This week has a little bit of everything. First, it's a heavyweight fight between Amazon and Walmart for which one's a soulless pit of human misery and which one is an employee-friendly innovator.
After digging through the carnage, the boys dive into a little Buy-or-Sell, featuring Candidate.co, Apna, and eqtble (dare you to type that into autocorrect and see what happens).
After that, take a mental trip to Colorado and hear why some employers don't want remote workers that hail from The Highest State. What, you greedy bastards want more? How about some podcast industry chatter and the "Waffle House Challenge." What the hell's the "Waffle House Challenge"?
You gotta listen. As always, the podcast is powered by Sovren, Jobvite, and JobAdx.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
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. An Indiana woman became the first person sentenced in the Washington Capitol riot. Another proud Hoosier moment. What's up kids? It's HR's most dangerous podcast AKA the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "never convicted" Cheeseman.
Chad (39s):
This is Chad "I'll take another waffle" Sowash.
Joel (43s):
And on this week's show a tale of two mega corporations. We don't need no Coloradan remote workers and a little more buy or sell. Little known fact Rocky Mountain High took John Denver nine months to write. Life really ain't nothing but a funny, funny riddle. And yes, we even have waffles on the griddle this week.
Chad (1m 3s):
Yes!
SOVREN (1m 4s):
You already know that Sovren makes the world's best resume CV parser, but did you know that Sovren also makes the world's best AI matching engine? Only Sovren's AI matching engine goes beyond the buzzwords. With Sovren you control how the engine thinks with every match the Sovren engine tells you what matched and exactly how each matching document was scored. And if you don't agree with the way it's scored the matches, you can simply move some sliders to tell it, to score the matches your way. No other engine on earth gives you that combination of insight and control. With Sovren, matching isn't some frustrating "black box, trust us, it's magic, one shot deal"
SOVREN (1m 48s):
like all the others. No, with Sovren, matching is completely understandable, completely controllable, and actually kind of fun. Sovren ~ software so human you'll want to take it to dinner.
Chad (2m 4s):
Chicago Backslide, baby live in that full VAX live.
Joel (2m 10s):
Tiptoeing into travel in the Honda civic, heading to Chicago. That's how we roll baby. So big shout out to team Shaker. Jeez. They know how to treat a guy
Chad (2m 22s):
Joe. Now 70 years Shaker, 70 years old. And I didn't, I didn't think Joe looked that old. He doesn't.
Joel (2m 30s):
He is a sexy man. He is John Jr.
Chad (2m 33s):
Not a day over 65, I'd say. Yeah.
Joel (2m 37s):
So a shout out to the, the Cleveland Indians who beat up on the poor Cubbies and regularly won me a little cash and lightened up Joe Shaker a little bit. I was, I was happy about that.
Chad (2m 49s):
Yeah. We were able to see some friends got John Graham Keegan was there Chris Pickle. We even, we saw our favorite millennial had breakfast with Kyle.
SFX (3m 0s):
Oh hell now. Yeah,
Joel (3m 3s):
Kyle's a good kid. He wore his version of Ohio State backing attire, which was cool.
Chad (3m 8s):
Pretty, pretty pathetic, pretty pathetic. But what wasn't pathetic was the 1914 club. It was almost like this speak easy somewhat of a cool-ass dungeon, where you go get all the food and drinks, high class food and drinks that you want. And then just go out the exit and there your seats are right on the field Wrigley.
Joel (3m 35s):
Yeah. No one should ever take you and me to an all you can eat and drink facility. That's just a, that's a bad, that's a bad sign, but we had a good, good time. I have to say.
Chad (3m 45s):
Next week.
Joel (3m 46s):
Next week is C town, baby. Cleveland!
Chad (3m 51s):
Cleveland Indians baseball all with all our Evergreen peeps. So looking forward, they just bought a new building in Cleveland. An Old Radio One building so they are stepping on up and we're actually going to record out of their studios next week. So I'm pretty stoked.
Joel (4m 10s):
That's what happens when you partner with HR's most dangerous podcast, you like invest in real estate and become a mogul. It's kinda, kinda nice. Do we know who the Indians are playing?
Chad (4m 19s):
Not off the top of my head.
Joel (4m 20s):
All right. We'll find out and fill everybody in next week on how the game went. Any more shout outs from the industry there at shaker in Chicago or Cleveland. Oh yeah.
