Looking to celebrate Labor Day with some labor-focused news? Then you’ve come to the right place. Twitter taking on the world of workA with X Hiring is officially official as Elon Musk trash talks LinkedIn. Indeed is flexing its muscle expanding Indeed Flex into storefront locations in Texas. Two startups - TeamSense vs. Nursa - battle it out in a game of Who’d Ya' Rather? Amazon’s CEO is whipping employees back into the office after supporting a very relaxed policy since Covid, and airlines are making life a little easier for travelers who enjoy a little peace and quiet, while making things less comfortable for plus-sized trekkers. Plus, we update you on iCIMS exiting CEO, upcoming parties and “masterdating.”
TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Intro: 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.
[music]
Joel: Oh, yeah! It's National Lazy Mom's Day. So give your mom a much deserved break from your typical bullshit, you son of a bitch. You are listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. This is your co-host, Joel, every day is Lazy Day Cheesman.
Chad: And this is Chad, Edisto Island, here I come, Sowash.
Joel: And on this week's show, LinkedIn cringes, Indeed flexes and Amazon summons your ass back to the office. Let's do this. Holiday weekend Chad. Holiday weekend.
Chad: Hitting the airport and that so how often do you fly out of Louisville Airport?
Joel: Once a decade.
Chad: Yeah? Okay.
Joel: Very few times. Cincinnati more than Louisville.
Chad: Yeah. It's much closer, obviously to me. Indianapolis Airport is 45 minutes away from me. Cincinnati is an hour and a half and Louisville about an hour and 15. So you get a chance to kinda like pick the one that you want, but you coming that far south is... I didn't think that was normal.
Joel: Well, here's what's going on for people that don't talk to me on a regular basis. My wife is a huge Pearl Jam fan. Pearl Jam is touring for the first time in a few years, and they're hitting a limited number of cities. Now they're shockingly hitting Indianapolis, which is nice. Which is next weekend. So I will be seeing them then. My wife is out of town, so we have to go to Minneapolis to fit our schedules to go see Pearl Jam. So I have family in the Louisville area.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: We're dropping the six-year-old off at my niece's, who has I think a 10-year-old and a two-year-old. So he'll get some kid time while we fly out from Louisville, to Minneapolis, and then fly back to Louisville, pick up the kid, drive back up to Indy, and call it a weekend. So that's why...
Chad: Nice.
Joel: Louisville is not necessarily more friendly to direct flights to Minneapolis.
Chad: No. Direct flights to anywhere, but yeah, I'm throwing the clubs in the plane and going to Edisto Island, which is in South Carolina. Gonna meet my cousin there who loves to golf. We're gonna swing the clubs and have a great long weekend. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, come back Monday.
Joel: I know there's a hurricane. I assume it's at least touching South Carolina. Are you watching the weather? Is it death and destruction that you're flying into? Or has it mostly passed?
Chad: No. It was passed. Matter of fact, I read an article this morning that, Edisto's cleanup isn't really considered a cleanup, so that makes me feel better. Hopefully, that's the same for the golf courses as well.
Joel: Yeah. Yeah. Weather report looks good then.
Chad: Oh, weather report looks amazing for this weekend. So pretty stoked. Yeah. After a hurricane moves through, generally everything opens up.
Joel: Yeah. Fortunately for me, it looks like Minneapolis in the beginning of September is gonna be in the '90s. Which is a really strange thing.
SFX: No. God. No, God, please. No. No.
Joel: Fortunately the concert is indoors, so it's not too big of a deal.
SFX: Shout out.
Chad: So, while you're in Minneapolis, are you spending any time with Brian Provost at all? 'Cause that's where he is at.
Joel: No, I'm not.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: I tried, I tried. We both know, Bigfoot, Toby Dayton, who makes occasional appearances. I hit him up. Apparently he broke his foot or, but so yeah, he was gonna go to the concert. We were gonna connect but that's not gonna happen.
Chad: Just didn't happen.
Joel: If Provost if you're listening, and you're gonna go see Pearl Jam.
[laughter]
Joel: Hey, hit me up. We'll get a selfie and blow up the socials for sure.
