Grayscale Evolves & BLS Lies?

Everything is Two Weeks Away

This week on the Chad and Cheese Podcast, Chad is soaking up the vibes as "Euro Chad" in Portugal while JT is trapped in a New England "shoulder season" of snow, rain, and grumpy Americans. Together, they’re breaking down why the labor market looks like a mirage and why your middle manager might be the next endangered species.

• BLS' Job Report Illusion: The White House is spinning a "golden age" with antiquated BLS job numbers , but the duo reveals the data is heavily distorted by striking healthcare workers returning to payroll and seasonal corrections in construction.

  
  

• Paylocity’s Grayscale Grab: Paylocity acquires Grayscale, moving from simple SMS nudges to "AI agents" that handle the entire hiring lifecycle. Is this a strategic evolution or just an "aqua-hire" to keep up with the agentic arms race?.

  
  

• The ROTC Model for Nurses: Healthcare startup Clasp raises $20M by stealing a move from Uncle Sam. They are linking student loan repayment to employee tenure—a model Woodrow Wilson signed off on back in 1916.

  
  

• The Death of the Hierarchy: We tackle a "heady" manifesto from Jack Dorsey’s Block, arguing that remote-first work creates a "machine-readable" world where AI manages the context, rendering middle management layers unnecessary.

  
  

• Trade Show Truth-Bombs from Matt Charney for calling out the "fluff and ass-kissing" of vendor booths. If you aren’t letting your customers tell their stories on stage, you’re doing it all wrong.

  
  

Will AI finally flatten the org chart, or is money the only "honest signal" left in a world of spin?

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Chad Sowash (00:36.833)

Hell yeah. Welcome back to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad "You're doing it all wrong" Sowash.

JT ODonnell (00:45.654)

And I'm JT "Help me, it's shoulder season" O'Donnell.

Chad Sowash (00:49.359)

quarter season shoulder. Okay, we'll get to that. On this week's show, Grayscale is infectious. Clasp follows Uncle Sam's lead and are the people over at the BLS just making shit up?

Chad Sowash (01:10.957)

Welcome back. We're still here. We're still here. mean, the economy sucks, but on the brighter side, we sent Americans to the moon, around the moon. Kanye is blocked from the UK and World War III hasn't started yet. So, you I guess, counter blessings.

JT ODonnell (01:13.454)

Hello, hello. We're still here? We're still here every week.

JT ODonnell (01:34.54)

Yeah, we got a two weeks. Great. Awesome. Taco Tuesday.

Chad Sowash (01:36.911)

Dude So it was funny. I think it was john sturt one of the late night hosts might have been camel I don't know they did a montage of how Everything from a from a time frame standpoint for trump is two weeks whenever somebody asks him a question It's always two weeks and I didn't realize it and he literally they played this long montage of all the times when he was literally people were asking him questions or he was talking about, you know,

different things and it was always two weeks. I'm like, okay, I didn't I didn't realize there's a pattern. There's a pattern. There's a pattern. So yeah, but everything's two weeks. So what talk talk to me about the American shores where I'm here in sunny Portugal and kind of divorced from kind of like the not the global situation, but the American situation. What's it feel like?

JT ODonnell (02:14.648)

Amazing. There's a pattern. It's called a sound bite, right?

JT ODonnell (02:37.134)

And just in terms of the vibes, you know, I feel like everybody's angry, if I'm really being honest. Everybody's kind of short lately. You know, they're just kind of, they got to gripe with everything, you know. I've not found a whole lot of people who are cheery, upbeat, positive attitude. I think everyone as a whole is just kind of grinding and quite frankly, looking for summer because you know, summer comes and summer vibes and you can distract yourself, which is, you know, shoulder season is the

Chad Sowash (02:38.893)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (02:43.971)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (02:54.927)

Okay.

Chad Sowash (03:00.707)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

JT ODonnell (03:06.158)

definition between winter and full-blown summer, that yucky spring that New Englanders see. So we're in it now, and I think that just further complicates it, the bad weather wherever you are. But yeah, the vibe here is not good, my friend. So soak it up in Portugal.

Chad Sowash (03:19.789)

That's what Joel calls me Euro Chad when I'm here. So he always knew, he always knew when I was getting ready to go back to the States because about a week beforehand I'd start getting, I'd start getting a little bitchy, like a little, yeah, a little mad, a little mean. And then about two weeks before I would come back to Portugal, he'd say, you're getting into Euro Chad mode. And whenever I'm here, I'm much more light and relaxed.

JT ODonnell (03:32.714)

Nasty.

Chad Sowash (03:49.473)

So yeah, I know how that feels. I know the mood thing.

JT ODonnell (03:52.695)

Yeah, I get it. All those expats, it's growing and growing, right? Like all of you folks leave in and heading over there. I see it.

Chad Sowash (04:00.995)

We had more Americans come to Portugal last year than any other year. And that needs to stop because I came here to get away from Americans. I didn't come here to be surrounded by Americans. Okay, so can we stop that please? Thank you.

JT ODonnell (04:19.886)

Podcast prediction, within two years, Chad's gonna be announcing he's moving to a different country because Portugal has become America. Prediction now, throwing it in early.

Chad Sowash (04:27.599)

God, I hope not. hope not. Now it's too beautiful here. Anyway, let's go ahead. Let's talk a little bit about shoulder season and you've got some of that in your shout out.

