Paradox Takes Pieces Off the Board

The recruiting industry behaves like a chess game sometimes. Pieces can move slowly or quickly, pieces get taken off the board and some get added over time. And like chess, the players who see many moves ahead tend to be the biggest winners.

This week saw a lot of chess gamin’.and the most impressive move was made by Paradox, but Job.com and Compono made moves too. Another player in iCIMS filed for an IPO to help it reload. Additionally this week, Apple was in the news, along with Uber and Lyft and OnlyFans made its way into the podcast for its second straight week. Enjoy another masterpiece powered by Sovren, JobAdx, and Jobvite.

TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:

Disability Solutions helps companies strengthen their workforce and broaden their market reach by hiring talent in the disability community.

INTRO (1s):

Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.

Joel (20s):

Oh yeah, the podcast that will never, ever get full FDA approval. What's up kiddies? It's your favorite global phenomenon, the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your cohost, Joel "I can't get no satisfaction" Cheeseman.

Chad (35s):

This is Chad " I'm drinking a super Bock, and am relaxed as fuck" Sowash.

Joel (40s):

And on this week show iCIMS falls for its IPO, Paradox puts a round peg in a round hole and OnlyFans does a 180. Or is it a 69? Yeah, you'll just have to stay tuned. What's up man, you're in Portugal? You look more relaxed than I've ever seen.

Chad (1m 0s):

Oh dude. And we landed last night at 5:30 local time, a few blocks away from the ocean here in Farro City. So we're in city center and we threw down our fricking luggage, went to a restaurant and the restaurant owner just moved from Rome and it was amazing. Great food. Go figure it was Italian food. Great food. Here's the funny part. I gave a little more than a 20% tip because it was amazing food, amazing service and we have a friend for life now. She couldn't believe that we provided a 20% tip.

Chad (1m 44s):

So we're starting off. Well, we're starting off. Well, not to mention also this is, if you're going to come to Portugal, this is your place. This specific Airbnb is right across from an Irish bar. And last night at two o'clock, I got up to take a piss. And as soon as I opened up the door, the alley was full of drunks, singing Irish drinking songs. It was, it made me smile so big. I was like, this is where I belong.

Joel (2m 19s):

So I'm glad you're on the a US reputation repair tour there in Portugal. That's nice. Keep giving those 20% tips and making us look good.

Chad (2m 27s):

I'll do my best.

Joel (2m 30s):

I'm so jealous. I'm so jealous. Yeah. If you look at, if you're falling, Chad or are connected on Facebook, like the pictures are gonna be coming furiously and the dude just looks so happy. So I'm happy for him.

Chad (2m 41s):

Ah,

Joel (2m 43s):

Shout outs,

Chad (2m 44s):

Shout outs.

Joel (2m 45s):

So I'm going to bring it down a little bit. Shout out to Charlie Watts, the Rolling Stones drummer. He passed away this week at 80.

Chad (2m 54s):

Ah man.

Joel (2m 55s):

If I had to put money on the first Rolling Stone to go, it probably would not have been him.

Chad (2m 59s):

Keith Richards.

Joel (3m 0s):

Yeah. Shout out to him and the Stones. What's your favorite Rolling Stones song, Chad?

Chad (3m 4s):

Yeah. I Can't Get No Satisfaction. I mean, that's just the way, the way it is, but, but I am right now.

Joel (3m 10s):

Yeah. I want to throw in She's a Rainbow. Quite a nice summery tune. If you're in the mood.

Chad (3m 17s):

Paint it Black, I mean those, I mean the sixties, the sixties, like Vietnam era songs, Rolling Stones just killed there. Charlie, I mean 80 years old, man, they were still touring.

Joel (3m 30s):

And they still are without him. Yeah. They're going to replace him. So they, they keep trucking, man. Holy Shit.

Chad (3m 35s):

Yeah. No. And that's what Charlie would have wanted. I can now I don't know the guy, but I can almost guarantee you that's exactly what he would have wanted. And what I want is I want to give out a shout out to all of the new evergreen podcasts that are joining the HR channel, get ready kids.

Joel (3m 54s):

There you go.

Chad (3m 55s):

Katrina Collier from the HR Partner Perspective podcast, Shelley and Serge with the Recruitment Flux podcast, Alynn and Tracy with Talent Rebelcast, and Katie and Jackie with Inclusive AF, AKA as fuck, dude. We're building this network with amazing and diverse voices and I am fucking stoked.

Joel (4m 20s):

Well, they don't have a podcast yet, but if the boys at Caroo who made popular the HIA, the van sine, you need a BJ, BJ meaning Better Job have a new video ad. I don't know if you've seen this, but they give a hat tip to one of my favorites Oasis panning their hit. Don't look back in anger with don't feedback in anger. So if you haven't seen that one, kids go to LinkedIn and search Caroo and check out their version of don't look back and anger.

Chad (4m 50s):

C A R O O. Those guys are funny as fuck.

