Eightfold Gets Served

This week on The Chad & Cheese Podcast, the gloves are off and the receipts are very much on the table.Eightfold gets served over secret AI scoring, zero transparency, and a trust problem that makes credit bureaus look cuddly. “Responsible AI”? Cool story, bro. Still might be illegal.

Then we zoom out to the executive bubble where reality goes to die. Randstad says employers feel GREAT while 40% of workers quietly pick up second jobs just to survive. Growth is booming… apparently, just not for humans.

From there it’s Davos fever dreams, with Palantir and Anthropic CEOs explaining—through tightly coded language why white-collar work is toast, labor is destiny, and the government should probably clean up the mess. Trickle-down AI economics, anyone?

Add layoffs at Amazon and UPS, CEOs wildly divorced from reality, and enough dystopian vibes to make Black Mirror blush and you’ve got an episode that’s equal parts therapy session, warning label, and “what the hell did we just hear?”

🎧 Trust is broken. Jobs are shaky. CEOs are euphoric.

🔥 Hide your kids. Lock the doors. This one’s a ride.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Chad Sowash (00:31.825)

Whoo, kids, welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm Chad, unintended consequences Sowash.

JT ODonnell (00:39.546)

I'm JT "There are no friends on powder days" O'Donnell.

Maureen Clough (00:44.31)

And I'm Maureen, AKA Mo I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, Wiley Clough.

Chad Sowash (00:50.653)

...and you might be and you might be. And on this week's show, Eightfold gets served. Randstad just isn't listening. Davos hot takes from Palantir and Anthropic. Plus we have an HR dive double dumper. This is gonna be a good one, guys. We'll be right back.

Maureen Clough (00:52.386)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (01:10.673)

All right. What you been up to? You got, you got powder, you got cabins, you're both in cabins.

JT ODonnell (01:13.274)

Okay, so we had the, yeah, yeah. I'm in my cabin that I haven't left and Monday, that big storm that came through, two feet of powder, I skied in two feet of powder in Sunday River, Maine, single best skiing day of my life. Of my life. My legs, two feet. It was insane. Above your knees and because so many people couldn't get here, it wasn't crowded.

Maureen Clough (01:17.666)

Cabin life.

Chad Sowash (01:22.235)

I haven't left.

Maureen Clough (01:25.232)

my

Chad Sowash (01:27.748)

shit

Maureen Clough (01:32.672)

Wow. Damn.

Chad Sowash (01:32.765)

Wow. Did say two feet of powder? Holy shit.

Chad Sowash (01:41.777)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (01:42.81)

No lift lines. I mean, I was junk like by two o'clock junk had to stop because my legs were like shaking

Maureen Clough (01:45.304)

That's hilarious.

Chad Sowash (01:51.195)

I can hear that's what Leaven's saying right now because he does not want to believe you.

JT ODonnell (01:52.984)

Yep, it was so good. It was so good, so good. And if you know, know, if you're out there, anybody that was out there, you know it was amazing. Come hang with me on Sunday wherever the conditions are perfect.

Maureen Clough (01:53.23)

gosh.

Maureen Clough (02:04.324)

man, I'm more of an apre gal myself. That sounds cool though.

Chad Sowash (02:05.123)

So not...

JT ODonnell (02:08.153)

Well, we do that too, girl. There's no shortage of that prey here at Shepherd's Ridge. Yeah, yeah.

Maureen Clough (02:10.989)

good, good, get it in.

Chad Sowash (02:15.889)

So Mo, apparently you don't have two feet of powder, although you are at your cabin. Yeah. Are you locked away or what's going on?

Maureen Clough (02:20.632)

We do not. I am indeed, it's been great. mean, I've never been more happy to be part of a temperate climate here. You we don't get snowed in for days on end. And let me tell you, I have even a single solitary half inch of snow in this area. They shut everything down. Like there's no school, there's no nothing. And it's just like, I go absolutely insane within several hours. So I'm happy to be where I am. Yeah, and you know, isolated.

Chad Sowash (02:31.537)

Ha ha ha!

Maureen Clough (02:48.972)

by the border with Canada, everything's pretty chill here. I'm in.

Chad Sowash (02:53.149)

your next door neighbor, Canada. My next door neighbor, Spain. It's been a little rainy, a little windy, but we're seeing no snow, no snow. So I don't have the powder, JT, although I do not have the snow either, which I'm fine with. No. I am done with the shoveling. I'm done with the shoveling. What I'm not done with though is...

Maureen Clough (02:56.684)

Love them. man, such a flex.

JT ODonnell (03:03.115)

I know.

JT ODonnell (03:13.069)

You're fine with no shoveling for you. It's all good. It's all good.

Maureen Clough (03:17.026)

Whew.

Chad Sowash (03:23.461)

That's right, JT. This is this is the season. This is the season. So talk to us about the season, the season that matters most.

Maureen Clough (03:23.63)

You

JT ODonnell (03:27.169)

It is a season. Yeah, so it's I mean, Super Bowl season, baby. All right, like everybody hates us. I get it. I'm going to get the hate I get that you hate the pats. But I'm here. My shout out is to the variable may relationship. I just love how this man coaches as a career coach. Watch the footage. The fact that he's the first player to go to a Super Bowl on the same team that he's now taking to the Super Bowl as a

Chad Sowash (03:34.212)

Yes it is.

Maureen Clough (03:34.542)

It's true.

JT ODonnell (03:56.858)

coach. His style is so endearing. was nothing like that when it was the Brady Belichick era. Nothing, right? Like this, you can't wait to watch. I'm wearing my B's. if you know, know, if you, history lesson, 2004, Red Sox, the year they broke the curse. These guys would call themselves on national television, the bunch of idiots. They would get on and talk about how they couldn't even believe that they were doing this and they would compliment each other and

Chad Sowash (03:57.787)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (04:10.012)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (04:17.88)

You

JT ODonnell (04:23.917)

They were just loving on each other. Like everybody was so happy. Same vibe right now. So no matter what happens, just to see this vibe and experience it, like I'm all I'm doing right now on social media is just watching anything I can about it because they're so cute. So, you know.

Chad Sowash (04:25.917)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (04:38.365)

I gotta love it. mean, one of the reasons why I didn't like the Pats in the first place is because Tom Brady, he's a Michigan grad. He's a Michigan grad, I'm Ohio State, although, well that, well, nobody likes Billichick, he's just an asshole. But Vrabel, Ohio State Buckeye. Trevion Henderson, one of their new rookie running backs who's really torn it up this year, Ohio State Buckeye. So yeah, I love it.

JT ODonnell (04:45.741)

I get it.