JT ODonnell (04:38.126)

All right, this is more than a shout out that this is a plea. Anybody that lives in New England knows shoulder season is that time of year where the weather's just like, and there's not a lot to do. Great example. Yesterday it rained, snowed, rain snowed, rain snowed, rain snowed. We ended up with a whopping inch of snow when it was over. So you get a little stir crazy. My plea is please someone invite me to come speak at your company. We'll negotiate. Like I'll teach you everything you need to know about gaming LinkedIn.

Chad Sowash (04:52.714)

yeah.

JT ODonnell (05:07.308)

getting found, like getting your company found. I will literally just invite me someplace, but the only stipulation is it needs to be a direct flight. Please don't make me have to like fly to places because I'm notorious for getting stranded in random podunk places. So as long as it's direct, I'm your girl. Please, I'm begging you. Get me out of here.

Chad Sowash (05:27.087)

Plus with a husband being a pilot, you're probably a snob when it comes to air travel. No? Okay, okay.

JT ODonnell (05:34.542)

Ironically not, and I'll tell you why. He's a pilot for UPS. We don't have code share. I don't fly anywhere for free. I don't fly anywhere for free. Nope, they've got great benefits. Thank you UPS, but no, no, no, no. This girl has to pay her own way. So again, take me, pick me.

Chad Sowash (05:39.471)

really? Wow.

Chad Sowash (05:53.325)

Very nice, very nice. Okay, so just so you know, next week we expect on the events portion to hear that you've been picked up at a bunch of different places to get you the hell out of the rain, snow, rain, snow bullshit that you're dealing with there. My shout out this week goes to friend of the show and industry veteran, Matt Charney. Everybody loves a little Matt Charney, I know I do. Now he wrote an article entitled, Just Can't Quit You.

JT ODonnell (06:05.986)

Thank you.

JT ODonnell (06:12.426)

Yeah, everyone loves little Matt.

Chad Sowash (06:21.155)

Why do trade shows still exist? Now, Matt just got back from a couple of great back-to-back shows, Transform and Unleash, both in Vegas. Can you imagine two weeks in Vegas? mean, my, God. Dude, my three days is my limit in Vegas, right? Anyway, anyway, back to the title. The title really isn't about the shows themselves. It's about how vendors are using them. And here's an excerpt. Charney writes, quote,

JT ODonnell (06:32.33)

No, no, I'm going to be really honest there. Max.

Chad Sowash (06:50.551)

Imagine if teams use their booths less like lead traps and more like home base or that sessions were built around customer outcomes instead of, I don't know, product pitches, end quote. But this is just the tip of the iceberg to be quite frank. Joe and I have been saying this for years. Vendors have to understand that TA and HR tech is not a transactional sale.

Hiring companies are spending thousands, hundreds of thousands, and in some, spending millions on technology, and they don't spend that kind of cash on a whim. They don't create an RFP because they visited your fucking booth, or received a cold call from your over-charismatic sales god, right? So for any type of consideration, you need trust. And to gain trust, you need trusted voices. You need customer stories.

not your founder's vision story. Nobody wants to hear another founder drone on and on about how they woke up in the middle of the night and they jotted their company down on a napkin or some shit like that. No, you build products, allow your customers to tell their story on stage in front of their peers, and the main bits of the story should be about how you, your team, and your platform help that customer in their problems. You record those stories.

This is very, very, very easy. Record those stories and use them over and over and over. You gain new customers, new stories, you rinse and repeat. The message that I took from this story is that you're doing it all wrong. It's not about scanning fucking badges and demand generation unless you're selling a lower value product. So shout out to Matt Charney, another guy that says what he means without the fluff and ass kissing bullshit.

Cough Bersin Cough. Go ahead. Sorry. Yes.

JT ODonnell (08:49.039)

Can I, okay, so first of all, preach my friend, preach Charney, because how long have we understood the difference between features and benefits? And as you were just going on that explanation, they all get up and talk about their features. Who cares? What you're talking about is storytelling that provides emotional reaction to the benefits. It is such basic marketing that it is mind blowing that people haven't figured this out in a time where the biggest currency and the hardest thing to get is attention.

Chad Sowash (09:06.403)

Yes. Yes.

Chad Sowash (09:11.267)

Yes, easy.

JT ODonnell (09:17.549)

and you haven't figured out that storytelling around your benefits is the number one way to get the attention, I could not agree with you more. It's like crazy to me that they haven't figured this out.

Chad Sowash (09:27.939)

Whenever I hear that a vendor has like a lead on demand gen, just, I'm like, listen, demand generation is transactional, okay? You are in a relationship business. Unless you are, you do have really small value types of products, okay, great, you're selling job postings, okay, great, that's fine, totally get that.

But if you're selling technology and or services that cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, what the fuck are you doing? Like you said, the stories should be coming from the people that are the peers of the buyers that you want to actually connect with. It's so fucking simple.

JT ODonnell (10:15.097)

do you solve problems? How do you alleviate pain? Tell me the story. Let me feel it, right? And it doesn't happen. You're right. And it's unfortunate. And this is why people have their companies pay for them to go to conferences so that they can skip all of the presentations and just party. Because you already know what's going to be on stage. So let's fix this, people. You might get more butts and chairs at your session.

