Mercor Hack - Findem Smack
- Chad Sowash
- 1 minute ago
- 46 min read
This Week on HR’s Most Dangerous Podcast...
Get ready for wild breakdowns from Joel, Chad, and Emi: Â
The crew dives into the Mercor security breach, a supply chain attack hitting 36% of cloud AI environments. We’re talking four terabytes of stolen data—including source code, biometrics, and passports. Is our industry’s historical weakness in security finally catching up to us?
The U.S. Senate is knocking on the door of data brokers, and Findem is under the microscope. From "no index" games on opt-out pages to a massive 418,000 data deletion requests, the team asks: How did we get here, and is government intervention the only way out?
A Citi banker warns that AI and robotics are a "threat to capitalism" and the middle class. Is a "productivity dividend" the solution to mass layoffs, or is the party officially over for the working world?
LinkedIn is banning spontaneous live streams in favor of scheduled ads. Is this a smart "event hub" evolution or just a cynical "dollar play" that proves LinkedIn isn't the place to zone out?
Plus: Chad's new "friendship" tattoo , Emi's "genetically blessed" Brazilian name , and the birthday dad joke that’ll make you want to go anonymous.
It’s time for some no-bullshit discussions. Let’s do this.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Joel Cheesman (00:30.343)
Oh yeah. The DA double D Y A C. Yeah. You know me. Hey kids, it's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel. Get your own oil cheeseman.
Chad Sowash (00:43.356)
This is Chad, Fresh Ink, so off.
Emi Beredugo (00:46.518)
And this is Emmy, Mimi, there we go. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (00:49.479)
Mimi.
Joel Cheesman (00:50.265)
And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, Melania bots data breaches and will the Senate find him guilty? See what I did there, Chad. Let's do this.
Joel Cheesman (01:07.108)
Fresh ink tattoo? What is this? What? Is that the Foo Fighters? What is that?
Chad Sowash (01:08.582)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My first tattoo, first tattoo. No, it's actually, it's like a friendship thing. But anyway, it's my first tattoo. So I've opened the gateway. My daughter and I are now getting set for our first daddy daughter tattoo. Julie's and I've been planning for, it's open. It's all open. I'm gonna have full sleeve tattoos before you know it.
Emi Beredugo (01:11.507)
Ooh.
Joel Cheesman (01:20.103)
Aww friendship thing.
Joel Cheesman (01:36.111)
You're kidding, right? Is this April Fool's? We're recording on April Fool's. Is this an April Fool's joke? So what is it? I can't see. Put it up there for the YouTube audience. For friends.
Chad Sowash (01:39.792)
No, no, it's real. It's real. It's real. I've got it. It's literally it is. It's an F. Yep.
Emi Beredugo (01:48.206)
What is it? F.
Chad Sowash (01:49.522)
Nah, so it's for founders, but that's like a group that I'm a part of. It's not a gang. It's not a mafia.
Joel Cheesman (01:53.947)
founders. So, so, so let me get this straight before a Chad and cheese tattoo, you get some random founders. Chad is cheating on me and I don't know how I feel about it right now. I don't know how I feel about this.
Emi Beredugo (01:55.434)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:01.105)
I don't need my own face on my body.
Emi Beredugo (02:08.504)
I feel sorry for you, Joel. mean Chad, that's so out of order. How could you cheat on Joel? Awful. I know, my God.
Chad Sowash (02:13.681)
I think how Julie deals. mean, come on.
Joel Cheesman (02:16.359)
All right, so full sleeve tattoo on Chad coming soon, everybody. That'll make travel interesting.
Chad Sowash (02:18.127)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (02:23.177)
yeah, coming soon. Gonna work its way up. Yeah. Too easy, too easy. Yeah. No, I was in London. Yeah. No, went to, first I went to London, actually met up with the boys from Talent Nexus, Jim, Rob and Thomas. We had a day of paddle drinking and great food like they always do. Then we had two days in Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, England.
Joel Cheesman (02:26.789)
Wow. So you're in London or not London, but Hartfordshire. Okay.
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (02:45.852)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (02:49.07)
hot fish out.
Chad Sowash (02:52.689)
at the RLX with some talent leaders and best of all, Joel, I know you miss him. I know you miss him. Steven McGrath. Then came home last Friday, played in a men's tournament. Saturday, played in a mixed tournament with Julie and that will test a marriage, kids. I'm gonna tell you right now, playing in a tournament with your wife, Devils, that'll test a marriage. And then capping it off with the first tattoo on Monday. So yeah, it's been a hell of a week.
Joel Cheesman (02:52.815)
Off you go.
Joel Cheesman (03:00.325)
Joel Cheesman (03:20.721)
Well, speaking of testing marriages,
Chad Sowash (03:22.929)
yeah, go ahead. Please.
Joel Cheesman (03:26.595)
So the barrage of photos of you doing, I guess, scotch tastings, very, very cruel. What was going on with that?
Chad Sowash (03:31.025)
Yes.
Chad Sowash (03:36.058)
my God, my God. the RLX has experiences. You go hit golf balls on the range, beautiful golf course, amazing golf course. One of the best golf courses, I think, in not just the UK, but Europe. But I chose, obviously, because Stephen was there, and Julie as well, to have the scotch tasting. I'm going to have to have Stephen send you a list.
Chad Sowash (04:03.373)
a list of the Scotches because he went in kind of like with his nose up knowing that you know he knows Scotch. And the guy the guy who did the Scotch tasting his his name is is Scott Scottish Dave I think is what they call him or whiskey Dave that's what it was whiskey Dave. And my God he brought the heat when we're talking about Scotch some of the best Scotches I've ever had and Stephen was was loving the hell out of it so this guy was legit it was good it was good.
Emi Beredugo (04:09.422)
So.
Joel Cheesman (04:18.392)
honest Dave
Joel Cheesman (04:24.956)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (04:31.035)
Okay.
So it wasn't a particular distillery. It was a variety of scotches and okay.
Chad Sowash (04:36.913)
Yeah, from his own personal collection. Yes. This is our Jamie in the team over at recruitment events company. They did the RLX, the two day event. First time they've done it. It's like a concept event. They knocked it out of the park. Great job. I can't wait for Chicago here in about a month or so.
Emi Beredugo (04:42.132)
wow. How old would I?
Joel Cheesman (04:50.832)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (04:59.143)
Yeah, if I don't get a plate of Chicago dogs and Italian beefs, I'm going to be pretty upset. If Jamie's listening, I better get some, some, some pub pizza, some Chicago dogs. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm looking at me. I haven't seen you in a while. What's new? What's going on? What's popping?
Chad Sowash (05:08.103)
you know, he's listening. He's listening from Abita.
Emi Beredugo (05:18.222)
What's popping? Well, I think I told you last time I was supposed to be going to Sri Lanka. And with everything that's going on in the world, my flight's cancelled. But it's OK. It's OK, because we've got a Plan B. And Plan B is actually better than Plan A in my eyes. Yes, we are going to Brazil. So I am, yes, at the end of this month. I've never been, yeah, hence the Mimi name, because I was trying to give myself a Brazilian name. And apparently Mimi is popular there.
Chad Sowash (05:31.735)
tell me, tell me.
Joel Cheesman (05:31.91)
Yeah?
Chad Sowash (05:36.793)
Ow.
Very nice.
Chad Sowash (05:46.13)
Is there a butt lift coming as well? mean, what's a, I you go to Brazil for stuff. You don't need it. You don't need it. Okay. Got the, you've got the genetic butt lift. Okay. You don't need the Brazilian butt lift. You've got the genetic. Okay. I got you. Okay.
Joel Cheesman (05:47.131)
That's that's there waxing coming is.