Chad (4m 29s):
Going to have dinner with the AMS peops, so the Alexander Mann's Solutions peeps, they actually have, I guess their US Homebase is out of Cleveland and going to have some, some dinner and drinks with, with them. So looking forward to seeing them
Joel (4m 47s):
Very nice shout out to Pando and Workday who were Cody Award Winners for Business Technology. Pando was a recognized for Vertical Industry Award for Best Human Capital or Talent Management Solution. That sounds really impressive. So a shout out to Pando.
Chad (5m 4s):
Sounds sexy. It sounds sexy.
Joel (5m 6s):
Yeah, very nice.
Chad (5m 7s):
A big shout out to two super intelligent, super bad-ass female founders, Athena Karp, CEO of Hired Score and Frida Polli CEO of Pymetrics both have been on the show by the way, who have combined their platforms from a hard skill and soft skill deliverable standpoint. This to me is how vendors should be working together, master where you are instead of trying to be all things to everybody, get deep integrations and bigger deliverables through these types of partnerships that will provide broader revenue opportunities so this is the way to do it and go figure two super awesome women are knockin' it out of the park!
Joel (5m 54s):
And don't forget our favorite third wheel Tyler Weeks. Who's working Athena now.
Chad (5m 58s):
Love me some Tyler.
Joel (6m 0s):
Tyler he is, he's a great kid. Shout out to dice and ZipRecruiter stocks. They're having a pretty good week. So ZipRecruiter had a few, quite a few actually upgrades and initiations that were positive. Raymond James analyst rated zip, a strong buy with a $36 price target this week. It's still kind of bouncing around that $22 to $24 price range. But Raymond James is pretty optimistic and DICE stock that's the ticker D H X is spiking on news that the company is spending $12 million on Buybacks.
Joel (6m 40s):
As of this recording, they're up about 10% on the day.
Chad (6m 44s):
Yeah. Nothing like artificially inflating your own shit. I mean, come on.
Joel (6m 49s):
There's no innovation buyback shit.
Chad (6m 52s):
Exactly. That's like we, we suck. So we're going to artificially inflate the market for a few days. Fuck that. Something that does matter. Not being Dice is again it's pride month. And I want to give a big shout out to Raiders' defensive End Carl Nassib who comes out of the NFL corporate closet as gay. And I can't imagine in a quote unquote, "very testosterone oriented sport," how hard that's gotta be.
Joel (7m 23s):
Lot of courage to do that. So big, big applause for him. This is kind of a downer after that one, but shout out to QR codes. Yes. The once left for dead technology is back. A recent drum UGov survey revealed that 45% of US consumers who have used a marketing or advertising related QR code, 75% plan to use the media more often and 59%, believe it will become a permanent part of their future phone use. There's a silver lining to the pandemic. It's QR codes are back, baby.
Chad (7m 58s):
Yeah. If you're going to any restaurant or bar nowadays, don't even think about asking for our menu. Look for the QR code. Fairly simple. It's a rebirth go figure. Big shout out to Kevin Carrillo and the Cannabinoid podcast. That's right. I think I said that right Cannabinoid. He actually had me on a couple of weeks ago. It dropped today. So look for it. We talked about cannabis usage during COVID and then returning to work, rewriting employer protocols, alcohol versus weed, kind of the double standard that happens there. And a lot of that, a lot of the weed work oriented conversation that companies are having now, if they're not, they need to be having very soon.
Joel (8m 46s):
Yep. I challenge you to say Cannabinoid podcast really fast 10 times while you're high and see if you don't laugh really.
Chad (8m 53s):
I just took a gummy so no.
Joel (8m 55s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you'll need it to get through this week's episode.
Chad (8m 59s):
Don't forget again, it is pride month. Check out LGBTQ plus for dummies. We're actually dropping knowledge with our guest host, who she's actually doing all the work, Michelle Raymond from My G Work. And we're talking about things like what does LGBTQ plus even mean? What's the history? Why does it exist? The hell is this pronouns thing. A lot of things that many people are afraid to ask because they don't want to look like it. It's well, guess what? I don't mind looking like an idiot. I'm asking, she's answering. You should enjoy it.
Joel (9m 36s):
Love it. Shout out to American Airlines who canceled hundreds of flights this week due in part to work or shortages like everyone else they're struggling to fill customer service jobs as well as bring back furloughed pilots. They're busy reaching out to people who took leaves or buyouts to help cover demand. Enjoy the friendly skies if you're flying, because prices are up and flights are getting canceled.
Chad (9m 60s):
Buy now, buy now.
6 (10m 2s):
Welcome to all things Scottish, our slogan is if it's not Scottish it's crap!
