This week on Chad & Cheese, Blueboard has shut down due to financial struggles. Indeed is rumored to be changing its policy on how employers can contact veterans, while apparently eliminating organic traffic in the US.
Microsoft appoints Mustafa Suleyman as CEO of its AI division to compete with OpenAI, Google, and other Big Tech companies. Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus surpasses GPT-4 on the Chatbot Arena leaderboard, marking the first non-OpenAI model to do so. Mark Zuckerberg is also personally recruiting Google DeepMind talent for Meta AI without requiring interviews.
HR AI is also on the rise, with Toronto-based Borderless AI and its HR assistant Alberni securing $27 million in seed funding. Hippocratic AI raises $53 million in Series A funding, bringing its valuation to $500 million.
Economists argue that immigration has been a major boon for the economy, boosting employment and consumer spending. Policymakers like Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell acknowledge the benefits of migration on labor shortages.
BMW is testing robot workers at its South Carolina plant, and a controversy at a Florida school over a mother's OnlyFans account sticker on her car led to the expulsion of nine students.
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Podcast 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.
Joel: Oh, yeah. Two guys who eat the chocolate bunny ears first. What's up, kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Francis Scott Key Cheeseman.
Chad: This is Chad, is that a toxic culture? Sowash.
Joel: And on this week's episode, Indeed hates veterans. The AI talent wars heat up. And Florida just keeps Florida-ing. Let's do this.
Chad: Welcome home.
Joel: Welcome home welcome home. So Chad, we're both married.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And we know that there tends to be some lines you can't cross where at least my wife will say look if you do X we're gonna, we're divorcing right and this is usually you know cheating, cooking meth in the basement, kicking puppies you know stuff like that. So my wife gave me a new one this week. It was if you buy shares of Truth Social, I will divorce you so this is Donald Trump's lifeline, I think, to his economic troubles. I do like the ticker symbol, which is DJT for Donald J. Trump.
Chad: Anybody think it was going to be anything different?
Joel: I thought that was an interesting ticker symbol to choose. Needless to say, although the stock did pretty well along with Reddit this week, although Reddit's coming back to earth, and I'm sure DJT will as well.
Chad: It's a great money laundering scheme is what it is I mean, he they say that he has to wait six months to be able to cash out, in., unless the board who are all his people say that he can go ahead and cash out. So, Yeah. It's a great ultimatum. Way to go, Christine.
Joel: Any thoughts on the Reddit IPO? I was really hopeful that it would sort of break the dam on IPOs, which initially I thought it would. And a lot of the pundits were saying so, but it's kind of coming back to earth.
Chad: Why would it break the dam?
Joel: I mean, it basically doubled this week, and now it's coming back to earth. But if any IPO that comes out that isn't Birkenstock, and it's like tech, and it does well like stripe is waiting to go public I mean they're.
Chad: It's a message board.
Joel: Totally.
Chad: So all of these people that I hear talking about like you know this is going to be it that this is going to happen it's going to go to the moon it's like what where the fuck we're talking about AI we're talking about some of the most fluid systems of today velocity of tech moving so fast not this. This is not it, this has nothing to do with all of the really cool conversations we've been having so you I don't understand why all these "pundits" And again, I'm not giving out financial advice, but there's no way in fucking hell I'm going to put my money into a 1979 Gremlin. It doesn't make any sense.
Joel: And by the way, their users hate advertising and won't pay a subscription fee for anything.
Chad: It doesn't make any sense.
Joel: I agree. Although selling the data could be pretty profitable. All these LLMs that need content and stuff to use for learning.
Chad: Oh. Yeah. And then if that happens, guess what? All the people are going to eject, and there's not gonna be any data to be had. So, I mean, it's just, again, it's a fucking message board, dude, with sub message boards. I mean, come on this is 1990s shit. We did this...
Joel: I am not pitching Reddit to you. I am not like pitching it.
Chad: I just don't get it. I don't understand. I just don't understand.
Joel: There's a lot of money.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Look, the IPO market's been dry for a long time.
Chad: So put it in a turd.
Joel: Literally, Birkenstock was the last exciting one. People want to spend money, they want an exciting IPO.
Chad: Oh God, man. We'll get into that. Okay. So somebody who's not excited right now, there's some rumors over at SmartRecruiters remember a few weeks ago when SmartRecruiters's acquisition was fumbled. We called it botched, but it was fumbled my sources say that CEO Michael DeSimone is out and Chief Product Officer, Rebecca Carr, is now the interim CEO for context. Michael was announced as CEO about a year ago, April 18th, 2023. So I'm gonna surmise that the fumbled, the botched, whatever you wanna call it acquisition might have been the last straw. So good luck to Michael. Sorry, man. Shit like that happens wherever he lands. Hopefully he does well and good luck to Rebecca Carr because she's taking over a shit show right now. Getting into the head seats. I mean, it's very turbulent times at SmartRecruiters. One system that we used to see is kinda like new age applicant tracking system with all this new tech that's coming out. And then the paradoxes and the shit, the fountains and the Harry's and whatnot. I mean, they're really recreating what talent acquisition and talent management and whatnot. And now she's gotta take over this jalopy, this gremlin. I mean, good luck, Rebecca. Good luck.
