Predictions 2022
It's that time of year again: Predictions!
Where'd we get it right and (mostly) wrong in 2021? And what are the bold guesses we're making for 2022 for the world of work? Like always, Chad & Cheese have enlisted the help of longtime vet and good friend Tim "Sackadomus" Sackett to give his two cents on what the crystal ball says for next year.
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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 (21s):
Oh yeah, you want it? You love it. It's the yearly prediction show. What's up everybody. I'm your cohost Joel "COVID house" Cheeseman.
Chad (34s):
And I'm Chad "did I say that?" Sowash.
Joel (38s):
And you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast and as always, please welcome Tim Sackadamus!
Tim (47s):
Yes. I thought maybe you throw in there. Tim "how many colonoscopies did he have in 2021?" Sackadamus.
Joel (54s):
Well, I was going to ask you how your year went since I'd been basking in your right, your correct predictions, I assume.
Tim (1m 3s):
Yeah. I don't even remember what they were, so I guess, well, yeah, we go, we get to go through those, which will be awesome. But yeah. You know, like everybody else, you know, it's just been a wonderful 2021.
Joel (1m 13s):
You got to see us in the fall so that had the highlight of your year.
Tim (1m 19s):
Right? That's great. That was, it was one of the highlights of the year, by the way. So since we haven't been out to see anybody.
Chad (1m 27s):
Yeah, thanks to Symphony Talent for that one. Right. We ran riding around in the big pink bus.
Joel (1m 32s):
Hell, yeah. Wait, did you say pink? Oh God. All right. Let's take a break and get to get to the good stuff. We'll be right back. We got to recap all of our great predictions from last year before we get to the show.
Chad (1m 46s):
Yeah. That's always fun.
Joel (1m 47s):
Let me get the buzzer ready. Let me get this sound bite. Okay. It's working. All right. It's working.
Chad (1m 54s):
Well, one thing, Steven, Rothberg had a prediction and that was late 2021. The vaccine obviously was close in 2020, but Stephen didn't think that we would be back to full conferencing until, you know, Q4 of 2021. Well, I don't think we even did that. Did we?
Joel (2m 13s):
No.
Tim (2m 14s):
Well, you know, we do get what HR Tech, Sherm annual went. So there's a little bit of full conferences.
Joel (2m 22s):
Okay.
Chad (2m 22s):
A little bit of that. A little bit of that,
Joel (2m 26s):
Rothberg's enjoying the sunshine in Phoenix right now. So I say we just, we just buzz his ass.
Tim (2m 30s):
Yeah. By the way, I was in Utah this year and I ran into a guy at a restaurant standing outside that he was from California. He's like, well, the sun kills COVID that's why he was in Utah. I'm like, you're from California.
Chad (2m 44s):
You're a fucking idiot. Anyway. All right, let's get some of these Tim's and we're just going to rapid fire through Tim's first. So Tim's first a was SAP acquires a core talent platform ATS like Greenhouse, Smart Recruiters, Jobvites yeah. That's big no, but it's still needed. You can always hope.
Joel (3m 6s):
Predictions are never wrong. They just haven't happened yet.
Chad (3m 12s):
It's a hope and prayer. Organizations provide vaccines by performance.
Tim (3m 18s):
Great one.
Chad (3m 18s):
That would have been a great one. I'd get, could be happening kind of like under the radar, we just don't know about it.
Joel (3m 25s):
Starbucks.
Chad (3m 25s):
But we don't know our books. And last but not least for Tim large enterprise company gives option of salary paid in Bitcoin. So.
Tim (3m 36s):
Yes.
Joel (3m 37s):
Are we going to give him that one?
Chad (3m 44s):
If Aaron Rogers is NFL the standard?
Joel (3m 47s):
These are billion dollar businesses. It's a public company.
Chad (3m 49s):
We did so bad. Let's give at least one of us one.
Tim (3m 53s):
Get A half.
Chad (3m 54s):
I'm going to have cheer. Yeah. Then we'll go ahead and wrap it through my pieces of shit here. So first off Glassdoor takes a dirt nap. That did not happen.
Joel (4m 8s):
Ambitious prediction.
