Live! RecFest USA 2026
Guilty Pleas, Autopilots and Iced Lattes
What do a big couch, a can of Stella, and four of the biggest personalities in recruitment have in common? They’re all live from RecFest this week, covering the hottest topics in the world of hiring.
Chad, Joel, Mo’, and J.T. are on hand to talk about everything from an HR tech founder facing up to 20 years behind bars to the great iced-latte-in-job-interviews debate sweeping the land.
First up, the crew covers all things RecFest USA live from the Shaker Recruitment Marketing booth, each offering a unique take on the world’s hottest recruitment conference. You may have heard about the recent controversy over an iced latte that made its way into an interview—and then drew criticism from a practitioner. Yeah, that gets covered.
Then it’s news time. The team discusses the recent guilty plea by the former CEO and founder of Joonko, who is looking at as much as 20 years in prison after allegedly ripping off investors to the tune of $27 million.Next, the gang turns to Harver’s acquisition of Symphony Talent, a move destined to rattle recruitment ad agencies for years to come. Does the future favor the agency? The group weighs in.
Then comes a Chad & Cheese first: a representative from Findem makes a sponsored announcement about the company’s latest product drop, Findem Studio.To wrap things up, the crew looks at ZoomInfo’s newly launched Talent Autopilot, a sourcing tool the company hopes will shake up the industry by tapping a dataset it calls second to none.
It’s a fun wrap-up from Nashville at the end of RecFest’s first big day. Now pass the hot chicken.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
[00:01] Joel Cheesman: There we go. Was I supposed to do that? Are you from Tennessee? 'Cause you're the only 10 I see!
[00:08] Joel Cheesman: What's up, boys and girls? This is the Chad & Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheesman... Wait, Joel "Nashville Hot" Cheesman!
[00:18] Group: I promise that one, you want to go again? I love... Oh yeah, are you a 10? So good! 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, rash opinion, and loads of snark! Buckle up, boys and girls, it's time for the Chad [and Cheese] podcast!
[00:51] Joel Cheesman: Oh yeah, are you from Tennessee? 'Cause you're the only 10 I see! What's up, boys and girls? This is the Chad and Cheese Podcast, I'm your co-host Joel "Nashville Hot" Cheesman.
[01:03] Chad Sowash: This is Chad. It's a marathon, not a sprint, Sowash.
[01:09] Mo: This is Maureen, aka Mo. Uh, there's a new sheriff in town, WyCl, the bedazzler Maureen. Let's get you ready!
[01:16] JT: And I'm JT, drinking Pernicious IPA O'Donnell.
[01:21] Joel Cheesman: There it is! And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, we are live from RecFest in Nashville, Tennessee!
[02:02] Chad Sowash: Okay, what's up, kids? Okay, okay, so Mo... Mo, finally we're all together, we're doing this live.
[02:08] Joel Cheesman: Mo is drunk on Day 1.
[02:11] Mo: Day 1, I'm eating Skinny Pop, Day 1!
[02:13] Chad Sowash: Cheers, cheers! Look in the eyes, look in the eyes.
[02:18] Joel Cheesman: Live show here. It's good stuff if you can't tell, and you're listening, we are in the Shaker booth, who has graciously given us their facilities here now that the show's over. So it's kind of an easy thing to do to give us the show. But let's hear—Day 1 is in the books. Loved it. Ladies first, takeaways, sessions that you enjoyed?
[02:44] Mo: I mean, Innovate Stage rocked! We had 10 amazing groups on our stage, lots of interesting stuff. Super enjoyed Scaleless, just going to give that shoutout, I thought they presented very interesting stuff. And the sleeper hit was our last one—Glenn from Ronto. Like, put up some slides that people were snapshotting left and right. People totally missed it, so they should go look. It was really, really smart dude, data...
[03:09] Chad Sowash: It was, but he's like—he's thinking about AI in the way that everyone's going to be talking about next year, you know what I mean? Like literally he's doing the stuff nobody else is doing.