Chad Sowash (10:18.455)

Mm. Mm, mm, mm.

Chad Sowash (10:30.072)

I'm

Chad Sowash (10:35.481)

Well, and I gotta say, a lot of the conference operators, I know that getting ready to go to the RLX, we'll talk about that here in a few, but the RLX in Chicago, we just did one in the UK, and that is all peer and practitioner led. There are no presentations from vendors at all. It's all focused on pain, problems, and how some of these peers of yours might have gotten through that.

You know, we're starting to see that more from different operators, more companies on stage talking about their stories versus listening to a founder and or CEO. And guys, you got to understand this. Nobody gives a fuck what you have to say. We don't we don't need vision statements. We don't need to talk about the future of technology. I can hear that shit from Sam Altman and I know he's bullshitting me. So I know you're bullshitting me. Just put your clients on stage. Let's hear their stories.

JT ODonnell (11:33.487)

What's the bigger concern if you can't put clients on stage? Just saying.

Chad Sowash (11:37.327)

Yes. I tell you who's not concerned, people who sign up for free stuff.

Chad Sowash (11:57.006)

I am.

Chad Sowash (12:18.817)

I can't see the design, Stephen.

JT ODonnell (12:57.999)

Two comments. First of all, I love when he says, that's better, right? Because that's like kind of a Boston accent. But also, I didn't realize there was an L in the word craft when he says that word. I'm like, how does he get that L in there?

Chad Sowash (13:02.83)

Hahaha

Chad Sowash (13:13.017)

I don't know how they get a lot of these syllables and or words. it sounds amazing. I told Stephen, it's funny. Anybody from the UK, with that, from Europe, period. It doesn't matter if English is your first language or not. I always hear, well, I'm not sure that our sales team will do well if we go into, when we expand into the US because of our accents. It's like, are you fucking kidding me?

JT ODonnell (13:16.225)

It all sounds great. Right?

Chad Sowash (13:42.667)

Americans love European accents. Love. good God. Yeah.

JT ODonnell (13:45.215)

it. We'll buy anything from you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right. And also deliver us the bad news. And we're like, okay, yeah, it's coming.

Chad Sowash (13:55.053)

I heard from you so it must be okay. The good news is...

Chad Sowash (14:01.903)

Well, at least I'm going somewhere for shoulder season. As, as always travel is sponsored by our friends over at Shaker recruitment marketing. That's shaker.com. Later next week, I'll be headed back to the U S because on April 20 through the 21st, Joe and I will be attending paradoxes client board, a little shin dig with about a hundred paradox clients where they get together and they talk best practices. We just talked about that. Check out.

new paradox wears and it's a perfect opportunity. Sit down with Chad and Cheese and do what? Record another season of the AI sessions, kids. That's right. The AI sessions are going to be, they're still going strong. We've got the first three seasons that are out there on YouTube or you can go to thesessions.ai and this is where we talked about those stories, those stories from real companies. That's where they happen.

JT ODonnell (14:56.739)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (14:58.029)

So check it out at the sessions.ai. Then right after that on April 22nd, I'm heading over to PetSmart's headquarters to have an Ask Me Anything session with the National Retail Federation. I hope they ask me about my favorite whiskeys and maybe they'll have some for me. Hint. I love Blanton's. And last but never least.

JT ODonnell (15:16.175)

Hint hint.

Chad Sowash (15:24.387)

We're going to the RLX in Chicago. Just went to the one in the UK a couple of weeks ago. It was amazing. This is happening the 28th through the 30th. It's another two day TA leader led event and we'll be rubbing elbows with a room full of more than 50 TA leaders like Ford, Nordstrom, Johnson Controls, Ace Hardware, KPMG. You know you're jealous. You know you're jealous. But you don't have to be jealous. Just head over to ChadCheese.com slash events.

and join us. We've got plenty of cool events around there. You're going to be coming with us to some events this year. What's the first event you're coming with us? Do know?

JT ODonnell (16:05.631)

I think we're back in London, right? That's probably the next one. Would I not come back to London? Are you kidding me? That's my new second home. Love me some London.

Chad Sowash (16:08.057)

Are you coming back to London? Okay, that's what I'm talking about.

Yes, love London. So we've got London coming up. That's a rec fest in July, but we got we got more pressing pressing news.

Chad Sowash (16:30.063)

Okay, let me pre apologize for the for this first segment because it's going to be very sarcastic. Okay, it's going to be very sarcastic. So kind of kind of kind of understand that going on. Okay, so an Associated Press report details a significant and unexpected surge in US job growth last month, March 2026 after a dismal February, which was revised as a loss of 133,000 jobs in March.

JT ODonnell (16:33.231)

you

you

Mm.

Chad Sowash (16:59.235)

the labor market bounced back, though economists warn that external factors may cloud the future outlook.

Chad Sowash (17:15.935)

I then thought, sorry, who listens to a fake news AP? I went over to whitehouse.gov to get my real news. And this is what I got. Quote, talking about the jobs report. It crushed expectations again. The economy added 178,000 new jobs in March, nearly triple the number economists had forecast.

delivering yet another powerful validation of President Trump's pro-growth agenda and demonstrating the resilience of the American labor market under his leadership." JT, is this the new golden age as the White House says it is? Talk to me.

