Personio Stays Home
- Chad Sowash
- 24 hours ago
- 40 min read
Personio: Going Big or Staying Home?
The latest episode dives into the curious case of Personio, which recently announced its first-ever quarterly profit for Q1 2026. While CEO Hano Renner hailed this as a "major milestone," the hosts are less than impressed by the lack of transparency regarding actual revenue numbers. Despite the "in the black" celebration, the company’s simultaneous announcement of an acquisition of Aurio comes off as "thirsty", maybe more of a distraction, or just sloppy marketing.
More In This Episode:
Big Tech’s AI Fire Sale: Companies like Meta, Amazon, and Oracle are cutting thousands of jobs to pivot billions into AI development. The hosts discuss the irony—and the "evil"—of firing humans to build the very technology intended to replace them.
The Global Quality of Life Duel: Emi breaks down data showing that if the UK were a US state, it would be one of the best, leading in healthcare coverage, paid maternity leave, and life expectancy. Meanwhile, Lieven weighs in on how Belgium stacks up with its own impressive social safety nets.
Ethical Lines & "Techno-Fascism": A deep dive into Palantir and the moral dilemma of employees who feel they are no longer preventing abuses but enabling them.
Staffing’s New Operating System: Nomad Health makes a bold pivot from a staffing agency to a software platform.
Opportunity or Survival? LinkedIn’s Dan Shapiro takes the helm as CEO at a critical turning point.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Emi Beredugo (00:10.546)
Yes.
Chad Sowash (00:28.217)
yeah, welcome back to the Chad and Cheese HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. I'm Chad Burn, burn, burn, sewosh.
Emi Beredugo (00:37.512)
And I'm Emi, the sun is finally out in the UK, bear with me. Yeah, for two days.
Chad Sowash (00:42.408)
two days.
Lieven (00:46.188)
And I'm leaving, we should be organizing congresses instead of recording podcasts.
Chad Sowash (00:51.615)
Watch your mouth, always, always be reporting, recording podcasts. And on this week's show, Facebook burns, Starbucks closes, LinkedIn pivots, and maybe Personio should have just stayed home. It's about to get hot up in here. Here we go.
Lieven (00:55.875)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (01:14.047)
Welcome back guys. What's going on? In case you don't know, I'm back in the US. So right now I'm not in Euro Chad mode. I might be a little pissy just so that you know.
Emi Beredugo (01:15.324)
Hello.
Emi Beredugo (01:24.776)
And why's that? Do you not like being back home in the US?
Chad Sowash (01:28.327)
It's interesting because just a couple of weeks ago, was talking to JT, we were on the show, right? And I asked her, I was like, so what's the feeling? What's the vibe in the US? And she was like, people are just mad. I mean, people are just angry, know, more angry than normal. said it could be, you know, that kind of like that time of season, they're sick and tired of it being cold, and they want to be out when it's nice and sunny, and so on and so forth. But I think they're
Emi Beredugo (01:44.559)
gosh.
Chad Sowash (01:56.927)
There's more than that happening. It's been beautiful here. I'm back in good old Columbus, Indiana, visiting my daughter before we go to Chicago in the RLX. But yeah, mean, it's the mood is a little bit more somber. Let's just say that.
Emi Beredugo (02:12.274)
So you're feeling it, yeah? You're feeling that people are somber and just not as happy as before.
Chad Sowash (02:17.425)
Yeah, and it's, mean, the discussions for the most part aren't, you know, starting on the positive side, looking at things to bitch about, you know what I mean? Which generally kind of gives the state of mind of a person, whether you know it or not, if you're going to be focusing on the bad stuff, because you're just in a bad mood, and you want to be pissed about something versus, you know, looking at the beautiful, shiny day in the UK that you might only have for two days.
Emi Beredugo (02:25.352)
Mmm.
Emi Beredugo (02:31.602)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (02:44.456)
Don't take the piss. mean, like, you know, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's going to stay sunnier for more than a week. You know, you never know.
Chad Sowash (02:47.613)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Well, Leven said that it's actually nicer in Belgium today than it is in the Algarve. So, you know, maybe I should be in Belgium today instead.
Lieven (02:59.426)
Yep.
Emi Beredugo (03:00.393)
perhaps.
Lieven (03:03.596)
Perfect place to be. Perfect place to be. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (03:07.507)
perfect place to be. Now, is this the break pretty much right now and then you start to get better weather moving forward or is it kind of like spotty in Belgium?
Lieven (03:20.428)
I don't know, normally we have like rain all the time and since the climate is changing I'm pretty happy about the weather. We have a hot spring, have less rain. You won't hear me complaining but I know somewhere someone's getting fucked but we're happy.
Chad Sowash (03:23.839)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (03:36.307)
Yeah, but, leaving's all about, you know.
Chad Sowash (03:44.255)
Well, I've been lucky enough, obviously, to be back. Went to Phoenix for a client board. Went and spoke to the National Retail Federation. so I'm gonna jump, because this is a little bit moving toward my shout out. My shout out, because I remember back in the early aughts.
Lieven (03:44.76)
So, a win.
Emi Beredugo (03:59.441)
Ooh.
Chad Sowash (04:09.971)
when trying to get a success story from a TA and HR professional was worse than pulling teeth. I mean, you just couldn't get it. It was like, I wanted the launch codes or something, right? It's like, I just want to know what's going right. And you just couldn't get that. But shout out to all of today's TA and HR practitioners out there. Since last November, I've been at seven shows, and I believe Joel's been in about six of those that were practitioner heavy. And most of them actually practitioner led.
Emi Beredugo (04:19.304)
I
Chad Sowash (04:39.675)
not many vendors at all. And I think it's really important to say as someone in this space who digs deep into technology, I love to dig even deeper into the actual problems that are happening and only practitioners really can give you the sentiment of what's going on. And over the past seven months, they've opened up shared stories, their successes, and more importantly, their failures, which allow us to not only understand what's happening out there,
but how to help the masses understand that they aren't alone in those problems. I think for so many years we've been in our silos, right? And there might be little groups here and there that get together, but today more than ever, we're starting to see practitioners come together and really look to work together for shortcuts. Instead of saying, we're way different than you. We can't recruit like you. They're actually looking for similarities.
Emi Beredugo (05:14.749)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (05:35.197)
and saying, wait, I can steal that from you. Yes, our company's not the same, but yet you've done some really smart things from a process methodology standpoint. So my shout out is to all of those companies who are opening up on their failures, their successes, and if you wanna watch some of those, you can go to thesessions.ai. We're actually prepping to drop two more seasons here in the next few months or so. Or just go to our YouTube channel and click on playlists and you'll see The Sessions, but.