Maureen Clough (04:45.774)

Oh my gosh. Well, and deflate gate, never forget. He does suck,

Chad Sowash (05:07.089)

but I also love me some Seahawks because the number one, that's right, the number one wide receiver in the league is Jackson Smith in Jigba from The Ohio State University. shout out Mo, what you got?

Maureen Clough (05:21.006)

There we go. yeah, it's gonna be the Seahawks, obviously. I mean, it cannot be. I am so excited. I am more of a baseball girl. Like, if I could have had my pick between the two, I would have sent the M's to the World Series, but apparently that's gonna have to be in my next lifetime. But the Seahawks going here is going to hopefully be bomb for my soul. I will never not remember the horror that I felt.

when they didn't give the ball to Marshawn on the one yard line at the Super Bowl in 2014. It was ridiculous. It's still painful. So I'm hoping that the Seahawks will heal my trauma because man, you were right, JT, people do hate that paths. They do. I hate them less now because they don't have the Belichick and Brady thing. So at least there's that. But I'm really hoping that the Seahawks can come through and actually just heal us. It was...

Chad Sowash (05:50.237)

Yeah, beast mode, beast mode.

JT ODonnell (06:02.337)

I get it. I get it.

Maureen Clough (06:12.524)

It was so gutting and the only reason I survived it in 2014, well technically 2015, was because my son was born during the third quarter of that game. So the whole hospital was like in mourning and I was like, we have a baby boy. So yeah, but let's go Seahawks. I'm really happy. Let's come through for Seattle. Cause man, that Mariners series just broke me.

Chad Sowash (06:22.042)

Ooh, okay.

Chad Sowash (06:33.885)

my God. Yes. Yes. Well, again, I'm not a Mariners fan. am a again. I don't have a an NFL football team, right? And the reason being is for all those who don't know out there, I grew up as a Browns fan and the Browns left me. They left to go to Baltimore. We didn't have a team anymore, broke my heart and I swore off the Cleveland Browns and therefore I didn't have another pro team. So

Maureen Clough (06:34.924)

Yep. Yeah.

Maureen Clough (06:41.921)

Mistake.

JT ODonnell (06:58.093)

Okay.

Chad Sowash (07:03.983)

I thought the best thing to do was just watch all the Ohio State Buckeyes that are all over the NFL and just enjoy all the games. So I'm that guy. I'm that guy.

JT ODonnell (07:13.305)

I like it. It is. That must be more Eurochad. More Eurochad.

Maureen Clough (07:14.488)

That's so heartwarming. I'm here for it.

Yeah. We're like fight to the death. Yeah. that's perfect.

Chad Sowash (07:20.791)

It definitely is. definitely is. And for my shout out, there's a little European twist to it. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to give my shout outs is to unintended consequences around US tourism. And I've got a little snippet to play real quick. Here it is.

JT ODonnell (07:25.529)

you

Chad Sowash (08:14.141)

Please visit.

JT ODonnell (08:25.081)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (09:02.877)

That from CBC in 2025, the United States experienced a significant drop in foreign visitors, making it the only, I repeat, the only country among 180 foreign nations to see a decline in international tourism. I mean, jobs kids in Canada alone. The U.S. has projected to lose approximately 5.7, almost $6 billion in tourism. But the chasm goes

deeper and this is what I get in my feed here in Europe. Denmark is down 34 % year over year, March 2025 year over year. Germany 28 % down. Ireland down 27%. UK down 14 and France down 8%. A broad estimate from Forbes and CNBC placed the total potential loss at 29 to 30 billion dollars for 2025.

Maureen Clough (10:01.762)

Wow, that's insane.

Chad Sowash (10:02.235)

So when we lose tourism, it's not just about flights, rentals, hotels. It's also about breakfast, lunch, dinner. And what about all those restaurants and drinks at the bar, stuffed animals from Disneyland, the lack of tourism, an entire sector? So remember, hospitality seems to be one of the areas of growth in the US. Or maybe it's just a mirage.

Maureen Clough (10:11.746)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (10:15.406)

It's massive.

Chad Sowash (10:30.811)

So shout out to tourism and feeling like amateur hour is gone a whole lot longer than an hour. What the fuck's going on here, kids?

JT ODonnell (10:38.809)

Yeah, yeah. Don't you think that's a, mean, that's the first thing to go, right? Discretionary spending on trips, you know? I have a friend that owns a, he owns a hotel on the front of a beach. And he said, you know how I know we're in trouble this year? He said, parents used to come in, he'd come into my little convenience store and the kids could have whatever they wanted. He said, this year you heard every single dad go one thing, one thing, or $5 max, or whatever. goes.

Maureen Clough (10:41.131)

I mean...

Chad Sowash (10:47.397)

Yeah. yeah. yeah.

Maureen Clough (10:48.377)

yeah.

JT ODonnell (11:07.085)

When you hear parents putting a limit on the vacation, he's like, someone's watching the dollars and he's like, then it gets worse. look at this, he's not wrong. He's not wrong.

Chad Sowash (11:10.546)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (11:16.227)

Next step is no vacation.

Maureen Clough (11:18.7)

Yeah. But we only need one doll, remember that too. That's a... I mean, my god. From the guy who sells everything.

JT ODonnell (11:18.731)

Exactly. That's true. Consumerism.

Chad Sowash (11:23.451)

Hahaha

You don't need 30. You don't need 30 dolls. I don't know who taught capitalism to this administration, but it was all about 30 dolls.

JT ODonnell (11:37.016)

Right.

Maureen Clough (11:38.67)

Dude, dude. That's rough.

JT ODonnell (11:39.785)

Yup.

Chad Sowash (11:40.669)

but at the Chad and Cheese podcast, at the Chad and Cheese podcast, one thing that we do, well, that's exactly right. We don't play the games of not allowing free stuff. We want free stuff.

JT ODonnell (11:45.42)

stuff.

Maureen Clough (11:51.549)

God, this is never not going to shock me.

JT ODonnell (11:56.1)

I agree.

Chad Sowash (12:00.54)

Yes, Stephen.

JT ODonnell (12:01.486)

Yes?

Chad Sowash (12:06.737)

You

JT ODonnell (12:06.903)

Grab that now. Let's get it now. Yeah. better.

Chad Sowash (12:16.925)

Still sexy, still sexy.

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (12:21.208)

We love vintage.

Chad Sowash (12:30.887)

Fair.

Chad Sowash (12:39.331)

You're not a listener to the Chad and Cheese podcast, that's for sure.

You

JT ODonnell (12:46.659)

baby.

Chad Sowash (13:01.533)

That's right, free stuff. You might not be able to go on vacation, but you can still get free stuff from Chad and Cheese. ChadCheese.com slash free. There you go. And then...

Maureen Clough (13:12.354)

Win or lose, hit the booze.

