OpenAI Launches Job Platform, Takes Aim at LinkedIn

In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, with Chad Sowash sipping ouzo on a Greek beach, Joel Cheesman and guest J.T. O’Donnell dish out spicy takes on the workforce with their trademark snark.

They kick off with a riff on empathy—or lack thereof—in today’s rage-fueled world, joking that community resilience is basically folks bonding over Wi-Fi outages.

Corporate layoffs get a roasting, with job security shakier than a Jenga tower at a frat party, and fractional employment pitched as the future for those who love working three jobs to afford one coffee.

OpenAI’s shiny new job platform sparks eye-rolls, as they dunk on job boards so outdated they might as well be faxing resumes. AI’s role in job matching gets a nod, though they quip it’s less “perfect match” and more “swipe left on bad fits.”

Labor market woes are dissected, with job seekers facing hurdles higher than a toddler’s tantrum, and generational gripes about work sound like Boomers and Zoomers arguing over who gets the last slice of avocado toast. Economic data? They trust it about as much as a used car salesman’s handshake.

Indeed and LinkedIn’s AI tools get a playful cage match comparison, while Shaker and Radancy’s acquisition drama is served with a side of corporate soap opera. They wrap up cackling about autonomous vehicles, wondering if truck drivers will soon be replaced by robots who honk worse than your uncle at a tailgate. 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:28.216)

Aww.

Joel Cheesman (00:33.061)

Yeah, you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have it. It's the Chad and cheese podcast, everybody. I'm your cohost Joel. May you live an interesting times. Cheeseman.

JT ODonnell (00:43.628)

And I am JT, the future is Fractional O'Donnell.

Joel Cheesman (00:47.565)

And on this episode of HR is most dangerous podcast time to open AI can a whoop ass on LinkedIn. Indeed drops the bots on me, baby. And who'd you rather let's do this.

Joel Cheesman (01:04.687)

What's up, JT? It's, it's a Chadless episode. We're Chadless. We're Chadless. No Chad's. my God. The summer of Chad marches on. he's in Greece, partying at the Parthenon or some other club, that he's, he's at eating, eating much better food, much better food than us. unfortunately for him is his summer of Chad is coming to an end soon. He's going to be headed back.

JT ODonnell (01:06.488)

You know, just live in the dream in the good and peaceful times that we live in.

I know what he's in Greece, right? Are we going to show that picture? Are we?

JT ODonnell (01:25.07)

those pictures in the WhatsApp.

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (01:34.757)

to the US for a rec fast and other things. But yeah, Chad, Chad is living his best life, but I am super happy to have you here. Fortunately, the world is at a place of peace and calm. As we're as we're meeting, let me run down a quick, a quick list of the headlines, right? So we have we have assassination of Charlie Cook, we have a stabbing on on a train, have drones and drones in Poland being launched by Russia, apparently.

JT ODonnell (01:40.558)

Yes. Thank you.

It's amazing. It's just so great.

Joel Cheesman (02:02.661)

Apple's launching a new phone. The France is melting down. There's military parades by dictators in China. It's we're recording on September 11th. What are the headlines? are you, are you most interested in JT? What's you got? What's got you up at night? What's of interest of what's going on in the world.

JT ODonnell (02:20.622)

I mean, obviously in my world that the jobs reports I have four words for everybody out there and you know, you know Please Please All right, I'll save it. I'll save it. No. No, think for me. It's just a general like There's everybody is just a wounded bird. You know, mean like nobody has empathy for anybody anymore Everybody discounts everybody else's pain it I don't know

Joel Cheesman (02:26.915)

You can't jump to the topic. got it. We're going, we're going macro. We're going macro unless you're so deep in your, in, in employment.

Joel Cheesman (02:49.367)

It's rage. It's rage, right? Rage has replaced empathy.

JT ODonnell (02:52.026)

It's insane though. That's fair. Like the anger lacks of, but it is insane. The level of people that I don't care that you're in pain because I'm in pain. You know what I mean? It's bad. I don't know how people don't see it. And you and I were talking before the show, you know, when was it this bad before in our lifetimes? And I'm, I just don't recall it being this bad. And you know, had to be before my lifetime because this one's the worst I've

Joel Cheesman (03:01.871)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (03:14.425)

Yeah, I think you'd have to go to the, you have to go to the sixties. would guess, Vietnam, MLK, JFK, RFK, Malcolm X, Nixon, Watergate, like, but I think this is, this feels worse, maybe just cause we're in the moment, but, yeah, this is bad. This is bad. But for me, it's, it's the day it's, it's the dictators that like,

JT ODonnell (03:23.65)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JT ODonnell (03:29.187)

this

JT ODonnell (03:33.666)

Yeah, it's tough.

Joel Cheesman (03:40.053)

When India, China, Russia, and North Korea and 20ish other governments get together, that should send a chill down everyone's spine. Then shortly after that, Russian drones start probing into Poland to see. It's clearly Putin saying, what's NATO going to do if my drone show up in a NATO country?

By the way, the four top energy producers in the world are us, China, Russia, and India. And people forget that the Germans lost in large part because I mean, they just more of their people got killed, but they ran out of gas. The moment the tanks stopped rolling and the U-boats stopped, you know, doing their thing, they lost the war. So energy, think energy is incredible. Like I'm getting really meta. I'm getting in the weeds here, but

JT ODonnell (04:30.136)

Cut the supply.

JT ODonnell (04:35.842)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (04:36.094)

That is historically scary shit, what we saw in China in my mind.

JT ODonnell (04:41.698)

So you're saying that that makes everything in the recruiting and HR world parallel in comparison. Switch your tone.

Joel Cheesman (04:46.733)

Well, apparently there's, there's this, there's aliens coming to like aliens are like, there's apparently a comet that's a spaceship coming to earth. Some guy was in front of Congress this week. Like it's, cats and dogs living together at this point. I.

JT ODonnell (05:01.23)

So we should just all have a good time at this point. It's burning. Just let's just go out and party. Yeah. Like let's just go. I mean, it is season. It is our season. It is our conference season. So what you're telling me is to have an extra good time at the upcoming conferences.

Joel Cheesman (05:03.843)

We should have a good time and talk about the employment industry.

Joel Cheesman (05:11.717)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (05:17.157)

Don't be a wet blanket, JT. think don't be a wet blanket. Party like it's 1999. Give an ode to Prince. uh, geez, geez. Uh, what do you say we get to some shout outs?

JT ODonnell (05:23.246)

I'm with ya! I'm with ya!

JT ODonnell (05:31.606)

It is, it is. I've got two, a good and a bad. Which one am I starting with first? And then we'll come back to the other one. Okay.

Joel Cheesman (05:36.268)

you better go good based on the world demise that we just discussed in the banter. Bring us back.

JT ODonnell (05:40.271)

All right. Let me boost everybody up after, after Joel's ending of the world. so my shout out is to Tim Sackett because I listened to the podcast this week where you and Chad interviewed him and it's my favorite of the year. No disrespect to everybody else that has been on the shows, but, I just found myself like out loud, you know, in my, in my house going, yes, yes. As he was talking about things, there's just something about his delivery style, which is the right amount of energy.