Shout out to all of those TA HR people who are actually sharing because sharing as Barney would say is caring. That's right
Emi Beredugo (06:10.632)
It's Karen. Yay! I love that I haven't heard that in ages.
Lieven (06:14.71)
So cute.
Chad Sowash (06:16.499)
Yeah, that's I'm here for. I'm here for the bingo card, card, Barney reference. What about, what about, what about you and me? What you got?
Lieven (06:19.342)
you
Emi Beredugo (06:23.867)
Oh, well, you know, as we were talking about the UK, I'm going to stay on topic because my my shout out is to my fabulous country, the United Kingdom. And yeah, and I'll tell you why. You might have seen this. There was data that kind of floating around. I think it's been floating around for a little while now, but it's actually saying that it was comparing the UK and the same to the US and the same if the UK was a US state.
Chad Sowash (06:27.187)
Mmm.
Chad Sowash (06:33.789)
No.
Chad Sowash (06:42.547)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (06:50.58)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (06:51.794)
the UK would actually be one of the best states in America. And I love this. I love the idea of this. I haven't seen anything like this before. And I looked at it I was like, my God, the UK is actually smashing the US. And this is someone who used to, my dream was to live in the US. And I've always had this thing about the UK going, okay, it's not that great, even though it's sunny at the moment. But I'll tell you why. And it's for a number of reasons. So one of it,
Chad Sowash (06:59.103)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (07:05.791)
You
Emi Beredugo (07:18.856)
One of the reasons is that we're apparently number one in healthcare coverage. So, and that's true. yeah, 100%. Because, know, I talked to my cousins and like my family over in the US and they're like saying, you know, if they want to get a kidney transplant, basically they're going to have to sell a kidney to actually pay for that kidney transplant. That's ridiculous, you know?
Chad Sowash (07:24.127)
Well, compared to the US, yes.
Chad Sowash (07:37.517)
yeah. Medical bankruptcies are the number one movement for somebody to actually go bankrupt year over year. Medical bankruptcies.
Emi Beredugo (07:42.001)
Yeah!
Emi Beredugo (07:45.865)
Yeah, I mean, we don't have that in the UK. We have like their national health service. So can't even imagine that. Number two, we're actually number one paid for giving paid maternity leave, which I love the idea of, you know, and the length of maternity is actually a lot longer than the UK because obviously if you have a baby, you want to know your baby before you actually go back to work. So we're brilliant from that point of view. Yes, we paid for, yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:59.871)
Yeah, that's amazing.
Chad Sowash (08:08.511)
Well, and you get paid. This is paid maternity leave versus FMLA in the US is 12 weeks of unpaid.
Lieven (08:11.202)
Thanks.
Emi Beredugo (08:17.394)
my God, they're like, no, it's like, why should it be unpaid? Exactly. You just got a new baby. Yeah, that's ridiculous. What else is there? Talk about paid stuff. We're number one in statutory paid holidays in the UK. And our holidays are a lot longer. So not this kind of two week vacation. mean, take me for example, I'm about to get on a plane to go to Brazil for three weeks. I can do that. So.
Chad Sowash (08:19.539)
Who can go 12 weeks without a paycheck? I mean, especially got a new mouth to feed. mean, yes. Anyway, sorry.
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (08:38.889)
I
Emi Beredugo (08:43.908)
another great reason for living in the UK. But also we rank first in things like life expectancy, years in education, having the lowest kind of murder rates. So we're basically a safer, smarter kind of country to live in. So yeah, so I mean, I'm giving it for the UK and you know, it just makes me wonder Chad, whether or not you made a mistake, because I know you love to like kind of class yourself as Euro Chad.
Maybe Portugal wasn't the way to go. Maybe you should have come to the UK. I mean, what do reckon?
Chad Sowash (09:14.387)
Yeah, but I mean that comparison was the US versus the UK. I need to do a comparison versus Portugal and I guarantee you that's gonna be entirely different. Yeah, hmm. Hey, what about a little Belgium? How do they rank or how do they shape up against the UK?
Emi Beredugo (09:19.79)
Yes!
Lieven (09:24.238)
Thank
Emi Beredugo (09:26.999)
Well, depends where you go. I mean, you live in the Algarve, so yeah. Yeah.
Lieven (09:41.358)
Belgium. If you would compare us to the US, we wouldn't even be a state. We would be like a major city. We have 10 million people compared to the UK. doing, I checked the list. We are doing better on about half of the topics and it's about 50-50. So for example, I was impressed with your 28 days.
Chad Sowash (09:42.676)
Yeah.
Lieven (10:04.782)
paid 39 weeks of paid maternity leave, which is pretty impressive. We only have 15 weeks. I, as a man, have basically almost nothing, which is totally terrible. But I mean, 39 weeks, you could have a new baby by the time your 39 weeks are gone. You could make it a business model. Just keep producing babies and the government will support you. Excuse me, excuse me, I had three and...
Chad Sowash (10:07.967)
39 weeks.
Emi Beredugo (10:15.024)
in 2026.
Emi Beredugo (10:20.744)
Yep.
Never go back to work. Yeah exactly I like that idea.
Chad Sowash (10:27.495)
You can tell Leaven's never had a baby before. Go ahead.
Emi Beredugo (10:29.638)
Yeah.
Lieven (10:35.5)
In fact, I had twins even, I had some day I had two babies.
Chad Sowash (10:36.831)
Did you did you personally deliver them because this is a Guinness Book of World Records thing if you a man actually had the baby There might be a difference between the two leave and I'm not sure yes
Emi Beredugo (10:39.687)
Yeah.
Not quite the same, yeah.
Lieven (10:44.478)
I was present when it was delivered. was present, which is a very hard thing to do too. Still, still, mean, anyways, we're getting off topic. But that's all. Life expectancy, for example, in Belgium is a bit longer than in the UK and years longer, of course, than in the US, of course. We have, what else are we winning?
Emi Beredugo (10:56.154)
I
Emi Beredugo (11:06.93)
course.
Lieven (11:11.246)
years in education people on average get educated for 19 years which isn't even that long I think but 19 and the US is only 17.8 sorry in the UK our minimum wage is similar I think 1448 dollars an hour it's awful okay it's awful yeah
Chad Sowash (11:29.065)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (11:33.919)
That is awful. But it's even worse than ours, obviously. $7.25.
Lieven (11:41.058)
Are you kidding me?
Chad Sowash (11:42.239)
Yeah, $7.25 and the euro obviously is worth more than the dollar is. So that's even worse than it sounds.