Joel: Take over and take off.
SFX (Sound Effects): Take off Lee. We're doing our movie. Don't Wreck our show you looser.
Chad: I'm not Canadian, but, okay.
Joel: How many, man, my memory sucks on this, but in the last 24 months, the number of ATSs that have either lost replaced a CEO is like five-ish. I think like big names that we know so it's a tough business. There's no IPO in sight for these companies.
Chad: It's gonna get tougher.
Joel: I mean, iCIMs, SmartRecruiters, greenhouse, we've talked about IPOs, like there seems to be no end of the road that's positive for these ATSs. And you can see it on the management teams. But great Scoop. Great scoop. Yeah. SmartRecruiters, man.
Chad: There you go.
Joel: I got nothing. I got nothing. Well, let's see if I can conjure up a.
SFX (Sound Effects): Shout out.
Joel: For the folks. All right, Chad, we've talked about Veritone sponsor of the show, by the way. Full disclosure on that one. Their stock has been meddling to say the least for the last year or so. Well, they finally are out of the celler rat style their stock has hit 180% increase in the last month, thanks to a positive earnings report demand for its developer tools. They have a nifty API that apparently is hitting with a lot of developers. And of course, anything with AI on it is gonna be doing pretty well in the stock market. Again, we're not recommending stocks one way or the other, but this thing right now, is doing very well this year. So I know that the team over there has been struggling trying to get things back on track. So at least this month, it looks like things are looking good for Veritone. So happy for those as if they need any better news. Living in Southern California, riding a boat on the.
SFX (Sound Effects):
Joel: Warm waters, and...
Chad: It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt.
Joel: Eating shrimp cocktail in a cob salad for lunch on Sundays.
Chad: Does not hurt shout out to companies who rectify bad hiring decisions. What do I mean? What do I mean by that? Well, you might've heard that after being ousted from the Republican National Committee chair, Ronna McDaniels was then hired by NBC News as a political analyst. Imagine that. And then an employee on Air Rebellion ensued, which then met that NBC news rescinded the job offer to McDaniels NBCUniversal News Group. President Cesar Conde said the following, "I wanna personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down end." Leadership isn't always about taking the raise when you do the right things. It's also about taking action when you fuck stuff up. And Cesar fucked some stuff up here, and his people knew, and they let him know.
SFX (Sound Effects): You're so dumb. You're really dumb. For real.
Joel: Yeah. This is a hot story that I haven't followed at all. My more left-leaning friends were in a tizzy about this one. And they're happy about the exodus of her. I don't know what she said. Did she have a show? Did she like crossfire somebody in a debate? Was it just her past that they said she doesn't deserve to be here?
Chad: She literally was just pushed out of the RNC, just pushed out of the RNC. And not to mention, she's also, I think, a witness for a lot of the shit that's happening, even especially in Michigan. So it was pretty much a bridge too far for any journalist to say that they wanted her on the team. So whether it's right, left, doesn't matter. It's when you try to overthrow a government and you're leading the charge on that, it's probably a bridge too far.
Joel: Well, from one bad hire to maybe a good hire that they could look at. I don't know if you've seen this. Mike Tyson is having a moment. Mike Tyson is having a moment. We talked about him going on Netflix this summer to fight is it Jake? Jake Paul, or Logan?
Chad: One of the Pauls.
Joel: One of the brothers there.
Chad: Yeah. I think they actually have like a tag team set up where they can tag in and out. I could be wrong.
Joel: Really? One's a legit fighter. The other one, I don't think Logan is. If it's not... I'm pretty sure it's Jake. But anyway, Mike Tyson's having a moment. He's probably had a decade or a century so far the hangover was maybe his peak. But anyway, you know that I love a good edible Chad. Oh, yeah. And based on your story from Vegas, I'm just an admirer of them. Well, Mike Tyson is as well. So New York legalized cannabis. So Tyson bites are coming to market now. You might wanna know what's unique about Tyson bites. Well, if you know anything about Mike Tyson, you know he fought Evander Holyfield back in the '90s and bit part of his ear off. So yes, Tyson Bites are in the shape of an ear. So you can do edibles in the shape of an ear and admire Mike Tyson on the packaging as you get loopy on some cannabis. Tyson Bites shout out to Mike Tyson for having a moment. We've all forgotten about the rape and the beating up of people. America's a great place to forgive and make some cash everybody.
Chad: Yeah. I wonder if Evander gets any money off of this since that was his ear. So, that's a depiction of his ear, so therefore he should get a cut. I mean, makes sense.
Joel: That's a great legal argument, Chad. Yeah. Makes sense. He certainly should.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: And Evander's hurting for money as far as I know, having 37 kids sometimes will put you in...
