, where's the beef?

Speaker 4: Where's the beef?

Chad: Oh, yeah.

Joel: It's really important in your burger that you have a nice balance between the beef and the bun?

Speaker 4: Where's the beef?

Joel: And the bun.

Chad: Yes.

Joel: And the Big Mac, one of probably the most known burger around the world. You can go to Big Mac in France and get a Big Mac.

Chad: Special sauce.

Joel: The problem with the Big Mac for me...

Speaker 4: Where is the beef?

Joel: Too much bread, not enough meat. You got the middle layer of the bread. You got the regular bread, and then you got the little tiny cheeseburger patty, not the quarter pounders.

Speaker 4: Where is the beef?

Joel: The cheeseburger. Well, McDonald's is solving that like much of the other problems in my life. They're bringing the double, basically double, double Big Mac. So two patties...

Speaker 4: Where's the beef?

Joel: On each side of the middle bread here for a limited time in the United States, starting January 24th.

Chad: Thank God. Fuck.

Joel: Guess where I'm gonna be for lunch on January 24th Chad? Eating a Big Mac...

Speaker 4: Where's the beef?

Joel: At McDonald's. That's my two. Number three on the food. The food goodness. We might as well be the Food Network podcast. Wendy's...

Speaker 4: Where is the Beef?

Joel: Has recently launched Wendy's Fresh AI. I'm sure you're wondering what that is. They partner with Google to create basically a real time automated chat in the drive-through. We've talked about this. That it's gonna happen. Wendy's has partnered with Google, buy that Google stock now 'cause it's a little bit depressed at the moment. We're talking about 22 seconds on average save time for people that go through the faster fresh AI lane, up to 99% accuracy. If you have a problem, it goes to a human being. If you start cussing out at it, a human being comes on and saves you. But my shout-out goes to three of my favorite places in the world, Chipotle, McDonald's, and Wendy's. Thanks for making life a little better. Here's to you.

Speaker 4: Where's the beef?

Chad: I've had so many people comment to me on how much better fast food tastes in Europe. And it's all because they don't have all the... And chemicals that we put in our food here. [laughter] So they're getting much cleaner food in their fast food. And it's not really that fast in Europe either. We're trying to get things in seconds versus minutes. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Fast food industrial complex baby.

Joel: But you've been away a while. Ozempic is a big thing now. These drugs that help you lose weight. So this is clearly the fast food industry combating the Ozempic tidal wave. Like, we're gonna put more patties on the big Macs, more nuggets in the box. Like this is...

Chad: We'll show you.

Joel: This is how we're gonna fight back, Chad. Here's how we're gonna fight back against science. More food.

Speaker 4: Where's the beef?

Chad: So we're gonna move away from fast food and back to HR. So my first shout-out is to transparency. In 2024, I'd like to challenge TA and HR to be more genuine and transparent, and here's what I mean by that. A head of HR posted something on LinkedIn that I'm gonna paraphrase. I believe it was intended to be a New Year's Eve or New Year's inspirational post, but I don't think it landed that way. It said, and again, I'm gonna paraphrase. In the new year, a high five or a big thank you means more than a promotion or a raise. This year, make an effort to shout-out to those who make the workplace awesome instead of giving them cash. What are your thoughts about that, Joel?

Joel: I'm not a buyer of high fives versus cash. I'm not picking up what they're dropping on that one. And I can't imagine any worker adopting that preference over cash.

Chad: No.

Joel: Look, money talks my friend, especially in America.

Chad: Yes.

Joel: Take out the wallets, write some checks, companies. The high fives aren't gonna cut it.

Chad: Man. So I believe it totally lands disingenuous and it portrays HR as nothing more than a pawn to the C-Suite, and not truly giving a shit about the people they're supposed to be looking out for. It all comes down to trust. And I wanna play a little video from Simon Sinek around trust. Here we go.

[video playback]

Chad: So I think again, trying to pull all that stuff, all that together, if we are more genuine, and less full of shit in 2024, I think we might start regaining trust back. I think we might. So let's give a shout-out to transparency and also to being genuine this year, in 2024.

Joel: This is not a new trend. Children have been seeing their parents screwed over a long, long time. But I appreciate the way that he highlights it there, Mr. Sinek. I appreciate that.

Chad: Yeah, love it.

Joel: And speaking of Sinek, Chad...

Chad: Oh, no.

Joel: I'm sure you like I remember our first ride on a scooter. Micromobility is what the kids call it, apparently.

Chad: Wasn't it Austin? Didn't we do that together in Austin?

