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Apple: the company that made you believe your phone is magical, your charger is proprietary, and your values are still intact. In this episode, Chad & Cheese welcome FT’s Patrick McGee, who rips the sleek aluminum lid off Cupertino’s best-kept secret: how Apple accidentally  became China’s greatest workforce trainer, economic investor, and nation-builder. Move over, Marshall Plan—Tim Cook just dropped a casual $275 billion in Beijing’s lap like it was a tip at brunch. 🔥 Inside: The “Gang of Eight” (no, not Marvel villains—Apple’s secret China crew) Vocational schools, iPhones, and ghostwritten investment math Why Apple’s entire PR strategy is basically Jedi mind tricks And why India’s “Made Here” dream is more Bollywood than business Apple gave China the playbook, the players, and the gear—now they might be coming for the car keys (and your EV market). Don’t worry, it’s only the future of global manufacturing. No biggie. 📱 Click play. Before Tim Cook gets mad and makes it disappear. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:29.784) Yeah, this is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Cheesman. Chad Sowash is writing shotgun and we are so excited to welcome Patrick McGee, Financial Times reporter and most importantly for this interview, the author of Apple in China, Patrick, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad (00:36.11) Give it up! Patrick Mcgee (00:49.88) Looking forward to it guys, thank you. Joel Cheesman (00:51.842) Very good. So while I'm saying, mean, after, after, John, yeah, John Stewart and, you know, prof Jean, wherever else you've been, I hope that you're ready for the tsunami of attention that this show is going to rain down upon you. hope you're ready. Hope you're So financial times and author pretty, pretty, pretty basic stuff. What, what should, our, listeners and watchers know about, about you? Chad (00:52.014) He's been everywhere. He's been everywhere, man. He's been on Jon Stewart. He's been on Prof G now. Chad (01:08.218) Can't wait, can't wait. No, book sales, book sales. That's the thing. That's Patrick Mcgee (01:08.654) Publicis is very excited. Patrick Mcgee (01:21.134) Well, I mean, that probably is the stuff I suppose what's worth knowing maybe is for the FT I've written from Hong Kong, Germany and Apple. And if you sort of think like, where did the idea for the book come from? It's the culmination of those three things on Hong Kong. I was obviously learning about China. This was the time of what the Hong Kong is called the umbrella revolution when they were sort of protesting against authoritarian Beijing and, know, maybe not going for democracy full scale in Hong Kong, but at least sort of more independence or at least the status quo. as Beijing was sort of tightening its grip. Germany was very much covering the Volkswagen scandal, but really what that meant was I was covering German industry and being in and out of factories all the time. It sort of my introduction to supply chains and had to get up to speed pretty quickly. And then Apple. And so if you take sort of China, supply chains and Apple, you sort of get the birth of the book. Chad (02:08.548) So where did all the basis of research come from? Where'd the source material come from? Because it feels like you've got tons of insider information. Patrick Mcgee (02:19.586) Yeah, I was really happy when there's an Apple blogger named John Gruber and he said, you know, most books are like a long magazine article that did well and then you pad it out for 300 pages and your book seems to be like really dense throughout, like the density of a magazine article but for 400 pages. And that really is what it is. I I actually didn't know all that much about Apple's first 25 years, even after covering the Apple beat for four years. I just never had thought it was all that relevant. So some of the early chapters are really like me grappling with early Apple history as it was written through books and by speaking to some people. But the vast majority of the rest of the book is really just based on interviews with people. So I mean, I would ask Chet GBT various questions about Apple history and Apple's relationship with Chinese government or who built the translucent iMac and everything. Chad (02:54.458) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (03:08.384) I just got all of those answers wrong. And the reason why is like that stuff just hasn't been written. There's never been a manufacturing angle applied to Apple, at least in the 21st century. mean, Apple used to build their own computers. And so that was part of the angle, you know, famous Harvard business review cases and stuff like that. But for whatever reason, you know, like Steve Jobs or people around Steve Jobs to talk about the reality distortion field. And I kind of think Apple reporters are caught up in that as well. We focus on the things Apple wants us to focus on. Chad (03:29.882) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (03:36.844) which is like the beauty and sophistication of their hardware and product features. And this week is a great example. So I don't know exactly when this is being published, but WWDC is this week. And I mean, it's all about the features of their software called Liquid Glass and all this kind of stuff. And so most of the reviews are just all talking about Liquid Glass. Now, maybe it's good, maybe it's bad, but we're sticking with the Apple narrative. And so I tried to totally get outside of what Cupertino wanted us to report on and look at instead about the... Joel Cheesman (03:44.334) Mm-hmm. Chad (03:45.934) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (04:04.598) sort of most sensitive underbelly of the company, which is how the sausage gets made, right? You know, someone compared the book to Upton Sinclair, which was kind of amazing, right? The guy who sort of exposed how the meat industry worked. And yeah, that was my big goal. So the book is primarily based on more than 200 interviews. I'm only counting the people at Apple or with Apple experience. I talk to other people as well in supplier network. But as a result of Apple being a very secretive company, which is usually a frustrating thing as an Apple reporter. If you take two years off as I did and you're doing nothing in your life but trying to talk to Apple people, it means that whenever you break through, you are inherently getting novel information because if you talk to people at a secretive company who haven't talked before, you're only dealing with new facts and figures so long as you're asking the right questions. So my job was really just to take what I had learned from an astounding number of hours of interviews and just make it compact into a 400 page book and sort of weave it all together. Chad (05:00.004) How does Apple have such control over the narrative? That to me is fascinating. I mean, we'll get into the manufacturing and all the other fun stuff, but when you start to see, obviously, whether it's Google I.O., whatever it is, but it seems like Apple has such a great, I should say, they have total control almost over the narrative. Patrick Mcgee (05:22.604) Yeah, I mean, I can only speculate. think in part just because so many people watch their events that you sort of have to have a handle on all the things that Apple is announcing because, know, they've got five million, 10 million, 20 million people watching their keynote speeches. And so you sort of need to pay attention to that. And there's such an audience, let's say, for what the next Apple product is going to be that it sort of gears your scoops towards like Chad (05:46.874) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (05:49.646) Why don't I get ahead of Apple and find out what the next features are going to be? But in a sense, to make the case that we've covered Apple wrong, I would just point to like maybe two or three things that are all in the book. I profile Isabel Gamahi in the book. She is the current head of China for Apple. She's the only managing director in the company, which has 160,000 employees. She's been at Apple since 2008, and she's been the head of China for seven years. Chad (06:07.108) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (06:16.93) She's never been profiled in any depth before. mean, the number of people who even know her name is astoundingly slim. And like, that's pretty bizarre. mean, China is the most important market for Apple overseas and the most important base for producing everything. And ostensibly it is the most covered company on the planet. And we don't know two things about Isabel Mahi. That strikes me as strange. The other thing is that I discovered more than a thousand pages of internal Apple documents that were made public in court discovery. that hadn't been reported on. I discovered that 16 months ago and no reporter in that time period even found it, let alone spent the 60 hours to go through it like I did. We're talking about depositions of Tim Cook and Luca Maestri, the CFO, internal emails between Tim Cook and the board of directors, an internal competitive analysis of Huawei as a threat, all sorts of, I mean, just a total goldmine if you're an Apple reporter and... Chad (06:51.139) Wow. Joel Cheesman (07:11.854) you Patrick Mcgee (07:13.902) it's sort of indicative of how much we are caught up in the reality distortion field that a book like mine can have such novel information. Like I sort of think the book I wrote, A, I don't know why it hadn't already been written, right? Why in 2018 didn't someone write Apple in China, right? I mean, that would have been more than a decade. I mean, lucky for me, yeah, but I also just didn't know how much there was to uncover. I mean, what's really interesting is a lot of people will say, Chad (07:31.896) Yeah. Good for you. I didn't. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (07:32.024) Yeah. Patrick Mcgee (07:40.576) If I send them the book, they're like, well, I already know Apple's narrative. Like, why would I read this book? And then they get like pages in and they're like, I don't know any of this. And I tried to sort of keep that bar throughout the entire book. So I think if you, if you feel, you know a lot about China and especially if you think, you know a lot about Apple, I think you get stunned pretty quickly at just how much novel information there is. And it's not because I'm brilliant, but it's because the people I spoke to are brilliant. They haven't spoken to journalists before. They agreed to speak with me. Joel Cheesman (08:07.33) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (08:10.374) And I think I structured it really well. The writing is nothing particularly special about the writing. I'm not Proust, I'm not Joyce, but the structure of the book was really well done because I took two years off to really work on that. So yeah, I mean, that's what I would say. But I don't know why it hadn't been written before, but it was quite the sort of silver platter to be able to go after it for two years. Chad (08:31.012) Let's jump into the meat real quick. for the listeners out there, I think one of the biggest numbers that surprised me was the amount of money that Apple is spending in China every single year. Can you hit us up with that peak times, what it looks like now, and how Apple, to some extent, is really the reason why China looks like it does today? Patrick Mcgee (08:54.35) Yeah, basically the narrative point is that Apple is sort of put, like has a gun put to its head in 2013 when state sponsored newspapers all attack Apple in what I call a digital blitzkrieg for three weeks. I mean, it is on the cover of what you might call the state sponsored CNN called the People's Daily. Well, consumer, okay, so consumer day is the first attack. So Apple is sort of taken to task for having Chad (09:13.54) Was that consumer day? Chad (09:18.276) Okay. Patrick Mcgee (09:23.022) treated Chinese customers in an inferior way to the rest of the world. And so CCTV hosts this thing called Consumer Day every year. So on March 15th of every year, companies are called out for not living up to the socialist ethos of the country. This is my opening prologue. And Beijing is, I'm sorry, Cupertino is totally flummoxed as to what's going on. mean, I've actually learned more about this from new sources since the book was published. So you had teams within Apple in China watching Consumer Day because they knew that it was about to happen. And being totally flummoxed by the secret footage of customers in the Apple Store in France, the Apple Store in somewhere in America, asking questions about returns and then the secret footage happening in China where the Chinese customers are being given a different warranty policy. And none of them really understand what's going on here. And unpacking that narrative and sort of solving that riddle of what went on was sort of one of the biggest achievements of the book. Because in 2013, this was really widely covered, not just the Associated Press and Reuters, but New York Times, The Atlantic, and all these places. And I really feel like I solved why Beijing went after Apple. And I'll have to say, maybe read the book if you want the full narrative. But the most basic thing is that Xi Jinping sort of understandably sees Apple as this exploitative power that is not in China for China, which is the thing that he really wants. And the Chinese are very sensitive to being exploited. because before the rise of the Communist Party in 1949, they called the previous 100 years the century of humiliation. This is when they had to give up Hong Kong, when they were involved in the Opium Wars, which if you don't remember, mean, they're called the Opium Warms because Britain basically forced opium exports into China against