Europe: Hellowork vs. Indeed

Ready for a transatlantic romp through HR tech, football drama, and corporate clownery? In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast Does Europe, Joel “Slaughterbot” Cheesman, Chad “Euro Chad” Sowash, and our favorite chicken-roasting Belgian, Lieven, go full Euro-snark on:

⚽ Chelsea’s surprise victory and why Lieven would rather talk Tour de France

🔥 Monster’s international meltdown—and Randstad/Apollo’s disappearing act

🇫🇷 HelloWork vs. Indeed: The battle for France, pride, and job board relevance

📉 Why some PE firms should come with a “contents may be stripped for parts” warning

💸 Three startups face the Buy or Sell gauntlet: MetaView, Traxlo, and Ordio.

And yes, there’s a Coldplay sex scandal, reverse auctions for banana-checkers, and the best lemon chicken recipe this side of the Rhine.

💥 Come for the HR gossip, stay for the geopolitical smackdown and gratuitous Tour de France references.🇪🇺 It’s Eurotrash meets Talent Tech—what more do you want?

👉 Press play before your ATS gets ghosted by Indeed.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:38.062)

Aww.

Joel Cheesman (00:43.854)

Yeah, finished with my woman because she couldn't help me with my mind. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel slaughterbot Cheesman.

Chad (00:56.226)

Chad, Euro Chad, Sowash.

Lieven (00:48.123)

I'm Lieven "My chicken is more succulent than your chicken" Van Nieuwenhuyze

Chad (01:08.558)

That sounds sexual.

Joel Cheesman (01:08.942)

And on this episode, indeed gets worked, the Spanish acquisition and a little buyer sell. Let's do this.

Lieven (01:10.086)

Yes, it does.

Joel Cheesman (01:22.19)

Succulent chicken leaving. Tell us more. Are you a breast guy or like a bone in? Oh.

Chad (01:26.146)

I don't know that I want to hear more.

Lieven (01:31.61)

Both, both. I go for the full option. Breasts and thighs and bone-in.

Chad (01:32.726)

yeah.

I just go breast first and then bone in.

Joel Cheesman (01:37.622)

You

Is the skin off or has it been cut off? Of course, European skin on skin on. get it. What's going on guys? What's going on? What's up in Europe to the two Europeans here?

Lieven (01:44.614)

It's on, it stays on. It's crispy. It's canon.

Chad (01:52.526)

Skin on the bone.

Lieven (01:58.886)

I just came back from not Europe, I'm back from holidays. wasn't, is it the United States? No, it's not United States. Martinique is, it's France, I know, but is it geographically spoken? it what continent is it? It's the Americas, I guess. Yeah, so it's across the pond. it's, I'm back to Europe now. So everything is okay.

Chad (02:06.798)

I'm not Martin Eek.

Joel Cheesman (02:09.142)

Artnick.

Joel Cheesman (02:15.013)

yeah, Central, Central America.

Chad (02:15.276)

I don't know. That's a question.

Joel Cheesman (02:21.806)

Geography lessons with Chad and cheese. Where is Martinique?

Chad (02:21.985)

Caribbean.

Lieven (02:24.431)

Yeah.

Lieven (02:28.132)

Hmm?

Chad (02:28.17)

Yes, or we're finally back from the from the UK and Joel was actually in Germany Both in the UK. So we're fine. Yeah fine finally back on I'm back in Portugal, but Joel's back across the pond other than that It's I think it's all good

Joel Cheesman (02:34.998)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (02:44.27)

Yeah, so Leaven's over here. Chelsea, Chelsea's over here hanging out with Trump on the on the victory stage. That was kind of awkward, huh? That was kind of weird. Apparently he took a medal. Did you see that? He like he snagged a medal. It's weird. Just just bizarre. Just bizarre. Congrats to Chelsea. I thought PSG was gonna was gonna roll him but no.

Chad (02:48.204)

Jesus Christ.

Lieven (02:52.942)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (02:54.175)

Chad (03:00.046)

He steals shit,

PSG was supposed to dismantle Chelsea and they had been just killing competition. yeah, that I mean they yeah, turn the tables man, turn the tables on on on PSG three nil Chelsea really really kicked it into high gear.

Joel Cheesman (03:12.814)

Well, they put it to Real Madrid, right? That was kind of like a big, big W for them.

Joel Cheesman (03:26.136)

Cole Palmer, two goals baby. Bring on, bring on the World Cup. The English squad baby, the English squad's gonna roll. Chad's like, I don't think so. No, no, that's probably not gonna happen. Okay, okay.

Lieven (03:30.662)

if

Chad (03:31.537)

Bring on the wor-

Chad (03:37.214)

No.

No.

We're missing, we're missing Jota, but we still have a pretty damn good squad down here in Portugal. Now Belgians, I mean, you guys, a couple of years ago were like a top shelf and it's withered since. What's going on in Belgium?

Lieven (03:59.022)

I don't know, I'm not following it, I don't care.

Chad (04:00.686)

See you don't get to see you're not giving them the support they need the support leaving

Joel Cheesman (04:00.942)

You

Lieven (04:06.404)

People, you're talking about soccer whilst the Tour de France is going on. This is something. Tour de France, cycling, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (04:11.47)

Tour de France.

Chad (04:12.637)

yeah, now that is. Okay, so tell us who's in the lead during the Tour de France.

Joel Cheesman (04:16.6)

Yeah, what's going on with the bike race leaving? Is a Belgian in first?

Lieven (04:19.206)

Ah, well, you stopped watching when Lance Armstrong was out of grace. Yeah, back in the day, since we haven't seen any Americans, I think. But, it's, it's, yeah.

Chad (04:25.698)

blood doping.

Haha.

Joel Cheesman (04:34.798)

Remember Greg Lamont? Wasn't he a big time biker before? Yeah, Lamont.

Chad (04:38.41)

Le Mans Le Mans

Lieven (04:40.549)

Now it's Pogacar is going to win I guess. But we had a great Belgian but he just left the tour. had to give up. We won't get into that. no, that won't do it.