Joel (4m 57s):

Yes, they are Chad. This may be the most important shout out I've ever made.

Chad (5m 2s):

Ought oh. Drum roll.

Joel (5m 5s):

LinkedIn has solved the DEI recruitment challenges.

Chad (5m 10s):

I feel sarcasm. I feel sarcasm.

Joel (5m 12s):

They've saved us. Chad. Their new feature on LinkedIn Recruiter allows hiring managers to hide names and photos of job candidates to ensure employment decisions are based on qualifications rather than race. Chad LinkedIn has solved the diversity recruiting problem. You must be excited!

Chad (5m 35s):

It's amazing that they can add a feature that is what like 5 to 10 years late? I think every major platform that's out there has the ability to what you call blind profiles and LinkedIn? Again, this is just another example of a huge player that is not innovative at all. I mean, not even to innovative, they, their search is shit. Their targeting is shit their.... I mean, pretty much their holistic product itself is shit. Now the network is awesome, but this is a shit product that is going to continue to make ass-loads of money.

Joel (6m 14s):

So you're in favor of it?

sfx (6m 16s):

Oh hell no.

Chad (6m 18s):

Yeah. I'm just glad they caught up. What I am not in favor of is Jonathan Duarte getting six fucking screws in his shoulder. So apparently he and his son were mountain biking in Colorado and he took a tumble and he's going to need a bunch of rehab again. Six say, I think it was six, well, six screws in his shoulder and I think this is time, Jonathan buddy listen closely. You need to take up competitive napping with Cheeseman, get in the fantasy, the fantasy napping league.

Chad (6m 58s):

And I think it's time, brother.

Joel (6m 59s):

Yeah. Time to give it up. And you know who else is time to give it up? This came out this week. The baby from Nirvana's iconic album cover album.

Chad (7m 10s):

Nevermind. Gimme a break.

Joel (7m 11s):

Nevermind, is suing them for child pornography. The lawsuit states that the guy has suffered lifelong damages with the defendants, having knowingly benefited from their participation in his quote, "commercial sexual exploitation." Now, if irony comes to mind here, the cover and for our younger listeners who may not know the album is of a baby swimming in a pool, chasing a dollar bill, that's on a hook. So 30 years later, the dude is still chasing money that's out of reach. And this is total lunacy. It's got to get kicked out from the courts, but it's worth a shout out just for it's irony.

Chad (7m 56s):

Yeah. Well, I, the only thing I can follow that up with is shout out to Pfizer getting FDA approval for the COVID vaccine kids. That's right. So it's time for the US to step it, the fuck up and get their shit together. And I'll give you a personal story because over the past few weeks I've been fretting coming to another country. I've gotten vaccinated, but still, I just wasn't sure if they were going to let us in. So I started checking Portugal because it was like, oh, wait a minute. If we get over there and they have low VAX rates, what's it going to be like, well, like earlier this month in August, they actually hit their goal of 70% with the first jab, which they, which they had set for September 1st.

Chad (8m 45s):

So they nailed it. I looked this morning, they are at 82% first jab vacs that is over 10% in the last few weeks. And the US is having to have Biden push employers to mandate. Then he's also mandating for military. And pretty much anybody who's receiving federal funds. I mean, we've got to do something to press this because apparently Americans are fucking idiots.

Joel (9m 14s):

Yeah. And shout out to all the companies that are coming, you know, forward requiring vaccinations or creating incentives or disincentives financially to not do. So. I know Delta came out this week, Delta airlines saying that if you don't get the jab, there's going to be additional $200 a month tagged on to your healthcare. So companies are stepping up and also shout out, shout out to nurses for a second. I mean, I don't think we talk about them enough.

Chad (9m 42s):

Yes.

Joel (9m 42s):

But good God. They went through a year of hell, hoping that, you know, the world would come to its senses, get vaccination and the world will go back to normal. We'll holy hell. If things, if the nightmare hasn't sort of restarted for them, if you know a nurse live with a nurse, whatever, give them a hug, give him a thank you. Like I can't, we can't shout out enough to nurses and the job that they do in light of sort of American stupidity and politicizing the vaccine and dealing with the new variant.

Chad (10m 13s):

Yes. We got to get this shit. Right. And one person who's getting shit right is Matt O'Donnell who's gift game is stepping up on Twitter. So big applause to Matt, appreciate the engagement, not to mention, trying to keep up on the gift game, man. That's awesome.

Joel (10m 29s):

Yep. And shout out to, to Airbnb, you mentioned Joe Biden. So Airbnb has stepped up and said that they will provide free housing for up to 20,000 Afghan refugees around the world. That's a lot of free housing. So shout out to Airbnb for stepping up for the Afghan refugees.

Chad (10m 52s):

Yeah. I, and as I sit here in an Airbnb and I will be in a Airbnb for the next five weeks, I will continue to give them my money because of purpose and getting behind human beings. To me, there's nothing better than a brand who says something and then does it, and then does more than what you expect. So shout out to Airbnb. No question.