Lieven (11:50.414)
I was talking about dollars, it's 13 euros, 13.8 but still, but you're talking about 7. So, okay. My 15 year old kids would refuse to wash my car for such a... Okay. Oh well, I can imagine why everyone comes to Europe.
Chad Sowash (11:53.272)
okay.
Chad Sowash (11:57.503)
725, yeah, that's the federal minimum wage, yes.
Chad Sowash (12:05.343)
Hahaha
Chad Sowash (12:12.051)
Yeah, but I gotta say.
They did well in and when it comes to the UK and it's funny because I think we definitely need some run some numbers around some of the other European countries. The UK to some extent, especially when you take a look at like overprocessed food and obesity, they're number two behind the US. So I think I think using the US as a low bar when it comes. So we're going to have to dig into some more countries.
Emi Beredugo (12:34.852)
Yeah, 100%.
Lieven (12:39.202)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (12:40.712)
You
you know, as I had McDonald's for lunch today. And it's like,
Lieven (12:44.045)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (12:45.343)
Yeah, exactly. Leave it leaving. You got a shout out.
Lieven (12:47.438)
We have, we have 59 % sorry, 15.9 % obesity. Is that right? Right. Where's the business obesity, obesity and Belgium, say obesity test, whatever. So 15.9 for in the UK, it's 29. That's the big difference indeed. Okay. Anyways, my shout outs goes to the big tech companies who are actually now firing people to be able to invest in AI, which might someday replace those people.
Chad Sowash (12:54.195)
Yeah, yeah, obesity percentage.
Lieven (13:16.694)
So you just have to imagine, I mean, getting fired because of AI sucks, but getting fired because your company wants to invest in technology, which might someday take your job. That's even worse. So this is what's going on right now. And what was the matter? I was going to fire 8,000 people. Amazon fired 30,000, Oracle is firing people. It's all over the place. Everyone is getting fired because there's like a race to invest in AI, not knowing where it will end, but
Chad Sowash (13:16.927)
Maybe.
Chad Sowash (13:27.391)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (13:44.94)
For a company like Meta, which has tons of money, they're investing 130 billion this year, which even to them is a lot of money. So now they have to let go of 8,000 people to invest in something which might someday replace those people. well, I think we should all take an example of Google who used to have their baseline saying, don't be evil. We need to get back to those days. Don't be evil, big tech. Used to have, used to have, a long time ago.
Chad Sowash (14:07.871)
Used to have yes used to used to have unfortunately, I know the the beautiful thing is We here at the Ched and cheese podcast. We don't do evil. We give away free stuff
Emi Beredugo (14:11.098)
Yeah, that's what I'm
Lieven (14:15.864)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (14:35.103)
every time.
Chad Sowash (15:34.431)
That's right. look, Emmy's got her chicken cock cup out.
Emi Beredugo (15:40.038)
got my chicken cock but can I just say something I didn't actually do you know where my birthday was Chad? April the 14th I didn't get anything in the post
Chad Sowash (15:42.643)
Yes, please.
No way.
Chad Sowash (15:49.875)
Well, how come Steven didn't send you something? I'm to have a conversation with him. I'm going have a conversation.
Emi Beredugo (15:52.419)
Wow, I'm gonna have to have a word. I want chicken cock. I feel like left out, you know, I want to have chicken cock in my chicken cock mug.
Chad Sowash (16:00.125)
Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. We might be able to make that happen and that's right. Our travel sponsor by our friends over at Shaker recruitment marketing is all this AI stuff getting you frustrated. Well, don't worry. Just jump over to shaker.com and leave your worries and expert hands. That's right shaker.com. So Emmy, clear your calendar. I'm coming to London.
Emi Beredugo (16:05.692)
Emi Beredugo (16:23.352)
Ooh. Ooh, when?
Chad Sowash (16:26.237)
That's right. May 14th coming up for May 14th.
Emi Beredugo (16:29.458)
I'm not here. Every time you come over to this region, I'm not here. Are you doing this on purpose?
Chad Sowash (16:33.151)
my God, and I was gonna bring, and I was gonna try to bring some chicken cock. Okay, maybe next time, maybe next time. I'm going over for the JobBoard Connect unplugged event. I'm a virgin on this one. Have you guys been to any of these JobBoard Connect? No, I haven't either. This is, Julie's gonna be speaking at it and I'm gonna be speaking too, so that's good. That's two birds, one stone. Then I'm doing a couple of online events.
Emi Beredugo (16:38.618)
Yeah, yeah.
Emi Beredugo (16:48.078)
No, no, not at all.
Chad Sowash (17:00.647)
Remember these things? happened during COVID. They're few and far between now, but I was asked to join this Fusion event that was happening just to kind of check it out. And I thought, what the hell not? I'm going to be in the Algarve soaking up the sun anyway. So on May 20th and 21st, we're going to hold two debates on those two days. One is over skills-based hiring. I'm going to be the moderator. I'm not going to be debating, even though I would love to debate.
Lieven (17:03.534)
Thank
Emi Beredugo (17:25.957)
Mmm.
Chad Sowash (17:29.991)
And then number two debate is over AI interviewing. So if you want to join the debates, discussions, or just be a voyeur and watch, go to HR week dot global. And you can always go to Chad cheese.com slash events. And you can find all the events we're going to be attending. Plenty more events coming in 2026, not to mention teaser in the music about the conference. Congress happening.
later this year. If kids, we don't run out of jet fuel. That's problem. That is. You guys going anywhere? I know leaving, always going somewhere.
Emi Beredugo (18:06.888)
Which could happen.
Lieven (18:16.024)
Always going somewhere, that's right. But nothing worth mentioning here. No? No?
Chad Sowash (18:18.591)
But he's not going to tell us.
Emi Beredugo (18:22.588)
I know, he's so mysterious, isn't he? And it's like, yes, I am. And that is as much as I'll tell you.
Chad Sowash (18:27.109)
I am going to an undisclosed.
Lieven (18:27.534)
The only thing you need to remember is October 6th I'll be in Amsterdam for the Erecruitment Congress where Chad and Joel will be too. That's the only thing worth mentioning.
Chad Sowash (18:35.689)
Yes.
Yep. More to talk about with that. I can't wait. It's been, it's been too long, but until then we're going to talk about, yeah, layoffs, layoffs. Uh, leaving already talked about Facebook a little bit. Meadow will cut thousands of jobs next month as it spends more time and money than ever on AI projects. A key reason for the layoffs is metas increased spending in AI, which leaving talked about what's 130 billion USD. That's a
100 billion British pounds. This is roughly equal to the amount it spent on AI in the previous three years, not to mention, I don't know if you remember or not, they lost $90 billion in virtual reality. Right? Okay, yes, so think, let that lay for a minute. And in other layoff news, according to an internal Starbucks memo sent to employees and seen by the Seattle Times,
Emi Beredugo (19:23.272)
Hmm
Lieven (19:23.278)
The metaverse, right? Remember the metaverse.