Chad (04:51.062)

I think it's been a while since Armstrong or we've really had, think, top Americans on the Tour de France. But going beyond that, think Europe is just getting stronger. And there are probably two people, maybe more, but two main people, I think, that we can go ahead and either blame or attribute that to, one being Trump and the other one being Putin.

Joel Cheesman (04:51.074)

Beltings don't give up. What?

Lieven (05:18.36)

Not challengeable,

Chad (05:19.694)

Not chenjol. No, we we we make it great. We've been making it great for years. Yes But Putin obviously start to kinetic war with Ukraine the EU pulls together and then something unheard of happens Finland and Sweden joins NATO Trump starts at economic war with Europe and the EU pulls together and the unheard of happens again the EU's trust rating goes through the roof. It's the highest it's been in 20 years. and Trump

Joel Cheesman (05:22.082)

I like where your head is though. I like.

Lieven (05:25.573)

Hmm.

Joel Cheesman (05:46.189)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (05:49.484)

threatening to invade Greenland probably didn't help anyway. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy not to mention Europe is working to sign a bunch of different trade agreements with countries like Mexico, South Korea and Indonesia. while we're having this bullshit trade battle economic war, it seems like the Canadians and the Europeans are really trying and to be quite frank, the Chinese, unfortunately, are also just kind of clean sweep in this thing.

Lieven (05:53.582)

Incredible.

Joel Cheesman (06:19.138)

I think the Europeans have figured out how to speak Trump. When they call him daddy at the NATO meetings, he really, really likes that. He really likes being called daddy.

Chad (06:22.83)

Hahaha!

Lieven (06:25.186)

my god. That's disgusting.

Chad (06:32.27)

that's good. That's good.

Joel Cheesman (06:32.461)

good things in Europe, good things here. Well, a of things to talk about guys. Shall we get to shout outs?

Lieven (06:33.167)

No.

Chad (06:41.12)

It is. Hit it.

Joel Cheesman (06:42.872)

So I got one guys, you probably saw the it's it's burning up the HR feeds everywhere. the Coldplay concert with the CEO and the head of HR, getting, caught. but in full Oasis Liam Gallagher fashion, he, had this to say it their latest concert.

Chad (06:48.078)

No stop.

Chad (07:07.33)

Hit it again.

Lieven (07:23.462)

god.

Joel Cheesman (07:30.872)

That's right. full Liam fashion, that's what he had to say about the Coldplay controversy.

Chad (07:36.206)

Shout out to those two. Oh, by the way, the astronomer CEO has since resigned.

Lieven (07:36.976)

Thank

Joel Cheesman (07:45.356)

I bet he has his shares. I bet he still has his shares.

Lieven (07:45.892)

Am I the only one who feels sorry for the guy? I mean, everyone is making fun of him, but who am I to judge what he's doing?

Chad (07:53.868)

Yeah, mean, that's I mean, there there are always and let's go ahead and throw this out there. There are always little escapades that happen within the the office. Right. There's there's cheating that happens inside the office outside of the office. Do you condone it? No. Is it any my fucking business? No. So, yeah, watching it on a big screen and then pretty much watching their lives. It's like, do we not have anything?

Lieven (08:12.57)

No?

Chad (08:20.408)

better to fucking worry about. mean, the world's on fucking fire and we're worried about a Coldplay concert and two people who are, you know, doing dancing between the sheets. mean, this is the problem with human beings today. We care about shit that we should not and we don't care about the shit that we should. Anyway, rando.

Lieven (08:32.591)

You

Joel Cheesman (08:41.294)

but it's juicy for our space, let's admit that. when HR, like if you're gonna have an affair, it might as well be HR. I mean, who is she gonna report you to? She's HR. Like it can't go anywhere else. Like, I mean, if you're gonna do it, you might as well go to HR for your affair, I say.

Lieven (08:44.358)

Chad (08:49.358)

Yeah.

Lieven (08:50.022)

I mean.

Lieven (08:55.524)

That nature is a human business, the man was doing.

Chad (08:55.694)

They're they're they're they're two grown adults. Yeah, they're two grown adults. If they if they if they weren't doing retaliation against somebody else or, you know, treating people unfairly, who gives a fuck who they're fucking? I mean, I don't know. That's my personal opinion.

Joel Cheesman (08:58.793)

they got human, all right. They got human. They got human.

Lieven (09:12.88)

Yeah, I share it.

Chad (09:16.342)

Joel doesn't, he loves the juicy stuff.

Joel Cheesman (09:17.642)

I don't ca- I s- I don't-

Lieven (09:18.086)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (09:21.528)

I mean, our space is off just out, just out of their minds. Like this is a huge topic for our, our industry. Yeah. I get it. And she's still there. So like they're, they're trying to figure out, can we fire her? We probably can't. I mean, it's a lot of HR layers going on with this, with this thing.

Chad (09:25.454)

Yeah, it's a thing. Yeah. Well, yes. Yes, because again, we're stupid.

Chad (09:37.282)

Yeah. So off to my shout out, something that does matter. This week, my shout out goes to Monster Europe and the other international Monster Worldwide properties. These Monster properties weren't just job boards. Many were cornerstones of the labor market for many of the countries that they operated in. They helped millions of people find work. They supported thousands of companies. And now Monster can't even pay their own damn employees.

What's truly disgusting is that Ronstadt and Apollo, the corporate overlords raking in billions of dollars, are walking away like nothing even happened. No financial support, no transition help, no basic human decency, just cold calculated abandonment. This isn't just mismanagement, it's corporate cowardice. Monster deserved better and monster's people.

who actually did the hard work deserve better. So shout out to all of those workers all over the world that made Monster happen on a daily basis. yeah, Ronstadt and Apollo, you guys fucking suck.

Joel Cheesman (10:48.66)

escalated quickly.

Chad (10:50.366)

Hahaha

Leaving, you have a chicken shout out? What are you doing?

Lieven (10:55.526)

No checking shout outs later Joe later we're going to stick

Joel Cheesman (10:57.602)

Yeah, what's the recipe? Give us the recipe. What do do? You put a little little little leaving love on it. Little lemon maybe a little.

