Indeed Pauses, Fiverr Falls & Rippling Ransacks

💥 The HR Tech Giants Battle

A massive legal showdown is brewing. We dive into the explosive drama between Rippling and Runlayer over allegedly stolen trade secrets. Plus, Deel just made a massive $50M acquisition move with Clarity to fight a terrifying new trend in hiring. Is big tech done buying smaller tools for good?

📉 The Ultimate AI Casualty?

One freelance giant’s stock has cratered a staggering 94% since ChatGPT entered the chat. We break down the absolute collapse of Fiverr and discuss why their desperate pivot to save the platform might already be too late.

🇪🇺 Why Europe is Ghosting AI

While the US charges ahead, European HR teams are pushing back. We expose why AI adoption has completely stalled across Europe, how companies are fighting weak data foundations, and the massive compliance hurdle that is about to change everything.

🛑 The AI Slop Pushback

The bots are officially taking over, and the platforms are panicking. LinkedIn just quietly rolled out a brand-new button to fight the wave of artificial content taking over your feed. Meanwhile, Indeed was forced to hit the emergency brakes on their aggressive new automation feature after severe user backlash.  

Tune in for the unfiltered recruiting commentary, stay for the terrible dad jokes.  

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:29.353)

yeah, I like my oatmeal lumpy. Hey kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co host, Joel Cheeseman. Actually that's Joel folded like an umbrella, Cheeseman.

Emi (00:42.145)

Ooh, I like that. And I'm Emi. Get Gianni Infantini out. Beredugo.

Lieven (00:48.773)

Mm, nice. And I'm believing that I mentioned the e-recruitment congress in Amsterdam on October sixth, yet, van Iwenhuizen.

Joel Cheesman (00:56.529)

Always be closing, Levin. On this episode of HR's Most Dangerous Podcast, indeed pauses. Fiverr Falls and Rippling Ransacks. That's a good word. Let's do this.

Lieven (00:58.777)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (01:14.941)

What's up, Europeans?

Emi (01:16.739)

Hi, it's been a while since the Europeans have all come together on one podcast, hasn't it?

Joel Cheesman (01:23.017)

Well, Chad's European now, so they'll be all European shows at some point. that's good. Is he he's a he's a poser, right? We can say that now that he's on the show. He's a total European poser, like total wannabe. So I'm everybody wants to be European, until the Russians show up. curious. I I heard I heard Europeans take August off. Are you guys not vacationing for the whole month? I mean, leaving you're a you're a professional.

Emi (01:25.251)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's okay. Everyone wants to be European. It's fine.

You

Lieven (01:42.23)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (01:51.709)

Vacationer. What's going on?

Lieven (01:54.081)

I'm already back because I'm a professional starter first and the moment I come back everyone else left and my vacation goes on. It's a very, very good track.

Emi (02:01.218)

Bye.

Joel Cheesman (02:01.573)

Okay. So where were you in July? I guess you took July off.

Lieven (02:07.158)

Yeah, July in Thailand, Bangkok and then we traveled around a bit. Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (02:09.768)

Thailand, Bangkok. I've never been. Did you like it? Would you recommend it?

Emi (02:12.61)

I am jealous.

Lieven (02:16.256)

yeah, but we made it just too busy. It was a really full program. We had a guide getting us out of our beds at seven o'clock in the morning and then travelling us around. And to be honest, after seeing five temples, I've seen plenty of temples and I don't need to see any temple more. So for me it was too busy, but we've seen it all I guess.

Joel Cheesman (02:29.916)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (02:35.9)

Temples are like medieval churches. Once you've seen, you know, the stained glass windows, there's not a lot to be impressed about. I mean, have you been to Bangkok, Thailand, that part of the world?

Lieven (02:39.766)

Yeah.

Emi (02:45.535)

No, funny enough, we were actually talking about this for the end of the year. My problem is I haven't got any more holiday left. So I don't know if I can do a working holiday out there. You know, I'm going to put a plea to my superiors at work and go, hey, let me work out in Thailand.

Joel Cheesman (03:02.566)

No more vacation for Emmy. That that's not cool. That's not cool.

Emi (03:05.187)

I know, I used to all up in Brazil at the end of the year and then I was like, I made an error. Yeah. So that's where I'm at.

Joel Cheesman (03:11.27)

Yeah. So speaking of venturing out into the world, have you guys seen the Odyssey yet? I guess everyone's talking about this.

Emi (03:19.157)

No, everybody's talking about it. really, really want to see it. So much controversy. Yeah. But you've seen it.

Joel Cheesman (03:23.292)

Yeah.

I have seen it. It's very it's I'm gonna go with like a C plus. I don't know what all the fuss is about. I think it's not political, which I know is a lot of the pushback. I could care less. It's a myth, like what people look like and who they put in those roles. But for me it was just it was really s the acting was stiff. It felt like

Emi (03:28.013)

How was that?

Emi (03:31.811)

really?

Lieven (03:42.044)

Mm-hmm.

Emi (03:48.528)

my god.

Joel Cheesman (03:50.921)

I don't want to say after school special, but sort of a made for TV movie. It I I always think Matt Damon is pretty stiff anyway. I felt like he's been sort of his whole acting career. I don't get it. But Ann Ann Hathaway's usually really good. She was really kind of stiff. And Christopher Nolan is more of like an idea guy. Apparently he's not a real actor's director. So he's he's like just figure it out and show up. And and I just I I felt it very, very stiff, very kind of cardboard. Well I

Emi (04:01.997)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (04:20.956)

The same week I saw the Odyssey, I saw Toy Story Five, which I thought was a much better movie. Yeah, much better movie. So take that, take that for what it's worth. I know it's gonna win all the Oscars. I know it's gonna like do really well, but for me it was just meh, what's all the f and it was three hours of my life, I'll never get back, which is which was another another negative about it.

Emi (04:25.879)

Really? my god. Maybe I'll just wait for it to come on TV.

Lieven (04:26.091)

Mm-hmm.

Emi (04:35.277)

Meh.

Emi (04:41.059)

I didn't realise it was three hours. No, I'm not sitting. Did you sit in the cinema or did you watch at home?

Joel Cheesman (04:45.574)

Yeah, you kinda it's yeah. Is it available at home? Probably not. at least not in the US. Maybe on maybe on your dodgy stick you can watch it. But yeah, you gotta go to the gotta go to the theaters theaters for that one. Leaving you gonna see it or no?

Emi (04:48.483)

Yeah. Yeah. Did I just get something away there? Yeah.

Lieven (04:53.131)

No.

Emi (04:59.17)

Okay.

