Will ICIMS AI Coalesce?
- Chad Sowash
- 5 hours ago
- 43 min read
War headlines are messing up vacation plans, fast-food CEOs are embarrassing themselves on TikTok, and apparently the future of HR tech is… new logos and AI buzzwords.
On this episode, the gang digs into iCIMS’ shiny new rebrand and “Coalesce AI,” or is it Colace? Indeed finally hired a CTO after years of flying without one, and the never-ending carousel of leadership changes across HR tech. Plus: AI layoffs, ad campaigns made entirely by robots, and why some companies still think a new color palette counts as innovation.
Grab a drink becasue this one gets spicy.
Topics teased in the episode
iCIMS gets a makeover… but will a new logo fix the product?
Indeed finally hires a CTO (only took a 4 years)
AI layoffs vs. AI retraining: the corporate spin cycle
Deel vs. Rippling ad campaigns
And why “Responsible AI” might just be the industry’s newest buzzword
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Joel Cheesman (00:31.288)
Ohhhh Yeahhhhh, we like our oatmeal lumpy. What's up kids? It's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Epic Fury Cheesman.
Chad Sowash (00:40.856)
This is Chad, where's my dog, Sowash?
Emi Beredugo (00:43.918)
And this is Emi, I am super stuffed today. Where would you go?
Joel Cheesman (00:49.72)
this episode of HR's Most Naughty Podcast, iCIMS gets a makeover, Indeed gets a CTO, and Jack Dorsey gets lean and mean. Let's do this.
Emi Beredugo (00:52.846)
You
Chad Sowash (01:04.66)
Epic fucking fury. Can we just stop breaking stuff? Can we stop? Can we stop breaking stuff? I... Yeah, stop it. Stop it.
Joel Cheesman (01:06.336)
So I miss one week and war breaks out. This is what happens.
Emi Beredugo (01:07.086)
Thank
Don't go away again. Don't go away. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (01:14.604)
Don't, don't go, don't go away. Say what you say. Sorry, you set that up so nicely. mean, we didn't even plan that. So yeah, war, war has broken out everybody and the Europeans, how are you feeling? How are you feeling about being sort of close to bombs and missiles flying?
Emi Beredugo (01:17.646)
Hahaha!
That is a beautiful voice there. I did. Honestly.
Chad Sowash (01:21.912)
Ahhhh... Yeah.
Chad Sowash (01:35.573)
I did.
Emi Beredugo (01:35.605)
I'm.
To be honest, I'm pissed off, you know, because I'm supposed to be going to Sri Lanka in a week and a half. I was honestly, and I was sitting there with my mum this weekend and she was like, how long is the flight? And I said, it's going to be 13 hours. And then with a stopover. And then I suddenly went, shit, the stopover is in Abu Dhabi. I'm not going, I'm not stopping over in Abu Dhabi. Yeah, these flights are not going ahead. And this is after literally.
Chad Sowash (01:44.748)
Look at this impact.
Chad Sowash (01:58.403)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (02:05.92)
a week almost every single day planning a multi-stop tour across Sri Lanka and I was like I've just wasted all that time for no reason. I had no idea that Trump was going to impact my life in this way, my holiday plan. So yeah, I'm pissed. Yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:20.098)
that most most people don't even American but now it's it's it's beyond that so yeah if you take a look at flight patterns it's really interesting because I was looking at flight pattern yesterday and obviously they have to go outside so everything is literally streaming into like a funnel where usually we just go over you know the different airspace and now they're streaming into a funnel so it's like I mean you just can't get that many airplanes through that yeah that that little area so yeah it's gonna suck
Emi Beredugo (02:26.968)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (02:37.08)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (02:48.226)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:50.176)
I mean, I don't know what it's going to mean long term for flight patterns. Obviously, going to depend on how long this this bullshit takes.
Emi Beredugo (02:57.196)
Yeah, I mean, I know people who went to Dubai on holiday. They are stuck out there. They've got to come home. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (03:03.286)
I friends in Bangkok right now. Yeah, I've got friends in Bangkok right now. They're they're stuck. Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous.
Emi Beredugo (03:09.826)
Yeah, it's just, honestly, it makes me so angry, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (03:13.208)
surprisingly CNN this morning in the States had British Parliament on, which never happens. It's so entertaining to watch British Parliament. There's nothing in the world like the chaos of people yelling at each other and the speaker reprimanding people. I was great. like, I can read lips. You're out of here if you keep talking that shit. That's my British accent, everybody, by the way.
Chad Sowash (03:19.777)
You
Emi Beredugo (03:19.808)
Emi Beredugo (03:30.956)
It's big of a house. Yeah. Love it.
Chad Sowash (03:41.314)
Joe, think a couple of weeks ago, you were talking about the ways that Trump will go to be able to try to bury the Epstein files.
Emi Beredugo (03:51.438)
yeah.
Joel Cheesman (03:52.12)
Where you go? And he was, and he's, he's talking about it. You can't have an election if you're at war. And I mean, it's, it's fucking chaos. By the way, I was a year off on the prediction of war with Iran. Uh, like two years ago with leaving, uh, I don't know if it's a prediction, but we talked about it. Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't think this ends anytime soon. I think this is a, this is a fucking quagmire. And what I've heard is
Chad Sowash (03:57.265)
yeah.
Emi Beredugo (03:59.938)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (03:59.991)
Yeah, go for
Emi Beredugo (04:04.6)
you predicted it, did you? Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (04:13.515)
No, die.
Joel Cheesman (04:18.968)
They're launching drones so they can sort of empty our stock of interceptor missiles and then the real shit starts coming. yeah, it could get interesting. China can't be happy with what's going on. They can't be happy at all. Nobody's happy. But strategically, is really probably not.
Chad Sowash (04:24.972)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (04:28.504)
great.
Chad Sowash (04:32.128)
I... Well... Nobody's fucking happy. I mean, nobody's happy.
Emi Beredugo (04:33.229)
Bye.
Chad Sowash (04:40.898)
Well, and then you take a look at you take a look at him saying that, you know, well, we're to have to have boots on the ground. I OK, I this is this is not going to this is not going to go.
Emi Beredugo (04:41.453)
and
Joel Cheesman (04:52.428)
Yeah, I know.
Emi Beredugo (04:52.525)
And I'm pretty sure he said he wasn't going to do that when he got elected. Yeah, he went back.
Chad Sowash (04:55.936)
There's nothing he said during the election that is
Joel Cheesman (04:56.15)
Yeah.
Chad, I know Megyn Kelly's probably not on your list of to-dos, but she has an interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie is like the ultimate MAGA, no wars and everything, and she just goes off. It's very entertaining. I know Megyn Kelly isn't on your hit list, but do yourself a favor and it's a pretty funny, interview. Almost as funny, just switch the topic.
Emi Beredugo (05:04.717)
you
Chad Sowash (05:11.202)
Trailer trash Barbie. Okay.
Emi Beredugo (05:18.355)
Really?
Chad Sowash (05:20.872)
no, my god. Yes. Please.
Joel Cheesman (05:28.81)
You're over there in Europe and they have McDonald's there. Last I checked. have you seen the big arch tasting by McDonald's CEO? Have you seen it's taken tick tock and social by storm.
Emi Beredugo (05:40.46)
Bye.
Chad Sowash (05:41.217)
Yeah, so I watched Garen. If you watch TikTok and there's this Irish influencer, his name's Garen. He's a big dude. He's got long hair. He's follow me. I'm delicious. That's like his byline. He is fucking hilarious. Well, he does the overview for that and that is the best video. And then once you see that, I mean, it's like it's stuck in your head. So it's freaking hilarious.
Joel Cheesman (05:50.424)
Okay. Yeah. Yep.