Chad (11:02.893)

He can put it on his LinkedIn.

Lieven (11:05.35)

I of course you have to you have to put the lemon inside the chicken before putting it in the oven so it gets all juicy and tangy and whatever but I'm going to focus now on my shout out I love it you have to punch or some little holes in the lemon so the juice can come out but anyways anyways we're talking about my shout out and my shout out goes to another product of Finland so we're not talking about NATO this time but we're talking about Mina Malari

Joel Cheesman (11:11.394)

Yeah.

Squeeze the lemon. Yeah, got it.

Chad (11:30.318)

Hmm.

Lieven (11:33.136)

who is the new executive director of the World's Employment Confederation. So this is like the federation above the national federations and they're trying to do some public affairs to lobby for our business, for our industry. So the staffing industry, tamping. And she's focusing on not getting strangled by even more regulation. And she's got impeccable taste because her first move was asking me to chair the whole global HR tech task force. Yes, it was I.

Chad (11:33.2)

okay.

Chad (12:00.713)

stop that.

Lieven (12:03.106)

She asked me and I said, yes, I said yes. So I think it's a smart start, Mina. Thank you so much. And we definitely need her. She make a very good impression. We love Mina.

Lieven (12:17.283)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (12:17.71)

Congratulations, Leaven. Congratulations.

Chad (12:19.592)

That's awesome, Levin. Good job, man.

Lieven (12:20.282)

Thank you.

Joel Cheesman (12:28.43)

All right, lots to go through today, guys, or this week. Hello Work, a French recruitment marketplace, is suing Indeed for cutting off its applicant tracking system, something we talked about a few weeks ago. Job fee without any warning whatsoever. The move, which affected multiple recruitment sites globally, occurred after Indeed changed its ATS XML feeds. Chad, your thoughts on Hello Work striking back.

Chad (12:53.836)

Yeah, mean, gone are the days where we just had job boards and we just had applicant tracking systems and everything was divided. I mean, we're starting to see ecosystems that are being created. Hello Work is one of those. They have an applicant tracking system. They have a job board. have different modules. Same as Harry, same as many of these organizations are doing this now. Right. But this isn't about that. It's about control for Indeed. Indeed took control away from the job boards.

years ago. took control away from staffing companies years ago. Indeed is now taking control away from agencies, recruitment marketing agencies. And next, listen up employers, Indeed will take away your control as well. Don't give them your disposition data because it's none of their damn business who you hire. I remember back in the day when Andy McKelvey was still alive, he headed up TMPU Worldwide. Now, Raidency.

But back in the early 2000s, Andy wanted monster job postings to be a thousand dollars a piece. Right. And that was the thing. He said that to everybody. He wanted to be able to control the market and he wanted to be able to control the price and get it up to a thousand dollars. Right. Well, if indeed get your data, Mr. and Mrs. employer hiring company, if they get your data, they can charge you whatever they damn well.

please. And it's like lambs to the slaughter. I mean, we really have to support organizations like Hello Work and continue pointing out the evil bullshit that indeed is pretty much pulling on a daily basis. Hello Work, I'm in your corner. We should probably get them on the show and do a top to bottom on this.

Lieven (14:36.422)

you

Joel Cheesman (14:41.144)

I like that. And thanks for the history lesson, Chad. I've got one for my one, one, one, one as well. So let's go back to say 2010. I was working with job boards and I was in the industry and I remember specifically a day where all the, organic free job board traffic at indeed basically stopped.

Chad (14:45.358)

you

Chad (14:51.212)

Uh-huh.

Chad (15:03.576)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (15:05.4)

They were pushed down to page nine, 10, 11 of the search results. All the top results were either people paying indeed, were direct employers, going, going right to the, the ATS. And there was an uproar of like, can't you do something? Can't we like, can't we fix this? And it's like, no, you can't. This is a private company. It's not a public service. They're not doing this for the good of the community. Like this is a decision that they could have made and you should have seen it happening.

Lieven (15:28.835)

you

Joel Cheesman (15:34.924)

You should have seen this coming from historical purposes. So this is just indeed being indeed like they continue this onslaught of like screwing over people after they've serviced them or benefited them for many, many years. And this is the next round of big screw from indeed and hello work. God bless them. They'll go to court. I'm sure this is the number one and two player in

France, indeed, and HelloWorks. This is kind of a clash of the Titans in France, so it should be interesting. But I will defer us back to Job Index, a job board out of the Netherlands, I think, who tried to sue Google for jobs, saying that they were a monopoly, that they were screwing over the industry. Of course, we said that's bullshit because, you know, you don't have to be in Google. don't like, you don't have to be in the index. And they lost.

to Google for jobs. if this goes to court, if this goes to some kind of, you know, body in France, I have a hard time imagining that indeed is going to get screwed on this and have to reverse course. think Hello Work is probably wasting its time and should be doing other things to try to submit its market share because this is the wrong tree to bark up. Monceau.

Lieven (16:54.874)

Hmm. Hmm. It's not like this is Coke versus Pepsi. It's Amazon versus your neighborhood shop. mean, they're pretty big. HelloWorks pretty big in France, but it's only in France. And Dita is worldwide and Dita's revenue of about I think 5 billion or something where

Joel Cheesman (16:57.004)

Mosse.

Chad (17:14.818)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (17:15.107)

Yeah.

Lieven (17:22.742)

I think Hello Work has 90 million. So this is a totally different league they're playing in. So they can hire the best lawyers. They probably will still lose or it will just take years and then nothing will happen. But I think indeed doesn't really care. You complain, but you'll still pay and you need something like that. But in the end, think Hello Work can play Robin Hood and definitely in France, they will be the winner because their clients will support Hello Work and they will

Joel Cheesman (17:29.102)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (17:40.942)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (17:47.854)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (17:51.278)

step away from Indeed. And it's an ecosystem. Just Hello Work is an ecosystem, like Indeed is an ecosystem. It's Indeed just is becoming a new paying channel like all the others. If there's no free zone anymore, then why should you pay them if someone else can fill in the gap? And I think Hello Work will be the big winner. So just in France maybe, but it's a start.