JT ODonnell (18:01.835)

my gosh, I feel like if you went to the dictionary and looked up the definition of spin, there would be the hyperlink to that page. You know this infuriates me. Literally, the jobs report makes me want to drink it 8.30 in the morning when it comes out. I'm not kidding. Because of the fact that people just don't understand it, right? So for example, they're like, the reason is everybody that was on strike last month, lost jobs, is now back. That's no new job creation. Somehow people think that this is...

Chad Sowash (18:09.081)

Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Sowash (18:16.943)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

JT ODonnell (18:30.383)

brand new job creation. They don't understand that it's based on payrolls and what's going on. They also don't break it out by white collar versus blue collar by a different industry. It's such a bogus number. And based on what we've seen, let's talk pendulum. So we were down 190 something, now we're up to 90 something. So next month we're going to be down 400. We're just going to see a swing back to it. We're going to revise those numbers and we actually lost this amount. I'm just so sick.

Chad Sowash (18:54.745)

Yes.

JT ODonnell (18:56.877)

of the data. can't believe we don't live in a time where the data can't be better constructed. It's a fury. And then as someone that works with job seekers every day, then they come to me confused. I don't get it though. We got 293,000 new jobs, JT. Why can't I get a job? It's so disheartening to put that kind of bogus data out there.

Chad Sowash (19:11.66)

No, we don't.

Chad Sowash (19:17.295)

It is. It is. And it's why I had to be so sarcastic. So I didn't scream at my mic starting off. OK, so this is without the sarcasm, kids. Health care, which JT has talked about the seventy six thousand health care jobs added in March. It's heavily distorted. Thirty five thousand of those roles were simply Kaiser Permanente workers returning from a strike.

36, or I'm sorry, 35,000, okay? And healthcare is our strongest industry with regard to growth, period, okay? The Mirage, in the eyes of the BLS, these count as newly hired, I'm using air quotes, because they weren't on the payroll during February survey. The reality of it is, no new economic value or employment capacity was created. The labor market,

Simply returned to its January baseline same as it ever was so it wasn't growth kids on the construction side of the house 26,000 construction jobs gained but Over the last 12 months construction employment has shown zero growth the March surge 26,000 was literally crews returning to job sites once the snow melted. It's a seasonal correction. It's not an industry boom then we've got

Well, everybody's thinking about Trump's war in Iran. A big piece of context in the timing of this data collection, right? The survey was conducted during the first two weeks of March, just as Trump's war with Iran was beginning to escalate. Now the lag, the jobs report is a lagging indicator. It doesn't yet reflect the massive spike in oil prices, which surged past $4 a gallon shortly after the survey.

or the resulting freeze in corporate hiring. The mirage, the numbers show a pre-war somewhat stability that no longer exists in the current to late April economic climate. And last but not least, the no higher stagflation. Jolt or the job openings and labor turnover survey, data paints a much bleaker picture than the payroll report.

Chad Sowash (21:40.079)

Hiring rates have plummeted to levels reminiscent of the Great Recession. The mirage is maintained by low layoffs, but the engine of the economy, new hiring, has effectively been stalled. So we need to go into all of these data points spewed by the White House and everybody else that's out there with eyes wide open and several, and I mean several trusted sources to fall back on. You can't go to one.

you have to have several trusted sources, which is why we do this on the Chad and Cheese podcast. So we can be one of your trusted sources. One of them, remember? One of them. What do think?

JT ODonnell (22:20.227)

I agree. And right, we've seen that Oracle laid off 30,000 last week. Today, this morning, Amazon's talking about another 14,000 next month. So we've had 61,000 layoffs in tech last month alone in March. So where this data, it's not reflective of the true numbers, right? That's what we have to keep saying. And I hope people pay attention to it, but I love your comment about one source.

Chad Sowash (22:25.806)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (22:30.476)

Cheers.

Chad Sowash (22:34.895)

Mmm.

JT ODonnell (22:46.713)

multiple sources, we can't just trust the first thing we hear for sure. And that's sadly what a lot of job seekers do. folks, educate them, help me out. Help the job seekers out, make them understand more clearly what's happening out there because they see those surface numbers and they take them incorrectly and it's sad.

Chad Sowash (23:03.951)

Yeah. And when we were doing our before LinkUp got acquired, they were sponsored and then they got acquired. We were doing the jobs report and Toby Dayton was actually talking about real now data, not lacking indicators, but right now, right? Aspen Tech Labs is doing that as well. So we have LinkUp who still and Toby still writes about it. Aspen Tech Labs sponsor of the show.

JT ODonnell (23:19.949)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (23:33.999)

They have they also have a product where they're not focused on 30 days back They're talking about right now and they can give you kind of like somewhat of a predictive index. So there there are Opportunities again in different sources to be able to understand what the job market really looks like And again, that's not perfect because as you'd said before there are jobs that aren't posted

that are out there for companies who don't have to meet federal requirements. And then there are jobs that are just lying out there that are quote unquote green that we've always debated for over 20 years if they're actually real or if they're literally just bait to be able to get applicants in. So there are always going to be fringes. But again, more than one source is always good.

JT ODonnell (24:27.96)

Amen.

