Hold onto your resumes, wage slaves, because The Weekly Show's about to launch. This week's itinerary? Corporate drama as spicy as sriracha lattes:
 LinkedIn's Message to Recruiters: Our crystal ball says -- It ain't nice.
 Moneybags Mania: Buckle up for a cash explosion! Huler's McDucking it, Ceridian's playing Monopoly with learning platforms, and DailyPay's got a billion-dollar piggy bank. Your salary? A rounding error.
 Job Board Jeopardy: Hold onto your FlexJobs! Bold.com snatched it like a free croissant at a networking event. Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated might be taking a dirt nap thanks to The Arena
Group's fumble. Are robots writing your news now?
 Google's Global Games: Across the globe, Google's playing musical chairs with its Korean employees. But guess what? They're not having it.
So there you have it, work world circus in a nutshell. Laugh, cry, maybe fart a little – that's what we're here for. Tune in next week for more corporate clowning and your weekly dose of The Weekly Show. Because in this game, we're all just juggling deadlines and dodging banana peels. Keep calm and carry on… with your trusty air freshener.
P.S. Spread the word, wage slaves! We're all in this crazy ride together.
TRANSCRIPTION SPONSORED BY: Disability Solutions partners with our clients to build best-in-class inclusion programs and reach qualified, talented individuals with disabilities of every skill, education, and experience level.
Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
[music]
Joel: Oh, yeah. Two guys who finished last in New Hampshire, so we're suspending our campaign. What's up kids? You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel "Vision Pro" Cheesman.
Chad: And this is Chad "Zombie Killer" Sowash.
Joel: And on this show LinkedIn says, "Bend over." A good week for Uncle Joe, and Google may have a hostage
crisis on its hands. Let's do this.
SFX: Emotional damage.
Joel: Chad, did you get a... Did you buy a pair of Vision Pros or are you on the waiting list? Like what...
Chad: You mean the ones that cost like $3 million a piece? No. I did not. I did not get them.
[laughter]
Joel: 3500.
Chad: Oh.
Joel: So it's...
Chad: Oh. Okay.
Joel: It's for the people. It's a product for the people, Chad. A product for the people.
Chad: Blue collar people all over the world will have them. No.
Joel: They sold out. I was pretty shocked. Now maybe...
Chad: They had 25 of them. Yeah. It still...
Joel: There are a lot of people in the world who have more money than they know what to do with and just drop the credit card to buy them. But...
Chad: And they're not line workers. I'm going to gonna say that. I'm just going to gonna go ahead and put that out there. I'm going to gonna generalize they're not line workers who have 3,500 bucks.
Joel: Pretty sure the UAW is not going to gonna be putting cars together with the Apple Vision Pro on their heads.
Chad: Although, I did do some zombie killing this week at the Sandbox VR this last weekend. I mean, that was only 50 bucks a pop, and it was like an hour and a half in total. Get there, check in, training, then you got equipped, get all your equipment put on. There were five of us that are fighting zombies. I mean, it was a blast. We should have a Chad and Cheese VR Zombie Killing event in Indianapolis or there are many cities across the US that we could actually do these. It'd be a blast. Good team build.
Joel: Yeah. This wasn't $50 per zombie, was it? It was like 50 in all the zombies you can kill, I hope.
Chad: Yes. Yes. It was a blast. Yeah. Totally. Literally and figuratively.
Joel: Yeah. And speaking of zombies, I know a few Bills fans who have been walking around like they're dead after that loss...
Chad: Hello, wide right.
Joel: To the Chiefs. Yeah. That was so... I mean, only the Bills. Maybe the Browns or the Lions, but the Lions, of course. So those who don't know, we have our Final Four in the NFL. We have San Francisco taking on Detroit, and we have Baltimore taking on Kansas City. What's your take on how this is going to gonna play out?
Chad: I mean, Kansas City, they've been playing like shit all year, but they've bumbled into wins. I mean, they've just won. And there's the Bills to show you that. The Ravens, I mean, they've been playing hot. They're a strong team. I hope to see them win. At the end of the day, I want to wanna see the Detroit Lions win. Period. Right?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: They're the massive underdog. All the others have won before. I want to see the Lions come out of this as Super Bowl champs. It's going to gonna be hard, but I hope that's what happens.
Joel: Yeah. When this thing started, I was praying for a Cleveland Detroit Super Bowl, which would probably break...
Chad: So awesome.
Joel: Would probably break the NFL. But if I...
Chad: It would break the internet.
Joel: If I can get the original Browns who are the Baltimore Ravens playing Detroit, I guess that's as close as we can do. The Lions in a Super Bowl blows me away 'cause that just doesn't happen. I read something that said that the Lions would consider bringing Barry Sanders back on a one day contract and have him play one down somehow that if they win, he can get a ring. Which I think would be a feel good story, but probably not going to gonna happen.
Chad: Well, I gotta say Stafford going to the Rams, winning with the Rams, right? I mean, that was... I mean, he was obviously long time quarterback at Detroit. Now, hopefully watching that on the other side, that would be amazing with Jared Goff, right? I mean, just Detroit overall, they deserve a win.