[03:19] Mo: That screenshot at 4:45 p.m., last session, that's like—that's legit. Holy shit, is that legit!
[03:24] JT: So you didn't have to walk 20 minutes this time, thank you, because you told me exactly where to go. I'm here for you, I'm here for... I mean, last time they dropped me off like literally probably like beyond the stadium and I was, "Where am I? What's happening?"
[03:37] Joel Cheesman: It's not super convenient, there's no address, it's just the Fairgrounds. The dog park is the move.
[03:44] JT: That's the dog park, baby! So if you come to RecFest next year, get dropped off at the dog park.
[03:51] Joel Cheesman: Was your phone blowing up last night?
[03:53] Mo: As soon as I fucking got here, my phone was blowing up! Everybody was out, everybody was fucking drinking!
[03:59] Chad Sowash: Bitch, it's a marathon, not a sprint!
[04:02] Mo: Amen! Oh my god, motherfuckers showing up drunk this morning! I mean, RecFest is on, but not that early, kids. Tonight's the night.
[04:11] Joel Cheesman: You have a different network than I do, 'cause I went to the hockey game solo. Fortunately hooked up with Mike from Aaron App, sponsor of our t-shirts. T-shirt—we got that off the checklist! We got our Aaron App promotion in there and ended up having Raising Cane's.
[04:30] Chad Sowash: No, I felt like hell in the morning. Like, not because of the Raising Cane's, because of the beer or alcohol, and/or both.
[04:39] Joel Cheesman: Happens when in Nashville. Now, you have an early flight tomorrow, and I'm curious: was it just "I'm not going to go to sleep," was it power nap and go to the airport? Because you're going to Cabo.
[04:51] Chad Sowash: Yeah, so for me, this is not the party. And I know for a lot of people this is a party, I'm going to Cabo for 5 days. Buddy's getting married, I'm the best man. We are... I mean, this is on.
[05:03] Joel Cheesman: So again, it is America only! Chad goes from Portugal to Cabo to go to a party! What's the sense of the attendees? Are they hopeful? Are they ready to write checks? Are they a little more cautious? What's your take on the attendees?
[05:18] Mo: I heard a lot of people talking about like 5 to 10 years out, which was really uplifting in the doomsday AI era. So I was like, sweet, you guys are off to this. They did not think they were going to get killed.
[05:28] Joel Cheesman: Okay, I like that. That's good.
[05:31] Chad Sowash: It's like the new meme where "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" and it's the scene from The Terminator. So good, so good, that's funny!
[05:39] Joel Cheesman: Any insight from the attendees?
[05:41] JT: I think people are here to get answers. I think they're done wondering, "Should I use AI? How do I use AI?" People want to know what their new tech stack should look like. They're open to it, like I'm hearing people say, "I'm ready to dump what I have, I want new stuff." And this is the place to be for that. So I think you're going to see some major breakups. I think some companies are going to dump some stuff that's been around for a long time and go for some of the new stuff that's here.
[06:05] Joel Cheesman: I'm here for it. We're going to talk about that a little bit later—major breakups and consolidations, jail sentences, all kinds of good stuff on today's show. Should we get into shoutouts?
Shoutouts
[06:17] Joel Cheesman: Our shoutouts, as you know, loyal fans, is sponsored by our friends at ProvenBase. Just sent out two bottles of Chicken Cock this week. Jim Stroud over there!
[06:27] Chad Sowash: Yes! Jim Stroud, ProvenBase is locked and loaded for the marketing goodness, and it all starts with bourbon from Chad & Cheese. So thanks to ProvenBase. Who wants to go first on shoutouts?
[06:38] Mo: I will! Jamie, again last minute, we had two legit new hype videos that we put out, and they had them on screens all over. I sent them yesterday, had them on screens all over the venue. And we didn't have them in time... I walked in, and we were playing on the big screen! So RecFest team did an amazing job, as always, it was amazing.