Emi Beredugo (05:56.572)
I love that guy. Yeah. Irish, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (05:59.327)
It's hilarious.
Joel Cheesman (06:03.757)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (06:08.896)
It is great. If you haven't seen it, it's this, like, he makes Bill Gates look cool. This guy is so nerdy. and he's got like a vest on and he's trying this burger, which is called the big arch. It's like two quarter pound patties, like tons of the product. Yeah. Not the big arch. And anyway, so he takes like a little bitty nibble out of this thing and all this tastes, it's so bad.
Chad Sowash (06:14.488)
Ha ha!
Chad Sowash (06:21.56)
What? he calls our product. Yeah. Go try the product. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (06:25.037)
Thank
Chad Sowash (06:31.106)
You
Joel Cheesman (06:34.23)
We talk about authenticity with CEOs and McDonald's totally dropped the ball on this one. I can't believe that dude is CEO of McDonald's.
Emi Beredugo (06:34.434)
God.
Chad Sowash (06:36.822)
Yeah. Yeah.
So bad, so bad. And hilarious at the same time. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (06:46.518)
Yeah, no, no, they they had this thing in Europe for a while. If Chad had gone to like real restaurants instead of these, you know, these, these Portuguese ceviche houses or whatever they're called, he might have he might have. you're just learning this now that Chad is Chad is busy.
Chad Sowash (06:52.107)
And I'm not doing that.
thing.
Emi Beredugo (06:59.174)
you're boosy, Chad. You like that? Okay. Well, I had no idea. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:01.176)
I don't do fast food. do not do fast food. And it's very hard when you live in the Midwest. So when you live in Indiana and it is like the density of fast food joints is ridiculous. Then you come here and I literally have no fast food joints. It's wonderful.
Joel Cheesman (07:10.69)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (07:20.524)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (07:20.887)
Yeah, like I'm home.
Joel Cheesman (07:23.266)
They've revamped the whopper too, Chad. You're missing a lot of good stuff here over in the States.
Chad Sowash (07:25.432)
Ha
Yeah, nothing like a little different sludge of pink slime.
Emi Beredugo (07:32.493)
You
Joel Cheesman (07:33.612)
Different sludge. man. Let's get to.
Emi Beredugo (07:37.006)
Hey, don't knock Burger King. They gave me my first job. you know, I'm with them. Yeah, really? I was McDonald's afterwards. I got fired from Burger King. Yeah. I worked there for about a year. Got fired because I was late every day. Oh yeah. Well, at Burger King, in Burger King, I was just making the burgers. And then when they fired me, I went, fuck you. Walked down the road to McDonald's.
Joel Cheesman (07:40.504)
okay. You're too big. I was McDonald's. I was.
Chad Sowash (07:40.63)
Mine too, mine too, yeah.
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (07:52.344)
What was your job? Were you at the cashier? Were you making?
Emi Beredugo (08:03.821)
They gave me a job straight away very quickly. was like, I'm going to prove myself. And I was on a till and then I had a white shirt and I had my five stars. So, you know, I did, you know, I did really well. Thank you to the fast food industry. You got me where I am today.
Joel Cheesman (08:14.744)
And you, Chad, you were a cook, right? You flinging whoppers? Oh, you did everything?
Chad Sowash (08:18.444)
No, it did everything. I know I did everything. Yeah, it was drive through whoppers, fryer, all of it. Yeah, I did.
Joel Cheesman (08:27.306)
I was making the McDLTs at McDonald's. That's how old I am. Cold, so I called. had those styrofoam, those big styrofoam trays and you had like everything separate. that was good times guys. Good times. We're all, let's get to some shout outs, shall we?
Chad Sowash (08:29.504)
I remember hot side hot, cooled side cold. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (08:38.509)
Yes, yes.
Chad Sowash (08:43.532)
Shoutouts!
Joel Cheesman (08:47.446)
I'll go ahead go first guys. talked about the Rippling. Well, we talk about Rippling and Deal all the time. Rippling, recent Super Bowl ad. They're hitting the airwaves hard. I missed the initial Deal advertising apparently a year ago. They didn't do Super Bowl ads, but they've been doing this. So anyway, Deal, not to be outdone by Rippling as always, has launched an ad campaign called Dreaming of Dealing. That's clever, isn't it? I wonder what they...
Chad Sowash (08:48.706)
Yep, you're weak back.
Emi Beredugo (09:15.302)
Joel Cheesman (09:16.524)
They paid the ad agency for that one. it's an, it's a fully AI generated campaign. the agency is super bloom house who I guess, who specialize in the, in this stuff. evolves, from last year's feeling of dealing. So we've gone to, we've gone from feeling of dealing to dreaming of dealing very creative, with a dreamlike visual transporting customers through the sky, working with different currencies and whatnot.
Chad Sowash (09:23.319)
Okay.
Joel Cheesman (09:46.956)
The copywriting is the only thing that is human in this ad. Check it out.
Joel Cheesman (10:23.608)
I love how AI has perfected the white girl dancing. It's totally nailed that in that ad. Now, personally, I'm a little offended that a company that deals with human beings created an ad with no human beings. Like I feel like there should be some sort of like, at least have humans in your advertising. Like you are a product for humans. I just, I feel like it's a big fail. I don't know. The ad kind of sucks anyway, but just the fact that there's no humans in it.
Emi Beredugo (10:46.057)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (10:51.648)
It does. Which is worse do you think? Which is is worse? Do you think the the rippling ad is worse or the deal ad is worse?
Joel Cheesman (10:53.346)
Kind of pisses me off as if deal needed another reason to piss me off.
Joel Cheesman (11:01.4)
Rippling at least looks to tell some sort of a story, kind like the old ads in the 70s on the highway, Chad. You'd get like the first billboard and then like, oh, I gotta wait for the second. So at least there's maybe a story there and they have a funny guy. So I'm at least open to that. This is just a cut and dry. The crypto spin was interesting and they just partnered with some crypto company. I don't know if we talked about that or not, but anyway, yeah, I'm gonna go Rippling.
Emi Beredugo (11:01.567)
Deal.
Chad Sowash (11:04.769)
Hmm.
Emi Beredugo (11:04.897)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (11:30.326)
with the edge there.
Chad Sowash (11:32.077)
They're both shit, I think. I'm going to stay with commercials. I'm going to stay with commercials, Super Bowl commercials. And my shout out, you get the video? My shout out, okay, baby. My shout out this week goes to Mo. That's right, our very own Maureen Wiley-Clough. A couple of weeks ago, Mo talked about Ring's Search Party Super Bowl ad and how she was kind of...
Emi Beredugo (11:33.581)
Hahaha!
Joel Cheesman (11:34.797)
You
Emi Beredugo (11:42.05)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (11:44.864)
You know I got the video, baby. Shit's locked and loaded.
Emi Beredugo (11:47.629)
Thank you.
Chad Sowash (11:59.257)
freaked out about it, here's how it went.
Joel Cheesman (12:02.21)
Yeah, I labeled this one Chad's bullshit, because I know you're going to call me out on this one. Here we go.
Chad Sowash (12:06.04)
You
Chad Sowash (12:16.6)
Ha
Chad Sowash (12:34.932)
Let's save some dogs. You're so cute. You're so gullible. I love it. I just love you so much. So well, apparently, according to 404 media and Mashable, dogs were only the start and keeping neighborhoods, quote unquote, crime free using facial recognition is really the goal. So it is the end of the world as we know it. And I feel like walking my dogs. So shout out to Mo. She ain't no fool.
Emi Beredugo (12:59.691)
you
Joel Cheesman (13:03.64)
Did talk about how tight my mustache looked in that video? I need to go back. I need to go back to that. That was great.