Chad: The socials. Okay. So here's a post, and this is an update on Brian Provost. If everybody's been paying attention, which I'm sure you have. He is the now former CEO of iCIMS. This is a post that Brian actually put out last week after we did our show. "Yes, it's true. I decided to move on from iCIMS. This was a difficult decision as iCIMS is an amazing business with an incredible team. However, after a much introspection," that's internal, that's you're looking in inner space, Sir Joel. "I felt it was the best decision for me and my family at this time." Obviously, to get the fuck out. This is where it gets weird.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: "There are always several factors that play a role in leaving a business, but one of the biggest was commuting as a remote CEO on a weekly basis. I love being with a team and collaborating in an office." He lives in Minnesota commutes to New Jersey. "ICIMS is absolutely heading in the right direction, and I have every confidence," yada, yada, yada. "As for what I'll do next, I'll be working that over in the coming weeks and months. I'll let you know when I know." So what did you think about this?
Joel: Well, Minnesota, as you know Chad is the land of lakes.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: I believe 10,000 lakes is their claim to fame. It's probably not exactly 10,000, but lakes have a lot of dead fish in them and dead fish tend to stink. And this whole thing stinks to me. If you didn't like remote work, at least have a plan before you leave. Have a new CEO, have an interim CEO.
Chad: It's weird.
Joel: Have something there. Don't just leave because you don't like the commute. It just doesn't make sense. And it just stinks to high heaven.
Chad: It almost feels like all the CEOs are like making employees come back to the office. It's almost like this CEO was being made to come back to the office and he is like, no, I'm not gonna, I quit. That's what this post makes it sound like. And to be quite frank, I think he would've done himself a better service in not posting anything at all compared to this 'cause this was just weird.
Joel: Or just be honest and say, I had a disagreement with the board and I couldn't take it anymore. And I'm out of here.
Chad: Either way though, as a CEO, you're gonna have other people looking at what happened. This is just nothing. But again, this is one of the reasons why mature people don't post things on social media, right? 'Cause you can look back later and see what the fuck was going on. To, me, if he's looking for another CEO position, leading an organization, definitely not, what I would have done. But I'm a podcaster. I post everything, so.
Joel: It also doesn't bode well if he wants another CEO gig.
Chad: No, that's what I mean.
Joel: The whole thing is crazy pills, Chad.
Chad: Weird.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: Well, from one crazy to another, Chad, my shout out goes to Masterdating. That's right. Masterdating. Yeah. I hadn't heard of it either.
SFX: What are you doing, step bro?
Joel: So you're familiar with Masterbating, Chad, but do you know about Masterdating? The term is trending on TikTok. Masterdating is essentially going out on dates by yourself. Why run the risk of rejection and go on a real date when you can always get to a yes from yourself? That's right. Plus, you can ditch the whole ghosting thing that all the kids are talking about. And the best part, Chad, you're guaranteed to get lucky at the end of the night. Shout out to [laughter] Masterdating. That's right.
Chad: Humans are so fucking stupid. [laughter] Shout out to GPU recruiting tactics. So this is from an article in SemiAnalysis, "One of the funniest trends we see in the Bay Area is with top machine learning researchers bragging about how many GPUs they have or will have access to soon. Meta, for example, who will have the second most number of Nvidia H100 GPUs in the world is actively using it as a recruiting tactic." That's right, kids. If ML and AI, R&D people don't have access to the newest toys, they'll, they probably won't join your team. And at about $25,000-$30,000 per GPU. That's right, that's the coveted H100 GPU, Google, Meta, and all the other big boys are going to be siphoning that tech, which means they're also going to be siphoning that talent out of the market. Shout out to GPU recruiting tactics.
Joel: Okay, let's go to, Nikita Bier for my next shout out. Nikita is the founder of Gas, an app that was popular with the kids for about a minute. They were acquired by Discord earlier this year, but that's not why Nikita gets a shout out. He gets one for blowing up on X. The artist formerly known as Twitter for the following post, "The best way to stay unemployed is to use the Open To Work avatar on LinkedIn." That's right. It's funny because it's true. But it's also good advice, Chad, desperation is a bad luck. A bad luck on anyone. Just go on a masterdate with yourself and ditch the Please Hire Me desperation of the Open To Work avatar. Shout out to Nikita Bier.
Chad: Oh, I'm just glad you don't have a sound effects for the Masterdating masturbating. Shout out to Sean Luchins, one of our listeners, guy's been in the industry for a very long time. As a matter of fact, he was just interviewed. We just interviewed him, a couple of months ago. Here's a quote from one of his LinkedIn posts. "There are those pinnacle moments in your career that are just too tough to top. Does it get any better than being blessed? Blessed, Joel, with a Chad and Cheese t-shirt?"
Joel: Oh my God. No.
Chad: Very tongue in cheek. We know, Sean is probably using that, t-shirt to buff up like his Maserati or something like that. [laughter] But no matter, no matter, Joel, how do you acquire one of these silky soft Chad and Cheese t-shirts?