Chad Sowash (24:28.949)

Excellent, we'll be right back.

yeah, kids, if you have not liked and subscribed, what are you thinking? What are you doing? Like and subscribe to the show. Put a comment in there, good, bad, indifferent. It doesn't matter. We love to hear from you guys whether you agree with us, whether you don't agree with us. That's what this show is all about because we don't always agree. Let's go ahead and go on to Grayscale, who was acquired by Paylocity. Paylocity announced the acquisition of Grayscale, an AI-powered

JT ODonnell (24:55.106)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (25:01.591)

recruiting automation company that helps businesses hire at scale, move faster with crazy quality. That's why I'm gonna put that in there. As expectations for speed, responsiveness, effectiveness, and candidate experience continue to rise, high volume hiring has become increasingly complex. Delays between recruiting steps can slow momentum and lead candidates to withdraw.

Grayscale explains, expands, and loved by Paylocity their new recruiting capabilities with AI-powered recruiting automation that helps employers engage candidates earlier and move faster through time-sensitive hiring workflows. It's all about the agentic. Agentic, agentic. JT, do you think this was a Saks Fifth Avenue or a TJ Maxx kind of sale?

JT ODonnell (25:52.398)

Yes.

JT ODonnell (25:59.843)

You know, I don't know if I'd wait on to the level of it as much as it's just another aqua hire, right? It's a company that got their AI to the point that they could showcase that it was a nice little plugin to a company that needed more of an end-to-end solution. I think we're going to see a ton of that this year. By the way, I'm here for it. You know, if I had my free time, I'd be spinning up some agentic stuff in our space. We are actually building something on the side for LinkedIn for that reason.

because there's just an opportunity to then plug into a much larger process. So that's how I read that. The moment I read that, that's an aqua hire and a way to tack that in. But here's the thing. I worry about how many companies are overpaying for this stuff because they're feeling this race to have it. And so here's this pre-made thing, let me grab it. But now you're taking on technical debt.

Chad Sowash (26:28.687)

Nice.

Chad Sowash (26:48.719)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (26:55.808)

And so the ability to pivot or work with it, now you're inheriting that and everything that's going to go with it. And I've seen a couple agentic platforms, people doing startups and they had to iterate, iterate, iterate. And all of a sudden they were way left field of where they were. And if they want to get back, that's a problem. I don't know. can't, I don't, I think that's a roll of the die. I get why they're doing it, but I don't think there's a clear path that, this is going to make you millions of dollars. When in reality, something better and cheaper could come along in a matter of months. So.

It feels a little risky to me, but I understand why they're doing it.

Chad Sowash (27:28.313)

which is good reason for AquaCyre. So we recorded a firing squad with Ty Abernathy, Grayscale CEO that dropped on January 5th, 2022. So a few years ago, which means it was recorded in late 2021. Back then, Ty was selling Grayscale as an SMS engagement platform for high volume hiring. know, nudging people before the interview, before their first day, that kind of stuff. What is Grayscale today?

From the website it reads, Grayscale boasts the ability to deploy AI agents that complete real hiring work across the entire hiring lifecycle, from sourcing to apply to onboarding inside the ATS you already trust. Not a chat bot, not a point solution, and execution layer for modern hiring. Grayscale went from an SMS platform focused on high volume

great place to start by the way, and then pivoted into agents and orchestration on the frontline side. Something that every big system needs. Refer back to SAP acquiring smart recruiters and Workday acquiring paradox, right? Frontline employees do not live on their computer all day, which means they need a system to engage them via mobile and what's better than a chat bot slash agent slash an orchestration layer.

JT ODonnell (28:40.307)

Yep. 100%.

Chad Sowash (28:56.973)

That also lays the groundwork for every other type of position that's out there because if you solve for the hard part, frontline engagement, the rest of it falls into line. Plus, much like my Mallorca tapes episodes, if you haven't watched those kids, go watch them on YouTube, watch them on YouTube, where I actually spoke with Smart Recruiters executive team where we talked about Winston moving further into the SAP stack.

JT ODonnell (29:14.412)

love the Mallorca Fives. Love them.

Chad Sowash (29:26.255)

grayscale, orchestration can move past frontline hiring into onboarding, into employee development, and into a thousand different areas. This is going to be the conductive tissue of some of that older tech. And when we start talking about tech debt, as you had talked about earlier, these types of technologies are gonna be a hell of a lot more fluid, where you can actually bring up, and I know talking to a really good friend of mine, Chris Long,

JT ODonnell (29:44.814)

Hmm

Chad Sowash (29:55.661)

where they built agents for an organization and they didn't have a problem killing agents off because they were starting to go rogue, right? And this was early days of creating AI a few years back, especially on the agents side of the house. I think they started calling it decommissioning instead of killing because killing wasn't good. But other than that, they could spin up new agents pretty quickly, right?

JT ODonnell (30:12.175)

Mm.

Chad Sowash (30:23.439)

And that's the thing, if you have the capabilities and you have the individuals, much like Ty and his team, that are focused on the agentic side of the house and you have these old databases, that's okay, because databases are really just storage warehouses, right? If those agents know where to go in, where to pick up the data, to pull it out and move on forward, that's great. Instead of a human being doing it, you're just moving that over to...

you're just moving that over to an agent. I mean, back in the days of 2022 when we gave Ty a big applause, I gotta say, way to go kid, great job. Personally, I don't think this was a TJ Maxx kind of thing. I don't know what he got for it, although.