Joel: Yeah. Now, your wife is a big Packers fan, and the Packers should have won that game. She pretty... Well, she's gotta be heartened by the fact that they're the youngest team in the NFL. Jordan Love looks like a real quarterback.
Chad: He does.
Joel: And they should be playing this weekend.
Chad: I've gotta say, the Green Bay Packers know how to bring up a quarterback, right? And they're about the only team that does it this way. They had Aaron Rogers, they got Jordan Love behind Aaron Rogers, much like they had Aaron Rogers behind Brett Favre, right? So they get them there, they get them knowing the system, knowing the play. I mean, just all the way through, they know how to build quarterbacks, which I thought was amazing, unlike Chicago, where you throw Justin Fields into the fricking lions den right out of the gate. So, yeah. I mean, I like the Packers just from the way that they look at football. I mean, they're wholly owned by Green Bay. They're just an entirely different animal when it comes to sports. And I've never liked Aaron Rogers, so I'm glad he's fucking outta out of there.
[chuckle]
Chad: And I hope Jordan Love kicks ass, takes names so that Aaron Rogers can just be smoked as nothing in the past.
Joel: There's gotta be an employment lesson in there somewhere. Let's see. Recruit well, train well upskill and you win people. That's... Look to the Packers. Look to the Packers for guidance, everybody.
Chad: Makes sense. Makes sense.
Joel: Oh man. We got a lot to cover, so...
Chad: Yep.
Joel: Quick shout out to our friend Julie Calli. Guys listen, if you listen to the show, you know that we've done quite a few shows with Julie. We had a series on recruitment marketing. That's all in the archives. If you want to go to chadcheese.com. But Julie is now the CMO at Lensa after stint at recruitmentmarketing.com and Recruitics. She goes back to SEO days.
Chad: Oh God. Yeah.
Joel: In the mid 2000s. That was with six figure jobs, I think. So she's been around a while. She's going to gonna kick ass. We we're going to gonna see her at some point down the road, but shout out to Julie. Great person. I hope it's obviously a great opportunity. Go kick ass. We're cheering for you here at Chad and Cheese.
Chad: Yeah. She might be in Budapest this week 'cause a lot of the leadership teams Gergo, Joey Stubbs is finding his way over there a lot, is in Budapest, which actually where my daughter lives. So hopefully she gets a chance to go over there, enjoy a little Eastern block. It's a great place to be. Congratulations. Not just to Julie, who is a fucking superstar, but also Lensa to be able to have somebody on staff with that kind of cred.
Chad: All right. So, winning. You know who's winning? Our listeners are winning. It's funny because our listeners are now watching us on YouTube. So I'm getting pictures from listeners who are watching us on big screen TVs in their living room. So kids, pop some corn, pour some drinks and watch a little Chad and Cheese. But dude, seriously, this is surreal. I mean, people listening to us. That's one thing. In their cars on the train, wherever they're doing, but in their front room?
Joel: Hey, TVs are in bedrooms too, Chad.
SFX: What are doing, step bro?
[laughter]
Joel: I'm saying there may not be quite an aphrodisiac like watching the Chad Cheese podcast. I'm just saying.
Chad: That's a very good point. Yeah. [laughter]
Joel: Speaking of boner Killers, one company got punched in the mouth recently.
Chad: Oh. Jesus.
Joel: You've probably seen this on the socials.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: My shout out goes out to Brittany Peach. No. That apparently is not a stripper name. That is her real name. And she took her employer, I guess, past employer at this point, to the woodshed. Check out this TikTok, condensed version, the real version if you're gonna go check it out, search Brittany Peach, or it sounds like a Mario Luigi character.
[laughter]
Joel: Princess Peach. Britney Peach. Anyway, so let's check out that video and that soundbite from Brittany sticking it to her employer.
[video playback]
Chad: Ouch. Yeah.
[video playback]
Joel: I love that.
[laughter]
Joel: She might be a listener, Chad. 'Cause she dropped the whole, "You hired too many people and now you're paying for it." We've talked about that on the show many times about these companies that overhired, and now people like Brittany, who clearly shouldn't be on the chopping block, getting the axe.
Chad: Four months, she's been in the job. And it's a sales job, so you've got a three-month ramp where you're going through training and all these things, that fourth month, which it sounds like was December is a hell of a month to be starting. I mean, let me just tell you, Q4 is not the easiest to start in. But CloudFlare, what did they do? They sent a couple of HR people in instead of the manager to be able to talk. And I gotta say, as a very young manager back in the day when I had to fire people, I was told by my CEO that I need to sit down, shut up, be in the room and let HR do what HR did. I learned that was wrong. That was bullshit. We are humans. We should be treating other humans like humans or we're going to get a shitty brand. And these guys, I mean, CloudFlare, I don't even know how this is going to hit her brand, but they also had many openings on their website when they were going through this process. Whew. She needs a drink.
Joel: She does need a drink. Which is why she should head out to chadcheese.com, click that free link and register for a chance to win multiple prizes. But booze is one of them. We're talking a bourbon selection from each of us. Our friends at Text Kernel are powering that one free beer. Geez. A cold beer might go good with that layoff. That's from our friends at as Aspen Tech Labs. Of course we got T-shirts. We're in the development stage of getting some new stuff. So if you get a T-shirt from us, it's from our friends at JobGet. And if it's your birthday, Chad, you could win a lovely bottle of rum and that is from our friends at Plum. That's right. I said Plum.