Chad Sowash (19:37.311)
Starbucks is in layoff mode. While the exact number of job cuts in their location remain unclear, the company said in a memo, quote, we are making structural changes to move faster, sharpen focus, and ensure we are set up to deliver on our most important priorities, end quote. Whatever those priorities are, who knows? The report added the layoffs follow a series of workforce reductions over the past year, including the closure of several.
100 stores across the US and Canada. So Facebook is burning through cash and Starbucks is burning through stores. Any comments, anything to add?
Emi Beredugo (20:19.33)
I have to add? It is freaking scary. I'm fed up with hearing all these stories about companies saying, yes, AI is going to take over. AI can increase the productivity of our employees. AI means that we don't need as many people. Or it just means that you're over hired at some point, probably during COVID, and you're still trying to rectify it. So like Leevon said, using, stop doing evil. Just be good. Be human. Look after your employees. And especially
Chad Sowash (20:30.59)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (20:44.777)
Which...
Emi Beredugo (20:48.592)
Like I read this thing about Mark Zuckerberg. What he's doing now is that basically what he's saying, it's kind of like something out of Black Mirror. So he's told his employees that they're going to track and log the interactions with the, you know, how they interact with their computers. So any clicks, yeah, clicks and keystrokes. And they're going to use that information to train and improve the AI models. Is that, you joking? So really what they're doing is that they're really trying to force
Chad Sowash (20:52.765)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (21:05.682)
Yep, yep. Mouse clicks. Yeah. Yep.
Emi Beredugo (21:17.832)
their employees to train their computers and train themselves out of a job. Is that that's what you're doing? Is that what is that doing to your company culture? No one's going to want to work there. You know, you don't trust your employees and you're basically telling them, yeah, well done. We're going to, I'm going to force you to train the algorithms who's going to replace you in a couple of years. Why?
Chad Sowash (21:35.731)
Yeah, well then you have Handshake, Mercor, and LinkedIn who are now starting to help companies, these companies, find experts in specific areas to help train the models in specific areas, whether it's coding, whether it's science, whatever it is. So there are all these different models that are being put in play to do just that. So get ready. Get ready.
Emi Beredugo (21:52.987)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (22:04.157)
We got the meats kids. So HR software giant personio just announced its first ever quarterly profit in Q1 of 2026, proving that if you fire enough people and close enough offices, eventually the math starts to look less than a blood, less like a blood bath and more like business, mainly because humans have short memories following a grueling multi-year restructuring phase, which is
Lieven (22:27.598)
Mm
Chad Sowash (22:31.529)
corporate speak for multiple rounds of layoffs and fleeing the US market with their tail between their legs, Personio finally moved into the black. Now, how much did they make? They aren't saying, they're not telling us. In the same release, Personio announces its acquisition of Aurio, A-U-R-I-O, I think it's Aurio, which offers two AI agents. Agent number one is Kim.
and AI sourcing agent and agent number two is Alex, an application screening agent. Brasonio is in the black and now has agents. Emmy, what's not to love?
Emi Beredugo (23:15.45)
it. It's amazing. I mean, for me, find it quite I'm interested in the fact that they went out so quickly and kind of went shopping and acquired this new organization because and I think it's very optimistic of them. They like you said, they have lost a lot of money. They have not been doing well over the years. You know, they've only just made a profit. And the very first thing they do is let's go shopping for a new company.
Chad Sowash (23:16.668)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (23:43.517)
Are you sure? Are you sure this is the right thing to do? Is this logical? Is this safe? Are you seeing, do you not want to wait for multiple quarters of profitability before you go and do this? Maybe they're thinking, maybe they are positive. I'm assuming that they are. But for me, I think it's a little bit of a reckless move from their part, even though they're trying to capitalize on what Oreo is doing. Oreo? Yeah, Oreo, yeah.
Chad Sowash (24:08.809)
down. Are you Oreo? I don't know. Is it is it the cookie? Is it not the cookie? I don't know. Yeah, no, you're right. mean, personio is raised over 770 million and over eight funding rounds. mean, so close to a billion billion dollars. And talking about being in the black is merely financial engineering at this point and buying a young startup that says they have agents seems a little thirsty for the spotlight.
Emi Beredugo (24:12.392)
Yeah.
Lieven (24:15.586)
Hmm
Emi Beredugo (24:32.488)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (24:38.779)
And or they included Ario in this press release to detract from the lack of actual numbers that they were giving around their profitability or their ability to get to, know, in the black. So if companies like Personio want to be taken seriously, you know, they have to start giving us numbers. Are you seeing revenue growth? Where? New countries, new products, or maybe just better retention and upsells? For me, a release like this
Emi Beredugo (25:02.716)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (25:05.701)
is just some sloppy and thrown together bullshit. Number one, they should have pulled together more substantial information about being in the black and telling a story about their road back. If not, shut up. Number two, separately, you splash the hell out of this new acquisition, pull together some videos of the product, hype it up, do some interviews, trying to put your brand in the same conversation as the Workday buying paradox move or the SAP buying
smart recruiters move. Is it the same league? No, hell no, it's not. But does it matter when you're splashing product? It does not. No, get out there and be big. You either go big or you stay the fuck home. And for me, this Personio press release was two opportunities to have big, go big moments, right? But Personio said, no, we're just gonna go ahead and throw this out there and stay home. Last but not least, Hano Renner.
Emi Beredugo (25:36.983)
Mm. No.
Chad Sowash (26:04.265)
who's the CEO and co-founder of Personio said the following, quote, reaching our first profitable quarter is a major milestone for Personio. It means we can fund our innovation agenda from the strength of our business, independent of external capital cycles. It's an important step in building a resilient company and giving customers confidence that we're here in the long term. What that says to me is we are still not ready for the big leagues.
We're not a resilient company. We didn't have the capital to innovate before. And someday our customers should gain confidence in Personio. Not only did they blow too big messaging and narrative opportunities, but the CEO just said, we're not ready for the big leagues. It's a go big or stay home game. And to be quite frank, for me, this was a stay home move, unfortunately, when they had go big opportunities.
Emi Beredugo (26:42.716)
Please think we're good.
Chad Sowash (27:02.74)
Leaving?