Joel (10m 6s):
Shout out to Adam Gordon who's Scotland is out of whatever tournament we usually talk about on this show happening in Europe at the present time. Sorry, Adam, that's a bummer, dude. You can always watch the NBA playoffs on some internet connection in Edinburgh near you.
Chad (10m 22s):
That being said this coming week episode two of our European podcast. First week went unbelievably well! I didn't think we'd have such a good turnout and a great, great content.
Joel (10m 39s):
Our surprise, our surprise guest is bound to tank, this next show for sure. For sure. Speaking of not, not tanking, make sure you got your free shit signed up folks towards the end of the month here we're about to select a new winner for whiskey and beer. So you gotta head out to Chadcheese.com/free. If you like shirts sponsored by Emissary, Beer sponsored by Adzuna and whiskey sponsored by our BFFs over at Sovren get out there and sign up. Last for me is birthday's coming up this week. We got Carrie Corbyn, Shannon Pritchett and Stacy Zappar of the industry celebrating birthdays this week so Happy Birthday ladies
Chad (11m 23s):
All looking amazingly well for 25.
Joel (11m 27s):
I mean, seriously. I was going to say, be care for where you're going with this statement.
Chad (11m 32s):
With these ladies. You kidding me.
Joel (11m 34s):
And that we had some pods this week, don't miss our firing squad with Canvas, the new Canvas. Don't call it go canvas.io. And you already mentioned the LGBTQ for dummies.
Chad (11m 47s):
Topics!
Joel (11m 50s):
We're starting out with Amazon. Are you sure? This is okay. You might too fired up for the rest of the show, but fuck it. All right. Let's start with Walmart then. And we'll ease into.
Chad (11m 59s):
Hit Amazon first, Amazon on Amazon first!
Joel (12m 2s):
You want Amazon first? Okay. Let's start it hot. Okay. So a scathing eight month investigation by the New York Times has painted a pretty negative picture of Amazon. Shocking, right? Here's some highlights from the report. A conscious decision to encourage turnover and limit upward mobility among hourly warehouse workers, people feeling constantly monitored, a reported 150%. I'll repeat that 150% turnover each year, a general animosity toward unions and here's the big one, Chad, Jeff Bezos thinks that people are essentially inherently lazy. Side note, you also have Jeff Bezos recently saying in his final shareholder letter as CEO, that he wants Amazon to become quote "Earth's best employer."
Joel (12m 50s):
Sounds like they have a long way to go. And it sounds like Jeff is going to just go into space and never come back.
Chad (12m 56s):
Bullshit. I mean, seriously, is anyone surprised by this report? Amazon doesn't give a single shit. They need to scale and they don't care how many humans it actually breaks. This is literally the embodiment of Jeff Bezos and his philosophy of life so that the hiring practice and process is robotic. It is totally inhuman. Amazon doesn't place human connection, obviously as a priority whatsoever. Time on task is something that we learned during this report is a methodology that they use to monitor what they say.
Chad (13m 37s):
They're monitoring the downtime of machines, not the workers, which I call total bullshit on because the monitoring is on the person. If you wanted to monitor the fucking machines, you put the monitor on the goddamn machine and leave systems where people would go on leave and they would get fired? If you had, and there was actually a practice, if you had one bad day, you could be a superstar. If you had one bad day, you're fired. I mean, all of this is predicated on the technology that Amazon used to monitor the workers, hire workers, fire workers, put workers on leave, all the way through.
Chad (14m 20s):
And it is just a jumbled fucking tech stack mess.
Joel (14m 24s):
Yes. I don't know if there's ever been a company in my life with such disparate polls in terms of who they are. On one hand, they're this evil Bond villain led employer soul crushing organization. And on the other side, they're like this great company that gives, delivers my shit on time. They pay more than most everyone else. They give bonuses for coming to work. They give you extra money for COVID shots. I mean, they're trying to dance the fence and play damage control, I guess, by doing all these good things that are also, I guess, good for business. Now they have corrected some of these things. You mentioned the one, one offense firing, which is really pretty fucked up.
Joel (15m 8s):
364 days of the year I was fucking A-plus and that one F day I got fired, some of those things are fortunately being changed, but God does Jeff Bezos just look like a Bond villain and going to space does not help. This is like Moonraker. I don't know what the fuck is going on.
Chad (15m 26s):
All I got to say is 150% turnover. You can try to wallpaper all the other fun, "Oh, this is all the good that we do." Your company from a work standpoint is shit. You have to pay those people $18 an hour to start because they're not going to last because you're fucking breaking them. It just overall it to me, you put tech in place to be able to help your employees become more efficient, to be able to help your customers, et cetera, et cetera, not to fucking break them.