[07:13] JT: I'm going to shout out to Iced Lattes. I don't know if you guys have seen this on the socials...
[07:18] Joel Cheesman: Stop it!
[07:19] JT: I just did an interview with someone—someone brought an iced latte, a labeled Gen Z candidate, and a holier-than-thou recruiter decided to put it on social media that that was a bad move, that you don't casually bring a latte into an interview as if it's just part of your day. How do we—what do we think about iced lattes in interviews?
[07:41] Mo: You guys saw me on the phone when we were at the stage, that was me on the phone with a journalist at Forbes asking me about this! And I said, "Well, I'm at an event with thousands of recruiters, would you like me to tell you my opinion?" It was insane, people are obsessed with this thing. I think it's polarizing, I think it pulls out the generations big time and how people look at stuff differently. My comment was this: I'm a Gen Xer, there was no way I wanted to wear a suit, spend money on something that I couldn't wear other days of the week. We instituted casual dress, Gen Z's bringing in their own stuff down the line, and that might be bringing lattes to an interview. But they got to wait their turn, man!
[08:20] JT: We had to present ourselves to the boomers! What is wrong with you? You got to know your audience!
[08:30] Chad Sowash: I got to say... I think this is perfect because if you bring an iced coffee into an interview and that turns them off, fuck them! That's not the company for you, right? If that's not the culture—I mean, can you imagine being two weeks in in that tightass company? Fuck those guys, right? So I mean, I think this is a great, literally culture signal to say, "Fuck you, I don't need to be in this company."
[08:58] Joel Cheesman: It's just dumb, it's dumb, it's crazy. I'm with you completely: don't dress for the job you have, dress for the job you want. Just want to dress in fucking coffee, dude! It's okay that I'm the angry old guy on this topic, that's okay. I would leave the iced coffee in the lobby, that's just me. I'm an elder millennial and I definitely wouldn't roll in with an iced...
[09:20] Mo: Advice to a job seeker is: if you're going to spill that thing on yourself, no, don't bring it in. Don't risk it. But still, like, it's probably never going to be the reason you don't get the job, but it's not going to be in the pro column, so why do it?
[09:34] Chad Sowash: To be able to have a newspaper call when we've got all this shit that's happening in the workforce and the economy—I mean, things that actually matter—and they're calling you about fucking iced lattes? Forbes, you're fucking stupid! You're talking about the wrong people!
[09:48] Mo: It's because we need our break, and you know what? If she hadn't said "Gen Z," this would have gone nowhere because of the generational label. I feel like we're split down the middle, interesting.
[10:04] JT: You got a shoutout? I am, but I'm going to circle it back to RecFest. I just want to say that Mo and I got to work with Chloe and Andrew, and even though they were across the pond, they were absolutely amazing, super attentive. Just need to say again, like, RecFest, they're a 10 out of 10. Have loved every minute of it, so thank you Andrew and Chloe for making our lives easier!
[10:24] Joel Cheesman: That's sweet, it was really awesome, great team.
[10:28] Chad Sowash: I'm going to be insufferable for a minute. Will you allow me to be insufferable?
[10:32] Joel Cheesman: I mean, something new and different for me!
[10:35] Chad Sowash: Very exciting news: we now are surrounded by not one, but TWO LinkedIn Top Voices just announced today! The girls of Bishop today!
[10:50] Joel Cheesman: Comes with, I'm sure, lots of money and glory, but anyhow, I'm just so excited to be here with you, proud of you!
[10:57] Chad Sowash: How great at recruiting are we? I mean, these girls are getting called by Forbes, Business Insider... We're nobody, but we recruited them to be in our universe!
[11:10] Joel Cheesman: I feel like you're pimping us together!
[11:12] Chad Sowash: No, I'm like, this is the whole thing: get people that are better than you, and you can just sit back!