Joel Cheesman (17:57.646)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (18:15.582)

I do like the market power kind of like antitrust angle as well, whether it actually wins or not. If you play that in the market with PR and you're pushing that, right, that means something. mean, Google, that was, we talked about that on the show for probably three or four times for God's sakes. Job Index did a shitty job in setting that whole argument up. In this case,

Lieven (18:19.11)

Hmm.

Joel Cheesman (18:27.97)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (18:37.41)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (18:44.962)

I don't think so. mean, they've been cut clean out of Indeed. So who knows? I mean, it's great from a narrative standpoint, hopefully for hello work. And much like you said, Levin, the French love the French and they love French business, right? So I think there's a great opportunity for them to spend this again from a PR standpoint, hopefully get something going on in the courts, but from the PR standpoint and actually more revenues.

Joel Cheesman (18:48.706)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (19:00.344)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (19:01.19)

Absolutely.

Chad (19:12.642)

People are going to move with their feet and they're not Franks anymore, but they're Euros.

Lieven (19:18.106)

No euros, yeah. That's right.

Joel Cheesman (19:19.138)

Yeah, that's, that's a great point, leaving. mean, if, if, if they know they're not going to win a court case, but they're going to win the PR battle, then this is a great move because not only will I assume French companies, you know, sort of back the nationalistic, overtones of that, but also the job seekers. If you pitch it to the job seekers of like, support a French business, support French companies, this big.

Chad (19:27.49)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (19:39.27)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (19:45.462)

nasty American companies coming in and pushing us around. think that's a message that the French will certainly embrace. But the only question I would have is how many, how many of the customers at Indeed France are international and could give a shit about French nationalism. They just want to bodies, which I think is why it's important to go after the job seekers. But yeah, as a PR move, this is not bad. This is not bad. As a legal case, I don't like it. I don't like it very much. I don't like it very much.

Lieven (20:11.792)

Hmm. No, but I think the money they're expanding on lawyers will be like some marketing budgets. It might work. It'll give them some attention.

Joel Cheesman (20:20.674)

Yeah. Following a lawsuit probably, it's a probably pretty good. mean, they're getting a lot of headlines, I assume in France and the business sections and whatnot. So yeah, more power to them. We'll keep an on this one, guys. We'll keep an eye on, on this one, but until then let's play some buyer sell, shall we? It's been a while. All right. Let's take a break after all this French nationalism talk. And when we get back, when we get back, we'll do a little buyer sell.

Lieven (20:28.432)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (20:36.462)

Let's take a break first. Let's take a break.

Lieven (20:36.856)

Yeah.

Chad (20:42.574)

You

Lieven (20:42.828)

you

Joel Cheesman (20:53.454)

All right, guys, who's ready for a little buy or sell? That's right. If you don't know how we play the game, if you don't know how we play the game, we talk about three companies that have recently gotten funding and each of the boys on the panel here will either buy or sell. Let's play. First up is London based MetaView.

Chad (20:57.186)

Leaving is...

Lieven (20:58.393)

I am.

Chad (21:00.317)

buying chicken.

Lieven (21:02.454)

and

Joel Cheesman (21:14.39)

an interview intelligence platform. raised 30 million euros in funding led by GV, bringing its total funding to 43 million euros. The company plans to triple its team and open office and you guessed it, the USA, specifically San Francisco. Chad, are you a buyer sell on MetaView?

Chad (21:35.992)

First off, the founder's great. The guys got great charisma, good on stage, but I don't see a moat for a startup like this. Note takers are a dime a dozen, but I want to be able to compare MetaView to a piece of software that we are using right now during this podcast, Riverside. Now, MetaView, for only $50 a month, the pro note taker works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, WebEx.

has GDPR and CCPA compliance, works with phone calls, SOC 2, unlimited conversations, unlimited history, unlimited members, advanced search filtering, and centralized billing. That's an important one. My favorite actually is GDPR and CCPA compliance along with SOC 2 because it's like saying you have food in your restaurant. Yeah, no shit. You have SOC 2, GDPR.

Of course, right? Anyway, so now let's take a look at this podcasting platform that we're using right now called Riverside. Up to 4K video quality, high audio quality, magic audio clips. It's literally they take the audio and the video, make clips in one click, AI transcriptions over a hundred languages, AI generated show notes, magic clips with editing controls.

Joel Cheesman (22:42.648)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (23:03.182)

AI voice teleprompter. mean, it goes on and on and on kids. Guess how much? Half the price of MetaView. Right. This technology, which does all that shit, right, is half the price of the note taker we know as MetaView. So, yes, it's very basic for $50 a month while the rest of the world is doing audio, video, note taking, transcriptions, audio, AI voiceovers at half the price. So for me, it's a sell.

great guy, great charisma, but there's no moat. And what really does this thing do?

Joel Cheesman (23:41.106)

Ouch, ouch. So I'm a little biased here. Full disclosure, I'm an advisor to Bright Hire, which is the Coke to the Pepsi of Metaview. I agree. We did a firing squad a while back. Chad, I think you sold, I think I bought, or maybe it's a golf clap. But anyway, I love that you're staying firm on that stance.

Chad (23:54.499)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (24:06.754)

For me, it's really hard because I'm an advisor to the competitor. So I'll sort of look at the overall business in and of itself. There are going to be some companies and we've talked about them that are going to go full AI, full automation, full chat bot, like humans are more or less out of the picture. However, you're going to get a segment of the population that still wants human beings to be part of the interview process and note taking and sharing with, collaborating with coworkers and whatnot.

Chad (24:19.886)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (24:36.672)

I do think this is more of a feature than it is an actual, just a standalone product. So I think both of these guys are going to be acquired by an ATS or somebody, somebody's going to come along and add this to, the feature set. so for that purpose, I love a good wave chat, you know, I love a good wave. So for me, Meta view, and this, this trend is a buy.

Chad (24:42.296)

Good point.