Joel (15m 59s):
Well, let's talk about Walmart. Let's get, let's get sunny people. A Walmart is launching me at Walmart, a workplace app that allows its workers to clock in, schedule shifts, request time off connect, to and communicate with other workers, locate merchandise and troubleshoot daily tasks. The app was built in-house by Walmart global tech. That sounds fancy and applies technologies like machine learning, augmented reality, camera, vision, and AI. There's that our favorite word, to tackle problems, the app also includes ask Sam a voice activated personal assistant that answers a variety of questions like merchandise locations. As part of the rollout, Walmart says it will provide Samsung Galaxy smartphones to more than 740,000 workers.
Joel (16m 47s):
God like we need more Android people, anyway, so they can access the app. Workers can also use the phone as their personal device if they choose to. Damn Walmart coming up strong with the devices and the tech. Now
Chad (17m 1s):
Again, I've got to say again, we're just focusing on tech so I don't want to get on like wages and all, all that other fun stuff. But they have 1.6 million US workers and they are trying to give them technology to help them do their job better, to do it easier. I don't know how many times I go into a store and I'm like, Hey, you know, where is, you know, where's the toilet paper? Whatever it is, right, I'm looking for something. And that person is got to like, maybe ask two or three other people, or maybe they know. Right. But overall, if I can just ask Sam on my phone, I'm like, oh yeah, it's over it, you know, aisle 15. All of that makes it not just better on the consumer, the person spending money, but also better on the employee who doesn't have to look like an idiot because they don't know where the toilet paper is.
Chad (17m 50s):
Right. Not to mention the AR piece of it, which I think is awesome. I love the augmented reality opportunity to point your phone at a barcode on a box and know what's in the box. So if you're stocking shelves or what have you, you can easily get through the warehouse or back room of Walmart. So again, it's all about understanding what exactly is happening with the workers and trying to help them through it. And again, I mean, you're going to make them happier. So you're not going to have hopefully 150% turnover and happy employees and the faces of customers is a good thing.
Joel (18m 33s):
Yeah. You know, we talk a lot about the augmented recruiter. This is sort of the augmented retail employee, and this is, this is a good on so many, so many levels. I mean, as a worker, you can get answers quickly. I love the communication with other workers. I don't know if that's a social media aspect or some sort of connecting with, with your, your coworkers. I think that's great, but you know, I have a little story. We like to go to Home Depot. And if you've ever been to a Home Depot, you know, it's kind of like an abyss of hell. If you don't know exactly where, what you're looking for is, and the last time I was there, you know, I asked an employee, Hey, do you know where the, whatever the hell plump, I dunno, toilet seats or whatever are?
Joel (19m 13s):
And he said, he's like, hold on. He pulled out his phone. And he went to a website, he went to homedepot.com or some internal website looked it up and then found what, you know, what aisle it was. But to me, it seems like, why would you not have like a quick app that he could just boot up?
Chad (19m 29s):
It could be Ask Homie.
Joel (19m 30s):
Why not have an inhouse app, where he could find the answer. Yeah. And how many times have you gone to, Ask Homie yeah that's good, trademark that anyway. And how many times have you been to Home Depot or Walgreen's or something? And you're like, do you know where such and such is? And they go, ah, hold on. Hey Bob, do you know where the such and such is? No. Hey Julie, do you know where this such? So like this is going to make happier customers, happy employees, because they can get answers really quickly. I do have a little bit of a big brother, red red flag that goes up on this in terms of being able to monitor. but that probably happens already. The robots that we talked about at Walmart were recent landing booted out of the store, which is, you know, a strike for automation. But this augmented employee seems to be where the world is going.
Joel (20m 12s):
So hats off to Walmart for taking the lead on this stuff. And we'll just have to wait for Ask Homie to come around before we can go back into Home Depot, comfortably.
Chad (20m 23s):
Buy or sell?
Joel (20m 26s):
We haven't played this in a while. I've missed it. All right. So we have three companies. You know how this works, we'll go through each one, give you a little, a little something, something on what they do. Chad and I will give a little review and we'll either buy or sell the company. You ready?
Chad (20m 40s):
Do it.
Joel (20m 41s):
Word? So candidate.co the company announced a $4 million seed funding round recently. The Seattle-based companies business works to allow people to refer those and their networks for jobs and receive between $2,400 and $6,000 for a successful matches. For companies, candidate.co says, it enables them to build a network of refers outside of their employees and alumni. Chad, another referral company. You buying this one or are selling it?
