Spain Listens to Reagan
- Chad Sowash
- 3 minutes ago
- 28 min read
This week, the boys unpack why Europeans are ghosting the U.S. like it’s their ex. Spoiler alert: it’s Trump’s Tariffpalooza meets Border Chaos™. Why deal with TSA cavity searches when you can sip wine on grandma’s terrace in Lisbon?
Next, it’s off to Spain, where Job&Talent is printing money like it’s fiesta flyers. They're not just staffing—oh no—they're matchmaking you with your dream job and your future ex-husband using AI that’s smarter than your average CEO.
Turns out, treating workers like actual humans and sprinkling in some Silicon Valley fairy dust makes traditional staffing agencies look like they’re still faxing résumés from a RadioShack.
From there, it’s a full-on HR tech roast. The gang throws elbows at startups chasing AI clout like it’s 2016 crypto. It’s “Buy or Sell,” featuring Vizzy (not a seltzer), PeopleForce (sounds like a failed Marvel reboot), and Klara (no notes, just vibes).
And hey, Spain’s immigration stance? Basically, “Come on in—we’ve got jobs, tapas, and a booming economy.” The question is: will the rest of Europe catch up or keep gatekeeping like it’s a VIP lounge?
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel (00:17.867)
Yeah, causing chaos and rocking like Amadeus you were listening to the Chad and cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your co host Joel tiptoeing through the tulips Cheesman
Chad (00:29.289)
This is Chad, Vino verde, Sowash.
Lieven (00:32.824)
And I'm Lieven "Going Short on All that's American" Van Nieuwenhuyze
Joel (00:37.985)
this episode, Job and Talent Raises, Spain Embraces, and a little Buy or Sell. Let's do this.
Chad (00:48.339)
Lieven, can't go short on us. You're going short on Chad and Cheese. You can't do that. that's a point, yes. Good call. Good call. Good save, good save, good save.
Lieven (00:53.556)
But you're Portuguese and Joel is almost Canadian, right?
Joel (00:58.463)
Yeah, half Canadian. Yeah, half Canadian.
Joel (01:05.163)
By the way, it's good that Chad's going back to Portugal soon because apparently, dude, no one's going anywhere. No one's coming to America. That's for sure. Have you seen some of the numbers that have come out? I mean, huge 25 % reduction in Europeans coming to America this summer, according to some surveys. Like, it's a sad thing.
Chad (01:08.093)
Yes.
Chad (01:15.677)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad (01:22.793)
Yeah.
Chad (01:27.561)
Europeans spend about hundred and fifty five billion dollars on US tourism and we're just throwing that down the shitter. so I leaving, are you coming to the US this year? Oh, yeah.
Joel (01:33.279)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (01:37.845)
And leaving told us a story. leaving, Don't tell the Hawaii story that you told us in the green room because I didn't even know that happened.
Lieven (01:39.438)
No.
Chad (01:44.554)
No.
Lieven (01:46.99)
I'm looking the article up right now, need to find it, but I'll give you a short resume. Two Flemish girls and Belgian girls went or were planning to do a trip to Hawaii and they arrived at the American border. All their papers were okay, of course, and they had the right visa, And they were arrested and they've been in jail for 10 days because they couldn't prove
Joel (02:05.377)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (02:10.932)
what hotels they booked in Hawaii, but they didn't book anything in advance. They were just going to travel a bit and see where they ended up. But just because they didn't have any reservations, they weren't trusted and they were sent back to Europe after 10 days in jail. They were handcuffed and their feet were cuffed and to jail. It wasn't really a jail. It was called some kind of institution for, you name it. don't know what Trump called it, but yeah.
Chad (02:17.406)
Mm.
Joel (02:28.673)
They went to jail.
Joel (02:38.56)
Yeah.
Chad (02:39.561)
Yeah.
Lieven (02:40.258)
But it wasn't jail.
Chad (02:42.429)
Yeah. So that, those types of stories do not help tourism. Number one, and I'm somewhat plugged into the news in Portugal and it's hard to get, it's hard to get the Portuguese pissed off. But Trump's first and foremost, the US government, the way he's pissing them off is they sent a letter to companies in Portugal and say that if you supply...
Lieven (02:46.528)
Nope.
Joel (02:52.833)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (03:10.355)
goods and services to the, to the United States, you've got to abandon your diversity, equity, inclusion efforts. So that pissed them off. and then, then the U S polls, the metaphorical plug on European wines, which a big export for, for, the Portuguese wine industry. So Portugal, Portugal pulled their orders for F 15 fighters and are now buying Swedish Griffins.
Joel (03:28.075)
Yeah.
Chad (03:37.225)
Instead, Swedish Griffin fighter. let's do the math real quick. Last year, Americans imported nearly $6 billion of wine from the EU, especially from France, Italy, and Spain. Now the other side of that equation, Europe spends hundreds of billions buying American weapons systems. The math doesn't work out kids. The math just doesn't fucking work out. Yes. And think of the, the, the
Joel (03:45.537)
You
Joel (03:59.817)
Math isn't math-ing on any of this, any of stuff.