Joel: It was Austin, yes. And how you lived through that, I have no idea because you have no restraint on crosswalks, my friend. But Bird scooters, you may have seen this, filed for bankruptcy. This is why we can't have nice things Chad. People are throwing these things in the river up in trees, taking them home like...

Chad: And dumpsters catching shit on fire.

Joel: Yeah. No, they've made some bad decisions. They went IPO through a SPAC, which we know the history of those companies. So, Bird bankruptcy, maybe they'll figure it out. Maybe Elon will come along and write a check and make them all test for scooters.

Chad: Acquisition test.

Joel: That would've been a better one than Twitter. Lime scooters continue to live on. They seem to be doing okay, but clearly, human beings are not ready for freewheeling scooters on the streets of big cities around the world. And I, for one, as you know, am incredibly saddened at the prospect of scooters going the way of, I don't know, bikes on...

Chad: The dodo.

Joel: Yeah. The dodo, the buggy whip, whatever. I will tell my grandchildren about the good old days riding the Bird scooters in downtown USA.

Chad: Love ya. Love ya. All right. I'm gonna go ahead and again, another HR kind shout-out. This one's to job hopping. So in HR, we've all been programmed that job hopping is bad, but exactly who is it bad for? Well, here's Vivian too. When she appeared on the Eric Siu podcast, take a listen.

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Chad: And you know, as well as I do, there are so many of those people that just hang around and they're in the job forever, and they're not the best. They're C players at best. So keeping them, is that what you're looking for? Are you looking for one of them when you're going to recruit somebody, instead of... What we're used to is nah, no job hoppers. In this case, the job hoppers are the ones that are obviously in demand. And this goes well against what we've been taught in recruiting. Why is that? Because it's bad for the company, it's not bad for the employee. Although I think it's actually better for the company and you have to get into that understanding that you're gonna have that churn. The big key is, can I keep them for four instead of two? What can I do to incentivize them to... Maybe not promote, maybe they don't wanna be promoted. Maybe they just want something else. It doesn't matter. You have to know your people better. And I think that from a company standpoint is really our superpower. We have to know our people better.

Joel: And you mentioned transparency. Transparency helps this immensely because in the days where you don't know who's getting paid, it's really hard to have a conversation with your boss and saying, Hey, everyone that's coming in that's new, that is my job, is getting paid more than me. That's not fair. And that's a great negotiating point for your boss to say, you know what, you're right, you should be making what you're making. And I've seen, my wife is a college professor. She sees new professors coming in, it's a public university. They all know what everyone's getting paid. So there's a lot of resentment around newbies getting paid more than you. But there are conversations with the deans saying, "Hey, why is this new person getting paid more than me? I should be getting paid more than them." So transparency helps us a lot. And it goes down to my 17-year-old son who recognized that newbies, he's been on the job a year plus, we're getting paid more than him...

Chad: Oh fuck.

Joel: And good on him he went to his boss and said, it's not cool that I've been here for a year, we're talking fast food, and these new people are getting paid more than me. And he's getting a raise. So transparency and knowing, I think carries a lot of weight in that. And it's also very prescient that you showed this video, Chad, because I've been on this podcast going on seven years now, and I'm not getting any raises or any recognition or benefits. And so, [laughter] I'm gonna be turning in my resignation at the end of this.

Chad: You get bourbon in the mail all the time.

Joel: So anyway, all right, good shout-outs, good shout-outs. And we are transparent, Chad, with free shit.

Chad: That's right.

Joel: Everyone's on social media sharing it. Love doing that. It was fun during the holidays. Birthdays are always fun. But if you haven't signed up kids, chadcheese.com, click the free link. People are getting free booze, we're talking bourbon from our friends at Textkernel, Beer from Aspen Tech Labs, T-shirts from JobGet. And if it's your birthday in any particular month, you could win a nice bottle of rum from our friends at Plum. And that sound, Chad, you know...

Chad: I can feed it all the way down to my plums.

Joel: Means that we're gonna celebrate some birthdays this month.

Chad: Birthdays.

Joel: That's right. Fans that are celebrating another trip around the sun include Jagged Little Jill Patterson. You remember her from fantasy football? She's still licking her wounds from losing in the final four there.

Chad: She did well. She did well.

Joel: Paul Drake, Jenny Olsson, GJ Vassdarp, Rita Doshi, and Craig Fisher, AKA Fish Dogs all celebrate another trip around the Sun. Happy birthday to those listeners.

Speaker 6: Happy birthday.

Chad: Happy birthday. And well, it's gonna be... It's another year, which means it's another year of events. Later this month, we are going to be at TA week in San Diego where we will be hanging out with a crew from Koalafi that's like qualified. But Koala, Koalafi at the Koala colony meetup.