Lieven (25:01.894)

Thank

Chad (25:03.15)

You just had $35 million of dilution, by the way. Go ahead. Sorry.

Joel Cheesman (25:03.31)

Break the tie, Levin.

Joel Cheesman (25:08.448)

It's a lot of money to get sold. agree. Who's going to pay up the money for that? guess we'll see.

Lieven (25:08.582)

Thank

Lieven (25:12.613)

That's a start. That's a start.

Chad (25:14.126)

Also dilution,

Lieven (25:18.296)

Okay, so what do they offer? They have an AI note taker, they have AI reports, funnels optimization dashboards, whatever AI answers. It's like a Q &A on candidates. They have AI job posts. They have tons of things we already have and we made ourselves and it didn't take too long to do it. So it's pretty easy to copy this. It's pretty easy to launch it, but for $50 a month, why would you do it yourself? That's a good thing. So they offer something, they've done it, it works.

Chad (25:37.134)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (25:48.006)

You can use it, $50, at least try it. So that's great. But the only reason why I would buy it is, and they're probably from a legal point of view, not able to do this, but they have recorded 3 million interviews already. This data interests me because you could create a AI recruiter based on that data. If you have tons and tons and tons of interviews, and you can use that to have an AI study on, then you have the perfect recruiter. And this is something which interests me.

Chad (26:10.2)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (26:17.402)

But I guess within the European Union, they're just not allowed to use the data, which is something we can. In our company, we have hundreds of thousands of interviews ourselves, but these are our interviews with our candidates, and we need to use them. So we are working on something like this, but they have more data because they have many more companies and their clients. I need to look into this. It's interesting. But as I see it right now for me, it's a sell.

Chad (26:30.264)

Yes.

Lieven (26:45.286)

It's too easy to copy if not something we need.

Joel Cheesman (26:52.238)

All right. That's two, that's two selling one by for our first couple. Let's go to our second everybody tracks low, a Lithuanian platform, transforming physical labor into verifiable tasks has raised 1.6 million euros to expand its paper task labor infrastructure across Europe. Tracks low says it has already delivered over 300,000 tasks and is expanding into the Czech Republic and Romania. Chad, are you a buyer sell on tracks low?

Lieven (26:52.558)

We'll see.

Chad (26:58.232)

Tracks low.

Chad (27:21.228)

I love Lithuania. yeah, I think I still have some. Yeah, Lithuania, Romania, Czech. Okay, so to me, this is like welcome to TaskRabbit 2.0. Tracks, low touts, hyper flexible staffing for dynamic needs, pay for performance, pretty cool with the task-based payments and reduce.

Joel Cheesman (27:21.942)

And did you wear track slow back in the eighties, like all the other, all the other poor kids.

Joel Cheesman (27:36.514)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (27:48.59)

carbon footprint with local gig workers. love how they throw the carbon footprint in there. Traxlo is also going heavily after retail and warehouse operations. I like the idea for pulling people in for outcomes-based projects. But my fear is that companies will try to run a business this way. And at least in the US, people don't want these jobs in the first place.

at least the warehouse jobs. And knowing that huge companies are trying to automate and roboticize these operations, there will be fewer and fewer and fewer of these jobs available. So I love gig work, side hustle opportunities for people to make a little extra cash on the side, but I'm not sure they're hitting the right industries. you know, it feels like just bad timing for me. So again, I can't wait. As a matter of fact, I'm planning a trip to Lithuania.

And maybe I can talk to the track slow people, but until then it's a sell for me

Joel Cheesman (28:50.156)

And if you get a pair of tracks lows, make sure you pick up a pair for me. Would you love me? Love me some tracks lows. it's an interesting concept. It's sort of gig work, in the real world. And I don't think I ever sort of like we think about seasonal work and UPS needs a ton of people because Christmas and Amazon needs a ton of people, which they hire for seasonally, but

Chad (28:50.861)

You

Chad (28:54.479)

I will, I will.

You

Chad (29:16.845)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (29:18.444)

the jobs this company started outlining, I never really thought of as like, yeah, you need shit like that. Like people that go into grocery stores and check expiration dates for everything. That might not be something you want your, you know, full time employee doing, but if you can like contract that out, you know, once or twice a week to come in and check the milk. Another one is like e-grocery picking up, like go get some bananas and likes. So these jobs that you don't think of being contract, I think is pretty

genius. If you can get traction on this track slow. Think about how many baby boomers are leaving the workplace and will quickly realize that they need they need money. Well, these people can't go to Upwork and start developing or building banner ads for you know, for for companies, but they can sure

go in, you know, granny can go into to the Kroger and check the bananas and what's expiring and she she's probably pretty good at it as it is because she did that for a living. So I think this is a hell of an idea. I'd love to see it come into play here. I think it's different than then TaskRabbit TaskRabbit is like, Hey, my my toilets overflowed, which never happens to me, by the way, Chad.

Lieven (30:31.236)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (30:31.501)

Good plunger.

Joel Cheesman (30:31.906)

The toilet stopped up. need some help with that. This is a little bit different. So I like, I like this idea quite a bit. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it a bye everybody. I'm gonna give it a bye. Chatting or leaving another tiebreaker, baby.

Lieven (30:47.412)

so it's up to me again, nice. You referred to gig work, I immediately thought about Fiverr. It's a weird idea in fact. It's like, labor is broken into micro jobs and they're offered on a first come first serve for a priority basis and paid per results, not per hour. So it's like Fiverr where you can say, I will develop your logo.

And then people can, I do it for 20 euros, I can do it for 15, et cetera. So you have kind of erosion of salaries. And to me, the whole concept where it's first come first serve basis, it's a bit medieval. Am I pronouncing it right? Medieval? It's like back in the days, mean, the Lord of the Manor came to the town square and he said, I need 20 people today. And then the people could introduce himself. Okay, I'll take you, you and you.

Chad (31:15.405)

Yep. Yep.

Lieven (31:40.25)

Let's go and work on the field. Okay. And now it's like the same thing, but it's a product manager with a dashboard and your competitor as a candidate might be a shelf stocking robot, something like that. I will be really interested the moment they add a reverse auction system. So allow open bidding where multiple workers compete to win the job by offering to do it cheaper. Then it's totally evil.