Chad (04:05.597)
thousands of jobs. So the American aerospace and defense industry employs about 2.2 million people. And less orders means they need less people, right? And those are good paying jobs. We're talking about companies like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, L3. And then think of the next order of all of those supply chain partners who are smaller companies who actually provide their American companies and they provide
Joel (04:12.683)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (04:22.081)
Right the on.
Chad (04:35.407)
American supply chain parts, things like that to those huge companies. So mean, the downward cascade of fuck around and find out is happening.
Joel (04:39.328)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (04:46.365)
And Hawaii relies on people coming to visit. don't know if you've been to Hawaii or know much about it, but if they don't have people go there, it's kind of a really bad situation. I went to Canada recently, which is not Europe, but they all think they're Europe. It's like Europe light in Canada and the border to and from was nothing I've ever seen before. It was like maybe one or two cars ahead of us. Maybe two lanes open. It's usually if you've done the Canadian border in Detroit.
Chad (04:50.045)
Yes. Yeah.
Chad (05:01.129)
Hahaha
Lieven (05:01.166)
You
Chad (05:08.937)
What do you Uh-huh.
Joel (05:16.041)
can be somewhere between nightmare and, you know, moderate discomfort for the weight that you have to do. it was not a problem to get in or out. Like there was not, I didn't get the cavity search or anything, but clearly the number of people coming and going between us and Canada has decreased significantly. And the numbers I've seen around 70 % mark of people I've heard towns in Florida, which the snowbirds, from Canada go to in the winter have been.
Chad (05:43.817)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (05:44.757)
ghost towns, Arizona, Phoenix, a lot of Canadians are bypassing America. like you said, Chad, a lot of jobs are dependent upon Canadians coming down and spending money and that's not happening.
Chad (05:54.739)
Yes.
the number one industry in Hawaii. what do you think it is? Tourism. Billions and billions of dollars. And now you got guys like Liebner like, no, fuck that. I'm not gonna go there. I'm gonna go to Madeira instead.
Lieven (06:10.476)
Mm hmm. Madeira, I love Madeira. That's right.
Joel (06:12.129)
Levin's not spending a night in a hostel. I mean, jail in Hawaii anytime soon. That's not.
Chad (06:13.982)
Yeah?
Lieven (06:17.87)
And by the way, I just checked the article. The girls were handcuffed and brought to a deportation center. And they had to sleep on molded mattresses and they had to wear some green uniforms and got crappy food and a disgusting toilet. And it took them 10 days before they were deported again.
Chad (06:30.133)
huh.
Lieven (06:41.376)
And the reason was not only because they couldn't prove that they made reservations for a hotel, but also the people at the border thought they were going to work illegally in the United States. And why they thought that, nobody knows. But they said, you're going to work illegally, so we're going to deport you. That's it.
Joel (06:47.873)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (07:00.045)
They need that leaving Ritz-Carlton Concierge service to get them out of trouble when they're in Hawaii.
Chad (07:00.241)
isn't necessary.
Chad (07:07.337)
Unfortunately proof isn't necessary anymore. It just is do shit. It's gut
Joel (07:10.751)
yeah, yeah, due process, what the hell's that? Due process, fuck that shit. Jeez.
Lieven (07:10.827)
No.
Yeah. well, at least already ported to Europe and not to El Salvador or whatever. You normally deport people to, I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Chad (07:16.155)
my God, let's do shout outs.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Let's get out of this.
Joel (07:26.187)
Bringing me down. Can I, can I shout out, Emmanuel Macron, the dude, dude's a baller. you know, I, there's a vacuum in Europe of like, who's going to pick up the ball and go, for Macron for me is just, is just the man. three, three things that he's done in the past couple of weeks, two weeks ago. he told the EU at a, in a press conference or speech, told the EU to stop investing in the U S in retaliation, for the tariffs.
Chad (07:28.499)
Please. my friend.
Lieven (07:31.83)
Macron.
Joel (07:55.553)
He's been very public, not afraid at all. Secondly, he's meeting with the UK ahead of a Trump visit to sort of get ahead of the game and try to get the UK into the EU arms embrace as opposed to Trump slash America's embrace, which I think is a baller move and a real poke in the eye to the Trump administration. And number three,
Chad (08:01.533)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (08:08.103)
yeah?
Joel (08:19.327)
You guys know I'm married to a scientist. So I'm hearing this all the time, but France is spearheading a choose Europe campaign to recruit scientists from the US who are genuinely concerned because of budgets drying up things getting canceled research getting deportate. Yeah. I mean, you're seeing it in Ivy league professors and whatnot. But anyway, McCrone and the choose Europe campaign.
