This week on a lactose-free Chad and Cheese podcast we have questions... Luckily, tech and product stud Adam Godson joins us to answer questions like... Will The Miami Heat Bang and Blame? Will iCIMS finally give us The Bird? Can robots be taxed? Will Jeff Bezos be able to keep his super yacht with all of the Amazon layoffs? Most important of all, is the age of social media end? Man, I hope not, what the hell would Joel do without big booty Latinas and bug fights?
Plus Woven, Keka, and Adway get funding!
Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPTION SPONSOR:
INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Chad (24s):
Yeah. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm Chad "Bang and Blame" Sowash. This week is a lactose free Chad and Cheese podcast, but we have questions, questions like, will the Miami heat bang and blame? Will iCIMS find their inner humanity? And is the age of social media ending? Man, I hope not. What the hell would Cheesman do without big booty Latinas and bug fights? Let's do this. All right, kids. So today I'm not alone. There is no Cheese. So all you lactose free kid, you, you'll be okay for tomorrow.
Chad (1m 7s):
But we do have a special guest. The special guest today is our friend. Get ready. Drum roll please. Adam Godson. Adam, how you doing man?
Adam (1m 20s):
Hey Chad, great to be with you.
Chad (1m 22s):
So for all the kids at home who have never had the pleasure of knowing Adam Godson would give us a little Twitter bio of you.
Adam (1m 30s):
Well, I'm happy to be here. I feel like I'm substitute cheese today. I'm that substance that no one knows exactly what it is. But
Chad (1m 37s):
You're vegan cheese?
Adam (1m 38s):
I'm Vegan cheese, yes. Yes. I have fake cheese today. But yeah, it's great. I've been in the recruiting space a long time, spent many years at CLO as their leading technology there, and now I'm chief product officer at Paradox. And so we've known each other a long time. So happy to be here on the show.
Chad (1m 56s):
Yeah. Well, give us a little bit about you though, kids. Where do you live? That kind of stuff.
Adam (2m 2s):
I live in southeastern Wisconsin and I've got two boys. They are 13 and 10. My wife Andrea is, we live in her hometown in Wisconsin. And yeah, I've been in recruiting technology a long time and that's mostly what I do for fun.
Chad (2m 16s):
Yeah. That's what you have to do for fun in Wisconsin. I mean, come on.
Adam (2m 20s):
Winter is coming. That is true.
Chad (2m 23s):
But, but you're, you're in Sweden. What in the hell are you doing in Sweden at ABBA concert, right?
sfx (2m 36s):
ABBA music
Adam (2m 40s):
That is true. I am in Sweden, actually, I'm at the Workday Rising Conference, which is in Stockholm this week. So I had a session, I spoke at this morning, and, but on Tuesday, one of the members of ABBA did speak at the Rising Conference. So you're you're right on.
Chad (2m 57s):
No shit?
Adam (2m 58s):
Yeah, it was great. He was staying alive.
Chad (3m 1s):
They spoke and they didn't sing. They didn't have all of, wait a minute, is ABBA, are they all still alive? I can't remember.
Adam (3m 8s):
I'm not entirely clear on that, but yeah, they sort of did an interview kind of a thing, they talked about what they're doing these days.
Chad (3m 15s):
I love it. I love it. Well, that's one of our most favorite soundbites and hopefully we'll never get in trouble for it. Let's go ahead and let's jump to shout outs. My first shout out's gonna be to FBI director, Christopher Wray, who told congress this week that he is "extremely concerned", I'm using air quotes there, "extremely concerned" Beijing could weaponize data collected through TikTok, which is owned by, we all know, ByteDance in China during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on worldwide threats. Tuesday, Ray flagged the risk that the Chinese government could harness the video sharing app to influence users or control those devices.
Adam (3m 59s):
Boy, that escalated quickly.
Chad (4m 1s):
This just seems to be like way out there. Sci-fi shit.
Adam (4m 6s):
Yeah, this is wild. I mean, I think we saw how much in previous elections, other things, social media can influence the way that people think. And certainly TikTok has a pretty wild algorithm that draws people in. So there's a lot of things to be concerned about there, but it is wild to hear government officials starting to openly talk about it. I think people have talked for years about algorithms being optimized for science and useful things in China, and then pranks and bouncing boobs in the US. So trying to make sure that we have different algorithms for different folks based on what they want them to know.