Chad Sowash (13:17.823)

Where are you guys going? Where are you guys going?

JT ODonnell (13:17.954)

and girls.

I mean, this is just, this is me saying, invite me somewhere. Hello, everyone. you want me to, I mean, you need me to come speak about LinkedIn's 360 Brew algorithm and how to fake, I'm in, like, invite me somewhere. I prefer it to be warm, warm, preferably some fun stuff going on. Like, I'm not going someplace rando, but if you live someplace fun, I'll trade time, I'm game.

Chad Sowash (13:25.886)

Hahaha

Maureen Clough (13:26.006)

Hahaha!

Chad Sowash (13:31.121)

This is this is thirsty version of JT.

Chad Sowash (13:45.415)

That's fair. It's fair. It's fair. What about a are you as thirsty, Mo?

Maureen Clough (13:48.622)

I love it.

Maureen Clough (13:52.198)

I'm thirsty, I'm thirsty. I'm in the Pacific Northwest, is like gloom and doom central. Like there's a reason that people get freaking depressed here. So I'm actually heading out for my own mental sanity to the beautiful state of California in a couple weeks. So that's gonna be solid, hang out with my family and yeah, get some rays hopefully. But yeah, like JT, I always like getting off island and getting into the world. So get me out of here, from time to time.

Chad Sowash (13:57.895)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (14:05.751)

very nice.

JT ODonnell (14:16.492)

Exactly.

Maureen Clough (14:19.394)

From time to time I need a little social human interaction, know, away from this isolation. So yeah, I'm in. And Vegas is coming up, know, March is gonna be here before we know it and I'll be at Transform, so there's that.

Chad Sowash (14:23.379)

We all do. We are.

Chad Sowash (14:31.483)

There's that. Well, and don't forget kids that travel sponsored by Shaker recruitment marketing. So if you're looking for a well diversified and experienced recruitment marketing ad agency that goes beyond branding, talent attraction, MarTech and insights, then take a short little trip over to shaker.com. Yeah, I know feel bad for me. I'm headed for Majorca on Sunday and

JT ODonnell (14:57.91)

yeah.

Chad Sowash (14:59.389)

going to be there for a few days. Smart Recruiters has an event that's going on. We did the Madrid tapes last year. And this year we're going to do something a little different called the Mallorca tapes. So it should be blast and can't wait to go. you guys, either one of you been to Mallorca? This will be my first time.

Maureen Clough (15:17.39)

Nope. Bucket list, man. We gotta have a Chad and Cheese Summit. We gotta go to Portugal and Mallorca. We gotta make the rounds in Europe. I'm in.

JT ODonnell (15:18.253)

No, I want pictures.

Chad Sowash (15:23.389)

That's exactly right. Yeah, we can do that. We can go to Greece. We've got we got friends in Greece. We got friends in Italy. We got friends all over the place. So yeah, we could actually do that. Take two or three weeks. OK. I'm in. in. I'm in. It's that time. It's that. Well, it's. Who? Steven, you're allowed. Jesus, you're loud. OK, before we get to topics.

JT ODonnell (15:25.827)

Are we there?

JT ODonnell (15:36.345)

That works. I'm in.

Maureen Clough (15:36.462)

Yeah, I got time, a lot of It's happening, it's happening. Woohoo!

JT ODonnell (15:46.329)

Topics.

Maureen Clough (15:50.466)

He!

Chad Sowash (15:52.229)

We have layoffs and I've got to, and this is, this is very apropos. Yes. Very. Yeah.

Maureen Clough (15:57.056)

Layoffs? Where's that sound? There we go. I was waiting for it. Thank you, you know? Maybe just let me do it next time. You don't need to find the button. Yeah, okay. You got it.

JT ODonnell (16:00.858)

That was actually a really good impersonation. Maureen, that was a 10 out of 10.

JT ODonnell (16:09.933)

Yeah, that was good.

Chad Sowash (16:10.461)

I think you should just do it next time as a matter of fact. So we do we have layoffs. Amazon this from BBC US technology giant Amazon has confirmed it will cut 16,000 jobs hours after it told staff about a round of global redundancies in an email apparently that was sent an error. And in a very connected story UPS.

Maureen Clough (16:36.206)

can't even.

Chad Sowash (16:39.163)

This is from the New York Times. UPS says it is cutting up to three or I'm sorry, 30,000 jobs. The delivery company said it was planning the cuts this year because it expected the to deliver fewer packages from Amazon. There's the connection. A large but unprofitable customer. Obviously, Amazon's hiring AI isn't their only tech with errors.

JT ODonnell (16:45.433)

30.

Maureen Clough (16:46.733)

Oof.

Chad Sowash (17:08.477)

as we've seen over the years. And UPS made a smart move in getting away from big customer like Amazon that really didn't make them big cash. But still, that's forty six thousand jobs. Forty six thousand jobs. So, OK, quick question. Does somebody lose their job if information goes out well before it was planned to like on PR?

Maureen Clough (17:25.656)

So brutal.

JT ODonnell (17:36.653)

I mean...

Maureen Clough (17:38.068)

I mean, that's a huge mess up. dude, like that's, that's real bad. yeah.

Chad Sowash (17:41.405)

You

JT ODonnell (17:41.817)

Yeah, mean, everyone, mean, nobody's taken ownership. There's gonna be some serious finger pointing in that moment, right? It wasn't me, it wasn't me, was, yeah, I mean, that was just.

Chad Sowash (17:51.229)

Somebody has to be responsible for sending out the communication to 16,000 people.

Maureen Clough (17:53.045)

I...

JT ODonnell (17:59.418)

Yeah, I also think that it's, I think that there's something else going on there, right? You're a big enough organization for that to happen, accident, very likely there was some nefarious behavior going on. feel personally, I feel in the background of that. What I do think is interesting, the way you talked about the pay, if you go read the UPS press release on this, there's some very carefully worded comms, which is a shot of Carlos the bow at Amazon.

Maureen Clough (17:59.51)

I mean, I'm not, well, yeah.

Chad Sowash (18:10.311)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (18:17.506)

Really?

Maureen Clough (18:27.31)

Ooh.

JT ODonnell (18:29.207)

Like basically, hey, our layoffs are because of you. And so this is where the fact that that's starting to come out now, like, I mean, this is just the beginning, right? This is going to be old news in a month. And we're not going to see, we're going to be seeing literally five figure layoffs for the next two quarters. And so for us to, you know, but I think we're going to start seeing companies saying, well, it's because of you, it's because of you because, know,

Chad Sowash (18:29.338)

yeah.