Chad (08:38.781)
Deportations.
Joel (08:48.459)
come to France, come to Europe. We're, we're, we're focused on and committed to spending money on research on science. We believe in science, et cetera. So some of these moves that Macron is making, I just, I love it. he's not afraid just like I was, you know, propping up Harvard and Maine for fighting back. Macron in his own way is fighting back against authoritarianism and I shout you out, Mr. Macron.
Chad (09:15.806)
You enjoy some France, don't you, Levin? You enjoy going to France. What are your favorite places to go in France?
Lieven (09:21.525)
Sure I was,
First of all, we live very close to France. think it's a two hour drive, one and a half hour drive. France is a lovely country. Really, it has beautiful seas, has the mountains, it has everything. So there's a saying, when God created France, all the other countries were very jealous. So in the end, God created the French to make up. And there is something about it. But still, I love France.
Chad (09:26.589)
Yeah, right there, share border.
Joel (09:34.081)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (09:47.403)
Ha ha ha.
Lieven (09:53.87)
And I love skiing.
Joel (09:55.189)
Lieven has a frequent flyer card at the Moulin Rouge. We know that. We do know that.
Lieven (10:00.384)
You've been there. You've been there with me. Yeah, so don't blame me. Don't blame me.
Joel (10:04.083)
I have, I have, I have for sure.
Chad (10:06.473)
We're gonna have to rectify that this year. I gotta make sure I get up on my meds.
Lieven (10:09.326)
No.
Joel (10:11.679)
My question is, can I go to France now? The stories I hear are like Europe hates America, they hate Americans. Can I?
Chad (10:19.315)
Just don't act like a dumb American, you'll be fine.
Lieven (10:20.846)
just say you're from the UK, they won't know the difference.
Chad (10:24.121)
Or, or yes, where are your, where are your Canadian, the big maple leaf. You'll be fine. You'll be fine. No big deal.
Joel (10:24.223)
Sam Canadian.
Lieven (10:26.765)
Canadian is fine.
Joel (10:29.771)
say about and a lot about ask
Lieven (10:30.19)
I really think if you go to Paris and you think waiters used to be rude against Americans before, you'll notice something different now.
Chad (10:39.081)
Oh, wow. I can't imagine. I'm definitely going to stock up on my Canadian gear.
Joel (10:40.99)
Hmm
I'm going to go to the finest restaurants and ask for the poutine when I go there, see what happens. Yeah.
Lieven (10:48.686)
I once, maybe I already told this in one of these episodes before, but I was once in a very, very good restaurant in France and I ordered a bottle of, I said Montrachet and the waiter said, sir, it's Montrachet. Otherwise people will think you're American. It's not Montrachet, it's Montrachet. sorry, sorry. Like it was the most terrible thing that could happen to me was that people might think I'm American.
Chad (11:08.292)
Ha ha!
Chad (11:15.657)
Could be, could be. All right. So, leaving the soap beside himself with all this tariff talk, he doesn't have a shout out. So, I'm going to go ahead and hit my shout out. It's to the 2030 World Cup. That's right. We're talking European football kids, which will be hosted by Spain and Portugal. When these major events happen, money flows into the cities and countries. And in this case, Lisbon is getting a new airport.
Lieven (11:18.296)
Okay.
Lieven (11:21.813)
Mm-mm.
Joel (11:23.061)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (11:43.185)
But I am incredibly excited about a new Lisbon to Madrid high-speed train, which is planned to cut the journey from 10 hours to three hours. So shout out to the 2030 World Cup and bringing more high-speed rail to my new backyard.
Joel (11:49.323)
Hmm.
Joel (11:59.551)
And if you're looking to reserve your Chad Airbnb, book now because that's going to be going fast.
Chad (12:02.665)
Hey.
Chad (12:06.419)
Book now, yeah, yeah, good call.
Joel (12:09.419)
Book now before the surge pricing takes effect. Takes effect. By the way, Chad, I can, I can tell you're you're headed back to Europe soon because your mood is, is brightening. what is it after unleashing in May you're headed back. All right. Euro Chad's coming back. Everybody rejoice, rejoice.
Lieven (12:12.302)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (12:13.576)
I'm not Uber.
Chad (12:19.145)
So happy.
Yep. Yep. Straight back.
Chad (12:27.337)
Nobody's, nobody's happier than, than me and, and more than likely Julie too.
Joel (12:32.701)
And your work wife is pretty happy about it too. Let's get to topic, shall we?
Lieven (12:33.016)
you
Chad (12:35.005)
Yes. Bad.
Excellent.
Joel (12:40.745)
All right, guys, speaking of Spain, let's talk about Spain based job and talent, the on demand staffing platform. They closed a 92 million dollar euro. That's around one hundred and one million dollars for our US listeners in series F funding, valuing the company at you guessed it, a unicorn worthy one point three billion euros. The funding will support international expansion, sales and product development.
development with a focus on AI. The company plans to roll out its agents. That's AI agents to support workers and supervisors with their first agent named Clara already conducting over 180,000 interviews. Chad, your thoughts on the JNT news.