Joel (11m 16s):

And if you are an Afghan refugee, Chad is currently out of his house for the next month. So hit him up, if you need a place to stay and you want to check out beautiful Columbus, Indiana.

Chad (11m 28s):

Everybody wants to do that. Everybody.

Joel (11m 30s):

Yeah. I've got a couple of company ones real quick. Joeveo, I got a shout out. They've earmarked more than 24 million to grow its business in India, where it recently signed contracts with some of that country's largest employers. KJ and company continue to rock it. And Wespire a Boston-based provider of employee engagement software, which is a hot topic on our show, raised 13 million in series B this week, shout out to those companies, keep doing what you do. And as always, if you haven't signed up for free shit on ChadCheese, head up chadcheese.com/free. We got t-shirts by Emissary. We got beer from AdZuna and we got whiskey by Sovren.

Joel (12m 14s):

And if you haven't left us a review on your podcast platform of choice, please do so good or bad. It's our oxygen. It feeds us into what you want and what you like and helps keep us on track.

Chad (12m 27s):

Love it! And last but not least shout out to Steven and Faith Rothberg. Stephen actually was just one of the winners of Sovren's bourbon, but they're posting pics from, I believe they're in Quebec. And I spotted Steven out having dinner with Faith and he was all dolled up. He had a Chad and Cheese t-shirt on.

Joel (12m 51s):

So did she? Didn't she?

Chad (12m 52s):

She probably did.

Joel (12m 53s):

Okay. She, I think she was too. Yeah, that's a that's nice. And Quebec, I have not been, but I hear it's beautiful. I hear it's the most European city in North America and we got some birthdays, Chad, you know how we end up in the shutout? So shout out to my wife, Christine Cheeseman, who celebrated a birthday on Tuesday, my 14 year old, soon to be 15 year old, Cole Cheesman celebrates a birthday. Our buddy, Aman Brar from Canvas/Jobvite celebrates a birthday. Joey Stubbs, Joe's Stubblebind wherever in the world, he is celebrates a birthday. Bradley Clark, one of our favorite Kannucks from RecText and funky cold Dina Modaris industry veteran, all celebrate birthdays this week.

Chad (13m 39s):

Love that.

Joel (13m 40s):

Shout out to all those folks and friends of the show.

Chad (13m 43s):

Little extra love goes out to Christine Cheeseman, for putting up with your ass. So yeah.

Joel (13m 49s):

No doubt. No doubt.

Chad (13m 52s):

Happy Birthday Christine! Topics! Okay. Kids it's time to clear the air real quick. We talked about job.com and we weren't sure because we got a factoring letter from one of their vendors. And generally, not always generally that sends up red flags one, one way or the other. So we, you know, we were thinking that the job.com might be having some issues. Well, apparently they were factoring in using that focus on acquisition. So future revenues against acquiring new companies, because they just acquired staffing firms, Fortis Healthcare Resources, and Endevis.

Chad (14m 39s):

So I reached out to Aaron when we're talking about the factoring and he said, no, we're going through acquisition. And I said, okay, when, when you go through acquisition and you get it, let me know. And we'll, we'll make sure that we'll put it out there, but he said, yeah, we factor our books, it's normal stuff. Just self-funding our acquisitions as much as possible. So overall, great move. I'm still not a hundred percent in on the go to market strategy that job.com has, but it doesn't matter they're buying shit.

Joel (15m 10s):

Well, it's good to know that when we're wrong, that it's nice people that were wrong about. It's good to know that the payday loan that we speculated was not the case. So Aaron, you guys keep trucking along and acquisitions have always been their strategy. So yeah, pull out the, pull out the checkbook and start buying some companies. So we'll continue to report on job.com. However, the bigger news to start off the week with is our friends at iCIMS finally did it. They've filed to raise $100 million in an IPO. Listeners know the company that provides talent management software to enterprise level companies, i.e.

Joel (15m 52s):

ones that pay over a hundred grand plus a year for the service TLNT, which will be the ticker symbol has grown through the pandemic, but has significant debt and some concerning metrics according to an analyst as of June 30th of 2021, iCIMS had 43 million in cash and 770 million in total liabilities, yikes. A free cash flow during the 12 months ended June 30th, 2021 was $7 million. They're seeking cash to pay down a lot of debt, which is sizable as a likely result of its private equity firm ownership. The primary risk to the company's outlook, according to one analyst is the ability for larger companies i.e.

Joel (16m 37s):

LinkedIn to bundle such software into their other offerings or Microsoft, thereby putting downward pricing pressure and potentially boxing iCIMS out in the process. So Chad, are you going to load up on some T L N T?