Chad (21m 13s):
What's new about this? Do we know? Because I mean, it sounds like crowdsourcing referrals, but it also sounds like a good opportunity for a side hustle for a lot of recruiters that are out there. But why does a company need it when they can leverage their own employees? And we know that employee referrals are one of the top, if not the top points of actually finding new candidates, new talent, new hires. So to me, why would a company pay for this? And I don't think they would, which is why I'm going to sell.
SFX (21m 47s):
Oh, hell no.
Joel (21m 49s):
All right, that's a strong sell from Chad. Sowash okay. I have two issues with this company. Number one is historically this business is a disaster. It's a total dud and you and I are old enough to remember H3.
Chad (22m 5s):
Yes.
Joel (22m 6s):
Which at the time was like revolutionary.
Chad (22m 8s):
Revolutionary.
Joel (22m 8s):
And I literally got a $5,000 check back in 2006 for placing a recruiter at I don't even remember the company, but I was like, holy shit, this thing actually works. I got a check in the mail from these guys. Well, the company faded and, Han's their CEO who came from Monster, I believe before age three, I've had a few conversations with him in regards to why did it fail? And with any thought, you know, social media may be people, people being able to share it would help this model and people could just click on links and apply to jobs. Well, nobody's sharing jobs, sort of voluntarily, on social media and historically this business fails, period.
Joel (22m 53s):
So from that perspective, they have a huge mountain to climb. The other issue I have with this thing is referral businesses are increasingly and for referral programs as well are, are, are coming under increasing scrutiny around diversity. And the thought of simply like, well, if I'm referring my friends who more than likely look like me are kind of are kind of like me then where's diversity coming from in your referral program? So referral programs are really struggling to find how do we integrate diversity into our referral programs? How do we create incentives to increase diversity? And there's an entire page on candidate.co's website about diversity.
Joel (23m 35s):
And really, really, I guess I would say reaching to sort of say that it's a diversity play. So, so for those two reasons like this one going to sell candidate.co If they can change 20 years of history, good on them, but I'm not, I'm not buying it. Next, we got Apnah Atma has announced a $70 million series B round, which brings the total raise two $90 million and values the startup at $570 million. The founder is an Apple alum and its mission is helping millions of blue and gray collared workers in India to up-skill, find communities and land jobs. On the app users connect to each other and help with leads and share tips to improve at their jobs.
Joel (24m 19s):
The app also offers people the opportunity to upscale themselves, practice with their interview performance and become eligible for even more jobs. The startup has amassed over 10 million users and just last month, it facilitated more than 15 million job interviews. Apnah, buy or sell.
Chad (24m 37s):
I'm automatically in love with this company because my favorite Indian restaurant is named app. No coincidence. I think not anyway, India's population is nearly 1.4 billion people on this app sounds to me kind of like Jobcase India edition with the community. Plus they are also building skilling modules, job based skilling in enabling peer-to-peer learning via its vertical communities. So the problem is that only 32% of India's population has a smartphone, which is probably a good thing for Apna's ability to deliver in scale right now.
Chad (25m 18s):
Cause that's a lot of fucking people. So overall that's going to grow penetration, smartphone, penetration is going to grow. It's a buy for me.
Joel (25m 28s):
Apna's a buy. I think, yeah, you sort of highlighted the fact that this thing has nowhere to go, but up and when I look at the globe right now, in terms of where the opportunity is around our industry, India is one of those that just screams, we're ready for innovation, we're ready for, you know, connection and upscaling and educating and getting folks jobs. And if as you, as you see more and more companies exit or look at, you know, how do we exit China and how do we exit, you know, some of these countries that whether by tariffs or politics are getting out India is this like shining beacon, a democracy, a billion people.
Joel (26m 12s):
Well-educated in many, many ways, companies flocking to this country. It only makes sense that employment and getting people, jobs is going to happen in a big way. And it looks like Apna is definitely doing all the things that they need to do. So I think it's, it's not only a good opportunity and a good company and what they're doing, but man, they're going to help a lot of people and India just make life better and, you know, improve their lives. And that's always a good thing if we can bring up the rest of civilization. So for me, this is a big, sexy, big, sexy buy.
Chad (26m 50s):
Also makes me hungry. It makes sense.
Joel (26m 53s):
Oh, Apna yeah. I think it's from, I think it said this story was Slumdog Millionaire. It's a reference to Slumdog Millionaire anyway. Good movie. If you haven't seen it. All right. Our third company is Eqtble or I think equitable is probably what it's supposed to be. It's spelled E Q T B L E. The Y Combinator company announced this week it has raised 2.7 million in seed funding. The company wants to give HR teams the same kind of detailed analytics, that product sales and marketing departments have had for a long time, with the goal of creating more engaged and inclusive workplaces. Their HR analytics platform can collect data from more than 100 sources, such as Workday and deliver insights and visualization about four main areas: talent, recruitment, workforce engagement, and compensation.