Lieven (27:04.686)
I never worked with them or never used one of their products. So I'm not going into the quality of what they have to sell might be very good. I don't know, but they've been burning money since 2015, I believe something like that, which is quite a time. And like I said, Shets, someone invested or many people invested about 700 million in them. But if I was an investor and they were just doing whatever they were doing for over 10 years, burning money, I would get anxious and.
Chad Sowash (27:11.741)
Hmm?
Chad Sowash (27:18.143)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Lieven (27:34.358)
If their business model is getting more money just to be keep to keep doing whatever they're doing, this might stop. So what I would do in there, if I was them and they did the same thing, it's buy an AI company just to keep the investors happy for a few more years. And we'll see what happens. And the cost cutting thing they did is a very good trick to, to get into the black. If it's feasible on the long run, I don't know. I don't know what they're doing, but we'll see.
Chad Sowash (28:01.076)
Yeah.
Lieven (28:02.742)
But this might keep investors happy for a few more years, which is a business model on sich. We'll see.
Chad Sowash (28:09.481)
Yeah, well, I think the hard part is that first off, they spent a lot of money trying to get into the US, right? Trying to crack the US and it didn't work. they retreated back to where they were comfortable. They're going to have to try to crack the US again. That's that they have to be able to grow, to be able to actually create the type of revenue.
that I would assume their investors want, they're gonna have to find a way across the Atlantic again. And that's not gonna be. Yeah. What's that?
Emi Beredugo (28:46.268)
Why did I fail the first time?
I said, why did they fail the first time? Because they were only there for two years.
Chad Sowash (28:54.301)
Yeah, well, mean, this is something that I don't want to say is typical, but we see from many European startups, when they want to come to the US is they believe they can do a big splash and then everything just comes like it did in Europe. And it's the same thing vice versa. Americans think that they can invade Europe the same way that they work in the US, and you just can't.
And I think, you know, most of these European companies feel like if they take the same model and they just push it over one way or the other, it's going to work. it just doesn't. You're lucky if it does, right? You were really lucky if it does.
Emi Beredugo (29:29.413)
It doesn't? Yeah.
Lieven (29:31.574)
Yeah, we Europeans, we always think the US is an easy market. It's tons of customers and one language, almost one legislation, at least not as fragmented as in Europe. So it seems like an easy market. The only problem is so many other companies think the same. So it's a very flooded market. It's a red ocean. And in my experience, many companies have one plan.
Chad Sowash (29:40.679)
Same language.
Chad Sowash (29:51.625)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (29:53.128)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (30:00.59)
Plan is we're going to the US, but what are we going to do in the US? They don't have a clue. Are we going to conquer the US? They're just going to do whatever they were doing. Yeah. And it's probably not the same thing they should be doing, but I get the urge to grow in the US. It's still, it's the biggest market.
Emi Beredugo (30:07.708)
in the same way we did in Europe, as in Europe.
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (30:23.121)
It is, but you have to be committed and it has to be sustainable. And that's one of the hardest things I think for companies to understand going in. again, the big difference, you coming over to the US, there's a lot of noise thinking that regulation is pretty much the same because it's one federal regulation. Well, then all 50 states have their own regulations. You don't know how many UK practitioners I talked to in
Lieven (30:28.558)
Hmm.
Lieven (30:48.686)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (30:52.841)
Harfordshire, about a month or so ago, who were just blown away by just the chaos that was happening from a regulatory standpoint in the US, whether it was no guardrails versus going local and having specific guardrails in different locales. So yeah, mean, it's tough to navigate and you get to the point where...
Emi Beredugo (30:55.026)
Well done, good.
Lieven (30:57.794)
Yeah, and I think...
Emi Beredugo (31:05.821)
I can't keep up, yeah.
Lieven (31:27.552)
And it would of course help if you have something to offer which nobody else is. that isn't the case in many... It isn't often the case.
Chad Sowash (31:34.419)
That is, yeah, yeah, no, I agree 100 % kids. We're gonna take a quick break. If you have not, go to our YouTube channel, check it out, like and subscribe, do that, do the same thing on Spotify and give us a review. Love us, hate us, doesn't matter. We love to hear from you and we'll be right back.
Chad Sowash (31:56.104)
All right. So as an employee, where do you draw the line between your beliefs and your company's beliefs, the products that they build, the outcomes, those types of things. And in case in point, Palantir may have directly, you know, been involved in the Trump administration's ice crackdown on undocumented immigrants and an effort that's been implicated in numerous deaths. but it gets worse.
It's not clear what Palantir's role was in the deadly strike on the Iranian school killing 120 children, right? And one Palantir employee asked in a Slack channel, quote, were we involved? And whether the company is doing anything to stop a repeat. And this is quoted by Wire magazine. Then last week Palantir poured fuel on the fire with a 22 point summary.
of their CEO Alex crazy carps 2025 book, the technology, the technological Republic, hard power, soft belief and the future of the West and ominous corporate manifesto that create critics called a hideous ideology. An example of techno fascism. I can hear you. And me, it can hear you typing away.
This is taking notes. like that. This is given some Palantir employees pause. One employee says, we were supposed to be the ones who were preventing a lot of these abuses. Now we're not preventing them. We seem to be enabling them. Emmy, leaving as an employee. Where do you draw the line? You've got this company, you have another company called Andral that's in the US that's doing
Not as bad stuff because they're a much younger company, but there it looks like they're on the road to doing those things How do you how do you square? How do you square this?
Emi Beredugo (33:59.571)
What I would say in an ideal world, when you join an organization, you're not just thinking about the job. You are also thinking about the culture. You are thinking about what the company actually stands for. You are thinking about the customers they interact with because that organization is a reflection of yourself. But that's in an ideal world. I'd like to think that, and I truly believe that if I was looking for another job,
Chad Sowash (34:11.561)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (34:20.767)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (34:28.136)
those are still the same questions that I'd ask the employer. And those are the things that will influence my decision as to whether or not I would want to work for that organization. And I think that when people joined this organization back in the day, that is what they came across as an ethical organization. They came across as an organization that was doing good. Somewhere along the line, the CEO has changed his mind, he's changed directions, and he's basically saying, get on board or basically get the fuck out.
Chad Sowash (34:46.548)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (34:56.86)
You know, and an example of where he's saying get the fuck out is because when people are asking, like you said, are we involved in these things? You know, this doesn't really align with my values. He's saying, cool, I'll tell you, but you have to sign the NDA, which means you'll find out, but I'm not going to tell, you know, you can't tell the colleagues. So he still stays close-knit or I'm just going to carry on scrubbing Slack messages of people talking about this.