[11:17] Mo: And the truth is, I got it because of you! I'm sure they were like, "Yeah..."
[11:21] Joel Cheesman: They haven't given us that distinction yet! Chad, we know you're going to Cabo. What other travel plans? Event brought to you by Shaker Recruitment Marketing... Where's Joe? He's already gone to dinner, that bastard! Brought to you by Shaker Recruitment Marketing, as you can live in this booth. Jeez, this is nice.
[11:42] Chad Sowash: Yeah, so I'm off to Cabo, then we're in... Oh, I'm in Dallas for SIA Collaboration X doing a Shark Tank there, doing an expert round table there for like 3 days at the Omni in Dallas. Then we're going to Amsterdam! E-Recruitment Congress, that is going to be a blast. They're actually going to have humanoid robots working!
[12:08] Joel Cheesman: Creeps me out!
[12:10] Chad Sowash: Then we're both going to go to Vegas for the Paradox / Workday Frontline Hiring Event, and that's going to finish out our year. Is that it for you, too?
[12:22] Joel Cheesman: That's it, that's it for me. How about you guys?
[12:26] Mo: That was a lot more than I got coming up! I'm excited to nest.
[12:31] Joel Cheesman: Do you have anything coming up?
[12:32] Mo: I moved from the island back to the city. I'm in the big city, and honestly, I think the move to the island was probably a little bit of escapism, if I'm being really honest about it.
[12:53] Joel Cheesman: Any travels, JT?
[12:55] JT: Florida, baby! I'm going to be there for about four months this winter, 'cause the golf game is good and I can't lose it. You know, October 15th, you can't golf in New England anymore. So this girl is going to be temporarily hanging her hat in Florida so she can get her golf out.
Fantasy Football: First to Worst
[13:12] Joel Cheesman: All right, well, from golf to fantasy football... Cue the boats and hoes, everybody! Week 2 is in the books. Here's our order from first to worst:
Jared Holderman
Scott Clark (The Janomar)
Nicholas Tissak
Bosco Vujacic
Joel Cheesman (In 5th place, nice move for me!)
Nick Livingston
Mackenzie "Mad Dog" Mate (Mad Dog won it last year!)
Molly "The Manslayer" Sly
Ben "The Slasher" Cunts
Chad Sowash (Number 11!)
Desiree Goldie (In the basement!)
That is our Fantasy First to Worst, sponsored by our friends at FactoryFix!
Topic 1: Joonko's $27M Fraud Case
[14:31] Joel Cheesman: Fuck yeah! The founder and former CEO of Joonko Diversity, a New York City-based AI-powered job platform that connected clients with job candidates from diverse backgrounds, pleaded guilty to securities fraud in a scheme to defraud investors of a mere $27 million. Chad, your take on Joonko in the clinko?
[14:57] Chad Sowash: So, $27 million forgery and fraud, and this is not over! This is just a settlement, and it does not resolve the federal civil and criminal proceedings against her. She's looking at 20 years. We really need to have these CEOs in orange jumpsuits. Here's the thing: she's getting nailed while we've got all these AI companies that are illegally hacking other companies, and we don't have any other CEOs...
[15:33] Joel Cheesman: How about the administration in the White House?
[15:35] Chad Sowash: Well, I mean, they're all crooks, right? But anyway, she did some bad shit, okay? And she deserves to go to the clink, she deserves it. $27 million fucking over some PE people. But at the end of the day, that's happening, right? And then we've got Randstad who fucked over 200 employees in Europe because they shut down Monster and they paid themselves out in management fees! The executives got money, and over 200 employees got fucked over, right? We are not having discussions about the bigger deals. This is $27 million; these other ones are like potential $200 million and/or in the billions, right? So anyway, I think yes, she needs to get nailed, but there are so many other motherfuckers out there that deserve worse.