Joel: His Maserati? How do all of our listeners have Maseratis [laughter] and we don't have one apparently. Yes, Chad. Everyone loves free shit and we love giving people stuff. If you like t-shirts, whiskey, beer, you gotta go to ChadCheese.com. Click the free link. We're talking JobGet does our shirts. Textkernel is sending the brown liquid...
Chad: Whiskey baby.
Joel: Out to people all over the country. And beer, everybody loves beer. It's getting to fall. That means October Fest Brews. That means a little bit more robust flavors, in your, glass, [laughter] that is powered by our friends at Aspen Tech Labs. But you gotta play if you wanna win. Go to ChadCheese.com, click the free link, fill out the information, and you might win.
Chad: So you know what time it is? Time for events kids.
[music]
Chad: Oh, little Love Shack. But that's a little Love RecFest. Day one, the Disrupt stage is going to be off the chain. We're gonna be talking about technology all damn day with Shelley and Serge from The Recruitment Flex and Tracey and Allyn from Talent Rebelcast. But before any of that happens, kids, we have a pre-party, pre-party on September the 12th at Tin Roof on Broadway, powered by plum.io and Aaron. Joel's gonna try to get his Nashville hot chicken fix that night. Probably not a good idea before the first day of the conference, but, hey, you do you Joel?
Joel: Hey, they're lollipops. So they're less, potent, I think than the normal ones.
Chad: Sure. Sure, they are. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. [laughter] Then we're gonna have obviously all day one on the Disrupt stage. Great lineup of tech and companies using that tech. And then we have the after party on September 14th. It is a booze cruise. Gonna have Hattie B's liquor, beer, and who knows what the hell else. Now there's only gonna be 40 people on that cruise, so if you get a VIP invitation, you better fucking RSVP. If not, it might go away very soon. That's powered by our friends over at Hackajob. This whole thing has come together so quickly, Joel. RecFest is just a machine.
Joel: Machine of debauchery. And people that want party.
Chad: Oh, it's crazy. So what do you think about RecFest...
SFX: Alright. Alright.
Chad: In Nashville, year one.
Joel: I think it's great. Look in in all transparency, we've heard differing perspectives on how this is gonna go. We've heard people say like, eh, I don't know if anyone's gonna go. It's been kind of quiet. And then we've also heard shit's gonna sell out. And from our own experience, these two parties get togethers that we're throwing have filled up incredibly fast. Much more than I thought they would. So it all unfolds in Nashville. We're gonna find out for ourselves in person how this is gonna go on September 12th through the 14th. I'm optimistic. I think it's gonna be a blowout. I think it's gonna be a statement. It's gonna be a British are coming moment, with RecFest coming to Nashville, and I'm here for it, Chad. I'm here for it.
Chad: I have to say one of the cynics that you and I know very closely, they're going to be there. They got their eyes on the list, on the attendee list.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: And they said it is hella impressive.
Joel: Okay. Okay.
Chad: Yes. He was a cynic saying, I don't know if this is gonna go well. And then I got a message from him yesterday. He said, holy shit, this looks impressive. So I am pretty excited about that. After RecFest, we're gonna hit a little HR Tech gonna be on the expo floor in the Fuel50 booth for two days. If you're an HR practitioner, DM us and we might have an interview slot just in case. We're Booth 1125. That's 1125.
Joel: That's a lot of booths.
Chad: Then a few days later, we are on a plane to UNLEASH World in Paris. I literally have no fucking clue what we're gonna do there, but I guarantee you we're gonna have microphones. We're gonna have a lot of wine and cheese and who knows what else?
Joel: Well, considering how quickly RecFest became like the Chad & Cheese Party Central, Paris may follow a similar suit. I don't know.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: If you're a vendor looking for a creative way to, you know, cut through the clutter, like, give us a call. Give us a call.
Chad: We can help.
Joel: Did I hear you say Plum earlier?
Chad: Oh, I did.
SFX: Really? Did you feel the tension in the air right now?
Chad: Oh I did. Yeah.
SFX: I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plum.
Joel: Oh yeah. That means we gotta celebrate some birthdays, Chad. Another trip around the sun to Olivia Marquette, Shani Underwood, Matt O'Donnell, Ettel Feinberg, Scott Nelson, Stacy Shaw, Matt Gardner, Marcy Darth Maul, Rosie Pullman. That sounds made up to me. Rosie Pullman, Deb Play, Charles Hunger, Chris Billets, Chris Hoyt, Bill Borman, who will be in Nashville. I know Chris Murdoch, who lives in Nashville celebrating a birthday. And last but not least, Chad, my oldest son, Cole Cheeseman...