Chad Sowash (35:17.171)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (35:26.236)
But like I said, that is in the ideal world. I think that whilst people should still do this, whilst people should still ask these questions, whilst this should be a driving factor as to whether or not you take your job, I also know that the market is shit. So people may suspend their beliefs if they've been out of work and go, I need to pay my bills. So yes, yes, I do not agree with this.
Chad Sowash (35:47.359)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (35:47.586)
Hmm.
Emi Beredugo (35:53.779)
But I'm in a situation where I can't pay my bills. My kids need to be fed, for example. I've been out of work for months. What are they going to do? What's going to be the driving factor then? So I find it very scary that we're in this situation. I find it very scary that this guy is in charge of an organization. I find it very scary that he doesn't care that he's changing the culture. And in fact, that he's finding ways to drive out people from his organization that don't align with his culture, with all these tactics that he's doing.
and then he'll build an army of employees who all have the same political beliefs, because that's what he is. He's pushing his political beliefs on his employees. So I think it's a very sad, scary world.
Chad Sowash (36:35.933)
Leaving, is it sad and scary? Or is it just trying to make a buck out there? Just a guy just trying to make a buck.
Emi Beredugo (36:41.704)
Bye.
Lieven (36:43.822)
It's certainly scary, I think, but I'm not naive. think we need a strong military and given the geopolitical situation, Russia, China, Iran, cetera, the U S needs a strong army, I'm sure. And they're not making many friends, so they need an even stronger army than they used to. So I totally agree. And if I was a brilliant engineer, you might've convinced me to work for a company investing in the military activities. Why not?
It would be, I'm not a hypocrite. mean, so I would do it. might have done it, but what's happening now is something else. We're not talking about developing the military to defend United States against foreign problems. We're talking about using AI to, to, to do stuff to the own, to the own, to own people to, I'm not sure how to say it in English to,
to make sure those, you know what I mean. You're using AI against your own population. And this is not something I could support. yeah, what Amy says is right. mean, it's a hard time. And if you have a job, you need a job. I need to feed your children. But these are engineers. Those people can work. If they're very good in AI, they can work wherever they want. There are still a lot. So they have the possibility to choose. in French, they have a saying, and I'll translate it afterwards.
Emi Beredugo (37:46.792)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (37:47.146)
yeah. Big brother.
Lieven (38:12.558)
whenever the people who are disgusted are leaving, only the disgusting people are staying. And this is what's happening all over again. So if you're not leaving now, then it's your own choice. If you keep working for a company like this company, it's your choice and you're entitled to your own choice, but it's your choice. So don't say you didn't know it.
Emi Beredugo (38:20.07)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (38:20.105)
Yeah.
It's a very good one.
Chad Sowash (38:34.953)
That's a great, that's a great one. That's a great one. There's no question there's a corporate handcuff kind of situation that's happening. Much like Emi had said, Karp knows the market sucks. Karp believes AI will start taking jobs soon. AI taking jobs means less jobs, needs less people. Employees are stuck between a rock and a hard place. And do I say grin and bear it? Or do you say get the fuck out?
Lieven (38:56.302)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (39:03.679)
These two options are always available, but when the market sucks and the possibility of a market retraction through AIs on the horizon, what do you do? Do you stay with the evil empire or eject? And I think no matter what the end result's gonna be the same, whether you leave now and you find a job somewhere else.
Emi Beredugo (39:14.108)
Mmm.
Chad Sowash (39:28.767)
or you are continuing to train this Palantir AI and then they just get rid of your ass anyway, right? So it's kind of like which, where do you, what stop do you want to get off on? Right? Do you want, go ahead.
Lieven (39:35.534)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (39:36.082)
Which route did I down?
Lieven (39:38.956)
Yeah. And, you know, and I wasn't talking about the people working in the kitchen of Palantir, not talking about the people cleaning the offices. I'm talking about the people who actually making the difference, who are building this empire, this evil empire, which will be used against the own citizens. And this is a decision they know they made. I think.
Chad Sowash (39:45.363)
Yeah, engineers, yeah.
Chad Sowash (39:52.798)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (40:00.704)
Agreed. No, I totally agree. And I think those individuals, those types of engineers, especially the AI engineers, they're the ones with the control, unlike most of the other individual positions that might be under them. So yeah, the ones who are making the difference in Palantir today could prospectively just eject. And that might not be a bad thing.
Emi Beredugo (40:13.959)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (40:28.553)
Well, from, we're gonna go ahead and move on to a company that we haven't talked about in a little while. So this is from their press release. Nomad Health announced today its formal transition from a healthcare staffing agency, transition from a healthcare staffing agency to what? To a software platform company. Nomad offers its proprietary AI operating system to mid-market and enterprise healthcare staffing firms nationwide, end quote.
Switching from a staffing company to a staffing a staffing operating system leaving. Did you and nomad just become best friends?
Lieven (41:07.698)
No, but it's not one of our companies. So I only become friends with my own companies. But it makes sense. Yeah, why not? Why not? We should look into it. But we used to say you can't go wrong with healthcare. We stopped saying this. You definitely can't go wrong with healthcare. Because of legislation.
Chad Sowash (41:08.703)
Hahaha
Chad Sowash (41:13.959)
Huh? &A, baby. Could be one of your companies. You never know.
Chad Sowash (41:26.407)
I'm sure, yes. It's not easy.
Lieven (41:30.254)
And I only know about Western Europe here. We have a company in the Netherlands called TMI, which is actually doing whatever Nomad is doing. And they are struggling now because of legislation. So the press is constantly against people investing in healthcare because they say something like private equity is getting rich on healthcare, but it's
population who's paying for healthcare. It's not like in the United States where healthcare is something each individual has to pay for himself. Here healthcare is paid by the government, so basically paid by taxpayers. yeah indeed, so if a private equity company is investing in healthcare and they are charging a lot to attract
Chad Sowash (42:06.783)
Single payer, yeah.
Lieven (42:16.992)
or sorry, they are investing a lot to attract nurses, for example, and then they put those nurses at work and they make money on top of those nurses. It's the government who's paying. So it's a taxpayer who's paying for the profits those companies are making. This is what the press is kind of propagating. So I think the business model will have to change. And what Nomad is doing, evolving from traditional staffing to a platform, could be the way to go.
Chad Sowash (42:20.318)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (42:23.924)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (42:43.55)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (42:44.736)
then the people active on the platform are in charge and they decide if they want to be freelancer or if they want to be a nurse who is employed or whatever. And they just match those profiles, the nurses with the hiring companies, with the hospitals, et cetera. And it's a different way than just putting people at work and putting them on your own payroll, which is what was traditionally happening. We hired thousands of nurses, we put them on our payroll. And basically if we had them all,
then we could charge whatever we wanted for them because we had the nurses and those hospitals needed nurses. This has to stop because people are just not accepting it anymore. So I think this might be what's triggering nomads to change business model. It's the opinion from the people and legislation. But I could be wrong.