Maureen Clough (18:33.23)

Chad Sowash (18:38.589)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (18:41.612)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (18:54.999)

We've run out of the AI excuse. Like everybody cleaned house because of AI in 2025. That's old news. What are you gonna say this year? So it should get super interesting.

Maureen Clough (18:55.743)

Mmm, blame game. Yeah.

Maureen Clough (19:00.75)

Thank

Chad Sowash (19:00.882)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (19:04.497)

Weird Mo.

Maureen Clough (19:04.566)

It definitely will. But even though they did mess up royally, like I've screwed up at work, everybody screwed up at work, I've replied all with something that I'll tell you guys about later, it's hilarious. But like, this was a mess up, but please also remember that this is the same company that decided and planned to fire people en masse via text message at 3 a.m. It's not the kind of text that you want at 3 a.m. They did this, this was the plan. And so this is, I mean,

JT ODonnell (19:26.849)

Right. Right.

Chad Sowash (19:26.898)

Yes.

Yeah.

Maureen Clough (19:32.96)

It's not outside the pale that they would do something this callous and ridiculous. And yes, it was probably a mistake. And I like to think that no one did this on purpose. It's a curious thing to consider that possibly there was a nefarious aspect to it as you suggested. yeah, mean, Amazon, maybe they're the final boss of screen up layoffs. I don't know. It's messed up.

JT ODonnell (19:54.766)

just talk about they were dropping like the news came out last Thursday, Friday. And what I said was, Can you imagine being an Amazon worker and spend your whole weekend knowing? Like, like worrying all weekend? Is it me? Is it me? Is it me? Until Wednesday? Like, that just that sucks. You know, like, just terrible.

Maureen Clough (20:02.53)

Nope. Mm-mm. No thanks. Mm-mm. Sucks.

Chad Sowash (20:07.104)

yeah. Right.

Yeah.

Maureen Clough (20:11.318)

Yeah, it's almost like they don't care about people or something. It's almost as if that's the case. It's weird.

Chad Sowash (20:14.517)

yeah, I know. It's almost like they make people piss in trash cans or something. Yeah, I remember, you know, talking to friends over at UPS and them saying that this was going to happen because this was a deal that they thought was big right out of the gate. And it was big, but it was from per transaction. It was very low.

Maureen Clough (20:19.79)

That's us.

Chad Sowash (20:38.735)

Right. So it was like their their cost per package, if you take a look at it, went down dramatically because of this big transaction with with Amazon. So they they really wanted to get away from this because there was a lot of busy work that didn't make them a lot of money. But then again, I mean, we're talking about 30,000 jobs. So. Ouch. On to on to some more industry news.

JT ODonnell (21:03.822)

Yeah.

Maureen Clough (21:04.643)

No kidding.

Chad Sowash (21:08.879)

You ladies heard about this company called Eightfold? yeah. So do you believe? Here's the question. Either one of you. Do you believe that you've ever applied for a job and been rejected by a score that you never saw from a system that you didn't know even existed? Well, in short, in short, that's what this lawsuit is about with Eightfold. The claim is secret AI scoring.

Maureen Clough (21:13.048)

Yep.

Chad Sowash (21:38.903)

zero disclosure, zero recourse. And Eightfold says it's quote unquote, responsible AI. Cool, cool story, bro. But responsible, responsible doesn't mean legal. And if this sticks, HR tech just found out it's a credit bureau. Mo, did Eightfold make a massive boo boo?

Maureen Clough (21:48.289)

You

Maureen Clough (21:59.534)

Yeah.

Maureen Clough (22:03.062)

I mean, I just am wondering, is anything gonna be left for humans after the robots are through? Like they are using AI to collect all of this data on us. They're going to our LinkedIn, they're going to all our search history, all of that. And they're compiling these like dossiers on us. And it's like, can't you just let...

Chad Sowash (22:15.057)

Mmm. Yeah.

Maureen Clough (22:21.642)

us do the online stalking ourselves. Like everybody knows when they apply to a job. People are gonna go and look at your social profiles and see what they can figure out about you. But now this is all being done in this sort of systemic way. And I do think it's concerning. mean, I will say on the flip side, there is always an element of bias, even if you have a human reviewing all of the data, right? Like humans come to the table with their own bias. And so these programs have that built in, of course. So,

you usually don't find out why you didn't get a job. But it is weirder that it's been systematized in this way. And I think it does open the door for discrimination and bias to happen. Absolutely. There's another lawsuit against Workday right now for something called Higher Score, which I believe is a very similar product. And so it's interesting to see this with like the Fair Credit Bureau, Fair Credit Reporting Act being invoked versus the other, which I don't believe had that as a part of it.

Chad Sowash (23:03.709)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (23:17.806)

But this is something that has happened in the past. There was a company called I tutor group that was sued by the EEOC for systematically rejecting candidates who were over the age of 60 if they were men and candidates who were over the age of 55 if they were women because women aren't allowed to age, of course. So this is something that does happen. And I think that it's going to have very broad implications for how AI is leveraged in these tools and whether the companies that actually take on these different HR tech systems, whether they are going to be held liable.

for using these tools and not ensuring that they meet all of the various legal requirements. yeah, I mean, it's unsettling. It's just more of this sort of corporate surveillance stuff that is continuing to pop up. I mean, it sucks enough to be a private employee and have basically all of your data exposed to your employer, have them know so much about you, have...

have them checking whether you're in your house via Microsoft Teams via or outside your house. And you know, everything is just big brother now, dude. Everything is so big brother. But to do that to candidates, are you like that is just extra to me. Like, no thanks. At least let me get a paycheck before you fucking compile this stuff on me. So that's kind of where I come down on it.

Chad Sowash (24:17.737)

yeah.

Chad Sowash (24:29.469)

Hahaha

JT ODonnell (24:35.511)

Yeah, so, okay, so I'm gonna take it from the job seeker perspective. For 20 years now, the first thing I say to a disgruntled job seeker is hiring is discrimination with a capital I-S. Let's talk about this. If I have a bushel of apples, and all the apples are great, some's a little smaller, some's a larger, greener, whatever, but they're all perfectly viable edible apples, but I can only eat one today, I am discriminated against in that moment, right? And I'm picking little weird things to decide

Chad Sowash (24:38.557)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (24:45.71)

Hmm.

Maureen Clough (25:03.416)

Good analogy.

JT ODonnell (25:04.983)

because I literally can't decide. I can't eat them all, so I've got to have one. And so in that moment, I am going to discriminate. That has been the issue with hiring our entire lives. We get five great candidates down to the nitpicky thing. But in a moment like this, where we have so many people looking for work, and there's so much to choose from, and now we introduce AI that can go through the thousand candidates that a human recruiter couldn't have gone through.

Maureen Clough (25:17.174)

It'll always be there.