Chad: Cole Cheeseman.
Joel: Is celebrating a birthday, turning 17...
Chad: Nice.
Joel: This week. So...
SFX: Happy birthday.
Joel: To everyone for a happy birthday.
Chad: Did you say Rosie Pullman.
Joel: I said Rosie Pullman. Yes. That's woo.
Chad: That's Seymour Butts. I mean, come on seriously. Somebody's fucking with us.
Joel: Yeah. I did not, I did not double check that on LinkedIn to see if that's the case, good God. I got, and if birthdays weren't enough, Chad, let's talk about some fantasy football action. That's right. People are aware that we're doing fantasy football. This is our third or fourth year doing it, powered by our friends at FactoryFix. The lineup is set. Here's your Dirty Dozen, Chad, Fantasy Football players, starting with Dennis Tupper, who is our defending champion.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: He gets a free pass to play this season again, Deanne Osner, Jasper Spanjaart, Marcy Maul, Brent Locey, Michelle Sergeant, Kristin Airbone, Dean Apero, Jill Patterson, you and me, and the FactoryFix representative, Joe Dixon. That is the fantasy football lineup everybody.
Chad: Hoo.
Joel: I'm excited. Draft is next Wednesday. Thursday when we record this, we'll have our draft grades and we'll break down, who scored well and who fail on their butts. Yeah. It's all happening everybody.
SFX: And topics!
Joel: All right. The cringe level is high on this first story, Chad. It's official. It's officially official. Get ready for hiring on X. Again, the artist formerly known as Twitter, case in point, an Elon Musk tweet. I guess we're still calling them tweets, saying, "People send me LinkedIn links sometimes, but the cringe level is so high that I just can't bring myself to use it. So I ask for the resume or bio to be emailed. We will make sure that the X competitor to LinkedIn is cool." What's more, Coinbase public company is leveraging the platform now, and the final nail in the coffin is a new Twitter handle or X handle, @Xhiring with the post this week, "Unlock early access to the X hiring beta exclusively for verified organizations. Feature your most critical roles and organically reach millions of relevant candidates. Apply for the beta today at verified.X.com/en/hiring." They could have shortened that probably. Chad...
Chad: I don't think.
Joel: Elon, Coinbase, and a new handle, I think that's a triple X. What's your take on this news?
Chad: It still feels like Facebook jobs all over again. This is very early on kids. So, you know, as what we're talking about, I'm sure will evolve and I hope will evolve. But first, let's look at the desktop version. I had to look twice to even see where the very muted jobs carousel was. And on, this is on Coinbase's account. They had just three jobs in the carousel. You could click on those jobs, obviously, or you could click View All Jobs, which is a link that takes you to a long list of Coinbase's jobs. There's no search functionality. I mean, it's fairly primitive compared to what we're used to, right? So again, it's very, very early on, but let's be clear, 80% of users access Twitter via their mobile device. So I popped over to Twitter on my phone, jumped onto the Coinbase profile and nothing. The carousel isn't even available on Android. So that was weird. Twitter's a global platform. You would think that would be something that they would dig into pretty quickly, especially if they're trying to make this look serious.
Chad: But I think that any company should go to the application. It's a simple form and it can't hurt to get your jobs out there. But again, I'm gonna double down on what I've said. LinkedIn has much more content, context, experience for my profile than any other out there and they still do a shitty job on trying to get me relevant content. Twitter doesn't have even close to the amount of information, career information, jobs, pathing, experience, those types of things. I don't see how they're going to pull this off. Somebody in the threads actually said, "Well, I'm sure they'll have an API with LinkedIn." Really? You think so? I don't fucking think so, right? So there's gonna be a war happening here. I personally think that this X hiring thing is gonna go to the way of the dodo much like Facebook jobs did.
SFX: 60% of the time it works every time.
Joel: LinkedIn, however, doesn't send rockets into space, Chad. There's a big difference between the two.
Chad: Yeah. Which means he's got diversions.
Joel: So here's some shit here. Elon has 155 million followers. Everything he says gets talked about on LinkedIn. He paid 40-plus billion dollars for Twitter. LinkedIn was acquired for Microsoft for 26 billion-ish. So if Elon's looking for a quick way to chip away at getting his money back on what he dropped to get Twitter, targeting LinkedIn is probably the shortest bridge to try to get there adding to the fact that a lot of people hate LinkedIn, the incumbent, and you have more favorable odds than say, I don't know, going after Google for search. Do you wanna say the guy who took on Detroit and is winning the EV battle can't put a dent in LinkedIn and make some noise in our industry? Time will tell, Chad, but it's clear that he's serious now and it's gonna be a lot of fun for us to cover Twitter, X, whatever you wanna call it, getting into our space.