Chad (16m 53s):

I probably won't. I'll probably be loading up on Airbnb. We saw this happening. It just makes good business sense. And I mean, that's why they brought Steve in, right?That's why we're there doing these acquisitions. So yeah, I mean, overall, you know, it's something we knew was going to happen. I was surprised it didn't happen sooner to be quite Frank.

Joel (17m 14s):

Yeah. Yeah. So the dominoes are falling pretty consistently as we sort of predicted. So ZipRecruiter was the first domino. We talked pretty at length about Doximity last week, basically network specifically to physicians. And iCIMS I think we kind of believe would be the first ATS to go IPO in light of those and let the dominoes keep falling unless iCIMS really falls on its face. I mean, I think both of us expect, you know, the Jobvites, the Smart Recruiters, the Namely's of the world to eventually go IPO as well. I mean, my concern as an investor would be just, obviously the debt, which has probably specific to iCIMs, but ATS is, you know, they grow kind of slowly, they're kind of these big Titanic type companies.

Joel (18m 10s):

So one of the challenges that the analyst mentioned in an article was that, you know, the high growth that you would expect in a SAAS business, they're just a little bit short of that. So to me, it's like, you know, money to pay down debt is great, but I think they got to start making some, some big acquisitions. And iCIMS, hasn't been shy from making big moves, like the ones they did with, you know, Techs Recruiter or opening.io. But if they're going to grow, you know, to me, these ATS is really have to make moves and acquisitions, which I think is what we're seeing because they grow so slow because, well, they're so expensive. And the enterprise level companies are kind of few and far between, so they tend to say.

Chad (18m 54s):

I think you're going to have to, for them to be able to be more global and much, you know, on the enterprise side of the house, they're going to have to do more acquisitions like they did with Easy Recru. It's gotta be something that is a foreign. It just makes sense because it's already just add water from a technology language and portfolio standpoint. So, you know, I think it's smart for them to grow through acquisition. But one thing you have to remember is, you know, as you look at portfolios or at least I look at mine, you've got to have some stability in there, right? You can't always have these high growth, high risks types of stocks.

Chad (19m 35s):

And I wouldn't see iCIMS as that type of company. I just wouldn't and that's, and that's not a bad thing.

Joel (19m 40s):

Yeah. I mean, they may just be a, you know, grow a few percent a year, pay out a dividend to investors, and it's just sort of a nice safe stock. I also think, and we talked about this or touched on it with, with sort of the, the Vonq stuff with better monetizing. I think it was Smart Recruiters or Greenhouse that they partnered with. So that, I mean, most of these ATSs are not profiting from their marketplaces. And at some point that's going to be an issue for these public companies. So I wouldn't be surprised to see iCIMs either starting to take a share of profits from companies in our marketplace or requiring, you know, more fees to play in the marketplace.

Joel (20m 20s):

So that'll be interesting. And something to watch.

Chad (20m 22s):

If you're In the marketplace yourself, I don't think it should be on iCIMS to bring you an idea. That's a revenue share opportunity. It should be your job to bring them the go-to business, you know, opportunity. Because again, the thing that you're looking for as a smaller organization, is you're looking for distribution into a much larger portfolio of clients. So overall, we're talking about Vonq. What Vonq is doing incredibly smart is they have a huge total addressable market from recruitment marketing, right? And they know that let's say for instance, an applicant tracking system usually is not going to get any of that revenue whatsoever.

Chad (21m 7s):

So what they do is they start the opportunity of channeling revenues into iCIMS, through tapping into recruitment marketing, to all of iCIMS clients, right? And again, this is something, this is something that they could do. They're not, I don't believe they're currently doing, especially with Vonq, but I know that organizations like that need to be looking at how do you leverage and or white label what you do to be able to first and foremost, not have to create a huge sales operation, but use your partners to be able to juice your revenues.

Joel (21m 45s):

As long as they don't take a cue from WeWork and start buying wave companies. I think though, I think they'll be okay. Well, speaking of growth companies, don't call it a chat bot, Chad conversational AI solution. Paradox said it will require the mobile first assessment platform, Tradify who, by the way, is home of one of our Pappy's winners from last year.

Chad (22m 6s):

That's right!

Joel (22m 6s):

Shout out to her Tradify delivers visual based assessments that can be completed in less than two minutes terms were not disclosed. Tradify is already integrated into Paradox and Paradox CEO Aaron Maita said the deal was spurred by customer demand. This one seems to make a little too much sense to me, Chad, what say you?

Chad (22m 30s):

So Whisper numbers, 40 million. Look at the market. Where's the biggest opportunity for vendors? Biggest, quick hit opportunity for vendors right now it's high volume. And to be able to shift to more of an hourly type of model, you start to encompass the opportunity to work with humongous organizations. I don't know, like McDonald's who they already work with, in bigger, you know, restaurant corporations and anything that's high turnover. It just makes a hell of a lot of sense. Now there's a lot of transaction that goes on here. That's fine.