Chad: You know what though? If he signs up for free stuff and they all sign up for free stuff, they can get free t-shirts. Who's coming at you? From Aaron app. We have a new T-shirt design kids that we will probably release that this week so everybody can partake and they can check it out. But from my understanding, Mr. Cheeseman, they are in production. Is that correct?
SFX (Sound Effects): Alright. Alright. Alright.
Chad: Yes. Yes.
Joel: Now we go for the free shipping so we don't get the rush order. So it will be a little bit of time. People like it's... But we'll get... The goal is it's gonna be the summer of Chad and Cheese T-shirts everyone's gonna be sporting these at the pool, at the beach, at the local Chipotle and the Dairy Queen.
Chad: At the casino. Yeah. Yeah.
Joel: Casino on the Stratosphere.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Yes. Free. Shit. Not only T-shirts, Chad, what else can they get going to chadcheese.com and click on the free link.
Chad: Beer from Aspen Tech Labs. Our friends over at Aspen Tech Labs. If you need job content and you want that all nice and scraped, all pretty, pretty much everybody goes to Aspen Tech Labs. They do the hard stuff. Whiskey from our friends at... And last but not least, if it's your birthday, you might be able to win some rum from Plum.
SFX (Sound Effects): Really? Can you feel the tension in the air right now? I know. I can feel it all the way down in my plums.
Joel: Oh, I've missed the roll call of birthdays being on the road chats. Let's, get to it.
Chad: Like half hour.
Joel: Celebrating another trip around the sun listeners Timmy Smith, Tim O Hill Horst, Josh Wayne Wright, Brian Barnes, Hayden Hughes, Derek James Bond. Melissa Malcolm in the middle. Megan Sharp. Dan Cheeseman, no relation. Oh, Elan Martin Zone.
Chad: There we go.
Joel: If I said that correctly, one of our favorite Swedes. James Holman. Paulo Barega, Thomas O'Hara, Simon Evans. Steve Levy, Jessica Rush, Mike Timkin, who's enjoying retirement from what I understand let's hope.
Chad: And the show.
Joel: And last but not least, Jeremy Cheeseman.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: That's right. My soon to be 7-year-old celebrates another trip around the sun.
SFX (Sound Effects): Happy birthday.
Joel: This year, by the way. His birthday coincides with the number of years that this stupid ass podcast has been running. So every time it's his birthday, it reminds me of my mistakes that I've made and the pendants that I have to pay every week with you.
Chad: Dealing with me every single... Well, more than once a week it's event times kids. We have UNLEASH America happening in Vegas on May 7th through the ninth. Now UNLEASH is always a blast. Last year we did a VIP event on the high roller, but apparently that wasn't high enough as this year, the Chad and Cheese are jumping off the stratosphere in Vegas with Matt, the CEO of Outhire. Can you believe that shit. Now this is coming from Wikipedia. Listen to this. Sky Jump Las Vegas is located at The Strat on the Las Vegas strip. It holds the Guinness World Record for highest commercial decelerators descent with an official height. Get ready, Cheeseman 829 feet. We're gonna be jumping 829 feet. Now, if you would like to join us or nominate someone to jump, just go to chadcheese.com and right there on the homepage, click on the jump with us button. That's gonna be a blast.
SFX (Sound Effects): Jump! Might as well jump.
Joel: Also on Google there's only been one death jumping on the stratosphere. It was a suicide though. They weren't strapped in.
Chad: Oh, that's not the same.
Joel: So just make sure you hold my hand and get me strapped in before I fall to my death. Alright.
Chad: Then we have a VIP event at the Neon Boneyard with Plum. What's the Neon Boneyard you might ask?
SFX (Sound Effects): It's winning.
Chad: It's where all of the neon signs of Vegas, pretty much of yesteryear. They go, they don't die. Oh no. It's gonna be a night event. So Plum's, attendees can marvel and bask in the glow of Neon while we drink and probably enjoy some edibles.
Joel: Love the old hard rock sign, the guitar.
Chad: Yeah. No. Good stuff. Yeah.
Joel: And allegedly, you're my Vegas news source they're doing a hotel that's shaped like a guitar. That'll be the new Hard Rock. Is it true? You've heard that too?
Chad: I've heard that, but I've heard it over and over and over. I mean, they have hotels with swimming pools, the shape of guitar they've got... It's kind of like they're shtick, so it wouldn't surprise me. Doesn't make me want to stay there anymore but...
Joel: But would you stay there if they played Kabu in the lobby, would that make you reconsider.
Chad: The minus five experience where you go into the cold bar and you put on the coats and stuff like that? We're gonna be doing that with Omar and Job Pixel. In that, that kabu is almost like great soundtrack for something like that. You feel like you're in Helsinki, you feel like you need to warm up and you need a little kabu.
SFX (Sound Effects): All right. All right. All right.
Joel: I love it. Have you been to the Ice Bar?
Chad: No.
Joel: No. I haven't either.
Chad: I don't like cold stuff.
Joel: But it looks awesome. That's very, very cool.
Chad: Thanks, Omar.
Joel: I don't like cold stuff.
SFX (Sound Effects): Celebrate! .