Joel Cheesman (05:52.175)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (05:57.221)

course.

Joel Cheesman (06:09.231)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (06:09.538)

but it's not over the top. think you use the word manicured. It just hits right in. I just think he's got a pulse on it more so than anyone I've ever seen, or maybe it was just better articulated than I've heard to date. So Tim, you rock.

Joel Cheesman (06:23.781)

Tim's been doing this for a while also. So he is manicured. think that was the term that I used, which I don't just throw around without any thought. yeah, Tim is a good interview. And I told you also, I interviewed him a year ago at RecFest, I think just us, and that's a good interview as well. And he's done some, he was guest.

JT ODonnell (06:25.986)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (06:29.484)

Yeah, it's a compliment.

JT ODonnell (06:44.332)

Yeah, take a listen, people.

Joel Cheesman (06:48.709)

He was a guest on the show for a long time. He did, he did predictions with us. So we have a lot of Tim Sackett content. Um, if you're, if you're feeling particularly. Sackettish and you want to get some more of that. Uh, I'm going to bring us down a little bit, uh, for my shout out. Sorry. Uh, yeah, it's just the mood of the nation right now. Um, my shot, goes to Beth Finbo. And speaking of interviews that we've done in the past, we interviewed Beth, uh, who's a small business owner. We brought her on when the tariffs were hitting, she was doing.

JT ODonnell (07:03.15)

Shocker, shocker.

Joel Cheesman (07:18.469)

big networks and we got her on the show, which is great. But when, China was hat, when we were throwing 145 % tariffs on China and 30, and just like, was every day, seemed to change her business was suffering. And I think that we forget about the small business, which is 80 to 90 % of businesses in America are small businesses. You know, the, big companies of the world can sort of have a cushion against some of these things, but small businesses don't. anyway,

I encourage you to go back and listen to her story, but she sent an email out this week, sort of updating everyone on her, I guess, progress. So she did a GoFundMe, which had 600 donors to enable her to pay a $35,000 tariff bill. She was able to get product to keep the business running, but she cashed in her retirement to stay afloat.

Her brother, was a partner with her, worked at the company, had to leave the company. Obviously sales have been dropping because of rising costs and just the world in general is sort of struggling. The word recession is being thrown around. Target was pushing her stuff, selling her stuff. She was dropped from Target. Walmart, which was a huge deal for her to sell her baby items, cut her

cut her real estate 50%. And of course she continues to have uncertainty. And you know, when, when, when the road is foggy, people just kind of stop driving all together. And I think that's what we're seeing a lot in the economy. So Beth Finbo, God bless you. American entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in general are some of the strongest, most resilient people on the planet and her resiliency is being tested. So, my thoughts go out to her and hope that she can weather the storm.

and stay afloat at her business.

JT ODonnell (09:14.732)

Hmm. I wish you're the same. It's really hard right now. We're seeing it across the board, like you said, and it's truly a test. It's truly a test. So my second shout out is also like on the downside. It's Mark Benioff over at Salesforce who for years, the term was Ohana family at the company was on a podcast recently saying that he was able to cut and I quote 4,000 heads as a way to use AI, not humans.

Not, wasn't able to, I, not, cut forth as in family. I cut heads. Yep. And, I understand, I understand why we're doing it. think you and I were talking about this. I mean, the general feedback I get from CEOs and executives is we're exhausted and we're done with people. They're unpredictable. They complain, they're expensive, they're unreliable. And now I've got this thing that I can put in place that doesn't talk back. And if you think about it, folks, we'd all love to put something in place that doesn't talk back. Right? Like that's just human nature.

Joel Cheesman (09:48.025)

Yeah, he cut a lot. He cut a lot.

Joel Cheesman (10:01.103)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (10:13.784)

to think that they wouldn't think that way too. So I get it. I get the sentiment that's out there, but it is pervasive based on what I've seen. And so, you know, I paint that as a stern warning for folks that, you know, there is no such thing as job security anymore, please. And there's not a full-time job with benefits long-term. You just need to understand that when you're seeing things like that in the media and everybody goes, it'll swing back. I don't think it's going to. I know we're going to talk about that later. I don't think it's going to. think we are literally in a massive tipping point when it comes to work as we know it.

Joel Cheesman (10:44.133)

Well, thank God we have the Matthew McConaughey and the Woody Harrelson ads to distract us from the people that are losing their, their livelihoods at Salesforce. And I think you and I maybe disagree on this, but you know, I talked about the tariffs. I think a lot of the big companies in the world, now software is a bit different, but let's talk about the Walmarts of the world, et cetera. I think, I think that they are largely holding their nose and eating as much of the cost as a company.

JT ODonnell (10:53.176)

Seriously.

Joel Cheesman (11:13.465)

But part of that is layoffs mean the money we would be paying someone now we're paying the government in a tax called a tariff. So I do think that tariffs are part of the problem, not just people are paying in the ass. They can both be true at the same time. You have a little bit of a differing opinion, I think.

JT ODonnell (11:19.694)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (11:31.439)

Yeah, I mean, I think you turned me on the sense that it definitely could be a tipping point in terms of or a reason to validate it. I just don't think that, as you pointed out, applies for all businesses. We're seeing enough. It's multifactor, maybe the trifecta, right? Oh, there's a tariff. Oh, we can use AI and also, oh, let's do return to office so we don't have to pay for layoffs. There's just a lot of perfect storm stuff happening. For me, the overall feedback is companies as a whole do not want to have as many humans.

Joel Cheesman (11:36.697)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (12:00.822)

It's you can be more agile with a smaller business, right? There's less decision makers. I think we are moving towards a world of fractional work where four or five core people run a business and they pull people in as they need to and they release them. And that's how it works. And I think that for me is the big shift that millions of Americans, let alone globally are going to have to their heads around. You know, there was a time where you didn't have full-time jobs. Like if we all woke up tomorrow and they're gone, full-time jobs gone forever. Can't get another one.

Joel Cheesman (12:05.625)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (12:19.386)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (12:29.25)

What would you do? You'd go back in history. You know, my family were tanners. They tanned hides, you know. But I think a second Renaissance era is coming. And I want to put a stake in the ground in this. I actually see a light that is we're going to force people to look at their hobbies and their interests and the things that they nerd out and care about. And there's going to be this huge economy that nobody's talking about that's all digitally run, right? That is going to feed itself. And there's going to be a whole new crop jobs and a whole bunch of ways for you to use your brain, monetize your mind.

Joel Cheesman (12:48.431)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (12:56.47)

and do more important and exciting work. So when they sit there and tell you, got rid of the mundane jobs, that is a good thing. We don't want to be doing mundane jobs. Let the AI do it. We're just in this weird moment where the Renaissance era hasn't fully kicked in and people don't understand how to tap into that second Renaissance era yet. But when it hits, I just think we're going to see amazing things. It's just not happening today.

Joel Cheesman (13:16.143)

So we'll replace tanners with what? TikTok influencers? that the digital renaissance?