This is what every company needs to be doing right now. And I think to be quite frank, we've talked about this on the show for years. It's always been a build partner buy kind of scenario. I think build is going away unless you actually buy the partner and then that smaller chunk of people come in and become a piece of that organization that literally just run this part of the business.

JT ODonnell (31:50.219)

I'm going to stop you there because based on what we just heard, it went build buy. I think you're seeing a massive I think we're seeing a much bigger trend of build to buy and the partner phase is going to – people are going to skip the partner phase out of the necessity that you keep talking about because everyone's going, okay, well, what's left? What can I buy that's decent? So it's going to go from people are building right now, which is again why I said if I had free time, I'd be building right now because I think if you build and have proof of concept, they won't even bother with the partner stage. It'll be like, let me grab you.

Chad Sowash (31:51.748)

Go ahead.

Chad Sowash (31:55.747)

What's that?

Chad Sowash (32:20.003)

Yeah, well, here's the thing. Yeah, I don't think the big companies are gonna build. I think they're going to actually, yeah, think, yes, that's what I mean. I think the build's gonna go away for the enterprise platforms, and they're literally just gonna partner or buy. I think if they're smart, they're going to be able to identify who they wanna buy very quickly because that company might not be on the market very long.

JT ODonnell (32:20.141)

So my shout out to everybody is there's opportunity right now. That's what I think people should take away.

JT ODonnell (32:27.649)

No. Bye. Same page.

JT ODonnell (32:35.378)

JT ODonnell (32:39.469)

or buy 100%.

JT ODonnell (32:46.137)

There it is.

Chad Sowash (32:49.403)

But yeah, that's to be able to clarify. I don't think the big companies are going to be building their own shit anymore. They're going to be buying other organizations that focus on that, much like SAP with smart recruiters, Workday and Paradox. And they're going to allow those organizations underneath to literally just build orchestration.

JT ODonnell (32:49.443)

There it is.

JT ODonnell (33:09.68)

Yeah, fair, agreed. Totally agree.

Chad Sowash (33:12.793)

Good job, Todd, good job. And also good job to CLASP, who raised $20 million. JT Healthcare is one of the only industries that has consistently demonstrated growth over, I don't know how many years, but as long as I can remember, which is probably why CLASP, a company that helps healthcare employees build long-term talent pipelines by connecting with clinicians before graduation.

JT ODonnell (33:19.097)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (33:41.355)

and tying student loan repayment, ooh, that's nice, to tenure, announced a $20 million Series B, led by CrossLink Capital and Digitalis Ventures. What a name, Digitalis. Driven by demand for its ROTC model, retention over turnover cost and model. So if you know anything about ROTC,

It's actually a military term. And if you don't mind, JT, can I, can I go ahead and jump into this? Okay. So the U S military's version of ROTC is the reserve officers training core and using the U S military as a model to attract and develop talent is something that we've talked about on the show for years, whether it's the GI bill and army college fund models where the U S government creates an education fund for the employee while you're on the job.

JT ODonnell (34:12.995)

Dive in.

Chad Sowash (34:36.717)

that accrues monthly or the Reserve Officers Training Corps, ROTC model, which foots the bill while you're in school and then you repay Uncle Sam later with your service, your work. Both trade your time for education and give you a better educated and more nimble workforce. Unfortunately, most companies have gotten away from these models over the past four to five decades.

as most have been chasing bigger revenues, fatter margins and juicier EBITDA instead of developing their talent, which would have led to innovation, better products and all the things listed above, but at a more forward thinking life. So JT, what do you think about Clasp?

JT ODonnell (35:27.661)

Yeah. So first let's talk about the investment. So I believe you said it was a series B round, 20 million. My initial reaction to that was, wow, that's not a huge amount of money, right? When you can think about, but at the same time, I love it when companies don't take too much money, right? Because we've often seen companies take way too much money. know what happens there. So was like, okay, here's the thing though. I come from a family of nurses, my sister's a nurse practitioner and now also a professor. Where I get excited about this is

Chad Sowash (35:42.446)

Yes.

Chad Sowash (35:45.932)

Yes.

Chad Sowash (35:52.836)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (35:55.119)

We do have a healthcare shortage. We've known about this for a long time. It is going to worsen as we age, right? We're not having as many children. It's pretty scary to get old in America in terms of who's going to take care of us, healthcare, et cetera. So when I think about what she went through, when she went back to school to become a practitioner, what she sees now, these students are very focused on how am I going to get my debt paid and where is the best place to work? And if we're going to get more people into healthcare,

that gets exciting to me if we can be saying the whole time you're in school, we're figuring out a way to manage your debt and getting you introduced to the right opportunities. Because what I have noticed is they tend to do an internship and then that's usually the first place they go work because they're just so busy learning. There's not a lot of exploring all the places that I could work. And so if this model is going to include something like that, I think that gets super exciting for these candidates so that they can.

find that place because I noticed a lot of job hopping in healthcare. They get some place, this is what I thought, and that hurts the system as well. So very interesting. I think it was a conservative fund and I think that's good. And I really do hope that's where it's going based on what I know about the healthcare employment market.