Emi Beredugo (13:03.745)
Go on, mate.
I'm out.
Chad Sowash (13:07.98)
Look at the gas lighter here. He's gas lighting. He's like, how many? was gullible during that thing. But no, look at my mustache.
Emi Beredugo (13:10.827)
I mean...
Joel Cheesman (13:13.068)
No.
Emi Beredugo (13:14.829)
the
Joel Cheesman (13:17.56)
I have come to terms with the fact that privacy is a thing of the past. Just don't do anything stupid.
Chad Sowash (13:25.09)
Oof.
Emi Beredugo (13:26.017)
mean, that's a terrible thing to come to terms with. Yeah. I feel like I'm in an episode of Dark Mirror. I'm just like, don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Which doesn't fricking end.
Chad Sowash (13:29.058)
Pretty much.
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (13:34.456)
We are! We are an episode of Dark Mirror.
Chad Sowash (13:39.128)
And we don't have to be happy about it, Cheeseman. You seem to be happy about it.
Emi Beredugo (13:43.629)
Yeah
Joel Cheesman (13:44.972)
Look, like Obama said, the aliens are here. They've been watching us for generations. Like just, just get over it. Just get over it. That's, that's all I got. That's all I got.
Emi Beredugo (13:47.725)
Yeah
Chad Sowash (13:48.28)
We interupt you.
Chad Sowash (13:54.38)
Bimmy, what do you got?
Emi Beredugo (13:56.514)
Well, my one isn't a funny one. My one's going back to what we talked about before and what's happening in the Middle East. So my shout out is to all the amazing people who are in the UAE and the Gulf. And I tell you why, for anyone who doesn't know, Dubai was my home for 12 years. It's still, I still consider it my home away from home. And I find it like,
I just can't believe what's happening in the world. I'm getting text messages from my friends saying they can't sleep, missiles are going overhead, their kids are worried because they're not sure what's going on. It's super worrying, but everything I've seen out there, they are staying resilient, they are staying strong. The UAE government has been amazing as well, very hospitable, putting up people who are stranded in the country in hotels and making sure they're fed. So to the...
Like I said, to the UAE people, to the people in the Gulf, to the UAE government as well. I'm thinking of all of you, stay strong and stay safe. Bring it back up. Yeah. I hope so too.
Joel Cheesman (14:56.802)
Nice, Although damn that escalated quickly. She brought it down. We need some pick me up by our friend, Steven Negrath in free stuff. Here we go.
Chad Sowash (14:57.184)
Amen, sister.
Chad Sowash (15:06.39)
Here we go. Hopefully shirtless. I hope he's shirtless.
yes.
Chad Sowash (15:21.324)
No, I'm not.
Emi Beredugo (15:42.991)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (16:20.568)
extra blows.
Chad Sowash (16:27.262)
All right, let's get them. Yeah. Mm hmm. The US one sucks compared to the UK is the best. Yeah, UK is the best US one sucks.
Joel Cheesman (16:28.194)
Chad, you watch the show, Traders, right?
Emi Beredugo (16:30.965)
love traders but i haven't seen the US one recently i was watching the UK one yeah
Joel Cheesman (16:32.184)
You love it.
Joel Cheesman (16:40.152)
So my wife loves it. I watched my first episode last night and she's trying to convince me to try out for the next season, which apparently is normal people and it's in Scotland. So her main sales pitch to me is you can go to Scotland for six months, however long the show is. I don't know. So that would be a fun travel, but apparently you're going somewhere, Chad.
Chad Sowash (16:53.104)
yeah.
Emi Beredugo (16:53.409)
Do it.
Chad Sowash (16:58.264)
That'd be fun. Yeah, that'd be a blast.
Emi Beredugo (16:59.275)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (17:04.862)
I am and travel is sponsored by our friends over at Shake Recruitment Marketing and this year is their 75th year in operation. March 24th through the 26th in Hetfordshire, England. Is that better? That was better. Okay. That's what I said. That's what I said, Emmy. Going to the R. Stop it.
Joel Cheesman (17:09.324)
Love them.
Emi Beredugo (17:21.055)
I love
Joel Cheesman (17:21.61)
Oi oi.
Get some drinks in, get some drinks in, get some drinks in for the lads. Sorry.
Emi Beredugo (17:28.237)
Get the tricks in for the lads!
Chad Sowash (17:34.457)
Going to the RLX, going to the RLX, March 24th through the 26th, which is a fully hosted two day retreat for senior TA leaders, no vendor pitches, no expo halls, just smart people. They let me in, so I don't know about that. Peer insights and practical takeaways. So if you are a high level recruiting leader, go ahead and go over to resourcingleaders.co and sign up today.
Joel Cheesman (18:00.877)
Nice.
Chad Sowash (18:03.853)
Boom.
Joel Cheesman (18:04.204)
By the way, kids, quick reminder, if you're not plugged into our YouTube channel, you may have missed our latest bump, highlighting hiring branches, the funnel. So make sure you head out to chatcheese.com slash at chat or youtube.com slash at chat cheese or on LinkedIn, wherever you want to consume our shit. We're everywhere. We're like a bad, we're like a bad rash, but make sure you check that out. Shall we?
Chad Sowash (18:19.362)
Clip it.
Emi Beredugo (18:22.349)
You
Chad Sowash (18:26.687)
everywhere.
Chad Sowash (18:30.87)
And there's not a shot either.
Joel Cheesman (18:32.258)
Shall we talk about some actual issues hitting the employment sector?
Chad Sowash (18:34.402)
Let's do this. Let's do this.
Chad Sowash (18:38.934)
We have the meat.
Joel Cheesman (18:40.92)
Chachacha changes. Lots of changes, kids in the industry. Let's start with iCIMS, who has a new brand identity. Along with new visuals, they unveiled iCIMS Coalesce AI, the new name for their enterprise AI capabilities. Chad, you and I are old enough to remember all three iterations of the brand. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the original on my Yeti here. What are your thoughts on the latest iteration?
and ch-ch-ch-changes at iCIMS.
Emi Beredugo (19:12.054)
I'm
Chad Sowash (19:13.516)
Yes. You got to ask yourself why, why would they do this? And well, you know, I believe it's time for a history lesson. yeah.
Joel Cheesman (19:17.644)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (19:23.277)
Cool.
Joel Cheesman (19:23.402)
you're gonna pull that out on me, huh? Let's go, let's go!
Chad Sowash (19:28.706)
So if you remember correctly, iCIMS was one of the first vendors, applicant tracking systems to talk about using AI, right? And they even acquired Andrea Wade's startup, also known as the Chad and Cheese Deathmatch winner, opening.io, an AI company. Al Smith, their CTO, was a damned genius and him and Andrea worked together. It felt like their tech was definitely going in the right direction. And then...
Two CEOs later, Andrea and Al are now gone and iCIMS have lost that attachment to AI when it's cool. So iCIMS is doing this to try and insert themselves back into the AI narrative that they lost. Now, iCIMS was gracious enough to ask me to be a part of this whole process, this branding process, this messaging process, exercise, let's call it. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (20:22.104)
Ooh, like you're in meetings? You're in the, okay. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (20:26.388)
And to be transparent, this was my final comment after going through all of this and seeing what the end result was. So here it is. Quote. So yeah, it's not that big. Literally, my comment was a
Emi Beredugo (20:38.285)
I'm excited. I know it's like, come on. Yeah, it's like, why are we just hearing about it now? Yeah. Okay.
Joel Cheesman (20:41.814)
The anticipation is killing us. I was in secret meetings and here is my thought.