Chad (4m 43s):
Yeah, no, their algorithm is addictive. And I do mean addictive. I just don't know what Cheesman would do without big booty Latinas and bug fights. Cuz, I mean, that's his thing. So he's gonna have to figure that one out. If TikTok gets shut down in the US.
Adam (5m 2s):
Joel will need new hobbies or he'll get like the Chinese version and like, it'll be about science projects and useful things he can do. So he'll be all into new hobbies.
Chad (5m 11s):
Yeah. I don't think Joel is in the useful space anymore. It's all beyond this point. You gotta shout out?
Adam (5m 20s):
I do. So I'm in Stockholm and the sun sets at three 15 every day. So I have not seen the sun in many days, so I'm giving my shout out to the sun. So Miss you buddy.
Chad (5m 31s):
Well, I have it down here in Portugal with me. This is what blows my mind. We're two guys from the US You're in Sweden and I'm in Portugal and we're doing the show. So just so, you know, you can come down after you're done. We've got plenty of sun here.
Adam (5m 45s):
Well, yeah. I'll be down.
Chad (5m 47s):
Okay. All right. We're gonna go ahead and we're gonna jump into the Chad and Cheese Fantasy Football League, powered by our friends at FactoryFix. Adam FactoryFix is located in Chicago, and they're all Bears fans over there. FactoryFix loves them some Bears. So growing up in Iowa and now living in Wisconsin, what are your thoughts on the Bears, especially this season?
Adam (6m 8s):
Well, the season doesn't really matter. The Bears are kind of always the same. As a Packers fan. I can say that the Bears usually enjoy watching the playoffs from home. And so I hope they'll continue to do that this year.
Chad (6m 21s):
So do you think the Packers are gonna make the playoffs this year?
Adam (6m 24s):
That's yet to be determined also, but as a Packers fan, as bad as things are, at least you're not the Bears.
Chad (6m 32s):
I gotta say, I don't think the Packers are gonna make it, number one. I doubt that the, I doubt that the Bears will, but our Ohio State University, Buckeye alum, Justin Fields has been lighting it up last week against the Lions. He had 13 carries for 147 yards, and the week prior, 15 carries for 178 yards against the Miami Phins. Who? I Are they still undefeated?
Adam (6m 58s):
They're not, they're having a good season, especially on offense for sure.
Chad (7m 2s):
Yeah. Damn. Anyway, I think Fields has found his groove. So I'm just gonna leave it there and say go Bucks. Here's the rundown of this week's Fantasy Football FactoryFix one to 12, number one Chris "top of the pack" Mannion. number two, Matt "Climb that" Hill. Number three, Serge "Boudrar" Boudreau. Number four, Joseph "SpaceX" Wilkie. Number five Joel "This is America Jack!" Cheesman. Six. Christy Kelling in the name of... Seven Dennis "middle of the pack" Tupper 8. Chad "I won last week and still lost 3 spots?"
Chad (7m 46s):
Sowash. James Gilliam's Island. Jason Von Putnam. Mike "checking out the basement" Schaeferand Dan "Come on in the basement is fine" Shoemaker. That's our factory fixed one to 12. I still don't know how these rankings work. All I know is I'm not in the bottom where I was last year. So it's getting better. Are you on any fantasy football leagues? I think you have to be.
Adam (8m 12s):
I am.
Chad (8m 12s):
A rule. I think it's a law in Wisconsin. Is it not?
Adam (8m 16s):
I think that's true, yes. In fact, I actually have played fantasy football since 1991 when we grabbed like a flyer off of like a case of beer at a gas station that described what to do. And we like used to go to the newspaper and do it all by hand. So yeah, it's pretty awesome.
Chad (8m 35s):
My, my father-in-law still, he's in I think four leagues, one of his league is still a paper league. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, it's a blast. We have a whiteboard, we do it on paper. I'm like, that's just ridiculous.
Adam (8m 49s):
Yeah.
Chad (8m 50s):
That's ridiculous. That's like saying I miss my horse and buggy.