Joel: What?

Chad: Yes. We're gonna go see Koalas at the San Diego Zoo. Evan White has a ton of other VIP after hours events planned. But if you're gonna be at TA week, stop by the Koalafi booth for a T-shirt, do we have any T-shirts left?

Joel: We're at the bottom of the barrel of T-shirts. And we're negotiating another deal, hopefully a new design. Pretty excited about it. We'll talk further. But people love the Hard Rock, the Rock T-shirt... We went with the AC-DC. I think we gotta go with something similar. But yeah, stay tuned for new T-shirts coming in in 2024. And by the way, Koalafi is like a dad joke a company. It's like Koala, Koalafi like so as a dad, I appreciate the Daddy jokingness. By the way, I got a good dad joke for you, Chad. Did you hear about the...

Chad: Oh, geez.

Joel: Did you hear about the chameleon that couldn't change colors?

Chad: I did not.

Joel: He had a reptile dysfunction.

[laughter]

Joel: That's good. That's not bad.

Chad: Very on brand. Very on brand.

Joel: That's not bad.

Chad: Real quick. We are also going to be at Transform in Vegas March 11th through the 14th. They have over 3,000 attendees, 100 plus vendors, more than 500 startups and over 300 speakers. We have not been to TA Week or Transform before. So two new shows for the Chad and Cheese. Go to chadcheese.com/events. That's right /events in the header. We actually have a discount code for Transform. So go ahead and click on register and have at it. Hope to see you there.

Joel: We are bulging into new events this year. We are bulging into new territories, which by the way, Chad, if you haven't checked out the Chad & Cheese Podcast Does Data only on YouTube. You gotta check it out. We've partnered with Toby Dayton, the Sasquatch of Statistics. Easy for me to say only, on YouTube. We look at the monthly employment report, break it down and in just three shows, Chad, the winds of change are strong. The economy can flip on a whim. And the last show to this month's show very interesting, very interesting things on the horizon.

Chad: It is interesting.

Joel: So you gotta check that out. Youtube.com@chadcheese. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any episodes in the Future.

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Joel: Topics.

Chad: Topics.

Joel: All right, Chad, we haven't talked about layoffs for a while, so let's hit some layoffs for the new year.

Chad: Coming Strong.

Joel: That's right. Lever, in case you missed it, owned by Employ who also owns Jobvite has "Cut a slew of workers" but not exact numbers are known. I don't know how much a slew is, but that's what the San Francisco Standard quoted in their story.

Chad: Sounds like a lot.

Joel: Apparently customer service reps were the most impacted. I fear that they're not the only workforce company in the coming months to have layoffs. We will keep you abreast of that. From a macro picture, Google and your favorite Amazon have also announced some layoffs. And if you're an NFL football fan, Pete Carroll, Mike Vrabel and Bill Belichick are all looking for new jobs. Word is, they might be...

Chad: Three head coaches.

Joel: They might be starting a competitive podcast to take on Pat McAfee including Aaron Rogers. So we should be looking out for that. Any thoughts from you on layoffs around the country?

Chad: Yeah, we're seeing a lot of these companies. I mean, even BlackRock is talking about laying off 600, 3% of their staff as well. A lot of companies, not all, are going to be impacted by AI. Not from the standpoint of AI doing somebody's job, but it just impacting business flow. In this case, Lever, I don't think has anything to do with that. I think they've been on the ropes for a little while. They were acquired, obviously on the ropes prior to that. Still on the ropes. And I think... I'm not going to say they have problems, but they do have some huge some obstacles ahead of them. They have all of these different companies. They still haven't aligned those companies from a business strategy standpoint, from a go to market standpoint. And it's incredibly hard running one company with one platform versus three fucking platforms. To me, it sounds like a goddamn nightmare. Another nightmare that I've heard of that's coming is SmartRecruiters. It sounds like the dominoes are falling there. Jeremy Johnson, CFO, out. Rachel Orston, Chief Customer Officer, out. James Chan, VP of Global Presales, out. Charlie Nelson, who's been there for eleven years, Chief Sales Officer, out.

Joel: Damn.

Chad: And from the intel that I'm getting, there are going to be more key players leaving in Q1. So there are a lot of changes happening. A lot of changes happening. And remember, Jerome was there for a while. We got the new CEO that came in, kind of saw that that was going to happen. But this is... The winds of change. I think you've just said it, the winds of change are happening. And when you take a look at... Those are two ATS players, I mean, shit, employs more than... They have three themselves. So they have a huge huge obstacle in front of them, multiple obstacles. So sitting back and watching what happens with them is going to be interesting. Good luck to those guys 'cause it's not going to be easy. Tech debt for one platform versus three fucking platforms. Oh, my God. SmartRecruiters, they've had... I think their biggest issue is go to market and really understanding who their customer is and who their competitors are and who their partners should be. Again, this is the time where things are going to shake out. We're going to see some big companies fall, some companies fall, and some acquisitions happen.