Joel: All right. Not necessarily breaking news, Chad, but it's breaking news to us it kind of went quietly, but...
Chad: We've been away.
Joel: Yeah. We have been away. So employee Reward software company, Blueboard. Have you heard of them? Maybe seen them at an expo or?
Chad: They sound familiar.
Joel: At some point. Yeah, they were kind of a thing 10 years ago, eight years ago. Anyway they've mysteriously disappeared, they've laid everybody off and they've gone out of business. So if you're a Blueboard client, I'm sure you're aware of this they hopefully didn't just walk away anyway, they had raised nearly $16 million in Series A funding founded back in 2014. So the 10 year runway didn't make it. I mean, the employee rewards thing we talk about a lot, and it seemed to like kind of hit its stride in the pandemic, making employees feel nice and special and apparently didn't work out for Blueboard. So I kind of wonder, all these employee engagement companies, are they on the same path as Blueboard. Blackbeard and Blueboard.
Chad: A decade old company that isn't, let's say, for instance, a vital piece of tech? Yeah. I can see that kind of going away or not going IPL let's just say that.
Joel: Yeah. 10 years is a pretty long runway yo end it anyway.
Chad: Yeah. For a platform that's not a vital platform, it's not a vital point solution. You don't hear companies who are just, literally looking for RFPs for these types of platforms.
Joel: No. But if you're looking for some folks that have some experience in this industry, go to LinkedIn, check out the Blueboard veterans, they might be looking for work, Chad. And if they're looking for work, they might be on Indeed. Which brings us to our real topics of the week.
Chad: Here we go.
Joel: The Indeed rumor mill keeps churning Chad, this time, they're rumored to change how employers can contact veterans sources say starting April 2nd Indeed is shifting to resume seats receiving 10 complimentary resume contacts a month for veterans down from unlimited outreach messages. But wait there's more. Indeed is rumored to be sending letters to ad agencies saying organic traffic in the US will no longer be a thing. Don't say, we didn't warn you, everybody. Chad, what are your thoughts? And you might have some additional information as I know that your phone was ringing off the hook before the show.
Chad: Yes, definitely phone was blowing up late yesterday and today So on the veteran side of the house, I mean, it's to me. That's a so-what scenario They were doing it just for pomp and circumstance and fluff in the first place Not to mention, you know companies have no fucking clue what they're looking at when they're looking at military resumes. So, but to me all of this literally is nothing but a cry for help from Indeed Which is what we've seen CPA died CPSA died and then they started the the the whole tech community thing then they started the the Indeed Japan. There's just so much that they're doing right now. They are throwing every piece of spaghetti...
Joel: Don't forget job tracker the Android app that didn't succeed which...
Chad: All over the place, right? But this this to me, especially the the taking away of organic is just another bid to soak companies for more money They're slowly pulling the plug on organic traffic starting in in the US. All of my contacts have said get ready for organic traffic to go away entirely Which means what? Indeed is once again moving toward a 1990s pay-to-play job board model with the only caveat being CPC right because CPC didn't exist in job boards in 1990s so literally they went from a job search engine and they've reverted I mean, they've literally regressed back into a job board model Recruitment ad agencies have been instructed due to these changes if your clients jobs are receiving less traffic from the free Organic, well, you should probably sponsor jobs. Yeah, no shit Sherlock Indeed's also pitching. This is really just a rebalancing of traffic.
Chad: So Obviously free has gotten too much and they needed to get more payment on clicks So they needed to push more people to clicks So from my standpoint, this isn't really a rebalancing This is an old platform that they tried and again rumors that I've heard They've tried to put a ceiling on the number of apps Candidate applications on free jobs. It didn't work. They couldn't make that work So, I guess this old dog just isn't gonna hunt what do you think about the whole CPC thing it's not surprising Not to mention. I don't think many recruitment ad agencies that aren't a part of programmatic are gonna care because this is just gonna drive Up their revenues to.
SFX (Sound Effects): 60% of the time it works. Every time.
Joel: My take on this is we've seen this story before Part one was called career builder when Private equity moves in to any significant degree which it did with Indeed This is what happens. They take they sharpen the pencils. They they swear. We where are we wasting money? Where can we make more money? Where can we cut costs trim fat, etcetera. That's kind of what we're seeing Like, how do we make the most off pay-per-click? How do we cut out free stuff? How do we make more money on? Contacting vets as a veteran. I'm a little surprised that you don't care about that. But that's that's cool. That's your prerogative So it's like how do we make more money? How do we cut more costs? And this is what we're saying and mark my words Layoffs are coming layoffs are coming to Indeed at some point in a significant way And this is just the the the canary in the coal mine is all this sort of how do we milk as much profit.
Joel: As We possibly can you know the challenge to me they just had an investor meeting I think they published online There's articles if you guys are interested, you know, they're there Indeed is so concerned about the transactional nature of job search like how do we make applying easier. How do we like the problem with job search? Isn't that it's too hard It's that it might be that it's too easy But the transactional nature of it is to me not a winning strategy for Indeed because Programmatic is gonna out transaction probably anything that Indeed does it needs to be more personal than transactional We both knock on LinkedIn a lot and I think fairly so on You know related jobs and jobs for you and things like that The one thing that Indeed gets early LinkedIn gets right is if you search for a job on LinkedIn it will show you who you know at the company. First degrees. I went to school with this person Maybe I'm second degree and they know somebody I know.