SFX: I could feel it all the way down in my plums.
Joel: Alright. Celebrating another trip around the sun, our listeners, Tony Leoi, Stephanie Krishnan, Matthew
Miller, Ed John Zituske from Philly, Lynette Phillips, Rich Carrington, Kalia Gromlek, Shelly Cars, Ben Stewart,
Chris Amato, Dandy Don Sabatino. Josh Jay-Z Roethlisberger Zwayne...
Chad: There he is.
Joel: And last but not least...
SFX: Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is, if it's no Scottish, it's crap.
Joel: That's right. Our good friend Adam Gordon from Scotland celebrates another trip around the sun. Adam, I know you're listening. I know you're listening. So happy birthday. Have a little bit of scotch. The pity kind on me, my friend. Happy birthday.
SFX: Happy birthday.
Joel: Everybody that's listening.
Chad: Oh, what time is it? Oh, you know what time it is. Brought to you by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. It's time for events, kids. TA week is upon us. It is next week. And on Monday the 29th from 2:00 to 5:00, that's Pacific time, we will be with Qualify at the San Diego Zoo. Now, if you're one of the first 50 to sign up, you can actually get a free ticket to the zoo. Not to mention, have a little close and personal time with your favorite animals, The Chad and Cheese. So just go to a chadcheese.com/events. You can register. It's right there with the Koala. Looks like this. It looks like this in the header. When the events get up and running that day during TA week, we're actually going to be in the Qualify booth. So drinking, causing ruckus and doing interviews. So you can see us there at the Qualify booth. Then Tuesday night after the event, reception, drinks we're heading just a mile down the road to...
Joel: Oh. [laughter]
Chad: In-N-Out Burger with CollabWORK. With CollabWORK. So I'll be cheating on my diet and get over it. I'm getting a free animal style burger. Yes, Joel. I said free...
Joel: I love it.
Chad: In-N-Out Burger. Yep. So look for the CollabWORK team during the TA week events. They'll have stacks of these free cards that are for free In-N-Out burgers. And then again...
SFX: That escalated quickly.
Chad: Come to In-N-Out Burger. It's only about a mile down. We'll probably take a little walk, maybe Uber, have a little Chad and Cheese time, have a little animal style with your night and enjoy some time with the CollabWORK team. I'm pretty stoked.
Joel: Double double with chopped peppers, fries well done, and a chocolate shake, that is what I'm talking about, Chad.
Chad: Then we've got Transform, which is going to gonna happen in March. March 11th through 14th, where we're going to be at the win for Transform in Vegas. Our buddy EEOC Commissioner Keith Sonderling is going to gonna be there plus over 3000 attendees, 100 investors, 500 startups, 300 speakers. Damn!
Joel: Damn. First time that we've been to transform and I... I'm fucking stoked. So if you guys are not a listener, listen up, go to chadcheese.com/events. If you're not going to these events, especially if you're in San Diego, go. If you're thinking about, I don't know, hitting a little Vegas time, go. Go to chadcheese.com/events and register.
Joel: We're going to gonna be everywhere, guys. You're going to gonna be so sick of us when this is over. Oh, I can't.
Chad: Topics.
[music]
Joel: Alright, Chad. LinkedIn is pissing off everybody. According to the sourcing community, LinkedIn has apparently made significant changes to public profiles removing headline about experience and education sections. This reduction could affect sourcing tools and competitors relying on LinkedIn data. While tools like Phantom Buster and Sales QL still work, LinkedIn X-Rays functionality is limited with some information, now inaccessible. Certain details such as school grades are no longer visible on public profiles. Of course, all of this drives people to LinkedIn's internal search, which requires a subscription to Recruiter, Recruiter Light or Sales Navigator for access to fuller data. This isn't a money grab is it, Chad? What are your thoughts on this news?
Chad: So, after the HighQ ruling, how can anybody be surprised that this is happening? I mean, we were talking about this years ago when little bitty baby HighQ Labs was taking on LinkedIn for this same exact information grab. Right? So, the big question is, does the profile belong to... Does your profile belong to you or does it belong to LinkedIn? Well, LinkedIn won. HighQ got smashed and now, get ready, they're going to gonna be building higher walls in that wall of garden, which means higher prices. The question is, what will seek out, find them and higher EasyDo easy do if they're locked out or they get crunched with higher prices. Right? And let's face it, those platforms are superior search products compared to LinkedIn tools. So this feels like a very anti-competitive, very anti-innovation move by LinkedIn that, to be quite frank, we've all been waiting for. Will the vendors get locked out? Will prices go even higher? Hiring companies are already paying through the fucking nose when it comes to the recruiter seats. And we need competition in this space. We need new tools, we need new infrastructure, and this stifles all of that.
Chad: But last but not least...
[music]
Chad: LinkedIn is going to say, "Hey, it's all about privacy." No. Bullshit. Don't buy the privacy excuse from LinkedIn when they throw it at you because that's bullshit. If LinkedIn was worried about privacy, they wouldn't be selling your data already. Okay? So, yes. This is really anti-competitive and I don't know. I'd be throwing the Microsoft name in there and I'd be going full antitrust.