Joel: House of brands or a branded house. It's a difficult decision for any company who's acquiring folks. And with Lever, Jobvite, Jazz, that becomes really convoluted for customers...

Chad: Jazz Hands.

Joel: And internally, multiple customer service, different sales teams. That's quite a mess.

Chad: Fucking nightmare.

Joel: Winds of change, Chad. It always comes back to The Scorpions, a la 1980s. Yes, more layoffs.

Chad: Love me some scorpions.

Joel: More layoffs for sure. I think Indeed, remember they had an investor, a little private equity action. I think they're probably going to get a haircut here in the next couple of months. No inside info. I'm predicting there'll be more efficiency at Indeed here at some point.

Chad: Remember when Indeed said they were going to have an applicant tracking system? I mean a hiring system applicant? This is a hell of a lot harder than people think, you know what I mean?

Joel: Bring back job tracker, I say. Bring back the app where I can take pictures of help wanted signs in my downtown and get money for it.

Chad: No, no, no. Don't do it.

Joel: All right. OpenAI is in the news, so let's talk about that. Several high profile lawsuits are challenging the legality of OpenAI's ChatGPT, and similar AI products, alleging copyright infringement and unfair competition. The New York Times, for instance, claim these chatbots use their intellectual property without permission, diverting web traffic and causing reputational damage. Ouch. OpenAI argues it's within fair use. The outcome promises to shape the future of AI and copyright law. Chad, what are your thoughts on OpenAI versus the New York Times?

Chad: So, months ago I said that content or data was key to all these large language models, key to training and feeding the large language models. Everyone will have access to these large language models, but not everyone will have the data to train the models. There are tons of data lakes that are out there that are not open to the public. Think of unleashing a large language model on ADP Payroll data, could pay equity be fixed faster. What about unleashing a large language model on an applicant tracking system candidate pool you've spent millions of dollars amassing over the years. Could the data be enriched? Could candidates be matched and fast tracked into positions? Filling those positions faster, thus driving a more productive workforce? Shit, yes. But the thing is the content is the key. You need the fuel. You need the training data to be able to do that. So in this New York Times case, they understand their content is data, and data is the key to power the AI. I just hope that we in TA and HR understand our domain specific data is very specialized, which makes it golden. It is literally a pot of gold. Companies should be working closely with vendors to understand their data, clean it up, and start putting it to work ASAP.

Chad: So I see this coming. I also see the New York Times and many other publishers, they were fooled once by Google in being able to give their content out for free. And now they're going after that money now, shit, 20 years later, now they're saying, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, I'm coming after my pot of gold, motherfucker.

Joel: Yeah. And not just Google, to me it's a Napster and maybe even Monster moment. If you're old enough to remember Napster, or at least seen a documentary on Netflix, the music industry, their choice was to destroy, sue Napster out of business as opposed to looking at how do we partner, make money? And then a few years later they had Steve Jobs walk in and basically bend them over for 99 cents a download per song. So that was probably the wrong decision. Google, like you mentioned, Prof. G, one of our favorites, likes to talk about when he was on the New York Times board talking about we should shut off Google, we should partner with every media, major media outlet in the country and say, unless you pay us, you're not going to be able to index our stuff. They obviously didn't do that and we're in kind of the position we are now if we're looking at in employment, how many times in the mid aughts did we say, why is Monster, CareerBuilder, hot jobs? Everybody letting...

Chad: Indeed.

Joel: Letting Indeed and SimplyHired and everybody else index their stuff. They could destroy them tomorrow by cutting off their content. Of course the thought of, well, this is a little shitty search engine thing, we're getting free traffic, who cares? And then look how that turned out. So yeah, there's been a lot of companies burned on, hey, our content is valuable, we should get paid for it. And it's not just the New York Times. Sarah Silverman comedian is suing ChatGPT as well. So there's going to be some big legal case as to how I think OpenAI and everyone's going to have to pay for the content and how they're making these models and spitting out information. I don't know how they get away with it. I think Google probably has the best chance to come out of this with the best partnerships, spending the most money. I mean, we'll see how it ends up, but going to be interesting. This is the moment where either OpenAI potentially dies or everyone gets rich and everyone is feeling good and feeling fine and cherry wine. Our next OpenAI story is about the GPT Store which just launched.