Lieven (05:01.396)

After your review, probably not. No, and I don't have the patience to be watching a screen for three hours. So

Emi (05:03.934)

You

Emi (05:09.29)

Especially when it's crap.

Lieven (05:11.146)

Well, if it's a C plus, nah.

Joel Cheesman (05:11.24)

Especially when it's crap. We'll have fun in well I'm glad you had fun in Bangkok. Amy, I hope you make it out there. I I'm not big on Asia for whatever I I've been to Singapore and Vietnam, which were cool, but Europe's more my vibe for whatever reason. All right guys, let's get to let's get to shout out, shall we?

Lieven (05:22.861)

Yeah.

Emi (05:25.867)

Yeah. Go Europe.

Lieven (05:25.954)

Mm.

Joel Cheesman (05:34.15)

All right, guys, shout outs this week are sponsored by our friends at Aaron App. Do you love free t-shirts? Everybody loves free t shirts, but you gotta go to chadcheese.com backslash free to get yours, which has a really lovely back Aaron logo on it. You know, Aaron, those guys that wear the funny red shoes all over social media. head out to Chad and Cheese. And while you're doing it, go visit Aaron App for more information on using referrals to employ people. Emmy, give us a shout out.

Emi (06:04.036)

My shout out, okay, so you heard at the beginning I said, get Gianni Infantini out. So I'm going to stay on that vibe, you know, my first shout out, because I'm being greedy, is to all the global footballing bodies who said, get that fraudster, that crook, that Trump wannabe out of football.

Joel Cheesman (06:10.834)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (06:22.728)

So you're gonna have to you're gonna have to back up for the American audience. Who's this dude? What's the issue? Like, yeah, roll frame this up for us.

Emi (06:26.135)

yeah, true.

Emi (06:30.691)

Okay, so Journey in Fantini runs FIFA, so like the global governing body for football. And, you know, obviously we've had the soccer for the Americans, for everybody else in the world, football, World Cup. And it was, it was good. It was a great World Cup, but even though he's been in his job for a while and has generally got good press,

Something's happened in the last year or so where he's been cozying up to Trump. You always see those two together. They're like best buddies. And, you know, there's all these kind of rumors around corruption. And I was like, is it corruption? But then when Donald Trump calls up Gianni and to get, you know, the red card for the one of the USA players over rules, you're like,

Joel Cheesman (06:57.263)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (07:13.67)

Uh-huh.

Emi (07:14.787)

Okay, something's going on here. And then when it looked like they wanted Argentina to win and Argentina seemed to get away with every foul play going on. And you know, you're going, mm, okay, Gianni, listen, look, it was do-it-cheating. Yeah. And then now he's trying to like, kind of commercialize the sport, doing his undercover dealings.

Joel Cheesman (07:24.978)

Says the Brit who lost to them, by the way. So

Ha ha ha.

Emi (07:38.04)

So it's all come out. He never told anybody. Everybody's kind of blindsided. And I'm like, this guy is a crook. Anyone who kind of sides up with Trump should know their career is not going to last that long. You know? And so everybody's, everybody's kind of backlash. And I'm like, yeah, get him out, get him out. We don't need him. So that's my first shout out for that global footballing body. staying on the same sporting vibe for those who don't know, I play netball. Actually, do you both know what netball is?

Joel Cheesman (07:58.876)

Yeah.

Emi (08:08.383)

No? Yeah, I can't even know. Yeah, so netball is like basketball for me is a better version of basketball. So it kind of I think it came from basketball. So you can't dribble with the ball. There's no backboard, but it's still a really, really interesting game. I've been playing this since I was 11. Commonwealth Games has been going on. I've been watching the you know, some great netballing teams. Unfortunately, England Roses came fourth, but they had a great tournament.

Joel Cheesman (08:09.414)

Leaving does, yeah. What is it?

Joel Cheesman (08:15.365)

Uh-huh.

Emi (08:36.291)

And Jamaica, really, they're a great team, but they really shouldn't have been in the final on paper. They got to the final. Unfortunately, came second, but beautiful story. So again, my shout out goes to England roses and Jamaica sunshine girls for coming second.

Joel Cheesman (08:52.678)

As an American, I need to to verify this. So it's like basketball with you don't dribble. So like you pass it, you move, and then you you get the ball and you stop. And everyone else moves and you have to pass it to the movers. Okay. So don't dribble, you can't move. And then the goal has no backboard. So is it just a net centered? Okay.

Emi (08:57.997)

Dungible. Yeah.

Emi (09:02.453)

Yeah, so basically, yeah.

Emi (09:09.921)

Yeah, just the net, yeah. So you got to be accurate with your shooting. So those shooters can shoot pretty much from anywhere. So yeah, so there's a lot more technical. Yeah, I think so.

Joel Cheesman (09:18.244)

Okay. Netball. Soon to be coming to the US, I'm sure. So speaking of World Cup, Levin, I I I wanna I wanna like highlight you for a second because you're so mild mannered. Belgium beat the shit out of the US and Levin, you wouldn't realize, talk so much shit, when it comes to Belgian football. And when they won, Levin's comment was that's what you get for calling it soccer, which I thought was great. I had a I had a good laugh with that, Levin. I I appreciate it.

Emi (09:46.443)

Love that. The dry one liners. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (09:47.88)

It's always the one liners from Leaving that that get you's like, that's what you get for calling at soccer.

You're on mute, Levin.

Ha ha.

Lieven (10:01.881)

So sorry. Also the way your president intervened in the red card, you know, it's just something you don't do. And then I think my god, it was it was embarrassing, embarrassing. Okay, yeah.

Emi (10:02.723)

you

Joel Cheesman (10:07.057)

Mm-hmm.

Did did you love did you love Trump on stage with with Spain after they won?

Emi (10:10.091)

So do you.

Emi (10:13.844)

they are dragging him off. Yeah. my God. Yeah. And I saw one of the Spanish players not want to shake his hand. I'm like, Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (10:17.042)

Lieven (10:23.617)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (10:23.75)

Yeah, and h and hug the Canadian, right? I think. I think and then the then the Canadian tariffs were dropped shortly thereafter. So don't know. This is just all right, I gotta I gotta shout out here. It's a evil, evil genius, shout-out to a guy named Cory Doctoro. Who the hell is Cory Doctorow? You may not know him, you may know John Stewart from The Daily Show, pretty popular comedian. Anyway, John Stewart has a podcast and had Corey Doctorow, who's a journalist, he's an author, and he

Lieven (10:26.391)

Yeah.