Chad (13:29.031)
Yeah, I mean, why does J &T need another 92 million? I mean, they already have over 500 million in funding. I mean, during a down round, I might add. Job and talent is so deep into their current models that it's, I would assume it's really hard to pivot toward AI at this point. They've done a ton of acquisition around traditional staffing.
Joel (13:39.169)
Series F.
Chad (13:55.113)
So they're going to need some extra cash. It sounds like to pull this off. So for reference earlier this month, we talked about companies like a Deco joining forces with Salesforce and creating a new company that evolves the traditional staffing models with agentic workers. So it feels like the 92 million is a necessary adjustment because if they don't invest now, they're, they're going to be toast. What do you think, Levin?
Joel (14:20.165)
I'll throw in the, let's call it political, economic, geopolitical headwinds that they're probably going to be facing over the next four years or so. The investor confidence is such that they're like, hey, we might need a little extra to get through some of these bumps in the road. These guys have been a real success story that has been a real pleasure. One of the biggest in Europe, if not maybe the biggest.
Lieven (14:20.737)
Thank
Chad (14:25.31)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (14:31.239)
Yeah, especially in the US.
Joel (14:47.905)
Uh, there are a few reasons I think that they're pulling this off. One is the scalability of their model. They're basically Upwork for, for frontline workers. Uh, whereas Upwork is really easy to, you know, contract a designer to make your logo. Like these guys have figured out how to sort of on demand, get someone to work in your frontline organization in real time. Almost. Uh, I think that's been a huge benefit for them and the tech that they have apparently is a little bit of a secret sauce, uh, that they can do that.
You mentioned the expansion. They've been incredibly aggressive, but also pretty thoughtful in their, in their expansion, obviously Spain, UK, Germany, and France are kind of layups in terms of European expansion, but they've also acquired a company in Mexico. They've grown in Columbia as well as coming to the U S which are our growth markets for them. And I, I assume that they will continue to grow targeting Asia at some point, maybe India would be interesting as well.
And the number three, they're really focused on the worker. They offer health benefits. They offer training for workers. It's not just a technology platform where, we'll fit you in with a job and you figure out the rest. actually seem to care about their workers. And I think the workers are reciprocating by using the platform and sharing it with their friends and using it pretty religiously and not using anything that competitively comes down the pike.
I think the new AI stuff is pretty interesting. Think about Paradox or any other kind of conversational AI. Clara says, hire hundreds of workers in two hours. That's language that we're very familiar with in the conversational AI space. They also have a agentic AI coming that's named Tio. He's coming to manage your accounts.
So if you hate managing all these vendor accounts, Tio is going to be here to manage it for you, which I think is a really interesting progression in regards to AI. Help your customer use your platform. What a concept.
Lieven (16:57.102)
Nice.
Chad (17:02.729)
So, Levin, were they buying up a lot of staffing companies? Did I get that right, or were they buying other tech platforms? Because I seem to remember them buying staffing companies for the most part.
Lieven (17:14.668)
Yeah, they're not playing in our league, think, or not in the same playing field as we are because we never meet them when we are trying to do &A's. So I think they're buying different companies. And I've looked into them some time ago when we were talking about them and they show. They're basically a platform. And I think they buy companies that still do manual work behind the scene and they try to integrate it.
Chad (17:25.917)
Mm.
Lieven (17:44.728)
But I'm not sure how much actually is totally automated and how much looks automated. But I'm not sure. But anyways, I was looking at the article and 92 million euros, that's a lot of money. And the good thing is, since it's euros, it will still be a lot of money tomorrow. Well played from Job and Talent. But actually, I think they're making a very smart move. And 92 million actually is
Chad (17:44.829)
Mm.
Joel (17:50.219)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (18:02.089)
way to rub it in.
Joel (18:03.329)
Ouch. Ouch.
Yeah.
Lieven (18:13.388)
really a lot of money. If you want to invest in agentics, then you can do a lot with 92 million and they're doing the right thing because the market is going through a very difficult time right now, even though Spain is doing pretty well, but the markets on average is doing as it's pretty heavy. But now is the time to invest because they will be ready once the market starts booming again and they'll be there. And I think I always have mixed feelings with those agents. Basically they are developed to
replace humans. That's the whole idea, to save money. And thank God we have the European AI Act because it states that hiring people or not hiring people, making that decision is something which has such a big impact that it shouldn't be done by AI, it should be done by a human being. So we still need humans to make the final decision, even though I feel that AI could definitely be very objective. But in this case, it's not allowed and that's a good thing.