Chad: Yeah. I think it's interesting because what Elon really did was he forced the entire automotive industry to focus on EV and they're going to blow Tesla out of the water in long-term, right? Unless somebody actually buys them up.
Joel: We'll see.
Chad: I think this is exactly the same thing. LinkedIn does suck at what they should be really good at. I think this is gonna be an opportunity for them to be challenged and hopefully actually up their game much like the car companies have on the EV side of the house.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: I think Twitter is much more hated than LinkedIn is at this point.
Joel: It's X now, Chad.
[laughter]
Chad: I'm gonna call it Twitter no matter what. Because it's so divisive, right?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: So I think, I think there is an entertainment value there, but it's not a professional network. I don't wanna say it's like Hinge or what was it last week?
Joel: Grindr. [laughter]
Chad: Grindr. Yeah. Like Grindr, right? They're used for entirely different reasons. LinkedIn was created as a network, then turned into a professional network. I don't see that happening here, I just don't. And the cost might go up, but the current get-in fee is a $1,000 a month to be a verified organization.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: That's only $12,000. That's cheap as fuck.
Joel: A lot of companies are gonna do this. Do you agree?
Chad: Yes, yes, yes.
Joel: They're gonna try it. Yeah. They're gonna see what happens.
Chad: But it doesn't matter just because the price point's so low that it's not gonna pay off. He needs to try to gain back hundreds of millions of dollars that he's lost in ad revenue and this isn't gonna do it. Not even close.
Joel: Yeah. I mean, I'm no mathematician, but if you follow the money, if advertisers are leaving in droves and there's no hope of them coming back anytime soon, like to go after LinkedIn, share the pie is probably the smartest thing to do in terms of getting money fast. This is not a $100 billion business a year, but if he can start getting some money back, if he can start getting some subscriptions, some people that are used to paying money on a monthly basis, he can slowly ratchet up the price. If he gets results for these people, they'll continue to use it. If he adds value to being a subscriber, whether it's on the individual end, whether it's like, hey, get special access to jobs or get a resume if you're... I don't know where this is gonna go. That's why it's so fun to talk about it, but he's gonna get companies try it. He's gonna get companies become verified users...
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: And post jobs.
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Joel: And if people apply and people get results, well, money is gonna start going into Twitter or X, and agencies are gonna be told or asked like, "Hey, are we on Twitter? Like, should we use Twitter or X to post our jobs?" Like, it's just gonna be a lot of fun to talk about. Facebook never felt really committed. It felt like a project manager was on it. This is like the CEO talking shit on his own social platform and to me, that ratchets it up a little bit and it makes it just tons of fun to talk about.
Chad: As soon as he gets in a cage against Mark Zuckerberg after he was talking all that shit, then I might think that anything else that he's talking shit about is actually real. This I just... It feels like, it feels like a diversion.
Joel: You watch. There's gonna be a story about him poaching someone from LinkedIn or Indeed or somewhere. Like that's coming. That'll be one of the next stories that we talk about. And speaking of Indeed, Chad.
Chad: Oh, yes.
Joel: If you've had your daily dose or weekly dose of Elon, we'll talk about our next guilty pleasure, Indeed.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: So in case you missed it, Indeed Flex is a platform that connects job seekers with temporary work opportunities. It is a subsidiary of Indeed and it now offers storefronts. That's right. Brick and mortar locations. Chris Johnson, market director at Indeed Flex shared the following on LinkedIn this week, "Great few days in Texas visiting the Indeed Flex hubs and meeting the teams who make it all happen. Loving the energy and passion for change here. I'm definitely right where I need to be." Maybe it's where Chris Johnson needs to be, but is it where Indeed needs to be? Chad, your thoughts?