Joel: Sounds like you're wishing for our friend Elon to get his LinkedIn killer built in...
Chad: No. I do not.
Joel: In fast fashion. So that the trust issues go away or maybe Google could finally wake up and provide a product that's...
Chad: No.
Joel: That's competitive. I don't know. Yeah. Facebook, I don't know. Hey, TikTok, let China take over. Now, so higher prices for sure. No, like, you're gonna... People bitch about LinkedIn's pricing. Well, guess what? You're going to gonna really bitch when they go up next year. If I'm a service, like SeekOut, I'm really nervous. And we talk about a new relationship with Bill Gates and they're real friendly with Microsoft. Now, maybe there's a little hush hush deal where SeekOut will be okay, or they'll be able to access stuff like they normally are.
Joel: But this clearly looks like a moat build, a monopoly grab by LinkedIn. And you can't blame them because everyone's letting them do it. Whether it's the justice system, the government, the consumers, this is where the... So number one on that is the prices are going to gonna go up. And unfortunately when we have monopolies, quality typically goes down. So don't expect a lot of innovation with those price increases, unfortunately at LinkedIn. Now, a little history lesson for the kids out there. Sourcing used to be this thing where the real freakazoids were doing it, right? The Shelleys, the Strouds, the Levy, like the Shannons.
Joel: You'd go to these sessions in 2005 about 80 search engines to use that no one knows about to find people. And then, eventually, solutions were created to take the brainiac freakazoid sourcer out of the picture. Basically, you can be a common person, not know anything about boolean searches, and you can find people with our database. And that worked really well as long as LinkedIn played the game. LinkedIn's not playing the game anymore, so not only are the vendors gonna be at risk, but the people who are sourcers in quote, but not really sourcers like the Steve Levys of the world, what are they gonna do when they actually have to learn what those folks know? So I think we're gonna go back to the future where the freaks and geeks at SourceCon are now gonna be the ones that rule the world, 'cause you look at posters starting to go about, okay, LinkedIn has fucked us. How do we get around it? How do we do searches on Google and other places to like circumvent what's on LinkedIn?
Joel: Because we all know LinkedIn's not gonna block Google's search or spiders 'cause they still need to be on linked or Google searches. So that's one thing. I think if you can leverage Google, like these folks know, then you're probably gonna be safe in terms of LinkedIn. So my points were simply like, we were super geeky. Then not so much, we're going back super geeky. Prices are going up, and I think if you're heading SourceCon, and I recently did a show with our friend Jim Strout, I think there's gonna be an escalated interest in what is sourcing tools and tricks and things are going out there, because a lot of people are gonna freak out when things they get from LinkedIn, they can't get anymore.
Chad: Yeah. I think it's interesting because a lot of these tools probably have a database built that was LinkedIn in the first place. Now, the big difference is being able to enrich those profiles moving forward. But at least you have a base of information. This is going to, I believe, and I hope actually push the rest of it, the industry to stop being so fucking lazy, okay? We've talked about this several times. I remember talking to Gary Zukowski when he created TweetMyJobs, way back in the day when we were blasting jobs on Twitter. I asked Gary, I was like, "What happens, dude, if Twitter just cuts you off?" He's like, "Well, I'm fucked."
[laughter]
Chad: The exact same type of scenario. If you lean that hard on any other platform that you don't own or you don't have control over, you put yourself in this situation. So what this is going to do is it's gonna do a couple of different things. First and foremost, a lot of those bigger platforms already have the data. The question is, how do they now flip it into something that can be more enriching? And then we've gotta take a look at infrastructure, building new infrastructure. We've talked about that with CV Wallet. There's another reason to be able to escalate and amplify that type of platform. And last but not least, now, maybe employers, when they get stuck with this new bill, they'll start looking at who's actually using the platform, right? And they'll cut their seats in half.
Joel: And hopefully this encourages or motivates employers to look at their own database that they've probably spent millions of dollars to build. That is their own little LinkedIn that they can access, as well as upskilling, training their folks so they don't leave, keeping retention high, getting off the teeth of LinkedIn is a good thing for everybody. Trust me, that evil, evil LinkedIn.
SFX: I am as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore.
Joel: All right, let's go into some money and acquisition news, shall we? First up, England's Huler, I hardly even know her, has secured 1.5 million pounds in funding. The startup is a SaaS platform promising to simplify employee communications, and information access, emphasizing the goal of making work simple in the era of hybrid and remote work. The funding along with a previous round in December '22 brings Huler's total funding to 3.5 million pounds. Chad, your thoughts on Huler.
Chad: Huler is doing for employee engagement through tying these atrocious UIs together or the HCM stack, let's say what Poetry is looking to do for recruiter enablement. So Adam Gordon, who we talked about earlier, happy birthday, he's building a recruiter desktop that pretty much pulls together all those different platforms so that a recruiter just has one place to go. This is a little bit deeper down the rabbit hole on the human capital management side of the house. And all of those platforms pretty much have shit UI.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Some might have halfways decent, but together, they're just horrible. So to be able to tie together great employee engagement is incredibly key in employee experience, and then in employee engagement. So I think platforms like this are incredibly smart, as we've talked about it for years, is it smart trying to become the platform that rules them all? No, I have pivoted from that hard. It is the platform that ties together all of the other platforms. It's a hell of a lot easier to build. It's not easy, but it's easier to build. And from a fluidity standpoint, tech debt standpoint, it's easier to maintain.