Joel: The ChatGPT store allows users to share custom chatbots created through the GPT builder program. Over 3 million bots have been generated since November and is now available to ChatGPT plus, Enterprise, and a new paid tier called Team, catering to smaller teams at $25 per month per user or $30 per month per user, whether it's annual or monthly billing. OpenAI plans a revenue sharing program for GPT creators based on user engagement starting in Q1. Chad, what are your thoughts on the GPT store?

Chad: That's interesting. I believe I saw a post and I got to reach out to Martin Lenz over at Jobiqo, where they've already created one of these chatbots and they're releasing it to the public as well. So, yes, this is going to be something that's big, and there are going to be different models, different versions. But again, we're going back to what they're trained off of, because if they're trained off of just basic data that's available to the public, who gives a fuck. If they're trained off of that secret source data that nobody else has, that's incredibly different. So I think this, to an extent right now, is all about nothing. They're just going to be a lot of same types of chatbots coming out.

Chad: Will they be more specifically focused in certain areas, yeah, but you can do that yourself, especially if you're using just public data. The big difference here, I feel this is more of a diversion. Focus on something that is more specific to you. Martin Lenz and Company they have the access, they understand the type of specialized domain data in the public that they can use, but they also have their own data. So they can make that almost mixture special, source wise, what vendors are going to do that. That to me is what is more interesting. The rest of them are just kind of like, anybody can do that. I want to see the stuff that happens that's trained off of data that nobody else has.

Joel: So App Stores have been a staple in the Internet ecosystem since Facebook did it 20 years ago, probably 18 years ago. And it was genius at the time. Twitter had... Build on Twitter, build on LinkedIn. Everybody opened up their platform and then just about everybody got burned for building stuff on those platforms. You probably remember, bknown, you might remember BranchOut, which made their entire business based on spamming people in your network on those social media platforms.

Chad: Which is why it got killed.

Joel: Yeah, which is why it got killed. All it's going to take is the App Store provider to change the rules and you're screwed. We're seeing App Store with Apple gamer companies 30% to Apple. How are you profitable on that? I think going back to the New York Times. If you are creating stuff where you have to have a license agreement with the company, whether it's through OpenAI or something else, I think it could be a really tough time for a lot of app makers if the New York Times wins and OpenAI has to pay license fees for all this content. Because that's going to funnel down to all the developers. They're going to have to pay a fee for using that content.

Joel: I think where you're going with, could you use ATS data to create really interesting large language models? Could you use job postings which are basically free around the Internet? That becomes interesting. I think one of the threats to OpenAI is its relationship with Microsoft who owns LinkedIn. LinkedIn will probably have the coolest ChatGPT, whatever things, maybe they'll build them right onto LinkedIn's platform. But the fear of, I built something cool on ChatGPT and LinkedIn goes, oh, we don't really like that. And it's saying for some reason this is banned or this isn't going to happen. I think there's a real threat to building stuff that competes with LinkedIn and LinkedIn and Microsoft saying, I don't know about this. Google's definitely going to open up their stuff. Everyone with AI is going to open up their stuff, and we're going to see a flood of new apps, APIs in marketplaces work until they don't. ATS is in our space. Will there be apps built on ATSs that involved OpenAI, ChatGPT technology? There probably will.

Chad: Yeah. They already are.

Joel: Well, I'm just saying proceed with caution if you're a developer, if you're an investor in these companies, 'cause historically, when you build on someone else's property, they tend to raise the taxes, they tend to set up fences, they tend to make life a little more difficult than it was when you first came on the property.

Chad: It'll be interesting, your LinkedIn example. I think it's funny 'cause it's like affixing a jet engine to a Cessna. You're going to see those things happen, but it's just not going to work. We've been talking about this for years. LinkedIn infrastructure is old, tech debt is a bitch, trying to do all these new things. If Microsoft helps them rebuild LinkedIn as we know it today and make it this AI powerhouse, man, it will be fucking beautiful. But if they do what you were talking about doing, you're putting a jet engine on a Cessna. That's just not going to work.

Joel: Yeah, like silicone lubricant, on Clark Griswold's snow sled. Let's take a break and when we come back, we'll talk about DEI.

Joel: All right, Chad, let's talk a little DEI, which some people are forecasting will become DIE. I guess time will tell. But Elon Musk and Mark Cuban are beefing over diversity, equity and inclusion. Musk criticized United Airlines Pilot Training Academy's 50% diversity goal for women and/or people of color. Cuban defended the goal, clarifying it applied to the training school, not the airline itself.