Adam (8m 53s):
Right, right. We didn't do it by choice. It was all that existed at the time.
Chad (8m 56s):
Back then. I'm talking about now. He still has a paper league. That's wild.
Adam (9m 1s):
That's crazy.
Chad (9m 1s):
Anyway, anyway. Okay, so birthdays this week, kids, Joel is the birthday guy, so he can double down on birthdays next week. But if it is your birthday this month and you haven't signed up for free stuff, you're missing a chance to win a bottle of rum from plum.io. The platform that makes your night better with rum and the platform that makes talent decisions with proven science. That's right. Kids, we also have more free stuff. You can also win t-shirts. Adam, do you have your new Chad and Cheese T-shirt yet?
Adam (9m 30s):
I don't have one yet, but I need one for Chad and Vegan Cheese.
Chad (9m 36s):
Well, I'm gonna tell you right now, they're soft and cuddly. That's what the Chad and Cheese podcast t-shirt is all about. Making sure it's like being spooned by Chad and Cheese. It's warm, it's cozy, and it's awkward all at the same time.
Adam (9m 50s):
You're really selling it. You're really selling it.
Chad (9m 53s):
What? Spooning the Chad and Cheese is not.
Adam (9m 55s):
Okay.
Chad (9m 55s):
Maybe not. You can also win a box of craft beer brewed by Aspen Tech Labs. Okay. So maybe they didn't actually brew the beer, but they're buying it for you. You're welcome. And last but not least, two bottles. That's right. Two bottles of whiskey from our Dutch friends at Textkernel. Don't worry, the Dutch are not sending Dutch whiskey, I promise. It's the good stuff. Chad and Cheese are actually picking it. All of this delivered to your front door by Joel Cheeseman himself, or more than likely a proxy for Joel dressed up like a FedEx or UPS employee. Anyway, go to Chadcheese.com, click on the free up in the right hand corner so that you can register to win.
Chad (10m 45s):
Tell me you are registered at chadcheese.com/free Adam.
Adam (10m 47s):
Of course, I'm registered. My winning streak is, is not good, but I've definitely registered. Who isn't registered? Why would you not be?
Chad (10m 55s):
That's a very good question. It's free stuff.
Adam (11m 1s):
Exactly. Who doesn't like free stuff?
Chad (11m 3s):
Good topics. All right, Adam, this remember last week's rumor about iCIMS changing CEOs. It's not a rumor anymore. Straight outta Homedale, New Jersey that is iCIMS announced that Brian Provost will join as CEO effective December 1st, 2022. That's pretty fast. Brian, the former CEO of Ascentis, brings more than 20 years of executive leadership experience in rapid growth to SAAS technology companies. In his role, Brian helped scale Ascentis a provider of full suite HR and workforce management solutions over three times that, which ultimately led to the company being acquired by a little company called UKG Steve Lucas, current CEO of iCIMS will remain on the company's board of directors.
Chad (11m 53s):
Adam, your thoughts on Lucas being replaced by Provost? What the hell is happening over at iCIMS?
Adam (11m 60s):
I think this is mostly a normal private equity type of things where Steve is headed on to another portfolio company and then there's the next guy in. So I think it's one of those things that's looks a little bit routine. It's not like a cool ship blowing up. It's not Twitter. There's nothing of that level of excitement happening there. But it certainly, it'll be a shake up and there's always new leadership. People always have new ideas. So I'm super interested to see what new leadership Brian brings and what the new strategy might be.
Chad (12m 33s):
Well, and they also have a new CMO. His name is Ari Osur, I believe. Anyway, we'll get that right someday taking over for Susan Vitali, which is another big move. And Ari spent six years marketing at ADP. What are your thoughts around that?
Adam (12m 51s):
Well, certainly Susan's been around a long time so that those are big shoes to fill, but Ari's got a big decision to go with Bird or no bird. So iCIMS had the bird, the red bird is their on their logo for forever since then, sort of the beginning until last year, two years ago, they did a rebrand to go with a sort of light green color and a different, there was no bird. But, then the bird showed up at HR Tech and so now we're half bird. So I think Ari's gonna decide if he's going bird or no bird.