Joel: Because if you if you learn anything from us kids It's not necessarily what you know It's who you know and the transactional nature of Indeed and other job sites like takes a lot of that personal stuff out of out of The equation LinkedIn secret sauce is the people that are on the site and I know it you don't engage with it But when people change jobs look for jobs, they're good. They go to LinkedIn So that network is powerful and it does help people get jobs So LinkedIn to me is we're just in a cost-cutting efficiency game at Indeed right now and Maybe an IPO is coming in the future when they maximize profits to echo your sentiment. It's more spaghetti at the wall It's more like fear They're driven by fear and what Google's doing what app cast is doing And so it's just more being unfocused. Maybe they are more focused but in the wrong places and We're gonna see more craziness from Indeed wait till the layoffs come though that will be fine.
Chad: What I'm hearing is they should buy Polywork.
Joel: They should buy Stepstone and then Stepstone should buy CareerBuilder.
SFX (Sound Effects): Alright. Alright. Alright.
Chad: Never going to happen. So one of the things that they actually said during their virtual investor update was the global HR matching market composed of job advertising and talent sourcing direct hire Retained search internal recruitment automation and temporary staffing pretty big is almost $330 billion, right the search engine opportunity only represents a portion of that about About 10% right coming in at just over $295 billion the global marketplace total addressable market Reflects from it the remaining 90% So the HR Matching market the thing that they're trying to go after and again I just don't see it because they don't have the technology unless they actually rebuild infrastructure They can't get it done. They're matching it shit They're they don't have a network to be able to lean on like like LinkedIn does right? Everything that they could have built and or acquired. By this time they just haven't right.
Chad: In it Just it drives me crazy as you see a company with this much fucking money They have tried to go down the funnel and they've done a shitty job of it They had they have an interviewing platform that just fucking flopped right and they they've pretty much given up on it You can't you've got to double down and find out what the issues are and you've got to go down funnel I just these guys I don't know who the fuck is running the ship over there But I've said it and I'll say it again Chris Himes needs to fire himself.
Joel: I Love that their new motto is simplify hiring and they own simply hired Like I don't know if that was planned or or what that is, you know in between you and I cabbage patching and doing the running man in between Cabo stance at the e-congress conference and Amsterdam there was a sentiment of like people won't search for jobs anymore jobs will find them and it seems that Indeed is in this sort of misdirection of reinventing what they do and I'm not sure they should it's smoke. Give me a box Let me put in some keywords Let me go to a site and apply like back to basics wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for this company They're not Google. They don't have the resources.
Chad: It's not that hard to be able to screen upfront screen to ensure that people are Qualified before they actually go on to apply which means you can charge more for that click Because you know that they're a qualified Candidate, I mean just the basic shit They can't get the basic shit, right if you want to be able to build a model Build a model to be able to charge more for it. You have to provide more value You're not providing more value providing shitty matching makes no fucking sense.
Joel: Because they're slaves. They're slaves to the clicks clicks is money, so let's to pay in this shit, let's I mean...
Chad: Yes. Yeah, I get it.
Joel: When you're it's like it's like the bloggers slavery, you know media company slave to clicks It's ridiculous. We need the clicks. So it's not about they would they always preach. It's about the user It's.
Chad: They don't give two shits about the user. Yes.
Joel: And you're and your bottom line.
Chad: Exactly. Exactly.
Joel: Anyway, all right. All right, let's move on fucking Indeed. Let's talk about The AI Wars man shits heating up. It's great. Mustafa Suleyman Co-founder of Google's DeepMind has been appointed as CEO of Microsoft's AI division overseeing consumer products like copilot bang and edge Microsoft is competing with open AI Google and other big tech companies in the AI race and this move Strengthens its strategy. Yeah poaching from Google. That'll do it. But wait, there's more Anthropics Claude three opus large language model has surpassed open a eyes GPT-4 on the chatbot arena leaderboard. That sounds like a party, that sounds like a party everybody's leaving Reddit for the for the chatbot arena leaderboard a popular crowdsource platform for AI research researchers this marks the first time a non open AI model has taken the top spot and Chad the information is reporting Mark Zuckerberg is personally mailing Google's DeepMind talent to join meta AI Without having to interview for the company. That's a lot of warrant Chad. What are your thoughts?
Chad: I just think this is a great setup for our next, you know side of topics on the HR side, this is incredibly hot. We're going to see a Convergence of technology all of this technology that we're talking about now the big names the Google's the Microsoft's, you know, whether it's cloud It's it's DeepMind Gemini it doesn't matter all of this is coming to our space Period and everything there's going to be this amazing overlap So when we talk about this outside of the HR side of the house, it's because kids it's coming.