Emi Beredugo (20:54.445)
You
Chad Sowash (20:56.14)
My comment was a fluffy new mission statement and brand identity means nothing without execution. I'm excited to see where this refresh takes iCIMS, but the jury is still out. mean, to me, again, it's all pomp and circumstance and what the industry needs right now is a leader in demonstrating outcomes. And I think that's one of the things that we saw from companies like Paradox.
where they actually, they put their clients forward. They said they've been AI since they started and that was just big for them. since iCIMS has lost, since again, their big AI people have gone, they wanna try to get back in the narrative and this is the start of it, I think.
Joel Cheesman (21:45.026)
So are you under NDA to talk about those discussions and what was going on? Or can you be totally transparent?
Chad Sowash (21:51.705)
They were mainly, I mean, they did a lot of work to just have one-on-ones, just so that it wouldn't be committee by decision. I, you know, it's, you kind of have gang up sessions and those. was really smart just to kind of have one-on-ones. that's, they were mainly just sharing information with me and getting my feedback, right? And at the end of the day, like I'd said, like I said, you know, everything, all of this means nothing without execution, you know?
Joel Cheesman (21:57.26)
Okay.
Emi Beredugo (22:06.295)
What kind of questions were they asking you?
Joel Cheesman (22:19.66)
Yeah. So you're saying that just using the word coalesce isn't going to be enough to make this thing a hit. that ask a hundred people on the street to spell coalesce and see the vast variety of spellings that you get from that. that, they, did they ask you about coalesce?
Chad Sowash (22:24.469)
No,
Emi Beredugo (22:33.965)
See you
Chad Sowash (22:34.646)
Yeah, I mean the
Emi Beredugo (22:37.485)
Yeah, I want to know about the name.
Chad Sowash (22:39.608)
No, mean, mainly it was branding and logos, colors, that kind of stuff. Mission statements, that, know, just bylines. I mean, those types of things. So you could kind of get what they were trying to go toward or what they were hoping people would want to go toward, whether it was efficiency or AI or what it might be. But yeah, I mean, it was pretty standard stuff to be quite frank.
Emi Beredugo (22:44.13)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (22:56.312)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (23:03.554)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (23:04.472)
And what was the term laser focused use? Because I have a clip here of Trent Cotton interviewing Jody Kaminsky, their CMO, about sort of the vision of this. Check this out.
Chad Sowash (23:13.844)
Chad Sowash (23:36.439)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (23:50.486)
Okay, time out real quick. Her background is freaking me out. Her chair, the back of her chair is not lined up with her back. And there's a mysterious thing a tea like your British Emmy. Is that a thing a tea? What is that? Is that a scented is other scented oils in the background? I am very, very confused. It's freaking me out. Okay, all right.
Chad Sowash (23:54.808)
Is it real?
Yeah.
that real?
Like some, is that weird shadows going on back there too? That could be, it could be. It could be, And it's almost, well, it's almost like, it's almost like McGrath's background where she kind of blends into it to some extent. Yeah. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (24:09.581)
I think it might be scented oils. I think she just wants to create a calming atmosphere. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (24:19.487)
Yeah, she does doesn't she?
Joel Cheesman (24:21.27)
It does match her a little bit, a little bit. There's a white space that's troubling as well. All right, let's hear the rest of her commentary.
Chad Sowash (24:26.52)
Great. Let's hear, I want to hear from Jody.
Emi Beredugo (24:49.175)
So it's coalesce now making it still come through.
Joel Cheesman (24:50.004)
I don't, by the way, here are the two brands side by side. Number two iteration and number three, ready?
Chad Sowash (24:52.312)
Thank
Emi Beredugo (24:58.368)
Okay.
Joel Cheesman (25:00.408)
oooo
Chad Sowash (25:03.05)
cloud.
Joel Cheesman (25:03.672)
Yeah, that old logo was not demonstrating any kind of messaging that I trusted. it is interesting that you would say we're only focused on recruiting because you have the deals of the world, the rippling saying we're going to be everything to everybody. So do you guys have any thoughts on why at this time they would say, you know what, we're just going to do recruiting and hire.
Emi Beredugo (25:04.715)
Good.
Chad Sowash (25:09.752)
Hahaha
Emi Beredugo (25:09.901)
Thank
Chad Sowash (25:21.016)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (25:28.332)
I mean, you take a look at, well, God, yes, there. I mean, there's no way. in here's here's what it comes down to. If I some more, I seems to want to get acquired. They have to change their their mindset and attitude. They have to become aggressive over the last few years. They have become they have become a I don't know. It's almost like walled off.
Joel Cheesman (25:29.452)
to get acquired? it like, we're hoping to, yeah, okay.
Emi Beredugo (25:32.171)
Yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (25:53.143)
You know, they haven't really been a part of the market at all. It just feels like they've been disassociated from the market. They've been cold. They've been corporate, disengaged. But here's a simple interaction that think that ISOM's headshed should actually learn from. So on LinkedIn, ISOM's actually posted this new brand in Coalesce. And Mike Dickinson, who is the director of recruiting,
Emi Beredugo (25:57.153)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (26:22.568)
actually said, quote, not trying to be snarky here, but a brand conscious as brand conscious as Isom's has been. How much thought was went into the name Cole, Cole S sounds very similar to Cole's. Maybe it softens the hiring process. Something to think about, end quote. And then one of the Isom's employees, Shannon Winning, came back to Mike and said, well, Mike,
We believe in smoothing hiring outcomes for everyone. Smiley face. So that's what I'm talking about. That was like a real fun response. And in case, in case Emmy doesn't know, Colace is a stool softener, which is why they act. Yes. Yes. So there you go. Yes. That's something in the U S where, you know, that you see these stupid pharmaceutical commercials all over. But this is what I'm talking about. The ice has been so cold and so
Joel Cheesman (27:02.661)
huh.
Emi Beredugo (27:07.96)
Okay. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (27:16.952)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (27:20.568)
corporate and they haven't they haven't had really good messaging through the people that matter most and that's our clients right they haven't engaged very well with the community so I mean hopefully they do that don't new colors new logos not going to do that.
Joel Cheesman (27:36.64)
Were you in chats with the CEO? Do you have an impression of him at all? No, okay, no chats with him.
Chad Sowash (27:40.504)
Oh no. No, no, I...
Emi Beredugo (27:44.407)
So Chad, question for you though, because I think I read somewhere that one of their bylines was responsible AI. So did that come up in conversation? Yeah.
Chad Sowash (27:52.727)
Yeah, I know it did. mean, and to me, and we've talked about this on the show before responsible AI means nothing. There's no hard edges on it, right? It's just like saying, yeah, I mean, it means nothing.
Joel Cheesman (28:02.114)
Sounds good.
Emi Beredugo (28:06.125)
Well, depends how they spin it because they can spin it as responsible AI is their differentiator because every tool is going to say they're AI powered. But does every tool lead by saying they're responsible AI? Yeah, it is 100%. Because if they lead down that path, they're going to be under scrutiny.
Chad Sowash (28:19.832)
That's a prove it thing though. mean, you can't, know, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they are, like many other vendors, leaning heavily on saying responsible AI. You don't see a lot of companies saying AI. They say either one or two things, responsible AI or ethical AI. Pretty much it, yeah.
Emi Beredugo (28:32.407)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (28:37.037)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (28:39.452)
Mm, I got you, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (28:41.922)
Chad, I can't let you get away with a history lesson without a history lesson of my own.
Chad Sowash (28:44.951)
Hahaha!
Emi Beredugo (28:45.25)
Yeah
Joel Cheesman (28:48.504)
So, so in 2001, I was living in Cleveland and the Cleveland Indians, which they were known as then were were were very popular. Were very good. In 2001, they went to the playoffs, lost to the lost to Moe's Mariners could have gone could have gone all the way, but they didn't that after that season, they lost some major players and whatnot. In 2000, before the 2002 season, they unveiled
Chad Sowash (28:48.524)
Thank God.