Joel: Yeah. So this largely feels like a feature to a lot of businesses, I think, that have money that can buy products like this, you look at, you mentioned Adam Gordon. Look, this is a great product. To give employees a tool where they can take everything that they wanna know, whether it's education, other employee activities, you name it, they can bring it in one platform, they can kind of customize that to whatever they want. Being a remote or hybrid workforce, people are not in the office like they used to be. So a tool like this makes a lot of sense. I just think the goal of this company is not to be a product, but more of a feature that an ATS or a paradox potentially could create as an extension of what they are already doing. So, not a ton of money, not a lot of heat here, but I think potentially, an acquisition play in the next 48 to 72 months.
Chad: I think it's genius, to be quite frank. You've got all these different UIs that are shit, you tie them together, and you make them beautiful, and that's how you get people to actually use your platforms. And that's one of the issues that we have adoption for many of the users that are out there. Why? Because it's clunky, it's shitty, it's horrible. If you have them go through the same experience, and it's nice and it's fluid. Again, we're humans. We like to look at pretty stuff. This just makes it a lot easier.
Joel: All right. Ceridian, a small little company, you may have heard of them, is set to acquire Alumni, a learning experience platform provider. The move aligns with the growing global learning management system market estimated to reach 55 billion by 2032. Chad, your thoughts on this move by Ceridian.
Chad: So, we're gonna start to see big lumbering systems like Ceridian gobble up other proven platforms like Alumni as a way to eject pieces, parts of their old tech into the ether. So instead of ditching an old system and building from the ground up, Ceridian is amputating a limb, and replacing it with a bionic limb. So the hard part is when Ceridian has to replace the heart of the system, because you can replace all the limbs, but the core, the heart that drives everything, that's gonna be the hard part. So what we're seeing here is a basic evolution. I like the whole $6 million man kinda scenario, but you still have to replace the core someday. How are they going to do that? That's going to be the hard part for Ceridian, but very smart.
Joel: Totally agree. Look, we've talked on many episodes about this being the year of M&A. You're gonna have a lot of companies that have run out of money. A lot of startups are like, what's our next move? Raising money isn't what it was like in 2021. It's not flowing like it was. So our next move is probably an acquisition. So for these guys, a Ceridian makes perfect sense for Ceridian. It makes perfect sense as well. We talked about LinkedIn having more control, so bringing stuff back in upskilling, educating, retaining employees in the way that Alumni's product does, makes total sense. And we're gonna have a lot of stories like this going into the future. Probably, a little bit of an Acquihire as well. Big companies can bring really good employees, startup founders, et cetera to the company for a pretty small price tag from what they would normally have to do.
Joel: Anyway, by the way, the market Wall Street loved this move. The stock was up quite a bit after the announcement. So Wall Street as well, likes what Ceridian is doing in addition to Chad and Cheese. All right, next up, New York based FinTech Daily Pay has raised $75 million in equity financing, and the company secured a $100 million expansion of its credit facility. The latest equity raise, valued Daily Pay at $1.75 billion on a pre-money basis, marking a 75% increase.
Chad: Wow.
Joel: Yeah. Daily pay, which offers an on-demand pay solution for corporate plans to use the funds to accelerate product development and expand into new markets and categories. Chad, your thoughts on getting paid daily?
Chad: So this is Ceridian's next acquisition.
Joel: That's a bigger acquisition. Yeah.
Chad: Yes, it's a big core next gen pay system. Let's say ADP. You wanna add, again, these next gen pay systems to your stack. And again, you get rid of that old system. You put on the new system or you obviously use it in conjunction with, but at the end of the day, this is literally just an upgrade in your capabilities. And this, we're gonna see it over and over and over as these big monolith systems start to replace old, dilapidated tech.
Joel: So, when Chad and I were growing up, if we wanted to watch a show, let's call it Married with Children. We wanted to watch Al Bundy and Kelly and the gang, we had to wait. We had to wait a week till the show came out. If it wasn't in season, we had to wait four months, five months for the new season to come out. Nobody thinks like that anymore. People think, I wanna watch this. Like, give it to me now. Whether I'm on the go, I'm at home, wherever, I want it right now.
Chad: On demand.
Joel: And pay is no different. My 17-year-old gets paid every two weeks, and on that two week, like sort of milestone, because it goes in his savings, which I control, he's on my ass asking about where's my money, bitch? He should be getting paid daily or whenever he wants after he works a shift. This is just a sign of the times, and this is where stuff is going. I think additionally, this is gonna be the brand that is the coke of the sort of daily pay on demand solutions. They're talking about IPO in 2025. I totally, like... When you are at 75% increase in valuation, clearly you have told a story that says, "We are going to grow immensely in the next year."
Chad: Next gen baby. Yeah, it is.