JT ODonnell (13:20.446)

Underwater basket weavers. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think you can teach yourself anything. I was telling the story of the kid that's he's making bank showing everybody. I was power washing walkways. You know, he's doing videos showing people how much money he's making and then he's monetizing the next generation doesn't believe in full-time jobs. They don't believe they don't want them. So why wouldn't we move to a fully independent model where we're all businesses of one and living our best lives based on the things that we nerd out on? I love that idea for us. So I'm going to cling to that.

Joel Cheesman (13:48.847)

Did digital digital serfdom. I'm here for it. Winter, winter's off. If we're not, if we're not digit. Yeah, that's gonna, that's gonna catch on. Did you see your tanners? That's interesting. Do you know, do you know where the term piss poor comes from? really? So talking about the Renaissance middle ages. So in the old days when they would tan and leather works, whatever, urine apparently.

JT ODonnell (13:51.631)

That's it. All right. I don't let you coin that. Digital serfdom. T-shirt.

JT ODonnell (14:04.632)

No.

Joel Cheesman (14:16.269)

If you put urine on a tan or a hide, it will dissolve all the stuff that you don't want on a leather piece or whatever. So poor families would have a pot and they would all piss in it. And then they would sell the P to the tanners or the leather makers and they would make money on their P. So piss poor meant you're so poor that you have to pee in a pot and then sell that to Leatherworks.

JT ODonnell (14:44.408)

We did not even rehearse that. You're bringing this knowledge bomb out of nowhere. See, this is what I mean about the Renaissance era. You're gonna monetize off of random pieces of knowledge. It's gonna be great.

Joel Cheesman (14:53.443)

Well, so piss poor, but then you had so pot, you don't have a pot to piss in. So that's really poor. Like you can't even afford the pot to pee in to then sell the P to, to businesses. So yeah, there's, there's your history. There's your history lesson piss poor and not a pot to piss in all, all worthless, worthless knowledge. you know, what's not worthless though, JT is free stuff.

JT ODonnell (15:00.512)

So poor you don't have a pot to piss in.

JT ODonnell (15:07.584)

I I think this podcast is done now. There's this.

JT ODonnell (15:15.968)

all because of my ancestors.

Joel Cheesman (15:25.669)

Tell the listeners what they can get if they head out to ChadCheese.com slash free.

JT ODonnell (15:25.902)

Who doesn't like free stuff?

JT ODonnell (15:31.99)

cheese.com slash free. Let's start with a little Van Hac whiskey. Who doesn't at this point, based on the first five minutes of this show today, you want to be doing shots. So why wouldn't you want, right? next up though, like if, if that's a little too harsh for you and you're a little more subdued, you're going to go with a little Aspen tech labs beer, which by the way, shout out to Tim Deneen who just landed over at Aspen tech, which is fantastic. So cheers to him. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (15:39.577)

Yeah, our friends up north always take and take care of us.

Joel Cheesman (15:53.471)

Okay. Let's, let's go there. Let's go there real quick. It wasn't on our topics, but let's go there. So, so Tim, I don't know how well you know, Tim, he's in your neck of the woods, I think. So that New England area. so, know, so, so maybe there may not be one per one singular person more responsible for indeed success than Tim Deneen. Tim Deneen was the force of SEO, back in the mid aughts at indeed and

JT ODonnell (16:05.25)

He is, I do know him, great guy, smart guy.

Joel Cheesman (16:23.109)

When you think about, indeed free traffic, the SEO that they leverage that can all be traced back to Tim. So Tim did that. I'm sure cashed out, started recruitix has left there and he's ended up at Aspen tech labs, which, which is kind of a weird fit. What's, what are your thoughts on why he would land in Aspen tech labs?

JT ODonnell (16:44.728)

I've had conversations with him recently and all I'm going to say is that Tim's brain is always just ahead of the curve. Just he, right. You don't have the track record. He has, if you don't see it, I'm not going to say anything more than that. I think Aspen tech labs knows they have just, hired a ringer.

Joel Cheesman (16:50.415)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (17:00.065)

Okay. I will talk about the employment data and Aspen tech labs is on the forefront of private sort of data on that. And I think Tim is coming in. Tim sees the opportunity with employment data and the value there. We saw link up get sold recently. Toby Dade is a good friend of that, but if you have this data and it's good data, it's incredibly valuable. So I think Tim is going to come in.

and rock that out. But yeah, I'm glad I'm glad you mentioned Tim, I was gonna add it to the thing. So shout out to Tim as well back back to free stuff. Sorry, back to free stuff.

JT ODonnell (17:26.762)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Back to it, back to it. All right, so if you decide that booze isn't your thing, it's okay because we're gonna get some sweet t-shirts, by the way. Worn it, it's so comfy from Erin. It's fantastic. And last but not least, if it's your birthday, if this is your birthday month.

Joel Cheesman (17:51.511)

Again, that's chatcheese.com backslash free everybody run with plum. All right guys. celebrating another trip around the sun, is Alicia Buchler, Lucas Roscoe, Katie Gentry, John T hand, Kevin Lowe, Laura Martinelli, Nico Slavatus, Paul Norman, and Matt Adam. Happy, happy birthday everybody. And, as you know, we always, we always are traveling, traveling people.

JT ODonnell (17:53.07)

I run with plum. Do I even need to say more? Run with plum. Go get them folks.

JT ODonnell (18:13.24)

Happy birthday.

Joel Cheesman (18:20.037)

Uh, this time of year falls cranking up. I will remind everyone that Chad and I will not be at HR tech this year. Uh, we're getting a lot of messages. I'm sure both of us about meeting up at HR tech. We will not be there because Chad's in Greece, uh, working on his, his, uh, his tan. So won't be there. We will be at rec fast in Nashville, uh, with bells on. And I will also be a solo at, uh, ERE coming up in San Diego.

You know what they say about San Diego and I will be on stage with monster co-founder or sorry, monster founder. Everything's co-founded out monster founder, Jeff Taylor, who's launching a new startup and has a wealth of knowledge and historical, no know how, that we will tap into at ERE. make sure you head out to ere.net if to, to get your tickets. think there, there's some discounts and whatnot out there, but we will be.

JT ODonnell (18:49.42)

Wales vagina.

Joel Cheesman (19:14.465)

Traveling extensively. think, we see you in Nashville? Okay.

JT ODonnell (19:17.812)

You are not seeing me in Nashville. I've had to switch gears, but I'm also going to San Diego, which by the way, I just did a Ron Burgundy reference in case anybody mentions. I can't believe you didn't catch that. But I'll be at Talent Connect, which is also in San Diego. So it's going to be, it's going to be a good season.

Joel Cheesman (19:32.973)

Okay. And when's Talent Connect?

JT ODonnell (19:35.662)

of the week of October 19th, 20th, 21st. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (19:39.941)

Okay. Always a good time to go to San Diego. Never a bad time.

JT ODonnell (19:42.862)

It is.

Joel Cheesman (19:46.351)

But if you're playing fantasy football with Chad and cheese sponsored by friends at fact, you fricks, there's only one time of the year that you can do that. And that is football season. So week one is in the books. Here's our first to worst in week one of our fantasy football competition head of the list. We got Courtney Nappo followed by Will Carrington, Mackenzie Maitland, Jason Putnam, David Stiefel last year's winner followed by yours truly right here on the screen, Steven McGrath.

comes in after me. He's the, he's the Scott that we all, we all love so very much. And followed by Steven is Megan Rattigan, Jada Weiler, Ginger Dodds, Chad Sowash, and the caboose. The last man standing this week goes to Jeremy Roberts. Again, that's fantasy football with our friends at factory fix. Should we get some topics? There's a few things I think that we can talk about this week.