the will of Beijing. It's not a very pretty episode if you're a Westerner. It's like someone pushing fentanyl into America today against the will of Washington. you know, wouldn't look kindly upon that country. And that's the role of Britain, unfortunately. I'm getting way ahead of myself here, way back into Chinese history, but some of this is pretty fascinating in the book. Anyway, the point is that for reasons we don't need to go into, Cupertino feels threatened and they worry that their products are going to be blacklisted. And so they hire or name a team of executives that call themselves the Gang of Eight. And these are people who are basically the first senior people living in China for Apple. So Apple has been in China Chad (11:32.431) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (11:32.642) me. Patrick Mcgee (11:44.16) in a sense since 1993, if you're including the channels business, but really since 2000 for building stuff and really since 2008 in terms of selling stuff at the online Apple store. And yet no senior person has ever been living in the country. They're orchestrating events from afar and they're sending their top engineers in by the plane load to train and audit and supervise all these factories. sort of compare it to Uber being the world's biggest taxi provider without owning any taxis. Joel Cheesman (11:51.576) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (12:12.456) Apple managed to become the world's best manufacturer without owning any factories. so Apple has to basically turn this on its head. And so what the gang of eight working with the government relations team figure out is we are contributing an amazing amount of what the Chinese call indigenous innovation. And true, we're not doing it intentionally, but that is the impact of our operational presence in this country. Chad (12:32.43) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (12:39.702) and we need Beijing to understand it. Because if they understand just how much we're doing for hundreds of factories across the country, they will essentially remove the obstacles to us remaining here and they'll probably look upon us kindly. That's essentially exactly what happened. So in this process, they do their own supply chain study where they realize that they're investing $55 billion a year in 2015. And when Tim Cook goes to Zhang Nenghai, the citadel of communist power, Joel Cheesman (13:02.136) Mm-mm. Chad (13:02.778) 55 billion. Patrick Mcgee (13:06.766) 55 billion, I'll come back to what that figure means and stuff in a second. And so when Tim Cook goes to Jiangnan Hai in May 2016, just as Trump is campaigning on an America first platform and just as Trump is actually telling his users, his sorry, his fans to boycott Apple products. I mean, this is the climate that Tim Cook is operating in. He pledges, he basically takes that $55 billion figure, multiplies it by five and says to... Chad (13:08.748) Okay, okay. Patrick Mcgee (13:32.218) Chinese officials, we will invest $275 billion over the next five years. This number is so extraordinary that I could not find any corporate equivalent. In other words, you want to look at a company like Dell or something and find out how much they're investing and you just don't find anything close. So I had to look at government efforts and almost as a thought experiment, I decided to look at nation building efforts, not thinking that the numbers would be comparable and then being blown away that if you convert Marshall Plan spending. Joel Cheesman (13:54.102) Marshall Plan. Patrick Mcgee (13:59.5) In a sense, the plan that helped revive Europe after World War II, that's a four-year program that adds up to real adjusted figures of $131 billion. So Apple was investing in five years double what the Marshall Plan spent. And the Marshall Plan was for 16 countries. The Cook Plan, if you will, is for one country. And the Marshall Plan is actually, you some people think this isn't a great analogy or whatever. And like for whatever, it's imperfections. Chad (14:03.268) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (14:28.736) It, the imperfections actually all sort of point you in the direction of how big the Cook Plan is because the Marshall Plan isn't about industrial revival. It's partly about that, but it's also like half of the first year spending is just on food aid. And later you get agricultural revival, highways being built, railways being built, et cetera. The Cook Plan is exclusively about one sector, the advanced electronics industry, which China expert Barry Naughton has called, quote, the most important thing, end quote, for Xi Jinping. So it is Joel Cheesman (14:52.066) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (14:57.708) ruthlessly efficient, it is ridiculously targeted, and the caliber of talent that is undertaking the plan are America's top engineers rather than government bureaucrats. So if the analogy is imperfect, fine, but it's imperfect in ways that demonstrate just how impactful the Cook Plan was rather than the Marshall Plan. Joel Cheesman (15:16.226) Yeah. Patrick, I'm glad that you brought up some of the Chinese history, which I think a lot of our listeners probably don't know, but I'm also curious from the Apple side of it. know, Apple was basically bankrupt in 96 jobs comes back. I Mac is, is released iPod. We're off to the races was at what point did China go? damn. Apple is building us a workforce to not just build electronics, but build Patrick Mcgee (15:27.789) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (15:46.018) military equipment and build cars and build like was there a was there an inflection point where China clearly Realized what was happening and what they could benefit from Was it from the very early when they joined the WTO that said how can we get American companies in here to sort of train us on this stuff I know there's a lot of Tesla in your book as well as Apple in terms of how Chinese have bought at what was there an inflection point that China knew what they had and that could use it to their advantage militarily and diplomatically. Patrick Mcgee (16:16.408) So the wake up call, if that's what you're asking for, really isn't until Cook goes to Jiangxi, which is described to me as music to the ears of Beijing. They really didn't know how Apple was operating in the country, and they certainly didn't know the extent of it. To be fair, I don't think Apple knew either until they do their own supply chain study. And as strange as that might sound, Apple, especially under Tim Cook, is very much an engineering organization. mean, the engineers were not sitting around pontificating Chad (16:26.489) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (16:45.356) state politics or even provincial politics in China. The people that have China expertise that joined Apple in mid 2010s are sort of stunned at the level of ignorance among officials at Apple in terms of, we think of Foxconn as the company that Apple outsources their assembly to. It's also the company that they really outsource their politicking to. Chad (17:04.89) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (17:08.814) So it's Terry Guo and Foxconn that really handle the political side of how to build factories and sort of score points with local officials. Apple doesn't take control of that until at the earliest 2013. And they're really quite savvy now. I mean, I want to be clear. They go from like zero to hero or something like that, you know, in terms of their understanding of Chinese politics over the last 12, 13 years. But I don't think it's really understood by Apple until the supply chain study. And it's certainly not understood by Beijing until Apple goes hand in hand. or handing them glove to teach them all the things they're doing. And then Tesla is, in a sense, one of the beneficiaries of this because they agreed to adopt the Apple model and do for EVs what Apple had done for smartphones. But just to back up a little bit, Beijing since the 1980s has wanted technology transfer in the country and has had explicit policies of joint venture. So if me, Cheese and Chad want to go set up a business in China, that's fine. Chad (17:56.835) Hmm. Patrick Mcgee (18:04.706) but it's going to be 50 % owned by some Chinese entity. And the whole point of that is that the Chinese are going to learn from us and then sort of build their own business and thrive on their own. And the quid pro quo there is that the three of us are getting access to 1.4 billion people. So even if we're sort of willingly giving away some of our technology and know how it's going to be worth it, at least in the short term, and the Chinese sort of famously think long-term, so they think it's going to work for them. Technically that is supposed to be illegal after WTO in 2001. Joel Cheesman (18:19.704) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (18:33.08) but it never gets prohibited per se. It sort of evolves into what I call voluntary is the new mandatory. So there are ways that Western companies continue to do it. And the textbook example is high-speed rail. Sorry, there's a lot to unpack here, so I will stop. Chad (18:33.272) huh. Joel Cheesman (18:44.59) So you have Google around this time says, we're out of China because we're not willing to give up our data and everything about you. They don't let Amazon in, Facebook doesn't get in. Did that not play into Apple's calculus on should we be in China? Just the money and the share, it was just too much. Yeah, mean, there any come to Jesus moment at Apple where they said, hey, all of- Chad (18:46.855) yeah. Chad (19:05.85) Capitalism, baby. Capitalism. Joel Cheesman (19:12.48) Everyone in the valley is out on China. Maybe we should be too. Patrick Mcgee (19:17.774) So no, I think it's a short answer. But their experience is really different. And let's just give a sympathetic view to Apple here. All the companies you mentioned are in some way content or services companies. And Apple hasn't necessarily had great success in content or services in China, but they are a hardware company. And so it's almost unfair to compare Apple, a hardware company, with true companies that are in their size and geography, because it's Silicon Valley. But if you compare them to hardware companies, electronics companies, Apple is not unique, right? Everybody in electronics is moving to China. And if anything, Apple is late to the game, right? The likes of Dell, HP, Compaq, everyone's already working with Taiwan and China, but the time Apple goes there. So they're not unique in that sense. What they're unique in is their business model, which is more hardware focused than any of the companies you mentioned or any of the Magnificent 7. Chad (20:11.514) So back to the Gang of Eight real quick. So Apple's Gang of Eight helped China see that they were, they being Apple, were the biggest aid in nation building, probably, for China, at least from the outside. How in the hell did the US see this and not demand that Apple and other companies also kind of like reciprocate? I mean, it... Is it because Apple paid $22 billion in taxes last year? Is that good enough? It's amazing because all the training that happened, they trained what was it, 28 million people since 2008? And they've got a highly trained population now. I mean, again, this is a long, of like slow roll and boil, but this is where we're at today. Patrick Mcgee (20:49.731) Yeah. Patrick Mcgee (20:57.902) So the simple answer is that they didn't know. I mean, again, we in the media have failed to tell this story. I should give credit to Wayne Ma from the information of a task report who has covered supply chain and the initial $275 billion agreement, which was in 2016, was broken by Wayne in 2021. Now, what I don't think comes out of that reporting was a real tallying up of what the number was counting, why it was investment versus spend, and you have lots of confusion among readers as to Chad (21:00.419) Okay, gotcha. Chad (21:08.047) Mm-hmm. Chad (21:15.159) Wow. Chad (21:21.433) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (21:26.69) what the number really referred to. And I think my book goes into considerable detail about why it's counted as investment rather than spend. So for instance, we're not counting the bill of materials. It's not that Apple buys a whole lot of chips and aluminum chassis and things like that, and that adds up to 275. That is not even counted. That is zero dollars of that 275 billion. So if you were to add up that, you double or triple the figure immediately because the so-called bill of materials for the iPhone alone would be more than $50 billion a year. Chad (21:35.194) Mm-hmm. Chad (21:50.905) Wow. Chad (21:55.418) And they're buying that from local, I mean, they're generally buying a lot of this out of China, right? So, I mean, so you're talking about that first number and then the second number is like ginormous at that point. Patrick Mcgee (22:02.03) Yes, Apple's defense. Patrick Mcgee (22:08.204) Yes, and to be clear, that should not be counted as investment and it's not counted as investment because it's leaving China, right? Or maybe it's going to some Chinese consumers, but it's not an investment. so this is a little bit wonky. I don't know if this is where you want to go. So feel free to just edit this out after the fact. But if you're operating in China, let's say you're Walmart. Walmart earns more revenue than Apple. It's one of very few companies that does. they, according to some estimates, and I'm not a Walmart expert, a purchase is more than 60 to 70 % of their goods from China, right? So Walmart, for instance, had $600 billion of revenue roughly last year. If they were buying 60 % of that from China, then, you know, just by the numbers, they are already sort of spending more in China than Apple. But