Emi Beredugo (05:50.841)
Chad, I'm black. I'm genetically blessed with a big heart. No, I don't need it. It's in my genes. Yeah. No, I've got the Nigerian ass here. Absolutely. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (06:04.647)
genetically blessed with a big ass. I did not have that one on my bingo card today. That's very nice.
Chad Sowash (06:13.039)
Hahaha.
Emi Beredugo (06:14.126)
You never know where these confers are going.
Chad Sowash (06:18.683)
Good stuff, good stuff.
Joel Cheesman (06:20.711)
I'm guessing that that should lead us into shout outs. I don't know. I don't know if we can top the banter with the genetically blessed with a big ass.
Emi Beredugo (06:24.226)
Wow.
Joel Cheesman (06:30.597)
Guys, I'm going to lead us off and, Amy, that was a great segue. I don't know if you've, if you've been watching the news lately, the canceled trip, not the big ass, the world, the world's kind of on fire, right now. And it's, it's really depressing and thank God for sports. You're probably not getting the March madness highlights here, that you get in Europe that we get here. the Yukon game, maybe you saw the finals of that.
Chad Sowash (06:34.939)
Peace.
Emi Beredugo (06:36.91)
you
Chad Sowash (06:37.681)
Gymnastics. Okay.
Chad Sowash (06:43.621)
Yes, it is.
Joel Cheesman (06:58.471)
The kid that hit the winning shot was Mr. Basketball in Indiana last year. Went to school like a few miles south of where I live. Baseball's back, NHL hockey, drafts, we got the World Cup coming up. just, if I can sit down for a couple hours, ignore the outside world and watch a sporting event, like I love it. have a hard, like World War II, they shut down baseball, they shut down sports. Like if it ever gets to that, I'm gonna need a mental hospital.
Chad Sowash (06:58.555)
That was awesome.
Joel Cheesman (07:28.293)
But until then, thank God for sports. that's my shout out. And, do you guys have a final four pick? Do you guys got to, are you watching or no? Probably not. All right.
Emi Beredugo (07:37.646)
I'm not watching. Never even heard of it. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:38.424)
No, I've been too busy. Did you just hear what I did this last week for God's sakes? But also, what is it? The UFL football is back and usually we watch it and it's kind of like, this is kind of worse than watching high school football. But this year, I mean, I've been watching highlights. Yeah. it's great. I mean, they've got some real talent. It's starting to really gel. I don't know if it's because the two leagues have come together to create this more of a, you know, kind of like
Joel Cheesman (07:41.031)
All right, well.
Joel Cheesman (07:57.297)
Yeah?
Chad Sowash (08:08.665)
not never to the level of the NFL, but it is much better football than it's been in the past.
Joel Cheesman (08:15.365)
I just want to know what channel on the dodgy stick do I get UFL football, Chad?
Chad Sowash (08:19.569)
Hahaha
Emi Beredugo (08:20.706)
I'm ready.
Joel Cheesman (08:24.785)
Sorry, no dodgy sticks here. All the Americans listening have no idea what I'm talking about, but apparently it's all the hype in Europe is your dodgy stick. or sorry, Chad.
Emi Beredugo (08:25.462)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (08:28.112)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (08:31.534)
And okay.
Emi Beredugo (08:34.175)
It is. Yeah.
Yes, chop.
Chad Sowash (08:38.257)
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, I've got the downer of them all, kids. So shout out to one of the biggest business miscalculations in history as CEOs are betting the fucking farm on AI and not on us actual human beings driving the damn revenue. For example, Oracle just announced layoffs that are reportedly approaching 30,000, yes, 30,000, that many zeros, workers while they try their damnedest to stem a cash
Joel Cheesman (08:42.791)
Of you do.
Emi Beredugo (09:03.2)
Chad Sowash (09:07.889)
crunch tied to their AI data center build out, including projects linked to partnerships like the $300 billion Stargate initiative with OpenAI. Oracle has already burned through roughly $10 billion in cash in the first half of this fiscal year. While companies aggregate these layoffs, they're crippling an economy that's already limping
doing the high inflation tariff backlash in a war that's driving up prices of everything that needs a supply chain. So, breathe. And can we get some of these fucking CEOs out of their positions for God's sake? Can we put AI in CEO positions instead of the other way around? I think this might actually work out better.
Joel Cheesman (09:49.831)
Thanks, Chad. Asshole.
Emi Beredugo (09:51.008)
is
Emi Beredugo (09:57.881)
I think so. Yeah. Wow.
Joel Cheesman (10:00.379)
However, if you're a shareholder of Oracle, life is pretty good because the stock is popping. Popping like Emmy's booty is what is going on. So let me.
Emi Beredugo (10:07.722)
Yeah!
Chad Sowash (10:07.963)
which short term, short term it's great. But when the world fucking burns down, then who gives a shit?
Joel Cheesman (10:13.051)
Yeah. So let's, I did some homework here. Here's your, here's your top three layoffs in tech, for the, for the year for the last 12 months. we have, we have Oracle now at number one, for 30 K number is correct. have Intel in second place with 25,000, layoffs this year and Amazon rounding up the top three with 16,000, layoffs this year. So thanks big tech. Thanks big tech.
Chad Sowash (10:38.882)
companies.
Emi Beredugo (10:40.014)
Jeez, depressing, huh?
Chad Sowash (10:42.097)
Wow. Yes, yes, which is why we need Emmy.
Joel Cheesman (10:44.027)
The email was quote from HR to Oracle employees was quote, after careful consideration of Oracle's current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change. Can you get less human than what the hell that was? It's gotta be an agent, gotta be an HR agent that came up with that.
Emi Beredugo (11:03.598)
Yeah
Chad Sowash (11:07.81)
It's a human. We suck.
Joel Cheesman (11:09.735)
Yes, we do suck, we do suck.
Joel Cheesman (11:16.551)
All right, Amy, talk us off the ledge. What you got in shout outs?
Emi Beredugo (11:19.918)
Well, I'm going to get, I'm going to try. Have any of you watched Mr. Beast before or Beast games rather? No. Okay. Okay. So it's actually on prime. I've never heard of Mr. Beast before. I think I'm in the wrong age group, but I started watching it probably about two weeks ago. Binge watched the entire series one and two. So it's like a mix between traitors and kind of other kind of squid games is brilliant.
Chad Sowash (11:27.105)
No, it's on Netflix, all right? It's on Netflix.
Joel Cheesman (11:27.416)
Thanks to my kid, yeah, I have seen some.
Chad Sowash (11:33.017)
okay.
Chad Sowash (11:43.11)
Really?
Emi Beredugo (11:49.775)
Yeah. So basically people on the show, the ultimate prize is 5 million. If there is a chance to go to 10 million and they've got to do things like form alliances, bribe, cheat, deceive others to get through to the final weekend, either win five or 10 million. So prior to this show, always use, I used to think I was a person of integrity. You know, I work in HR, you know, I used to be a recruiter. So obviously I'm honest, but transpired two weeks later, I realized, no, I would do anything for money. I'll fuck over anyone for money. fact,
you know, especially if it's five million and I'm watching these people, I'm like, no, why these people are not your friends. So yeah, shout out to Mr. Beast. I love that show.
Chad Sowash (12:23.473)
They're human.
Chad Sowash (12:29.381)
Humanity sucks.
Joel Cheesman (12:32.257)
Amy, I'm not believing this, that you're not nice for one second. I just...
Emi Beredugo (12:36.85)
yeah, but when there's five million on the line, I'm sorry, no one's my friend. Yeah, I'm going for that money.
Chad Sowash (12:41.777)
Ha!