Joel: So say those nuggets, we don't give stock advice, but this is a stock that is gonna be one I think that will excite a lot of people, 'cause it goes beyond recruiting. It's like a lifestyle. This is a change. This is a sea change in how people are paid, and good on them. Good on them.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Excited, exciting company and looking forward to talking about them more in the future. Alright. Bold.com, BOLD, has acquired FlexJobs. Terms were not disclosed. FlexJobs, based in Colorado, and founded in 2007, offers a database of remote and flexible job listings that are hand-screened for legitimacy. The brand is expected to be preserved under Bold.com's ownership. Chad, your thoughts?
Chad: I think the hand screen thing's gonna go away. And bold.com, that's a great domain...
Joel: It's not bad.
Chad: But I've never heard of these guys, have you?
Joel: Out of Puerto Rico. How often do we talk about a Puerto Rican company?
Chad: 700 global employees.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Just amazing. Anyway, FlexJobs launched in 2006 with a single round of funding and before a remote and hybrid was really a thing. So they waited patiently and they got their payday. And we talk a lot about startups on this show, but I'd like to say there are amazing smaller job sites and recruitment tools that have been around for years, that provide great services, and more importantly, clear mad cash every month. Not every company has to go public to be successful, so kudos to Sarah Sutton and FlexJobs. And it'd be interesting to see what Bold actually does to the site, 'cause I can guarantee you there's not gonna be hand-ringing or shifting or sifting or any of that that's gonna be happening. They're gonna make this more of an inefficient platform.
Joel: Yeah, it's a curious acquisition. I remember FlexJobs when they launched back when I was writing GSAT, and it was sort of lack of better word, it was kind of bold at the time, you know, laptops, wifi at the coffee shop. We just started thinking about working remotely and being flexible with... Particularly mothers working from home, and then going like, it was a cute idea, and it took like technology where it is today, the pandemic for these guys really to get any kind of exposure. I think it was almost a lifestyle business. I don't know them that well. So this felt like they've been in business for almost 20 years. There was no big swings. There was no big raises. Even when they could've in 2021, a site called FlexJobs that had been around since the mid aughts could have raised money. No joke.
Joel: So to me, this felt like a lifestyle business maybe after 20 years. She said it's time to move on, and there was a relationship there for whatever reason, and Bold came knocking. Really strange company out of Puerto Rico. I think they have Warsaw, Poland office, and somewhere else. So we should dig in a little more about bold.com and what they're doing, 'cause it is a great domain, and maybe they've just been under the radar. But yeah, this is kind of a curious one. It's not one of those round pegs in a round hole that makes sense to us. It's a little bit interesting. So yeah, I got nothing else but that.
Chad: She might have enough money banked that she can just go off and do whatever the hell she wants for the rest of her life. A lot of these smaller job sites, they're raking in cash because they have low amount of employees. Not much overhead, and they are making money hand over fist with regard to obviously in proportionality of having a very small staff.
Joel: Sure.
Chad: So being able to sock away cash, hell, she might, who knows, she might be one of the richest people we don't know.
Joel: Yeah. These are the frozen yogurt shops in your local community. The entrepreneur that has five shops and is banking $10 million net pay every year.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Yeah. It totally could be...
Chad: Success baby.
Joel: A story like that. Look, she was the first one, flexible job, so she had companies early 'cause she was the only game in town kind of doing this. They probably stuck with her for 20 years and then she ended up getting new customers, and maybe she said, "Screw it, I'm out. I'm done after 20 years." So good on her, if that's the case.
Chad: Congrats to Sarah.
Joel: Another person having a good week is President Joe Biden. Let's talk about him after the break.
SFX: Just the tip.
Joel: Alright, Chad, let's talk about Uncle Joe. The United Auto Workers have endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection. Despite earlier resistance, the endorsement comes after Biden's support during a UAW picket line. Union boss, Shawn Fain criticized former President Trump, emphasizing Biden's commitment to the American worker. Another Biden news, robocalls went out ahead of the New Hampshire election, featuring Joe Biden's voice, and I put voice in quotes there, telling people to save their vote for November in the general election, and to skip the primary. Clearly, AI's evil hand at work. Chad, your thoughts on all things
Joe, this week.
Chad: Well, I thought it was pretty amazing. He wasn't even on the ballot in New Hampshire. You had to write him in, and he still won 75% of the votes.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: That's pretty fucking big. But when it comes to the robocall stuff, kids, strap it on, 'cause we're just getting started. The election cycle will have people questioning what's real and what's not. We, the Chad and Cheese Podcast, we're working with a reputable company, Veritone, who cloned our voices for use in Portuguese, German, Spanish, and French versions of this show. But some platforms allow you to upload any voice or video, no matter if you have rights or not. So this is just the beginning, and a lot of these AI companies are saying, well they're using the impersonators defense. Well, for years, we've had voice impersonators doing this.
Chad: Well, okay, we're going to have to draw a line somewhere on where somebody owns their voice, they own their likeness, because this is going to get way, way, way out of the field very quickly. And when it comes to the UAW, the first president to join a picket line, Trump went to a non-union shop and talked shit about the Union. [laughter] So what did you expect Shawn Fain to do? And what did you expect him to do? He's already... Motherfucker's already got a chip on his shoulder as it is. And he said, Donald Trump stands against everything we stand for as a society.
SFX: That escalated quickly.
Chad: Damn, that's big. Now, the UAW isn't as big as they used to be, but they are on a march to get bigger.