Chad (4m 10s):
That was pretty? Yeah, it was ambitious. Blackbox AI outlawed. No. And we actually heard from Keith Sonderling commissioned from the EOCC that won't be happening because you know, we're looking for companies to trip over themselves. And last but not least, this is one that much like, you know, a Tim's SAP you hope happens, but Microsoft acquires iCIMS, that did not happen. Very ambitious and wrong at the same time. Then we get into Joel's where Airbnb launches, Airbnb Work for corporate spaces. But I was right on the counter prediction though, that they would, they would embrace remote with current inventory.
Chad (4m 58s):
So they are doing that. They're actually pitching the spaces that they had with Airbnb for remote work. So I was right on that one.
Tim (5m 8s):
Yeah.
Chad (5m 9s):
Number two, Joel went, he went like crazy on number two. He saw acquisitions. The first acquisition Seek buys, Talkpush, and Vervo mean you talk about, that's a double strike right there.
sfx (5m 26s):
Oh hell no...
Chad (5m 27s):
Dice goes private and last but not least in his third strike Recruit buys ZipRecruiter.
Joel (5m 34s):
Finally, my IPO for Zip happened in the year that I didn't predict it.
Chad (5m 41s):
And your last one, Salesforce rebrands as Slack and creates a network of people to compete with LinkedIn plus Teams that did not happen.
Joel (5m 50s):
I still like that one. I still like that one.
Chad (5m 51s):
That was it. I have to say we were very ambitious last year. So that was good.
Joel (5m 59s):
Dice had a really good year stock wise. That's not my prediction. I just want to throw it out there, outperformed ZipRecruiter by quite a bit.
Tim (5m 57s):
We should do it like a survey of gen Z recruiters to see who, if they know who Dice is?
Chad (6m 9s):
Doubtful.
Tim (6m 10s):
What percent knows what Dice is?
Joel (6m 18s):
Well we know the Europeans don't.
Chad (6m 20s):
Now, before we actually get into predictions predictions, and Joel, you can like scramble them up and tell us who's going to go win. I think the big story, which is I can, I can't wait for the sound effect for this, but the big story is VC funding in 2021 and per George LaRocque's numbers, 2021 was $18 billion. So do we think 2022 eclipses 2021?
Joel (6m 51s):
Big, no, from me, I think the theme is over. I think there'll be new theme in 2022. I think the money is not free anymore. The animal spirits I think are going to be calming down in '22 and I wouldn't be surprised to see a 50% haircut in investment money into our space.
Tim (7m 9s):
Oooh. That's a big prediction.
Joel (7m 11s):
And we're not even to our predictions yet, but Hey,
Tim (7m 13s):
I think it's going to eclipse. I think there'll be, I think it be between 18 and 19. I just think it's still, even though we're on the way down, I think from like, there's kind of this peak of craziness in the industry, there's still like, there's still is a lot of money floating around. People are trying to get rid of it. And we see it constantly where people are getting a hundred to 50-5500 million, like getting unicorn status for literally having next to no revenue.
Joel (7m 42s):
Do you think the theme changes. Does it move away from remote and diversity and automation to something else? Or does it stick with those?
Tim (7m 50s):
I still, the biggest pain people are feeling right now is, is definitely talent attraction. So I think that will continue that, that realm and then, and then retention stuff. Right? So what are we going to do with that kind of internal mobility, retention?
Joel (8m 3s):
Engagement.
Tim (8m 3s):
You know, engagement kind of stuff. I think that gets in a whole other, we haven't really talked about engagement, like kind of software for what? Eight years? Five years on the craziness.
Chad (8m 15s):
Yeah, I think so the previous four years didn't hit 6 billion and then the next thing you know, we tripled over tripled that this year.
Tim (8m 22s):
So that would have helped. And it helped me. I would have had that. No wonder Joel said nine.
Chad (8m 30s):
He didn't know either.
Tim (8m 32s):
I'm going to say eight, Hey, now
Chad (8m 34s):
The flood gates were open. Dude. I think we're going to see a lot of dead unicorns in the next two years at least.
Tim (8m 43s):
I don't do that. We need to predict what's the first unicorn in our space that dies.
Joel (8m 47s):
The problem is they have so much money. They're going to have a life span of at least five to 10 years. Yeah.
Chad (8m 55s):
I don't know. Some of those fuckers have crazy burn rates. Yeah. They have crazy burn rates.
Joel (9m 1s):
So Chad, you're saying less?
Chad (9m 3s):
I'm saying less what? I'm saying less money.