Chad Sowash (29:05.325)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (29:17.728)
what they called new and exciting uniforms. The new and exciting uniforms were basically the same uniforms with a silver lining around the Indians and the Cleveland. Get it? Silver lining. was kind of a little double message there. The Indians went on to lose over half of their games and sucked, but the team was hoping that some new jazz hands and new exciting uniforms would...
Chad Sowash (29:20.454)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (29:25.933)
Ooh.
Chad Sowash (29:29.657)
Mm. So bad. So bad.
Emi Beredugo (29:39.712)
Yeah
Emi Beredugo (29:43.437)
It's.
Joel Cheesman (29:46.092)
You know, take the attention away from the actual quality of the team and make people buy new jerseys with silver, silver lettering. Anytime that you see this mental masturbation about new logos and new messaging and new whatever, it's usually a sign that things aren't going that great. We better put some shit out there that makes us look like we're actually doing something on the inside. And to me, this just totally reeks of, of that. They're trying to like, you know, get your attention over here and not think about what our product is.
Emi Beredugo (29:59.977)
you
Emi Beredugo (30:05.785)
you
Emi Beredugo (30:15.159)
Can I tell you what? can't stop. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (30:15.296)
And for me, God damn it, bring back Ike, bring back the mascot. I want to go to the next conference and see, see an adult adult and a mascot uniform so I can feel better about iCIMS again. That's that's the, I, I think.
Chad Sowash (30:19.308)
Hahaha!
Emi Beredugo (30:21.197)
my god!
Chad Sowash (30:26.74)
no. I do miss Ike, but that poor kid, that poor intern, they put in that costume or whatever, that sucks.
Joel Cheesman (30:35.99)
Yeah, look, I'm not falling for it. No, not falling for it.
Chad Sowash (30:40.12)
What you think, Emmy? What do you think?
Emi Beredugo (30:42.797)
think it's interesting. Look, I seems, am I a massive fan of the product? No, I haven't been for ages with demo the product. It's okay, you know, but compared to all the other ATSs out there, they, you're right, they haven't kept up. They're not innovative. I don't know what's actually going on. They're just a little bit stagnant, you know? So I get what they're trying to do. I get that they're trying to lean in down this responsible AI route, you know, to try and differentiate themselves. But like you said,
If the product is not any better, if they're not innovating, if they're not keeping up with the market, then no one's going to buy their products anyway. They're just going to be in the exactly same situation. So maybe they just need to concentrate on a product line rather than, what was it? Mentally masturbating. Love it. Yeah, I did like it.
Joel Cheesman (31:25.378)
Mental masturbation, you like that? You like that? Shout out to our friend Will over there by the way, Chad, who's celebrating like five or six years on the job. We do love the people over there.
Chad Sowash (31:29.08)
It all comes to one thing.
Emi Beredugo (31:36.061)
Yeah
Chad Sowash (31:36.145)
It all comes down to it all comes down to what is next. Right. It is the proof in the put. If you put out a great logo and message and just then it doesn't matter. But if you come out and you come out swinging then that is fucking awesome. One of the things that we saw and this is this is kind of like I feel what they're trying to do. Rebecca Carr came in last year last February. She was anointed the new CEO and she made a bold
Emi Beredugo (31:42.006)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (31:46.925)
Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (32:05.612)
a bold announcement on stage in Madrid saying this shit's got to stop. We are changing. Now I'm paraphrasing. We are changing exactly what we're doing, right? We're going full AI. Next thing you know, they're getting bought by SAP, right? iCIMS has to be loud. They have to be proud. They have to be bold. They have not been since the last two, three CEOs. They got to get their
fucking groove back. Stella has got to get her groove back.
Emi Beredugo (32:36.301)
Hahaha
Joel Cheesman (32:37.132)
And we met Winston when smart recruiters sort of came back out, came out and we want a new Ike. Bring, bring Ike back and we can get excited. ISEMS. God damn it. All right. From, from one, from one fledgling, ATS to another, employee has a new CEO. Jerry Yao has been appointed as the new CEO of the company replacing Darah Brenner.
Chad Sowash (32:40.77)
Yeah? Yeah?
Emi Beredugo (32:44.567)
Yeah
Emi Beredugo (32:48.141)
EEEH
Chad Sowash (32:49.536)
All right. Yes.
Emi Beredugo (32:55.437)
you
Joel Cheesman (33:03.228)
The company says he brings experience in AI powered marketing and SaaS to lead the parent company of Jazz HR, Lever and Jobite. Stop me if you've heard this one before, a marketing guy taking over an ATS. Chad, what's your hot take on the changes at employee?
Chad Sowash (33:21.112)
Yeah, there's, we had a lot of promise for this Joel. Back when K1 rolled these guys up in February of 2019, we were pretty excited about this. Dan Finnegan was a CEO, it was job fight, it was an employee at that time. They created employee, then a friend of the show, Amon Brar took over. And then again, how many CEOs have we gone through? To be quite frank, at this point, after this huge roll up, I...
Joel Cheesman (33:31.554)
Sure.
Joel Cheesman (33:40.417)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (33:50.393)
Personally, think K1 understands they've missed their acquisition window and they're going to play their Apollo card. They're going to bleed these companies dry because who in their right mind is going to buy this mess? And for the sake of their customers and their employees, I hope I'm dead wrong. But the only, only thing that I can see these guys doing is selling office parts and doing the Apollo bleed it dried game.
Joel Cheesman (33:55.096)
Hmm.
Joel Cheesman (34:17.056)
Yeah. And I, I, I have to think the, the house of brands that they currently manage has got to go. There's gotta be too many duplicitous positions, too many, too much marketing money going into all these different brands. Like I think that's what I've heard is that lever is going to be sort of the main brand that they go forward with. Time will tell. But I think, I think that, yeah, that that's too disparate for, like financial reasons to make, to make sense.
Emi Beredugo (34:17.111)
Sad.
Emi Beredugo (34:37.749)
and then we fire the other ones.
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (34:46.924)
Dara is now Chief Product Officer, so she's still with the company. It wasn't like that she left, and I think we understand some personal things that happened that she sort of stepped away from the company.
The guy who took over, he's, he's a total e-commerce like marketing dude. he started his first company at 15 years old. He's got all the sort of credentials. he sold a, he sold a company to constant contact. If you're an email marketing at all, you know, MailChimp and constant contact and all those guys, but like how that fits into an ATS company is a real stretch.
to me, the guy, the kid, you he's smart. He's looks, he's bright out and bushy tail, but you and I chat have seen a lot of CEOs that fit that description have not lasted very long and not been very successful. So I'm not exactly sure what he's being brought in to do as an e-commerce guy. but there's very little that makes me sort of think this is sexy and this is a, this is a great direction to go. now in their defense,
Whereas iCIMS has been sideways for a long time in regards to like head count and what like what they'd be doing. These guys are at least growing. So they're doing something right or something in there that's, that's interesting, but yeah, there's a lot of things going on here. I'm not sure how he's going to save it. I'm with you, Chad. They're going to cut head count more, cut the brands down, hopefully get this thing to something that will, buy off the TJ Maxx clearance, you know, rack at some point, but.
Chad Sowash (36:23.894)
in parts.
Joel Cheesman (36:25.046)
But yeah, don't see a bright future for the folks that employ.
Emi Beredugo (36:29.579)
And so do you think that even though they're brought in a new CTO as well, because the new CTO is starting in March, isn't it? This PJ Gene. And apparently his role is to, you know, he comes with deep technical expertise and, you know, kind of deep AI backgrounds. So maybe those two together could actually change things a little bit for employee.