Chad (13m 27s):
So my, my question to you is, do you go with bird or no bird?
Adam (13m 32s):
I like the bird. I think I'd go, no bird, I think iCIMS is a point of seriousness where they're trying to compete with enterprise clients, the upper level. And so I, well, I like the bird. I think I'd probably go no bird. It's also a new chapter for Brian to usher in something new.
Chad (13m 50s):
Yeah, well, I'm gonna have to say, well, I think we need the bird and here's why. So I've heard from some who remember the Colin Day era that say that iCIMS, they're just not the company that they, they knew and loved, and they truly understand that, you know, there's been changes, but I've got, you gotta remember, it's not 1999 anymore. So I understand that the no bird. The change to Steve Lucas I think was incredibly smart. But this move has the stink of PE all over it because Steve and Brian are literally at this point, I think you didn't say it, but I'm gonna say it, they're pieces on the chess board. You know, you've got these portfolio companies, you got these CEOs, and you're moving the pieces on the chess board.
Chad (14m 34s):
And what what I mean about that is it's starting to feel more robotic in PE than human and Collin Day. And there's gotta be a balance. The brand must feel more human, less robotic. The addition of Ari as the CMO taking over for Susan Vitali, again, it's a big move. So, you know, there's no judgment on Brian and and Ari yet because hell, they haven't even warmed up their chairs yet. But here's my message to both of them. The industry needs to see iCIMS as a leader and not as a robotic one. So get out there, press the flesh, kiss the babies, do the things, the things that will humanize the brand.
Chad (15m 17s):
A brand that has unfortunately over the last few years has started to feel kind of cold and distance. So I think we have to go with a bird.
Adam (15m 29s):
Love it. Love it.
Chad (15m 31s):
What do you think about that though? Because it seems like when PE starts taking over, it just becomes less human.
Adam (15m 37s):
You make a good argument sort of from an identity perspective. If PEs going gonna change the CEO every three years based on, as you say it, moving pieces on the chess board, then they need an identity. I mean, it was Colin for so long. If it's gonna happen where it's a frequent switch, maybe the bird is that identity and that can be, you know, what clients find is that consistency over time.
Chad (15m 57s):
You put it much better than I do. Very more concise. I like that. All right, we're moving quick kids, we're moving quick. We're going to the next one. And that's funding. Woven, going back to Indy. Indie. Indie, yeah, I don't think so. That's right. Kids Woven out of Indianapolis, Indiana announced, it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Glow Brands. Wasn't Glow on Netflix. That was a show on Netflix, wasn't it? Anyway, with this funding oven will further accelerate its growth to streamline people management, operations and facility and asset management for franchisees and independent multi-unit business globally.
Chad (16m 44s):
Wow. That's a lot to do and say. Multi-unit business management has been a widespread challenge within the franchise industry, resulting in low productivity, high employee turnover and disjointed systems. Woven has 100% bootstrap prior to this funding has 98% customer retention and services get this 700 plus Planet Fitness Clubs, 35 Bluff City soap locations and other brands such as Pet supplies plus, Great Clips and yada yada, yada. So Adam, this is right up your alley. You guys have worked in the franchise space before you, you still do.
Chad (17m 24s):
Is this funding a spare or a strike? Oh,
Adam (17m 26s):
I think it's a strike. It's early, so it's just a million and a half in Series A, but the franchise space is very underserved. So you've got a lot of growth in that market yet to come as well. But a lot of people looking to run small businesses and a lot of systems that aren't really made for that type of environment. So I say strike.
Chad (17m 47s):
Yeah. Well you guys, you are dealing over at Paradox, you're dealing with franchises now. What are the big differences and and why have they had such disjointed systems thus far?
Adam (17m 58s):
Well, sure it's really like running a small business. And so, think of it as there's sort of a tension between all the things we do together at the corporate level, like the branding and the marketing and those things. And then there's the autonomy that happens underneath at the franchise level that a person that owns 10 stores of something gets to decide on their own. So the fundamental problem is that tension and for all the different franchise organizations that exists, those tension points exist in different places. So they all make decisions about what corporate controls and what's locally controlled. And it's always different. And that makes it hard to make software that serves franchise well. And Chad, I have a question coming back at you.