Emi (10:43.906)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (10:52.668)

He talks a lot about Uber's revenue model and salary model to the drivers. And what's really interesting about this is it's it's so algorithmically driven. In other words, as a driver, you have a certain period of time to get to like secure a ride. And they're tracking like how quickly you secure secure that ride. They're they're making efficiencies to where they're lowballing you.

If you're like if you act a certain way, if you're taking if you're accepting less money or who your drivers are, and then talks a little bit about travel nurses and how how desperate a nurse is for jobs, they'll start paying you less based on desperation. It's also mirrored in what's called surveillance shopping, whereas based on where you live, your shopping habits, all kinds of different things, it'll give you different prices for different products.

So all three of us could like go online and search for sh Nikes, and we all might get different prices based on our habits, how much we spend on stuff, what like b basically what's going on. So stick with me here. I talked about Indeed's recent terms of terms of service changes in last week's show. We made it a short for social media, and I think it connected with a lot of people. But what what I think is Indeed is doing is

Lieven (11:58.933)

yeah.

Joel Cheesman (12:19.632)

If they know, if they know what job seekers are doing, how many jobs they're applying to, how many jobs are relevant, how many interviews they're turning down or taking, they can start forming a profile of a job seeker with how much they can offer you in salary based on how desperate you are for a job, how long have you been out of work? all kinds of things can come into. And so when you look at employers,

They'll be able to recommend what you can offer this person based on their activities in searching for a job, which I think is going to screw over a lot of people who are more desperate for a job than others. So for me, my shout out to Corey Doctoro is sort of a sideshow on what I think Indeed is doing and probably what every job board or job site is going to do in the future. If they know everything you're doing on their site as a job seeker.

They're gonna start creating profiles of salaries for you based on that activity. And I think it's gonna be a really sort of messy future for job search if you're really desperate for a job. I think you're gonna get lower pay than you normally would because of the algo.

Emi (13:34.573)

That's a really depressing shout out.

Joel Cheesman (13:36.913)

Lieven (13:39.701)

Yeah, it is.

Joel Cheesman (13:40.553)

Do guys agree? Do you guys agree? Is it am I just am I looking too too deeply into this? But why would Indeed change their terms of service to say we can now start basically tracking your applies, everything that you do on Indeed, we're gonna start tracking now. Why would they do that if it wasn't for we're going to start salary recommendations based on how desperate you are to companies?

Emi (14:07.971)

I'm kind of hoping that's not the case, you know, but the way that you put it, I was like, I didn't even think of it that way. But yeah, mean, why are they building a profile? But if it happens, this is a dark, dark world, know, dark, dark world that we're actually heading towards. I think it's awful. I think it's going to screw, like you said, screw over candidates who are, you know, they're really in need of a job in this shitty market. And I just think, yeah, it's terrible.

Joel Cheesman (14:25.917)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (14:33.916)

We'll talk more about indeed later in the show. But if you if you haven't listened to the podcast, John Stewart Daily Show podcast, look up Corey Doctoro. He talks a lot about this in his in his interview. But yeah, I think it's very interesting. And yeah, kind of a sad state of affairs. Like, you're more desperate, then you're gonna make less money. Sorry. Yeah, more desperate. Sorry about that. Leaving, you got a shout out for us?

Lieven (14:36.93)

Mm.

Emi (14:49.623)

Yeah.

Emi (14:53.101)

We're going to make you more desperate because you're waking. Yeah. Great.

Lieven (14:59.054)

Yeah, my shot is basically blatant promotion for the recruitment congress. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (15:02.97)

Always be closing, Levin.

Joel Cheesman (15:09.552)

You can you can give a shout out to me because I'm attending that I'm coming. Like shout out to Joel because he's coming to our Congress.

Lieven (15:09.622)

I'm still looking for sorry?

that's right. My shout out. Okay, I never really got the whole shout out thing. Okay, shout out to Joel and Chad for being present at Irocroton Congress, for which I'm still desperately looking for some sponsors. Not really desperately, but I'm looking for sponsors. So if you're an HR Tech company and you want to present your product to an audience of 600 opinion makers and decision makers out of the European HR Tech world.

Emi (15:14.593)

Yeah

Emi (15:19.043)

it

Lieven (15:41.622)

and the recruitment company world, then you should be present at the eRecruitment congress October sixth in Amsterdam. Just contact me and I'll explain the details. It's a really it's

Joel Cheesman (15:51.603)

I'm excited to come. I'm excited to come. I think as someone I'll I'll piggyback on that, Levin, as someone that's been to early shows, you're doing this for years and years, to see the show evolve into what it is becoming and the and the sponsors and the vendors and the talent that's coming and the EDM and the music and the entertainment, everything you're doing has been really cool. So yeah, if you're in Europe, it should it should be on your calendar for sure. If you're a sponsor, it should be on your your radar in terms of sponsoring.

Lieven (16:00.962)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (16:20.52)

and I'm coming in from the States. So that's what it that's how important it is it is to me. So I'll be coming to coming to Amsterdam in October. Can't wait. Can't wait. And that's not the only event that Chad and Cheese are gonna be hitting up. We're gonna be in Wreckfest in Nashville. That's September twenty third and twenty fourth. That's always a a blast. we're trying to get Emmy out, but she she's too busy in Thailand or Bangkok or something.

Emi (16:30.199)

Sounds good.

Lieven (16:32.381)

Great.

Emi (16:47.821)

Too busy, I'm telling you to pay for my flight and get me there.

Joel Cheesman (16:50.152)

Yeah. If let's get a sponsor out there to pay for Emmy to come to Nashville, can we? yeah, yeah. then we have our the future of front line frontline summit in Vegas. that's a paradox slash workday event. that's October twelfth. Levin's already mentioned the House of HR's e con e recruitment congress. If you want to know more about that, go to erecruitment-congress dot com. That's October sixth. And as you know, all of our

Emi (16:53.695)

Yeah, please, I really want to go, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (17:19.144)

Travel stuff is sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. We can't do without them, so we appreciate everything that they do. And lastly, in our announcements, everybody, we have the real football coming up. American football. That's right. That's coming up. And what football season wouldn't be complete without fantasy football?

With Chad and Cheese, sponsored by our friends at Factory Fix. If you're looking to play a little fantasy football this year, head out to Chadcheese.net slash fantasy dash or hyphen football. And I can't wait for that. Our draft is in about a month. Let's get to topics, everybody.