Chad Sowash (36:52.002)
They have three different applicant tracking systems, three different code bases. So to be able to do this with one with smart recruiters, I thought that was going to be a feat in itself. They pulled it off to be able to do it with three that are, think all three of them might be older than smart recruiters as well. It's going to be hard not to mention those are just the applicant tracking systems. They also have RPO. They also have all these different, you know, all these different pieces of tech that they've acquired over time.
Joel Cheesman (36:52.108)
Well, they got. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (36:55.051)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (36:58.422)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (37:14.605)
Mmm.
Chad Sowash (37:22.136)
He better be a fucking magician.
Joel Cheesman (37:26.136)
I mean, like the first rule should be don't lose any customers. Like whatever we do, cause I doubt they're getting new customers. So like let's add a minimum keep who we have and a new CEO kind of gets exciting. we got a new product, like new people sort of. So they're giving people a reason to stick around to see how this movie ends. I, sure.
Emi Beredugo (37:34.669)
Probably not, yeah.
Chad Sowash (37:38.392)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (37:44.107)
new momentum, yeah.
Chad Sowash (37:48.153)
Let's hope it ends well. Let's hope. Let's hope.
Emi Beredugo (37:50.199)
No
Joel Cheesman (37:51.905)
I mean, jobite was the OG sort of social media, ATS. They moved. I mean, they have offices here in Indianapolis and have some roots here. I'm on Brar. We know really well. So I'm rooting for iSim and I'm rooting for these guys because I think people need choice. Consumers need options and these guys are options. But yeah, it's an uphill battle for sure.
Chad Sowash (37:54.668)
was.
Chad Sowash (38:01.974)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (38:08.049)
yeah.
Chad Sowash (38:15.33)
They've both lost attention. That's been the biggest issue. mean, take a look at Paradox. They stole the mind share and attention. Then you look at what Smart Recruiters did, and then you look at some of the things that Fountain. I mean, they literally these other companies have stole mind share away from these bigger companies and they've just they've dwindled and they've allowed this shit to happen. It's not like they don't have the money or the fortitude to be able to take care of it. It's almost like they got
fat, lazy and took a nap.
Joel Cheesman (38:45.718)
Yeah, and maybe.
Emi Beredugo (38:46.061)
But I think a lot of people are, you know, I don't like I, we've spoken to recently so many ATS vendors, the big, all the big names. And what I'm finding is a lot of them just rest on the laurels. You know, you can speak to them about, look, the market is changing. It's getting more complex to hire, particularly as organizations are getting, you know, recruited on a global scale now, rather than just regional. It's like, we need all these different, we need your systems to adapt.
Chad Sowash (39:08.397)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (39:13.965)
And, very often what we're facing, face with sorry, is cool. That's a great idea. Let me talk to my, let me take some of my product team and it just goes on a product backlog. And then, you know, I chase up and go, Hey, what's going on? You know, have you, is there any feedback? Have you taken this into consideration even? And they're like, no. And that's why you get other organizations going, look, all these old legacy players, you're not keeping up. You're failing.
we'll go with a newer, smaller, upcoming ATS provider.
Chad Sowash (39:45.984)
Ashby. They're big in, they're definitely big in Europe.
Emi Beredugo (39:46.805)
Yeah. Yeah, they're great. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (39:50.915)
Yeah. Chad, you hit the nail on the head when you said like, tell a story. Rebecca talked to everybody. She was on every show, every stage. Like she was telling the story and it was an enticing story and these guys need to come up with that.
Chad Sowash (40:00.205)
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Fuck. Who's this Josh guy at fucking ice? I don't I don't know this dude. Who are these guys that are coming to apply? I we don't know this. So hopefully, they start to insert themselves in the market because they're going to get their asses handed.
Emi Beredugo (40:21.367)
But a story is not enough. have to, you can tell a great story, but if people use your products and it's shit, that story just falls apart.
Joel Cheesman (40:27.116)
I mean.
Chad Sowash (40:27.896)
Tell that to Tesla. Tell that to Have you seen their shares?
Joel Cheesman (40:29.922)
The f-
The fact that Chad was in on this new brand branding thing and doesn't know the CEO is a little bit weird. Like that's an opportunity to build a bridge to a thought leader in Chad. That's right. I'm throwing you, I'm throwing you pearls, Chad throwing you pearls. All right guys, let's take another break and we got some more changes. If you like what you've heard, everybody, please subscribe at your podcast platform of choice. Leave us a review, share us with a hundred of your favorite friends.
Emi Beredugo (40:34.797)
Yeah
Mm-mm.
Emi Beredugo (40:43.671)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (40:49.389)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (41:02.476)
We'll be right back.
Joel Cheesman (41:07.616)
All right, kids, Indeed has appointed Jim Giles as its new chief technology officer. The company says Giles, a former Google VP of engineering, will leverage his expertise in scaling technology and AI to enhance Indeed's platform and drive growth. In case you missed it, Indeed had operated without a CTO since the early days of the Biden administration.
Chad Sowash (41:13.09)
Jimmy. Jimmy!
Joel Cheesman (41:31.564)
But maybe more noteworthy than what's been filled is what's still empty. Chad, you are on the front lines of this issue. What you got?
Emi Beredugo (41:33.442)
Ha!
Chad Sowash (41:40.033)
Okay. So early last week is story time. Early last week, Julie started asking me questions about Indeed leadership. And I've been so damn focused on Himes as the CEO and how he was steering the Indeed Titanic straight into a damn iceberg. I felt like an idiot saying, wait, what? CTO? And she's like, yeah, they haven't had a CTO in four years. CPO? They don't have a chief product officer? She's like, no.
They've never had a chief product officer. I'm like, well, shit. We've been wondering why and go figure. My wife trudges this up, but we've been wondering why indeed has been so damn sloppy over the past five years. Hell, for most of it, they didn't have a CTO and they've never appointed a chief product officer. So it feels like recruit holdings has tried running indeed as on the cheap.
from an executive leadership standpoint. And when a company prioritizes appointing a chief revenue officer, generating revenue over appointing a chief product officer, actually creating great products, you end up with this kind of fucking slop. So, you know, I come from the revenue side and I have watched many CROs bully leadership into stupid.
Emi Beredugo (42:57.389)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (43:06.424)
product and marketing decisions. Hell, I might've done that a few times myself. But never at a company the size of Indeed. That's literally, there's literally no balance at the top. So I said it before and I will say it again, and I'll continue saying it. Indeed isn't a tech company. They're a staffing company with shitty tech.
Joel Cheesman (43:33.443)
Yeah, Chad, you talked about Chris Himes. Chris Himes was the leader they needed at the time that they employed him in that position. you know, he was, as he was laying off thousands of people, he was funding a movie called Rising Voices to the tune of Millions of Dollars. And it just reeked of sort of just tone deaf about where the world was going. And he no longer holds that position. And they, think they've realized, look,
We have this amazing brand, this entrenched business that just prints money. Let's just throw some shit at the wall and see what sticks. Let's just keep the thing going. And somebody got smart apparently, and said, look, we need some real, real adults in the room to talk about new products and where we're going with all the stuff and have some sort of a clear vision. And what better way to do that than have a Google VP, in the ranks telling you how to, how to do tech. So to me, this is a.
Emi Beredugo (44:16.982)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (44:29.846)
This is a step in the right direction. It sounds like they may still have some pieces they need to still plug in. But, but good for them for finally realizing they can't just float on past successes and just count money and, just ride the, ride the boats and hose for the rest of life.
Joel Cheesman (44:50.976)
Any thoughts?