Joel (9m 7s):
Okay. So should we each guess a unicorn that gets shot for next year just for shits and giggles? Yeah.
Tim (9m 14s):
We would have to have the list though. Right? We'd have to know which ones are unicorns.
Chad (9m 16s):
We can bring him back for another show where he talks about that.
Tim (9m 19s):
Killing unicorn show.
Joel (9m 21s):
Just one in a short period to me it would be Canvas, founder's gone, new management, like that's kind of a weird squirrely situation. So if I had to pick one, I'd throw them out.
Tim (9m 31s):
Not a bad one.
Chad (9m 31s):
I'd have to analyze a little bit more. I have a few that I would like to see dead, but I don't know that
Joel (9m 43s):
Schadenfreude
Chad (9m 44s):
They have a longer runway than a 2022.
Joel (9m 48s):
All right, love it. Let's go to round one now let's go to our special guest, the honor, honorable Tim "Sackett" Sackadamus your first prediction for 2022 is
Tim (9m 54s):
I think Paradox is going to get acquired, which again, this is one of those unicorn status kind of ones, right. That just got it, which makes it a little more difficult to be acquired, but gold standard in terms of conversational AI products, enterprise, customer base, Workday's already in love with them. Oracle and SAP would also be, it means it's going to have to be a big buyer.
Joel (10m 16s):
Indeed's an investor.
Tim (10m 17s):
Right. So I mean, I, I think it's one of those, gosh, they're really good, but they really need more around them I think. Right. Or I think they could, I mean, take advantage of, you know, somebody like a Workday, Oracle, you know, kind of a customer base. So.
Chad (10m 32s):
Yeah.
Tim (10m 32s):
That'd be a good marriage to happen. I just don't know with that last round they got, if it's going to be something that could happen, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Joel (10m 41s):
And you don't think IPO's in the future? Cause that would really be the only other option.
Chad (10m 45s):
Yes.
Tim (10m 45s):
That's really the only other option. And I don't know. I mean, they move. I mean, you guys, you, we all know Paradox pretty well. They move fairly slow. I mean, I mean, they still are kind of held with, I think Aaron does a pretty good job of not making reactionary moves. So I don't think they're going that route, but we'll, you know, who knows? But gosh, I think they're attractive to a big enterprise HCM.
Joel (11m 6s):
Pardon me, knowing Aaron, as I do thinks he would love to go public. I think he'd love to be on the NASDAQ and yes, for sure. Yes.
Chad (11m 16s):
Feeds into my prediction. You want me to go ahead and go.
Joel (11m 21s):
Yes. Go ahead Chad.
Chad (11m 22s):
Okay. So kind of somewhat counter to Tim's. I have two Paradox predictions here first and foremost, new cash means, no surprise kids ACQUISITIONS. So in 2021, Paradox acquired Spetz and Israeli chatbots they've for a global footprint and obviously acquisition of talent over there, good Acqui-hire. And then Traitify a mobile screening platform, nothing more than normal process efficiency tech that you know, why build it yourself when it's there and easy for the taking. So my acquisition prediction is I believe Paradox will acquire, they will make a European acquisition.
Chad (12m 6s):
The UK and EU are very fertile ground in which the bolster, the Paradox footprint and brand. So first and foremost, they're going to have a European acquisition. My second prediction is their market positioning changes completely. The new cash will drive faster movement for Paradox away from being a point solution, only conversational AI. It's more of a core talent platform competing with players like iCIMS, Jobvite, Eightfold, Smart Recruiters, and Greenhouse, much like Eight-fold when they took that money, they knew that they had to bust out of just being a matching like platform, or they knew that they wanted to go for that money.
Chad (12m 51s):
Same thing here, the cat is out of the bag, Paradox is going to have to acquire, I see growing footprint being global, and then obviously changing that market position. Because if you think about it, if you're a point solution, you're not going to be able to garner that much total addressable market, right. You have to expand.
Joel (13m 11s):
So global domination is what you're predicting for Paradox.
Chad (13m 15s):
Can you expect anything else from Aaron Matos?
Joel (13m 17s):
I mean, that sounds like a non acquisition of Paradox. That sounds like world domination and public company, from Chad Sowash.
Chad (13m 22s):
That's what I do. I always counter from Tim. So either Tim will be right or I'll be right.
Joel (13m 27s):
That's fun.