Joel Cheesman (18:11.057)

All right, guys. the Rippling deal drama continues. This this makes me so happy. AI cybersecurity startup Runlayer is suing HR Tech firm Rippling for allegedly stealing its trade secrets to build a competing product. Runlayer claims Rippling misused its software after licensing licensing it and is seeking to block Rippling from selling a competing product. Rippling, of course, denies the allegations. And if you can't beat them,

Well, I guess you should buy everybody. Deal has acquired Clarity, a deep fake detection startup for up to fifty million to enhance identity verification across its HR platform. It's a tale of two competing companies with competing strategies. Emmy, what's your take on all the news out of Rippling and Deal this week?

Emi (19:04.203)

What is my take? you know what my take is? I remember when we first started talking about this whole Rippling versus Deal drama. And we said it was kind of like a Netflix series. And that was what, a year ago that we started talking about this. And we're still talking about it. A year later, we still talk about all the drama. basically, who knew that HR could be so exciting? And I'm loving it. So what is my take?

Joel Cheesman (19:16.552)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (19:25.511)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (19:32.177)

It's like a James Bond flick at this point.

Emi (19:33.635)

yeah, I'm gonna say I love it. But okay, so we you mentioned like Rippling versus Run Layer, you know, and Rippling did they steal, did they copy from Run Layer? And do know what, I'm actually not surprised. One, I'm not surprised by Rippling because they're dodgy as hell, you know, with their practices. But I just think that we're going to keep seeing more of this happening. You know, we we're seeing in organisations where, whereas

Joel Cheesman (19:41.128)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (19:51.442)

Uh-huh.

Emi (20:01.25)

before they would have gone out to a vendor and said, okay, let's go and purchase this AI tool or whatever tech tool. Now people are going, I've tried this tool. I wonder if I can build it internally. So that's no different to what, you know, they're alleging what Rippling is doing. Yeah. Why, why after a year of testing the product and you know, that's a long test period that I had with, with Runlayer. That's that gives them all the time in the world to understand how the tool works and get access to their code.

Joel Cheesman (20:17.129)

Mm-hmm.

Emi (20:31.499)

and build it themselves internally. And it's almost, I mean, I know obviously they're denying it, but from what the press is saying, it's basically a carbon copy. So it's gonna be really hard for them to get out of this. So that's my take on the run layout versus Rippling. And the other topic, what we'll talk about, deal, buying clarity, yeah. So with this one, again, this is a topic that's close to my heart because I'm...

Joel Cheesman (20:33.542)

Uh-huh.

Joel Cheesman (20:43.997)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (20:53.715)

The deal.

Emi (21:00.567)

You know, within, my day job, we're working so much, we're trying to combat fake candidates, you know? And when I say fake candidates, I'm not just talking about candidates who using AI. I'm talking about anyone who misrepresents themselves. So obviously within that is the, you know, get deep fakes and we are tech company and tech companies get targeted the most, particularly ones with a, you know, who hire a lot of kind of software engineers.

Joel Cheesman (21:17.726)

Yeah.

Emi (21:25.985)

we're facing it within the organization. We're no different to any other organization. So I think companies are having to kind of wake up and go, even if you're not in the software engineering field, you are probably going to be targeted by a fake candidate of some sort. So this acquisition, I think, is a clever acquisition. I think it's necessary. And I think what it does is actually push. I suppose it highlights the organizations that you can't just rely on a background check anymore.

Joel Cheesman (21:40.851)

Yeah.

Emi (21:55.118)

that people can bypass the background check. They can use AI to fake credentials or fake qualifications and get through that background check. But having this acquisition means that there's multiple, I suppose, layers or barriers that those fake candidates as fraudulent actors have to jump through in order to get into an organization. So I think it's a good acquisition.

Joel Cheesman (22:04.66)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (22:22.685)

Yeah, she's in favor to like it.

Joel Cheesman (22:27.805)

That one's for Rippling. guys, so a couple of things to Emmy. Yeah, I do when you say I it's gonna happen more and more. I do think that we will see more of a big company and a little company and the bigger company saying, Okay, what are our options here? We can acquire this company, we can buy the technology like we can have a long term partnership.

Emi (22:36.066)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (22:53.383)

And I think more and more it's like, can we just steal this shit and fight it out in court for two, three years? And basically bury this small company in legal fees and headaches and like good luck trying to prove that we did this. And and I I do think that more and more big companies are gonna do that math and go, you know what, it's just better to like steal this shit and like good luck suing us. And Rippling is a a value is a huge company, valued in the billions, and this is maybe a cu

Emi (23:12.207)

yeah.

Joel Cheesman (23:21.607)

Definitely less than a hundred million dollar company at this point that they're that they're getting sued by. So I do think you will see more of that going forward. a little bit of history lesson. Emmy touched on it, but so if you missed it, Deal is being sued by Rippling for espionage. Yeah, this is a John James Bond movie at this point, of basically paying someone internally at Deal and

Emi (23:29.155)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (23:50.578)

a guy named O'Brien from Ireland. Imagine that the Irish are up to no good. So an Irishman goes in, s sells secrets to Rippling. Anyway, that case is under review. The guy that O'Brien is singing like a canary, apparently. So that's gonna be that's gonna be either paid out, paid out the nose by Rippling or deal, excuse me, going forward. But Rippling has its own history of naughtiness and its founder, a guy named Conrad Parker, or Parker Conrad,

Is kind of a bad dude. he's got a history of doing some shady shit. So he's not really in the best light going forward with this case. So this is a relatively small New York company. they got tax incentives from the state to build this business. They signed a pretty nice agreement with Rippling. they were a couple years into this, and then they didn't get the renewal on the contract. Apparently, someone internally at Rippling

messaged the the founder over at run layer and said, hey, this has Conrad's fingerprints all over it. I can't talk about this on Slack. So then they took it offline. But apparently there's some breadcrumbs around people talking about Rippling stealing this. So I think it's it's gonna be really bad for them. But like we saw with LinkedIn, a lot of money

lot of lawsuits that this startup probably can't afford. They're gonna get buried in legal work and they're probably going to die as a company as a result of this. And Rippling's gonna walk away with the technology. So I think it's kind of a sad story and sad state of affairs in corporate America right now, but that's where we are. we'll watch this case certainly going forward. In terms of deal, deals had like 15, 16, 17 acquisitions. I think all of them we have celebrated and said we're really smart.

Emi (25:17.836)

Yeah.

Emi (25:25.965)

Yeah.

Lieven (25:29.229)

Mm.