Joel (18:43.873)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (19:11.244)
So I think 90 % of recruitment can be automated and can be replaced by those agents. So if they get their technology right, this could be a very big step forward. And their agent is called Clara with a C. Ours is called Jules. Let's see who wins.
Joel (19:31.521)
I think timing, timing matters as well. I mean, you might remember Chad, when we first started the podcast, snag a job, launch snag, which was sort of a similar platform, apparently too early, not enough juice or who knows, the tech wasn't tech wasn't right, but job and talent seems to be hitting this at the right time. And if they can start taking chunks out of sort of the frontline workers,
Chad (19:40.083)
Yes.
Joel (19:56.575)
like Upwork and the gig economy platforms have taken out of job boards on that segment. If they can start chipping away at the frontline worker segment, like that's going to be pretty bad news for the traditional job boards, I would think.
Chad (20:10.983)
Yeah. Well, and I also think you're talking about before economies of scale was good in the U S when they actually opened up into the U S probably not so much right now. So the big question is, they just allow what they have to kind of stay dormant? And then really focus on areas that, have high growth like Spain, you know, throughout Europe or through Latin America or what have you.
Joel (20:19.925)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (20:37.046)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (20:37.095)
That's the big question. And being able to have a footprint like that allows you to kind of like ebb and flow. And I would assume Leevin gets the idea since the house of HR is all over Europe. So, you you have an economy that's really booming and then you've got ones that aren't, right? So yeah, I think that might be helpful unless they put way too many eggs in the US basket. That might be a big issue.
Joel (20:50.357)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (21:04.939)
Chad, we're moving all manufacturing back to the US. This is a great time to be job and talent, right? No? Okay.
Chad (21:08.361)
Yeah, yeah, that'll happen
Lieven (21:11.938)
Yeah.
Joel (21:14.017)
All right, let's take a quick break and play a little buy or sell, which we haven't played in a while. I'm pretty excited about that. We'll be right back.
Chad (21:17.799)
Yes!
Joel (21:23.521)
All right, listeners, you know how we play this. It's a buyer sell. What we do, we talk about three companies, startups that recently got funding. I read a quick summary and then each of us on the panel here will either buy or sell. Let's play a little buy or sell, shall we? Number one, Ukrainian startup PeopleForce, an HR tech platform with 1300 plus clients in 30 plus countries and 90,000 plus active users.
secured $5.4 million in funding after seeing 80 % ARR growth in 2024. The investment will expand, go to market and support teams in Poland, Mexico and Colombia, enhance localized HR automation, develop AI analytics and improve corporate client onboarding. Chad, are you a buyer sell on PeopleForce?
Chad (22:16.229)
So an all-in-one HR system, that's not small. Usually when a company tries to attack a total addressable market, that large they fail. Why? Because it's extremely hard to start out being all things to everyone all at once, especially with that kind of footprint. And especially as a startup in Europe, let alone Latin America. So can you imagine trying to cater to an SME market, not just in Europe, but in Latin America too?
So many different countries with so many different languages, cultures, norms, regulations, and we haven't even broached the discussion about the amount of money needed to reach the SME market. So last but not least, the money will be used for expansion of go-to-market and support teams in Poland, as you'd said, Mexico and Columbia. That's all over the fucking place, man. So I'm getting a headache.
Joel (23:05.633)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (23:10.04)
Yeah.
Chad (23:11.805)
Just thinking about executing this go to market for a startup. It's, all over the place. It's a sell for me.
Joel (23:19.905)
All right. That's a sell. Well, I'm going to have a hard time selling any startup from Ukraine that has raised $5 million or more like that in a, in and of itself is quite a feat. So if nothing else, props for that. We talked about factorial on a recent show and I sort of opine that factorial was sort of in the Dr. Pepper spot of where maybe rippling and deal worth the
Lieven (23:25.773)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (23:25.833)
Hahaha
Chad (23:29.927)
I agree. Yes.
Lieven (23:31.693)
Hmm.
Chad (23:35.101)
Agree.
Joel (23:47.423)
the higher end of the buyer, Factorra was getting sort of a nice lower SME market.
people force feels like a poor man's factorial. So whereas factorial raised 100 million plus dollars, these guys are at the 5 million. They are price wise about four times less than factorial per user. So if you believe that you can you can be somebody in the what's what's lower than the Dr. Pepper out of the Fanta, can you be the Fanta or maybe like the Jones Cola of this market?
Lieven (24:20.366)
Thank
Chad (24:23.571)
the Kroger brand, the generic.
Lieven (24:24.11)
.
Joel (24:25.557)
Like there's, there's, Like the brand X, the, the Sam's Cola, whatever it is. like, could they, can they make a market of that? think for $5 million they could. And if they make enough headway in, in markets like Mexico and Columbia, someone like factorial is going to write a big check and get them off the board, take their clients, put them into factorial or someone else might come in and buy it. So I love that they are a successful Ukraine startup. I love that they take in a fairly modest amount of money.