Chad Sowash (25:24.209)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (25:32.634)

and actually look at everyone as opposed to literally make, you know, 800 of them never got seen, you sit there and go, so what do I want in this moment? Do I want the AI to to allow me to evaluate more candidates? But then how do I do that fairly? And that's the thing that I find this fascinating, honestly, like bring on the lawsuits because conflict brings resolution. Like let's start to dig a little bit deeper on this and come up. It's not black and white, but we've got to come up with some way to leverage this.

correctly for the benefit of the job seekers what I'm going for because hiring is discrimination. So I can't wait to see how this unfolds. But yeah, it's crazy, crazy times.

Maureen Clough (26:05.975)

Love that.

Chad Sowash (26:12.093)

Yeah, I'm going to take an entirely different look at this because this is a very complex case and I want to break it down to something simple and as simple as trust, right? So in this case, you know, I'm tying trust to truth. Is Eightfold telling the truth? And here's part of Eightfold CEO Ashutosh Garg's statement in response to the class action lawsuit.

Maureen Clough (26:12.238)

It's a great take.

JT ODonnell (26:17.827)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (26:39.131)

which he posted on LinkedIn. This is specifically with respect to data sources. Quote, we, Eightfold, use information applicants choose to submit and data authorized by our customers under contract. We do not scrape social media and the like to assess applicants first for a specific role, end quote. Now this seems completely countered to a framework that Eightfold was built on

Maureen Clough (27:07.31)

Great.

Chad Sowash (27:08.079)

and something that they actually talked through in a presentation I found on YouTube. So let's go ahead and watch that.

Maureen Clough (27:16.224)

You

Chad Sowash (27:30.041)

in rich.

Chad Sowash (27:42.525)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (27:45.602)

Hmm.

Chad Sowash (28:17.829)

Yeah. So if you weren't watching the video, if you weren't watching the video podcast, the first slide was entitled quote, enrich unified data to provide actionable insights and quote, yes, enrich unified data. That is candidate data enriching the data from different sources. Then there was a flow chart showing Google, Microsoft's being in crunch base on the left, eightfolds candidate profile in the middle. And then on the right you had GitHub.

Maureen Clough (28:18.774)

Yeah, receipts.

Chad Sowash (28:46.809)

Stack Overflow and LinkedIn. Okay. All of those sources had arrows going into guess where eightfolds candidate profile. This represents candidate data being enriched by those sources without I repeat, without the candidate validating the sources and or the data, right? This is my data. John Smith. How do you know it's the right John Smith? How do you know that this isn't an old profile? You're

the enrichment of my data should be something that I should be included in, right? So this was, don't get me wrong, from a 2021 presentation, but as you can tell by the segment, candidate enrichment was core and part of Eightfolds framework slash deliverable. And in my honest opinion, Ashu lied.

Maureen Clough (29:20.78)

Yeah.

Maureen Clough (29:43.064)

Dude.

Chad Sowash (29:44.597)

which means I can't trust Eightfold personally. And one of the pillars of picking a new HR tech partner, especially if you're gonna spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on that platform, it is simply trust. And I cannot personally trust Eightfold. So question to you guys, was that too simple? Did I break that down too simple simply?

Maureen Clough (29:45.57)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (30:07.957)

No, but you're bringing up the point, AI is unavoidable, right? We are going to be using AI in everything we do going forward, but we're in the wild west, like you're pointing out, and companies like this that want to run at it ahead, like try to grab market share, but not think through the larger ramifications, this is what's going to happen. Someone like Chad's going to find your YouTube as a CEO where you're saying one thing and then you're on end up saying another. This is what's going to happen.

Maureen Clough (30:09.078)

No.

Chad Sowash (30:12.401)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (30:31.381)

Hahaha

Yep.

JT ODonnell (30:35.447)

And I'm here for it, because it's the only way we're going to get better at this.

Maureen Clough (30:38.83)

Mm-hmm, yeah. It also just shows in Laysbear yet again another example of a CEO just going on the record saying blatant lies with conviction, which is a huge bummer because it seems to be a trend.

Chad Sowash (30:53.309)

It seems to be a thing. It seems to be a thing. And unlike a thing, I think we might have lost JT.

Maureen Clough (30:56.184)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Maureen Clough (31:01.198)

You know, my internet's been a little strange too. Like, I'm hearing you guys belatedly, but at least I'm hearing you. Can't really see, but yeah. We keep rolling.

Chad Sowash (31:08.637)

Well, I'm just going to go ahead and team go ahead and cut this part out. I'm going to go ahead and get into the next. Now, again, I try to break it down simply, but I've got some industry experts and people who they're a little bit more complex. So here's a quote, whether it's the FCRA in the US or the EU AI Act in Europe, the direction is the same hiring technology that shapes outcomes is treated as regulated decision.

Maureen Clough (31:14.282)

Hahaha.

Maureen Clough (31:21.193)

Mm-hmm

Chad Sowash (31:38.393)

infrastructure, not just HR software." That's Chris Long, founder of Elevate and the strategic HR advisor. Another one, quote, AI in TA tech is becoming foundational. What the eightfold situation highlights is that the future of TA tech won't be defined by who has the best algorithm.

but by who earns and sustains trust with candidates, clients, and the market. There's that word again, trust, end quote. That's Quincy Valencia, VP of Talent Transformation at Korn Ferry. And one more, one more, JT's come back. I've got one for Matt Charney. Matt Charney says the black box hiring tech didn't fail because it was evil. It failed because it was convenient.

Maureen Clough (32:12.504)

There you go.

Chad Sowash (32:33.969)

That makes you think, doesn't it? That makes you think. Matt always makes you think. He always makes you think. So when it comes down to, again, eightfold, when it comes down to any of these platforms, I actually reached out to Sean Burton, who is the CEO of Hiring Solved back in the day, and they were enriching data at one time and they stopped.

Maureen Clough (32:35.278)

Hmm, yeah.

JT ODonnell (32:35.85)

I love me some mad Charney.

He does, he does, agreed.

Chad Sowash (32:59.601)

because they saw this train coming down the tracks and it was going to hit them head on. And so they pivoted. They actually were acquired by another company later, but when it came down to it, this is close to 10 years ago. We knew this. We knew that this was not the route to go. It sounded great, but when you take a look at the data and the data warehouses that most companies are buying this data from, it's shit data.

JT ODonnell (33:04.8)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (33:17.472)

grade.

JT ODonnell (33:28.498)

Agreed.

Chad Sowash (33:29.147)

I've seen some of these data warehouses and some of the exports that they actually provide. It's usually shit data. So if you're working off garbage and you believe that you're going to enrich an individual's profile with garbage, what do you think you end up with?