So I've got a job, I will do it for 18 euros. I can do it for 16, I can do it for 15. Okay, you got the job. It's disgusting in fact. It's like your digital sweatshop, something like that. Raise to the button indeed. But Evo often works, so for me it's a buy.

Chad (32:18.221)

race to the bottom.

Joel Cheesman (32:19.128)

Disgusting.

Joel Cheesman (32:26.562)

You

Chad (32:27.05)

Ha ha!

Joel Cheesman (32:32.258)

Sorry, I gotta keep that one going there.

Lieven (32:33.478)

Good.

Chad (32:35.413)

as we were talking about.

Joel Cheesman (32:37.646)

That whole, that whole time I had my finger on like the cell button and then he just did a one 80 and like, like evil by by all right. Yeah, it's not, it's not thunderdome where these old people fight each other to check bananas. Anyway, let's go to audio, German based audio, a people operating system for deskless industries raised 12 million euros to launch quote.

Lieven (32:41.996)

Hahaha

Chad (32:42.271)

I love it.

Lieven (32:46.446)

It's like... It's like the Minions.

Chad (32:57.773)

or a Dio.

Joel Cheesman (33:05.314)

payroll plus an automated payroll solution for you guessed it deskless workers. The platform designed for hospitality, healthcare, and retail aims to revolutionize payroll automation by integrating real time processing of bonuses, legal requirements, and those pesky tax complexities. Chad, are you a buyer sell on ordio?

Chad (33:26.669)

It's interesting. mean, in the US, we've heard, you know, this tackle or this problem being tackled left and right. But I also love that the founder was the owner who managed 135 employees at a sushi ninja restaurant. What a great name. A restaurant chain sushi ninja. I love it. But remember, kid, most founders that crash and burn.

Lieven (33:45.018)

Excellent.

Chad (33:54.862)

have great ideas on paper, but they need industry know-how to actually make it happen. So do I think managing deskless workers payroll quickly and simply is a problem today? Yes. But here's the math. The highest subscription tier is 149 euros per location per month, which is a poultry 1,788 euros a year for one location.

Joel Cheesman (33:59.342)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (34:19.189)

Ordeo says they have 1,500 companies using the platform. So that's 2.6 million euros per year. So yes, there might be some other locations, but my point is that for 1,788 euros a year, a hospital, how many employees does a hospital have? A hospital has shift planning, time recording, team terminal, tablets.

broadcast push notifications checklist tap maybe there's an employee app there's all this stuff wage and rules and bonuses absences and requests I mean there's all this stuff that you get for $1,788 a month per location okay ADP ADP has revenues of 19 billion dollars USD most of which is their payroll product audio needs to stay affordable I agree but change

into an active profile model that charges on the amount of individuals using the system. So in this case, getting paid through the system. The current model is a loss leader until they change it. I mean, it's a sell for me. So sorry, sorry, Ordeo. If you change the model, give me a call. But until then, leaving a lot of money on the table.

Joel Cheesman (35:39.052)

Interesting. Chad, do remember the old SNL Belushi skit where he came out as a samurai and he was a chef and he would like slash the table and like, that's so anyway, I'm sorry, old guy stuff. Go look it up on YouTube kids. I love these, I do love these European companies that sort of look at, at us based or companies that are getting like tens, hundreds of like big, big money.

Chad (35:45.921)

Yeah.

Chad (35:54.669)

Sushi Ninja.

Joel Cheesman (36:06.67)

to do this work. And when I look at this, I think of, I think of Harry raising 43 million fountain, a hundred million beekeeper, 35 million. And these guys come in, you know, with a fraction of that. And so many of these European businesses feel like poor man's fill in the blank, poor man's paradox, poor man's fountain, poor man's whatever. And I think it fits with the, continent and the culture. We talked about.

France being in love with France. And I think Europeans in general are love with Europeans. And if a business can come along that's European based, I know a lot of people feel weird about the Germans and German based companies, but I think that if you can come in at a lower price point, you understand the culture, you service your clients better than maybe an American company can. I think you have a real chance to be successful. I I love the idea of managing deskless workers.

There's a ton of them in Europe, over a hundred million people work in deskless jobs in Europe, capture a fraction of that. And I think you have a business, I think they can grow into many more products and features. think this is a potential platform that they can grow, grow that market share and grow that dollar per client. so for me, man, I'm, I'm down. I think I'm down with, with, with audio. I'm a buy. I'm a buy.

Chad (37:26.445)

That's three buys from Joel. He is in a happy mood.

Joel Cheesman (37:28.64)

It's summer. I got a pool in the backyard. Leaven's chicken is getting me all hot and bothered. Yeah, I'm in a good mood. I'm in a good mood.

Lieven (37:28.884)

Nice!

Lieven (37:35.024)

Thank you.

Chad (37:37.165)

Is is leaving chicken is that code for something?

Lieven (37:38.02)

Nice one.

We'll get back to that later.

Joel Cheesman (37:41.89)

You got to ask Levin. His wife comes home. Are you fixing chicken tonight?

Chad (37:43.223)

You

Lieven (37:47.364)

Hmm.

Chad (37:48.597)

I could see you, you and him at a Coldplay concert. that,

Joel Cheesman (37:49.666)

Another night, I feel like chicken tonight, like chicken tonight.

Lieven (37:54.818)

My chicken is your favorite chicken. Anyways, Joel, you were saying something and mostly I totally agree with you, but not in this case. said European, French like the French people like buying French stuff, which is totally right. But Europeans not necessarily like Europe. mean, we in Western Europe, think we used to think, and I definitely do not, but on general, we think in Eastern Europe, there are alcoholics and the South of Europe, they're all lazy. And the Norths are just arrogant assholes. So.

We would buy Western European stuff. I would buy something in Germany because the Germans are whatever. I would definitely not buy this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this. And they're probably following the rules. So I don't need to check if they're GDPR compliant. They definitely will be GDPR compliant, et cetera. And I might buy something in the Netherlands because they speak the same language as we do.