JT ODonnell (20:42.37)

Yeah.

You sure?

Joel Cheesman (20:48.701)

What could we possibly lead off? is in the news? Well, really everything, but for our audience, OpenAI is launching the OpenAI jobs platform. They got really creative with the name. This is coming in 2026. The aim is to connect AI savvy candidates with employers. The platform will feature AI powered tools for both candidates and employers.

JT ODonnell (20:56.588)

What?

JT ODonnell (21:02.35)

Bye.

Joel Cheesman (21:13.165)

And we will be developed in collaboration with various companies and organizations. Open AI is also introducing open AI certifications, covering topics from basing basic AI use to advanced prompt engineering to help users improve their AI skills. Open AI is getting into the business of jobs. JT what's your take?

JT ODonnell (21:21.272)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (21:35.639)

I'm not shocked, obviously. It totally makes sense. We've only been talking about this for what, over a year? AI talking to AI and it makes a of sense. I think I get more excited about the AI fluency stuff because the job seekers that I'm talking to are saying, what should I study? What do I need to know? How does it apply to my industry? And so to have a platform that can say, all right, based on your skillset and what you're putting into this and what you're telling us.

Joel Cheesman (21:42.469)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (22:03.478)

this is the type of AI fluency you need and hey, here's where you can go get it. That excites me a lot. I'll be interested to see how we then validate that AI fluency, right? And make sure that, you know, they went through something and they truly are capable versus, you know, checking a couple boxes. So I do want to better understand how they're claiming that they're going to help people with the AI fluency, validate that credential and work that into that. But overall, this is just the natural next step. Job boards die.

Joel Cheesman (22:12.453)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (22:32.258)

because we don't need unsolicited resumes from people who aren't qualified. The big thing for me, when you think about large language models and garbage in, garbage out, mean, all of this comes down to how good and accurate is the information that the job seekers put in about themselves and that we gather about them, right? And how accurate the information about the job itself is. So, you know, I'm curious. I want to see what they do to improve upon that.

Joel Cheesman (22:57.474)

Okay.

Joel Cheesman (23:01.893)

I'm going to have a get off my lawn moment here for a second. People that I respect in the industry have both come out in favor of this and not so favorable. I'm just going to break it down historically for the kids out there. I'm going to take you back to June of 2006. June of 2006, MySpace ruled the world, if you remember MySpace. MySpace announced a partnership

JT ODonnell (23:02.36)

Second one today.

Joel Cheesman (23:31.683)

With a vertical search engine called simply hired back in 2006, simply hired is now owned by indeed. but at the time they were a competitor with indeed. And I can tell you that 75 million users on my space meant that if someone got the jobs, real estate on my space meant that you were going to crush it. Okay. This was when, monster and crew builder.

were bench pressing, you know, 850 pounds, but still they were nothing compared to the traffic that my space was getting. So my space simply hired, it's going to be huge. Okay. After that Google base launched Google base was basically Google's Craigslist, solution, which got killed with spam and they shut it down. Simply hired then became the, the, the filler jobs on LinkedIn.

And at the time we thought, man, they got my space and they got LinkedIn. They're going to be huge. Simply hired as the future of jobs. And then you had hot jobs, which some people remember and Cribbler the newspaper relationships. And they're like, my God, think about all the newspapers in the world. They're going to drive all the traffic. They're going to like totally rule, rule this whole thing. And then Facebook became a thing.

JT ODonnell (24:37.013)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (24:51.135)

And you had a company called branch out and monster launched something called be known because every job you're going to get was somewhat, knew somebody. So if you could build the platform on Facebook, which was the hottest thing that all the kids were using, then you were going to rule the employment landscape. Well, Facebook switched around their algorithm. didn't like branch out, went out of business, be known, got shuttered. Fast forward a little bit. Google for jobs launches. Okay. This is their second attempt at a jobs solution.

Now, fortunately that has worked out. learned a little bit from Google base and that is sort of catching on. had Facebook launch jobs and everyone thought, holy shit, a billion people using Facebook. They're going to search for jobs like game over. And most recently I would say is Twitter with Elon coming online and saying, LinkedIn is cringy. Our new jobs thing is going to be awesome. They actually acquired a jobs solution. And now 20 years later, open AI.

Is going to crush it and destroy LinkedIn and destroy indeed. Well, call me cynical, call me old, get off my lawn. But for my money, this is going to be a non-topic a year from now. The jobs board, this space is so hard. I don't think anyone realizes the nuance that you have to deal with with jobs. People get into it they go, shit, this is a pain in the ass. And they get out and that's what's going to happen probably here. Now I will say.

I do think you're looking at me. I'll give you some face time here. I do think from a macro level, and we talked about Chrome and Google last week and Google basically getting to keep Chrome. I do think that your browser or whatever your interface is with the internet will be agent powered. You will have an agent on Chrome. You will have an agent on whatever Johnny Ive and OpenAI are working on. You will have an agent on your browser for

JT ODonnell (26:24.034)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (26:49.071)

travel, travel, plans. will have like search real estate stuff. Let me know what kind of car and jobs will be part of that. And you'll have an agent on your browser that will constantly look at jobs, things that are fit interview for you, alert you like, Hey, this company's interested, et cetera. So I do think on a macro level, open AI and Gemini and all that will have a component in job searching, but just to have a vertical on jobs, I think is a, is a stupid thing for open AI to do.

JT ODonnell (27:19.662)

Okay, well, first of all, yes, you are cynical. No, you are not old, Joel. But this idea that I think maybe the media made it sound like, you know, OpenAI is gonna decimate LinkedIn. That's not how I took it at all, right? And I think your ending note there, which is they'll have a place in it. I agree. Two things that stand out for me. One is that everybody out there is looking for a new name. And right now what OpenAI has done is the whole world understands that...

AI has come about and is learning from them. So as much as they've been around, they're not one of those old players in our space that, you know, people dislike. It's like, it's a new place for me to go. It's not LinkedIn, right? It's something new for me to try. So that's the first thing I want you to think about is brand recognition and the clout that they have right now with everyone. The second thing is from personal experience. And, you know, I'll give a shout out to job leap if it's okay, because, you know, former Recruitix team started jobleap.ai and it is a full disclosure. I will full disclosure that I've

Joel Cheesman (28:12.463)

Sure. Is this a full disclosure? You're getting checks from them. Okay.

JT ODonnell (28:17.174)

Yeah, I've done work with them. But the reason I say that is that the job shopping tool they built for job seekers, they go in and they talk about themselves and they only get to see the video, the jobs where there are 75 match percent or higher. It's in bright yellow until they get to 80 and then green from 80 to 90. And so I look at that and it's already teaching job seekers. You're not getting to see everything. You're only getting to see the stuff that your 75 % match or closer.