JT ODonnell (33:48.724)

Right. Well, and what about people who want to change careers? What about people who don't want to do the thing they've done before? Like this stuff carries with you. What if they put garbage in some place and now they can't get rid of it? Like, there's just, it's too much. I'm with you, I'm so glad. Take the high road, people. Be careful.

Maureen Clough (33:49.644)

trash.

Chad Sowash (33:51.207)

Hahaha

Maureen Clough (34:05.271)

It's problematic.

Chad Sowash (34:09.469)

It's too much people. It's so much. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back.

Maureen Clough (34:10.38)

Yep, yep, yep. Slow down. Tortoise in the hair, guys.

JT ODonnell (34:15.092)

Yeah, slow down.

Chad Sowash (34:23.773)

Oh my God. Okay. So next we have, oh, from Eightfold to Randstad. This is too much already. So Ronstadt has a survey. They have a survey and it's called Randstad's 2026 Work Monitor Survey, which just dropped. And spoiler alert, employers think everything's awesome. Workers do not. Workers, workers do not.

Maureen Clough (34:30.446)

Yeah

Maureen Clough (34:48.792)

Weird.

Chad Sowash (34:50.173)

95 % of employers think growth is coming. Meanwhile, 40 % of workers already grabbed a second job just to survive. Everything is awesome. Although 40%, 40 % of workers, another job just to put meat on the table. JT, what the hell is going on out there?

Maureen Clough (35:03.234)

That's a stat. Woo.

Maureen Clough (35:13.688)

Brutal.

JT ODonnell (35:14.528)

Well, I just want some of what the employers are smoking. Can you get me some of that? Someone? I'm up in the mountains.

Chad Sowash (35:18.097)

Hahaha

Maureen Clough (35:18.542)

Yeah. They're smoking their stock packages, I guess.

Chad Sowash (35:23.005)

Bring it, bring it.

JT ODonnell (35:24.3)

Um, bring it. Okay. No, this kind of goes back to what we were talking about on one of the other episodes where this, um, this is going to be the year we see a lot of C-suite changes, right? We're going to clear house and what's going to come in are the hype team, right? Cause we can't figure out what to do with our business model. So let's clear out and put somebody new in who's like, you know, rah rah probably doesn't have a serious game plan, but it's like, right? So 95 % growths ahead.

Chad Sowash (35:27.975)

Jesus, that's good.

Maureen Clough (35:30.07)

Ahem.

Maureen Clough (35:41.934)

You

Maureen Clough (35:48.238)

Chief Hype Officer.

JT ODonnell (35:53.214)

Honestly, that's what you're going to see, right? Or as we said, the CFO who's going to cut money and make us profitable no matter what. You got two choices there because it's the Wild West. Nobody knows what to do. And so they're waiting until they see clear plans. So that cracks me up. You see them dropping benefits everywhere. mean, every possible benefit is getting cut as a way to save money. No wonder employees are miserable and taking second jobs. I I see that every day. The rate of underemployment right now.

Chad Sowash (35:54.663)

Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (36:14.557)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (36:21.307)

Yes. Yes.

JT ODonnell (36:21.599)

is catastrophic and no one's tracking it. You know, there's 4.4 % unemployment. Add in the underemployment rate. I guarantee you it's double digits. Double digits. Everyone I know has got second gigs, side hustles, fractional work, this, that, you know. It's scary times. So yeah, I do want what they're smoking. Just send it my way.

Chad Sowash (36:26.919)

Bullshit.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Maureen Clough (36:45.062)

Money and power, I'd say. I think it's money and power they're smoking, and I want some too. So yeah, I mean, that 40 % figure is staggering. I mean, that's like not what corporate employment is supposed to be, right? It's supposed to be the safe route, the safety net, the thing that props up coal communities, and we just can't count on it anymore with 40 % of people already having these quote, side hustles and whatnot, and realizing that they're going to have to create these portfolio careers. I'm also curious.

Chad Sowash (36:45.181)

What do think, Mo?

JT ODonnell (37:05.691)

Exactly.

Maureen Clough (37:12.424)

of the people who are of that 40%, how many of their employers know of their side gig and how many of them have come down on them for said side gig? Because it's like the Hunger Games in corporate right now. People are just like fighting for their lives. Yeah, exactly. Like if you pay me and give me stability and like, you know, any sort of sense that I have longevity in this company, like I won't need the freaking side hustle. Like that's really the answer. And I just, feel...

JT ODonnell (37:21.779)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (37:23.581)

Pay me more motherfucker!

JT ODonnell (37:25.054)

Right.

Chad Sowash (37:28.657)

Yeah. Yeah.

JT ODonnell (37:35.795)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (37:38.624)

so horribly for everybody who's involved in these corporations right now, because there is just absolutely no security. And we've been harping on it for a long time. It's this like whole future of work thing is the gig economy. is this sort of fractional consulting type work. And you see it right now in corporate, right? 40 % of these people are already doing that and exhibiting what will be the future of work because of what corporate has done. So it's just, I don't know.

It's not surprising that the C-suite is out there saying everything's fantastic while the everyday actual employee who's doing the work is saying not so much. I feel like that's kind of a mainstay of just how corporate is. But I mean, again, it's just, it's the fact that, for example, another thing in the study was, I think it was 81 % of employees said that one of the most important things for them for retention was like having some sort of flexibility and work-life balance in their work.

JT ODonnell (38:20.915)

Yeah.

Maureen Clough (38:38.248)

And that is how you keep people. So if you want to keep people and you're saying you're valuing their happiness, like you have to actually put something behind those words, which again leads me to believe that they're still just trying to clean house by making it so miserable that people want to leave because then they can say it was because of AI and then they can rehire everybody later at a fraction of the cost. So I don't know. It's a mess out there. And I just, I, people shouldn't be gaslit like this. Like it just sucks.

Chad Sowash (39:07.781)

I think Randstad's CEO, Sander van der Schnoodle, he talked about somebody who's divorced, divorced from fucking reality. I'll just I'll leave it at that. Number one, and we'll go ahead and we will we will transition into two other CEOs who are also fairly divorced from reality. Have you guys watched many of the talks in Davos last week? Did you guys did you guys watch them? yeah.

JT ODonnell (39:12.348)

You

Maureen Clough (39:12.782)

That's a name.

Hahaha!

Maureen Clough (39:35.086)

I've seen snippets. I watch these ones. Yeah. It's something.

JT ODonnell (39:36.671)

It's, it's.

Chad Sowash (39:42.041)

It's yeah, it's it's it's hard. I do have to say I do have to say that Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, his was required viewing. No doubt, no doubt. But I wanted to highlight two that I thought were interesting, especially since they were given from two CEOs from from AI companies that we all know. And they're all talking about jobs. So this first segment.