Joel: Real quickly I want to add to that, you know, if you're the number of people that do this and know it and Can build stuff around it is a small number and they have they have a nice safety net called big tech So there's a ton of there's a ton of venture capitalists in the valley and probably elsewhere that says look Yeah, you could go to Microsoft. You could go wherever but let let me give you $50 million And you guys go build whatever the hell you want and then it's yours And if it fails, you can go work it deep wherever you want if it does fail So to your point a lot of people are gonna jump ship to big tech But a lot of people are gonna say, you know what I'm smart enough to run my own company Here's someone willing to write me a check.
Joel: Let's let's rock, baby And yes, you're gonna see this in HR and every other, every other field, but let's talk about what we're seeing in our space Just this week alone Toronto-based borderless AI has emerged from stealth with get this $27 million in seed seed funding for Alberni. Alberni not the best name I don't know if they're from Alberta and through and I anyway, it's HR power It's AI powered HR assistant, which automates onboarding management and payment processes for international team members and can answer employment law finance and tax queries in 170 Languages, that's a few jobs. That's a few people that do those jobs at companies. What's more powered by NVIDIA, your boy? Hippocratic AI has raised $53 million in series A funding bringing its total to $120 million with a valuation of $500 million. Think digital nurses who can answer your colonoscopy questions pre and post surgery healthcare Everything HR AI is coming for everyone Chad. What are your thoughts?
Chad: Yeah, so right out of the gate the Hippocratic Holy shit, dude. Did you watch the demo? There's an AI discharge nurse who's following up after a surgery and they actually tape a call, it's amazing and it's incredibly fluid the estimated cost of This nurse discharge nurse her name is Linda. That's around $9 an hour. So I mean again not cheap Although you've got to remember Linda can scale the bot Linda can scale where the human Linda can only do one call at a time, right? So this just makes a hell of a lot of sense plus you do you said the magic word NVIDIA? I mean that NVIDIA's in I'm in it. I was I was I was impressed. I was very impressed With just the demo that they had you take a look at borderless I mean what perfect timing to play off the successive deal and their latest acquisitions and reporting that they are enjoying 500 million in ARR are borderless touts That they do payroll benefits taxes compliance all that boring shit that nobody wants to do right?
Chad: And they've got the AI Agents what you talked about? I think from from our standpoint Nursing is distressed. They need help. So therefore here comes AI On the HR side, there's so many bullshit administrative tasks. Here comes AI, right? I don't see it taking jobs as much as I see it taking tasks that take those humans away from what they need to be Doing and that's being more human and working with other humans and employees and so and patients and so on and so forth So to me this is all exciting this block just watching and listening and learning about What's happening in AI? What then watching some of those things start to bleed into our space? I say a year after year after year and it's still true This year is the most exciting year in this space ever period.
Joel: Those are big words.
Chad: It's just getting better.
Joel: So so not only can Linda help me figure out what this bump on my ass is She can also tell me what my vacation PTO time is For this year. So the digital clones are coming for for every opportunity, you know, I think you know to your point, we've done two conferences this year already and The question are we are all of our jobs gone? Is it is it is a typical theme? At these conferences and It's to me. It's amusing how much Experts dance around the issue of no, we're not losing jobs or only people who don't know AI are losing their jobs or no, you just have to know AI to augment your Your job honestly, no one probably knows the answer.
Joel: But I find it hard to understand where there's not a world where there are fewer People doing some of these jobs you just I don't think you'll need as many people Now you'll you'll have to have people that understand how to use this shit and do it Well, I don't think it's just gonna be a magic wand and all these things are done That's just unfortunately not the case for anything But the point is this shit's coming and we got more stories about this and next week We'll have more stories and the week after that. We'll have more stories.
Podcast Intro: It's not going away.
Joel: By the way Miso robotics the flippy Company, they got new. They're still rocking. We don't talk about them much, but they're still doing their thing My concern is that we'll lose listeners because if there are more recruiters And there are more vendors doing this like...
Chad: I think I think we've got a few years before we have to start worrying about that.
Joel: We've got a few years, which means our advertisers Still love us everybody. We're gonna take a quick break. Make sure you listen to the ads everybody because without ads There's no Chad. There's no cheese and there's no happiness. If There's no Chad and cheese. We'll be right back. Let's talk immigration Chad, I don't know if you've watched any of the the news channels on your on your TV set but Immigration is kind of a big big story not only here but around the world.
Chad: It's so scary.
Joel: Yeah, so Wall Street Journal story recently kind of clarified that it's maybe not awful the story says despite Despite the debate around the merits of the current levels of immigration Economists at major firms on Wall Street argue it has been a major Boon for the economy and added trillions of dollars to US Gross domestic product the benefits of this influx have not escaped the attention of policymakers Such as Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell who say in who say migration has boosted employment Fueled consumer spending and eased post-pandemic labor Shortages my God, Chad. Let's all get off the ledge for a second. What are your thoughts?
Chad: I think balance is key There's no question, but we've got to ask ourselves These questions does productivity stall When vital roles aren't fill, of course, they are productivity plummets Will roads pave themselves no will packages deliver themselves. No not today.