that's not investment. You know, if they purchase kitchenware and action figures, plastic dolls, whatever else comes from China, and it just gets on a ship and goes to Walmart, it's not staying in China. That's not an investment. That is just spend. What Apple realizes Government Affairs team and the Gang of Eight is that there's a concept in China called registered capital. And if you're a General Motors or if you're a Volkswagen, you can count certain wages as investment, as fixed asset investment, essentially, if you were training workers. So if you train workers how to build up the Volkswagen assembly line for the first 18 to 24 months, if you training them how to do this, it counts as registered capital. It counts as investment rather than spend. Once the operational line is basically set up. You're no longer doing investment because the workers know what they're doing and they're just carrying out the tasks like any other work would, you know, building something from Walmart or something. Apple basically makes the argument to Beijing. We never really leave that phase because we don't set up a production line for the RAV4 and just build the same car for seven years. We are upending the iPhone, the MacBook, the iPad, AirPods every single year. We're using new materials, new techniques, new degrees of automation, et cetera. So we're continually training. the workers. And so in a sense, what they're able to argue is that most of the wages of the three million people in China are in fact investment costs, are fixed assets, essentially, and therefore are registered capital. So they're counting that as investment. Now, someone could say, I don't like that accounting. That feels fuzzy to me or whatever. First of all, I would argue against that. But secondly, it's not an argument with me. It's an argument with Apple and it's an argument with Beijing because Apple came up with the argument and Beijing accepted the argument. Chad (24:26.457) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (24:32.462) So that's worth knowing and that's spelled out in some more chapters. But I think a lot of people on social media haven't read the book and so sometimes criticize the figure because they haven't seen where it derives from. Chad (24:41.636) So investment, you're talking about training, supply chain, manufacturing, mean all of those and machinery. Okay. Yeah. Patrick Mcgee (24:46.294) And machinery, machinery is massive, right? So something Apple does, which like doesn't have a name for it, but like it's not really outsourcing in the traditional sense. Outsourcing implies that the three of us come up with some sort of design and we send the blueprint over to some capable factory who knows what to do and conjures it into existence. That's never what Apple does. Apple trains their suppliers to come up with the next generation of components and parts. It actually does the machinery behind the processes. You know machine that builds the machine as Elon Musk sometimes calls it it even does the software for those machines and crucially of course it mounts them the machinery in other people's factories and They're not supposed to be able to use it for other products But in many cases they either do or they reverse engineer those machines So you basically get to copy the CNC machines that Apple installed on your factory floor for instance And of course, you know Chinese factories are very adept at at doing that So yeah, it's not just the people, it's the machinery. But what that means is that the suppliers and Apple supply chain aren't just working beyond their perceived capabilities, they're working beyond their actual capabilities because Apple is training them and giving them machinery that they otherwise couldn't afford. So the impact of this in the early 2000s is monumental. The impact of this today is probably much less because the Chinese are now so adept and world leading and have their own robotics and automation. which in a sense means there's a certain loss of control on the part of Apple, but it's been brilliant for Apple's margins because they have not outsold the number of iPhone units they shipped in 2015. That was the peak year for iPhone, but they continue to make more iPhone revenue because the phones cost more and their margins are higher. And it's largely because Chinese companies operating in China are footing more of the bill, if you will, by owning and operating the machinery themselves rather than having Apple do it for them. Joel Cheesman (26:33.038) So you talk about training and equipment and I'm curious your thoughts. I this is a show primarily about hiring, recruiting, talent, et cetera. That's a ton of people that have jobs in China now because of Apple that wouldn't have had them otherwise and jobs that probably aren't in America because Apple made this decision. And when you, when you see the chips act. Patrick Mcgee (26:50.659) Yes. Joel Cheesman (26:56.652) When you see, you know, Howard Lutnick talking about bringing these factories back and Americans screwing in little screws, and iPhones, your comment about automation, in China, where, where are we with China actually needing people to the degree that they did before? Can we actually bring these jobs and plants back to America? Has that ship sailed? I'm just curious what your thoughts are in the current landscape of all this transfer of talent and equipment, cetera. Chad (27:00.548) You Patrick Mcgee (27:27.31) So there's sort of this fever dream, if I'm not being too harsh, that if we can just automate everything, then we don't need 400,000 people in Zhengzhou putting together the next iPhone, and so maybe it can come to America. Look, I would love for that to happen. There's nothing in my ideology that's like preventing me from seeing that picture or something. But A, everything that can be automated in the iPhone supply chain already is automated. Like the final steps of the process really are handcrafted. in a way that you know, seats in a Ferrari are or something, right? Like there's a lot of like hand touches for a luxury product. Kind of amazing for something that is shipped in the quarter billion units per year. But there's all kinds of automation in the process. So people either think it's either automated or it's handcrafted. It's both. Maybe we can get to a stage because of AI advances applied to manufacturing where more and more stuff really is automated. Chad (28:07.866) Yeah. Patrick Mcgee (28:22.734) you know, a lights out factory where basically it's just being orchestrated by a few clever engineers. And if that's the case, people think, well, why can't it happen in Pittsburgh? Look, if that can happen, amazing. The trouble is even then you are working with, you know, mined metals and refined materials, et cetera. And all of that is happening in China. So it's not as though if we just have a breakthrough in automation, it all transfers here. You're still having to put stuff into the lights out factory. And unfortunately, all of that stuff is currently happening in China. And who's going to come out with the lights out factory? Well, at the scale that Apple needs, it's going to be Chinese companies because they're the only ones sort of doing the partial steps today because China, I think I'm getting this right, has more operational robots in its factories than the rest of the world combined. And if I'm slightly getting that wrong, it won't be wrong within a year or two. You know what I mean? Like the advances they are making are absolutely incredible. And they have a lot of leverage to keep that business in China rather than see it go off to Ohio. Chad (29:00.036) Mm-hmm. Chad (29:11.16) Yeah. Chad (29:21.24) Yeah, well, we've seen so we actually talked to an entrepreneur who she said she was doing all the research to try to onshore her product called Busy Baby. She's been she's been on the on the trail as well. Yeah, yeah, she's on the daily. Did all the math. And that's what was so interesting for me is that even if she could onshore, she would have to buy the equipment from China because she could not get it here. She would have to buy the materials because she could not get it here. Patrick Mcgee (29:34.424) She was on The Daily, right? The New Yorker, yeah, I remember her. Chad (29:50.49) in the US. that to me, it just it's like you're talking about this fever dream. I don't think you're being mean at all. I mean, it does seem like a fever dream. It seems like we haven't thought through much of this and trying to blanket everything with a tariff. Patrick Mcgee (29:52.504) Yes. Patrick Mcgee (30:06.35) That's the great irony of introducing all these tariffs because I get that you want to build stuff in America, but so many of the parts, components, metals, materials are all coming from abroad that you can't just do this all at once. You need some sort of tiered system where over the course of many years, things get tariffed at a different rate if you're not taking action, but just giving it at a 25 or even 145 % rate all at once. Chad (30:09.7) Mm. Patrick Mcgee (30:32.01) is just mind bogglingly stupid. I mean, it is not going to produce the intended effects. And if you look at the history of tariffs, I it's just all sorts of unintended impact. mean, silly things like we tariffed cotton coming from Japan, I think in the seventies or eighties. And the result was that synthetic fibers like Lycra became the huge import from Japan because they were exempt from the tariffs, right? So it's like people and entrepreneurs find ways of getting around this stuff. Chad (30:46.424) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (30:57.794) that doesn't sort of just align with the ideological goal of he who announces the tariffs. Chad (31:02.404) Joel's always wearing lycra pants. real quick, vocational schools in China. That is pretty much Apple's doing, pretty much, right? The amount of training. And Joel and I talk about, you know, when we went to school, high schools, we had vocational training back then, and it was ripped out by Reagan, trickle down economics, whatever the hell you want to call it, right? But it's gone. It is vanished. But we're seeing Apple pretty much subsidizing that in China. Joel Cheesman (31:02.648) Mm. Chad (31:32.09) Is there any opportunity, do you think, especially now that the book is out, now the information is out, that we can start to ask companies to do that back in the US, to be able to get our individuals skilled back to the point where, I mean, we can actually compete with China, maybe not in small manufacturing, but in other ways. Patrick Mcgee (31:52.654) Yeah. So I used to live in Germany covering the auto industry. And what's fascinating is they have a dual track program for education where when you're 15 or 16 years old, you essentially choose whether you're going to take a sort of more academic route, studying something like humanities, like I studied, or whether you want to go the vocational route. And I feel like in Canada, where I'm from or America, like that's maybe even looked down upon in Germany. It's not right. Like you are going to end up being an apprentice at BMW, which is a great employer. Um, and you're going to be learning, you know, Chad (31:55.427) Really? Chad (32:19.705) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (32:21.448) combination of like hands-on how to work with machine read. These days it's often more likely that you're holding an ipod than it is a hammer. But you're doing like the practical training in addition to the sort practical education. And I love that idea and Germany has sort of done very well in it. I want to be more optimistic about it but Germany's economy actually really hasn't experienced growth over the last five years. And if there's one country that's experiencing the same overexposure to China problem that Apple has, unfortunately it is Germany. So I sort of say, idealize that system with some caveats right now that it's actually not working out incredibly well. I mean, a friend of mine has just written a book called, I think, Broken Republic about Germany. So I don't want to be sort of, you know, esteeming the German system too well, but there's nevertheless a bunch of models to learn from them. The occasional school comment, I have to say this came out of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and I stand by it, but it's not based, it's not in the book. What I'm referring to is that the manufacturing design engineers who go over to China by the plane load, they would describe the training that they offer to China, to Chinese factories as the Ivy League equivalent of hardware engineering. know, another person said the training we offered was second to none. And if you look at yeah, the fact that they've trained 28 million people I don't think it's an unfair comparison at all to say that Apple has played the role of a great vocational school Not that they're giving lectures. Of course, they're not giving lectures They're giving on-the-ground training and the the proof is in the pudding to get the metaphor right this time that that Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, etc. are all world-leading when it comes to building smartphones and EVs are as well and I think the Chad (33:32.996) Wow. Chad (33:36.783) Yeah. Chad (33:56.324) Okay. Patrick Mcgee (33:58.286) triumph of Apple, if you will, has had this unheralded impact on the entire electronic sector, specifically around four industrial clusters, Shanghai, Suzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu. The impact is just really hard to grapple with. mean, I'll just give one figure from, you know, it's nice to go with incontestable figures in a sense, right? Because then it's harder to argue against. So the official tally. From Tim Cook and this is a few years ago But of how many people in