Lieven (25:41.8)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (25:43.378)

I think this one is just as smart. I think that if there's an issue that r employers are dealing with right now, it's the onslaught of fake candidates, the deep fakes, the is this person real? The person that shows up to work was not the person we interviewed. Like this is a huge problem for companies. And the value, additional value to deal is that this is going to like monitor this whole thing from the

recruiting to hiring to onboarding to like basically the whole lifespan of a of a candidate because people are people and people do shady shit. So like they're gonna monitor whether or not everything is real. And I think it's a really, really smart move. we've heard about North Koreans and the government North Korea, you know, releasing candidates on Americans. I think there's gonna be more of this sort of screw with America and and in the West economies

Emi (26:15.16)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (26:40.805)

you know, flood with fake people, like cost them a bunch of money, et cetera. So I think it's a really smart move by Deal. I don't like what they did with the Rippling and the espionage and the secret Irishman stealing secrets, but here we go. The the drama and the soap opera of Rippling and Deal continues. Levin, do you have any thoughts on the Rippling case or the Deal acquisition?

Lieven (27:04.416)

Yeah well, I don't really know about run layer and rippling, but it's a fact that the value of a product these days is based on how hard it is to copy it. We see lots and lots of product demonstrations from new companies each week. And in many cases we think, okay, that's a nice idea, but we have something similar ourselves and by just some vibe coding we could create a prototype to check if we could use this. It's not rocket science, it's AI, it's it's HR. So

Emi (27:26.765)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (27:34.368)

When we are considering buying a company, one of the big questions we ask is how future proof is this? How easy is this to copy? Because back in the days it was hard to create a new website, to create something substantial, to create software. But now it's so fast, it's so easy that's the barriers are gone. So that's one thing. It happens all the time. And I used to be a member of an advisory board for a big company. It's not House of HR. It was another big company. And the

We we saw a demonstration from some young a startup and they were very enthusiastic and they wanted to sell the product to us and well we congratulated them on their product. Yes, nice and very good idea, great. And when they left the boardroom, the CEO asked me, Levin, how difficult it is to create this ourselves. How difficult would this be to create this ourselves? And I was shocked. I mean, you don't treat people like that. But this is the way business is going now. It's constant.

Emi (28:29.077)

Yeah, they treat people like that now.

Lieven (28:31.126)

Yeah, yeah, it wasn't like that ten years ago, I feel.

Emi (28:34.04)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (28:35.207)

And by the way, don't think that that's not going to be a defense. Like, look, coding is free. Like, we can everyone can make everything. So w how are they going to win this case? Like, I think that is definitely something that is going to be in these cases. Well, guys, let's take a quick break. if you haven't followed us on your podcast platform of choice, please follow us, leave a review, share us with your best friends, leave a comment, whatever. We will be right back after this.

Lieven (28:42.92)

Mm.

Lieven (28:49.048)

True.

Joel Cheesman (29:09.513)

All right, guys, this next segment is sponsored by our friends at Proven Base. If you love free bourbon and who doesn't, everyone loves a little shot of bourbon. Am I right? Well, our friends at Proven Base are making miracles happen, but you can't win if you don't play. So head out to Chadcheese.com slash free. So you can let your lever finally know who's boss. All right, our next story involves Fiverr. They reported weak second quarter results and sharply cut.

Their full year outlook as generative AI continues to displace lower complexity freelance work. That's a mouthful. the stock fell almost 20% in trading. Market cap start of the day around 415 million. And it was it's been down 40% in the year. CEO Misha Kaufman said the market is changing faster than expected due to rapid AI adoption. Fiverr gets flushed.

By the market, Emmy. What are your thoughts?

Emi (30:12.763)

I'm quite interested in that quote you just said. was like, the market is changing faster than expected. Is that right? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I'm surprised by that because AI has been around for a while now. And if he looked at his own business model, he should have realized that he was going to get targeted. He was going to get impacted by this a long time ago. So I think he just didn't adjust his organization fast enough. All this low level work, you let's do a bit of graphic design. Let's churn out a...

Joel Cheesman (30:19.881)

Mm-hmm. The AI, yeah.

Emi (30:42.239)

or logo, for example, that you can do that on any AI tool. You don't need to go on Fiverr to find those people. So yes, he's moving more towards high value work, more complex work, the project management, the one that you actually need humans, humans and problem solving ability. But in order to generate that revenue, I think he said it's going to take a year and a half. I think that's what I read to make that revenue model work.

Joel Cheesman (30:46.046)

Yeah.

Emi (31:08.737)

Are people going to be, investors going to be interested in waiting a year and a half for that model to work? And you know, the world of AI in 18 months time, we're going to hit, we're going to be hit by something else in the AI world. You know, it keeps moving quickly. cannot keep up at the moment. Investors are not going to wait 18 months because they will be out of the, out of the race again in another 18 months. So I think this is a massive error.

Joel Cheesman (31:32.595)

Yeah. Yeah.

Emi (31:36.237)

from five hours not pivoting fast enough, not predicting is fast enough.

Joel Cheesman (31:43.155)

So yeah, you took the words out of my mouth on a lot of that. quick quick history lesson for the kids.

Joel Cheesman (31:52.008)

So Fiverr started many years ago almost as like this cutesy site where spend five dollars and get little things on like get a banner ad or get something really like cheap in the digital economy. And it was kind of a cutesy way to build a business and it took off. And then they went from five dollars to like, well, let's it let's raise the prices for more complex work.

Lieven (32:03.969)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (32:18.791)

So you had SEOs, you had people like, hey, I need help with my pay-per-click campaign, or I need a website, or I need a blog post. And so the model really worked because businesses, I don't want to pay someone to do graphics. I just want to rent someone to do a project and then like they can go do other stuff. But I don't want to employ that person. Fast forward to today.

Emi (32:39.351)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (32:46.715)

AI does a lot of those jobs. AI will write a blog post for you. AI will make your logo. AI will create an image. AI will like analyze your site for SEO. Like it will do all that and it will code it. Like that was a big thing too. You had coders from around the world in India and cheaper, cheaper south like cheaper labor, and they would do a lot of the coding. Well, now AI does coding. So all these things that Fiverr's workforce, if you will.

was good at providing is now done by AI. Upwork, which is a similar business, is down like basically cut in half this year as well. I think Freelancer over in in in France is similar. Like this model doesn't work. Now what the pivot is, as you mentioned, Amy, is like, okay, we're gonna provide higher level work. So you'll be managing complex projects and multiple employees in this thing.

Emi (33:19.479)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (33:43.688)

Well, companies are looking at that and going, Well, why if it's that complex, like I should have full-time people? I should have people dedicated to the company and the job all that time because it's so so Fiverr's playing this competition of okay, company, it's better to use our contractors for big projects than hire your own people. And I think that's a really hard argument to make. I think most companies will be like, Look, we're gonna be bring people in-house, they can interact, work together.