Chad Sowash (43:35.437)
What do think, Emmy?
Emi Beredugo (43:37.469)
Yeah, I agree. think it's an interesting story because I don't think very often, or I certainly haven't heard of organisations just making this kind of massive shift, especially when they're doing well, because they were doing well. You know, was they were not struggling organisation. They were what is it? Forty two forty second on the fastest growing staffing firms list out of all the ones out there. Forty six on their SIA's list of largest health care staffing firms, if I'm right. So they were doing well.
Chad Sowash (43:57.385)
Dad.
Emi Beredugo (44:06.28)
they could have continued to have done well, they could have continued to grow. So I think it's quite a bold move. And I was trying to think about why, why would they do that? You know, and one of the reasons that I was thinking is because the healthcare market is hard and the margins are low. So in order to keep growing, I'm assuming they're going to have to keep adding heads. So that's obviously you're increasing your spend, which is going to affect your profitability.
Whereas if they moved down this route, this kind of SAS route, what they're doing now is having higher profit margins with lower headcount. And they're selling their product, which they've actually been developing over the years, to their competitors as well. They know the market. So I think it's actually quite a clever move, but I think it's quite an interesting move and probably an unexpected move. But we may see.
more organisations, particularly in the healthcare industry, move down this route or any other kind of industry which has that kind low profit margin kind of growth model.
Chad Sowash (45:06.815)
Yeah. Yeah. I think the question is a good question. Why make this move? And it's always my analogy, skate to the puck. know, skate to where the puck's going to be, not to where it's at. And I think Nomad is skating to where the puck's going to be. They have a raised total amount of funding of over 270 million, according to Clay.
Emi Beredugo (45:21.435)
at. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (45:36.66)
And again, we haven't talked about Nomad Health for years and both Joel and I were very high on them when they came out, especially during COVID when we needed essential care workers badly. So at least four years ago, I predicted Nomad should drop the idea of being a staffing agency and just become the rails staffing runs on.
I mean, why compete with other agencies, especially when you're tech company and that's what Nomad is, why compete with other staffing agencies who desperately need to utilize technology better when you can literally just be the rails or the operating system that they run on. So then the entire staffing ecosystem turns into your client, much like you'd said. This would be a major disruption for companies like Bullhorn, but that's exactly what markets need to move.
Emi Beredugo (46:04.487)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (46:20.007)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (46:28.349)
when you need to innovate disruption. And I see this moving past healthcare, right? Healthcare is gonna be their first foray and then they're gonna open that TAM up. And when you start talking about being able to take like the big placement fees, well, you can have a few of those or you can have a little piece of every transaction that happens out there, right?
Emi Beredugo (46:52.476)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (46:54.127)
And then you don't have to worry about much like Leeven had said, having them on your payroll, benefits, all that. So you don't have to worry about that stuff because you were just the platform that's running it. Atcast pulled off something similar from this standpoint of becoming a technology that all recruitment marketing agencies use to run their programmatic cost per click technology at one time, right? It was brilliant.
Don't become a competitor, become the operating system, which is exactly what AppCast did. And it made them the number one platform for programmatic and distribution and pay-per-click. Then they committed the cardinal sin. They acquired Bayard and overnight became competitors to all those recruitment ad agencies. So yes, even brilliant plans can be thwarted by stupid humans.
Emi Beredugo (47:27.783)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (47:43.552)
I think that what I predict happening here is that no question this makes Nomad incredibly sexy to any tech vendor that's out there who wants to get into healthcare but they don't want to get into the messy stuff, the pay rolling and all that. They don't want to get into that.
Emi Beredugo (47:58.833)
Yeah.
the compliance, yeah.
Chad Sowash (48:04.327)
You have these big staffing juggernauts who know that the only way forward for them is technology. They're going to have to buy somebody. And I would see somebody buying these guys up pretty quickly. The only problem with that is, again, being a system for all, if you get bought by a staffing company, you become a competitor again. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.
Emi Beredugo (48:26.397)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (48:35.899)
All right, we've got one more ad break again, kids go ahead. Check out Chad. She's.com whether it's interviews, the sessions.ai all that fun stuff. We will, we'll see you when we come right back.
Chad Sowash (48:56.741)
Okay, LinkedIn. LinkedIn always seems to get into the news, for goodness sakes. This time Ryan Roslansky is out and Dan Shapiro is in as CEO over at LinkedIn. Now change is usually driven by one of two things, the pursuit of massive opportunity or the absolute necessity of survival. What do you think's happening here? Opportunity or survival? Who wants to jump in?
Emi Beredugo (49:26.598)
Leave a like, you go first.
Lieven (49:30.09)
I don't know, think. Dan Shapiro is... He's been in the company for 15 years or something, for a very long time. Not sure if it was 15, but quite... Look, even longer, And there used to be Ryan Roslansky. He's moving out of the picture. I'm not sure why. I didn't get any scandal or anything. Maybe he did something we're not aware of. So I don't know why he was replaced, but...
Chad Sowash (49:38.483)
Yeah, like, yeah, almost, almost 20.
Chad Sowash (49:48.425)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (49:53.929)
Yeah.
Lieven (49:58.87)
I don't know Dan Shapiro. I always like it when people move in the company, but in the company. it's for me, it's better to have someone who knows the company, who's been growing in the company into that role. It probably will be a better CEO than someone who was hired just because he was a big name somewhere else. So that's a good thing. I have a love hate relationship with LinkedIn. Yeah, we spent tons of money on LinkedIn and LinkedIn still is the best.
Chad Sowash (50:08.235)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (50:21.747)
All right, bye.
Lieven (50:28.046)
resume database in the world itself. It's updates itself. It's great. But the way they sell their products to us is just too commercial. And also I asked them to sponsor a Congress and they will come, but they will not sponsor because of budget. But then I asked myself, if we spent literally millions on LinkedIn, then they should be able to offer something in return as a partnership. They're always claiming partnerships, but
Chad Sowash (50:33.236)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (50:51.231)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (50:57.518)
For me, that would be a partnership. So I'm kind of angry with them right now. So this might, I might not be the most objective person. Anyways, I think AI is going to change everything, even for LinkedIn. And it could go very fast and the shift could be very abrupt, very sudden. And they have to be prepared because even a very big company like LinkedIn could become obsolete in a very short moment of time. So this guy could be the right choice.