Chad Sowash (37:08.463)

Yeah, I just from the military model, you go in for four years and pretty much your debt's paid, right? So you get that whether it's GI Army, you know, the Army College Fund or Air Force College Fund or what have you. It's about $100,000. Kind of nice, right? To go to your education and or you go to the ROTC side of the house and you go to school. And while you're going to school, the military is paying for your school and then you go ahead and pay that on the back end with your time.

JT ODonnell (37:15.214)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (37:24.547)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (37:36.473)

but usually again, you're talking about four years or so. So at that four year timeframe, you can go wherever the hell you want, but again, you still have a commitment to that organization till you get there. This from the release, quote, Clasp was by these early commitment models and applies the structure to healthcare through loan linked hiring where employers,

commit to clinicians before graduation and repay their student loans over time in exchange for tenure. Instead of relying on a large upfront bonus, employers invest over time. They'll have to give that big bonus, resulting in more stable teams, better retention that are significantly higher than the traditional models." End quote. Here's the rub. The military's ROTC program, which this was predicated on, officially created by Congress

JT ODonnell (38:18.232)

Big check up front.

Chad Sowash (38:32.451)

with the passage of the National Defense Act of 1916. It was signed by President Woodrow fucking Wilson, June 3rd, 1916. We've had these models in place forever. None of this is new, whether it is healthcare, whether it is HVAC, whether it is construction, whatever it might be, right? Civil engineering, those types of things. Engineers are big. There's no reason why companies

cannot adopt these types of models to be able to attract great talent and not have to pay them huge upfront bonuses, right? And then, and literally that's what a talent pipeline is. When you're going into a school and you're getting those kids on board and those kids are committing to you for years and you're committing to them, I'm gonna pay for your education. And then you get three or four years.

with them, you get a chance to actually earn that relationship and that trust, not because you paid for their education, but because you're a great employer and they're a great employee, right? We've really lost that relationship and it's turned into what I like to call, you know, disposable heroes, my favorite Metallica song, where literally we're seeing talent as disposable these days and we've got to get away.

from that thought process, that mindset.

JT ODonnell (40:03.648)

Okay, in the healthcare industry, I think this works exceptionally well. I think there are certain industries where you know you're always going to need those live bodies, those humans in place. Where I don't see this fitting in every business model actually is with what you've said, which is there are some companies that by their nature will have to be so freaking agile going forward, agile in ways we've never seen before. And we're already seeing it. Large companies will no longer be large companies. They're shedding, shedding, shedding.

Chad Sowash (40:12.141)

Yeah.

Chad Sowash (40:16.977)

no.

Chad Sowash (40:30.275)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (40:30.73)

So for companies to be able to say, I guarantee there'll be a job here for you for four years. A lot of business models cannot support that. That being said, I'm excited that companies are getting to that desperation point where they're starting to revisit old models, because I think the other old model we're going to start to see is apprenticeships. And I'm here for it. So there are, if it's not this model, I think what you're saying resonates. There is another proven model out there. Go look up, go back to the history books, see what's out there so that we can start to fix this because

Chad Sowash (40:47.309)

Mm.

JT ODonnell (40:59.31)

It's not a one size fits all, but there's things out there you could be doing.

Chad Sowash (41:02.927)

And I think what you had just talked about because you know these companies are gonna pivot and they're gonna need new types of skills I agree hundred percent but I I think we should be using our own talent to be able to pivot and develop them into new into new into new positions into new types of jobs instead of being an Amazon or Oracle getting rid of 30,000 for God's sakes

So I think there's no question, this is not a one size fits all for any company, but I think being able to take elements of this, to be able to not have to go and hire somebody, but have somebody who's been with you for two or three years and give them an opportunity, give them an opportunity to either go ahead and hit the bricks or come in and develop for this new position. We're not doing that, unfortunately. It's more mass layoffs.

We need less of that, but we do need a little time to breathe. Be right back.

JT ODonnell (42:02.242)

Hahaha!

Chad Sowash (42:08.097)

Okay, this one's gonna get deep kids. I sent this out to the group and JT liked it so much I had to include it, but it is very heady. So I tried to dumb this down as much as possible for me, not for you the listener, but for me, so that we could actually get through this.

JT ODonnell (42:27.79)

Before you interject, I just want to mind everybody that he sent this and by the time I opened it was the point of the day where my brain could barely function. It's so deep, but it was so good. So stick with him. Just stick with him on this

Chad Sowash (42:42.063)

Stick with it, okay. So there's a great article on Block entitled Hierarchy to Intelligence, co-authored by Jack Dorsey. They go through the history of hierarchy as a structure to provide command and control to armies, then inserting general staff into the equation as that becomes to get bigger and the need is more complex. Then org charts and matrix organizations.

really all get to the following, which is what they're gonna talk about, what we're gonna talk about today is going from hierarchy to what Block is saying is intelligence. And here's a quote from the article. Quote, Block is remote first. Everything we do creates artifacts, decisions, discussions, code, designs, plans, problems, and progress all exist as recorded actions. It's the raw material for a company's

world model, AKA a base of overall knowledge. In a traditional company, a manager's job is to know what's happening across their team and relay that context up and down the chain. In a remote first company, where work is already machine readable, AI can build and maintain the picture continuously, which means they don't need those middle management layers. What's being built where

resources are allocated, what's working and why it isn't. That's the information that the hierarchy used to carry. The company world model carries it instead. JT, what the actual fuck are we talking about?