Joel: Musk called Cuban a racist, reiterating his suggestion for diversity in Cuban's NBA team. What's more, Bill Ackman has labeled DEI as racist. Google is cutting DEI initiatives, and Lululemon's founder has gripes about Lulu's, "Whole diversity and inclusion thing", adding, you've got to be clear that you don't want certain customers coming in." Chad, it's been a long, strange trip for corporate diversity efforts. What are your thoughts?

Chad: Over the years, we've talked about how many, not all DEIB programs were nothing but window dressing. When the chief diversity officer has limited or no staff and no budget, what the actual fuck are they supposed to do? They're literally told, hey, go out and do stuff, and you've got nobody. You've got no resources. What are you supposed to do? So seeing these departments of one go away, it's not a bad thing, because many of them, they weren't moving the needle in the first place. They couldn't. They didn't have the resources to be able to do that. But here's what I hope we see happen. I hope companies understand the business need for DEIB. And those companies start to contract people like Torin Ellis and Shaker's John Graham to not just make connections, but drive outcomes. Hire companies with like Disability Solutions like Pepsi did, to create better hiring and retention outcomes, and maybe even win an award from the US government, like Pepsi did, off the work and outcomes of those experts because they can drive those outcomes. They know how to.

Chad: Literally, Pepsi received a pass on OFCCP audits because of their collaboration and outcomes with Disability Solutions. Now, I'm biased because Julie is the executive director of Disability Solutions, but they have proven themselves with outcomes. To me, this could be an opportunity for a lot of these companies who didn't know what the fuck they were doing in the first place, to call people in who know what they're doing. So to Cuban's point, your loss is my gain. You want to lose all of these programs, great. Fuck you. Great. I want them. Which means you're going to lose all that great talent, all that opportunity. You're going to lose it.

Chad: I don't care, 'cause you're my competition. You might not be in the same industry, but you're still a competitor for great talent. So guess what? I love it. You do you. I'm going to do me, and I'm going to get the best talent through these programs.

Joel: Yeah. It's amazing to me that we're calling something like this a racist initiative, trying to bring more people into the fold of corporate America.

Chad: Reverse discrimination. Are you fucking kidding me?

Joel: Yeah, it's weird. It's a surreal world that we live in. Good on Mark Cuban. Good on, Mark Cuban. When we sat down with Torin Ellis a few years ago and we asked him, hey, what can two white guys do to help the cause? And his comment was, Speak up. Put yourself out there. Defend the efforts and take on people that will attack it. So good on Cuban being one of the more high profile people to take on Elon Musk and anyone else, but...

Chad: He gets it.

Joel: He totally gets it. It's not about quotas and people aren't qualified, it's about expanding the net and getting more people into the fold. And he really has a great way of clarifying what the issue is. Look, the pendulum swung way on one way. Black lives Matter, Me Too, George Floyd. The media embraced it, companies were like, we're good guys and gals, we're embracing this and we're hiring DEI and then when the economy did its thing and people stopped paying attention and Ukraine... Americas attention and people's attention went away from that. And as a result, corporate America has as well. You and I called this, Chad, when the Supreme Court nixed affirmative action, we said, this is going to slip into corporate America. This is going to destroy DEI programs and initiatives at companies. We talked about the Lead at Facebook, which had nothing to do with DEI. It had everything to do with the person. But I'm sure that has something to do with the whole effort.

Joel: So I like where you're going with, this is going to be a marketplace issue. It's going to take people who buy stuff to say, we're not going to buy stuff from companies who don't embrace this. It's going to take people who work for these companies to say, we're not going to work for you anymore unless you embrace these values. And it's going to embrace some of market forces that say, Hey, companies who do, and I think we have a lot of evidence already, that companies that do embrace DEI are more successful from a bottom line initiative and perspective. Elon's off the reservation example of this. I don't know if he's the normal case study, but the more companies that have the Mark Cubans that embrace this, the more employees that want it, the more customers who are saying, we're going to buy from companies that embrace this, that's going to be the change, not because CNN is reporting it and not because global sentiment says, this is what we should focus on today, tomorrow it will be something else. This needs to be a foundational change.

Chad: So back to back outcomes. I'm much closer to this than most people are, not because I'm doing it, I was a veteran, I built veteran hiring programs. I understand a lot of the window dressing and bullshit that happened there. Watching Julie do this on a daily basis and understanding that companies that they're working with and they're building programs with, they're getting better retention than their "Normal, run-of-the-mill employees." These are things that, we were talking about job hopping earlier and we talked about trust earlier. You know who really trusts an organization? One that gives them a fucking chance that's never been given a chance before. One who lays it out on the line and says, hey, look, you're going to train, you're going to work, you're going to be this. We want to stand behind you and do this. That's how you build loyalty and trust.