Joel: Will bridges rebuild themselves.
Chad: Not today, right? We can't keep pace and drive an economy if our infrastructure is worn and our products are not being created delivered and serviced And that's a problem, right? So you're talking about you know, your friend. What what should they do? They should look for the gaps Immigrants are filling the gaps in our workforce economy by filling positions and driving productivity also in Some cases immigrants are performing jobs that Americans just won't do But we need to get them done. They have to be done. So they are filling the gaps last but most importantly This is a more on a somber note. But immigrants are performing dangerous jobs like working construction on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore where the latest report notes all the construction workers killed When a container ship struck the bridge and it fell they were all immigrants so as we Want to build a wall and we want to vilify and we want to talk about murders and rapists and a lot of other stuff We have to remember there's a balance there. And yes, we do have to do something about immigration It can't be a free flow. That's very hard. But what we need to do is we need to understand There is a need from our standpoint and they're filling those gaps and they're driving the economy And they're probably making half that of what American would make in that in that position.
Joel: Fill the gap. Chad, fill the gap.
Chad: I'm all about it.
SFX (Sound Effects): What are you Doing step bro?
Joel: I enjoy flipping from Fox to MSNBC and and the perspective on the, the, the border.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: On each is very, very different.
Chad: Oh, God, yes.
Joel: I don't disagree that there's some issues at the border. There's some people coming on, like, I think there's a concerted effort to like, fuck shit up. The fentanyl thing is real. Those drugs coming into the, like, that's a thing. But the bigger picture is, America needs people. I know you like to talk about the world needs less people. And that's, that's fine. If productivity, if productivity.
Chad: The earth would love us so much more.
Joel: Here or there. We have systems in place that rely on more people at the bottom of the pyramid than there are at the top of the pyramid. And that's becoming inverted, depending on what country you're in. And that creates some real problems. We need people to make shit. We need people to buy shit. We need people to support the things that we do in this country. And if we're not having babies the way that we used to, those people need to come from somewhere. Frankly, as American, we should be pretty happy that we're a place that people want to come. 'Cause there are a lot of places in the world that people do not want to migrate.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: They do not want to go. Like, America is still a place where the perception is, if I work hard, I obey the law. I will have a better life and my children will have a better life. And we will, you know, we will, be, be citizens that are a plus instead of a minus on society. And that is still the majority of people that are walking through war zones and, fighting famine and disease and full families coming to this country because they think there's a better life here. And in many cases that there is. So let's stop vilifying immigration.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Yes. There are problems to fix.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: There are gaps to fill, as you say. But this is gonna, this is the number one issue in our country. This will be the, the presidential, election. If it were held today, this would be the number one issue, on the ballot. And I think that vilifying it has been horrible. By and large, these are really good people that are struggling, that wanna come to this country, make, be productive and be a plus on it. And, we need to stop focusing on the five or whatever percent that wanna, like, burn the whole place down. Amen.
Chad: Amen. Amen. The question is next. Will cars build themselves? Go ahead.
Joel: Will, cars build themselves. Yes. Let's go back to bots killing all of us. So back in January, reports surface that BMW's South Carolina plant would be testing robot workers. Fast forward to today, and it looks like those rumors are true. We're seeing TikToks and other social media, pundits show videos of a robot that looks is, has arms and legs like a human. It, it interacts with a human being who says, I'm hungry. What would you give me? And there's an apple on the table. So the robot knows Apple. Give to the table. It puts, it, it, it'll put dishes in racks. It will, like, it sort of is, I don't, I mean, I don't wanna say it's like, it kind of knows. It can kind of process this stuff. And BMW is putting this stuff, putting these robots in its factories.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: To build cars. Your thoughts on the impending robotic, takeover, Chad?
Chad: Yeah. My cousin works in that plant. So...
Joel: South Carolina?
Chad: Yeah. He works in that plant. He's worked, yeah, he's worked there for well over a decade, probably two decades. And I asked him, I'm like, are you worried about this? He's like, hell no. We can't find people in the first place. So, you know, it's, again, it's the, it's the immigration, it's the balance. It's, it's all of this. And, and as we start to take a look at, some companies who are, you know, paying immigrants underneath the table, which means no taxes, right? Then we have AI and robots taking jobs. What about the taxes there? We're going to have to restructure how we deal with the border, how we deal with taxes, what jobs actually look like. Are they remote? Are they hybrid? Are they this? Are they that? We have a lot of work to do and we... I don't think it's, it's, it's smart and or safe for us to hope that politicians make the right decisions there. Right? I think as experts in this space, we need to definitely have these conversations. We need to have more of these conversations, to ensure that, you know, dumb decisions aren't made moving forward. Right? They need to have the adults in the room.
Joel: I couldn't help but watch and wonder how long it'll be before an affordable robot is on the market that can clean my toilets, on a regular, ongoing basis. But that's just me.
Chad: Talking about Christine giving you an ultimatum of, of why leaving you, you gotta clean your own toilet.