Joel Cheesman (12:44.999)
So, I don't know MrBeast that well. know about him a little bit and some of our listeners won't. So his claim to fame is giving away a lot of money to do sort of weird stuff, right? And people tuned in and he just became bigger and bigger. And now he's like hugely successful as his own company and is doing this game. So it's on Prime.
Emi Beredugo (12:58.882)
Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Emi Beredugo (13:03.736)
Yeah.
And he's young, he's super young. People check it out. It is brilliant. Yeah. Yeah, yes he is.
Joel Cheesman (13:10.307)
Super rich is what he is. He's super, super rich, super rich. Not as rich as the people that get free stuff from Chad and Cheese though. They are rich in a way that money really can't count. Let's check in on our drunk friend from the whiskey tasting, Steven McGrath.
Chad Sowash (13:15.547)
Can't do it, can't.
that's right. Mr. Beast just can't compare to it.
Emi Beredugo (13:24.948)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (13:51.479)
Everybody loves these. Everybody.
Chad Sowash (14:43.633)
did he get the red stave? That's that's good stuff. How did he how did he get the good stuff?
Joel Cheesman (14:49.735)
Well, rumor is you can ship him a cock now, whereas it's much more difficult for me to do it. So maybe he got it from you, Chad. I don't know. I think you're, you're, you're jazz hand in this thing. Uh, you're the one that's supplying. So I, so, so I have a bit of a, um, I don't know. I need to admit something here, Chad, my, do you remember, do you, do you remember, did you ever go to deja vu, uh, back in the day? Emmy deja vu is a strip club.
Chad Sowash (14:58.145)
It's always great to ship some cocks.
Emi Beredugo (15:03.214)
Yeah
Chad Sowash (15:11.982)
and clean.
Emi Beredugo (15:15.96)
Is that a nightclub? it's a strip club, okay.
Chad Sowash (15:19.545)
No, not that one. I didn't get a danger to the room.
Joel Cheesman (15:19.555)
And it was, it was, it was the only one that you could be 18 to go to. So they never, they didn't serve alcohol. got sodas. Anyway, that's not why it was, it was sort of like your real, first strip club you got to go to at 18 years old. Anyway, their advertising was, it was something like 99 beautiful women and one ugly one. So that was like their thing. So
My, my, my in-laws from Canada come to visit every so often and they love Coors Light and they buy a ton of Coors Light and they leave it here. And I, I don't, I haven't drank Coors Light in like 30 years. So, so what I've started to do, Chad, in our beer shipments, I put in two Coors Lights to like, to, hat tip to deja vu to like,
Chad Sowash (16:01.915)
God no.
Joel Cheesman (16:14.573)
Eight or like wonderful beers and a Coors Light. So anyway, if you're getting beer from us, shout out to Deja Vu. we're putting, we're putting in one ugly beer into the, into the case. Yeah. Just, just think of the, I don't know. Don't think about that. Anyway, it's still good. If you're, if you're in the mood, it's still pretty good. It's still pretty good. Not as, not as good as the events that we're going to Chad, but still, still pretty good.
Emi Beredugo (16:18.318)
Yeah
That's why.
Chad Sowash (16:25.073)
You're getting strip club beer. Good for you.
Emi Beredugo (16:28.26)
my god.
Chad Sowash (16:34.321)
Don't think about it. Don't think about
Emi Beredugo (16:34.326)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (16:44.875)
That's right, kids. And don't forget, travel is sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Shaker is not only the best recruitment marketing agency for Italian beef. no. Shaker has 75 years of experience in this space, which means branding, talent attraction, martech, analytics. Plus, if you ask nicely, Joe might hook you up with a fully dressed dog with that Italian beef. I'm not kidding. It's wonderful.
Joel Cheesman (16:53.958)
Hello.
Chad Sowash (17:10.861)
Everything you want and everything you need at shaker.com. Okay, kids, so we have three shows coming up. First one, April 21st through the 22nd. is Paradox's client board where we will be recording the next season of the AI sessions. It's an invite only event. So if you know, you know, April 22nd. I'm gonna run over to PetSmart's HQ for a quickie. Yeah, we love those quickies.
with the National Retail Federation because frontline hiring is absorbing AI automation and agents like it's a fricking sponge. And last but not least, Joel and I are going to Chicago for some of that Italian beef and some of those dogs. We're gonna be at the RLX, that's the 28th through the 30th of April. It's literally a room full of senior leaders having big, no bullshit discussions.
Chicago already has 50 leaders registered to be in the room for companies like Ford, Nordstrom, Johnson Controls, Ace Hardware, KPMG, and many, many more. And I love these three events mainly because it's very practitioner heavy. We have a chance to actually sit and talk to people about real problems, not just ones that founders dream up. So if you want to check us out,
go to chadcheese.com slash events. Either these events are gonna be there, hit us up. If you're not, we got more coming.
Joel Cheesman (18:42.343)
Shut all this talk of Chicago cuisine means I'm taking my ass to Portillo's after the show and getting me a Leo. I don't know about you guys.
Chad Sowash (18:50.213)
get you a Leo, that's right.
Joel Cheesman (18:56.219)
Chad, I think we have a Tradeify update alert. What do you got for us on that front?
Emi Beredugo (19:04.854)
Hahaha
Joel Cheesman (19:05.127)
Woop!
So we had a rumor recently that Tradify was acquired by our friends at CrossCheck. So we have confirmation on that. The news dropped earlier this week and we have a special video from our friend. Do you want to set that up or no?
Chad Sowash (19:09.393)
Where's? Yeah.
Chad Sowash (19:16.369)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (19:24.209)
Let's do it. Literally, Mike was drunk texting me when he was in Vegas and he spilled the beans. So I didn't let everybody know what all the details were, but I did say, okay, when this does happen, us a little love with the video and here's the video.
Joel Cheesman (19:31.417)
Hello.
Joel Cheesman (19:44.368)
Here we go.
Chad Sowash (19:53.905)
Is that running?
Joel Cheesman (19:56.432)
It is. Can you not see it again? That's great. All right.
Chad Sowash (20:02.627)
Insert that there, Sergey. And delete the rest of it. Anyway, so there's your rumor. It's true. Okay, it's true.
Joel Cheesman (20:11.759)
It's still running for me. All right. I'll bring us out with a sound bite. Ready?
Chad Sowash (20:17.914)
Okay, go ahead.
Chad Sowash (20:27.289)
Or maybe not.
Joel Cheesman (20:28.547)
Alright, that's acquisition time everybody. Little thanks to our friend at that for that and congratulations.
Chad Sowash (20:31.457)
There you go. Good job, Mike. No, seriously, I don't know how many times, and you know as well as I do, we might be at shows and get texts, or we might not be at shows and we still get texts. So it's kind of funny.
Joel Cheesman (20:44.807)
Yeah, no doubt. And remember, tradeify was acquired by paradox in 2019, I believe. So that's this come, this has come full circle. Well, let's get into our real topics. Everybody AI recruiting startup Mercore confirmed a security incident linked to a supply chain attack on the open source project light LLM. The attack attributed to the hacking group team PCP affected thousands of companies, including Mercore.
Chad Sowash (20:46.417)
Yes.
Here we go.
Joel Cheesman (21:12.753)
While the extent of the data breach remains unclear, Mercor is investigating the incident with third party experts and communicating with affected parties. Chad, this thing is hitting like a DeLorean going 88 miles per hour. Translation, we're about to hit some serious shit. What's your take on the Mercor news?
Chad Sowash (21:31.506)
Yeah, just gonna have to yank that flux capacitor out of that bitch. So let's set a base here real quick. Last week we dropped an interview with the CodeWall CEO Paul Price talking about how he used AI to hack Jack and Jill's AI in hours instead of days. Not with a room of hackers, but AI hackers that can work 24-7. Then we heard about Mercore's data breach earlier this week. I reached out to Mercore.
to reply, but apparently they answered TechCrunch instead, bastards. Because in a TechCrunch article, they wrote it was all focused on Mercor. But you're right, Joel, the data breach discussions happening on Twitter shows an even wider exposure to this problem and much larger incidents. So TechCrunch, eat that. You got the micro and we got the macro assholes.