Emi (34:07.468)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (34:13.587)

To make this thing happen versus people in a contract environment. So I I think it's really it's it's amazing because the world at one point was going to contract. At one point, we were talking about companies having wholly contr like all these employees in contract, and AI has just demolished the whole business model. So I think Fiverr and its its ilk are in real trouble, in real trouble. Leave in your thoughts?

Emi (34:39.586)

Yeah.

Lieven (34:41.624)

If you look at the the stock markets at the their results, I've just been checking them. You see, for the people who are watching the video, they might yeah, that's a cliff, and that's 2022. This is when ChatGPT was launched. So they lost ninety-four percent of their of their value since twenty twenty two, and really a cliff. It's like eighty-four percent in a few weeks. So that's because of AI and

Joel Cheesman (34:50.963)

That's that's a cliff. That's falling off a cliff, I think, is what yeah. Yeah.

Lieven (35:07.776)

It was coming. And like you said, for the Europeans, this isn't very clear. The name Fiverr comes from a Fiverr, which is a five dollar bill. This is something we don't know in Europe, of course. So I never realized Fiverr means a five dollar bill. But yeah, like in like in Joel's history lesson, it's back in the days, it was every task was worth five dollar. You could make five dollars very easily. So these jobs are gone. They are are totally taken over by AI. I, for example, used to use Fiverr for translators.

Emi (35:16.803)

You

I didn't realize that, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (35:21.213)

Yeah, that's how it started. Yeah.

Lieven (35:37.953)

It was much cheaper to offer it on some translator, whatever. But now we use ChatGPT. I'm sure there is still is some value in a platform for the bigger projects like we've been discussing, and you said Joe, well, it's why would it be better to hire someone on Fiverr or team on Fiverr than hire your own people? The problem is that it's so much cheaper, because if we as European company hire

Joel Cheesman (35:45.608)

Yeah.

Lieven (36:05.962)

Local people will have to pay lots of taxes. If we would hire a team which is located in Pakistan, for example, or the Middle East or whatever, we wouldn't pay any taxes. It would be something shady, but it would be much cheaper. And it's those people don't have the social stuff we give them in Europe. So it's it's not good for them, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (36:19.998)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (36:30.121)

The safety nets, the welfare, yeah.

Lieven (36:32.374)

Yeah, it's exactly so they don't get anything out of it, they just get still the Fiverr. And that's a wrong world for me. And I read something about an American who was constantly working with people on Fiverr, but he said, I'm the client and you should answer my calls whenever I call. But he just didn't take into account that it was five o'clock in the morning of three o'clock in the morning where those people were working. So they had to get out of bed to answer his calls because he was in a meeting. And that's just disgusting. And this is what's happening on this platform work economy.

Emi (36:53.043)

wow.

Joel Cheesman (36:54.675)

Yeah.

Lieven (37:02.304)

When there's now no one watching, you just take advantage of people who need it.

Joel Cheesman (37:08.221)

Yeah. I I think the question is what if if that is the business model, what's the valuation of that business? And I think when you see the the when you see the stock drop off a cliff, it's because we don't know how to value this company if it is what Levin says it is. Because I I st if that works in Europe, great. I I just think the other the other side of it is if if I'm an emp if I'm a contractor with that level of skill that I can work on these big projects.

Would I rather be on Fiverr and I'll flip this into America where I don't have healthcare, I don't have a 401k, or I can go get a full time job and have a 401k and healthcare and all those things. So where it may work in Europe more than America, I think as an American, it's it's hard to sort of justify these big projects going to contract work. Just is my take. But regardless, the stock. shit.

Emi (38:02.542)

Thank

Joel Cheesman (38:03.506)

That's been bad. Well, speaking of Europe, I got two Europeans on the call here. So I'm gonna I'm gonna throw this back to you guys. according to a story out of HR Executive, European AI adoption in HR has stalled less by technology and more by culture, trust, and weak data foundations. one of the key points from the study is employees are fine with AI while organizations aren't ready to embed it into real work.

with only thirty-six percent of companies in Europe including AI and actual HR processes. All right, Emmy, as a European, what's going on with the culture, the processes and everything else that's making HR unlikely to embrace AI anytime soon?

Emi (38:47.139)

culture processes and what was the other one? Trust, culture trust. Okay. Well, okay. I suppose it's a little bit different for me. I work in a tech company and we are an AI first organization. So we are...

Joel Cheesman (38:55.777)

culture trust weak data foundations. Mm-hmm.

Emi (39:11.299)

I was going to say encourage. We're basically told we need to start embracing AI. And we've been told this for a long time. The AI is not just for the software engineering team. It's for all departments, whether you're in IT, finance, marketing, we've all been asked to embrace AI. Okay. Which is a little bit different to some of my friends who do similar roles in other industries. But what I'm finding through my experience from speaking to people in other organizations, it's not necessarily that they

You know, don't trust AI because, you know, that was, that was a case like a couple of years ago. Now everyone's using chat GPT, Gemini, co-pilot, you know, whether it's to check an email or plan their holiday. Yeah. So they'd use it in their personal life. But what I'm finding when it, when it comes to work, yeah, they're using it to increase productivity. They've to write an email to someone, stick into your AI tool, put in the right prompts. will create something. But.

When you're asked, I think we're past that now. You know, now it's not just a case of using AI. Now people are expected to build with AI. That's a whole nother level of complexity. So if you've been asked to experiment, build an agent, for example, saying that to someone, if, for example, an HR who's never been involved in that kind of work is hard because first of all, they've got to think, hold on a second, I don't have the skills. Can I identify a good AI?

Joel Cheesman (40:32.434)

Mm-hmm.

Emi (40:39.743)

business case, you know, do I understand what's a good AI use case? And then even if I can identify an AI use case, there are so many AI tools out there. Do I actually know how to use that tool? And yes, some of the tools are easier because you can use obviously natural language, but you still have to put in the right prompts. You still, that's a trial and error. Who's teaching them? Nine times out of 10 people are just told to experiment themselves. What are the guardrails? What is the information you can actually put in?

Joel Cheesman (40:58.994)

Mm-hmm.

Emi (41:08.513)

How do you make sure that the output is actually accurate? Particularly when you're in HR and your job is to get things right. Because if you're not compliant, there could be a legal implication. Yeah, so I think that's when it comes to, I think Europeans in general, we are more conservative. But particularly when it comes to HR, it's like, we have to make sure the output and the input will

Joel Cheesman (41:12.137)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (41:21.239)

yeah.

Joel Cheesman (41:29.043)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (41:36.105)

Yeah.