China are working on the Apple supply chain is three million people The official tally of how many Americans across all industries are working to fulfill Chinese demand Okay, so from 1.4 billion customers is as low as 1 million and as high as 2.6 million So regardless of which estimate you take one Super corporation has more of an impact on job creation in China and all Chinese people's demands Chad (34:32.535) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Patrick Mcgee (34:56.29) have for across all industry on America. I mean, sorry, these are mind-bogglingly large numbers. Every number you need needs to be put into context because otherwise our brains just can't compute. Sorry, I could go on, but yeah. Apple's influence is enormous is the conclusion there. Chad (35:02.159) Yes. Joel Cheesman (35:13.016) I want you to, if you could for me, take out the crystal ball. it sounds to me like China's got us by the short and Curly's. and we are currently in negotiation. We're in a tear for by all accounts. tick tock is still legal in America, even after a bipartisan, legislation to ban it. What does the world look like, at the end of the year is China making American iPhones in India? Is there a major conflict that you're envisioning? Like what does this look like in a year? Patrick Mcgee (35:47.758) So I think there's just a failure of imagination on my part. I don't see much but the status quo. So look, Apple is moving some operations to India, but it's more make believe than reality at this point. When they say the phone is going to be made in India, and they never say this directly, it's through reporting, right? But I think you can tell that Apple is orchestrating the move because it sounds good for them. Really what's being moved so far is final assembly. So if you think that there are thousand steps in making an iPhone, if the final one is done in India, Chad (35:58.479) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (36:17.612) That is a quote unquote substantive change to the product. So legally you can say it was made in India and legally you can avoid tariffs. Trump has come out against that, which really does sort of throw a wrench into the system that Apple's trying to do because Apple wants to build like the breadth and depth of the supply chain in India over the next 10, 15, 20 years. So Trump making that difficult for them puts Apple in a bind where they either have to sort of contravene the president's statements. or give up their India plans. Neither of those options is very good. But Beijing also has the same, well, maybe to put it differently, Beijing and Cupertino, broadly speaking, have the same interests. Both of them would prefer to just keep making everything in China for different reasons, obviously, but basically the partnership works really well for them. So Beijing has put up blockers, if you will, of sending... Chinese people that have the experiential know-how of how to run the production lines of them going to India, right? So they're not able to get visas. And the machines, the robotics, sort of like we talked about earlier, a lot of that is built in China and China is making it difficult to send that to India as well. So India is sort of like the next logical place to move. If you're a contract manufacturer, if you're a supplier and a lot of your stuff is labor intensive and you're chasing labor and not just in terms of cost, but in terms of abundance and in terms of, India actually subsidizing some of this stuff through various schemes to scheme sort of has a bad, you know, North American context. But but in India, which is sort of British English scheme is just a word for program. Right. So various programs like I think it's all made in India or make in India. So so I'm getting off track here other than to say that the moves to India, a aren't all that substantive. Chad (37:41.754) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (38:07.094) And B, insofar as they are going to be substantive, both Washington and Beijing are against it. And that is going to make it really quite difficult. So when I just look at sort of the chessboard or the risk board of the world map, I just see China getting better and better at this kind of stuff. And nobody else has a sort of Nietzschean will to power based on manufacturing prowess the way China does. So I don't know that anybody competes with them. Because as much as you could say a lot of it's moving to Vietnam, Vietnam doesn't have the scale. that China has. It's never going to be a massive threat. India does have the scale. They don't have the skill. And insofar as Apple wants to build the skill there, supply chains move really slowly and B, the two superpowers are both against it. So I don't know what the rosy optimistic scenario is here. And to be fair, I'm not calling for therefore a collapse in Apple revenues or something. I think Apple continues to build stuff in China and everything's basically fine. The caveat being that AI is taking on more more precedence and Apple sort of failing there. Chad (38:35.15) Yeah. Yeah. Patrick Mcgee (39:02.094) and the failure is more pronounced in China because they can't even use sort of chat GBT, which is like sort of their escape hatch here. So I do see problems there, but I'm not necessarily predicting some sort of demise of manufacturing prowess on the part of Apple. But I do quote someone saying, the relationship they enjoy with Beijing could blow up any day. Chad (39:21.892) So talking about phones for the most part in this case, but talk about BYD, Huawei, Xiaomi. Did Apple combine with VW and Tesla literally just give China the lead in EVs? And do we have a chance in getting that back? know that Ford CEO has been driving a Xiaomi. I don't know if he's given it back yet or not farly and said that he, no, he said he loves it. He said, it's a beautiful car. It's a wonderful car. Have we lost? Patrick Mcgee (39:43.15) I've not heard that. Chad (39:51.19) Automotives because EVs next whether we want to believe it or not. It's that that's what's happening next China's got the lead when it comes to when it comes to EVs Have we lost that have we lost that fight too? Patrick Mcgee (40:05.326) So let me just say I really was more optimistic about the West in 2016 to 2020 when I was living in Germany and reporting on the German automotive industry, because it felt to me like they understood the threat of Tesla. And Tesla was a tiny company back then. especially, I mean, maybe not in terms of market cap, because I think that's when they overtook GM around 2016. But in terms of market share, I mean, it was kind of pitiful in a certain degree. Chad (40:21.86) Yeah. Patrick Mcgee (40:31.778) And you could look at a company like Audi, just like the luxury unit of Volkswagen. And it looked like once Audi introduced batteries, they would just wipe the floor with Tesla. That did not happen at all. I mean, the Germans really struggled to migrate into EVs. And you can sort of understand why. The sort of heart of the car, brain of the car, however you want to put it, really is the internal combustion engine. And that's what the Germans are so damn good at. And so by taking that away and replacing it with batteries, Joel Cheesman (40:31.918) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (40:56.494) You're really taking away the IP of the Germans. And so there's great reluctance on the part of the labor forces and the labor forces really do have great power within Germany. The Chinese on the other hand, have the battery supply chain on lock. mean, whether you're looking at the cathode, anode or just the other battery IP, and we were talking 70, 80, 90 % of the material is all coming from China. And maybe some of the cathodes and stuff are the materials. Chad (41:19.481) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (41:22.894) What am I trying to think? Cobalt is mined from places like Congo, but then it's all refined in China. So we are at a massive disadvantage as things go towards EVs. Tesla is doing quite a good job of having three localized supply chains that really are not exposed to China. The supply chain around Berlin is very German. The supply chain around California and Texas is very American. Tesla is, as they say, the most American-made car you can buy. Chad (41:44.57) Mm-hmm. Patrick Mcgee (41:49.23) On the other hand, the one around Shanghai is very Chinese. so Tesla sort of adopted the China model by training up the local supply chain, who then use their skills to upgrade BYD, Xiaomi and everything else. So they played quite a role there. I think an unheralded one, and I don't think one that I'm overstating, because sometimes people will say that doesn't sound right, because that wasn't until 2019. The Chinese have been building EVs since 2001. And it's like, true. How concerned were you about Chinese EVs in 2018? Chad (42:17.626) Not at all, yeah. Patrick Mcgee (42:19.648) Exactly. Tesla really changes the game. it's before Trump 2.0 comes on that Biden is the person who introduces 100 % tariffs on Chinese EVs. So the Chinese EV story takes a radical step forward within 24 months of Tesla setting up its operations in Shanghai. And it's because Tesla adopts the Apple model, literally hires people with Apple experience, and begins training the local supply chain. Joel Cheesman (42:46.494) It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. That is Patrick McGee, everybody, the author of Apple in China. Patrick, for our listeners and watchers that want to know more about you, maybe buy the book. Where do they go? Patrick Mcgee (42:59.854) I'd love for you to buy the book. Of course it's on Amazon. Bookshop.org is a site that I find few people know about. It sort of operates like Amazon, but it distributes books through your local independent bookseller. That's great. But you know, it's basically everywhere. I mean, I hope it's in the window of your local bookshop. And if it's not, please yell out the staff for me. Get it in the window. But it should not be difficult to find. And it is on Apple Books, which honestly, I give loads of credit to Apple for that. I like that they're not sort of selecting, know, out selecting it, let's say. Chad (43:17.818) It's on Apple. Chad (43:23.353) Yeah. Patrick Mcgee (43:27.403) And appleintrina.com is my website, so you can find more material there, can find reviews. Yeah, not a difficult book to find, I hope. Joel Cheesman (43:35.662) Thanks for your time, Patrick. Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Chad (43:37.178) Thanks, Patrick. We out.

What do ghosting, bogus job numbers, and your overpriced degree have in common? They're all part of the gauntlet job seekers are running in today’s economy. On this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, we welcome CNET’s Katherine Watt, author of “Trying to Find a Job? In This Economy? You Need to Follow These Rules.”  She joins us to break down: 🔹 Why the official 4.2% unemployment rate is laughably disconnected from reality 🔹 Why “just apply more!” is terrible advice 🔹 How companies are laying off workers and  hoarding power like Gollum with a LinkedIn account 🔹 Why optimizing your resume for AI is a crapshoot, and ghost jobs are the new catfishing 🔹 And why the "hustle economy" might be less about passion and more about survival If you’re frustrated, broke, and staring into the resume void—this one’s for you. Katherine brings the data, Chad brings the snark, and Joel brings coupons for free Chalupas. 🎧 Listen now, before another job post vanishes into the ATS abyss. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:24.846) OHHHH YEEEEAH! Joel Cheesman (00:29.73) This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Cheesman writing shotgun as always Chad Sowash is in the house as we welcome Catherine watt, a money writer for CNET Catherine Watt, welcome to HR is most dangerous podcast. Chad (00:36.187) Sup? Katherine Watt (00:45.319) Thank you for having me. Chad (00:46.555) She's also JJ in TJ's sister. You didn't know that? Katherine Watt (00:50.757) Yeah. Chad (00:56.753) Wait a minute, she's not? She's not? Joel Cheesman (00:58.062) Leave the jokes to me, my friend. Leave the jokes to me. Katherine Watt (00:58.364) No, but I... I'm not TJ and JJ's sister, but I am a descendant of James Watt, who invented the steam engine. So Watt's full electricity is... Chad (01:08.726) that's impressive. Joel Cheesman (01:09.378) Wasn't he under Reagan, the ecology, James Watt? I'm going way back in time, but okay, different. Chad (01:17.913) Not the same guy, yeah, not even close to the same guy. Steam engine, Reagan, not the... Leave history to me. Katherine Watt (01:20.253) I'm missing you. Joel Cheesman (01:26.126) All right, Catherine, a lot of our listeners, viewers won't know who you are. So give us a little bit about what makes Catherine tick. Katherine Watt (01:26.415) Thank Katherine Watt (01:36.951) what makes Katherine tick? Bad headlines, people walking slow on the sidewalk, poor subway etiquette. Joel Cheesman (01:49.122) I didn't say what ticks you off. said what makes you tick. Nuance. Yeah, that is good stuff. Give us the elevator pitch on you. Chad (01:51.633) Although that's all good to know. Although that's all good to know. Katherine Watt (01:52.125) Hello, what makes me tick? Katherine Watt (01:57.361) What makes me tick? Yeah, so I have been covering the economy for the past few years. I started out really just grinding in the housing market area and so really focused on mortgage rates in particular, federal reserve, yeah, fascinating stuff. But over the past two years, I've been transitioning into more economy-based reporting and really Chad (02:12.379) exciting. Katherine Watt (02:24.801) My goal is to be creating content that is not for the people in the high level offices on Wall Street. It's for