Chad: So, yeah, congrats Chris. That's fucking awesome. I thought this was a very poignant story as we start to see companies like Appcast acquire Bayard, which means one day Appcast is a solid partner. And the next day they're your greatest competitor.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: We've seen this with Indeed before, and it's happening once again. So here's how Indeed is currently smothering the market. First, we're gonna talk about their trusted network partners. Indeed pays trusted network partners, millions of dollars each month to deliver job seeker traffic to jobs on Indeed. Yes, competing job sites are driving tons of job seeker traffic to Indeed, but the money is good. So job sites keep doing it then Indeed adds mandatory job seeker registration to their apply process. What does this mean? It means Indeed is building their database with job seekers from those competing job sites until they don't need those job sites anymore and then they cut them off at the knees. They're strangling the job sites.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: Same thing is happening over at Indeed Flex, but [chuckle] in a much different way. Staffing and RPO companies are spending millions of dollars monthly on Indeed. Not the other way around, to drive job seekers to their open positions. Indeed then uses the money to drive job seekers from other sites like we just talked about to apply on Indeed. The staffing and RPO companies, get the job seeker data for all the applicants, but so does Indeed and now Indeed Flex. So basically Indeed is using the likes of Randstad and Adecco's money to build their own candidate database to place those candidates through staff-mark.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: You've got to remember, Recruit Holdings is a staffing company first.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: So I was texting with a practitioner about Indeed continuing to move down this path, and their response to my Trojan horse comment was this, "Oh no. No more Trojan horses. They, Indeed, just put on a Trojan condom and they're gonna fuck everybody over."
[laughter]
Chad: How do you really feel HR? How do you really feel?
[applause]
Joel: That's good. That's good. Yeah. I'm giving this the evil genius [laughter] badge for the week. Indeed is owned by staffing companies. You mentioned it.
Chad: How stupid is everybody else?
Joel: We've talked about them becoming more staffing-focused in the past. Well, shocker. They acquired a company called Syft, a UK-based staffing platform in 2019, and Flex was born two years later out of that.
Chad: Crazy.
Joel: Indeed Flex is expanding into the US market and growing further into the UK where it's former company Syft has been available since 2015. So they have a little bit of experience in this space. And the United States, the labor shortage is even more serious, and the openings rate reached 6.9% as of July last year. To me, this is a logical brand extension. The power of Indeed will supercharge awareness. It's something Google, LinkedIn, or Elon Musk have no desire to chase. It's solid strategically. So I don't say this a lot, but Indeed, Good move. They just need to improve the signage on these storefronts, because they look like some intern went down to the clearance rack at FASTSIGNS for this branding.
Chad: Yes. You are right. You're right.
Joel: So they need to improve the branding. Going in looks fine, but they look like Bush League retailers from the outside. But I think they're onto something.
Chad: I agree. I just, it blows my mind that huge companies like Randstad and Adecco are still paying Indeed millions of dollars a month, right? They've got that going on on one side, and then you've got the other side of the ecosystem. All these job sites are driving candidates into the Indeed database. Now Indeed's paying them to do so. But they're gonna cut them all off at the knees one day 'cause they don't need fuckin them anymore. It's, I mean, it is a Trojan horse or a Trojan condom fucking all the way around. It is crazy.
Joel: And we've seen this movie before. We've seen this movie before.
Chad: We have.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: All right, let's take a quick break and we'll play a little Who'd You Rather?
SFX: Just the team.
Joel: When we come back. All right, Chad, are you ready to play a little? Who'd You Rather? Here's how we play it, gang.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah.
Joel: We take two companies that have recently gotten funding. We summarize what they've done and what they're doing and Chad and I sound off on who'd we'd rather. Let's play, Who'd You Rather? In this corner, we have TeamSense. Seattle-based startup TeamSense has raised $4 million. TeamSense offers an app-free platform tailored for hourly workers in the manufacturing sector, enabling them to manage attendance, communicate with managers and access company resources through SMS or text messaging. The funding will be used to expand the development and go-to market teams. Founded in 2020, the company employs 20 people. And in this corner, Nursa. Nursa has closed an 80 million Series B funding round that brings total funding to $100 million for the Salt Lake City-based company. The platform is designed to assist healthcare facilities in filling shifts with local nurses. The company established in 2019 currently employs 300 team members and boast 95,000 nurse practitioners. Chad, who'd you rather TeamSense or Nursa?
Chad: So I'd rather TeamSense and here's why. Nursa, they're applying a bandaid to a sucking chest wound. Will the ability to shuffle healthcare workers help? Yeah, in the short term, but it doesn't address the larger problem. We need more people to enter into the care economy. That's the answer. Not a shuffling app. We talked about borderless on the Europe show this week. And that helps the larger issue by aiding healthcare workers who want to come through the immigration process to the UK. Nursa doesn't do that. They're not taking care of the big problem TeamSense, the hourly segment is one of the biggest opportunities for tech startups today. Why? 'cause number one, this segment represents a 70%-80% of the working population. Number two, according to the CDC, absenteeism costs the US employers almost $226 billion every year in productivity losses. And against that CDC number, TeamSense's 39% reduction in absenteeism would in effect save companies $88 billion. I'd rather TeamSense all day.