[16:38] Mo: But we love to take down a woman in power, so you know... surprise! There we go. I mean, they broke the law. Equal application—I want to believe that if you're going to step on toes, just know whose toes you're stepping on. And she stepped on the toes of some really powerful people with money. The people at Randstad have no power, they're not unionized, they don't have cumulative power. Governments do, though.
[17:10] JT: This is great, I love this from the judge: she said that she used old-school fraud using new-school buzzwords like AI and automation to dupe investors. I mean, she fabricated numbers, she mocked up different bank accounts... Like, she totally screwed over her employees. And again, I don't think anybody on this couch thinks that you are wrong at all, but what we're saying is that measure needs to be taken to all these other motherfuckers who are criminals. Hacking is against the law, and it's happening.
[17:51] Joel Cheesman: We're on the upside down! We got Trump's speechwriter betting money on Kalshi so he goes to jail, but crypto president, Melania coin, nothing happens! So we're in the upside down in terms of the legal world right now. Somebody save me!
[18:10] Chad Sowash: I don't think so, my friend!
[18:12] Joel Cheesman: Damn it! By the way, Chad agrees with me on this, which is like every show and every topic. Let's take a quick break, get a refill if we need it, and we'll talk about Harver and Symphony Talent when we get back.
(Commercial Break: JobPixel)
Topic 2: Harver Acquires Symphony Talent
[19:30] Joel Cheesman: All right, guys. Harver has acquired Symphony Talent, combining its predictive talent assessment and reference checking technology with Symphony Talent's recruitment marketing, employer branding, and candidate relationship management capabilities. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Chad, your take on Harver acquiring Symphony Talent?
[19:54] Chad Sowash: I can't allow this to go any further without a history lesson!
[19:59] Joel Cheesman: Okay, let me go... A history lesson!
[20:03] Chad Sowash: So, Harver and Symphony Talent—how did we get here? Well, let's start with the Harver side, okay? Kids, there is so much history here, it is amazing, and there are so many companies wrapped up in this.
In May of 2022, Dallas-based digital hiring provider Outmatch acquired Harver, which is an Amsterdam-based volume hiring company.
In November of 2022, they rebranded to Harver! So Outmatch, the acquiring company, acquired Harver, and then they actually took the name, which hardly ever happens, right?
In 2022, Harver acquired Pymetrics. You remember Frida Polli? She was featured in the HBO Max documentary titled Persona: The Dark Truth Behind Personality Tests, which they did not look very good on. They had over $60 million in funding, and I'm going to presume Harver came in and literally just scooped them up for nothing, right?
So that's the Harver side! Here's some deep history on the Symphony Talent side:
First, let's talk about the rollup that happened from PE firm Symphony Talent Group: SkillCheck, InoVantage, QueSocial, and more notably Findly, which was Jason Kerr's hot new recruiting system.
They bought Bernard Hodes, the number two recruitment advertising agency in the world at the time!
HR Logix, which was a high-volume applicant tracking system.
Breezy HR, which was another new-age kind of ATS.
So, you know, I always say I was with Monster before I was Monster—well, I was actually with Symphony Talent before they were Symphony Talent! Do you know what their name was before Symphony Talent? Findly!
Jason Kerr was the creator of Talent Alliance, and Findly was the CEO. Jason is a brilliant fucking dude, but he's a creator, he's not a stitcher, right? These are all really good business models separately, but they just don't work well together. And that's generally what happened here: it was a fucking mess.
In 2016, I was flown into San Francisco to consult Findly. It felt like an emergency meeting because there were execs there, senior developers, ops people, and it was all around: how do we tie this together and do it in a compliant manner? But it was a mess. Jason tried to rebrand during this entire thing into Findly, which pretty much fucked him because Bernard Hodes was one of the biggest names we knew in our industry, and he tried to erase that name from the map, and it blew up in his face. So he was out.
Then Rupesh Nair came in—and we know Rupesh because we worked with Rupesh. He came in as part of Symphony Talent Group, the PE firm. They rebranded everything to Symphony Talent.