Emi (41:36.407)

whatever put into the system is actually correct because we don't want to get sued. don't, we know what the implications are, but who is teaching us? Where do we actually start? So I think that is the issue. I don't, for me, I don't think it's, I don't think it's just a European thing. I think it's a, I think it's a global thing. Everyone has this issue. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (41:56.436)

Global thing. I it's you mentioned agents a little bit there. I I think agents are going to be a big problem in Europe. when you have a story recently about AI taking over hugging face and infiltrating a company like agents, agents are gonna run amok and I think it's gonna be an issue. And I think it's gonna be a huge issue in hiring. Because if you have agents hiring, if those agents go off the rails and start asking, you know.

Emi (42:04.642)

Yeah, yeah.

Emi (42:18.402)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (42:25.135)

Who knows what kind of questions, and you're on the hook for it, I think you're gonna see a lot of regulation, particularly out of Europe. so yeah, this is gonna be a big issue from there. So I'm gonna I'm gonna blame it on the Nazis, like most things in in the world. so World War II happens, Europe is demolished, America is not hurt much at all from an infrastructure standpoint. People have shell shock in Europe.

Emi (42:25.143)

Vogue questions, yeah.

Emi (42:35.17)

Yeah.

Emi (42:38.979)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (42:53.309)

Governments are created and built up to have peace in the world. Like we've just been through a war. Let's build a safety net. Let's build healthcare for everybody. Let's have a nice retirement. Let's have long vacations. Let's have all the things that we enjoy and protect that and build a bureaucracy and government services around that. And so World War II has left Europe still dealing with a mentality of like, let's not.

Blow shit up. Let's not like do dangerous stuff. Whereas America sort of has never gotten out of that and we're still blowing shit up and like break things and move fast. So today, fast forward, and you still have a culture, and I think this story kind of encapsulates that of like, wait a minute, let's slow down. Where are we going with this? Who's going to get hurt? What privacy is being, you know, trampled on, and all these issues that we don't even know about yet. So, like, let's let's go really slowly into this.

Emi (43:43.373)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (43:51.156)

Whereas the individuals like, hell yeah, Claude's awesome and a open AI and like this is so cool. But the governments and the organizations and the companies that are so adherent to the bureaucracy and the red tape, they can't move fast. I think on one hand, it's probably healthy. I think the agent thing we just talked about, there's gonna be stuff happen where America's gonna blow up or China or these companies are like, let's just go, are gonna suffer for that, and you guys won't. But on the other hand,

Emi (43:55.021)

Yoo hoo!

Emi (44:12.49)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (44:21.095)

Like this AI thing is moving fast. And China and America are at a sprint to like own it and be the the leaders in that. And I fear that if Europe is left behind, they're just gonna be like relying on the US or Chinese technology, which one are you gonna go with? so I I'm rooting for Europe, but I I think that cultural vibe.

Emi (44:30.904)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (44:47.667)

That's been there since the end of World War Two is going to be really, really hard to break. We'll see. Levin, your thoughts?

Lieven (44:55.436)

Huh. I'm also not so sure it's European thing, but I think in our business where recruitment is and HR is basically our core business, we are not lagging behind. We are investing heavily and we are moving fast and we are automating stuff. But for most European companies, they are smaller than the average American companies. Even our biggest companies in most cases are a bit smaller. And HR

Departments aren't that big compared to some other companies. I'm not talking about the really big multinationals. I'm talking about SMEs and maybe some large companies, but not the toppers. So those companies are investing in AI first in their core business, then they're going to finance, then they're going to marketing, etc. And HR is just lost in line. And those people aren't very tech-savvy. It's HR. I mean, there's our psychologists, those are whatever.

Joel Cheesman (45:46.153)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (45:47.647)

They never really embraced technology. It was something they had to use. They went from an Excel sheet to an applicant tracking system. They didn't really like it, but they had to. And now they have to use AI. And they know, right in vacancy, we can use ChatGPT and they do it. But the real important stuff using agents, etc., they just don't feel like stopping watching Netflix to learn how to do it. And because it's not their their business. Marketing is something else. Those people are eager to learn, eager to learn.

Joel Cheesman (46:10.365)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (46:16.416)

In my experience, HR is a bit softer. It's different. It's a different approach, different kind of people. I think that's the biz the the biggest problem. But they will catch up. It's just a matter of time. If you ask me. Hmm. If they have the time.

Joel Cheesman (46:27.899)

How much time is the question? And will the world be so far ahead when that happens that they can never, never catch up.

Lieven (46:35.446)

And you're totally right, Joel. It's also a legislation thing. For example, two days ago in Europe, the European Transparency Act was launched, which makes sure companies tell everyone visiting their website, for example, that they're talking to an AI system. That they when a picture is shown, it has to be mentioned. This was AI generated. When a text has been totally AI generated, it has to be mentioned. So people should always be made aware of this.

Emi (46:53.923)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (47:02.262)

And this just doesn't this legislation doesn't create a level playing field. Europe has it and we are forced to be very strict, but the United States does not, the Middle East does not, Asia does not, so we're totally screwed. Because those companies from the rest of the world are active in Europe, but they're not they just don't care about legislation because they're based somewhere else.

Joel Cheesman (47:23.091)

So great. So now when I go to websites, I gotta click the I'm okay with cookies and now I'm gonna have to click the okay that AI AI's generating stuff. Come on, man.

Lieven (47:27.832)

I'm okay with AI. No, no, no. It's it's not like that. It's just really it's it has to be mentioned. So it wasn't yeah, it's not it was leg in the legislation it mentions it's not something like accepting cookies. It's really mentioned like that. It shouldn't be some kind of an opt out or opt in. It has to be mentioned this was AI generated every time, all over the place, which is ridiculous because in many cases you see it, but still.

Emi (47:30.028)

Yeah.

Emi (47:34.147)

It would actually say, yeah. It would say, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (47:50.11)

Yeah.

Emi (47:55.502)

could be an ad candidate outreach email. This was totally AI generated, you know, but do you know what, what it's going to do? mean, yeah, but we talked before about HR roles going to change, you know? Yeah, you're right, Leaven. We weren't trained to be software engineers. Well, I never asked to be a software engineer, you know, when I moved into this world, I could barely use my mobile, you know, but now my role is changing. Now I'm sitting there every day trying to build an app, you know, like I've never done that before. I'm teaching myself how to build this app from scratch.

Joel Cheesman (48:01.107)

Like slop on slop.

Lieven (48:02.999)

Yeah.

Lieven (48:10.166)

Mm-hmm. No?

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (48:25.496)

And you like it and you do it, but not everyone does it like that.

Emi (48:25.665)

But yeah, that is the future. The roles that we have now within HR, it's completely going to change. They are going to be more technical because they have to be more technical. If the governments are legislating things like this, they're going to have to understand these things. So I think, yeah, I agree. Will we catch up? Yeah, definitely.