Joel (23m 5s):

But if you're doing large bulk of transaction and you're doing it in a SAAS model, I mean, you can charge a hell of a lot of dollars for enterprise. So the signal to anyone in the hourly hiring space is you're going to get pushed out unless you get your shit together. Because Adam Godson, who's the chief product officer and former CLO talent wizard and tech God, I guess over there, he's done this for years. He's actually pulled together platforms with duct tape and baling wire from a bunch of different vendors that he had to work right now.

Joel (23m 46s):

He is in charge of that product. So it's not about duct tape and baling wire. It's what he can focus on and build. So what he did before was amazing, outstanding, and better than anybody else did in the market for the most part. And that's back in 2016, '17, and '18. What he can do with Paradox on the high volume side of the house, I think is amazing. The big question here is can they stay focused on high volume? Because yes, they have money and they're getting, you know, some, some, some very good traction, but can they stay focused on high volume? Because if they take their eye off the ball, they could really fuck this up.

Joel (24m 28s):

Yeah. I just love it when you give Adam a nice tongue bath. That was nice.

Chad (24m 32s):

Love that guy.

Joel (24m 33s):

A couple of things that stood out to me first, I thought was when I look at Tradify as product, I think about Instagram. Like, I feel like these guys have really figured that like the visual and mobile thing out and also the sort of quick assessment test or the pre-screen. And I always think about like Jobber Monster bot.

Chad (24m 56s):

Jesus

Joel (24m 56s):

Many moons ago, who was going to be the Instagram for job search, which they never really were. So I think Tradify has sort of nailed that component. And my first thought was, when we see so many acquisitions in this space, that sort of, kind of maybe don't make that much sense. I mean, they kind of do, but not really. We think like, well, it must've been on the clearance rack, so they picked it up. This one to me, made like perfect sense because this sort of like quick visual mobile first, you know, pre-screening thing, assessment test should be something that a Paradox should have in their arsenal. So that made perfect sense versus, you know, building it. 40 million is a pretty big price tag and I want to say Paradox has raised just a little bit north of that.

Joel (25m 42s):

So unless they are incredibly profitable, they've either got money in the kitty that's there and they haven't announced it yet, or they will be soon, but that's a chunk of money. Melissa was all shares or we'll pay over the next 50 years or something. So that kind of struck me as interesting as well. I think Paradox continues to be the last man standing, the apex predator in this conversational AI technology. And I keep thinking about, you know, how we we've speculated, you know, the Seekouts of the world, these guys being, you know, a platform similar to an ATS and being like the new ATSs, and I think this is one more step toward being that platform.

Joel (26m 25s):

And it's incredibly interesting and they also add some really smart people to the Paradox team that's gonna pay, you know, tons of dividends to the product. So I have nothing bad to say about this and I think it forebodes very well for them. And it's something to really keep, keep eye out on in the future.

Chad (26m 44s):

This will be, well, this is a shot across Alexander Mann solutions bow with their product Hourly because Tradify is integrated with Hourly. So what happened here is a company, Paradox is taking a piece of tech off the chess board, right? I don't think they're going to pull Tradify from Hourly. Although if you think about it, if one of your competitors is paying you to utilize your now new service, right. What does that do other than continue to bolster you? This is like back in the day when Monster was paying Indeed for traffic, right? So it's incredibly smart. And this isn't the first time that we're going to be talking about it, to watch an organization like Paradox, pull a player off the board.

Chad (27m 32s):

And if you think about it once again, talking about from an applicant tracking system, I really it's, I think it's more evolved than that. If I can actually engage a candidate, I can take them through the steps, through, you know, chat, messenger, whatever it is, and get you into an interview or even interviewed in under 10 minutes. Fuck man. That's that is the game changer.

Joel (27m 57s):

Yeah. Yeah. You know, we probably don't talk much about our, talk enough about the, the high school level dynamics that come into play in our industry. But I can tell you Hourly is going to hate putting money in Paradoxes pocket by having Tradify beyond their platform. So it'll be interesting to see what happens and, and in contrast, I'm sure Paradox, enjoys profiting from Hourly as well. So it is a lot like high school and our industry. Sometimes we don't talk much about that, but it's a thing.

Chad (28m 28s):

It's a kick in the ass and that's good for the entire industry.

Joel (28m 32s):

Sure, sure. And by the way, Zaur who we don't talk about much, seems to be fading quickly from the scene. And they've lost a few executives.

Chad (28m 42s):

Aida where yet what's going on out there?

Joel (28m 45s):

Aida hit us up. Well, let's go to two companies I've never heard of, but there was another acquisition in this point, maybe you have, I don't know. idibu HR software company Compono has announced the acquisition of candidate sourcing platform idibu for an undisclosed amount, the acquisition we'll see idibu candidate sourcing pipeline and insight technology integrated into the Compono HR tech platform, specifically the idibu platform is used to cross post positions to major job boards and integrate into CRM systems, saving clients, time and money as part of the acquisition, the idibu brand and all its staff will continue to operate as usual founded in 2007, idibu has over 300 clients and two offices in the UK and Spain.