In 2019, they had another big acquisition: SmashFly! We were in Paris when they acquired because Jay-Z called me on the phone... Not that Jay-Z!
On August 30th, 2026, Symphony Talent announced that they had spent a decade stitching together these software pieces to create this new and wonderful system. August 30th, kids! That's not that long ago! And next thing you know, they're acquired by Harver.
For me, this is definitely a bargain-basement kind of thing from a PE firm where they are going to sell off what they can, and then they're going to do the Randstad model of trying to go into bankruptcy and fuck all the people that they owe money to and their employees.
[25:34] Joel Cheesman: That's a prediction you're throwing down! So my two questions: the future of the agency? We're moving to a world where—what does that mean? Agents are interviewing agents; companies are just trying to get their hands on the flood of candidates. I think people apply to jobs without knowing what a brand is, what a company stands for. I question the future of the agency. Now, I say that in an agency booth that looks like they're doing very, very well, and I think that's attributed to their relationships with companies that trust their expertise for years, right?
[26:33] Chad Sowash: Aren't agencies a bunch of fortune tellers? Isn't that what you're buying in an agency? You want that agency to comfort you.
[26:50] Mo: Agency's never going away! I think it gets more interesting, though. I think there's room in our space right now for some new agencies to blow up.
[27:12] Chad Sowash: When you have an agency like Shaker—and we are definitely biased, but we've seen this happen—you don't have the tech debt. You don't have the constant trial of looking at buying shit all the time. When turnover happens, companies want to go to Shaker and say, "We trust you to know what's going on, who do you recommend?" And that's the value of the agency. It's not "make me a pretty display ad for the Chicago Tribune." Absolutely not! It's "help guide me through this journey of all this tech."
[28:28] Mo: I think you're going to see some out-of-the-blue players, brand new startups in the agency space that are going to hit the scene, make some smart moves.
[28:40] Joel Cheesman: To me, this is Broadbean getting acquired by Appcast. It's like a lot of big enterprise clients with money—if we can transfer those over to our technology, then this deal is worth it.
Sponsor News Announcement: Findem Launches Findem Studio
[29:12] Joel Cheesman: Are you ready to break some new ground on the Chad & Cheese Podcast? Okay, we have our first-ever sponsored news announcement! This is our friends at Findem, and they dropped a big announcement here at the RecFest conference. First of all, everybody welcome Joseph Cole! Joseph, what is your title?
[29:39] Joseph Cole: VP of Marketing.
[29:41] Joel Cheesman: VP of Marketing, okay! What do you think about the agency game as a marketer? Is there value here?
[29:46] Joseph Cole: I think there is, right? Because with AI becoming ubiquitous with everything, this concept of critical thinking—being able to actually deliver on creative and strategy—is something that's really important now.
[30:03] Joel Cheesman: Without any further ado, give us the news there at Findem.
[30:06] Joseph Cole: Yeah, so we just launched Findem Studio! That's basically our GenAI layer, right? Think about it: it's people intelligence built for AI. The way that it works is Findem has this history of all this amazing data behind people—the context, all the information about people, companies, the market—and it brings that intelligence into what we say is a proven methodology. We've got all these agents that are endorsed by experts, and then it delivers an artifact—could be something like succession planning, market mapping, or basically any HR or TA use case that is validated by an expert, but also validated to make sure that the output is accurate. I think that's more important now with AI, right? Not just making stuff up.
[30:50] Joel Cheesman: And what was the catalyst for this? Were clients asking for it, or was it something you saw coming in the future?
[30:59] Joseph Cole: Hari, our CEO, is pretty much a visionary in terms of the HR tech space and recruiting tech space. I think it was just a natural evolution. You've probably seen in the news and LinkedIn everywhere, there's like an MCP for this, an MCP for that, right? So he launched the MCP ages ago when it first came out, but the fact is you need more—you need something that's proven, validated, easy to use, and has a lot of utility.