Adam (18m 39s):
You mentioned that this is Indianapolis based. Does that make Indianapolis the new HR tech hotbed?
Chad (18m 43s):
Well they have been since day one. I mean, online career center was there. We have so many companies, monster.com. Nexxt has people there. I mean, we've been really the center of internet recruitment, internet recruitment tech for a very long time. And you'll notice that any company that wants to scale throughout at least the US and you're noticing this from brands like Vonq outside the US, if you want to get back into the US you need to get people with great experience and connections. And a lot of those people are actually in Indianapolis and in and around the Indianapolis area.
Chad (19m 25s):
So I say yes, it definitely is. Back to you though. I took a look on the pricing page and it starts at $70 per month per location and on the high side it's $220 per location per month. And I mean that's less than $3,000 a year for a platform. What do you think about that? That that seems like bargain basement pricing.
Adam (19m 48s):
It is, but again, to serve that market margins tend to be relatively thin. They tend to be price sensitive. As you roll that up there, there's lots of money to be had there, but you have to build software that can actually handle the franchise complexity and build to that. So it not often done, but there's a lot of market there if Woven can can help figure it out.
Chad (20m 7s):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay, we're gonna go to the next company who received funding this month. That's right. Kids straight outta Sweden. I'm gonna keep this up until we actually get a startup out of Compton, by the way. Anyways, AdWay, an automated social recruitment marketing solution announced today that it, it has raised a 10 million Euro in a Series A from Octopus Ventures and existing investors. AdWay's, unique recruitment marketing platform empowers talent and recruitment leaders to attract talent at scale and speed.
Chad (20m 58s):
Adway simplifies talent acquisition processes while building deep diverse social talent pools, reducing cost per hire and removing reliance on traditional talent acquisition and attraction methods and tools. Adam, that's a big word salad for me. I'm having problems digesting it. What does that actually mean to you?
Adam (21m 16s):
Yeah, it means looking to use social media for targeted advertising and being able to use new methods to get attraction for businesses. And I think this is something that companies are struggling with in that organizations want to use TikTok and Snapchat and certainly Facebook and Instagram for recruitment. But a lot of it is done manually today and we're not doing a great job as an industry of measuring ROI ofthe effort that we're spending there. So there's definitely room for solutions, always a little bit skeptical about the ability to execute there and actually tends to come when companies start to see the bill for what it actually costs to compete, to advertise on social media.
Adam (21m 57s):
Just because you're then competing against everything else on earth, not just in the job board context where you're competing against other employers. Your cost per clicks can get really high and your conversions can be barely low due to the fact that people aren't necessarily looking for that. But it is the part, you know, should be part of everyone's plan to think about their strategy to get new people for certain scenarios.
Chad (22m 17s):
Do do you feel like something like this is more of a brand strategy than it is a talent attraction or acquisition strategy and being that you need to be able to get your brand out there so that it is top of mind before you start really getting the attraction engines moving. And those attraction engines might actually be happening out on job boards, but you need to soften it up. You need to soften up the battlefield before you actually go on it. So doesn't social media feel more like a marketing and branding tool these days than it does attraction?
Adam (22m 53s):
It does. And that can go two ways, right? So being able to market to people once they're familiar or if they're not familiar and to push impressions to them once they've visited your site or some in some way communicated with you or for you to target them. But yeah, absolutely it's about brand, it's about reach. So the traditional metrics will never compare to job board world. The intent of job seekers on job boards is so high cuz they're on a job board that you won't match the pure metrics of it, but it's about reach is how do I find people that are not gonna be looking and so be able to build that over time and then eventually convert them into an employee.
Chad (23m 34s):
So this is the big passive play. And my question is, if you are one of those programmatic players and you don't have a social solution, does Adway become a target for you right out of the gate? Especially after they just received this $10 million now we sit back, we prospectively integrate and then we watch for the prospect of acquisition down the line.
Adam (23m 57s):
Yeah, I think so. I think it makes sense and people are thinking about solutions there and I think it's not just a programmatic, but to your point about brand other folks that are involved in the employer brand world, how do we take the brand and the creative that we have made and then push that to social in a way that's more automated than we have people doing that today. So I think absolutely.