Joel (29m 39s):

The acquisition of idibu by Compono enable the company to expand its current products into Europe while broadening, broadening idibu reach into Asia. According to Crunchbase, idibu was founded in 2007 and raised no VC capital LinkedIn says, says they employ about 17 people. Any thoughts on this one? Chad?

Chad (30m 2s):

Yeah. 2007 and 300 clients. That to me is a warning signal. Yeah. That's a warning signal. I mean, it's right. Yeah. I've heard idibu before, but it's very sparse. They are, I guess you could say a very small, broad bean. So it's, it's just job posting distribution, I think, to be quite Frank, you know, because they didn't take any cash. Maybe they got a good payout, but overall you have to make the decision to go after big funding to be able to supercharge or go after that acquisition. Right? And get targeted to be acquired. So yeah, I think it was a smart move on both sides.

Chad (30m 46s):

Compo themselves, I don't like their go to market strategy because they are SMB and enterprise and we always see that doesn't work out. But overall, you know, adding this to their portfolio is, I don't think it's hurtful. I don't think it's going to send them over the edge either into the enterprise oblivion.

Joel (31m 7s):

No, there probably wasn't a whole lot of risk in this. And I, you know, part of me when I see these stories, you know, the old days of acquisitions and, you know, like the old strategy of growing into new markets was really challenging because it was mostly by job boards or ATSs right? But when you have technology, it's much easier to go into other markets. However, you know, from our European show, which you haven't, if you haven't tuned into that, I encourage you to do so because it's been a real education for me. And I think for you as well, but growing into new markets, there's a lot of legal issues, there's a lot of just like, you know, there's a ton of issues.

Chad (31m 46s):

Basic language, shit.

Joel (31m 47s):

So, yeah, so what's what struck me in this deal was that you've got an Asian company, an APEC company and a European company and if one company wants to get some traction into a new market, a new continent, the acquisition play is a one effective way to do that. So I think that probably had a lot of underlying reasons for a Compono to make this move and gets them into. Let's be honest, are a big market in Europe and a way to grow. Right?

Chad (32m 18s):

Well, we were just talking about the revenue opportunity for recruitment marketing, that most applicant tracking systems and other, you know, recruitment tech, they don't get to, they don't get to enjoy. Now Compono will get to enjoy. The big focus for them is trying to drive this new segments because there's probably more of an upside from the recruitment dollars spend, recruitment marketing dollar spent every year then they will actually see or have opportunity in, on the non recruitment marketing Tech.

Joel (32m 49s):

No doubt. So speaking of tech, you shredded something from our friends at ThisWay Global what's going on with them?

Chad (32m 57s):

Yeah. Big announcement for them. They were actually accepted into Google startup accelerator. These accelerator programs in itself, just the name of Google. It's like that stamp of validity, right? It'll help them stay, upscale the team, build a brand, raise funds. I mean, Google actually provides resources to these startups to be able to help them focus and you know, do business right. Now we all know Google isn't amazing in the recruitment space, although having their brand behind them is not a bad thing.

Chad (33m 36s):

I thought that this was the very first company in the recruiting space that Google had in the accelerator program. I was wrong. Thanks, George LaRoc for pointing out Kanarys, who has actually been on the show as well. They were in this program as well. So there you go.

Joel (33m 53s):

These Guys are just sort of quietly, methodically building a really great product. They partner with Salesforce again, sort of quietly. They told us about it and we did a show on that, but they continued to just really do the right things and whereas they're not as flashy as an Eightfold or raising, you know, those kinds of funds. I think that these guys are doing it right. I think they're gonna have a nice payday in the near future and Google recognizing what they're doing and being willing to help them out. I think only sort of solidifies the point that ThisWay Global is worth is worth watching. You know, again, If they focus and they can actually, they can get more white labeling partnerships together, much like Salesforce.

Joel (34m 41s):

I think they can knock it out of the park.

Chad (34m 43s):

Well, let's take a quick break and we'll talk a little bit of Apple, Uber, Lyft, and others.

Joel (34m 49s):

All right, Chad, your favorite, your favorite company after Amazon, Apple. This is from the verge this week. Apple insists it does not have a problem with pay inequality. Skeptical Apple employees have been trying to verify that claim by sending out informal surveys on how much people make, particularly as it relates to women and underrepresented minorities. But the company has shut down three of those surveys, citing stringent rules on how employees can collect data. Now, multiple labor lawyers tell the Verge, the company may be violating worker protections. The surveys can be considered a form of labor organizing under US law employees have the right to discuss pay.

Joel (35m 36s):

Recently, employees tried to start a pay equity survey, but we're told to take it down because it included a question on gender. When they created a new survey without the gender question, Apple allegedly said it had to be shut down because it was hosted on the company's corporate box account. Oh Chad, what does Apple have to hide?