So what happened? Light LLM seems like it was the entry point of the breach and it's used roughly by 36 % of cloud AI environments. That's pretty fucking big, 36%. Twitter became a hub for other developers to report malicious Light LLM packages.
Joel Cheesman (22:31.431)
So much animus for TechCrunch.
Emi Beredugo (22:32.926)
Hello?
Joel Cheesman (22:48.519)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (22:55.365)
confirming that the breach affected a massive portion of its AI ecosystem. 36 % of cloud AI environments. That's not small. So this is much bigger than a Jack and Jill or just AmeriCorps. We're seeing wider exposure opportunities to breach and gain access to personal data and possibly get extorted over it. AI hacking, AI breaching,
Whatever happened to AI curing cancer? You gotta ask yourself, what the fuck is going on around this joint?
Joel Cheesman (23:35.483)
Why cure cancer when you can make millions of dollars,
Chad Sowash (23:39.153)
That's what that's what that's what Emmy's saying right now. She could she could make millions and fuck cancer
Emi Beredugo (23:42.088)
Yeah, exactly.
Joel Cheesman (23:42.408)
Yeah, genetic booty time. So to give a sense, looked some of this up, this is allegedly, but in the Merkur case, we had four terabytes of data stolen, including 939 gigabytes of source code.
Emi Beredugo (23:48.226)
Yeah
Chad Sowash (23:58.354)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (24:03.399)
211 gigabytes of database records with resumes and personal data and nearly three terabytes of files such as video interviews containing biometrics and passports. So this isn't just like, you know, your email address kids. this is some serious stuff and historically job search can't like, we're not banking, but we're not irrelevant. We have this sort of sweet, vulnerable tier where there's not the security, you know,
Emi Beredugo (24:16.621)
Mmm.
Chad Sowash (24:30.149)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (24:32.827)
protections that like a financial company would have with an army of coders and millions in spending on security around cybersecurity. Our space has always been vulnerable, whether it's phishing attacks, say, Hey, give us your social security number and you'll get a job or it's accessing data. Remember career builder back in the day had a malware attack that shut their shit down. They had to allegedly pay millions of dollars just to get back up and running.
Chad Sowash (24:56.847)
Yeah. To get it back up.
Joel Cheesman (25:00.495)
So our space has historically been really weak on security. You know, we don't have financial data, but we have stuff that's obviously valuable. So people kind of ignore it. I think the era of AI is going to change that. Our interview, whether it's Jack and Jill, the career builder thing, there's probably stuff we don't even get wind of. And I'm sure that these companies are fending off attacks all the time. What it tells
you as a company that you need to start getting really serious about your cybersecurity and whether that's buying Palo Alto networks or CrowdStrike or whatever it is. I mean, you got to start spending some money to protect this because I think the government's eventually going to come calling because these attacks are going to be so, so vicious. think on a personal level, I know for me, like I'm really seriously starting to think about that like block account. mean, life lock has been around for decades and I've never really thought much about it, but
Chad Sowash (25:29.979)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (25:40.859)
Yes.
Chad Sowash (25:52.229)
Mmm.
Joel Cheesman (25:54.106)
I'm personally thinking about, I like, I should protect myself. Like who knows what the hell kind of shit agents we got Iran threatening all kinds of shit geopolitical, you know, insanity. mean, protect yourself, protect your company because the bots are coming and all this stuff is ramping up like never before. So buyer beware, protect yourself out there.
Emi Beredugo (26:19.884)
It is scary. Sorry, you said life lock account? I don't think I've heard of that before. What is that? Yeah. Yeah. What is it? So what does it do?
Joel Cheesman (26:23.683)
Life lock. might be a US thing. There's probably any. Yeah, OK, there's probably European equivalent. It just it just monitors like if your data stolen, if somebody is opening credit cards with your Social Security account, it just it's a level of protection of your identity and getting stolen that isn't just normally in the wild. It's a it's a level of service that you pay for. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (26:25.059)
Yeah, it's a US thing.
Emi Beredugo (26:47.266)
Okay, so even if that info is out there on the dark web, for example, it can still find your information.
Joel Cheesman (26:53.809)
So they track like, there's been a breach, your data is there, or hey, someone opened up a credit card with your account. If this wasn't you, like, on it kind of thing. And they also have insurance where if you do get your identity stolen and someone ramps up 50 grand on a credit card, that they'll insure a certain amount of money if your identity does get stolen. So I personally am thinking a lot more about that than I ever have. And it's because of these AI level attacks.
Emi Beredugo (26:57.346)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (27:03.607)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (27:23.15)
Yeah, do you know what? That sounds really interesting. Sounds like something I need to look into as well, because that happened to me a couple of years ago. I had a credit card, all of a sudden I'm getting this statement through, and there was a huge amount on there, like a couple of thousand. And I was like, I know. I know I'm bad with money. I'm not that bad with money that I forgot in the house with a couple of thousand in one day. So yeah, and I never really did anything more other than contact my bank. But
Chad Sowash (27:36.849)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (27:42.043)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (27:50.703)
I think it's definitely something that people need to look into because like you said, this isn't a one-off. We seem to be hearing more and more about companies having data breaches. And we're just hearing about a few. So imagine how many other companies out there are not publicizing, not letting their customers or the clients know that there has been a data breach. And I think it's really important to do. Yeah, in this day and age, it is important to do because...
Chad Sowash (27:57.477)
Yes.
Emi Beredugo (28:18.518)
If they go down the route of Merkle, you know, when I say route, one of the things I saw on Reddit was that they were speaking to this person on Reddit was speaking to a Merkle employee. And apparently they had information about the data breach in their Slack messages and they were told to delete it. So what they're doing is kind of suppressing that information, trying to make sure they're not being transparent. They're not letting the customers know what's actually going on. And as soon as people find out, which they have on places like Reddit, what's going to happen?
Chad Sowash (28:29.679)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (28:43.718)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (28:47.344)
Yes.
Emi Beredugo (28:48.322)
their reputation is going to go down the sink. HR, especially HR data, employee data, that is personal. companies need to, in order to do well, in order to keep succeeding, one of the components that they need to keep in check is that trust factor. If you're going to keep doing stuff like this, these companies don't have, they don't have a right to exist in the HR market and employment market. So that's my opinion. And they're going to be hit, but they're to be hit by fines. You've got all the EU data act.
Joel Cheesman (28:56.455)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (29:17.75)
GDPR, you know, they're gonna be liable.
Chad Sowash (29:22.033)
If they want to stay in the trust tree, they should call back Chad and Cheese when we call them. Yeah, I know.
Emi Beredugo (29:27.618)
They've got to be transparent. yeah. Yeah, did you hear that?
Joel Cheesman (29:34.8)
And by the way, I mean, for companies, a lot of times you use these services and you don't think you know, once about it, because it's them, it's their problem. But with the eightfold case, and talking about how much the attacks on companies for legal cases, particularly in the US very litigious. I mean, if I steal data from a candidate, and I apply to you, and now I'm suing you as that candidate, and I have multiple can, like you can attack a company based on the data that you have for a service that you're using. I mean, I this
Chad Sowash (29:43.025)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (29:45.954)
Yeah?
Emi Beredugo (30:03.487)
Absolutely. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (30:04.625)
This thing can go way deeper than our three minds can think of because there are evil doers that all they do is think about how do I screw companies and get data and make money on the dark web or wherever it is. think the, think the worst of people and then use that as your baseline for protecting yourself, your company, and the services that you guys use or the products that you're, that you're selling anyway, the more you know, Chad, the more you know.