Chad (24m 20s):
Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, so the new funding will be put toward developing the product suite makes sense, but also supporting continued expansion into international markets. They're in Sweden, everything around them is in an international market. They didn't say USA they didn't say specifically Europe or anything like that. So it's gonna be interesting to see where these guys go. I am definitely going to be watching very closely because I think, again, they're perspectively filling a brand gap. That's a lot of branding platforms don't have, not to mention a lot of programmatic platforms don't have, so there could be blood in the water for an acquisition, who knows.
Chad (25m 7s):
All right, we're jumping to the next one kids straight outta Hyeprabad. That's right. Keka, K E K A. Keka Technology startup has raised $57 million in a series A funding led by WestBridge Capital. It is the largest enterprise tech Series A funding round in India. That's pretty big. The investment will help the company in R and D and it expands its engineering product and customer service teams and improves its products. Keka assists, Indian SMEs with 20-5,000 employees.
Chad (25m 49s):
That's a hell of a span right there. And streamlines and automates payroll, recruiting, leave and attendance, performance management and more. That is also a span. My god, Adam, Joel and I aren't generally big fans of vendors focused on the SME market, but India has more than 7.9 million micro, small and medium companies, which might make the calculus a little bit different. What do you think about this?
Adam (26m 16s):
It's tricky cuz that's a big round for India. I like that they said they topped the previous largest series by $1 million. So they were looking at what whatever the last person raised and said, I want $1 million more than that. So to be the record. But, this is a crowded space and certainly, it seems like they're having some good success. The piece with India is about, can you get the return on that investment and you've gotta scale really quickly. So if they can be the platform that becomes a standard for all those 7.9 million small businesses, in India, that absolutely can work. But certainly you don't, you don't get the sort of price per employee or the pricing that you get for businesses in other parts of the world.
Adam (27m 0s):
So a big bet on being able to scale the platform and being able to go do customer acquisition and becoming the standard for small businesses in India.
Chad (27m 11s):
If you're a company that is focused just on India and especially this many companies, do you just focus on India or is there a play? With this kind of cash really to look outside of the borders of India? Because I mean, India has a lot of people, has a lot of companies, which we actually said 7.9 million micro to medium. But is that really where the cash is?
Adam (27m 34s):
Yeah, that's the trouble is what's the total addressable market in India versus heading outside those borders? My guess is there's a whole lot of business to pick up in India, so they can probably do that for some time, but also to make the money that they will want to eventually make. They'll need to go to other markets and they may pick other developing markets to enter that as well. That would make a lot of sense for rather than go to compete with Workday and SAP and, and others. So thinking about the near term strategy, I'm sure there's lots of money in India, but likely they have to go to new countries to meet their financial goals.
Chad (28m 11s):
Yeah, I tell you man, their Tam around automating payroll recruiting, leave an absence, performance management, and oh, by the way and more, I mean that to me it automatically signals warning bills because that is so much to do. And even before they had $57 million, right? So getting this kind of cash, and you've seen it before, getting this kind of cash means that you're gonna have to broaden up your TAM more because you've gotta promise more than what you've done before to be able to get more money than what you've actually gotten before. Is this to, to you, when you're looking at companies like this, not saying that Keka is a bad company, but does this just like an alarm bill to you when you see companies who already have a pretty broad TAM and then they get new money, especially this kind of money?
Adam (28m 59s):
Not, not always. It can be depending on how they're planning on spending it, but but also if they've got momentum and they simply need to to scale to be able to service that, to continue to develop that really depends on what their penetration looks like. So far, I think they've got 6,500 customers, so 6,000 out of, you know, 7.9 million. They've got ways to go. So, there's definitely some scale to get inside India yet, but they must have a larger vision to go and be a platform and other parts of the world as well. So certainly always wanna be sure that the vision is aligned with the future. And as a customer of a company that raises funding
Chad (29m 47s):
And who knows, the next time we talk about Keka, they might be
sfx (29m 52s):
Pink fluffy unicorn music.