Chad (36m 1s):

I believe Apple has a problem. So companies in the UK are required to publish information about gender pay gaps. Apparently Apple's report on mean, and median gender pay gap for employees was 12% in favor of men, which is 5% below the overall gender pay gap in the UK. So they are seeing that they're having issues where they have to be transparent right now. They're saying, no, we want to be transparent. No you don't. This is total bullshit. This is Apple playing an HR game, right? There's no reason why that we do self-identification all the time within organizations to be able to better understand what our workforce composition is.

Chad (36m 44s):

We just don't make the information required. If somebody is going to do a pay transparency survey, you obviously should be able to get as much information as possible. Just don't require the information. Right. And then disclude anything that doesn't have that data. Okay. In the US we are going to have to by law, make this a requirement. And whether it starts with, they know a contractors and government contractors who take money, millions or billions of dollars from the federal government, it doesn't matter, but we're going to have to mandate this to actually make them the needle move because companies like Apple are going to continue to play these bullshit games.

Joel (37m 29s):

Yeah. Yeah. Look, Apple is a 40 year company. They have pretty loyal employees from what I understand. There's a wide variety of pay and salaries at this company that are longstanding. And knowing that it, you know, if they have to make good on, on pay equity and equality, it's going to cost them a lot of money and that's going to hit the share price of the company. And so to the degree that they can stifle this information, getting out, they're going to do it. It's not right, but I understand it. Ultimately, it's going to come out. What's really interesting to me is the union perspective on this.

Joel (38m 9s):

And if the perspective is they're hindering us law and the, you know, ability for people to get together, you know, create unions, I think is a really interesting question. And I think this goes back to what we've talked about with Google's union and frankly, probably being the most successful union in the last 10 years, is Google. So if you're sitting there in Silicon Valley and you're working at Apple, and you see Google's, you know, Google's union being really successful, well, hell we should unionize too. So, you know, I suspect that that, whatever Google's facing is gonna hit Apple. It's going to hit Facebook.

Joel (38m 49s):

It's going to hit everybody. And this issue is going to come to light and Apple's gonna have to do good on it, make good on it. And it's going to cost them a lot of money and hit their stock. But they're just, they're just putting off the inevitable, in my opinion.

Chad (39m 2s):

Which is what I don't understand, because if you look at what we just talking about with Airbnb, if you take the right purpose driven edge at this, and you focus on not just the optics, but doing what's right for the people, yes. You're going to take, you're probably going to take a hit on the stock right out of the gate, but that is going to be short term. What you should care about is long-term. And long-term means that you keep the best people who can help you build the best product. This kind of bullshit is going to drive those individuals to other organizations, whether it's Google or not. So I think this is short-term bullshit thinking from a bunch of bitches who need to get their shit in fuckin' play.

Joel (39m 42s):

And not that you would know this check because you wouldn't buy an iPhone if you know, your wife's life depended on it, but they usually release a new phone this time of year. And from a PR perspective, this story couldn't be hitting at a worst time. So to your point, get the shit cleared up, release the new shit just in time for Christmas. And, you know, make people forget the hit to the stock price.

Chad (40m 7s):

Come on Apple.

Joel (40m 8s):

Speaking of hits to stock prices. And who knows what else? Prop 22 is back in the news. Uber took a big hit this weekend, or last weekend after a state judge ruled against a ballot proposition, which would have allowed the companies to continue classifying drivers as independent contractors. Prop 22 passed by a wide margin in this state when most people voted in favor of it in last year's November elections. Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and Door Dash poured in $220 million into campaigning for prop 22 in order to, in order to overturn AB five and the move clearly worked in the rulings. If the ruling stands a gig companies like Uber and Lyft may have to spend hundreds of millions paying for healthcare and other additional benefits for their drivers.

Joel (40m 55s):

At the moment though, prop 22 is still in effect and good companies are already planning to appeal. So Chad, who you got in this epic battle?

Chad (41m 5s):

So the judge actually wrote the prop 22 appears only to protect the economic interest of the network companies, having a dividend unionized workforce, which is not a stated goal of the legislation. So it's, it seems like a technicality overall. I could be wrong, but for me, the people have to win over the company period, because this is about ensuring that our people are protected and they have benefits. The hardest for me to understand this, you know, if we're a land of the free, then why can't we allow the people to choose whether they want to be an FTE or a gig worker?

Chad (41m 47s):

Take it out of the hands of the government, take it out of the hands of the company and actually say, look, you have a choice. And obviously if we discriminate against you for that choice, then obviously, you know, we can, we can be taken to court as well, but you know, some people want side hustles and they already have a full-time job and they have benefits. So this doesn't make any sense for them while others need the benefits. So I just, for me, I just don't understand why this is so fucking hard? Are we going to have to enforce this to ensure that there is no discrimination? Yes. Can we do it? Of course we can.