people that did not study economics. I didn't study economics. So as I've been teaching myself, I want to be creating content that is understandable and is clear to how it affects you. And I think that's an area where. Chad (02:45.137) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (02:49.565) The playing field hasn't always been level of some, you could read the Wall Street Journal and not understand what they're talking about. And so I really want to cut through that jargon because it's frustrating to me when it just seems so obtuse. Chad (02:55.64) yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:56.752) The Main Street, if you will. The Main Street, yeah. Chad (03:06.735) Yeah, well, you're so how do you get from, you know, to the CNET economics desk, right? How do you get that beat per se? Where did you start? How did you get to that beat? And then we're not going to be talking about that as much today. We're to be talking about job search, the landscape, those types of things and how they all come together. But a little bit about you, though, how do you how did you get to the economics beat? Katherine Watt (03:33.501) Honestly, I wish I had a story. I really just got placed there out of college. And when I tell you that when I started, I did not know what a HELOC was. it really just, I had an internship, signed a full-time offer. And my first beat was actually covering health and wellness as an editor. And so. Chad (03:39.683) Okay. Chad (03:49.162) huh. Chad (03:55.141) Okay. Katherine Watt (03:57.143) I was terrified and I ended up here and ended up really liking it. because I love doing research, love data, and that has all of those aspects in this coverage. So I wish there was some fascinating story, but I kind of was plopped here. Chad (04:08.635) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (04:16.216) Well, nothing, nothing says thrills and chills like stagflation. So let's, let's party, baby. Let's go. Let's do this. Chad (04:20.698) Hahahaha Chad (04:25.585) Yeah, I mean, one of the things that we try to get into our listeners brains is that the workforce is the economy. Without the workforce, you have no economy. So what you're doing is you're actually you started the economy and you're working your way down. And the article that actually just came out this week is called, Why Can't I Get a Job Right Now? Nine Expert Tips to Stand Out to Recruiters. I don't know if you'd call me an expert and I've been quoted so that's suspect. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:51.736) She quoted you for the article chat, so you're clearly an expert. Chad (04:54.863) Yeah, whatever. From ghosting to burnout, here's how you stay sane, good luck kids, and get hired in a brutal, brutal job market. So what landed you with this? Because you're talking about housing, stagflation, and now you're like, wait a minute, this job market sucks. Joel Cheesman (05:12.792) To ghosting, housing to ghosting, yeah. Katherine Watt (05:15.981) Yeah, definitely. So it started with everything that we cover on the economy basis. A lot of it is data. And there's a pretty big disconnect when you look at the numbers and you see unemployment low. I think it's up 4.2 right now. And historically, yes, low. But then you'll see these headlines saying robust job market. Everything's great. No need to cut interest rates. And then you Chad (05:44.453) Lies! Katherine Watt (05:45.629) And then you ask anyone, or if you just scroll on LinkedIn. And my editor and I have just been sending these posts to each other back and forth, like, look at this, look at this. All these stories of people who are desperate to work and are having no luck. And it really struck me at this time of year because people are graduating from college, they're graduating from high school, and especially leaving college, do you think, with this degree? you're told it should be easy to find a job and the reality is very opposite. And so we wanted to do two things here. And one is just make it clear that your feelings of that struggle are very real. And here are the strategies that you can use. We don't just want to be doom and gloom and say this all sucks, which it does. I think we could probably all agree there's enough depressing news out there right now. so at least Korea giving some. Joel Cheesman (06:46.104) What do you, what do you think is the disconnect? mean, we get headlines about, you know, unemployment rate is still 4 % ish. you know, inflation is under control. Everything seems rosy in the headlines, but I think we agree with you. Like the, the stories on the street is if I'm right out of college, it's really hard to get a job. If I'm even Gen X where I should be making the most money, I'm being replaced by younger workers who can use AI. Chad (07:10.289) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:13.326) automation, of course, we're hearing a lot about. what, you know, what, what can you, can you, like, crystallize it for us? What is going on with the numbers that the government's giving us and what people are saying on the street? Chad (07:15.227) Well, they're cheaper too. Yeah. Katherine Watt (07:26.575) Yeah, of course. I think there's two aspects here that one, the disconnect on an emotional level is that I could say unemployment's at 4.2%. What does that mean? Like what it means to people is how they feel about the job market. And if they can't get a job or they can get a well-paying job or find, you know, gainful employment, that's not a healthy labor market to them, regardless of unemployment rate. The other part of it is that the way data is collected, by the BLS and reported really does not reflect what the situation is actually like. And so I often refer to LICEP, which is Gene Lovewig's research center, where he measures the true rate of unemployment, the true quality of life index. And I believe his figures would show that the true rate of unemployment is actually something closer to 25%. And I've spoken to him a few times, and it's really striking. Joel Cheesman (08:21.134) Whoa, ho. Chad (08:22.961) you Katherine Watt (08:25.457) because it has a much broader view of the data. And I think he's doing some amazing stuff there. And so that's on the statistical side of things. There is a genuine disconnect. And we're even now starting to see questions about the quality of all the reports we're getting, inflation data, like we got this morning. And so there's a disconnect on both ends there. Chad (08:51.505) So the BLS data is always been, it's been suspect for a long time because it's looking backwards 30 days. There are companies in our space like Aspen Tech Labs and Linkup. I mean, in just a ton of like, I think Lightcast even does it, but they're all focused on jobs that are available right now, right? So it's like real time data, what's open, what industries, et cetera, et cetera. And Joel Cheesman (09:13.389) Yeah. Chad (09:17.805) Kind of to answer I think Joel's question if they shared those real numbers Joel, it's called mutiny. It's called rebellion It's called bullshit right there. They would be calling bullshit on what's actually happening. Yes. Yes Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, it's it's kind of like trying it sounds like trying to keep people Somewhat at bay even though they feel it Joel Cheesman (09:23.843) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:27.874) Pitchforks and Frankenstein. Yeah, that's okay. Katherine Watt (09:39.663) Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I will say there are pieces of data that do show this pain that we're feeling and people kind of discount them. So whether that's ADP numbers, whether that's, you know, consumer confidence, one thing that is pretty important is hiring. Hiring has slowed down and we can see that that's clear as day. so. Yeah, people don't really. Chad (09:46.449) Mm-hmm. Chad (09:57.659) Yes. Chad (10:02.308) Layoffs are up. Katherine Watt (10:06.621) highlight that as much because they focus on the big number, the CPI, the unemployment rate. But that's significant. there's other research from other companies that people who have been out of work in 2024 are still looking for work now. so jobless claims, also continuing jobless claims. There are ways that you can see this weakness. I just don't think it's being highlighted. And the people. Chad (10:08.176) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (10:35.8) What's your sense? What's your sense? Because I think it's blue collar and white collar and maybe no collar. What sort of your take on is everyone feeling the pain? Are there spots where there is sort of a healthy labor market? What did you find? Katherine Watt (10:36.221) on. Katherine Watt (10:48.765) I think there's pain being felt across the spectrum. If you look online, there are people who are saying they can't even get a job at a fast food restaurant. I've talked to people that have well established in their careers and they never expected to be out of work and be out of work for six months. So I think it's ranging across white collar to blue collar to no collar, I think. Chad (11:02.331) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (11:16.081) When you see companies much like the Fed in a wait and see period, they're also in this wait and see and that has theirs. They're, they don't have the incentive to go and invest like we saw in, you know, the hiring boom around the pandemic. So they're going to protect their profits. And ultimately that hurts the people who have just invested. Joel Cheesman (11:22.606) Tariffs. Katherine Watt (11:40.933) and taken on massive amounts of debts to get college degrees, that's hurting so many people. Chad (11:46.811) Feels like the perfect storm in a bad way from the standpoint of we're pushing migrants out who are doing incredibly important jobs for the supply chain. Then we're pushing hundreds of thousands of federal employees out. We've got AI that are pushing, again, more white collar people out. And all those white collar individuals are not gonna go pick tomatoes. They're not gonna go work the docks. They're not gonna drive semi. So you've got that happening. Then you've got kids coming out of school who are deeply in debt. So it just seems like this perfect storm of, shit. Joel Cheesman (12:25.91) Yeah, Chad, but the government says that they want to put in little screws and iPhones. So I think if we just get that back, we'll be fine. We'll be fine. Chad (12:30.661) Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Katherine Watt (12:33.477) Yeah, once you build the factories first, yeah. You know, it definitely is the perfect storm. I mean, there's a massive influx of really talented people in the labor market and very few roles available. so the layoffs, the mass federal layoffs, shouldn't have happened, but they couldn't have come at a worse time because there's just so much uncertainty. yeah, and the part with Chad (12:48.283) Mm-hmm. Chad (12:59.899) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (13:03.415) know, losing such a key part of our workforce is where there are fears about the economy slowing down, you know, we're starting to see that in the house. Joel Cheesman (13:12.046) You have an interesting perspective because you're in the mortgage space, the real estate and what's going on there. Chad and I, from afar, when COVID hit and money was free, everyone's buying homes. I'm going to live in Vermont and work for a company in San Francisco. You have an interesting perspective, I think, from the work from home, where mortgages are going. There's this whole phenomenon of Katherine Watt (13:23.236) Yeah. Chad (13:33.915) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (13:37.806) No one's leaving their job. used to be the great resignation. Now it's the great stay. where you sit with such an expertise in mortgages and real estate, what are you seeing in terms of the job market and where you live kind of every day? Chad (13:42.597) cycles. Katherine Watt (13:52.253) Mm-hmm, right. I mean, there is, like you said, with the great stay, we're also seeing that with mortgage rates. That's the lock-in effect. So people who got those mortgages in 2020, 2021, when they were below 3%, congrats to them, honestly. They can't afford to... Chad (14:00.891) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (14:13.837) move somewhere else and take on a new mortgage that's double that rate, especially considering that home prices have went up astronomically and are not going to be coming down, even if they're slower in how they're increasing. And so I think people are feeling really boxed into a corner in terms of where they can go to work. And as these return to office mandates are kind of spreading, mean, we're going to start to see that at some point people do need to. buy and sell homes because they don't have a choice. They're getting married, they're having kids, they're getting divorced. And so you do see some of those transactions happening, but I mean, if you can afford and you can't afford to move and you don't have to, I think that's putting a lot of pressure on people. And that's why we're not seeing, we haven't had like a good spring home buying season in years, and this year is not going to bring. Joel Cheesman (15:05.283) And employers don't mind that you're stuck where you are, because then you can't leave, right? Katherine Watt (15:08.527) Yeah. Chad (15:08.857) God no. Well, and they don't have to give you raises and they don't have to, I mean, they don't have to do anything to be quite frank. Katherine Watt (15:14.203) Yeah. And there's also that fear of layoffs. you, you know, I mean, they're happening and in certain industries like tech or media, media, especially, there's always that kind of fear. You're going to be less likely to want to take on a big