Chad (29m 52s):
All right. Adam, the question is social media dying? Here's a little excerpt from the Atlantics article entitled The Age of Social Media is Ending. Seems fairly ominous. It's over. Facebook is in decline, Twitter is in chaos. Mark Zuckerberg's empire has lost hundreds of billions. That's what the B kids Ba, ba, billions of dollars in value and laid off 11,000 people. And I'm predicting that more are going to be coming soon. With its ad business in peril and it's metaverse fantasy in irons. Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter has caused advertisers to pull spending and power users to shun the platform running to Mastodon.
Chad (30m 39s):
It's never felt more plausible that the age of social media might be soon to an end. Is this chicken little or was social media a flame thrower bound to burn itself out?
Adam (30m 54s):
I think it's mostly chicken little to be honest. Certainly there's lots of chaos at Facebook and Twitter, you know, lots has happened there in the last month, but there's still massive platforms with incredible reach and incredible influence over our society. And I think you actually can look at TikTok, to say one that has incredible growth rates to say actually social media is not dying. Simply the preferences are changing, and what people are doing on social networks is is different. The article actually talks a lot about what's different between a social network. Maybe LinkedIn is the best social network, you know, to people. I wanna connect with people that I know and the social media.
Adam (31m 36s):
So I want to give content and produce user generated content for that network. And I think the shift is TikTok in some ways is much more of a social media. Watching things from people you don't know and consuming media in a different way. So I think preferences are changing, but I don't think it's the end.
Chad (31m 54s):
I agree. Remember the globe back in the late nineties? It opened my eyes to the ability of hyper connectivity, but mainly that was just a one-to-one scale, right? So it wasn't really scalable, but it was one-to-one. I was having discussions with people all over the globe. It was amazing. Then Friendster and MySpace demonstrated that connectivity could be one to many. I agree a hundred percent. Social media is doing nothing but evolving. I think what we've seen in the weaponization of social media over the past years, we're going to have to put some guardrails in place, whether those are companies that are actually creating these guardrails or the federal governments actually starting to put guardrails in and I see Europe doing that first.
Chad (32m 43s):
What do you think? Because we're seeing Europe really put the smack down on big companies.
Adam (32m 49s):
Absolutely, absolutely. And thinking about like the regulation of media has been regulated for a very long time in our society with radio and television and there's not really much reason that social media and it's different forms shouldn't have some regulation as well. So the scale problems get harder with user generated content and other things, but absolutely Europe tends to want figure these things out first and and good for them. They create the framework for everyone else.
Chad (33m 17s):
Yeah, it is interesting because, you know, we've talked with our friend E E O C, commissioner Keith Sonderling around AI and hiring. I think, I think the bigger conversation, AI is almost like a smoke screen at this point. The bigger conversation is the problem that we're having right now. It's really social media and I mean there are actual background quote unquote "background check" companies that are out there that check your social feeds. Now I know there are some lines that are painted around that to ensure that, you know, you're not hiring some white nationalists or what have you, but at the end of the day, I mean, it is still the wild west out there in social and I'm not sure that even the European government has a laser focus on this problem.
Chad (34m 10s):
What do you think about that? Is there just way too much tech that's out there and we just can't get our arms around all of it?
Adam (34m 17s):
Yeah, no doubt. The explosion of it makes that problem really difficult and governments are aren't exactly wizards at always of making technology. So, as time, time will come where we'll figure out how to ingest content and have some supervision or regulation of certain types of tech to flag things. But this is all a natural evolution of an industry, to call it the death of social media is presumptive. It's absolutely changing, but it's definitely not going to die.
Chad (34m 50s):
Yeah, I gotta say man, actually having discussions in 1996 with newfound friends that were in Australia blew my fucking mind, at the time. And then watching the scalability of social media today still blows my mind. It's continuing to happen. The evolution is just amazing, but we've gotta go on to something else that is even more mind blowing. Amazon layoffs and robots. Those things are going to slowly meld into, I think the same word after a while. Amazon is planning to layoff around 10,000 employees in corporate and technology roles beginning this week.
Chad (35m 32s):
In what would amount to its biggest such reduction to date. In other news Amazon is currently testing Sparrow a warehouse automation at a facility in Texas where the robot is already sorting products for customer orders. The company says Sparrow can handle 65% of more than 100 million items in inventory. Amazon is downsizing on the white collar side and on the blue collar side, they have robots coming in. Adam, it sounds like Amazon will be changing its name to Skynet soon. Any thoughts?