Joel (27m 42s):
One of the things the platform can help employers do Is identify why top candidates are declining offers such as identifying that your interview process is way too long relative to the competition. Eqtble. Chad, buy or sell?
Chad (27m 57s):
Hey Pat, can I buy a vowel? So, I mean, at most companies they're right. Workforce data is scattered across TA platforms, HR platforms. I mean, engagement platforms, benefits, employee surveys. I mean, there's just so much shit, but that's obstacle number one. Trying to get all of those systems, the data out of all of those systems, and it's a huge obstacle, unless they jump into bed with a company like ADP right out of the gate. Obstacle number two, why are people leaving? I'd be focusing on internal mobility before even thinking about this crazy mess. So I think this is a platform, not really a solution.
Chad (28m 40s):
It's a platform looking for a problem. I sell it.
SFX (28m 43s):
Oh hell, no.
Joel (28m 45s):
That's a sell for Mr. Sowash. Okay. I, again, I'm going to go back to the theme of augmented recruiters and arming them with intelligence and tools to be better recruiters versus automating everything. We talk about Terminator versus Robocop and how the world is doing a little bit less Terminator now, and a little bit more Robocop. So to me, augmentation is hot. And data is at the heart of sort of arming recruiters and companies to be better at what they're doing. And if you can take all that data and visualize it, it becomes, I think, a very appealing product to employers, just seeing fancy charts and graphs makes people think they're looking at a magic trick and they really, really enjoy that.
Joel (29m 34s):
And if the data is relevant and they can make that a sensical to employers. And I do think there is a, there is a component, If not that, that there will be not only recruitment, but also engagement and, you know, onboarding and helping all of those processes. So keep in mind, this is a seed round. This is a young company. I think they're going to figure this shit out for me, Eqtble, applause, is a buy. All right. So we've got two agreements and one, not so much. We'll be right back.
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Joel (30m 36s):
All right, Chad, who'd you rather Rocky Mountain High or Country Roads.
Chad (30m 41s):
They're the same damn song.
Joel (30m 45s):
Try telling that to someone in West Virginia and Colorado. But anyway, I've got to go Country Roads for obvious reasons. Yeah.
Chad (30m 51s):
Same song, different states.
Joel (30m 56s):
And same haircut. Yeah. All right. So Colorado is in the news this week. Remote workers need not apply. After new state law that requires employers to disclose salaries for open positions, some are advertising jobs available anywhere in the US but Colorado. The rules aim is to narrow gender wage gaps and provide greater pay transparency for employees. Colorado has offered guidance that stipulates employers need to include salary ranges for remote roles that will be performed entirely outside the state or for remote jobs posted by a company that doesn't have any employees in Colorado. However, salary information would have to be posted for remote roles if a company has any presence in the state.
Joel (31m 41s):
Some companies such as alcohol delivery Drizzly have gotten around the mandate by offering two separate job postings, one targeting remote workers in Colorado, and another aiming to reach potential workers in all of the other states. As far as I can tell the range can be pretty broad, so the pushback is a little bit odd to me, Chad, what do you think?
Chad (32m 2s):
I'm going to reiterate what you said earlier. The rule's aim is to narrow gender wage gaps and provide greater pay transparency for employees. This is another instance where the quote/unquote "invisible hand" of the market is showing that it's not fair. At all. Corporate America doesn't want to be transparent about what they are paying workers. It's just that simple, right? So what do they have to hide? The answer is wage practices, that are inequitable, and that's the big key here. So this is where DC needs to step in and say, this is not in the public good, right?
Chad (32m 43s):
This is not for the public good. And they regulate these assholes. What these companies are looking to do is they're looking to actually send a message to all the other states to not do this shit. That's exactly what's happening right now.
Joel (32m 59s):
Yeah, to me, this is an extension of the ongoing fight between states and companies and you know, how they want to treat people as employees. And you forgot the Uber, Lyft, et cetera example in California. You've got Kroger, you know, taking their ball and going home in Southern California, and now you have sort of like, okay, Colorado, you're going to require this. We're not going to do it and see what your voters think, see what your people think that are working remotely. Yep. So yeah, this, this ongoing struggle, this is just another round. In my opinion, I think that, you know, it's much easier to fight a battle within like a local area, with Kroger leaving than it is an Intel.