Emi Beredugo (51:02.024)
you
Chad Sowash (51:04.455)
Understandable.
Chad Sowash (51:10.58)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (51:24.308)
Yeah.
Lieven (51:27.214)
I saw on LinkedIn, he used to work for Bain Capital. So he knows the business, he knows, I think he has the right strategic vision as far as I can see. But I wonder what his first actions will be. This will give me a better idea of how we might evolve or make the company evolve.
We'll see, for me it's just too early to say anything basically useful on this. We'll see.
Chad Sowash (52:00.627)
Emmy?
Emi Beredugo (52:01.961)
So I think it's an interesting move. You asked if there's a, is it an opportunistic move or is it because they need to survive? I think it's an element of both. If I talk about the survival route, so since they were acquired by Microsoft, they have been growing. The problem is that growth has really slowed down. So I think they're seeing that, okay, cool, if this continues, they're going to struggle.
they're going to be left behind. Somebody else has got something, some other products will come to compete with LinkedIn and take away from the kind of the market dominance that they have right now. So I do think that that's why this new guy has been put in. The old CEO, he's still in the organisation. In fact, this guy is actually reporting into this person who now works directly under Microsoft. So I think that's one reason. But opportunity wise, this guy knows the organisation inside out. Like you said, he's been there for donkey's ears.
Chad Sowash (52:51.561)
Mm.
Emi Beredugo (52:59.534)
And yes, he comes from a sales background. He is commercial. He knows how to drive revenue. In fact, the area that he looked after, he transformed the organization. He made it very, very profitable. And I read that when he made those successes in a division that he looked after, at that point, he was expecting to be promoted into a C-suite role. It didn't happen. And he was told at the time it's because, yes, you can sell the product.
but you don't know your product. You don't know it inside out. So he went back, he did something which I've never very rarely heard of before. You go from this kind of high level executive role and he went back and became an individual contributor in a product team to learn that product. And then what happened? He actually ended up getting the role he has now as CEO. So he's got that strong suite of skillset to actually maybe move LinkedIn forward.
Chad Sowash (53:32.159)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (53:43.744)
Nice.
Chad Sowash (53:48.947)
Yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (53:53.14)
Mm-hmm.
Emi Beredugo (53:56.473)
make sure that growth actually is, yes, they are growing, like I said, but you know, it is very slow growth. So maybe he's going to actually accelerate the organization now and help to pivot, especially in the world of AI, like, you know, leaving said, then probably not going to stay dominating the market as they are now if they just stay as they are. So I think it's a good move. I am interested to see where he takes the organization.
Chad Sowash (54:24.863)
I couldn't agree with you more. think it is just as much about opportunities as it's about survival. For nearly two decades, a platform has dominated the professional landscape. But today, the rise of AI is just a feature. It's not. It's just a fundamental shift, right? Everybody thought, well, we're just going to have little AI features and stuff. This is shifting everything that we're doing. And it's turned the traditional job market on its head.
Emi Beredugo (54:45.096)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (54:54.399)
As Dan Shapiro steps into the CEO role, he isn't just inheriting a big name. He's inheriting a huge mandate to reinvent the platform. Now personally on Ryan's side of the house, I think he picked the right time to leave. LinkedIn for the first time hit five billion last quarter and things are about to get messy in our space. So hang it up and...
Flip it over to Dan for goodness sakes. And smart leaders, I've always said smart leaders know when it's time for them to step aside. And I think this is a very smart move, especially since Dan's experience is tailor-made for this point in time, as you had said. A great example, and I didn't know this until I was listening in on one of Rebecca Carr's Ask Me Anything sessions. She wasn't sure that she wanted to be a CEO. So what did she do?
Instead of, you know, just kind of like sitting around as a COO and trying to, you know, peek in and see what's happening every now and again. She became a chief of staff for a CEO. That's a huge step down, right? She was a chief of staff so that she could be there every day and see exactly what a CEO did. She could learn from the CEO. This is what smart people, smart leaders do. They understand where they're in, where they have gaps, right?
Emi Beredugo (56:00.263)
wow. Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (56:17.329)
Mm-hmm
Chad Sowash (56:18.151)
and they go and they fill those gaps with knowledge. And it doesn't matter if they had to take a step to the side or even down to be able to get that because that knowledge means more than anything. So I great. I've always liked Dan. I don't know Dan that well, but we've both been in the industry for a long time and we've crossed paths a lot. I think if he gets into a good focus for product,
Unlike Indeed, Indeed is incredibly sloppy now. They don't know what they're calling their products. It has different deliverables on Monday versus what it did last Friday, right? If LinkedIn doesn't play in Indeed and they really focus and they sharpen their product, I think they have a great opportunity. But right now, it kind of almost feels like they're all over the place.
Emi Beredugo (56:54.6)
Hmm
Chad Sowash (57:12.465)
I hope we see focus. we see focus, I think this is going to be a good run for LinkedIn. Because to be quite frank, much like, know, Levin said, most of these companies don't feel like they have a choice but to spend money with Indeed and LinkedIn or pick one of them.
Emi Beredugo (57:17.607)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (57:30.184)
100%.
Lieven (57:31.863)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (57:34.119)
All right, so we're going to go ahead and we're going to roll this in kids because that's right. I have a dad joke. No kidding. So I didn't get a chance to do this because Joel was on a couple of weeks ago with me and we were talking about science and space and Artemis. So I wanted to do a dad joke around science, right? So why don't scientists trust atoms?
Lieven (57:46.529)
Yeah.
Emi Beredugo (57:57.648)
Chad Sowash (58:04.125)
Why don't scientists trust atoms?
Lieven (58:10.24)
I don't know.
Emi Beredugo (58:11.054)
No idea. I feel like I'm not clever enough for this.
Chad Sowash (58:14.397)
Because they make up everything. that's a science joke. That's a science joke. We leave in leaving still not there yet. It's okay. I'm going to translate it to into into Flemish and I'm going to send it over to you. Leave it. Leave it. Thanks. Thanks for coming on man. And me. It was great to see you. And until next time guys.
Emi Beredugo (58:17.256)
love that.
Lieven (58:26.186)
I didn't get it.
Emi Beredugo (58:26.204)
gonna use that one I love that one
Thank you. Until next time.
Lieven (58:30.303)
I regret it.
Lieven (58:34.71)
Okay, promised.
Lieven (58:39.512)
Thanks a lot.
Chad Sowash (58:43.794)
We out.
Lieven (58:44.601)
out.
Emi Beredugo (58:45.597)
Yeah.