purchase, refinance your mortgage. If you were to 3%, I don't know why you would be refinancing now. But, you know, there's also that pressure that people don't feel like they have the Chad (15:21.722) Hmm. Katherine Watt (15:41.789) Like in a real estate situation, there's a buyer's market and there's a seller's market. There's also like the hiring. Right now it's clear. I think employers always kind of have the upper hand, but it feels very starkly employer's market and a seller's market. Chad (15:58.319) Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's go into an extension of the article, right? We've got Katherine here. She wrote the article. I'm sure she has even more questions that she would like to dig into, but we do too, Katherine. We do too. So you picked these nine focus areas. Was that pretty much because the feedback that you got back, you distilled it down, and that's pretty much how you picked it? Okay. Katherine Watt (16:05.575) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (16:18.557) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (16:26.437) Yeah, pretty much. As I talked to various people, I wanted to get there. I mean, there's a lot of boilerplate answers out there. You could make a list of 45 tips. You can make a list of three tips. But I did want it to be directly from these experts, not just me spewing stuff as someone who is employed and not looking for a job. I wanted that to be real. I mean, some of the tips, networking, that everyone would suggest that, right? Chad (16:31.441) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:35.792) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (16:54.496) As old as time networking. Katherine Watt (16:56.253) But I think especially, I think about my parents if they had to get back into the labor market today and they had to go through optimizing their resume for ATS, that would be a brain shock to them. And so I think there are a lot of people that don't know about that or its prevalence, even if it's not that new of a technology. Chad (16:56.261) Yes. Chad (17:02.629) Mm-hmm. Chad (17:17.617) Well, let's go ahead and dig into that, because that's your second point. Optimize your resume for automated software. I don't know how many people in our industry, their brains would blow up if they heard you say that. Because it's so, and here's why, it's so hard because you don't know what system you're actually applying into. And there are so many different applicant tracking systems. Not to mention there are so many point solutions that fit on top of the applicant tracking systems. So I mean and that's hard then you've got workday who's now in court because they're discriminating because of their AI Which probably wasn't AI in the first place. But anyway, there's a lot of just crazy mixed up shit But to be able to say optimize your resume for for an automated system I mean, that's that's difficult. It's it's it's very difficult to be able to game the system, but it is Joel Cheesman (18:06.924) Yeah, it's, it's become beat, beat the computer, beat the computer to get a job. Chad (18:12.375) And that's where your first point was, know, quality over quantity. You're seeing people go in and literally apply and even use some of these AI systems to be able to apply for a thousand jobs a day. Right. So you can do these different things and you're hoping that that AI can figure out the best way for the system, whatever system that whatever applicant track system that is to be able to to actually get you in the door. Katherine Watt (18:25.799) Yeah. Chad (18:40.783) But to be quite frank right now, it's a toss up. I mean, that's hard for job seekers to be able to give them one way to go and optimize your resume. It just can't do it. It's hard. Katherine Watt (18:54.895) Yeah, and you know, I had we had cut down that section a lot because we had very specific stuff. But the point is, you can't really give that specific advice because then everyone will do the same thing. I mean, it is as Daniel's out told me, it's not about beating the computer. It's really trying to work with it. And if you know how to use these systems, whether you're using Chad (18:59.459) I'm sure. Chad (19:08.271) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (19:23.837) TATTPT, if that's back up and running again, I think it was out yesterday, or you're using a service to help you optimize. I mean, you really still do need to put in the elbow grease and know what the job description is. But I think you also can't fly blind and just hope your resume fits because you think you're qualified for the job. Joel Cheesman (19:45.998) You talk to a wide range of, guess, generations for the article. Give us a sense of our younger people sort of doing this automated lazy apply thousands of applications versus what maybe older people like us are doing. Is everyone doing the same thing? Like, what did you find in your research in terms of generation breakdown? Katherine Watt (19:50.94) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (20:07.739) I didn't find a huge difference across generations. I imagine that maybe there is much higher usage among younger generations of AI and things like that. But I would also probably argue that people that have been in school and have been handing in AI-generated essays and papers have learned that teachers and professors have their own ways of spotting that. And they've probably felt that backfire on them before. And so I think that's an interesting side of the coin that Chad (20:26.555) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (20:37.118) People don't always talk about they think that younger generations are lazier, but they might just be like. Joel Cheesman (20:42.734) Could there be more automation with the older folks than the younger folks? Because they have that experience? Interesting. Katherine Watt (20:46.671) It depends. yeah, I mean, the people that I've talked to in the older range who are later on in their career are using these AI platforms because I mean, especially when you've been out of work for months at a time, there's no doubt that you haven't been Googling, what am I doing wrong? And there's no doubt that you're coming across that ATS things exist. And so of course, you're going to try it if you're Chad (20:59.569) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (21:15.643) if you haven't before and that's not working for you. Chad (21:18.639) Yeah, I think the biggest differentiation that I've seen, Joel, is Xers or I don't know, boomers or even look for jobs anymore. But Xers and millennials are more apt to use desktop versus mobile. You got the kids that are out there and they're using their mobile apps to be able to do that. And it's just what you feel comfortable with. yeah, mean, and for me, it's funny because we talk to employers all the time and employers talking about job seekers gaming the system using AI. It's like, wait a minute, time out. We just had a long discussion about you using AI, right? So this isn't, it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander. There shouldn't be anything wrong with that. And to be quite frank, if they're not lying on the resume, right? If they are meeting the requirements of the job and that's what they're saying, then who cares if they use Chad GBT, Chad GBT, or even Joel GBT, right? It doesn't matter. Joel Cheesman (22:14.734) That's a tech no one needs to be using, Chad, just so you know. Which makes me think of the duality of ghosting, right? How many recruiters, applicants, they don't message me back. Well, guess what, dude? You've been doing the same to them for decades, like, and now you're complaining about it. What did you find about ghosting, Catherine? I get some thoughts on that, I know. Chad (22:17.307) Yeah. It's full of fart jokes, Yeah. Chad (22:33.937) learn from you, Dad. Katherine Watt (22:36.26) Yeah, ghosting is super prevalent and I mean, it does happen on both sides, but obviously it's way more painful if you're the one that is looking for a job. I think there's a figure that 40 % of people are experiencing ghosting and they're applying to more jobs. Which is a staggering number. Yeah, I mean, just also what the people I've talked to, they just want to like a rejection email. Chad (22:42.353) Mm. Joel Cheesman (22:55.662) We can do better than that, employers. My God, 40%. Chad (22:58.558) yeah. Joel Cheesman (23:04.056) Yeah. Katherine Watt (23:04.253) They're not looking for the informational interview. They just want to know. It is a strong closure. So just tell me if I didn't get the role or the interview, and don't leave me hanging for months on end. And then you get a random automated email two years later that you didn't get the role. mean, it's painful. I think employers do owe applicants at least that if they're going to say that they can't use AI. Joel Cheesman (23:31.406) And hello with AI, there's no reason why they can't have some sort of a custom like, thanks for playing. Uh, but we went, we went a different direction. Well, yeah, I mean, before I remember the old postcards, I would get in the mail like, thanks for applying. Here's a coupon for a free Chalupa while you're, while you're there. Katherine Watt (23:35.057) night. Chad (23:37.655) even before AI. Katherine Watt (23:41.021) Now. Chad (23:49.009) That's why you always apply to the taco bells. Joel Cheesman (23:50.21) That's why I only applied to Taco Bell for the coupons, but that's a different podcast. Chad (23:56.667) So digging into this, Catherine, is there anything that you wanted to dig into with a couple of old souls like ours? Joel's is more of an old soul than mine. I said your soul, I didn't say. That's a good thing. Yeah, that's okay. Anything from your side that you would like to know? Katherine Watt (24:06.333) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:09.025) You're older than me just for the record. so yes. Katherine Watt (24:18.621) Yeah, definitely. I was kind of curious. The last time I was looking for a job was in the pandemic. So I obviously felt like when mortgage rates were really low, it was a little bit easier, at least for me. How has the job market really changed since then with the normalization of remote work? Maybe it's de-normalizing now. How has that really changed hiring practices? Chad (24:25.147) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:46.478) it has created an incredible amount of volatility, uncertainty, fear, and doubt. I think that we've, we've moved to a place where I just want a job in X to, want a job in X in this location at this company. So to the, like to get that right. Is really challenging for people because a lot of people just want a job. Like ideally I want to do this here and, and, and for this amount of money. And so You want that, but then you also have this, like we said, perfect storm of competition. Companies are like putting everything on pause. There are fewer recruiters than there ever used to be. companies to their, to their defensive, they're trying to figure out how do we automate things with fewer recruiters and what does that look like? And so it becomes a situation where. Zig, when everyone else is zagging and I think. I think it's a fool's errand to think that if I can just apply to jobs and if I word my resume correctly, that I'm going to get through the filters and magically get a job. think, call me an old soul, that's fine. But there's a lot to be said for old fashioned networking, getting on LinkedIn, connecting with people. We had a great interview with someone searching for a job. Her strategy was, I'm going to create content on LinkedIn. I'm going to put that I'm open for work. I'm going to connect with people at companies that I find interesting and I might want to work with, build a connection and then like look for job opportunities. That's not what most people do, but that is very effective. So when I give advice for searching for a job and it's easier to create content than ever before, uh, with, AI tools, like pick a topic that's timely, write an opinion about it, put your own spin on it and put it on LinkedIn. Inevitably people are going to, going to engage. find you interesting, want to give you a job. So that's where I think the magic, the humaneness is more important than ever before. Even though we keep talking about automation and tools and blasting your shit everywhere, going back to the basics, there's a lot to be said for that in my opinion. Chad (26:45.584) Yeah. Chad (26:50.832) Mm-hmm. Chad (26:54.747) Well, there's an individual who's looking for branding jobs and you know how they've got the open to network or open little frame. Well, she put desperate on hers. I mean, she received a ton of posts that were written about her, people that were pointing back to her. Joel Cheesman (27:03.266) Hope and work. Katherine Watt (27:04.997) Yeah. Chad (27:17.209) And again, that was more branding than anything else. And one of the things that I think that if you could say to any job seeker that's out there today is that, yes, it's important to work on your resume. Yes, it's important to go through the process. Yes, it's incredibly important to network. But what will always, I wouldn't want to say make you recession proof, but to make you more likely to be recession proof is your brand. People want to be able to buy into your brand and who you are. And they won't see that on a resume, right? If they see that in a short video, if they see that in posts, if they see all these different things and you're in a specific industry, that's another point, is that Joel and I have been in this same industry for 25 years. If you have individuals who jump around industry to industry, it's really, really hard to build networks. You build like many ecosystems that aren't connected in most cases. So, you know, to be