And I love that they have no fear in being on the lowest end of the profit spectrum. And if they can scale that, they're going to, they're going to find a buyer. for me, people force may the force be with you is a buy.
Lieven (25:11.403)
Nice.
I the same reaction looking at the regions where they want to expand. Poland, yeah of course, if you're Ukraine you can expand into Poland. But Colombia and Mexico, why Colombia and Mexico? Of all the countries you can choose from, why Colombia and Mexico? I'm sure there is a reason and I know those people from... What was it called again? People are listening. So if you are listening, tell me why Colombia and Mexico? Because...
Chad (25:27.975)
It's all over the place, yeah.
Lieven (25:44.446)
I could come up with some other countries which might be more convenient. Anyways, I kind of like the idea about startups in Ukraine. You have to have the right mindset if you want to launch a startup in that country today. So only for that, it would be a buy. Those people have guts. have the... Yes, indeed. So I think that alone would...
Chad (25:59.411)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (26:05.089)
the stones. They got the stones.
Chad (26:05.171)
Yeah, they do.
Lieven (26:12.248)
would make it by for me, but they say the main goal of Peopleforce is to automate routine tasks, freeing up time for HR professionals to focus on the company's talent and their development, blah, blah. Normally I would say this has been set for 20 years already, but now with the agentics coming up, this actually could be true. And if they focus on as Amis, those as Amis don't have the time nor the knowledge to figure it out themselves. Big companies will be able to, as Amis won't.
So this actually might be a very good product to sell to SMEs. If it can save them time, they will happily buy it. Which will not be the case, I think, with what AdEcho is doing, for example, working together with Salesforce. They're apparently going to focus on the multinationals. But you can sell one agent to a multinational. That multinational will figure out very quickly how to copy those agents. So it's not like with real talent, with humans, where the value of the person is
Chad (26:52.647)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (27:08.236)
basically because of the human is unique. Robots aren't unique, so the value is going to go down very fast, I think, but not with Vazamis because they can't figure it out for themselves. So for me, it's a buy.
Joel (27:20.117)
All right, that's two buys and one sell for people for us. Let's go on to our next contestant on buyer sell. Vizzi, a London based talent platform provider has raised 3.65 million pounds in seed funding. The company plans to use the funds to expand operations and development efforts. Companies that use the service include Burberry, Virgin Group, Louis Vuitton, some of Levin's favorite brands and oddly,
Lieven (27:47.979)
no, no.
Joel (27:49.163)
Pizza Express is thrown in there. Chad, are you a buyer sell on Vizzi?
Chad (27:49.417)
you
Chad (27:55.165)
They've through pizza express in there just for you, Cheeseman. the, the busy apply process seems to be vibrant and cool. The problem is that it's way too late as employers and the, the actual cohort paying for tech, employers move away from manually reviewing these sexy profiles and searching for candidates while agentic platforms carry the manual workload. So I think it's cool, but it's about five years too late. So this is a sell for me.
Joel (27:58.132)
I know, I know.
Joel (28:25.409)
Chad, do you remember Visual CV about 20 years ago? was for those that don't know, time for a history lesson. Visual CV was a visual representation of your resume where you could put in pictures, links. This was 2005 people, so this was pretty fancy stuff. You could actually have a picture of yourself. It died, wasn't ready, the market wasn't ready.
Chad (28:27.879)
I do. I do.
Chad (28:46.345)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (28:54.197)
Vizzi to me is sort of visual CV 20 years later. It's very visual heavy. It's very personable. Like it's sort of tick tock and a resume, which is part of the part of the reason why I'm selling this. I just think it may be great for the design community, which is why they have Louis Vuitton and the brands that they have, but can they expand outside of that market? Like I just don't see it. I don't see techies doing this. I don't see accountants doing this. Like
It's a very niche market. don't, think it's the ceiling is really low. so kind of cutesy product. We've also talked about if there's a depth of the resume, it's going to be segmented into many things like the on demand, platform like we have with job and talent, tick tock. course, we're seeing some things there and listen to some of our podcasts, but for me, busy as a cell, it's a niche product. it's not gonna, it's not gonna scale very well.
Lieven (29:50.925)
Alright, two weeks ago I was in France skiing, for the people who like skiing, in Val d'Isère, which is one of the most beautiful places in France. And there was a girl called Lizzie, and she was from London also, so Lizzie reminds me of Lizzie, and I kind of like Lizzie, so that alone would be a reason for me to buy it, but maybe not today. I have you know, but I need to be quiet because she's here. But you know...
Chad (29:55.537)
Rub it in.
Joel (30:11.829)
Was your wife with you on this trip, Levin?
Lieven (30:19.329)
We ski in different groups. mean, I'm a better skier. when we go skiing, I still take lessons because it's fun to have a guide to guide you around the area. And I'm in the 3A and she's in the 2B or something, whatever. So anyways, she wasn't. No. But Vezzi and Lizzi, yes. OK, no, it's a cell.