Joel (33m 40s):
Like remote includes everyone in a country. So to me, this is going to be a really hard thing for Colorado to fight. Now, we've seen, I mean, we've seen websites posted about, Hey, we're going to shine a light on the companies that are against this policy and not showing, you know, salary ranges and hourly wages, that may have some impact, but I doubt much. I just don't see where this is a good thing for either side at the end of the day. I'm having a hard time getting an official opinion on this ruling, not from my personal opinion, but from an agnostic viewpoint, I don't know who wins this.
Joel (34m 24s):
I think it's just a stalemate and Coloradan workers that are remote are just going to have to have to take it.
Chad (34m 31s):
If other states pick this up, the states will win. If the federal government, DC picks this up, the government will win. If they fall back and nobody gets behind Colorado on this, they will fail. Just that simple.
Joel (34m 45s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was, you remember Uber threatening to pull out of California, you know, for a while, which we all knew was, you know, saber rattling at best total bullshit.
Chad (34m 54s):
Yeah, let's talk about companies that are fighting for us. And when, I mean us, I mean, podcasters.
Joel (35m 7s):
Yeah. I forget this Colorado political equality, equity issue. Let's talk about podcasting. So all the big boys are getting into this thing and making pretty big moves, , Spotify, and Facebook in particular, let's talk about Facebook for a second. Facebook is letting select us residents use its live audio rooms, which is not technically podcasting, but it is audio. This is a feature that echoes Twitter, Clubhouse and Discord to host events for as many as 50 speakers. They will do that for you. Users can purchase stars, which I think is a little bit interesting and unique. They can purchase stars to earn front row seats that hosts can recognize and live streamers will get a portion of the proceeds.
Chad (35m 54s):
It's like a concert!
Joel (35m 54s):
So they've created a way to monetize your live shows, which is interesting. On the podcast side, Facebook is planning to start rolling out its podcast product. Next week details are choppy, but the company said in an email quote, "Facebook will be the place where people can enjoy, discuss and share the podcast they love with each other" end quote. Uniquely pod-casters can decide whether to enable what they're calling clips, which Facebook says will be created by listeners and lasts up to one minute in length. Chad, what do we think about Facebook's push into audio?
Chad (36m 29s):
What we've seen out of Facebook thus far is been God, just shitty overall when it comes to launching things outside of their wheelhouse. Will they be able to do podcasts? Right? I don't think so unless they put a lot of money into it, they are going to enable RSS feeds. That's easy. I mean, that's not a big deal. Doing these user generated clips, that's fairly easy, that's already, you know, shit, that's out there. They're going to put it in its own tab, big deal. Now people have to find it right.
Joel (37m 2s):
Another tab on Facebook, right?
Chad (37m 3s):
Yeah. Exactly. So, but if you do use their platform to publish, which we do not, if you do use their platform, they will have the ability to actually go in, chop it up and use some of your snippets for promotion, which is not a bad thing. And that's exactly what Spotify is doing with the buy of pods. So this is an article out of Tech Crunch. They're amping discovery of relevant content, which is driving consumption. And that's exactly what we try to do from a strategic standpoint is we have close to 700 episodes. Many of those episodes that are maybe years old are still incredibly relevant to many people.
Chad (37m 46s):
So how do you, how do you make them more discoverable? And Spotify is doing that with this new purchase of Pods.
Joel (37m 55s):
Yeah. For those who remember downloading music online before streaming became the thing you got to, you got to listen to 15 seconds of a song to find out if you wanted to download it or not if it was a new song and podcasts have yet to really have something like that. And podcasts are sometimes hour plus in length, and it's hard to get a sampling of that. And pods is trying to figure that, that process out. So yeah. Spotify making another big move. Real quick on Facebook. I think, I think a lot of this, particularly in Facebook, is about monetization. And I think a lot of the popular podcast is obviously driving people and companies and platforms thinking about how do we put this show on our site and monetize it, whether it be through ads or subscriptions or Hey, the star thing, maybe there's some way that you can make, make people fans of your podcast, episodes.
Chad (38m 52s):
Patreon or something.
Joel (38m 52s):
Yeah. Patreon kind of stuff. All by the way, Apple unveiled its plan recently for podcasts subscription service that would allow listeners to unlock additional benefits, like ad-free listening early access to episodes and the ability to support a favorite creator. So you have three really big companies trying to monetize and figure out how do we make a buck off of this, hot trend called podcasting. So as podcasters, we're obviously watching this as someone listening to the podcast, it's probably at least somewhat interesting to you. I'd have to imagine that we will be on Facebook. There's no reason to not be, but how much, how much traffic and downloads and listeners we get from Facebook will be interesting to see.