Emi Beredugo (30:16.494)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (30:27.598)
100%.
Emi Beredugo (30:31.574)
I'm
Chad Sowash (30:31.643)
Dun, dun, dun.
Joel Cheesman (30:33.255)
Well, from one identity issue data to another, US Senate investigation into data brokers, including Findem, highlights the regulatory scrutiny of town acquisition technology. The report examined how data brokers collect and distribute personal information, potentially enabling scams. Findem, which aggregates data about potential candidates, was identified as part of a broader data ecosystem contributing to identity theft and fraud.
In a blog post, the company said, quote, reports that claim or suggest find them has not been responsive to personal data requests are completely inaccurate. And quote, Chad, do you believe them or is find them jazz handing them your thoughts?
Emi Beredugo (31:17.411)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (31:18.363)
Well, unlike Maricor, Findem got back to us. So appreciate that, Findem. But from a timeline standpoint, the Senate issued these requests August of 2025. On February 27th, the Senate probe summary stated, quote, Findem did not respond to the requests and have not removed the no index code from its opt out page.
raising serious concerns that it's responsive to opt out requests and commitment to data privacy." Findem's March 23, almost a month later, blog post, which was nearly eight months after the initial request and a month, obviously, after the summary, stated, quote,
In 2025, we processed 100 % of the 418,096 data subject requests we received." There was more, right? But at the end of the day, that's a little bit late, kids, okay? The response needs to be faster, especially for a smaller company that should have access to your data company. You should have access to that data.
Emi Beredugo (32:24.675)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (32:34.949)
The opt out and accessibility piece, that's the thing that I was really focusing on. In Findem's footer, it now clearly states, quote, do not sell or share my personal information. So you can click on that and you can go to the opt out page. Much easier to actually find, right? Much easier to find. Not to mention it's very clearly stated in the privacy policy. Now you can do that or they've got an email you can go to. The index in performing a Google search, can now,
Now, easily find Findem's opt out page, meaning Findem is obviously allowing Google and the other search engines to see that page. But the thing is, why was that in a no index state in the first place? And I think, yeah, I think the biggest problem that we're seeing here is that we're having some people, and I don't know who the individual was who made the decision at Findem.
Joel Cheesman (33:20.305)
Hmm. Hmm. Can't imagine.
Emi Beredugo (33:23.712)
I'm sorry.
Chad Sowash (33:34.012)
But that's not above board, right? And I've got to say that two words that are very scary to many people is government intervention. But personally, I think it's great to see government doing their damn jobs finally, and especially for looking through these perspective issues. And we desperately need guardrails, not just for AI, but for privacy. And as Joel said earlier, for cybersecurity, just for starters. So in the end, we need more legislation
to stop the litigation. Not over, not over legislation, though. We don't want to get crazy. We need to see a balance. And if there are rules in place and a governing body that actually is doing its job, we can all just get to fucking work. So I think what the Senate's doing here is like, look, we see you're playing games here, here and here. We need you to respond. Companies need to be faster about it, especially if you're a tech company. And this is about
data, you've got to be faster about response. You've got to ensure that you're not playing these no index kind of games and just get to fucking work and sell your shit man. I'm glad to see find them literally as I went down the check boxes. They've checked all the boxes thus far that I've seen and that's awesome. But next time let's go ahead and police ourselves so that we don't have to have the Senate.
or some other governing body do it for us.
Emi Beredugo (35:06.274)
I'm interested. I'm kind of interested to know why they took so long though, because obviously they just thought they were going to get away with this shit forever. And they probably have got away with other stuff as well. Maybe other companies. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (35:18.58)
Usually in the US, that's how it works though, right? I mean, how long did it take for Facebook to get fined $375 million, which is literally a slap on the wrist.
Emi Beredugo (35:25.4)
True, yeah. Yeah, it's like I've done my thing. We've given an uptight clause that you can't find it. You can't search for it. So I think it is cheeky, but you're right. I'm glad that the government's cracking down on them. But I don't think it's enough for those type of organizations just to take responsibility. And they will do. They will take more responsibility now, know, find them and other organizations are out there being slapped by fines.
But I think the organizations that use these tools also need to take more responsibility. They need to ask better questions to their vendors. They need to ask them about their data. Where's the data coming from? Is there things like OPTAC clauses? How are they abiding by things like GDPR? I don't think the responsibility is just solely on the vendors. And I'm not sure from the conversations I've had. I don't believe all organizations are asking the right questions.
Because even though things like GDPR has been around for a very long time, people's understanding of GDPR outside of, let's say, the legal world isn't always as strong, particularly if you're in a small organization. They just seem to default and kind of shirk responsibility to the vendors and go, yeah, they tell me that their data is secure. No, it's bullshit. You now have to take more responsibility.
Chad Sowash (36:41.297)
Yeah. Especially when it's your data.
Emi Beredugo (36:49.541)
Yeah, because your name is going to that organization's name is going to be associated even if it's then they're not the vendor who had the data breach. You use their tool. So you're just making it harder for yourself to get people into your organization. Stay with your organization.
Joel Cheesman (37:03.527)
Are you guys as surprised as I am that Findem is saying that they had 418,000 requests to take like delete data? How do people even know that they're in Findem's database? I mean, we've always had this argument that like, well, if someone's searching for a job, they want to be public, they want their data out there. Why would they like if they're, trying to market themselves. That's always kind of been the argument of like LinkedIn data should be shared.
Emi Beredugo (37:13.998)
418 pounds.
Chad Sowash (37:20.549)
Could be email.
Joel Cheesman (37:32.262)
Like everyone should have LinkedIn data because if I'm looking for a job, what's the harm in me being in every single database on the planet if I get a job? I don't know how, how there's gotta be a service that like spams these companies or they're on fishing up expeditions to see am I in this database? Like something's going on that find them as getting 400,000 requests to delete data. I don't know what's going on, but that surprised me when I saw that number.
Chad Sowash (37:57.158)
They're a data broker. Yeah, they're a data broker. So I'm wondering if, because they're selling data, to be able to allow those other partners to come back and say, want my information out of this database.
Emi Beredugo (38:01.548)
Mmm.
Joel Cheesman (38:02.159)
Yeah, like somebody. Yes.
Joel Cheesman (38:10.789)
Yes, something litigious or I don't know what's going on, but, my understanding of this industry is there's a, there's, are clearing houses for resumes and job boards are selling shit and everybody's legs swap and spit and reselling everything. so I, I'm with, I think both of you in saying that it's probably well past time that government started to pay attention to this issue, because I think that people have their data in places that they have no idea.
Chad Sowash (38:19.215)
Right. Yes.
Emi Beredugo (38:39.011)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (38:39.239)
People are making money on your data without your knowledge. Um, and there are laws around clearing house databases and California has mentioned in the article and there are a few other competitors to find them like seek out and hire easy that are actually registered in California as a, as a, uh, as a data, um, as a, sorry, as a warehouse, no, as a, um, data broker.
Chad Sowash (39:00.165)
your house.
Joel Cheesman (39:04.101)
So there are laws around this and somehow we've sort of skirted this whole legal requirement because we're jobs or people are searching for jobs and we can share that. So I think it's high time that this issue came to light. I think it makes LinkedIn way more valuable because you do opt into LinkedIn. You do give them your information. I think it's also a real threat to the companies that are just using these warehouses or clearing houses to fill their database and then make money on your data when you don't even know that you're in there. So similar to the
Emi Beredugo (39:32.941)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (39:33.734)
the eightfold case that says, okay, you have a black box that you are rejecting people for jobs. Like it's time to show what your algorithm is. It's time to show us what's in your database and how did you get it. And if you didn't get it by someone opting in in the first place, you probably shouldn't have it or you should be under the regulations of a data broker, which you haven't been for a while. So I think this is a real threat to these companies that are sourcing tools. If I'm juice box or any of like,
Chad Sowash (39:44.111)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (39:47.778)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (40:01.222)
new companies that are out around sourcing candidates. I'm paying really close attention to this case because I think it's a real threat to their business.