Joel (42m 24s):

Yeah. Yeah. I'm impressed to hear you say that let the people choose and let them decide whether they want to have a side hustle. Now, obviously a company isn't gonna offer full-time employment, probably if they don't have to. What I think would be interesting is if, you know, if, if Lyft wanted to appeal to a specific kind of driver and lure them away from Uber, it would be to give health benefits and the benefits of full-time employment. And to me, it's more of a recruiting strategy that they're missing than anything else, because from everything we hear, they're having a hard time getting drivers and having drivers, you know, in any kind of scale.

Joel (43m 6s):

So to me, that's, that's something that I would like to see, but ultimately PR specifically, particularly in California, I tend to think that eventually these guys are gonna have to get full time employment benefits to drivers, and they've threatened to leave California, which I don't think they're gonna do. They're gonna have to pay up and what, you know, let's just figure out what other blue states, I guess, are going to start implementing this, the Washingtons of the world, the Oregon's it's going to happen. But I think that when you, when you think about this and other industries and I think about trucking, so there's a great podcast, I think on Planet Money, which I think we both listened to where they talk about going to driving school for, for trucks.

Joel (43m 47s):

And then after you get done with your education, you get your licenses. They say, okay, do you want to be a full-time employee? Or do you want to be an independent business? Right. And they really push you to that. And then you end up being your own business and they give you an LLC and dah, dah, dah. So I think that the rat, the loop in this, that they get around it is that if they do lose the full-time employment court case, that they're going to just do the trucking route and make all these people, their own businesses and just pay them, pay them that way.

Chad (44m 18s):

Yeah. Again, I think it should be a choice of the people, but I think that's going to have to be something that's regulated. So the government actually says, and there's lines that are out there drawn in the sand tht say, look, company A, employer A you don't have an opportunity to be able to classify them yourself. Now back to the trucking issue, that's an education process and problem. I think those truckers and I could be wrong they did become their own business, but they could sell that truck that they bought. They could, you know, get out of hock for all that and still go drive for somebody else.

Chad (44m 58s):

So there's still a light at the end of the tunnel for them, but we definitely do have to have safeguards in place to ensure that kind of shit doesn't happen.

Joel (45m 5s):

Just provide universal healthcare America. And we'll, we'll solve a lot of these problems.

Chad (45m 9s):

Come the fuck on.

Joel (45m 11s):

We'll speaking of side hustles, let's take a quick break and talk about OnlyFans. Chad, this is the second week in a row that we've ended the show with OnlyFans. I don't know what that says about us or our listeners, but you may remember Allie Rae who clear $65 to 75K a month.

Chad (45m 30s):

How can you forget about her?

Joel (45m 31s):

The platform OnlyFans as a former nurse anyway, late, late, last week after we recorded only fans announced it was going to clean up its act and would restrict sexual content, which is a little like your local liquor store announcing it's only serving soft drinks. They did this sighting pressure from banks and payment companies like MasterCard. However, the company did an about face saying they received assurances from banking partners that they will allow the platform to continue allowing sexually explicit content.

Chad (46m 8s):

Yeah.

Joel (46m 10s):

Chad, with more than 130 million users, 2 million content creators and a reported 150 million in free cash flow last year. I think the bankers made a right decision. Don't you?

Chad (46m 23s):

Yeah, no question. Not to mention for the safety of sex workers. I mean that, that's something that I think is incredibly important. And then we found during COVID during the last, you know, 18 months, 24 months, that there's an opportunity for individuals to make possibly more than what they made before at whatever sex work job they did before, whether they were stripping or whatever it was right? But giving those individuals an opportunity to have more of a safe place, and then also create content that they continue to, you know, receive revenues off of. I mean, and again, not that not to sound pedestrian or anything, but if you're up on stage doing a dance, your revenue opportunity is only there when you're in the club, right.

Chad (47m 9s):

When you're on OnlyFans and you're creating content, whatever that content is, people can consume that content whenever. And we're talking about content that might've been there for months, right? And you can still be getting revenue off of that content, which is why Allie Ray obviously is getting anywhere from 65 to $70,000 per month because she's creating that library. And obviously, you know, that that draw.

Joel (47m 36s):

Chad, there's a hole here that needs to be filled. And if it's not OnlyFans, it's going to be someone else, you remember Tumbler many years ago said they were going to go clean. Well no one's heard of Tumbler since then OnlyFans same thing if they go clean, someone else's is going to pop up and here we go. So if not OnlyFans, it's going to be somebody else. This is something apparently in our human nature, that's going to happen and applause to OnlyFans for, you know, sticking with it, doing the 180 and continuing to provide, quote, unquote "creators", a place to create.

Joel (48m 15s):

God bless OnlyFans.

Chad (48m 18s):

Amen.

Joel (48m 18s):

And with that, Chad, you enjoy Portugal. You enjoy your weekend. We'll talk to you next week.

Chad and Joel (48m 24s):

And we out, we out.

OUTRO (49m 19s):

Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.