Joel: So on the the election side, we kind of talked about this that hit, sort of Biden being the figurehead and doing at least the optics of that were very positive for him. And either one of us or both of us said, look, if the UAW ends up winning this, and Biden is attached to it, it's gonna be huge for the election in Joe Biden. And here we are, right? Here we are with the endorsement. Let's make it official. Some critics said it took longer than they thought. And my guess is there's some sort of backroom negotiation, like sort of knowing how Shawn Fain operates, there might've been some real like screw it in some negotiation tactics to get something that he wanted or the union wanted.
Joel: So look, news media outlets are great about, "Hey, here's the national poll. Trump is leading, it's closing the gap." People in this country, and particularly outside of the country, who is president, is basically a decision that five or so states make. And within those five or so states, it's a few precincts and counties that decide who the president is. So when you hear like national polls, who cares? It's not a popular vote, right? There's a system here, and Michigan is one of those states that's gonna decide who the president is in 2024. And Chad, as you mentioned, the Union is smaller than it used to be.
Joel: However, there are old union guys and girls that may not be working, but still respect the union. There are families that are attached to these workers. So, take each worker and maybe plus five if you include family and again, whatever. So, if Fain and the Union can bring Michigan to Biden, that may be game over for the presidency. So, this is really, really huge to me for the election of 2024. Now on the AI, yeah, strap on, buckle up, bend over, whatever you wanna use.
Chad: Yeah. Get ready kids.
Joel: But this is just starting, man. And I can tell you, people my dad's age, our parents' age will have no clue. When they get a call from Joe Biden or Donald Trump, they're gonna freak out thinking it's really Donald Trump or Joe Biden. They won't know. By the way, governor's races, Senate races, congressional races, you don't have to be president to do this. And somebody going to call from their local congressman, you're like, "Oh shit, I've heard him on TV or heard on the news. And wow, you're really calling me?" People will not put the two and two together.
Joel: So, this is super dangerous. And when you look at... Trump has been pretty clear on Ukraine funding, getting out of that situation. So, if I'm Vladimir Putin, I'm calling all my cyber punks and saying like, "How do we get people persuaded to get Trump in office?" He's also been very anti-NATO in many respects. So, Russia is going to be on the offensive on this. And by the way, who owns TikTok? Oh, the Chinese. Well, the Chinese might have a vested interest in Russia benefiting from who gets an office and what happens there. So, I foresee some crazy stuff. 80% of it won't get reported or noticed. It'll be calls to grandma that no one hears or sees. It'll be like a social media post to a newly 18-year-old that doesn't know any better. This is going to get really bad and it'll be a problem we have to address in 2028. It may potentially like rock the election this year. I'm a little scared, frankly.
Chad: Well, I mean, we saw what social media did with Cambridge Analytica. And that is nothing compared to this shit. So, yeah, we shall see. And it's not just the Biden voices or the Trump voices, we're talking about celebrities that people know and love and whatnot, right? Who might have a high ranking or rating or what have you. You're just not sure. So, be aware, kids. Be aware.
Joel: Yeah, it's gonna be crazy. All right, shit. All right, from one car crash to another. The future of Sports Illustrated is uncertain as publisher The Arena Group lost the license for the iconic US sports periodical slash magazine. The Arena Group, which had a 10-year licensing deal with owner Authentic Brands Group, reportedly missed a $3.7 million payment leading to the termination of the agreement. As a result, Arena announced layoffs for almost all SI staff. This comes after SI was discovered publishing pieces under fake author names, speaking of naughty AI, and profile images that were generated by AI for the quote-unquote authors. The future of SI remains uncertain, pending negotiations within the next 90 days. Chad, your take on SI and frankly, what may be a sign of things to come for media in general?
Chad: Yeah, I think SI is dead at this point. And a lot of this has to do with failed business models. It doesn't have to do with content. Okay? And that's one of the things that we have to understand is that I don't believe that Bard or Chad GPT has what is necessary to make these publications rock and roll. 'Cause let's say, for instance, like SI was a staple for anyone who cared deeply about sports. How did you know what somebody loved sports? Well, you went to their house and you saw that they had a Sports Illustrated on the coffee table. They had a subscription.
Joel: SI had thoughtful and knowledgeable journalists that had deep connections into teams, scouts, players, leadership. They knew what was going on. They had the DNA of sports, right? Bard's not gonna have that. Chad GPT is not gonna have that. And this is just, we're just going to talk about a microcosm of sports for all of journalism. This is the key. The tech doesn't have these types of connections, right? These relationships, these insiders or the experience. So for me, I really think that what we have to do, especially from a journalism and news outlets standpoint, is we have to take a look at these new business models because if we do lean heavy into Chad GPT and Bard or any large language model, it's just gonna all start coming out as generic shit.
Chad: And that's what's gonna happen. It's kind of like music for a while on adult contemporary radio stations. It sounded like the same shit over and over and over. That's what's gonna happen. So I think we'll take a look at business models, change business models, and people will still have a role.
Joel: I cannot underestimate how important Sports Illustrated was to my childhood. Only Playboy as a magazine had more of an impact on who I was.
Chad: Talking about the swimsuit edition. Is that what you're talking about?