Emi Beredugo (40:09.816)
Definitely.
Chad Sowash (40:11.184)
Agreed.
Joel Cheesman (40:12.935)
Guys, let's take a quick break. If you like what you've been hearing, even if you're a little disgusted, it's a little naughty. It's okay. Subscribe, subscribe to us and your podcast platform of choice. Or if you want to see big Brazilian style booties on the show, check us out at youtube.com slash at cheese and we'll be right back.
Chad Sowash (40:16.017)
Mmm.
you
Emi Beredugo (40:20.462)
you
you
Joel Cheesman (40:38.631)
All right, kids, starting in June, right around the corner, LinkedIn will no longer allow real-time live streams, opting instead to require users to schedule live streams in advance. That sounds like a lot of work. This promises to maximize audience engagement, according to LinkedIn. So Chad, let me get this straight. No more spontaneous live streaming my reviews of the new Arby's French Dip Royale.
No, no, have to schedule it with the LinkedIn gods now. Take me off the ledge, Chad. What's your take on LinkedIn killing the live stream?
Chad Sowash (41:06.939)
Well, we have the meat.
Chad Sowash (41:15.761)
Yeah, I think I think everybody's missing it and I think they're they're, you know, redirecting you to what the real thing is. What's really happening here? So quote from the article in October of twenty twenty five, LinkedIn CEO Dan Shapiro, he's a really good guy, shared that the platform has seen a 24 percent increase in events shared in the app quarter over quarter, underlining the rising value of the platform as an events hub.
But planning is key to event engagement. In November of 2025, just a month later, LinkedIn reported that the event ads drive 31 % more viewership of events on average. So two things here. Number one, 24 % increase in event shared. That's great growth. LinkedIn can see great growth in this area. What does that mean for everybody? Well,
31 % more viewership with event ads. Keyword, event ads. Ads equals dollars. So I believe it's less about impromptu shit, live streaming shit that's happening, and more about making money off of promotion using ads. This announcement is literally an education vehicle for LinkedIn.
Emi Beredugo (42:23.651)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (42:39.909)
to start its whole ad sales propaganda push. I mean, it's very simple. And let's be clear, I'm biased. We don't do live streaming because personally, I believe we are in an on-demand world. That's where we live today. So take your time, create great content, and you can get that content on LinkedIn if that's where you want it to live, whenever you want. But it doesn't have to happen live. Although, LinkedIn wants to make money off of those people who love the live.
Joel Cheesman (43:12.103)
What do you think, Ami? Is it just a dollar play? Is it just a dollar play? Just making money?
Emi Beredugo (43:12.364)
You two are so skeptical.
I just can't believe how skeptical you are. mean, surely LinkedIn is doing this for good reasons, you know? I read this and I'm like, yeah.
Joel Cheesman (43:22.961)
Have you met Chad? Have you met Chad?
Chad Sowash (43:24.689)
It's all about the Benjamins.
Emi Beredugo (43:29.213)
Now I got it. was like, yes, LinkedIn, this makes sense. Absolutely. You don't want crappy, like, you know, on the fly live streams. I mean, no, obviously I'm taking a piss. You know, I agree with you. I immediately looked at this and thought, it's a great PR spin. It sounds good. If you're just glancing at the, you know, the information, then you go, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
When you dig deeper or you just take a step back, you understand that this is all about money. Like you said, there are more eyes on planned events. If there's more eyes on planned events, then there's more opportunity to stream adverts on there. And more of, if you have more adverts on there, you make more money. It makes sense. But obviously they're not going to come out and say it. So we say, which means they come up with this kind of PR shit instead and hope that people actually buy it. Unfortunately for them, they get people like us who go, uh-uh.
No. We can kind of see through all of this. my God. Am I becoming you too? yeah.
Chad Sowash (44:28.975)
wait for the quarterly earnings call. That's when they'll say what they really feel.
Emi Beredugo (44:34.734)
Do you know what I was about to say? It's like, feel like I was less cynical when I started this show and now I'm turning into both of you. Maybe a year and a bit ago, I wouldn't believe them. Yeah. Exactly. It's gone downhill. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (44:42.939)
I'm Joe.
Joel Cheesman (44:46.075)
I mean, your booty comment means you have been hanging around us a little too long.
Chad Sowash (44:49.893)
Yeah
Joel Cheesman (44:54.055)
So I have a little different take, I guess, angle on this. So LinkedIn launched this for individuals in 2019 to live stream. Then they launched it to business pages in 2022. And according to their own data, when they launched this thing, they said 63 % of millennials consistently watch live streams and 39 % of users are more likely to share video content in a live format.
I agree with the money part and I didn't really focus on that, but I think there's, there's, there's an intrinsic, weakness in LinkedIn that other platforms don't have. If I go to tick tock, I can start live streaming right now. There's no scheduling. You just click a button and you're live. I can go to Instagram. Same thing. I think the difference is people go on tick tock and Instagram to let's call it zone out like
Emi Beredugo (45:50.947)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (45:51.206)
not think feed me content. Whereas LinkedIn is much more, I got a job to do. I got to come here. I got to find people. I got to market myself. I got to make sales or network. There's not the sort of, I'm going to go to LinkedIn and zone out. Like that just doesn't happen like it does on Tik TOK. So my guess is they launched this live stream thing and people were like, I don't have time for this live stream shit. I got to like learn something. I got to market something. I got to sell something.
And no one was watching the live streams unless they were really, really titillating. So I think it was partly I'll go with, I'll go with the money, but I do think there's a lot of like, look, this just is not the platform for live streaming. We're not tick tock. We'd love to be, but we're not, we'd love to be Instagram, but we're not. So I think a lot of this was just necessity that live streaming doesn't work as well on LinkedIn. We're on Riverside recording this podcast, which we can actually live stream.
Chad Sowash (46:45.797)
Mm.
Joel Cheesman (46:47.905)
on to LinkedIn, I'm guessing until June when it'll have to close down and we'll have to do it otherwise. But I think it's just a weakness in the platform. You should be able to live stream. You should be able to click a button like, hey, I'm live, I'm at the game, I'm doing whatever. But people don't go to LinkedIn for that purpose. And I think that's an intrinsic weakness in the platform of LinkedIn.
Chad Sowash (46:51.855)
Okay.
Emi Beredugo (46:53.026)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (47:05.553)
Mm-mm.
Emi Beredugo (47:10.51)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (47:11.473)
Great conversation. I have these things come up on our feet and I'm like, that's kind of stupid. They killed live stream, who cares? But it turns out to be a little bit interesting. A little bit interesting. No? Yeah. Sorry, LinkedIn, I didn't mean it.
Emi Beredugo (47:19.209)
Yeah
Yeah, a little bit more cheesy than you thought. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (47:29.804)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (47:33.042)
All right, guys from Business Insider this week, Citi Banker, that's C-I-T-I, banker Jay Collins warns that the rise of AI and robotics poses a threat to capitalism, particularly to the middle class. He suggests implementing a quote, productivity dividend, end quote, as a potential solution which would provide a basic income while encouraging work and risk taking.
Collins emphasizes the need for a bipartisan commission to study the issue and develop recommendations for addressing the challenges posed by AI and robotics. Chad, the article warns of a tragic end for capitalism. Is this business insider clickbait or is the party really over?