Emi Beredugo (44:52.363)
Yeah, I agree with both of you. think, you know, obviously indeed been fledgling for many years now. So I think bringing in the CTO, someone like Jim Giles is a great thing to do, you know? So, and if he gets all, if he does his job well, you know, he can bring in a clearer tech roadmap. He can, you know, have better alignment, I suppose, sales and the product. That's fantastic. I think they've got the right person in.
My worry is that without the chief product officer, he can bring in a great product, but it will be aimless because there's no direction. You don't understand what kind of product, hiring problems you're trying to solve for. You're just, don't know where to prioritize. So that, that is the problem. Having a great tech, tech tool, you know, you said it's not tech tool, but having a great product, that's one thing, but if it's It focused in the right area because you haven't got a chief product officer, it's kind of a of a pointness.
Joel Cheesman (45:47.266)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (45:48.643)
Well, it's not just that, because if you read Julie's article, just go to jobboarddoctor.com. If you read her article, she actually goes through the product names and the overlaps and they know, yeah, you don't know what product is what for who and why. And wait a minute, this does this, but it kind of does this too. And it's like, there's no clear fucking direction over there at all. So you can have a great CTO to be able to build stuff.
Emi Beredugo (46:00.653)
Yeah, they do have, yeah.
Emi Beredugo (46:10.893)
Nine, nine.
Chad Sowash (46:17.954)
But if you don't have a product person to be able to actually pull it together and make it pretty and make it understandable, you get this slop that we've gotten from Indeed.
Emi Beredugo (46:26.091)
Yeah. Cause they've got a lot of overlapping features as well. And that's the thing. No one's going to really understand. Like you said, no one's going to understand. If they don't understand the product, no one's going to buy the product. No one's going to invest money in the product.
Chad Sowash (46:30.124)
was horrible.
Chad Sowash (46:38.044)
And you can tell that the revenue side has been a part of this because they are just rebranding old shit as new shit and they're trying to bump up the price because they're like, sales needs more money. Well, we'll just put a new wrapper on this and we'll sell it for more. It's like, no, motherfucker, we know that's the same shit in a different wrapper.
Emi Beredugo (46:42.284)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (46:56.779)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (46:57.622)
Yeah, they're basically GM in the 70s. Like we could just keep making shit cars because what else are people going to buy? And eventually the Japanese car showed up and everyone said, shit, we better get our act together. Well, this is indeed saying we better get our act together.
Chad Sowash (47:00.47)
Yes.
Emi Beredugo (47:04.589)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (47:09.133)
Hi.
Let's see what happens. I think it's step in the right direction.
Chad Sowash (47:14.07)
Maybe. We'll see.
Joel Cheesman (47:18.552)
All right. Speaking of steps in the right and wrong direction, the AI apocalypse rolls on in this week's news. Three well-known companies were in the news regarding the impact of AI on employment. Most notably, everyone heard about Block, Jack Dorsey's company, cutting headcount by a whopping 40%, citing AI as the main catalyst. It's not all doom and gloom, however. Jamie Dimon is going to shift employees into new roles.
as automation evolves and instead of cutting jobs, Walmart is going to train its entire US and Canadian workforce, about 1.6 million people on how to use AI tools through a partnership with our friends at Google. The good, the bad, and why isn't Jamie Dimon running for president? Chad, what's your take on all the AI apocalypse news this week?
Chad Sowash (48:09.122)
Yeah, so Dorsey, I mean, this is bloat and the real corporate, the real culprit for massive tech layoffs today is literally just incompetent leadership. We talked about this. There have been huge swaths of tech people being cut because they over hired during the pandemic. They didn't know how to manage it whatsoever. So now we're seeing it. Now it's been blamed on quote unquote A.I. A.I. is doing it. You take a look at.
freaking Jamie Dimon. Not a huge fan of the dude, but he's a great businessman. He will be able to and you might have missed it last week Cheeseman but he might be able to literally just have Claude come in and fix their cobalt situations and save them hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure on updates and on consulting just alone. And then last but not least Walmart.
What the fuck are Walmart greeters going to use AI for? They are, I mean, they're looking, they're talking about eight hours of AI training. And I'm thinking of, I'm just thinking of the retail section. What are all those individuals going to use AI for? Right? And Walmart saying, we're, not going to replace them. Well, I don't think you're going to anytime soon. you need people that are there that can answer questions, you know, where, where's the ketchup? You move the ketchup, that kind of stuff.
Joel Cheesman (49:15.8)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (49:28.812)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (49:36.37)
so yeah, it just, it's, it's kind of funny because I was thinking who the fuck is going to use AI in the warehouse? Am I going to ask my phone? Am I going to ask Siri? Okay, that's cool. But you can do that now.
Emi Beredugo (49:43.853)
You're full.
Joel Cheesman (49:45.634)
Well, the
Emi Beredugo (49:46.678)
Yeah, you can, but you can, you can use it for managing. Yeah, but there'll be better ways to do that now. You know, the people in the warehouse who are managing stock, scheduling, managing stock, know, scheduling shifts. You can use AI to, know, be more efficient in that area. Yeah. So maybe not the, not maybe the people on the shop floor, but people behind the scenes, they can use AI. So I think it's a great idea. You know, I think, yeah.
Chad Sowash (49:54.412)
Better than talking to your phone?
Chad Sowash (50:00.345)
I do like that. I do like that.
Chad Sowash (50:11.276)
Yeah, but we've talked about it though. Recruiters, if recruiters are quote unquote using AI, well then you've installed the AI wrong. It should be running in the background doing tasks that you shouldn't have to do anymore. So why am I taking an eight hour course like you're saying for scheduling? Why am I taking an eight hour course on something that AI is gonna be doing behind the scenes in the first fucking place? I don't think that these CEOs understand what AI is actually gonna do and how real...
Emi Beredugo (50:27.341)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (50:38.24)
it can transform their company and how it will transform their
Joel Cheesman (50:41.858)
So much of this is the story that we talked about. Walmart has spun this story about we can keep people employed and we do well. So now the narrative is we're not gonna let people go, we're gonna superpower our people with AI. So now investors are like, ooh, that sounds pretty cool. I don't know exactly what's going on, but we're gonna keep the people that have made us profitable and make them that much more efficient. Whereas the Jack Dorsey story, do what?
Emi Beredugo (50:41.975)
But you still got... Sorry, go on.
Chad Sowash (50:46.624)
It is. Yes. You're right. Yes. Yeah. Come buy stuff.
Chad Sowash (51:06.552)
I
Emi Beredugo (51:08.013)
think you two are so cynical. I think you two are so cynical. I'm seeing some of the positives in this. I think, yeah.
Chad Sowash (51:12.632)
And let's.
Joel Cheesman (51:15.16)
Have you heard our show?
Emi Beredugo (51:18.797)
What have I been for the last year? Honestly, I think there's some goodness.
Chad Sowash (51:19.192)
Yeah
Joel Cheesman (51:24.888)
Because Dorsey's on the other side of that. Dorsey's on the Silicon Valley. What the hell are you doing with people, you know, working narrative? So it's like, yes, I over hired. Yes, our stock was rocking five years ago and now it's in the shitter. So I'm going to, I'm going to weave this narrative around. We're going to create efficiencies and lay off 40 % of their people and voila, their stock goes up 25%. They're in the news. Jack Dorsey is a quiet genius with his, you know, stoic beard that
that's growing way too big. like these narratives continue to go on. Jamie Donovan might be probably the smartest one in there saying like, yes, the bank, the bank is a history like history wise. Chad and I remember when ATMs came around, there were going to be no tellers, no more banks. Well, what they figured out was, well, the tellers don't just have to count cash. Now we can train them to give house loans or give financial expertise and upsell people on things. So, so
Chad Sowash (51:57.698)
Has its own name, I think.