Joel: Let's not talk about what Christine is giving me or not giving me Chad. So, so part of me wants to temper, my fear slash enthusiasm for this stuff. I mean, we, we've been talking about self-driving cars for over a decade. It doesn't seem like they're gonna be on the market anytime soon.
Chad: Elon's still pushing.
Joel: Google. Google is. Google's creating, pictures of black Nazis, on their AI, stuff. So a lot of, there's a lot of work left to be done. But then, but then I think about, the famous Earnest Hemingway quote when they asked him, how he went bankrupt, his comment was two ways slowly and then all of a sudden. So I feel like. This this... Like this thing keeps building. It's flipping burgers. It's making tacos.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: It's, you're making cars. It, one of, one of these days we're gonna, we're gonna look up and it's, this stuff is gonna happen quickly because it's past all the regulation stuff or, it's finally hit a tipping point of evolution and the robots are gonna be here. I don't know when, but at some point it's gonna happen quickly and we're gonna look up and go, holy shit. Robots are everywhere. They're doing a lot of stuff. My only concern is the speed at which this is gonna happen. Human beings aren't built, to scale like this.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: You know, when the, when the car was introduced, it took decades, before the car like fully became the car. Right? People had some time to adjust. I think UBI has to be on the table at some point. People that are displaced, they're gonna have to have some sort of a, a welfare upskilling, educ like educational resources. We're gonna have to really rethink how we're training our people and taking care of our people. But if this is gonna happen, it's just a matter of when. And, get yourself ready. Get yourself on LinkedIn learning and get them badges, people 'cause you're... You're gonna have to have some, some new skills or learn to podcast or some shit. Something that...
Chad: Continuous learning.
Joel: Doesn't take. Something that doesn't take a lot of, a lot of intelligence. Just become a, become a podcaster. All right. Chad, I know you've been missing some OnlyFans news.
Chad: Dude, I was at the Red Light District. I was not missing OnlyFans.
Joel: Florida Keeps Florida-ing.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: I made that one up. A controversy at Liberty Christian Preparatory School in Orlando has led to the expulsion of nine students over a sticker on mom's car promoting her OnlyFans account. Did I just read that? Oh my God. All right. My kids are gonna listen to these shows when I'm dead.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: All right. The mother, Michelle Klein was asked to park off campus due to the sticker, and the situation escalated when another mother complained about it on TikTok. Yeah. The, the, you know, the subtle, like face-to-face complaint wasn't enough. She had to take it to TikTok.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: So both mothers, both mothers children were expelled. Oh, that's nice. The parents fight and the kids get in trouble. And, and they were given conditions for their children to be re-enrolled. The children have since been homeschooled, and I'm sure they're getting a top flight education from their mothers.
Chad: Especially in Florida.
Joel: Chad, what is the world coming to?
Chad: Yeah. I just have to figure out you... What Mobile home park these guys are out of? This is, I mean, it's, it's Florida. I mean, they're full of them. Liberty, is it a high school.
Joel: Liberty Christian Prepa... You can't write this shit.
Chad: I just.
Joel: This is a Netflix comedy waiting to happen.
Chad: It's just the crossover of all of this shit, you know. It's like, I wanna send my kid to a good school. This one happens to be a Catholic school, a Christian school, whatever it is. Right? And then, but you know, on my time off, I've got little OnlyFans happening.
Joel: Hey those private schools aren't cheap. You gotta you gotta find the money somehow.
Chad: You gotta do something, right? So yeah, it's, it is, it is interesting. It is very, very interesting and funny. That's what I like.
SFX (Sound Effects): Hasn't anyone told us this. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: So, so we're on a podcast, you can't see it, but the, the sticker, it looks like a home. Like she bought it on some online service. It covers the entire back window. This isn't like a bumper sticker with my OnlyFans URL. She bought like a billboard sized only OnlyFans site. And she's driving around With children, apparently, promoting her, her site. So, so there you go. OnlyFans you know, we talked about it, a while back. They had a, they brought a new CEO. They wanted to go legit. They wanted people like, normal sort of, online, celebrities to get on and, and make money through, subscriptions or whatever. I think going legit is out the door for OnlyFans. And part of their, only part of their going legit thing was like, we need to go public at some point and make a ton of money, which they would based on their, based on their, if you're watching on YouTube, Chad has pulled up the car, literally a Dodge Caravan. OnlyFans.
Chad: Piper Fawn.
Joel: Piper Fawn.
Chad: It has like racing stripes. I mean, it's, yeah. I, this thing lives in a, in a mobile home park somewhere.
Joel: Landing, landing strips, racing stripes, whatever. Take your pick, they can kiss, they can kiss the public markets goodbye. Unless of course, they get, they get Trump involved and he joins OnlyFans, and then they, they they get a spac and, and go public that way their, their ticker symbol could be DT, BJ, you know what I'm saying? Donald Trump, BJ. All right. That's, we out. We out.
Chad: We out.
Podcast 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 have 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 chuggle heads. Instead, now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.