JT ODonnell (44:27.852)

know, right? So seriously, you're like 17 paragraphs in going, land this plane, Jack Dorsey, land this plane. What are you talking about in this thing? And then it finally comes together at the very end, you know? So please stick with it. But I do love the visual. I had to sit back as I read it and said, okay, so eight people live in a tent together out, you know, in a war and they're led by

Chad Sowash (44:32.409)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please.

JT ODonnell (44:52.552)

and the whole reporting structure and pointing out most people can only manage three to eight reports. Really insightful and smart and talking about that hierarchy and then adding in the specialties and cross functionality and how that all came together. I love that story because you literally found yourself imagining war and then imagining a corporation. It was interesting. Where he lands the plan on the back end, for me at least, was

Look, we're going to decide which of all those different roles AI has and which a human is going to keep. And I think we've known that for quite a while that that's going to have to figure itself out. But what I think about is everything that happened when you started out in the trenches to become that general. And when we lose all that, when we do decide to give that to AI, how do those people that start out in the trenches

get any time to build that knowledge to know how to lead. And that part, I'm very interested to see how he believes that will be handled. Because again, this brings me back. There's such a gap there, such a gap there. And as the brain drain retires or dies, let's face it, where's it going? Who's going to take over? Is it going to be this AI that you train? So it's at the top and all the people are in the trenches like.

It's not, the math is not mathing for me on that. And so I'm super intrigued to see where they go. What did you think?

Chad Sowash (46:24.655)

Well, first off, that excerpt talked about a variety of company artifacts, which allows information to flow without the need of real management structure. It flattens an organization, right? So you have literally pieces, parts, and you might have teams, and or you might just have a, depending on your organization, you might just have a bunch of individuals that's being managed by this AI.

JT ODonnell (46:32.546)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (46:52.621)

because the AI understands from a product standpoint and also from a timeline standpoint, a project plan, those types of things where you need to be, where you are, so on and so forth. And since you are doing work in a system, it knows exactly where you're at and what you're So you don't need that middle management anymore. It's done. Now, the second aspect of it. So this is literally about flattening the organization because the reason why the Romans and all the different

JT ODonnell (47:08.099)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (47:13.218)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (47:21.871)

the different armies had to create more layers, it was because they were building bigger militaries, bigger armies and so on and so forth. And they had to have command and control over that. How did you do that? You needed those management layers that were in there. Now the second part, this quote, the capability of the system is only as good as the quality of the customer signal feeding it and money.

Is the most honest signal in the world people lie on surveys They ignore ads they abandon carts, but when they spend save send borrow or repay That's the truth Every transaction is a fact about somebody's life the richer the signal The better the model the better the model the more the transactions the more the transactions the richer the signal end quote Then that part

was more like minority report. Spending money is all that matters. That's what it boiled down to from a business standpoint. If you don't like the service, you won't be back. If you did, you won't just be back, you'll buy more. It's fascinating how binary these seemingly complex discussions become. Society literally devolves into

JT ODonnell (48:20.418)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (48:49.486)

Because we can't hold space for multiple ideas. People just, you know, it's that reptilian brain that just wants to codify something and decide black or white, yes or no. It's just, we're so built for that, to oversimplify something instead of living in the gray. And so I just found, I said he was landing it, but it came back to exactly what you said. You know, here we go. It's about the money. Show me the money. And we'll make all those decisions. And it's just so much more than that. It's going to be so much more than that.

Chad Sowash (48:58.712)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (49:13.529)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (49:19.374)

mean, honestly, somebody told me that there's a documentary out now, and I'm not going to pronounce it right, where they're an apocalypticist, meaning they understand that the apocalypse is upon us, but they're optimistic about what it will do. And I've always said, the bigger the disruption, the bigger the innovation, the bigger the opportunity. And we have just been living in it. COVID brought it around. Now this is bringing it around. We're training people to really live in that apocalypticism. I can't say that right.

Chad Sowash (49:19.48)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (49:49.167)

But I think that could be a good thing, but it requires you to realize it's just not black and white. There's so much bad going on right now, but somewhere in there you also have to see the opportunity because we have to. We have to keep going. But to oversimplify it down to money, I'm with you. I guess you needed to end. It was such an epic novel that… Let me just finish this thing up. Bow on top.

Chad Sowash (49:58.969)

Mm-hmm.

Chad Sowash (50:14.751)

Yeah, really quickly. It's about the money and Well, usually I don't do this but I think it's necessary this week with all of this kind of news that's happening. I have a dad joke Yeah, yeah, I've Huh? No, there's no there's no no no no no, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. Okay, What's the least?

JT ODonnell (50:17.614)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (50:27.572)

no! I thought it was free! I thought it was free of the dad joke this week.

Chad Sowash (50:43.943)

spoken language. What is the least spoken language?

Chad Sowash (50:56.057)

She's shaking her head, she doesn't know. Sign language.

JT ODonnell (50:56.27)

clue. I don't know.

JT ODonnell (51:01.198)

Ouch.

Chad Sowash (51:02.735)

All right, guys, thanks a lot for joining in. Subscribe. We love you and we out.

JT ODonnell (51:05.337)

Thank you. We out.