Joel (39m 35s):
I'm not betting a whole bunch.
Chad (39m 37s):
This is all a consumption play in a time onsite, play time on app, play for Facebook, right? If you, if you're listening to a podcast on Spotify, how long are you going to stay on there? And how many podcasts are you going to listen to, especially with this new consumption kind of scheme, to get you to get hooked on more podcasts. So Facebook's looking for the same kind of thing. Yes. There's a monetary piece of this. No question, but eyes in time in the app on the site keeps you off Google, et cetera, et cetera. So I think Spotify overall is leading in this category. Apple, they have the lion's share. Spotify is trying to chunk away at that.
Chad (40m 18s):
And you know, we'll see if it works. I don't, I don't see Facebook as a big player.
Joel (40m 23s):
How do you feel about the purchasing of stars and getting front row seats to live audio events? Do you like that or, no?
Chad (40m 30s):
I think it's cool, but as we start to open back up, I'm just going to go to a concert. I want to see the Foo Fighters live. I don't want to see them on Facebook. I mean, it is kind of cool, but if I can get it for free, yeah. I'll probably watch it now. I'll, you know, cast it to my TV or something like that, but I'm not going to pay for it.
Joel (40m 48s):
Yeah. I think it can be pretty interesting, obviously creating ways that people can get a VIP experience. I think Clubhouse is going to mirror this and they're probably already developing it and Facebook found out and just developed it quicker. But the ability to say like, Hey, if I'm going to listen to, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk or someone famous, I want to purchase a ticket for a VIP where I can have a private discussion with him with 10 other people.
Chad (41m 13s):
All about the big names.
Joel (41m 15s):
After the show or yeah. I mean the big names will be able to benefit from that. Yeah. That's to me, that's kind of interesting. I'll be interested to see how that, how that unfolds.
Chad (41m 24s):
I think because of the rapid pace of development on this side of the house, Clubhouse is dead.
Joel (41m 31s):
Clubhouse needs a sugar daddy, for sure. They need a sugar. Daddy. I don't know who that is at this point, but they need a sugar. It ain't us, but yeah, they need a sugar daddy, speaking of sugar daddies.
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Chad (42m 32s):
So we both play fantasy football.
Joel (42m 36s):
Love fantasy football.
Chad (42m 37s):
I have never heard of this challenge, this waffle house challenge in my life. Have you heard of this waffle house challenge?
Joel (42m 45s):
I have not. So let me, let me set the plate if you will set the table. A man who finished last in his fantasy football league had to spend 24 hours at a Waffle House restaurant. For every waffle he ate his sentence was reduced by one hour. Lee Sanderlin 25 years old, spent 15 hours in a Waffle House, all streamed on Twitter for a total of if your math is good enough, you know that that equals nine waffles that he consumed. Sanderlin tweeted things like quote, "Please, somebody launched me into the sun" end quote. And quote, "full of waffles, but devoid of life" end quote, it took him several hours to finish just his seventh waffle.
Joel (43m 31s):
This quote Waffle House challenge is apparently a big thing with fantasy football fans, although we have never heard of it. How long till Waffle House creates something more official? I guess we'll have to wait, exiting the Mississippi Waffle House at 7:00 AM. Sanderlin tweeted quote "This was horrible. And I recommend no one ever do this" end quote. Better luck next season and don't go with Carson Wentz this season.
Chad (43m 60s):
Two things. This is marketing genius for Waffle House. NFL season's coming up, they should be pushing this left and right. And number two, I would never do this because it would ruin waffles for me the rest of my life. And I love waffles.
Joel (44m 20s):
Yup. I'm waiting for the Waffle House, like a sports bar edition. Seriously, they're gonna have games playing and like come in at, at 12, stay till midnight, which on the coast would be about the end of football for that day. And you could have people just eating all day at your restaurant and have Waffle House challenges.
Chad (44m 40s):
You and I need to do a Waffle House episode, where we're there, like at two o'clock in the morning, having eggs, smattered, splattered, and whatever, right?
Joel (44m 51s):
And you can sponsor this trip by contacting us chadcheese.com today. And with that another episode in the books, Chad.
Chad and Joel (45m 2s):
We out, we out
6 (45m 4s):
All things Scottish. Our slogan is if it's not Scottish it's crap!,
OUTRO (45m 33s):
I'm Rory from Scotland, the country, which brought you electricity! Thank you for listening to podcasts with Chad and Cheese. Brilliant! They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Nada Niente. Anyhoo, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We out.