JT ODonnell (39:51.209)

Mmm.

Chad Sowash (40:10.593)

is Alex carp from Palantir. Let's go ahead and take a listen to yeah, let's listen to Palantir.

Maureen Clough (40:14.51)

shutter. The dude gives me the creeps.

Maureen Clough (41:04.654)

This guy. This guy.

Chad Sowash (41:08.029)

Yeah, so I mean for anyone who is wondering if Skynet comes into existence Palantir is going to be the company who built it. Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, evil personified. Anyway, moving on, moving on. Vocation versus education I thought was interesting, which, you know, really we've been talking about the death of white collar.

Maureen Clough (41:24.438)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (41:36.453)

That to me is big. Also, plenty of jobs for the people of your nation. That sounded really, really weird, especially when you couple that with no immigration needed, right? Unless they have specialized skills. And for me, right now, healthcare, hospitality are like the two big growth areas. And we're not really sure about hospitality for too long because of tourism.

Maureen Clough (41:43.502)

Ugh. Yeah, kind of coded.

Chad Sowash (42:05.949)

But you've got healthcare, hospitality, truck drivers, agricultural workers, dock workers. Those are not jobs that white collar people are going to retrain to do. not going to be in the fields. They're not going to be on the docks. They're not going to be doing that kind of stuff. to me, what did you guys think about this? This to me was really kind of black mirror-ish.

Maureen Clough (42:29.486)

Literally everything that guy says is Black Mirrorish. Like that guy starts speaking, my brain just like goes haywire. So I have a lot of bias when it comes to actually absorbing any message that he puts out there into the world. But I mean...

JT ODonnell (42:30.173)

A minute? Moe, you wanna go?

Maureen Clough (42:43.598)

This guy is off his rocker. I'm sorry. He just straight up is and he's just emblematic of what is wrong with this world in my opinion so I have a hard time taking anything he says seriously the problem Unfortunately with that is that he has outsized power and influence over the course of human history, which fucking sucks. So Yeah, unfortunately his his thoughts there the coded language. It's it's all it's it's very

Chad Sowash (43:03.207)

Mm.

Maureen Clough (43:11.65)

Well, shall I say MAGA coded and it's a little disturbing to say the very least to me. Yeah, things are changing. The vocational aspect is interesting that he said, but to your point, Jad, there are not enough white collar workers who are going to shift into those other vocations. It's just not gonna happen. stop this BS. It's just ridiculous.

JT ODonnell (43:35.039)

So my dark view on this is that they've already decided that people need a reset, right? So teaching people that every job is temporary and helping them understand that there's no such thing as a full-time job with benefits and security anymore is something that I think they've chosen to make a mission. So they're like, look, we have a bunch of people that need to think differently. So if we put enough pressure on them and we make them miserable enough long enough, that very person that said they will never take that job

Chad Sowash (43:52.539)

Amazing.

Chad Sowash (43:56.125)

Mm.

JT ODonnell (44:01.824)

We'll take it and I'll give you an example. 1990.com bust. I'm a career coach. I have software engineers that were making 120 K back then. Think about what that would be now. Right? When I tell them, do you want this job at 80 K? And they're like, absolutely not. I'm not taking anything less than my 120. And then two years later, they've drained their entire 401 K. They have no money and they take the 60 K job. That's five levels lower lesson learned.

Maureen Clough (44:04.462)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (44:12.519)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (44:25.464)

Yep.

JT ODonnell (44:29.565)

I really believe that that collective is trying to make that moment happen right now. Look at everything that's going on as they continue to tell you. So you push a group of people who say, have a college degree, I deserve a full-time job with benefits, and 18 months, two years from now, they don't think that way. And let me further prove this. Kids coming out of college right now, there are no entry-level jobs. Those kids from the get-go are now doing multiple gigs, multiple side hustles, learning to be businesses of one, and having to fend for themselves.

Maureen Clough (44:35.498)

agree.

Maureen Clough (44:54.648)

Yep.

JT ODonnell (44:59.239)

they'll eventually come back into the work, you know, when they have the work of us, but they will have a different mindset to never trust that there was a job like that ever again. So I believe this is a very highly coordinated play and that you're gonna continue to see that kind of conversation in order to, and you have these people cave. People are going to cave and that's what they're going for. And it's dark and it's miserable, but it's happening.

Maureen Clough (45:21.922)

You're absolutely right. It's the great market reset, the great job market, the great labor reset.

JT ODonnell (45:22.623)

dog barking

Chad Sowash (45:23.034)

HAAAW

Chad Sowash (45:27.581)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's in again, as JT is talking about, it's literally the great expectations. We're we're what are we going to expect? Right. What are we used to as the rest of the world watches and looks as we have? You know, we pay for for health care that we get worse outcomes out of than most of the rest of the industrialized world. Education.

Maureen Clough (45:50.862)

So frustrating.

Chad Sowash (45:54.811)

those types of things. It's it is it is a very weird, weird place to be. And I think it's just time we should take it. We should take a break and then we'll come back for for Dario's for Dario's. Here we go.

Maureen Clough (46:06.274)

you

Maureen Clough (46:10.946)

Getting too dark. That was rough.

Chad Sowash (46:12.717)

yeah. Well, OK. Literally, it's getting dark here. OK, so OK, so let's jump into the second interview segment with anthropic CEO Dario Amande as we as we once again, once again, start taking a look at the wonderful CEOs that are out there who seem to be.

Maureen Clough (46:39.297)

You

Chad Sowash (46:41.403)

disconnected from, divorced from reality. Here we go.

Maureen Clough (48:09.678)

That is hilarious.

Chad Sowash (48:10.417)

These are CEOs from multi-billion dollar valuated companies, Multi-billion dollar. More jobs in the physical world, as we just talked about. Yes, not white collar jobs. Get out of here, we don't need you. How important is human touch, right? That was something that he brought up. Teaching people to adapt. That's coded language.

JT ODonnell (48:23.847)

Labor. Labor.

Maureen Clough (48:25.656)

Right. Right.

JT ODonnell (48:28.19)

Labor.

Maureen Clough (48:29.198)

cheap labor

Mm.

JT ODonnell (48:39.935)

Coded language, 100%.

Maureen Clough (48:39.98)

Yep, 100%.

Chad Sowash (48:40.733)

teaching people how to adapt. What does that look like? What does that actually mean? And then, so one of the things that always drives me fucking crazy when it comes to CEOs is they're always looking to governments to clean up their mess. the roles, what are the roles for displaced workers? Well, the government should deal with that. No, no, no, no, no, no. You should deal with that. As a matter of fact, you should have

Maureen Clough (48:58.094)

my god.