Chad Sowash (48:20.177)
I mean, yes and yes, it's always click bait. But at the end of the day, yeah, I mean, we just talked about, you know, 30,000 people being laid off soon from Oracle, right? And we're talking about other tech companies and it's not just the tech industry. So not to mention we don't have job growth happening. So if we have people being laid off and we don't have job growth and those people are not earning, who the fuck's gonna buy shit?
Capitalism is all about people buying stuff, right? And if you don't have money coming in, you can't buy stuff. And if you don't have money coming in, you can't pay for the house that you live under, right? The water, the food, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, mean, there could become a huge issue where government actually has to step in and do a myriad of things, right? It's not just one thing that's gonna stop this.
We have to take a look at first and foremost. It's not just the money that's coming in It's also the taxes that are being paid so we get taxed per person, but these agents aren't getting taxed So who's gonna pave the roads? Who's going to do all the things? Education systems who's going to fund the fire departments and the police officers and etc etc etc right? So this is a societal problem
It's a much larger problem than we can't buy shit. It's literally infrastructure is going to just literally weather an atrophy away. So yes, this could be a problem. Do we have in the US right now a system of government that can actually fix this? No, because they're not doing anything, right? I mean, literally, they're not doing it. They're fighting about everything. So we're hopefully going to have to look toward Europe and the rest of the world.
to be able to start coming up with answers for this. Hopefully in the midterms we'll see a shift and then maybe we'll actually have a government that's more responsible. We'll see. But is this a problem? It's it's sure hell looks like it might be.
Joel Cheesman (50:32.465)
So historically you have these massive shifts in economic theory of communism, socialism, et cetera, when people can't change the system, whether it's a monarch or whatever government that I can't change, that's when the pitchforks come out and people start getting violent and things really change. I don't think that's a fair argument in the US yet.
the midterms are coming. We still vote in this country. We still change elected officials. People still feel like they can have a voice in what's going on. So I'm not, I'm not quite at the end of capitalism team just yet. someone has to show me something better than capitalism, to probably change my mind permanently, but I will tell you as a small business owner, it's tax season in the U S I don't know what tax season is in Europe, but it's tax season in the U S and, and it becomes really evident.
Chad Sowash (51:21.905)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (51:23.758)
Yeah, it's the right thing. Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (51:27.983)
If you own a business in America that America likes business, they like giving you incentives to create businesses. They want you to employ people. They want you to spend money on your business and stimulate the economy. Like that still exists. So until those two things change, I have a hard time accepting that the end of capitalism is near. It's not the perfect system. It's not the best system. It's just better than everything else that currently exists. So,
Chad Sowash (51:54.354)
You're missing the heart. The hard part though is people if they don't have jobs, they can't spend stuff. So even if you are a small business, they can't consume your shit. That's the hard part, right?
Joel Cheesman (52:02.279)
Correct, which is part of the argument and JT and I talked about this last week is entry level jobs. There aren't any entry level jobs. I was telling her when Chad, when our parents grew up, there were like five professions, accountant, doctor, lawyer, teacher, like there weren't a whole lot of things. Today there's so much that you can do. You can learn anything that you want. The world is your oyster. So part of me is getting,
Chad Sowash (52:06.491)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (52:23.427)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (52:30.993)
the, the angry guy get off my lawn. yeah, things are tough for young people, but things have been tough for young people for a long time. I mean, I graduated in a recession. It wasn't awful, but like I survived. had to like, you know, kind of fend for myself, but like things will get better. Things will change. The only, you know, the only constant in the world is that things will change, but there are more things in the world today. That's opportunity. Even if it's driving Uber, selling shit on eBay, get a Spotify shop and sell, you know,
whatever Etsy stuff, like there's so much opportunity to make money in this world. Like I'm getting, I'm kind of over the whole woe is us. We, you know, like we can't afford life. Like there's so much out there. You just got to go grab it. And sorry to be the angry guy, old guy, but you have a lot more opportunity than I ever did. And thank God the internet came along in my twenties because that opened up a whole book of opportunity, whether it was SEO, blogging,
mobile stuff, like none of that stuff existed when I was in high school. You guys have all that. think you just, I'm sick of the, I'm sick of the woe is us story with pretty on the entry level jobs side of things.
Chad Sowash (53:42.235)
That is a get off my lawn story. Go ahead, Emmy.
Joel Cheesman (53:43.527)
Yeah, it is a good off my line. This is a definite, definite moment.
Emi Beredugo (53:44.095)
Yeah
Joel Cheesman (53:52.087)
Emmy, your take.
Emi Beredugo (53:54.807)
What is my take? I tell you, I kind of went back and forth on this, I'll be honest. And it was interesting listening to you because, both of you, because you kind of have obviously opposing views and this is what went through in my mind as well. So when I first read the article, thought about the article, thought, you know, I was like, yeah, you know, this is going to happen. You know, if as AI becomes more embedded into an organisation, as it starts automating more jobs, as it starts
taking over the task of humans, you're going to lead less humans in the workplace. And if you lead less humans in the workplace, I imagine that wages, even if they do hire, wages will start to decline as well. So that was my original thought. And then I thought about it a little bit more. And I just thought about, yes, the world is changing. The world has changed in the past as well. And the world continues to change with every
major technological shift. So I'm talking about, if you go way back, steam engines, you know, then go a little bit further in time, PC, then the internet came out. So with every new major technological shift, the, I suppose the fear was that that was going to create permanent mass unemployment, but that didn't necessarily happen in many cases. In some cases, what it did is actually create more complex, higher paying jobs.
which is what a lot of people are saying with AI now. It's like, yes, okay, some of the roles are going to go, but new roles are going to come out of it. New roles that don't even exist today, which are going to be there in five years time, which we can't even imagine. So if those new roles are coming up, people can move into those professions. So then people aren't going to be as impacted as we thought by AI coming on board. And like you said, Joel, you said that people have way more opportunities now.
in five, in a year, two years, three years time, they probably will have new opportunities. It's just that we don't know what the opportunities are just as yet.
Joel Cheesman (55:59.078)
mean, look, these 30,000 people that got axed from Oracle, a certain percentage of them will vibe code a startup and throw some shit at the wall and some of it will stick and that will create new companies. The war in Iran says we need more non fossil fuel energy sources. That's going to create more businesses around that. Like my only point is the world changes opportunity. Like you just need to be quick on the feet, have a, have a, have the smarts to survive it.
Emi Beredugo (56:01.903)
Yeah.
Joel Cheesman (56:29.223)
We're gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay everybody. We're gonna be okay.
Emi Beredugo (56:29.378)
Be open, yeah.
Chad Sowash (56:33.039)
Yeah, I to be the downer. First and foremost, never has it has all industries been impacted by a technology like this has. You talk about steam engines. That's one that's one tiny piece. And instead of blacksmiths, they became mechanics. Right. So there was a there was a shift and it was it was. But that was one industry. This is across all industries. And not only is it happening across all industries, it's happening faster than it's ever happened ever.
Emi Beredugo (56:34.86)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (57:02.949)
When the internet came, what that did was actually provided scale for businesses to do business more and throughout more areas. Right. So that was that was an amplifier. That was that that didn't take away many jobs that actually amplified many jobs. Right. It changed them. This to me, unless it starts to happen quickly and we start to know what those fucking jobs are, how are we going to train for those jobs? Yes. I mean, that's the problem.
Emi Beredugo (57:29.89)
That's it.
Chad Sowash (57:32.685)
Everybody's treating this like it's the same as it always has ever been. It's not the same as it always has been. It's not. It's happening across the board. It's happening faster. And we're not fucking prepared.