focused, to be disciplined, to look for that industry, and it doesn't have to be right out of the gate, because I was in radio before I actually got here, but it doesn't have to be right out of the gate. To be able to be disciplined and focused so that you can build that network, because that network isn't just for now, it's four five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, when experts like us are looking for jobs. Katherine Watt (28:41.659) Yeah. And I think that raises an interesting point for the younger generations. I think they both have an upper hand here because they perhaps are more tech savvy and are they know about brand building, right? Because they're, yeah, I've checked my math. And they know about influencer culture. They know about the importance of self-branding, but they also are less practiced in the art of networking, I would say. I mean, they don't want to get on the Chad (28:52.815) You shut your mouth. Joel Cheesman (29:06.658) No shit. Katherine Watt (29:09.025) to call and make a doctor's appointment. And COVID really stunted that. mean, many people have never even been to an in-person job interview. And so the idea of going for a coffee chat that's not virtual, getting an actual cup of coffee, that can be really intimidating. And I think they can not hide behind the online applications, but it's a lot more instant gratification to fire off 50 applications in one day than it is to do a cold outreach email. Joel Cheesman (29:10.018) Yeah. Chad (29:18.086) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (29:37.821) and really present yourself that way. And so I think, especially for younger generations, that's probably where they're challenging. Chad (29:37.925) Mm-mm. Joel Cheesman (29:45.686) But guess what? That's an opportunity because if fewer people are doing it, then you have a greater opportunity to cut through the clutter and do the thing, do the face to face. And look, there's a conference for everything. Local conferences, regional, national, global. I would venture to say that if you were a young person and called any conference that's within the realm of your expertise and said, Hey, I'm a Katherine Watt (29:58.396) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (30:11.148) recent grad, I want to get in this. don't, you I don't have a lot of money or job. Like, could I, can I get a scholarship to come or like, can I just, I would guarantee you most conferences would say, sure, come and then have your resume, have your, have you be prepared and start networking, start having conversations. And most of the things that happen in conferences happen after all the PowerPoint presentations and the keynote speaking, make sure that you're doing that stuff because that's where deals happen. Chad (30:37.711) Yeah. Yeah. We also have a really good friend of ours, JT O'Donnell, who is big on hustle culture. And she really believes that there's going to be or there's developing or evolving in a hustle culture kind of gig economy, where you don't just have one job, you have, you know, several jobs. Katherine Watt (30:39.527) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad (31:04.721) And she because she's an influencer has like 1.4 million followers on tik-tok She's also created an influencer agency and so to be able to to really look at her vision for what she's done for herself and the actual revenue stream she'd been able to make for herself and then to be able to go ahead and help push that out of the market do you see that as kind of like just a a short gap solution, or do you think that that's really how the market's moving where it's definitely not going to be we're going to have a job like our grandparents did for 40 years, right, and get a pension. Those days are gone. So do you think that it's going to be more of kind of like side hustles along with part-time jobs and whatnot? Katherine Watt (31:55.687) I mean, at this point, considering how high the cost of living is and the fact that wages aren't keeping pace, it almost feels like a necessity for people to have side gigs if they can. I mean, some people, they're like, I'm already working three jobs just to pay my rent. yeah, but I mean, I have always tried to be doing side gigs since I was a kid. And then still in my 20s, I'm walking dogs, I'm taking babysitting jobs wherever I can because like you said, I mean, I don't think you can ever be recession proof, but I mean. Chad (32:02.289) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (32:07.182) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (32:24.965) especially in a very uncertain economy there. And if you see, can make money online doing influencer stuff or good old fashioned babysitting. mean, especially now, I think that's worth looking into. Joel Cheesman (32:37.422) I tried babysitting and no one would hire me. don't, I don't know why. I don't know why. You'll get me set. Katherine Watt (32:43.195) I'll give you some pointers. Chad (32:44.193) Yeah, I don't want to go too deep into that one. Joel Cheesman (32:52.23) The gig economy, you bullish on that or has it been sort of less? And one the things I think you also brought up sort of upscaling or learning. And I think it deserves sort of talking about if you have something you're passionate about, the ways to learn more and get credentials and badges, whether that's LinkedIn or wherever else. mean, you kind of dove into that. What did you find? Because I think that's sort of a new way. Katherine Watt (33:02.992) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:18.712) that people can get opportunities by getting some new certifications. Katherine Watt (33:23.247) Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm bullish on gig economy. I think it's been here. It'll be here to stay. don't know how. It really depends on where the economy goes. But in terms of upscaling, I do think that's a really great way to be filling gaps on your resume, especially if you're long-term unemployed. I mean, it shows that you're self-directed, that you're proactive, that you're willing to put in that time. mean, and this is something that you can do and probably especially should be doing while you're still employed. And so for example, in my role, I've found I really like data visualization. I'll be making graphics on Canva, but I don't have any formal training. But there are courses that I can take and that have been I've started taking to kind of really establish my skill set in that area. And that has really nothing to do with my current job, but I want to be able to include that on my resume in the future. And so. I think that is probably where people, in addition to networking, should be really focused on building their skills. And at the bottom of my article, I included a very long list of different free online resources that you can kind of explore. And yeah, you should be learning about AI if you haven't already used it, but there are so many if you can learn to code. One of my goals for the year is to be a lot more proficient in HTML, even though there is AI now. I think that networking is where people should really be focusing their time. Chad (34:50.449) So on the upskilling and employee development side of the house, we talked in the green room about yesterday, we talked to Patrick McGee, the author of Apple in China. He's an economist. And one of the things that he was able to uncover is that Apple is spending $55 billion a year in China training their employees in China. We don't have that kind of reciprocation in the US. And what seems to have happened since trickle down economics and Reagan and all that happy horseshit that happened back in the 80s. It's really trickled down in a bad way for us because we're not seeing companies spend money on developing the community that they live in. Number one, which is their workforce and they're waiting for government, To be able for corporate charity to be able to do that for them. Right. But yet, but yet we've got Apple spending $55 billion a year in China to skill, upskill, develop their people. And they're taking great minds from, you know, the U.S. and other areas to be able to do that. What the hell and when can we finally figure out that that is the model and we had that model before, by the way. That's the model that we have to get back to. We have to train our people for what they're ready for. And why do we do that? Because if we have trained people, they're gonna be more efficient. They're gonna be more proficient. They're gonna be up to the job much faster, which means more revenue, right? And that's what capitalism is about. Am I wrong? mean, why aren't we spending money on our people and also our communities? Katherine Watt (36:32.847) No, you have Katherine Watt (36:37.211) Yeah, I mean, a two week onboarding, some of them are shorter, some of them are one day onboarding to a new role. I mean, you're going through some really standard template PowerPoints. You're not, you know, on the job training that really just starts when you actually have your responsibilities. And I think that's a disservice, especially to the younger generations or also people that are coming back to the workforce after being out for a long time. They're not they don't have these own like. opportunities. That was one of the questions I wanted you guys to talk about, the importance of that and whether you see any hope for that return. If people aren't hiring, will they at least reinvest some money towards, you know, providing those learning experiences for their employees? Joel Cheesman (37:22.358) you Chad (37:22.691) Yeah, I don't see it in this country unless it's forced. Unless it's forced. And to be quite frank, the reason why Apple, obviously they were doing that is because they knew they could get cheaper labor. They knew that the materials to make the phones were there. So it made it much easier. mean, just from an economic and a supply chain standpoint, it just made sense, right? from our standpoint when we're sitting back and we're waiting for the gate and they know that China's not going to give them any money. They know that China's not going to do what the United States will do and give them that charity or that tax break or what have you. until we have an administration that's in place that holds these organizations and CEOs feet to the fire, I don't see that. And you even said earlier that wages aren't staying up with inflation or And, yet CEO wages since 1978 have gone up 1300%, 1300 % where everybody else is at 14%. Right? So. Katherine Watt (38:22.194) Mm-hmm. Katherine Watt (38:27.087) Mm-hmm. I think you see it in small pockets. They're starting to do some trainings for people who are graduating high school, and they want them to join into the construction industry. yeah, we need more of that, but we also need more accountants and things like that. And yeah, it's one of those areas where you have to make the investment, even though you won't see the immediate return. I think about that in terms of like, Joel Cheesman (38:37.015) trades. Katherine Watt (38:56.881) making sure broadband is widely available across the country. You won't see an immediate return on investment, but down the line, you're connecting more people, you're boosting local economies. Joel Cheesman (39:07.884) I would, I would say companies are way more focused on how do we get rid of people than they are? How do we retrain and get people back into these jobs until, until we realized that, until they realized robots don't eat hamburgers and who are we going to sell this stuff to? But as long as our shareholders and everyone, everyone else is, hitting the table for that. My last thing to you, Catherine, you talk a lot about speed, you know, speed to apply speed to sort of communicate. Chad (39:15.089) which is the antithesis of actual good performance. Katherine Watt (39:21.702) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (39:35.094) What sort of tools or tips or things did you find of how job seekers can like be Johnny on the spot when something comes available? Katherine Watt (39:43.101) Yeah, I would say job alerts for sure, set up multiple and not just for like, let's say you have a job alert for editor, maybe also have content specialists, different ones and be checking regularly. mean, it's painfully boring and that is sort of the rule of the game. I mean, with such a competitive market, you'll see a job posted and an hour later, there's a hundred applicants and it really doesn't pay to be applying to a job that's been listed for three weeks. that probably already has been filled or they just forgot to take it down or it's a ghost job, which is a whole nother thing. And so yeah, really being on top of it and not just, you know, applying, but also using that time to start doing outreach. So you make you send in your application and you try and contact the hiring manager if you can tap into your network. Do you know anyone who's connected whether to the industry or if at the company itself? And so. Yeah, it's not about the speed at which you fire off a huge number of applications, but the speed at which you're able to jump on it with an adaptable resume. And so I think a lot of people I talked to talked about having multiple resumes that you can easily tweak. And they still showcase your experience, but maybe you have one bullet point higher on the list on one resume versus another. And so, yeah. Joel Cheesman (41:06.198) And I would add to that, don't just look at job alerts, but look at the news people who's getting funded, who's getting series A, B, D, and E, because companies that get money hire people. And if you, if you get on it before the job postings, you're going to be that much better for it. So I'll throw that in there, Catherine as well. Katherine Watt (41:11.238) Yeah. Chad (41:13.017) Mm hmm. They have startups. Yes. Amen, brother. Chad (41:26.445) Exactly. Well, that's Katherine Watt, writer at CNET. She was on the economics beat. She was on the mortgage beat, but now she's on the Chad and Cheese beat. Katherine, if people want to find out more about you, they want to see what you're writing about, those types of things, where would you send them? Joel Cheesman (41:40.046) You Katherine Watt (41:47.899) I would send you to cnet.com, specifically CNET Money. You could also find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on my personal site, Katherine Watt Editorial. And yeah, this was such a great conversation. Hope to be back. Joel Cheesman (42:01.902) Thank you. And I bet there are lot of job opportunities in those CNET stories as well, Catherine. So tune in to CNET, everybody. Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Chad (42:02.001) Thanks for coming. Chad (42:07.234) Chad (42:11.855) Way out.