Joel: Well, yeah, just that one. No. Although I didn't have to sneak SI from my dad to check it out. All you kids on Pornhub, remember how lucky you are to have on-demand porn. Anyway, I used to cut out the covers and put them on my wall. I remember Celtic Pride with Larry Bird putting on the wall. Anyway, it was a staple in my upbringing. They just didn't change with the times. We've got Barstool and other online components. You have sites and services like that that have now given us Pat McAfee and celebrities that are now putting content out that is more digestible, fun, controversial, etcetera.
Joel: And there's just less room for real journalism. But I do think that more and more of this automated content creation, even if it's a hybrid of like, hey, we have enough stories that look human and are nuanced enough that we can throw in this crap and just keep the Google gods happy by creating content. So SI is just sort of the tip of the iceberg, the canary in the coal mine. I think this is going to be a story that we continue to talk about. I know the LA Times had a big layoff, I think, this week. So we're gonna see local papers. And by the way, local news media has been gutted. These political stories locally, the Castro congressman, local media knew about that. They just couldn't get it out. There wasn't a paper that everyone read that they could learn about this guy.
Chad: It's all business model. It's all business model. They were paid by the fucking classifieds, which are dead. If they would have found a different stream of revenue, we would not be having this discussion. It's business model, period.
Joel: It's too late.
Chad: This is all great stuff. I don't think it's too late. I think there could be a revival.
Joel: I love your optimism. I love your optimism.
Chad: That's why I'm here.
Joel: Listen to an ad and we'll be right back, people.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: All right, Chad, can I interest you in some Google as our final story?
Chad: Oh, yes, please. Weird.
Joel: Little pivot there. I wanted to talk about a farting airline passenger, but Chad wanted to talk about Google. So here we go.
Chad: Sorry listeners, sorry.
Joel: Google is attempting to reduce its workforce in South Korea, but some employees are refusing to resign. About 10 out of roughly 800 workers in Seoul accepted the company's suggestion to resign, but Korean labor laws may protect them from dismissal without just cause. Google has faced industry-wide layoffs leading to the formation of a union of 100 workers in Korea to address job security concerns. The union aims to negotiate voluntary resignations with the company rather than workers accepting recommended resignations from Big G. Chad, what are your thoughts on what sounds like an action movie from the 80s? Bruce Willis needs to come in and save these workers. What you got?
Chad: We just heard Brittany earlier during shout outs talk about, well, because you over hired, now you fucked me. Bloating staff is purely irresponsible. We've seen all these companies who... A lot of the FANG companies, they bloated their ranks because they had the money to, and because they obviously trying to steal or at least keep great talent away from their competitors. That's irresponsible. They were bloating their ranks, hiring staff to keep them away from your competitors. That's anti-competitive. That is totally anti-competitive.
Chad: So what has Google done here in America? Well, like all the other FANG companies, they just go to a pure layoff. If we had a system like this, they couldn't do that. They couldn't do that. They would have to be responsible. What do we do to ensure that companies like Google become responsible and curb anti-competitive measures? Well, it sounds like countries like South Korea and France have the answer. There are consequences to business actions, but unfortunately, the consequences only fall on the employee, not the employer. These types of measures would make companies think twice about who they hire, how they hire, and being more responsible. We focus way too much on the shareholder, although in this case, this brings the shareholder and the stakeholder together. We have to focus on the shareholder and we have to focus on the stakeholder, the employees, because if we don't, we might just have to keep them around.
Joel: Come on, Google. Come on, Google.
Chad: It's fucking awesome.
Joel: So culturally, whether you agree or not, America is really good at firing people. There are very little government regulations...
Chad: Not CEOs, though.
Joel: Yeah. Well, yes. There are golden parachutes that workers typically don't get, but we are really good at hiring fast and firing fast. And when American companies take that mentality to Europe, parts of Asia, etcetera, and they think they can just lay off people, I love these suggestions. We're suggesting that you leave the company immediately.
Chad: Yeah, you resign.
Joel: Culturally, it just doesn't vibe with what Americans consider. And American companies need to start thinking, hey, if we're setting up shop in this country, what are we getting into? To Chad's point, let's slow down the hiring. Let's be thoughtful around this, because it's going to be really hard to fire these people if we make a mistake.
Chad: Do that here.
Joel: Oh, that's not gonna happen here.
Chad: Do that here.
Joel: No, it ain't happening.
Chad: That's so much bullshit, though.
Joel: There's no government reality that I could ever think about in America where we turn into something like that.
Chad: Yeah, 'cause we don't give a shit about our employees. That's the problem.
Joel: Yeah. All right, Chad, I'm pulling an audible. I'm talking about the farting guy on the airlines. Okay. Real quickly, an American Airlines flight from Phoenix to Austin was reportedly delayed when a passenger loudly passed gas and engaged in a confrontational exchange with others. [laughter] The incident led to the plane returning to the gate and the gassy passenger was removed from the flight. The confrontation caused a delay of up to 30 minutes. I mean, what a butthole. You know what I'm saying? Am I right? Can we all just breathe a sigh of relief that this issue came to a close? And by the way, when is Elon going to take us all to Uranus? We out.
Chad: We out.
Outro: Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Chase 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 chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt, but save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.