Chad Sowash (52:22.58)
Open checking accounts. Do more of that.
Joel Cheesman (52:24.8)
Yeah. So dude, this narrative, I go back and forth, man. One day I'm like, we're done. And the next day, like, that's going to be okay. I'm kind of on the, it's okay thing. now, and what I think about is in our own world, Chad, we talk about startups, all the startups now, everyone getting money, are people that are combating the whole automated job candidate application. Shit.
Emi Beredugo (52:34.903)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (52:53.462)
So whether it's verifying candidates, whether it's building scale around recruiting, whether it's, so from the beginning of time, people have created problems for themselves and businesses have been launched to solve these problems. Do we think that AI is going to create more or less problems in the world? Probably more and more means more businesses to solve these problems, more people to solve the problems. You can look at the eightfold case, Chad.
Emi Beredugo (53:13.183)
More. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (53:23.749)
yeah.
Joel Cheesman (53:23.96)
Do you think the legal profession will have more lawsuits because of AI or fewer lawsuits? More lawsuits. So yes.
Chad Sowash (53:29.762)
Well, and it's literally just identifying more areas where the ambulance chasers can go running at, right? I mean, yeah, no, I agree. I agree.
Joel Cheesman (53:39.616)
Yes, so.
Emi Beredugo (53:40.376)
But if that's the case, and AI is going to cause more problems, we both agree that's the case, you're also going to also think that people are going to, there's more fear around using AI. And so I think what Walmart is doing by training, yes, I think it's a PR exercise, but I also think by training their staff on how to use AI, what is AI, why you shouldn't be scared of AI, how we can actually improve your job and not take away your job, that is also positive as well.
Joel Cheesman (54:08.812)
But the world...
Chad Sowash (54:08.918)
I just don't think they're going to need to use it. I think it's going to be working in the background and there's no reason for any human to really touch it.
Emi Beredugo (54:09.473)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (54:14.861)
But they need to understand how it works in order to bring up better versions of the AI products. It can't just be something in the background and go, yeah, the machine said that. You have to know how it works. You need to know how it made decisions, for example. So I think that's a good thing. It all depends what they're teaching. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (54:23.106)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (54:25.048)
and
Chad Sowash (54:32.076)
It's just like interview scheduling, Emmy. I don't need to know how interview scheduling works. I just know that it happens.
Emi Beredugo (54:38.061)
What about if it's a tool that helps to, you know, kind of flag good CVs, for example, you need to know how it makes decisions. make sure. Yeah, I don't like that one. Okay.
Chad Sowash (54:45.08)
Why are you gaslighting me? I was just talking about interview scheduling. And then you want to do similar or else.
Yeah. Anyway.
Joel Cheesman (54:55.128)
The World Economic Forum's 2026 Global Risk Report said that 92 million workers will be displaced by 2030, but it also said 170 million new roles will be created in that timeframe. Look at the war.
Emi Beredugo (55:10.679)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (55:12.962)
Do you think there are going to be some new weapons that are created, more drones built, more shit that like, so we're probably going to keep the battleships and the carriers, but we're also going to have a whole new class of weapons that are going to have companies building those weapons, cyber war. mean, like the problems just keep coming and we're going to have to create solutions to these problems, which I think ultimately is good for business.
Chad Sowash (55:16.298)
Yeah, or to have.
Chad Sowash (55:36.322)
Fucking humanity.
Emi Beredugo (55:38.497)
Fucked.
Joel Cheesman (55:43.544)
All right guys, ZipRecruiter, I might be eating some crow here, I don't know. ZipRecruiter reported its first quarterly year over year revenue growth in over three years in Q4 with revenue rising 0.6 % in the quarter to $111.7 million. I love how we talk about hundreds of millions of dollars in our space when people are talking about billions in other spaces. Anyway.
Chad Sowash (55:45.42)
Talking about fucked humanity, zip recruiter.
Emi Beredugo (55:47.034)
Yeah!
Joel Cheesman (56:11.564)
The growth has been driven by inner pure enterprise employers and performance based revenue. All this despite a 10 % drop in us job openings and a soft holiday hiring season. Chad did zipper critter just become the hottest company in TA.
Chad Sowash (56:26.968)
Well, it took them long enough to get into the enterprise market for God's sakes. Now they're pissing away the SMB side of the house. But what they have done is they were starting to use Indeed tricks. And the Indeed tricks are the black box pricing. So it's demand pricing. So I mean, instead of just charging one flat rate for everything, now they're looking at demand and they're making more money. So it took them long enough to fucking get here. Yeah, how long will it last? So that's the question.
Emi Beredugo (56:58.187)
No, I agree. And I think if all the money is, if this kind of short win or this win that we're seeing at the moment is just being propped up by the enterprise organizations, that doesn't translate into long-term sales. So this is where they need to like, you know, have some kind of strategy to kind of maintain that momentum. And I'm not convinced that's going to be the case in all honesty.
Chad Sowash (57:22.712)
I think it's their product set. think their product set is short term. They can create a much better long term product set for for enterprise. I don't think they have that. I don't think they're close to having that. I think they've had a nice short win. When was the last time? 2022? Yeah, 2022. this has been a long fucking time, guys. you're right. They get one win. You know, we can't can't anoint a new king. That's for damn sure.
Emi Beredugo (57:31.98)
Hmm
Emi Beredugo (57:39.245)
2022, yeah.
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (57:50.027)
That's propping everything up, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (57:51.746)
Guys, you're missing everything, guys. It's their new Zip crooners ad. It's the singing crooners on the new, that's it. That's the secret. No, I can simplify this even more. So they've laid off some people, they're AI folks. But if you go to their site, Chad, Phil is gone. The whole Phil chat bot, find a job is not on the, it's gone. I couldn't find it.
Chad Sowash (57:54.231)
God.
Emi Beredugo (57:56.75)
Is that what it is? Okay, we had no idea. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (58:00.579)
Damn it!
and hammer it. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (58:05.803)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (58:20.834)
They've gone back to the traditional search box, forced registration. You got to give us your info before we show you the jobs. Like they've just said, fuck this new shit. We're going back old school and we're making everyone give us their data. We're going to force everyone here. you know, enterprise eventually enterprise does look for other options. They look for other things. So I mean, budget shifting around indeed is charging more LinkedIn's charge more. Let's just try that zip recruiter thing again. So
Chad Sowash (58:35.672)
gonna pull out the jalopy.
Chad Sowash (58:49.036)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (58:50.936)
I'm not falling for the banana in the tailpipe, but I tell you getting rid of Phil and the zip crooners are the reason for this. Everybody. It's the real reason.
Emi Beredugo (59:00.173)
I'm gonna miss that.
Chad Sowash (59:03.0)
so bad. So bad.
Joel Cheesman (59:05.528)
All right, let's get to a dad joke, shall we? And today's dad joke is sponsored by Jeremy Cheeseman, my eight year old son, who, who shared this with me. Are you ready? Why did Donald Trump put lipstick on his forehead? Why did Donald Trump put lipstick on his forehead?
Chad Sowash (59:07.52)
Okay, thank God, thank God.
Emi Beredugo (59:07.884)
with.
Chad Sowash (59:16.555)
Yes.
Joel Cheesman (59:27.702)
He needed help to make up his mind.
Chad Sowash (59:27.756)
I don't
Jeremy, he is, is, got it, he's you know, he's
Emi Beredugo (59:31.801)
wow! Now we'll give that to Jeremy. No, that's cute. Yay!
Joel Cheesman (59:37.42)
He's learning on the job. I'll get him there. I'm his Yoda. I'm his Yoda, guys. Good to see everybody. We out.
Emi Beredugo (59:39.285)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (59:45.654)
We out.