Lieven (48:32.888)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (48:41.783)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (48:46.343)

Like my dad used to say, lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way. Guys, if you haven't checked us out on YouTube yet, you can see our lovely mugs on the screen. we will be right back.

Lieven (48:46.552)

Mm.

Emi (48:51.192)

Yeah

Joel Cheesman (49:03.011)

We have seven minutes till Levin has to go, so keep it tight. All right, guys. LinkedIn has introduced a seems like AI slot button to allow users to report slopperific toast posts, sorry, on the platform. This is likely in response to a viral study showing that 41% of long-form posts on LinkedIn were fully AI generated. But wait, there's more. remember Indeed's apply for me feature, which aimed to replace humans with agents?

Yeah, not so much. the feature is being paused by Indeed to focus on the mode where job seekers review applications before the agents submit them. The humans are pushing back at LinkedIn and Indeed. Emmy, your thoughts.

Emi (49:48.12)

Well, I think this kind of follows on to what we talked about, you know, the legislation that this is AI generated. Yeah, because everything you see online is AI generated. Practically every LinkedIn post that I write is AI generated. You know, I've got a busy day. I haven't got time to like be creative and like, you know, write my post on scratch anymore. Nope. I put in a couple of prompts here and my thoughts pretty, I'll put it in my tone of voice. Gemini knows my tone of voice. I'm going to post it. Excellent. It's still me. I'm still like from my point of view. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (50:06.026)

Mm-hmm.

Emi (50:18.111)

It's still AI, it's still my thoughts, my voice, but it's AI generated. That is the world. unfortunately, yeah, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (50:26.281)

Especially in a B to B platform, right? Like it's not Instagram. I don't need to show my personality. I just need to put some shit out so people see me from time to time.

Emi (50:31.805)

Woo! Yeah, exactly. yeah, so yeah, that's my thoughts on that. And then the, what did we talk about next? Yeah, thank God they pulled that. That was a shit function, like shit free feature. So I think that's my thoughts on that one, summed up.

Joel Cheesman (50:38.483)

Yeah.

Indeed apply for me.

Joel Cheesman (50:50.363)

Yeah. Okay, fair enough.

Joel Cheesman (50:55.901)

So the fun thing about at LinkedIn is that they encouraged AI content. if if you had a certain account, they were like, Would you like A to write this? It would give you examples of what it would look like if AI wrote it. So they they actually sort of lit the fire and and said, like, it's okay for AI stuff because we're encouraging you to do that. I agree the slob has kind of gone overboard. And part of what in like this is a business platform. This is a marketing manager whose boss said, like, we need to do blog posts and we need to do

Emi (51:05.987)

They cause this, yeah.

Emi (51:23.459)

You

Joel Cheesman (51:24.219)

like new posts and pictures and videos and stuff and the marketing manager just like, okay, AI, because I don't know what the hell's going on. So you're gonna get this stuff. I I my problem with the self-policing, like expecting people to drop down and go, this looks like slop, is when you put things in the hands of humans, they they go human on it, right? So like maybe they're vindictive, maybe they're an angry former employee, maybe

Emi (51:30.999)

Let's do it.

Joel Cheesman (51:52.948)

They're a competitor. So, like, they're just gonna like weaponize this to go after competitors and do like maybe it wasn't slop, it is, and so I I always have a problem with putting this in the in the hands of people because people do people shit. The the LinkedIn algorithm should be good enough and evolve to the point where it knows something is AI or probably AI. And just like the European law, like put something a little disclaimer, like.

Emi (52:08.163)

Joel Cheesman (52:21.331)

This is probably AI, or this was probably generated with AI. So I think that's that's where we're going. But it's just ironic that LinkedIn basically started this and now they're trying to finish it. On the Indeed thing, they boiled the frog too quickly. They turned up the heat a little too much. Look, I think this is where LinkedIn or sorry, Indeed is going. they just went too fast. They want, they want more applications.

automatically they want more lazy apply stuff because that's gonna make them more money because they'll be able to put more applicants in the bucket of employers and charge for that. So I d I just think this is a whoa, let's slow it down, let's do a pause, we'll roll it out a little slower. But make no mistake, this is where Indeed is going. They want to auto apply to all kinds of jobs. Levin?

Lieven (52:53.218)

Mm-hmm.

Emi (52:53.357)

Yeah.

Emi (53:09.219)

causing us more issues.

Lieven (53:12.608)

Okay, talking about LinkedIn, I always really hated the automate or an AI augment your post because I used to be a very good copywriter and I know my English sucks, but in Dutch I'm actually pretty good. So I took time to write a very good post and it made a difference. And then suddenly, whenever I wrote a good post, people would just assume it was AI written because it was a good post. And you said, Joe, well the algorithm should be able to see the difference between AI slop and an actual quality contents written.

human written post. But whenever when you write too good, AI will think or the the algorithm will think it's AI because AI just doesn't make any spelling mistakes anymore. It doesn't make many grammatical mistakes. AI just is good in copywriting. So I don't think it's that easy to get the algorithm to differ between AI or human written stuff. But I would happily go back to the

Joel Cheesman (53:55.209)

Mm-hmm.

Lieven (54:09.612)

Time where my copywriting actually meant something.

Joel Cheesman (54:15.431)

I think it's getting bet like I'm seeing on I don't know what platform it is, but they'll say like this was generated by AI or this was likely AI generated. So I at least for videos and things, I think it's it's pretty easy. And I think they're getting better about copy. by the way, Levin, your English. what I have to say about that is

Lieven (54:25.076)

Mm, does that friend, yeah. Yeah.

Lieven (54:35.0)

Okay, so

Joel Cheesman (54:36.553)

All right, guys. What is a hundred percent works every time is

The dad jokes. Here we go, guys. What is Michael Jackson's favorite drink? What is Michael Jackson's favorite drink?

Lieven (54:53.451)

I don't know.

Joel Cheesman (54:56.499)

Tee.

Emi (54:58.147)

Do you know? I was like, do you know? I was thinking of like, hee hee. And it's like, I was so close.

Lieven (54:58.172)

huh.

Joel Cheesman (54:59.293)

Ha ha ha

Lieven (55:02.776)

Hehehe

Joel Cheesman (55:03.091)

Tee. Good seeing you guys. Go go back to vacationing or whatever it is you Europeans do. We out.

Lieven (55:06.689)

Okay.

Emi (55:09.234)

Lieven (55:10.201)

Yeah. We out.

Emi (55:13.762)

We out!