[31:35] Chad Sowash: Big question: you've got these huge models out there, everybody's building their own shit. How do you play against that?
[32:05] Joseph Cole: There's an analogy the team has been using: all these other things, like these MCPs, give you access—they're like a library card giving you access to information, but they don't really give you the context behind that information or data. With Findem, we've got the data, but also the metadata about the data to inform it. And that's so critical now with AI becoming more intrusive.
[32:38] Joel Cheesman: We're hearing more about companies building content exclusively for agents, agents visiting sites more... There's more robot traffic on the internet than there are people, and now we're building content for the bots! Do you think that plays into employment, and how so?
[32:55] Joseph Cole: I think it can. Agents are collaborating with each other, which is kind of scary to me! I think the key is making sure the human is always in the loop, right? That's the fundamental aspect for us, especially with our HR and TA practitioner customers.
[33:30] Joel Cheesman: Who is this product for? What's the demographic you're looking to attract?
[33:38] Joseph Cole: ICP agnostic, so any industry, any type of company really. Because of our history in HR and TA, naturally it lends itself very well to HR leaders, TA leaders, staffing... We even have a lot of VC and PE customers using it as well. Really, the limitation is just imagining what kind of question you can ask.
[34:12] Joel Cheesman: Where can they go to learn more?
[34:14] Joseph Cole: studio.findem.ai
[34:25] Joel Cheesman: Awesome, sweet! Well, thanks for joining us, Joseph! First-ever sponsored news release. Enjoy the rest of the conference!
Topic 3: ZoomInfo Launches Talent Autopilot
[37:21] Joel Cheesman: All right, guys, here we go. ZoomInfo has launched Talent Autopilot, an AI-driven recruiting agent designed to automate candidate discovery and engagement. It combines ZoomInfo's data with autonomous reasoning to find candidates that traditional keyword-based searches often miss. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Talent Autopilot from ZoomInfo?
[38:39] Chad Sowash: I'm going to tell you right now, I want to talk about their campaign—this whole autopilot shit, everybody's got this stuff. I want to talk about something that they did better than anybody that I've seen in the space, and that's fucking marketing! Shoutout to Shannon and Alice.
If you didn't see it, they're getting ready to go to Dreamforce—pretty big conference, right? And they literally built their booth and spray-painted over "Contact" because they're a contact data company. They spray-painted over "Contact" just so that they could focus on "Data." They created an AI video of an intruder coming in to vandalize that to do it all, to be able to say old thoughts are out the window, and now they're a data company! We always bought ZoomInfo for contact lists, exactly; now it's about contact data. It's all around data, and that is what drives AI. We don't talk about companies who do really good fucking marketing, and this was broad-based marketing that tied into a really big conference. So I thought that was cool!
[40:16] Joel Cheesman: To me, this is a major push to get acquired. We've seen this before: bring in people who know what they're doing—John Bishki is running the show there, he's from Intel, he knows a thing or two about exits. It's a public company, the stock has been sideways pretty much for the last few years. I think this is a push to get that stock price up, get the brand awareness up, and sell it in 12 to 24 months.
[40:46] JT: It doesn't look like a full pivot either, right? Because they already have the data in the first place. It's more just a slight pivot into how important data is and how their data is different somehow. That combination is going to have OpenAI, Google, whoever, pick up the phone and make an offer.
[41:10] Mo: When you were reading everything, it reminded me of the grown-ups on the Peanuts gang... But then you talk about the marketing piece, and that gets me excited! So what they're doing is making people understand. Brilliant, good point.
[41:40] Joel Cheesman: Right now, I think I need to go to bed... I think I need to go to bed! I think you need a dad joke.
[41:48] Chad Sowash: Dad joke! Oh no, okay... Why couldn't the sailor finish the alphabet?
[41:59] Joel Cheesman: Oh, he kept getting lost at C! Knew it, I knew it was C! Good, we out!
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