Adam (36m 8s):
Yeah, I have lots of thoughts on that one. I think it's a little predictable. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that Amazon's looking to use robots to think in their fulfillment centers to do that. I think everyone's just curious about how far along we are and looking at a lot of companies in this space that are doing logistics, robotics. I think we're a lot further along than people realize for that particular problem. How much technology is in a modern day warehouse and the sorting in the technology that goes to that. Of course today labor is still needed, but that is fundamentally changing and how much of that is automated?
Adam (36m 49s):
And you know, I think it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that Amazon is is thinking about that as a way to continue to be efficient and to save labor.
Chad (36m 57s):
Oh yeah, no, Jeff Bezos, as soon as he can get a T2 terminator, it's overdue. He's going to do it every step of the way so that he can build an even bigger super yacht. It's pretty amazing. And to me it's also evolution, right? We talk about, again earlier, we were talking about the horse and buggy. These are things and these are jobs that are backbreaking jobs in many cases and they're just more fitting for robots. Let's, I would love to see governments as opposed to focusing on trying to give Amazon tax credits to be able to come to their state, to be able to actually have Amazon pay their taxes so that we can, oh, I don't know, maybe educate our people to fill these quote unquote "skills gaps"
Chad (37m 47s):
that need bridged there. There's just so much that we can do. Again, I don't think the answer is either on the corporate private side or the public government side. We have to have a melding of the two. It's hard to look on the horizon and see that anything like that's gonna happen anytime soon in the US. Your thoughts, anywhere else in the world that could prospectively be doing this better without trying to stifle innovation at the same time.
Adam (38m 15s):
That's pretty tricky, to think about doing it without stifling innovation. But there are some interesting long term questions that happen there. Certainly Amazon knows this problem really well. They've got lots of labor market economists who measure labor market decay, where if they come to your town and put in a big facility, they know it's a matter of time before they've employed everyone that's employable for their type of job in that area. And so then they're off to a different spot
Chad (38m 41s):
And they burn 'em out.
Adam (38m 42s):
And, there's just only so much that they can do. And, so it is, there's a structural labor market problem. The point you bring up is an interesting one about robot taxes. So how do we start to think about paying for education and skills training other things and also the taxes that are lost, that went from workers that used to be doing that work. And how do we think about recovering, that's certainly been one that's talked about as well. Being able to think about how do we still tax labor in quotes, I guess in some ways. And how do we have different societal functions for than we think of today. So lots of interesting questions to chew on there.
Chad (39m 22s):
Yeah, how do we do that? And Jeff Bezos still keeps his super yacht. That's the question. And it keeps me up at night, Adam. It keeps me up. All right, we're gonna be right back and we're going to bang and blame. Welcome to Miami, Bem-vindo ah Miami, the popular adult film website Bang Brothers offered the Miami Heat $10 million.
Adam (39m 51s):
Boy that escalated quickly.
Chad (39m 53s):
10 million bones, that's right for naming rights with the heat serving severing ties with FTX because of its recent collapse. Bang Bros has once again made another bid via social media. The Heat has been with FTX since June of 2021. Not very long, but decided it was better to part ways after the company's downfall. Aka they didn't have a fucking choice. Adam, is this a PR stunt by Bang Brothers or just good marketing?
Adam (40m 23s):
I mean, it's both. So there's no way that the Miami Heat would ever allow the arena to be called that.
Chad (40m 30s):
It's Miami though, come on.
Adam (40m 31s):
Although like the two counterpoints are that it's Miami and they also did a 19-year deal with FTX, which I think existed for 20 minutes when they did that deal. So, I maybe there's questionable judgment there that it could be possible, but it is Miami so you never know.
Chad (40m 48s):
Well, you know what, it doesn't matter if this is a PR stunt or not, like you said, because if TikTok goes away, I predict at least one premium Bang Brothers membership coming and that'll be in the form of Joel Cheesman. Bang and blame everybody. We out.
Outro (41m 59s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.
Comments