Emi Beredugo (57:38.669)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (57:44.973)
I think that's the major thing. Yeah, it's the fact that we're not prepared. You know, people are just waiting for the new jobs to emerge. I know you can't wait. You have to evaluate your organization now. You still need to start looking in the future. You need to start looking at where your gaps are and then thinking how you can actually train up your internal employees to develop these skills somehow, even though no one in the organization may already may have those skills.
Chad Sowash (58:08.539)
Fucking Sam Altman or none of these guys who are actually the ones who were the, you know, geniuses behind it. They have no fucking clue. They have no clue. So who has a clue? That's the question. And if we don't know, then that is scary shit. if. Go. There it is. Thank God.
Joel Cheesman (58:22.599)
which is a great segue, Chad, because Melania Trump is here to save us. And kids, if you've been with us this long, it's gonna pay off because we've got a Trump story. It's sure to set Chad off even more so than the last show has at this point. Let's take a quick breather and we'll be right back.
Emi Beredugo (58:31.054)
Thank you.
Chad Sowash (58:36.721)
Jesus.
Joel Cheesman (58:46.631)
All right, kids, first lady Melania Trump introduced a humanoid robot at the Fostering the Future Together Global Summit. Must have been before the Board of Peace meeting. Anyway, envisioning a future where robots like Plato serve as educators. The event highlighted the potential of AI and technology in education, aligning with the Trump administration's support for tech-driven educational innovation and criticism of traditional public education.
Let's just hope they don't think that AI is a steak sauce. Chad, is this the end of education as we know it?
Chad Sowash (59:24.401)
They're going to have charter schools next that just have these things and they're, know, boarding schools and there's going to be, it's all pay to play kids. I mean, that's all where this is going. It's all going to pay to play. There was a study, I'm definitely going to have to look it up and share it, but there's a study that actually showed how kids learned.
in a remote environment, they didn't actually have the human touch, right? They didn't have the teachers there and how that was impacted versus actually in class, in classroom with other peers around them and then also with teachers and whatnot. There's a human, we are human, humanity matters. And when you start taking humanity out of things, especially from a learning standpoint,
We're getting closer to the days of idiocracy. And if you haven't seen the movie kids go watch the movie at an idiocracy. We're getting closer to the days of idiocracy than we ever have been. And we all thought it was a fucking joke. This is a fucking joke.
Joel Cheesman (01:00:33.873)
Make sure you watch Beast Games before you watch Idiocracy, right? Right, So my oldest kid is studying education. And every time I hang out with him, I say like, so what do you learn in school? What are you doing? What's going on? And most recently, he talked about an exercise that they did where they did role play. So the role play was one student played a role as, let's say, disgruntled parent.
Emi Beredugo (01:00:36.238)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (01:00:36.643)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (01:00:45.437)
yeah.
Joel Cheesman (01:01:03.271)
unplugged parent, angry, sad, whatever, like all these human emotions, right? So part of the education was how to deal with parents and, kids that are angry or sad or depressed, whatever. And that that's a human skill. And I think, could you imagine the Melania bot Plato trying to comfort an angry parent in this scenario? Like it's not happening.
Chad Sowash (01:01:08.827)
Helicopter Parrot.
Joel Cheesman (01:01:32.167)
There's that there's no world where a parent goes and says you suck as a teacher and the robot says fuck you or something like I don't know what it is, but like that just doesn't happen now on the other hand. I I do think that teachers will be augmented. I think there's a room for bringing in Albert Einstein to talk about relativity in a way that a teacher can't. I think you can enhance learning in a way that you can't with technology and I do think there are probably
Chad Sowash (01:01:32.795)
See you PO.
Joel Cheesman (01:02:02.481)
horror school districts. If you're in Europe, this is a alien concept to you, but in America, the richer you are, the better education you typically get in public education. there's a whole level of kids that have shitty educations and shitty teachers, and it's just a bad situation. If robotics can help those kids get a better education, like there is some balance there, but at large,
Emi Beredugo (01:02:13.314)
Same here.
Joel Cheesman (01:02:31.023)
Humans are not going to take over the classroom because there's still that human element that you just can't roboticize in my opinion.
Chad Sowash (01:02:36.689)
about.
Emi Beredugo (01:02:41.614)
I hope it doesn't happen. Again, I try to look at both sides because I know what I'm like when I read or hear anything to do with Trump. immediately go, no. So I don't care whether it's actually Donald Trump himself or Melania. Kind of like Tom with the same brush. But I try to look at it from her point of view. And some of the things, Joel, you said was you talked about education can be sometimes linked to your socioeconomic background.
It does happen here as well. I was fortunate enough to go to school in the area that was well off. so the education, whilst I didn't have to pay for my education or my parents didn't have to, I got a great education. However, I didn't actually live in the area where the school was. So a couple of years after I went, if I had to try to apply, I wouldn't have gotten into that school. I would have had to go to a school which wasn't as good.
And to be honest, going to that school is what set me up for later life. And from there, they pushed me to go to a great university. So I can see the benefit of having this kind of Plato humanoid robot, you know, coming in, democratizing education. It means that you don't have to have a teacher going to a top tier because you know, those top tier teachers that go to top tier universities are more likely to teach in a top tier school.
By having a robot in your school like this Plato, it might help to democratise it. It might help to give everybody a more elite level education. It may help to when school classes are oversubscribed. They've got too many kids. The teachers can't get around to all the kids at the same time. Having a robot almost like as a teaching assistant may help with that. So it helps to bring everybody to the same level. So I was trying to see it from her point of view, like I said. But in general, I agree with a lot that you said, Chad.
Joel Cheesman (01:04:24.709)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (01:04:35.148)
You know, don't think, you know, this kind of teaching is not just about downloading facts, memorizing facts, is what I call almost like the hidden curriculum. You know, it's those social skills you learn, you know, how to resolve a conflict with your friends in a playground, how to read a room, for example, how to handle a bully, you know, those kind of like kind of social skills. A teacher can help with that.
But by having a teacher who's fully a robot, you're basically doing like an RPO for parenting or RPO for teaching, know, defaulting to someone who's not real, who's not a human to teach skills that a robot doesn't have, which I personally think it's ridiculous. But I also think beyond that kind of RPO effect, you get organizations who or schools or agencies that recruit teachers are going to have a bit of a nightmare as well.
Joel Cheesman (01:05:12.839)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (01:05:13.082)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (01:05:33.592)
when it comes to assessing. Because if you're just having robots teaching your children, what are you going to assess the teachers for? You know, the human teachers. You know, because their job is no longer teaching, for example, maths, their job will be to manage a fleet of plateaus. So the skill set that you're assessing for is completely different. You're not assessing really for behavioural competencies like empathy or ethical judgment or complex problem solving. You won't need that anymore.
So that's no longer going to be a differentiator in the future. So what is the skill set? What is the behaviour competencies that a teacher of the future will need if Melania gets away with this robot?
Joel Cheesman (01:06:03.163)
Mm-hmm.
Joel Cheesman (01:06:13.201)
Guys, you know what will never get automated? The dad jokes on this show. This week's dad joke is sponsored by Jeremy Cheeseman, who turned nine years old this week. Nine years old. Happy birthday, Jeremy. All right, here we go. What do you call a moose with no name? What do you call a moose with no name?
Emi Beredugo (01:06:15.734)
You
Chad Sowash (01:06:16.731)
The dad joke.
Chad Sowash (01:06:21.499)
Jeremy.
Emi Beredugo (01:06:24.504)
Happy birthday!
Emi Beredugo (01:06:36.374)
un-moose, no-moose, no.
Joel Cheesman (01:06:38.67)
Anonymous.
Chad Sowash (01:06:40.433)
that's good. That's good. We out.
Joel Cheesman (01:06:44.217)
Emi still confused. We out!