This is what's available and this is why you should apply to the green, not the yellow. That is the kind of thing I've been begging for and pleading forever and ever and ever. And AI is now making that possible because until you do that, job seekers are going to apply for everything under the sun and then blame you because you didn't call them back. So I get excited when I hear what they're doing, add into that the AI fluency and that they're an entity that people trust. And I think you're underestimating what they could do in that space.

I also think it sometimes helps to not have been in our industry 30, 40 years, because I sit and watch some really smart people in our industry, discount stuff left and right. It'll never work. That'll never work. Well, it didn't work back then, but we've been entirely different tool now. So I'm not a hundred percent with you. I think there's something there. Do I think they're going to wipe out and decimate everybody? No, of course not. But I would not discount.

Joel Cheesman (29:40.101)

All right. Let's go to lies, damn lies and statistics. Uh, us payrolls were revised by, let's just call it a million, roughly a million, um, 911,000. Let's just, let's just round it up. Uh, so, indicating a less robust job growth than previously reported. No shit. Uh, the revision, the largest since at least 2000 suggests a labor market slowdown and may prompt interest rate cuts by the fed.

JT ODonnell (29:48.366)

Yeah. Did you see his 911,000? I'm just saying let's run him in a bad number.

Joel Cheesman (30:08.169)

The downward revision affected nearly every industry with wholesale and retail, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services and manufacturing seeing the largest markdowns. Payroll revisions, JT, your thoughts.

JT ODonnell (30:22.478)

Remember those four words I said I was dying to say at the front of the show? I told you so. You know, we've been talking about this nonstop on social media for over a year. These numbers aren't right. These numbers aren't right. These numbers aren't right. Just anecdotally, I was telling you, like, a day doesn't go by that I don't know if people in my DMs, I'm going to lose my home. I'm going to lose everything. I'm about to put my family in a car. I'm moving back in with my, you know, parents. Like, these are adults that were doing six-figure jobs who...

Joel Cheesman (30:25.039)

Say it.

JT ODonnell (30:51.404)

burn through their savings to hang on to a 3 % mortgage. Right. And at nine months, 12 months have nothing left. And we have been talking to these people every single day and no, these numbers come out and everyone's like the economy's great. The numbers are great. No, they're not. They have not been. And these jobs aren't coming back. You know, that's the thing that we really have to understand. These, these high level jobs are not coming back. Well, we have new types of jobs.

And will there eventually be income opportunities? You and I've talked about that. Sure. But not today, not tomorrow and not in the next 12 months. And so I am fascinated to see, because it's already, Rome is burning. Like we were saying in the beginning of the show, but this is not going to get better for a while.

Joel Cheesman (31:33.849)

Yeah. You're, being on the front lines of this and listening to stories is, is there any consistency? You mentioned six figure jobs, but like, you talking to younger people, middle age? give me an idea of the demographic that you talk to.

JT ODonnell (31:51.725)

Yeah. All right. So you have college grads who cannot get a job at all, who are like, why did I try to go to the most well-known school I could go to and, you know, do all of these things to not get a job. That's group one. Group two is interesting. 25 to 27 year olds getting laid off for the first time and assuming it's not going to be a problem to get another job. And then realizing those are essentially entry level jobs, right? You're, early in your career. Those are gone. Right. Those are gone. were

Joel Cheesman (32:06.351)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (32:20.162)

You were getting apprenticed over your first decade of your life. We all know that, right? Those jobs are gone. The late millennials are being laid off for the first time who have families, car payments, mortgages, probably still some student loan debt. And they are shocked to find out, my gosh, I can't get a job. Many of whom did not do return to office, right? Got comfortable with the work from home and building a work-life balance. And so now they realize there are no more of those jobs.

available and they can't get the job. And so this is crazy. mean, you know, they were two income families to cover their bills. So that group is really freaking out. And then you've got the people, you know, the funny thing is I would say Gen X our generation, we've just, we're just doom and gloom all the time. So the Gen Xers are like, I not surprised by this, you know.

Joel Cheesman (33:00.25)

Yeah.

JT ODonnell (33:12.59)

I'll figure it out. So you kind of skip over them and get into the older generation who's like, this is age discrimination. It's not fair. It's absolutely my age. And it's like, no, there's just no jobs. There's no jobs for your level. I don't know what to tell you. And so it's every group. on.

Joel Cheesman (33:14.053)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (33:25.541)

Who's got it worse, like 50-ish, 50 and over, but not quite retired yet, or the new grad?

JT ODonnell (33:35.871)

Okay, so you got to classify that in two places because I would say a good portion of my over 50 do have income they've saved or are inheriting generational wealth based on when I've talked to them. So they are less concerned about it, but the group that did never say, which is around half are really, really hurting, going to lose everything. That group is scary. I, again, I look at the younger generation and realize they can move home with mom and dad. They're going to very quickly adapt and go into this.

Joel Cheesman (33:38.191)

Okay.

JT ODonnell (34:05.568)

second Renaissance era, I'm a business of one, I'm gonna figure out how to make it work. Those millennials that are knee deep in kids life, you and I remember when we were full blown in the, I've got kids in diapers, I'm trying to figure out how to be a parent. There we go, perfect term. To me, that group is the scariest from what I see. Absolutely.

Joel Cheesman (34:19.333)

The shit gets real stage of your life. 25 to 45.

Joel Cheesman (34:28.057)

So you think they're the worst off? Wow. you know, to your point in terms of the numbers you have, you have 7,000, think baby boomers dying a day now. that those are people that aren't working. you have a closed border and an immigration system that says stay out and people aren't having babies like they used to. So I think a lot of the unemployment numbers, although fabricated,

to some degree, aren't going to change even if you do have correct numbers, because you have from the top and the bottom, such a squeeze that things aren't going to get better anytime soon. I'll take another, I'll take a different sort of vantage point of this. you know, if you, if you looked at the dictator's handbook, eroding trust in government, government entities is on top of the list.

And if you believe that it's the economy, stupid, well, then the economy should be the first thing that you start eroding trust. And I'm not laying this on any particular party, but we've seen a decrease in resources at the BLS for decades. Less money, less resources. Well, no shit stuff's going to get lost to the stuff's going to fall through the cracks. The problem is now you, now you say, okay, the data's bad.

you're politicizing it as, they're partisan so fired. And so, so you're only going to get worse numbers if you take away resources and expertise and people are just like, I don't want who needs this. So it's rinse and repeat. It's like worst numbers, less resources. more worse numbers, less resources for you. And before you know it, like the numbers mean nothing, which is why I think going back to the Tim de Nene and the Aspen tech labs, stuff like the ADP number.

JT ODonnell (36:20.482)

Hmm.

Joel Cheesman (36:24.033)

Other services that do this are going to be much more important. And I would guess that the market, meaning Wall Street, is already looking at the government data much less and hiring services like this to find out what's really going on with the economy. Because there's no reason, I was saying, know, when ZipRecruiter was hitting all time lows in their stock price, I was like, okay, the economy is good, but all the job boards are sucking wind. Why? Like that just doesn't make any sense.