Joel (30:23.905)
Ooooo
Chad (30:29.353)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (30:46.241)
Man, a few words and frankly, where you were going, fewer words is good for you right now. Fewer words is good for you right now. All right, let's go to our third and final startup, French startup, Clara, a platform that aims to cut onboarding time and enable continuous upskilling for frontline workers has raised 10 million euros in funding. The cash will be used to accelerate deployment, grow the team and introduce new AI powered functionalities. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Clara?
Lieven (30:47.663)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (30:48.627)
always.
Chad (30:52.759)
Yes,
another Clara.
Chad (31:15.859)
So many retail manufacturing and logistics companies are flailing with performance tracking, skills development and retention programs and platforms like Clara could bring them up to speed. So there's a huge need and France generated $320 billion just from manufacturing in 2023. It's a rich industry. It's available. They're focused retail manufacturing and logistics. So for me, this
and it's French. It's a bye.
Lieven (31:48.687)
and
Joel (31:49.567)
it's clear with a K not a C like job and talent. This might be confusing to some of our listeners. This man the whole like, whatever 360 shed and the upskilling and like it's so I hate it. It's so it's so cerebral. Like it's a bunch of scientists and shit like plum and guild and like I have a hard I'm a simple man chat and these these
Chad (31:51.847)
Yes. huh. huh. So many Claras.
Lieven (31:53.583)
That's right.
Chad (32:18.441)
I know, I know. Pizza Express.
Joel (32:18.955)
These companies are confusing to me, but, I do know that, that if you look at the number, like some of the competition, like they haven't set the world on fire. They've raised a lot of money. Guild for sure has raised a ton of money. and they just kind of exist and you have the occasional ones that come up. Look, I know there's a huge need, particularly for the kids. The kids want upskilling. They want to keep learning. They want to like improve their skills. And I also know that AI is making it so that if you don't learn new skills,
you're out of a job. And I know a lot of companies are going to say, look, you either learn this new skill or we can't keep you on anymore. And that's going to be a lot of incentive to learn that skill. If you want to keep getting a paycheck from the company that currently employs you. So for those reasons, I don't totally understand all the stuff. It's very, very complicated to me, but I do understand the macro trends in this. So for me, Clara is a buy. It's a buy.
Chad (32:49.949)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (33:17.065)
Big applause. What do you think, Levin? Clara 2 is the second Clara in this podcast. Is this a good Clara? That's the question.
Lieven (33:18.883)
Hmm.
Lieven (33:25.391)
This is the.
Joel (33:25.417)
And does she does does she do ski instruction? Does Clara? OK, sorry, sorry.
Chad (33:28.361)
Let's not go down that road again.
Lieven (33:29.743)
This is the K Clara, not the C Clara, but I didn't meet a girl called Clara, so no advantage there. But I think focusing on frontline workers could be a good idea on the very short term, but not on the long run because in the age of Vygentics, I think the jobs which will be replaced by agents will be all those frontline workers.
Joel (33:33.665)
Yeah.
Lieven (33:56.065)
So for me, I don't see this as a long-term investment. And normally when we invest, it's for the long run. I think three years, yeah, not longer. So for me, it's not a buy, which makes it a sell.
Chad (34:07.529)
Two buys and a sale.
Joel (34:07.873)
Fair enough. Fair enough. That is another episode of buy or sell. All right, guys, if this is a show focused on one thing, it's focused on Spain. So what better topic to end on than Spain. So Spain's economy is growing faster than the US and EU due to its acceptance of shocker foreign workers who now make up 13 % of their workforce.
Chad (34:22.035)
death.
Chad (34:31.709)
Hmm... Hmm...
Joel (34:36.277)
This growth is attributed to foreign workers filling critical labor gaps in industries like tourism, agriculture, and construction, which struggles to hire local employees. familiar? Spain's welcoming stance on immigration contrasting with stricter policies and other European countries could influence broader EU rules and serve as a model for sustainable growth throughout the continent. Chad, you're close to Spain. Your thoughts on the news on immigration.
Chad (34:38.025)
Hmm.
Chad (35:05.287)
Yeah, this from the article, the etias.com, quote, foreign workers play a key role in tourism, agriculture, construction industries and struggle to hire local employees. Many young Spaniards choose higher education and professional careers, leaving essential low wage jobs unfilled, end quote. Ask yourself, does that sound familiar? Because while Germany, France, and the US struggle with slow economies and growing anti
migration views, Spain offers a much different approach. And I think the following quote from Spain's minister of social security and migration, Elma Saiz, says it all, quote, we have two choices to be a closed struggling country or an open and thriving one, end quote. So the Iberian Peninsula, that's Spain and Portugal are two countries that are seeing great growth in the EU. It's all about properly managing that growth.