Joel Cheesman (38:33.014)

Efficient. Efficient is the word I think you were looking for.

Joel Cheesman (38:44.742)

huh.

Lieven (38:49.934)

I might buy something in the UK because that's almost America and we still do kind of look up to America. French from time to time, France comes up with something cool. So that might work as well, but there it ends. I would not think about buying something in Spain or in, in, in, Portugal because it's Spain or Portugal. That's like a different role to us. It's Europe, but like you always say, Europe has got a bunch of countries in it. So I don't think that's. Yeah. It's not an argument to me.

Joel Cheesman (39:14.04)

A lot of countries.

Lieven (39:19.224)

Anyways, but I was following what Chet was saying that Coyin Hoffa, the guy who launched this tool, he owns a chain of restaurants. And that makes all the difference because the guy isn't some kind of an HR tech tourist. He was desperately looking for software to manage his own systems and he couldn't find it. So in the end, he decided to develop it himself. So he had it developed.

Chad (39:38.903)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (39:46.18)

And then probably in the end, costed like 10 times as much as they promised them. So he needed to find a way to get it paid back. So he decided on commercializing it. I think it went something like that. And so he knows what he needs because he's in the business. So I guess the product will do what most of these kinds of companies needs. And then Dasklerzka is booming. It's over 100 million workers in Europe. So the market is big enough. It's a...

Joel Cheesman (39:57.048)

Uh-huh.

Lieven (40:16.184)

It's something many people need and if it works and he knows what he's doing and he's got enough money to to market it, why not? So I think it's a buy for me. Even though I think... I always think that payrolling is very boring but in this case it could be a good thing.

Joel Cheesman (40:32.878)

Boring is profitable, typically.

Chad (40:33.247)

It's, it is if he raises his prices.

Lieven (40:37.958)

he will in the end.

Joel Cheesman (40:39.754)

I was trying to think as he was talking what the equivalent would be in the States. I don't buy from Southerners because they're a bunch of redneck idiots. Like, could you get away with that?

Chad (40:47.649)

That's the big difference. That's the big difference is we don't have the history that they have, right? We did have a war North and South, although it's all just one country. We don't even think of where it's manufactured anymore.

Lieven (40:51.238)

Bye.

Joel Cheesman (40:53.88)

That's right. We did have a war, but, but yeah.

Lieven (40:59.322)

Bye bye.

Joel Cheesman (41:00.322)

Yeah, if Montana and Washington went to battle, I could see them having some bad feelings towards each other.

Chad (41:04.481)

Yeah.

Lieven (41:06.031)

But I can imagine people saying the manga people are not buying from Democrats or anything. That's something else.

Joel Cheesman (41:11.438)

Sure. Sure. Sure. That's why Chad has so many MyPillow products in his house because he loves that guy. All right. Let's get to the acquisition news guys. The EQTX fund has agreed to acquire Adventa's Spanish operations, which include info jobs and other traditional classifieds like real estate.

Chad (41:12.993)

Yeah, do that for a minute.

Lieven (41:21.926)

All right.

Chad (41:22.637)

Nobody ever, yes.

Chad (41:28.919)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (41:37.81)

EQT plans to support growth through product development, improved user experience, and enhanced AI and technology infrastructure, utilizing its experience in the online classified sector and established presence in Spain. Expected to close in Q1 of 2026. EQTX is anticipated to be 60 to 65 % invested following the deal. Chad, your thoughts on EQTX and Adventa.

Chad (42:06.721)

having PE buy a job site. It'll be interesting. I think whether you have new leadership or obviously new buyers, in this case, PE, PE follows a pretty, pretty easy playbook where they come in, they're going to look at stuff, they're going to cut the hell out of stuff, mainly headcount. And then they're going to look at where money's being spent on what

projects are gonna look at the roadmap and look at all that stuff. Hopefully they have the mindset that they can build something for the future because they're just gonna look at the sell up three to five years anyway. And let's hope it's not like either a monster or career builder scenario where literally they sell it off as pieces or they

they just drain it so badly that it just doesn't have the kick that it used to. So hoping, hoping they do the right thing. They actually build a job site for the future. But I don't know, it's hard when PE comes in.

Joel Cheesman (43:06.231)

Joel Cheesman (43:17.59)

Yeah, hope. Hope is not a strategy people. You can hope that they're going to, I love the press release growth and product development, improved user experience and enhanced AI. They don't give a fuck about any of that shit. Guys. Listen, listen, if you're, if you're an employee at, at Adventa, if you're an employee, re refresh the LinkedIn profile, go to, maybe go to your own job site and see what kind of opportunities are out there because, because hell is coming people.

Chad (43:20.119)

That's not.

Chad (43:31.031)

You

Joel Cheesman (43:47.438)

They're going to gut this thing. They're going to sell it for parts. going to, they're going to cut heads. Like we've seen this movie so many times in this space. So do yourself a favor. have nothing else to add in terms of what Chad said, except if you are employed by this organization, get the hell out, get the hell out. The sooner the better.

Chad (43:56.173)

Mm-mm.

Lieven (44:09.282)

except of course if you have some shares then wait until the private equity leaves and then you can greedily take some some droppings for the money

Joel Cheesman (44:19.31)

Spoken like a European. Do it for the money. Do it for the money.

Chad (44:19.511)

Yeah.

Yeah, unless you go down the path that Monster did, obviously.

Joel Cheesman (44:27.31)

I'm sure my guess is if you're a shareholder, you're an ex, you're an executive. Like you probably have a golden parachute. I'm talking about the, the, the workers in the, in the trenches, like get the hell out. Cause you are an expense and they're going to get rid of you.

Lieven (44:29.318)

Bye.

Chad (44:33.545)

yeah.

Lieven (44:38.704)

Yeah.

Chad (44:40.939)

I think Monster is a cautionary tale, obviously. I mean, it's going down in real time now. We're watching it happen in real time. This is happening in fucking France and in all over countries all over the world, but in Europe, where usually there are protections in place and those protections are going are being blown while, you know, executives are making millions of dollars walking away. you know, unfortunately, the workers are not the ones who spent.