Joel: Yeah.

Chad: These types of programs are the bedrock of being able to find new talent and get them trained up and keeping them for much longer, which does what? It gives you a solid firm foundation of great talent. And if you don't have that, you're not having the revenues that you want to see.

Joel: Yeah. Yeah. I fear it's only going to get worse. And the whole ESG movement taking a hit just gets combined with all this. But going from one injustice to possibly another, let's talk about minimum wage. Effective January 1st of '24. The minimum hourly wage will increase from $15-$16 in New York City and Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties and from $14-$15 per hour for the rest of the state. Meanwhile, the minimum wage in California is now $16 an hour for all employers. Later this year, fast food restaurant employees will get $20 per hour and health care facility employees will make up to $23 an hour. Chad, what are your thoughts on New York and California's initiatives?

Chad: Well, I think... We talked about this, we have seen stagnant wage increases, stagnant wage levels over the years. And the market hasn't fixed it. We have got to do a couple of different things. Yes, the market will drive certain areas like tech. But it doesn't drive everything. So we actually have to have governing bodies and forces that help to ensure that we don't push more people into poverty. That's the big key. And that we're not making people shit, work more than one full time job just so that they can put a roof over their family's heads. So at the end of the day, this is about ensuring that our neighbors, the people that we live with, the people that we share communities with are taken care of. We've lost that. We've been focusing on rugged individualism ourselves. What can we do for ourselves instead of the community?

Chad: And that's where a lot of the trust has been lost, unfortunately. So is there going to be a shock factor with some companies who might have to go out of business or they might have to change how they do business to be able to work with these new wages? Yes. And I'll give you a great example. Just in Paris, we were in this hotel called CitizenM and it had literally bare bone staff. You go into... You go in, you register yourself, you make your own key. You go to the bar. You want to order food? Well, guess what? You got to go stand in line, and Europe is famous for queues, so everybody's fine with a queue. They go stand in line, they order their food, they get a little buzzer like you do, the thing lights up, you go get your food, you eat wherever you're at. They are looking at trying to create an entirely different environment. Maybe you like it, maybe you don't. If you don't like it, then you don't stay there. But companies are going to have to be innovative. To try to think that companies have to do the same thing for decades and decades and decades and continue to grow. That's madness. That will not happen. Hopefully, this will jar some companies, but it will also sink some companies.

Joel: Yeah. In case you missed it, the federal minimum wage in America since 2009...

Chad: Still.

Joel: Is $7.25 an hour. [laughter]

Chad: Ridiculous.

Joel: No matter how you feel about it, you could probably agree it's maybe time that we increase it from 7.25 an hour from 15 years ago. Look, there's an ongoing narrative in America that Texas, Florida, Carolina's Southwest, everyone is leaving New York, California, Chicago, the bigger traditional cities you might call blue cities to these States, largely because of opportunity, low taxes, et cetera. What I'm going to find interesting is, will there be a reverse migration by people who would rather make $20 than $10 an hour and do the math and say, wow, if I make twice as what I'm making now, my standard of living, my kids, education, my health care improves. So I'm going to leave Texas, and this is an example and I'll move to California because I know I can get twice as much as I'm getting now. And do businesses coincide with that and say, well, we need to open up more restaurants and stores and shops in California or stay open because people are making more. And by that reality, they're spending more because they have more revenue and income.

Joel: So long term, this is a really interesting strategy, I'm not sure if they're doing this on purpose, to reverse migration back to cities where workers know that I'm going to make twice as much, if not more per hour, if I leave this general vicinity. I'm looking at this as sort of a reverse strategy by bigger states to stick it to the states that have grown population over the last couple of years. Back to your comment about automation, this is largely going to be a race to how quickly can we automate and get rid of people? I mentioned Wendy's at the top of the show, automating the drive through, you mentioned the hotel in Europe. Companies are going to race to automate and have fewer people working. Now, hopefully there'll be more enough jobs to cover the people that are out of work from those businesses.

Joel: The other thing I see happening in some of these states, at least, is going to be taxation of the technology. There's going to be a push at some point where the workers and voters say, look, we're losing jobs and everything to these robots, this automation, do something about it, Mr. And Mrs. Politician. And the reaction to that is going to be we need to tax or get something out of the companies that are squeezing out people from their businesses. It'll be a really interesting future. Immigration plays into this as well, which is a big issue here in the States. But yeah, it's a race to automation and how politics is going to react to people losing jobs if they do. The counter argument is there'll be more jobs than ever with more technology. There'll be more GPT apps that need customer service reps and need salespeople.