As we see countries like the U S becoming more isolated and closed, that isolationist stance will help countries like Spain thrive. And what you were talking about Joel, in addition, due to the change in U S immigration policy and the rescinding of research funding from major U S universities, Europe is trying their ass off to woo American researchers across the pond. Not to mention all of those other brain, big brained
researchers from other countries who might have come to the US, but they're looking for alternatives. That's the thing is that this isn't just about the low wage jobs. This also from a migration standpoint, from an immigration standpoint, this hits all the way around.
Joel (36:52.321)
Yeah. And if there are two other legs on that stool, Spain has a balanced budget, something America could learn something about, and they have progressively strong business friendly policies, which I think a lot of Europe, as well as where America is trending, can learn from. think that the debate on immigration, like I wish we would hold up countries like this as examples. They've done it really intelligently. They've focused on
Spanish speaking countries. They've looked at immigration as a recruiting effort, not as a burden on the society and the government. Immigration really is recruiting. If you think of it as recruiting, your mindset changes significantly. These are workers coming into the country. These are people who pay taxes and spend money and grow economies. And for whatever reason, so many countries are going away from this. I hope that we see a
Chad (37:27.657)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (37:37.999)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (37:43.067)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Joel (37:52.033)
for lack of a better word, like a NAFTA sort of movement in Europe. And I think the time is right, thanks to America, that Europe will start embracing some of the policies and tactics of Spain to grow their own economies, particularly on around less bureaucracy, less regulation. Certainly budgetarily, a lot of countries are in better shape than America is. But I hope that you see this sort of spillover into Europe, and I'm sure Leven has some thoughts on whether it will or not.
Lieven (37:53.976)
and
Joel (38:21.441)
And Spain has to keep doing this and they'll get help if the continent does it because Spain still has demographic challenges. The median age of a Spaniard is 46 years old. In France, it's about 40, 43, 44 years old. So they're still on the demographic challenge meter. So they have to keep this up. Otherwise in 10 years, they're going to be back kind of to where they were. So they have to keep pumping up the immigration because they're not producing enough citizens to grow.
at the rate that they are. So big applause for Spain. I'd love to see this kind of infect the rest of Europe, but I'm curious what, what Levin thinks.
Lieven (39:01.167)
For me, this was a very interesting topic and very interesting discussion because like you said, in most European countries, the governments are tending to the opposite. They try to make labor migration more strict. They want to have more rules, more regulation. And in our business, that's never a good thing. Too much regulation, it could be a good thing. But labor regulation and restricting people to come to work in...
Chad (39:15.635)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (39:30.715)
economy is not a good thing. So I was very happy to read the results of Spain and the government decided to lessen the rules and to invite those people to come over and it worked, which is a very good precedent. But the interesting fact to me was most workers came from Latin America and those are normally the people who traditionally went to the US to work, but now they came to Spain because they're less welcome, I think, in the US and also they have the same language in Spain, they have the same
religion, which is very helpful because language mostly is the biggest barrier. And this brings me to the next part. I hope for the rest of Europe that labor migration will become easier because of AI taking away the language barriers. We see this happen right now. We have a company in the Netherlands, example, called Vable, which is specializing in hiring people from mostly Eastern Europe and having them work mostly in construction.
some other businesses in Western Europe. language was always a barrier. And now thanks to AI, we have those little ear things which can translate simultaneously. So that's a very big advantage. And this is only starting now. So this is going to become flawless, I think, in the coming years. So I hope you can use this article and these results to show the government in the Netherlands, for example, that's
Chad (40:32.36)
Mm-hmm.
Lieven (40:57.889)
Labor migration is the thing they need instead of trying to close everything down, which is happening now because they have a pretty right-wing government. It just doesn't work. So I'm very enthusiastic about the whole idea and Spain and we from Western Europe, we used to look at Spain and Portugal as Southern Europe, which was always a bit lagging behind. I'm very happy they're gaining up and maybe even are advanced, advancing us.
Joel (41:17.857)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (41:20.296)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (41:28.063)
You know, the right wing could learn from one of the OG right wingers back in the day, Chad. Certain President Ronald Reagan had some interesting things to say about immigration. Let's take a quick listen to what Ronnie thought about immigration.
Chad (41:36.617)
about, yes he did.
Joel (41:46.965)
And you know what else Ronnie loved? He loved a good dad joke, which leads us to this week's this week's gym inspired by Spain. Guys, what do call a Spanish streaker? What do you call a Spanish streaker?
Chad (41:49.171)
What?
I don't know that's true. I don't know that's true.
Lieven (41:51.897)
Thank
Chad (42:06.227)
Hmm. Lost in translation.
Lieven (42:07.055)
No, I didn't.
Joel (42:07.827)
See, senior Willie, senior Willie.
Lieven (42:11.727)
Adios! We out!
Joel (42:15.751)
Adios amigos, we out!
Chad (42:17.799)
Way out!