And this revision is kind of like, okay, yeah, the market, the businesses that rely on hiring, not doing so great. So maybe the numbers aren't so real, but a million people is a lot. That's a lot. That's a lot to fall through the crack. I hate it when I, I hate it when stuff falls through the cracks. guys, if you haven't subscribed to the show, what are you doing? head out to your.

JT ODonnell (36:58.796)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (37:03.682)

That's a lot.

Yep. It'll be interesting.

Joel Cheesman (37:17.807)

podcast platform of choice connect with us leave us a review share it share us with everybody particularly the Tim sackett episode, I guess that That JT loves so much. We'll be right back

JT ODonnell (37:28.334)

Heck yeah. Heck yeah.

Joel Cheesman (37:32.675)

All right. Let's talk some industry stuff. indeed in LinkedIn, some red meat, red meat for the, for the, for the listeners and the viewers. love it. All right. Indeed has launched two AI powered agents, a career scout for job seekers and talent scout for the employer. Career scout acts as a 24 by seven career coach while talent scout offers real time market insights, salary benchmarks and candidate sourcing.

JT ODonnell (37:40.087)

Mmm.

Joel Cheesman (38:00.067)

by scanning millions of indeed profiles. And in the opposing corner of all things bots, LinkedIn is expanding its AI powered hiring assistant tools to more regions, providing recruiters with an all in one solution to streamline the staffing process, generating short lists of potential candidates, scheduling interviews and managing followup. Indeed. And LinkedIn are bringing the bots JT. What are your thoughts? What are your thoughts?

JT ODonnell (38:25.104)

yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm curious to hear a deeper dive for you on what you saw with the Indeed AI stuff. Obviously, disclosure, I've been hired by LinkedIn to talk about hiring assistant have had early access to it, and I'm pretty excited about it. Only because I see people who haven't grown up in recruiting being able to absolutely get in there and use this thing quite effectively to find

those purple squirrels that we talk about all the time, which I think is interesting. And I've played around with it a ton. It's clearly ranking based on have you said you're open to work and are you active on the platform? Because we're not going to give you somebody who's got a profile but is never there and never talking about it. So there's really good tools there and the interactivity of it and what you can do with it. I mean, it's intuitive. You don't have to spend decades in recruiting to understand how to build a semi-decent conversational process with somebody that you're interested in bringing into your company.

Joel Cheesman (39:09.573)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (39:22.956)

So for me, it's the step in the right direction is what we need. As we've talked about, it's gonna wipe out a lot of jobs, I think, as people realize I can do this myself. And I'm sure that that's what they're betting on. But what have you seen on the Indy side?

Joel Cheesman (39:35.053)

Yeah. Yeah. So I, I love torturing myself. guess I I watched the opening couple of hours, of indeed's future works, which is their annual, conference. bring all their, people. so, so Deco who's their CEO, comes out by the way, dude has some

space age glasses I've never seen before. Like check, check out some pics. That's like two things. I don't know if it's, it's plugged into his head. I don't, I don't know what's going on with the glasses, but that's, that's a side note. Anyway, he came on to really talk about talent scout of all the stuff they're doing. Like talent scout was this thing. They have a little video demo, et cetera. The funny thing, what I took away from that after the video, and he talks more, he, he was like,

JT ODonnell (40:02.99)

It's wild.

Joel Cheesman (40:28.281)

He had to juice up the crowd to get them sort of excited. He's like, isn't this great? The kind of thing. then, and then the camera pans to the crowd and the crowd is like, so, so I was thinking like half the crowd is thinking, shit, I got to let go of half my people. And then like the other half were thinking, shit, I'm one of those people that are going to be going away. So they were a little bit, a little bit scared of a shell shock to what happened. Total total. Yeah.

JT ODonnell (40:51.64)

Kiss cam moment, kiss cam moment.

Joel Cheesman (40:54.947)

minus the Coldplay that was total a shock and awe by everybody. look, I, you, I think you and I agree on this that under the auspice, let's call it the Trojan horse. There's a Trojan horse being sold at least by indeed that we're going to augment the recruiter experience. We're going to make things like super easy and automated for you. It's going to be awesome.

JT ODonnell (41:04.462)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (41:24.089)

But in the back of my mind, I think a lot of people see this is that the model that indeed is creating is literally you, you don't have to do anything. Like we're going to plug into your ATS, you're going to post a job. We're going to suck that job out of your ATS. We're going to put that on indeed. And then, and then we're to have the job seeker set up an agent, set up this career agent scout thing.

And the scout is going to say, okay, you want sales jobs in Toledo or what? It'll probably be more nuanced than that. But, but this agent 24 seven will be searching for jobs that are posted automatically from ATSs. And when there's a match, the two are going to talk to each other. There do some pre-screening, blah, blah, blah schedule, do the, the whole thing. Right. And then on the job seeker side, you're going to get an alert that says,

JT ODonnell (42:10.254)

100%.

Joel Cheesman (42:17.807)

You got a company that's, that's interested in you. They want to bring you in or do a zoom call, like approve or not. And so the old days of passive job seeking was I sign up for an email alert and then every day I get an email and I'm supposed to like go through that. Well, everyone knows that once you've got a job, you stop looking for a job. But if I can look for a job and have this digital agent do it for me, like, cool. I can just hang out and it'll alert me like, Hey, you've passed round one and two of this interview.

JT ODonnell (42:35.723)

Mm-hmm.

Joel Cheesman (42:46.709)

Awesome. And then on the employer side with indeed, they've got to go to a, like a pay per hire model. And if they're plugged into the ATS, they can run the whole interview automatically. They they'll know when someone's actually hired and they'll basically tell you. Your indeed account, plug it into your ATS and you're done. And we will send you people that we have, that we have matched to your job.

And then we'll know when they're actually hired and then we'll charge you whatever for that hire. That to me is like the obvious model that they're building and they're, they're pimping it out as like, this is going to be great for everybody. This to me is a Trojan horse. says you don't like see CEO or whoever's running whatever, just set up your account, plug into your ATS and you're done. You don't have to go back to indeed ever again. If you don't want to.

JT ODonnell (43:39.855)

I have two big thoughts on that. So first of all, I go back to my days at Ronstadt. I still remember the CEO of the entire company coming from the Netherlands and sitting with a bunch of us in a room and saying, look, by 2030, everybody's going to be a gig worker. And we're all talent agents. We're going to change over. We're going to call yourself your talent agents. And like, there were a lot of people older than me in the room giggling. And I'm like, I get that. Everybody wants their own talent agent. Everybody wants to be repped. It kills me that they didn't continue and really lean into that. Because if you think about that,

where they could go with that. It's absolutely brilliant. When I flip back and look at hiring assistant, at LinkedIn, where it gets me excited is, yes, anyone can do it, but really smart recruiters should be doubling down on this stuff right now because you become a super recruiter with this thing. You can go in there and find people and start conversations with people you would have never found before just by talking at it. And then there's this bot that says, hey, let me be clear. I'm JTBot.