Joel: And so we'll see what happens. But it's a dance that I enjoy watching and I think we enjoy talking about. But good on the people who are getting more money. Look, I think both of us have fought for a national $25 an hour, maybe some exceptions for small small businesses. But there's no reason that Domino's, Papa John's, Subway's, McDonald's can't pay those wages. People will pay an extra dollar for the Big Mac, especially if it's a double Big Mac, Chad, in the future and help pay some of those salaries.

Chad: Big Mac should be followed by a beer. So let's just hit that one up.

Joel: Let's take a break and we'll talk about beer.

Joel: It's good to be back, man. Fast food, beer. This is good stuff. There's no Onlyfans in this episode though, I'm a little sad about that.

Chad: Wow. We going to have to make up for that.

Joel: All right. So it's dry January. Let's talk about beer. Miller Lite is introducing beer mints for the month, allowing beer lovers to, "Enjoy the taste of Miller Lite," I don't know about that, without consuming alcohol and adding the mints offer afresh mint flavor initially, followed by the subtle taste of Miller Lite. When you chew the mint available for a limited time, thank God, each tin includes 40 mints and costs $5. Meanwhile, Bud Light on the other light spectrum has launched a new ad campaign featuring NFL royalty Peyton Manning and the Dallas Cowboys running back Emmett Smith. Chad, what are your thoughts on the current state of beer?

Chad: I think nobody enjoys the taste of Miller Lite, first and foremost, they're just doing it because they want a cheap beer. So buying mints to be... I think it's funny. That's really funny. And if you're going to give them away for free, then maybe, but I'm not buying that shit for God's sakes. And then on the Miller, on the Bud Light, on the Bud Light side of the house, hello, same as it ever was. Go back to what you know. What do you know? You know football, you know who your core audience is. And that's what they're going back to. I still don't disagree with they're looking to try to hit different markets at different promotions and different times. I think they should continue to do that. They should not apologize for doing that. They should just fucking do it.

Chad: And then they should run these types of campaigns during football season. You've got Peyton Manning, you got Emmett Smith. People know who they are if you're in that demographic. That's the key. And also as human beings, we need to quit being such bitches about all the ooh, it's got a rainbow bottle. Who cares? It's the same shit in the bottle. It doesn't matter. And if that offends you, then you've got a problem yourself. It has nothing to do with the beer. So anyway...

Joel: Everyone has the right to drink shitty beer, Chad. Everyone should have the right to drink shitty beer.

Chad: Yeah. Well, hopefully the people that are in New York and California can afford something better than fucking Miller Lite.

Joel: I bring Seinfeld into this show all the time. There's an episode of Seinfeld where he buys 1,000 packs of this Chinese gum, they sit around and they chew gum and Kramer's like oh, let's sit around and chew gum. Can't you see guys watching the NFL playoffs in January with a tin of Miller Lite mints saying, "Hey, man, pass me a mint." And then passing around the mint and they're all eating mints, watching football, celebrating dry January. This is a great marketing ploy, but this is not going to take off. People have mints to get rid of the beer breath that they have before they go to see their wives or girlfriends.

Joel: As far as the Peyton Manning, I hate this ad. I'm not buying that Peyton Manning is drinking Bud Light. Peyton Manning is part owner of a luxury Tennessee whiskey that I can buy. This is like Tom Brady doing ads for Hertz. Motherfucking Tom Brady is not renting a car at Hertz. Give me a fucking break. I want to see the old timey Bud Light beer commercials with Rodney Dangerfield and like Bubba Smith and Larry Csonka and those... Let's see some real blue collar, lunch pail guys that play football. Let's see the linemen. Let's see the linebackers. Let's see those dudes. I want to see those dudes drinking Bud Light.

Chad: The guys who still make millions of dollars, are you kidding me? [laughter]

Joel: But I know we're not going back to the Swedish bikini team. I know that those days are over, but we can go back to old comedians. Let's see Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle in a beer ad. That's what I want to see.

Chad: Bill Burr I can see.

Joel: I'm not buying it, Chad, but we have an announcement here, Chad.

Chad: Not mints. Not mints.

Joel: And in honor of this block here, Chad & Cheese are now officially marketing old style beer. Yes, since 1902, old style has been refreshing Americans all over. So everyone, old style Chad and cheese. What's better than that? The next time you listen to the podcast or watch it on YouTube, that's right, we're on YouTube now. Kick back with a good cold, old style and live life at its fullest. Welcome back to America, Chad. Cheers, my friend.

Chad: We out.

Joel: We out.

Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad & Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't tuck away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.