SFX: What are you doing, step bro?
Joel: All right. We're gonna disagree on this one, Chad. The SMS-only thing I just can't get over. If this were 2010, maybe I'd be super pumped about team sense. The problem is, whereas very few people had a smartphone in 2010, almost everyone has one In 2023. Android phones are being passed out at my local Kroger, so everyone can have one. The SMS side of this only just makes me feel like it's antiquated and not going anywhere. Especially now that they're just getting their seed Series A funding, I don't think that bodes well for the company long-term. However, Chad, whether it's 2010, 2023 or 2053, nurses are going to be in high demand and companies are gonna pay a lot of money to get them into the door. Nurses are going to continue to want flexibility and this sort of staffing on demand work, your own hours platform to me makes a whole lot of sense. Look, there's a lot of competition in the nurse staffing space for a reason and there are 100 million reasons with a Benjamin sign, dollar sign next to it to like TeamSense less than Nursa. So for me, that's right. Nursa, naughty Nursa or just Nursa, get my...
Chad: Naughty Nursa.
Joel: My vote for Who'd You Rather? All right, now to what none of us would rather, the RTO game keeps playing out. The frog continues to boil, Chad. Amazon, CEO, Andy Jassy, your boy, has run out of patients with remote workers who refuse to come back to the office. In a recent meeting, Jassy reportedly told staff that they need to be back in the office at least three days a week. And if they don't comply, they will be forced to resign. Isn't forced to resign getting fired? I think it's just a different label on that, which is...
Chad: Yeah, without severance.
Joel: This is a significant change from Jassy's previous stance on remote work, which was way more relaxed. What's more, Chad, is CNBC's story says some staffers are being told to relocate to hubs in different states if they wanna keep their jobs. And in other RTO news, Goldman Sachs boss David DJ Solomon has pulled the plug on Summer Fridays, the hits keep on coming, Chad, the hits keep on coming. What are your thoughts on all the news on RTO this week?
Chad: So we predicted Solomon was going to do this, that's not a big deal. But the Amazon, I mean this is really a huge bait-and-switch is a quote from Andy Jassy. It's not right for all of our teammates to be in the office three days a week for people that refuse to do so. That's from Andy Jassy. So why are employees reluctant? Let me count the ways. Number one, in September of 2022, just a year ago, kids, Jassy told staff he had no plans to ask them to return to their desks from the same CNBC article, "An employee in Texas who was hired in a remote role," say that again, they were hired in a remote role, "said managers assured his team in March of 2023 that nothing would change despite the RTO mandate. But in July the team was informed by management that they'd have to choose between working out of Seattle, New York, Austin, Texas, or Arlington, Virginia."
Chad: So back to Jassy, who said, "It's not right," what's not right? I mean, the bait-and-switch tactics here are not right. So for me, outside looking in from the market looking in, first and foremost, we have reports of Amazon running out of warehouse workers in some regions due to high churn rates and they're losing around 100% annually. More than double the industry average. Only one out of three new hires in 2021 stayed with the company for more than 90 days. Leaked reports of Amazon attrition, costing $8 billion in lost revenue. But these are different jobs. These are office jobs. So it feels like this is a forced downsize so that they don't have to pay severance. And I mean, no matter, no matter the optics suck. Andy Jassy looks like a bait-and-switch asshole at this part. I mean, that sucks. He doesn't care. I'm sure he's making these decisions from his office in the Hamptons or something like that. It's fucking crazy, man.
Joel: Yeah. Are we really surprised that the old white guys are winning this battle? So the pendulum continues to swing in the opposite direction of 2021, '22. Stemies are running dry, real estate markets are frozen. Hiring for many companies is frozen and drying up. The Fed is getting its wish with higher unemployment and as a secondary benefit, the rich white guys, the balance of power is going back to the corporations and the grip continues to hire. As we talk about these stories on a weekly basis. Look, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but if I were a rich illuminati guy, I would go to the government and the Fed and I'd be like, okay, we can't have this chaos of people living where they wanna live. All my commercial real estate holdings going to hell, the stock market going to hell. We need to go back to status quo. Let's tighten the screws on these fuckers. Let's get inflation up. Let's get unemployment back up due to higher Fed rates. We'll get people back to the office. We'll be able to fire who we wanna fire. People have to sell their homes and suck it up for the man again and we'll be in charge again. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but if I were a rich white guy with billions, that might be a conversation that I wanna have. And speaking of billions, Chad.