But I have bunch of clarifying questions to ask you. I can tell you for a fact, job seekers don't care if they're talking to a bot. They appreciate you saying it's JTBot because the bot says, hey, I just need to validate that you have this. have a conversation. And if any time you feel like I'm not getting you what you need, click a button and a message will go to real JT and we'll take a look at it. So it's now giving that candidate a chance to say, I'm not getting my point across to your bot or.

you know, something's not gelling here and not miss out on the opportunity. So all this stuff, this is what I love about what I've seen with that tool so far, is that all the stuff that's been a problem before with the ghosting and the impersonalization, like the transparency is there now with the bot piece of it, coupled with, you know, finding those purple squirrels. Like you're crazy if you're a recruiter not leaning into this stuff right now, because like you just said, OK, maybe a CEO comes in and drops it in, but you're still going to want.

that very smart recruiter that understands holistically what's happening, that's thinking about how to fine tune this thing for that company, their vibe, the way they talk, their culture, you know, and that's where these recruiters are going to have a blast and not do the mundane stuff, you know, just, you know, that's my take. you know, glasses half full kind of gal, of course, but you know, I really saw it in real time.

Joel Cheesman (45:33.358)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (45:50.757)

Yeah. mean, look, recruiters are some of the most resourceful people on the planet. Just go to a SourceCon and the freaks and geeks that are at SourceCon will tell you that these aren't your average bears. A lot of them will go by the wayside. I think the money will probably be made sort of in between the raindrops. It'll be the recruiter that understands the algorithm and where there are maybe holes or maybe who are you missing.

There's also a threat in that if I'm a job seeker and I start getting inundated with jobs that aren't a fit, I'll reject the whole premise of agents looking for a job. And we've looked at that with related jobs or recommended jobs. Like I've had stuff recommended from LinkedIn and I'm like, this makes no, like because I'm a cohost of a podcast, they think I'm a host of a restaurant. So I get like restaurant jobs. So it's not perfect, but the vision that I see

is like, if we could just take out the recruiter and the job seeker and let the bots handle it, that's a Nirvana. maybe I'm being a little bit too rose colored glasses on it, but I think that's the vision that, that, they're going, you know, who knows?

JT ODonnell (46:55.374)

Mm.

I like it.

JT ODonnell (47:07.694)

Once again, Joel, I feel like there's been multiple times where we're on the same page. mean, how many months into the year and you and I are like starting to sync up? It's a little scary.

Joel Cheesman (47:07.779)

Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Joel Cheesman (47:17.293)

Nothing warms the cockles of my heart. Like you saying, I agree with Joel on this one and, and, Chad's Chad's in the cold. I love, I love when that happens. All right. Let's, I don't think we've ever played, who'd you rather, with you. Have I

JT ODonnell (47:22.062)

It's like, it's happening a little too often.

JT ODonnell (47:31.444)

Mmm. No, I'm very excited about this actually. I did homework.

Joel Cheesman (47:34.551)

Okay. Usually, usually we do it with like startups getting money, but we're going to do it with acquisitions this time. So I'm going to read two acquisitions and you're going to say which one you like better. Basically who, who'd you rather? Okay. You're ready to play. All right. All right. Here we go. Our first, first acquisition goes to shaker sponsored the show, by the way, shaker recruitment marketing has acquired execute an employer brand consultancy to enhance its workforce experience strategy.

JT ODonnell (47:44.622)

Mm-hmm.

I'm ready.

Joel Cheesman (48:04.235)

the combined team will provide integrated workforce insights, employer branding and talent marketing services, AKA do shit that an agency does that shaker. Now we go to Raiden see the artist formerly known as TMP. they've acquired my interview expanding, their talent acquisition cloud with AI agents. There's that word again, to accelerate hiring cycles and reduce costs. The AI platform promises to eliminate repetitive tasks and enhance.

candidate engagement. So JT, Raidency versus Shaker, who'd you rather?

JT ODonnell (48:42.614)

Okay. So first I want to say I love Shaker. I just want to say that aloud, but I'm going radiancy. And I'll tell you why, because this idea of in my head, based on what I read about radiancy in my interview, I envision a world where every job seeker that, you know, submits and meets the basic qualifications gets a virtual interview. And I can tell you right now that that's what I hear job seekers complaining about all the time. Like I never even got a shot, never got even chance to share.

And when you think about the fact that I don't need 50 recruiters doing phone screens anymore, that I can sit there and have a decent tool. I don't know how decent this is. So we've got to preface that, really start to replace that and be able to find those candidates that are saying the right thing that might not have otherwise even gotten a shot. That excites me, right? Because resumes.

They're not the same. This is why we've always done pre-screens and phone screens is to actually validate somebody and authenticate they know what they're talking about. So that aspect of it gets me very excited for people to have a shot at sharing their story. Every job seeker says if I could just get in front of them. To me, that's what I'm understanding about this and I think that's a real win.

Joel Cheesman (49:49.413)

Okay, you're wrong, but that's okay.

JT ODonnell (49:55.66)

Here we go.

Joel Cheesman (49:56.833)

Okay, I as well love love shaker, as they know. So take my my hootie rather with a grain of salt, but time for a history lesson.

Joel Cheesman (50:08.995)

So the, agency business, has, has been a weird one. it used to be sort of mad men style, take display, like put display ads in the, in the Chicago Tribune, the New York times make like five grand on a single Sunday. And then it was like, now there's this internet thing and they were getting a lot less money. A lot less people were like, why do need a newspaper ad when I can just put it on Craigslist?

Right. So, so they had to come up with ways of adding value to the business. And there was a period where it was like, let's add tech. Let's buy job boards. Let's buy, don't know, whatever was hot back in four, even I'm too old to remember, remember that stuff, but they started to evolve outside of just display ads and, and shaker and TMP Rob is on the forefront of this TMP and monster have history.

shaker used to own a bunch of like city.com and have, have gotten into that. I think that there was a crossroads with agencies where they said, okay, are we going to be a tech company or are we going to be a consultancy? Like an agency, right? An agency technically doesn't own the studio. Like they help you get into the studio. So I think there was a, there was a conscious choice by shaker years ago to say, look, we're not going to be.

In the tech business, we're not going to be in the software business. We're going to have the best minds understand all the best tech and recommend to our clients. What we believe is the best solution for their company. They're 75 years old. They've never changed the name from shaker. so this is in my opinion, an aqua hire. And they've done this a couple of times in the recent past, because if you don't have, what happens is we have so much tech, so much AI and so many customers are like.

throw up their hands, I don't know what to do. I don't know who to use. There's a new startup every week. I listened to Chad and cheese and they talk about all these companies. Like, I don't know what to do. You guys figure it out for us. And in that, in that economy, if you have the most brains that understand this business, you're probably going to win. So for shaker to sort of consolidate other agencies with maybe different, core competencies,

Joel Cheesman (52:30.181)

To me is just steadfast to their vision that they've had for 75 plus years and will continue to, to, to, be prosperous for them going forward. When I look at TMP slash radency, I look at, I look at a huge ass agency that is trying to put its, put its mittens into many different pies. and they've been tech heavy for a long time. I mean, just some of the recent acquisitions over the years.