Chad Sowash (49:10.557)

programs, training programs for these individuals who you displaced to be able to create new roles, to be able to drive your organization. This isn't the government's job. Just those pieces. And I've got more to talk about, but just those pieces. Where are at, JT?

Maureen Clough (49:15.149)

Mm-hmm.

Maureen Clough (49:21.943)

Yeah.

God damn it. It's infuriating. Yeah, me too.

JT ODonnell (49:25.106)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (49:28.575)

I mean, well, I was just waiting for him to drop universal basic income in there any second, right? Like, where was he going to, like, any minute now. I mean, that's what he was hinting to with a big grin on his face, like, yay, the whole time. He's like this, giddy over the whole idea. What bothers me is that we, we as humans need to be intrinsically motivated. We need to be able to get up every day and have a sense of purpose, a thing that we want to do.

Chad Sowash (49:41.607)

Yeah.

Maureen Clough (49:43.022)

What a joke.

JT ODonnell (49:54.344)

Sadly, that's been scrubbed out of us. And I've told you a million times, go read the book. Alfie Cohn was predicting ahead of his time. But when you've created an entire world where we are extrinsically motivated, where we're like, give me this, I deserve this, I get this, this is what they're trying to undo. So when he talks about that coded language, he wants to shock everybody back into intrinsic. So they think they're doing the world a favor. In their mind, we're going to get everybody back to intrinsic motivation and doing it just because.

Chad Sowash (50:11.101)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (50:20.943)

yeah.

JT ODonnell (50:23.167)

it blows my mind the thinking the pie in the sky thinking there. But it helps him sleep at night. He's doing the world a favor by helping people understand this. Meanwhile, is that guy going to do any physical labor? I'm just really quick. Like, no, no, that like the thinking job he gets to keep

Maureen Clough (50:23.47)

Ew.

Chad Sowash (50:27.086)

Yes.

Maureen Clough (50:32.344)

disgusting.

Chad Sowash (50:35.133)

No.

Maureen Clough (50:36.13)

Hell no. You can go with no.

Chad Sowash (50:39.133)

Are his kids gonna do any physical labor? Is anybody he knows going to do any physical labor, right? That's the big question. Of course he's not. mean, it's that sphere of influence where everybody else turned into fucking peasants. I mean, that's really what they're looking at.

Maureen Clough (50:55.563)

Yep. Yep.

JT ODonnell (50:58.591)

100%. I mean, we're making the class system wider, right? Like, it is scary to me. You know, we just said it. Underemployment is through the roof. At what point do people just quit and say, forget it. I'm done. I'm not going after anything anymore. Like, we're going to see that. That's what happens next. People just stop trying, you know?

Chad Sowash (51:01.691)

Yep. Yep.

Maureen Clough (51:01.883)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Chad Sowash (51:19.345)

Yeah, but the problem is that kid they're having, I mean, they can't stop trying because they need food, right? And they need a house.

Maureen Clough (51:20.053)

So depressing.

JT ODonnell (51:25.501)

Well, is this is government by this is the government's going to save this guy like right like the government's going to pay for everybody. There you go exactly.

Maureen Clough (51:26.178)

The government will save us, surely. Right? They're so good with social security already. Social security, healthcare, they're already taking care of that. Why not UBI? I mean, these guys aren't offering to open their pockets, right? It's like, I can't believe a freaking Silicon Valley libertarian type dude is telling us that we should just all get free money. Are you doing it, bro? Like, shut up, dude. I can't, I can't.

Chad Sowash (51:29.755)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (51:37.415)

I-

No, it's corporate welfare.

Chad Sowash (51:44.989)

Hahaha

Chad Sowash (51:49.511)

All good. No. No. Well, the thing that gets me is and then further on, the pie will grow much larger. Number one, the budget might balance without us doing anything. Right. The issue is distributing the money to the right people. This and now if if yes, yes. my fucking.

JT ODonnell (51:51.773)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (51:59.688)

Yeah.

Maureen Clough (52:01.486)

For you, dude.

Maureen Clough (52:08.514)

Yeah. Trickle down AI economics. It worked so well last time. Come on.

Chad Sowash (52:18.321)

God, if there ever needed to be, come on, you can play it. Mo just said it. This is what they all promised us with trickle-down economics. The pie is gonna get bigger, which means your slice is gonna get bigger. The pie did get bigger, but guess what? The slice did not get bigger. The budget...

JT ODonnell (52:33.887)

Exactly.

Chad Sowash (52:42.969)

might balance itself because we're going to have all of this money. the balance today? It sure the fuck isn't. And the issue in distributing the money to the right people, that's the bigger piece of the pie that we're all supposed to be getting. That never fucking happened.

JT ODonnell (52:49.001)

Mm-mm.

Maureen Clough (52:59.854)

They hated socialism. Like what is happening? I cannot. Ugh. These people tell you.

JT ODonnell (53:04.231)

It's crazy.

Chad Sowash (53:07.773)

And so in closing out today's show, we had a bunch of crazy shit from a bunch of crazy CEOs. had we had eEghtfold's. We had Randstad's and we've got Anthropic and we've got Palantir. To me, as all of these people are being looked up to by many in their industries.

For us to be able to sit back and listen to them literally be divorced from reality, it's kind of fun and it's kind of sad at the same time.

Maureen Clough (53:47.724)

Yeah. I mean, do they think we can't notice? Do they think we don't see what's happening here? Like, how stupid do they think we are? That... They're insulting my intelligence by asking me to believe this shit.

JT ODonnell (53:48.553)

Yeah. Well said.

JT ODonnell (54:01.683)

I just think they're giddy on the ride of optimism. They're so excited about what they're doing. They're so excited about it that they've just mentally justified that there's nothing but upside there, right? And that's the, you know, they say to create great things, you need to be delusional, right? Like they're like living up to the delusion. You know, the more delusional you are, the crazier things that can happen, right? I think that's just where they're at.

Maureen Clough (54:13.336)

That's why you need diverse teams. Yeah, that's absolutely accurate.

Chad Sowash (54:22.353)

Yeah. Divorced from reality and everybody we like to thank you for sticking around for our therapy session. Thanks so much. Mo JT. Thanks again for joining us this week. Joel should be back next week. I'm going to be I'm going to be in Majorca. So, you know, you won't miss me. It'll it'll all be good. But until then, thanks, guys. And it's another one in the can. We have.

Maureen Clough (54:23.64)

They're flying too close to the sun.

Maureen Clough (54:31.063)

Ha

JT ODonnell (54:34.335)

Thank you.

Maureen Clough (54:36.066)

So good to be back.

Maureen Clough (54:47.79)

All right, we out.

JT ODonnell (54:48.201)

We out.