Chad: It sounds like history.
Joel: It's a new season of Billions on Showtime. And if you're not watching, you should because the main character is running for president like all this shit, this is why my brain is going in this way. I think the whole system is built to screw us all. And this is an example. The white rich guys win again. I'm not surprised.
Chad: And they're really good at turning everybody else against each other.
Joel: Yes.
Chad: While they sit up in their tower, their fucking ivory tower counting their goddamn money, but, and we're dumb enough to actually do that. Well, it's only fair that you're in the office because, do you think that they shouldn't be, hey, come over here. Let's see if I can start a fight among you guys while I walk out of the office.
Joel: Yes. Yeah. We're dumb enough to buy crypto and think that GameStop is like the next big thing. We're dumb enough to buy houses in Vermont thinking that we'll be able to work there for the rest of our lives. In the meantime, they're rigging the system and just filling their pockets with more and more money.
Chad: Bastard.
Joel: Damn it. I need a break. And we'll come back and talk about airlines. Some airline news to close the show, Chad, two stories this week.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: Number one, Corendon Airlines, which I've never flown, is launching...
Chad: Never heard of them.
Joel: An adults-only zone on its flight between Amsterdam and Curacao, which is a 10-hour flight. But the adults-only zone is not what you think, Chad. The airline believes that there is a demand for adults-only zones, as some passengers prefer to travel without the disruption of young children and from no kids to no fatties, Korean Air is weighing passengers before boarding their flights starting next week. There's a law in Korea that requires airlines to weigh passengers and their carry-on luggage at least every five years. I'm guessing they weigh the luggage every time, but only the weight every five years. Korean-based airlines are following the law saying that average, that the average plays a role in determining aircraft weight distribution and enhancing flight safety. As of yet it doesn't cost extra to be XL, but critics say the writing is on the wall. Chad, your thoughts.
Chad: So, adults-only airlines. If it's a long flight, I like my peace and quiet. Right? I definitely do. So would I pay a premium for something like that? I might. But and it comes to... When it comes to bigger people on flights, I don't know how many times I've had a guy in the middle seat has to force the armrests up and he spills over into my space. That's my seat. That's my space. Right? So it's like if we can actually have segments of the plane that are for larger individuals might cost more 'cause there's more space. I think that would be great, but it would be a better experience for them and it'd be better experience for everybody around them. I don't know. This has been a problem for a very long time. Much like people taking their fucking shoes off. Like bare feet on an airplane. People don't do that. Stop that.
Joel: Yeah. If you're not following passenger shaming on Instagram, plenty of feet to look at on airplanes. So...
Chad: Horrible. Horrible.
Joel: So in terms of adults-only for noise, like the noise canceling headphones now are really good.
Chad: Yeah. They're. They're.
Joel: Like literally you can not hear anything but your podcast or music or whatever you're listening to. Yeah. Like invest in some noise canceling headphones and you're good to go on that end. I appreciate the airline trying to make an extra buck on an adults-only, I think people may take that the wrong way and take advantage of like...
[laughter]
Chad: Swingers.
Joel: Yeah. Adults-only section. I bought the adult-only section and I'm gonna use it.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: It's in terms of the fat thing, like it's difficult. Americans are getting bigger. All the data shows that, but also airlines are getting smaller. Like American Delta, Southwest and United have lost anywhere from two inches to five inches in leg-room and two inches in seat width since the 1980s. This is some data that has been collected.
Chad: Wow. Wow.
Joel: If you're too fat, literally, and I have some people in my family that are, you think I'm a little chubby, like take, come to my family reunion...
[laughter]
Joel: They have to buy two seats because they can't fit in the one seat and they have to get...
Chad: But they buy two seats.
Joel: They buy two seats 'cause they really have to. Like, they don't... It's not the spill, like they're literally too big. They have the belt extender, like the whole ball of wax.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Or you sit in first class where you got plenty of room, probably no matter how heavy you are. The point of like putting people on a scale at the check-in counter, if that's what it, that's really degrading. That's really kind of sad. That shouldn't be happening in my opinion. But, Chad, I've got the answer as I do to most things.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: I got the answer here. If you wanna make flying a lot better, Chad, here's the answer.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: Bigger seats, more leg room and discounted rates for big booty Latinas.
[laughter]
SFX: I'm happy.
Joel: We out.
[laughter]
Chad: We out.
[laughter]
Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could've used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok, no, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful trainwreck you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.