They, uh, acquired carve, which is like a social media business per Ringo, which was a programmatic. They bought brazen, which is the event side of things. And now they bought my interview, which is like agent shit. So the problem with that is you get a, you get a conflict of interest, right? It's like the government owning 10 % of Intel. Okay. What are they going to push Intel? Okay. What is, what is radency going to push?

the tech that they own, that's not necessarily the best tech, right? It's just the one that you own and that you control and you profit more off of. So I don't know, I don't know my interview from, you know, my space at this point. So they may be the most awesome solution ever, but historically give me the brains, give me the agency that's actually an agency and not one that tries to be a tech company. So, you know, for me, I think this is a pretty easy one. I'm going to go with,

shaker.

All right, that was, was, do you have a rebuttal to that or should we drop it at that?

JT ODonnell (54:01.455)

You're wrong. It's okay though. Yeah, not at all. No, I'm just going to say that, you know, in your first sentence, you said at all, it was an aqua hire. There was no innovation bought on there you just, let's go pick up some mines. So if you want to buy some mines and get them under, that's great. To me, that's not anything interesting or new. I agree with you, your definition of shaker, what they do, they do very well and will continue to do really well. Where I give Raiden C props is.

Joel Cheesman (54:16.143)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

JT ODonnell (54:29.816)

They're still trying different texts. And the reality is you get one of those right and things change fast. so, you know, say in the VC world, what they invest in a lot of duds in order to get the right one. If Raiden C continues to invest and get the right one, you're going to be singing a different tune.

Joel Cheesman (54:44.837)

singing a different tune. I love singing different tunes. Let's take a quick break and we're going to talk about more bots, but this this kind has wheels.

JT ODonnell (54:46.126)

There you go, my friend.

Joel Cheesman (54:58.917)

All right, RoboTaxi's JT, you ready? Okay, Amazon's ZUX has launched its RoboTaxi service in Las Vegas on September 10th this week. The first public service with a purpose-built autonomous vehicle approved for expanded demos. The driverless toaster-shaped RoboTaxi's with bench seats and sensors offer free rides, free rides via the ZUX app to select strip.

JT ODonnell (55:00.364)

I can't with this. I can't with this, yep.

Joel Cheesman (55:25.475)

destinations. That's the Vegas strip, not the other kind of strip you might be thinking of, like resorts world and Luxor with plans to expand pickup zones, some with concierge and a help button enhance the experience. ZUX is testing in other cities such as San Francisco. ZUX, Autonomous, Las Vegas, what could go wrong? JT, what are your thoughts?

JT ODonnell (55:51.599)

Well, I always go to the jobs that it's about to take, right? I mean, there's a lot of people who are using Uber to pay the bills or Lyft or whatever. And so that's going to go away and that's going to hurt people. you know, that's really unfortunate. I'm just not there yet to get into a car that is driverless. And it is like, what are they going to do now? I'm going to have to...

Joel Cheesman (56:09.541)

It's your Renaissance, it's your Renaissance, JT. They can all go rat pack at the Flamingo if they're not driving an Uber, right?

JT ODonnell (56:17.612)

Request, right? Content creators. Yeah, absolutely. yeah, I just, I'm just not there yet. Getting in a driverless car after some of the things we've already seen, you know, with Tesla's outing. So absolutely not. And I won't go in one, especially seeing them down in Scottsdale last year freaked me out. Yeah. Yeah, it did. Definitely. I am not ready. You are. Wow. You live, live dangerously. I love it.

Joel Cheesman (56:29.005)

Yeah? Have you been in one?

really?

Joel Cheesman (56:38.237)

man, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. I'm totally here for it. Look, cars are horrible investments. I don't even know if you can call it an investment, right? If you buy a new car, 20 % deduction off the, that's why they have gap insurance, right? Your cars were 20 % less. If you buy a new car, they, take up space. You use them hardly ever based on how much space they take up in your house. You got to pay insurance. You got to fill them up with like, they're just a pain. I'm here for the

Let me call a car on my app and take me to Chipotle and then drive me home. Like I'm all, I'm all for that. my first thought is this is a box. A toaster is a pretty good, descriptor of it, but it's like, it's like two love seats facing each other. And I'm thinking like, you know, how much sex is going to be going down in the zoos in Vegas with this thing. mean, there's going to be so much naughtiness in this thing and so many.

JT ODonnell (57:25.495)

each other.

JT ODonnell (57:31.982)

and they're gonna film it. It's gonna be bad, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (57:36.931)

There's, there's your content creation. Freaky shit I can do in a zoeks. That's going to be, that's going to be your next tick tock millionaire.

JT ODonnell (57:39.33)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. What do you call it? So when you when you have sex in a plane in the Mile High Club, what are they going to call it in this thing? You got to name it at this point. do you? The hands free. I don't know.

Joel Cheesman (57:49.413)

The mile high, I don't know, would be the strip club. I don't know. That kind of rolls off the tongue, I guess. Yeah, the Zooks, I don't know, the Z club, Planet Z, I don't know. It is funny because when Uber became a a decade ago, Vegas was super staunchly against Uber. Even today, if you go to Vegas, it's way easier to get a cab than it is an Uber.

JT ODonnell (57:58.755)

Yeah, the Z Club, there you go, yep.

Joel Cheesman (58:18.341)

If you want an Uber, you got to go to the garage. You got to walk like half a mile. Like they make it not convenient at all. a taxi, you just get in a line and you're gone. So I will take a taxi in Vegas. there's about two to 3000 cabbies in Vegas. I think they will probably, throw their weight around to keep that sort of airport lane going, but the stuff around, you know, the Luxor goes to whatever,

JT ODonnell (58:20.291)

Mm-hmm.

JT ODonnell (58:40.888)

fair.

Joel Cheesman (58:47.749)

I mean, that's, that makes a ton of sense to me. Uh, Tesla has had like an underground shuttle thing under the convention center. I don't know you've seen this, uh, but you get in, Tesla takes you around. Uh, Waymo is going to be in Vegas at some point. So I'm here for it. It's going to kill a lot of jobs. Two to 3000 in Vegas, uh, 1.5 million taxi drivers nationwide. Trucking you're looking at three to five or three to 4 million.

JT ODonnell (59:07.149)

It is.

Joel Cheesman (59:17.477)

truck drivers in America. That's a lot of jobs. So there's going to be some tension here, some legislation regulation, but here comes Trump who's deregulating all the autonomous driving laws and making a lot easier to do this stuff. So it's going to happen. I'm all for it from my personal, on a personal level, from a, from a, have a, make my living off of driving. think you should start, you should talk to JT and

JT ODonnell (59:17.686)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.

JT ODonnell (59:45.398)

Renaissance era, Renaissance two, baby.

Joel Cheesman (59:46.487)

and go to to go to go to JT's sites and social media and see and see what she's saying. However, I don't think at JT's social media stuff. I can get dad jokes.

You gotta get him here folks. All right, JT, you ready? What did Delaware? What did Delaware?

JT ODonnell (01:00:05.294)

Bring it.

JT ODonnell (01:00:13.518)

What did Delaware? I knew it was a clothing thing.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:13.625)

her New Jersey.

Joel Cheesman (01:00:20.335)

JT, thanks for hanging. Chad, think he'll be here next week as usual. until then, we out.

JT ODonnell (01:00:21.998)

Thank you.

JT ODonnell (01:00:27.287)

We out.