Chad (13m 27s):
Or we'll both be wrong and they'll just do it.
Tim (13m 29s):
Even before this latest round, they were already sitting on a bunch of cash. So I like that. I like that prediction. Cause I think they do obviously have the money to go out and do some of that. And I agree, I think if they decide to stand alone and they already have really big contract size, like their average contracts are already kind of bigger than most ATSes. So, you know, it makes sense for them to kind of go full ATS or full talent kind of platform suite across enterprise wide from that standpoint. Plus again, if you're going to sit on top of a Workday, Oracle SAP kind of HCM and be the talent play that, you know, they already kind of have that, you know, that background to be able to do that. So it makes sense.
Joel (14m 8s):
Assuming iCIMS goes public, I think they've already filed the papers to do so. Tim, do you think that'll be a barn burner? Do you think it'll be sort of a yawn or is it going to go badly? Because I think how iCIMS goes, we'll see if, what Greenhouse, Smart Recruiters, Jobvite, like all of them follow suit or not any predictions around the iCIMS IPO?
Tim (14m 25s):
I don't think it'll go bad. I don't think it will be. I don't think it will, you know, double in value though, either. I think it's just one of those that, you know, it'll whatever their price point comes out at, which usually is vetted, like, you know, for so long that when it, by the time it hits the market, it's pretty, you know, kind of locked in. I don't, I just think it won't have a lot of movement to it. Right. Cause I think people don't, most people don't understand that business, even though, you know, from an IPO standpoint, from the market being like everyone's crazy for talent, they'll definitely have the story to be able to spin. And so who knows, but again, some of this just depends, like aren't we kind of waiting for the market to drop like 25%.
Tim (15m 7s):
Like it's been like an eight year run, like timing wise, they could get really fucked by that.
Joel (15m 12s):
Right. Yeah. It's certainly not a sexy stock. It's not something that the Robinhood folks are gonna get real excited about if they didn't get excited about ZipRecruiter and not getting excited around iCIMS. Alright, well, my prediction has nothing to do with Paradox. Some people will appreciate that. So my first prediction for the year is robots finally take over in a significant way. I predict that a restaurant by a famous brand name will launch a robot only restaurant.
Tim (15m 42s):
Starbucks.
Joel (15m 43s):
So your order or on your phone, Starbucks is kinda tough cause you have some, I don't know so many like the human element of that is sort of special. If I were want to predict, I would say it would either be like a BW3 opening up a wing only satellite restaurant or perhaps Pizza Hut and Yum! Brands who owns, I think Wings, Etc. I could see them launching kind of a wings, a standalone robot only. This thing will get a ton of PR the today show CNN, like everyone will be at this restaurant ordering food and it'll get a ton of press.
Joel (16m 29s):
And you'll see, I think more and more restaurants expedite their move to robotics.
Tim (16m 29s):
You guys, can you pause? Can we pause for a minute? I got to look up the URL robotwings.com,
Joel (16m 35s):
Robotwings.ai? And I think that's a big, a big shift. I think we've been talking about robots in terms of the service industry and a hardest to employ people there and the spike in salaries and hourly wages. And I think this will be a really interesting sort of pivot if it goes well.
Tim (16m 54s):
I think it's great. I say Starbucks, because I think obviously with the issues of, you know, that they're already having with unions and issues that they have with their vaccine mandates that they just brought out and then you already see an Asian countries, a lot of success with kind of coffee, robot driven, baristas. Like it seems like that's going to happen at some point that's going to happen already. And if you're Starbucks, you're like, I'm done with people at this point. Like how do we just turn it back to the robots?
Chad (17m 23s):
The Austin airport for God's sakes, they have a robot coffee vendor that's right there. And it's not just your regular, you know, black coffee with sugar. So yeah. I mean we're seeing those types of things. I would, I would say that if, if a restaurant went full robot, right, never go full robot. If you went full robot, it would go down in flames just from the standpoint of what we're used to as humans. There's gotta be that familiarity there. Right. So yeah, I think, I think we will see more robots. There's no question, but if they go full robot, that's a bad thing.
Joel (17m 57s):
For me if the wings are tasty, I don't care who makes them or what makes em.
Tim (18m 0s):
I think Joel just wants robot wings. He just is like, I'm ready for it.
Joel (18m 4s):
I'm so hungry.
Tim (18m 6s):