Joel Cheesman (44:44.726)

and CareerBuilder.

Joel Cheesman (44:57.506)

Hmm, yeah.

Chad (45:10.369)

decades working under a brand. That's gotta hurt.

Joel Cheesman (45:16.536)

Good point. Regulation could slow this thing down. I still say get the hell out.

Lieven (45:16.975)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (45:19.703)

Good. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (45:22.958)

All right, let's go to tele performance. Unless, Leven, you have something to add to the.

Lieven (45:23.813)

Yeah.

Lieven (45:28.006)

No, no, but I was just thinking, I agree, they're going to carve it up and make the most out of it. But was I, I read somewhere that they had a valuation of 15 times the EBITDA. A multiple of 15. That's amazing. They paid a lot. But in fact, I'm very happy that finally something is moving again in the business because it's been very quiet for 18 months now.

Joel Cheesman (45:31.63)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (45:50.758)

It's a good thing that people are starting to buy and sell again, like we are showing them how to do, buy or sell. No, it's interesting, but no more intelligent remarks. Joe, please go on.

Joel Cheesman (45:56.248)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (46:03.086)

I mean, it's like if you want to buy a job board in Spain, Infojobs is in play, trust me. Like make some calls, there's an opportunity.

Chad (46:10.06)

Yes.

Lieven (46:10.604)

Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. But do you believe, Joel, this is the time to buy job boards? I think things are moving away from job boards very fast. I wouldn't invest in one right now.

Joel Cheesman (46:17.104)

you-

Joel Cheesman (46:22.446)

Yes, but if you're private, look, the money made on CareerBuilder was insane. Cut expenses, off the pieces. mean, that was a good investment for the shareholders and the private equity. So I have to guess they're going to do the same thing. And when we look up after the wreckage, they're going to have made a ton of money for themselves and their investors. yeah, if your goal is to have a business for 20, 25 years,

Lieven (46:34.309)

Yeah.

Lieven (46:42.789)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (46:52.12)

This ain't your thing. If it's like, let's, let's cut this thing up while there's still a business and there's still an opportunity to do that. That's what they're going to do. And I can't, I don't, I'm not an expert on the other pieces as well, but I have to think that real estate and cars and any kind of classified business is in a similar boat as jobs. So they're going to cut this thing up and sell real estate to whoever and sell this business to that. And they're going to make a ton of money for sure. This.

Lieven (47:01.37)

Yeah.

Lieven (47:20.27)

Yeah, but you have to find someone who's willing to pay. I think you can still...

Joel Cheesman (47:22.776)

Sure. There are businesses there that are worth money. mean, it may be monster 7 million, but after you've sold it off for parts, mean, it's story as old as time, man.

Lieven (47:28.485)

No.

Joel Cheesman (47:38.978)

Take a business that's making money, cut it, cut it to shit, sell it for parts. And when, when there's no money left, you light a match and you burn it down for the insurance money. Watch good fellas for the, for the strategy. We'll see. We'll see. Rica is going to make a call. You guys are going to get into the Spanish, job board business. I can feel it. I can feel it. Let's talk about, Paris based. You'll discuss it. Yeah.

Lieven (47:39.014)

We'll see.

Lieven (47:50.63)

We'll see. Okay.

Chad (47:52.663)

Teleperformance.

Lieven (48:01.51)

I'm sure we'll discuss it.

Joel Cheesman (48:07.202)

You will. There you go. There you go. Info jobs. All right. Let's talk about Paris based teleperformance, a global outsourcing firm with 11 billion us dollars in 2024 revenue. They've acquired agents only a Vancouver based staffing company, specializing in online workers for AI data annotation and customer service. Chad, your thoughts on the teleperformance deal.

Chad (48:33.677)

This is evolution. mean, Tele-Performance is pretty much a slaughterhouse for anybody who's in the customer service business, right? I mean, they're the outsource, one of the biggest, if not the biggest outsource for customer service companies in the world. It's being able to move that, much like we talk about Amazon moving to robots in the warehouses, being able to move to agents.

to be able to slim headcount and to be able to actually slim headcount also push up your margins. It only makes sense. And so this is just basic evolution. see many sales companies doing this as well. So yeah, I mean, this is sign of the times, man. Talk about waves. is a huge wave and everybody's getting on this fucking wave.

Joel Cheesman (49:31.628)

Yeah, I was amazed at how much work and body manpower goes into annotation of AI data sets. Humans are really creating what's going on with AI. I mean, to me, this is like, let's buy a business that is human heavy, but has no really connection to these people. They're all freelancers. Let's get all the freelancers to train our AI models.

Chad (49:56.717)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (49:59.446)

And then when we're done with the people, we can just close down shop and they have this incredibly profitable AI business with tons of people that have gone into to create this thing in the first place. So for me, this is, this is pretty interesting. think customer service being a people business has a limited lifespan and AI is going to do a lot of these jobs. And if these guys can create the infrastructure.

through the people to create something that's incredibly valuable and they can scale it to other businesses. Like it's a potential gold mine and I think it's a really, really smart move by these guys.

Lieven (50:39.782)

I agree. I think it was buy, build or die and they bought. So I hope they bought the right thing.

Joel Cheesman (50:46.83)

Good point.

Joel Cheesman (50:52.642)

Good point. All right, let's go to a dad joke, shall we?

Chad (50:57.307)

Jesus.

Joel Cheesman (51:01.752)

Keeping with the French theme, everybody. What's the difference between a French woman and a basketball team? What's the difference between a French woman and a basketball team?

Chad (51:14.349)

I don't know that I wanna know.

Joel Cheesman (51:16.832)

A basketball team will shower after four periods.

Lieven (51:22.822)

Okay, there goes our last French listener.

Chad (51:25.313)

Yes.

Joel Cheesman (51:26.606)

They'll tune in for the chicken. We out.

Chad (51:32.129)

We out.

Lieven (51:32.198)

Cool. Cool. We out.