Yes, kids, Meta's out here throwing $100 million signing bonuses  like it's Silicon Valley's version of The Bachelor: AI Edition. Sam Altman says Meta doesn’t innovate—they just copy, poach, or panic. Zuck disagrees, mostly by pulling out the ol’ checkbook and seeing who flinches first. 💸 Altman has purpose. 🧠 Zuck has pockets. 🤖 Apple has… denial? And in the spirit of absolute chaos, we also tackle: Trump’s ICE raids and immigrant whiplash policies Amazon’s AI-powered job apocalypse—with a side of robo-taxis and Zoox. Indeed’s data-hungry money grab—coming for your CPA and your sanity. Klarna’s AI CEO hotline And yes… Zoom’s CEO says forget hobbies, sell your soul to the company. Charming. 🔥 All this while Emi debates whether she’d sell out for $100 million (spoiler: yes), Joel relives Steve Jobs’ passive-aggressive email game, and Chad prays Zuck doesn’t start poaching podcasters next. 🧨 Silicon Valley is on fire, and The Chad & Cheese are here to roast marshmallows on it. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:34.858) Wake us up before you go go. Cause we're not planning on going solo. Hey boys and girls, it's the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel. Does anyone know the name of Elon's ketamine dealer Cheesman? Chad (00:48.004) This is Chad, the world is on fire, Sowash. Emi B (00:51.828) And this is Emi, I am so happy that Summer is finally here in London, Beredugo. Joel Cheesman (00:57.84) Ad on this episode Meta Poaches, Amazon Replaces, and Tariffs Are Tariffing. Let's do this. Chad (01:07.212) That's the end of the world as we know. What the fuck is going on around here kids? Jesus, how many wars can we have? Jesus. Joel Cheesman (01:13.304) Come on, it's summer in England. Let's focus on summer in England. That sounds beautiful. That sounds Shakespearean. It sounds just quite like a gin and tonic. Chad (01:21.016) It does sound. Emi B (01:22.478) It is beautiful. is, this is honestly, it is Pym's weather. It is Prosecco weather. It is strawberry, it's in cream weather. Wonderful. But listen, I'm just going to let you know, cause summer only lasts for about two days this year, you know, every year. Um, yeah. So by the time you guys come over, it may not be summer anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. Honestly. Chad (01:23.682) midsummer night's dream. Chad (01:28.888) Who? Pins? Who? Chad (01:43.235) Joel Cheesman (01:43.97) Well, we were in a mud bog last year. Remember they had to put hay down on the ground and, and, the RECFEST crew. Chad (01:49.956) Still had a blast. Still had a blast. Emi B (01:51.894) It was fun, but my white trainers were not white by the end of the day. Yeah, yeah, that was an issue. Chad (01:55.606) Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's it. That be a problem. Joel Cheesman (01:58.772) You probably don't remember this chat. was, I was going to meet you at the RL 100 and pick me up. They, they took me to the, Nebworth site. thought they knew where I was going. The next thing I know, I have a worker vest, one of these, you know, glow in the dark vests and I'm in the middle of this mud. like, what am I doing? I'm supposed to be at like some recruiter leaders thing. And they're like, you're in the wrong place. And then they're like on the mics and I showed up late. yeah. Chad (02:03.972) No, I do remember. Chad (02:09.625) Yeah. Chad (02:16.375) Yeah, yeah. Emi B (02:24.718) Mm-hmm. Chad (02:24.772) You Joel Cheesman (02:28.546) was a good time. Good time. Good time. Well, it's Juneteenth. It's Juneteenth here in America as yeah, the rest of the world burns. What's it looking like from Europe with all this action going on? Emi B (02:28.586) no. Chad (02:30.702) Good times. Emi B (02:38.414) It is like a TV show. It is hilarious. Honestly, it is like what else is going to happen? Just when we think that it can't get crazier, it gets crazier. It's mad. So if you look at my YouTube reel, because I'm like on YouTube every single night, I following everything that's going on with Trump, everything that's going on with Elon Musk, and also the PDD trial. So those are my three things. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, people. Bringing it down. Chad (03:01.966) Jesus. Joel Cheesman (03:04.184) It's funny that you say show because I do think if Trump is good at something, it's the reality show. But he's brought that to the White House and it's frightening. But he does like a good show. So it's interesting that you would describe it as a show because I think he thinks this is one big show and he's the apprentice still. Chad (03:05.412) Mmm. Emi B (03:21.422) Honestly. yeah back on the apprentice or you know some other apprentice spin-off. Joel Cheesman (03:29.932) Yeah. How about Portugal, Chad? Is it still paradise? you watching? Yeah. Chad (03:30.467) Yeah. Chad (03:34.724) It's wonderful. It's wonderful. Today it's 90. It's 90 degrees. So a little warm, a little warm. But other than that, it's great. I mean, I've got a pool. I've got a beach. I've got plenty of beer. I've got great food. mean... Emi B (03:47.875) look at you just rubbing it in. Chad (03:52.196) It's really close to you, Emmy, so I don't want to hear it. Emi B (03:55.95) Well, I might just pop on a plane next week and like, hi, I'm here. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:56.13) That is true. Chad (04:00.718) Come on over, come on over. Joel Cheesman (04:01.482) I love it. love it. Just remember, just make sure your passport is up to date, Emmy. Just make sure your passport is up to date. What you got for... Ladies first for shout outs, Emmy. What you got? Emi B (04:07.574) Yeah, yeah, it is all done. Yeah. Chad (04:12.322) Until they Brexit again. Until they Brexit again, yeah. Emi B (04:18.446) Well, my shout out is to my favorite app, which is TikTok. So I'm just going to cast your mind back. Do you remember back in the beginning of the year, maybe December last year, I was asked to do my predictions. And my predictions were, you know, that TikTok was not getting banned. So guess what? You know, apparently June 19th today, TikTok was supposed to be banned. It's not getting banned. Trump has, what is it? Done a taco. So Trump always, yeah, love that. Trump always chickens out. He has chickened out. Joel Cheesman (04:30.445) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:30.615) yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:42.648) Taco. He's done it. Emi B (04:48.014) Poor, poor Trump. I mean, he's not having a great time at the moment, but I'm being nice. I'm being polite. Actually, fuck Trump. Yeah. Chad (04:50.732) or drones. Joel Cheesman (04:54.68) Do the Brits talk about banning it or is that not a topic? Chad (04:55.843) Yeah. Emi B (05:00.276) No, it's not even a topic. We don't care about things like that. You know, we're just interested in TikTok dances and everything else. So I'm all for TikTok staying. Well done, TikTok. TikTok's not going anywhere and Trump is going to keep doing the taco. Yeah. Chad (05:16.484) Constant taco, which is making Joel really really hungry right Emi B (05:20.014) sorry, sorry Joe. Joel Cheesman (05:23.758) it's, it's just getting started with, with that stuff. So, my shout out guys, I've, I've been in the internet business for a long time. and I've always been fascinated with dating sites for whatever reason, like dating sites and classifieds have always been the moneymakers in the internet. People can't get you to sign up for newsletters, but like dating people will pay for, and they have for a long time. Chad (05:32.324) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (05:48.97) Not since Tinder has a dating site been so, I don't know, intriguing. So there's a new site, it's called browser dating and it's, it's pretty much what you think it is. they, you upload, your, your browsing, profile from your fight, your 5,000 most recent searches. And then they algorithmically match you with someone who has a similar search history. Chad (06:05.934) browser history. Chad (06:10.07) Okay. Joel Cheesman (06:19.244) to match you up. Now, I don't know who's gonna upload their last 5,000 searches. And I don't know what kind of matching they're doing between, know, bug fights and big booty Latinas, what my searches would be. So anyway, I'm just curious, you guys, is this something you would entertain if you were a single person or no? Emi B (06:39.286) No, no, because do you know what it is though? Because the thing is I have, I know what I'm actually like and I know the image I portrayed to the world and what type of person I'm trying to get. So I want to really like a gentleman, but if you're to go through my browsing history, I, you know, I'm skanky. I know I am. I'm sorry. Like, you know, there's stuff on there that needs to, no one needs to see. That just needs to stay in my head so I can attract the right husband, you know? So no, absolutely not. Chad (06:46.35) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (07:07.864) So you don't want to be the real you when you first meet somebody. You want to... Chad (07:07.908) See? That's not fair. That's a bait and switch. That's a bait and switch. That's not fair. Emi B (07:10.83) No! Yeah, 100 %! I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. Joel Cheesman (07:16.118) What is makeup? Makeup is bait and switch. You're not, you know, like visually you're not who you really are when you first start dating, right? Emi B (07:22.902) Listen, no one needs to know that. I've had, how long does my Botox last for? know, other like, what would be good to spice up the love life? You know, that no one needs to know that kind of, actually, I've just told the whole world now that that's my brows and history. But when I'm meeting a future husband, they don't need to know that. They just need to know the image I'm presenting. Joel Cheesman (07:44.074) All right. Chad (07:47.16) It'd be a lot easier if you literally, if TikTok just did that automatically, because they have everybody's history and they know where your location is and they could, boom, just go ahead and make that happen. But for me, I don't want to, yes, common interests are really cool, but I don't want to date somebody like me. I mean, I want a better half, right? I don't know. I don't want a worse half. So yeah, mean, to me, that doesn't really make any sense. Emi B (07:53.581) Well. Emi B (08:10.849) You Emi B (08:17.614) You Joel Cheesman (08:19.672) All right, so that's a, that's a no on browser dating for everybody. But if you're interested, it's browser.dating in case you're single out there and looking, looking for love, looking for love Chad. Emi B (08:22.934) Yeah, yeah, 100%. Chad (08:30.628) I can't believe there's a top level domain dot dating. That's fucking ridiculous. Emi B (08:33.511) sit honestly. Joel Cheesman (08:34.24) Well, imagine if this gets into the job space, which most dating sites do. Someone's going to come up with like, upload your last 5,000 searches and we'll connect you to a company that you match with. This is coming, I'm telling you. Chad (08:38.852) Mm-hmm. Emi B (08:49.134) Watch this space, 2026 prediction. Chad (08:49.302) stoop, stoop, stoopidity everywhere. As a matter of fact, Indeed might do that. My shout out is going to Jim the Indeed Whisperer Durbin who sent me this little gem last night. Go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage, Joel. Chad (09:10.147) affectionately. Chad (10:33.54) Asteroid, big asteroid, prehistoric. Yeah, no, no, no, no. But I mean, it's literally just another chapter of Indeed's newest hit series, Suicide by a Thousand Cuts, right? So they, CPSA, CPA, Healthy Budgets, AKA, raising the rates, and now this. So it's still early days, as Jim had said. I've reached out to a couple of... Joel Cheesman (10:35.877) No hyperbole there at all. No hyperbole there at all. Chad (10:58.004) agencies had a couple of conversations, but we need to dig into this a little bit deeper. Talk to, we'll talk to Jim this week, talk to some agency contacts and some other industry veterans to find out what the hell is going on. But for me, right out of the gate, this automatically went right to disposition data, right? You know, that's what Indeed wants. They want this position data. Can they get that from the agencies? No, they can't. Where do they get that from? They get it direct feeds from applicant tracking systems, right? So Emi B (11:01.998) Mm. Chad (11:25.954) being able to start to snake and trojan horse your way into these different areas, Indeed wants more control. They want your disposition data. They want to push competitors out of the market and control wallet share. And every move that they've been making, you start to see everything kind of coming together. I don't think it's a very smart plan, to be quite frank. Maybe that's why I mean, I mean, I left. But shout out to the Indeed whisperer Jim Durbin for the news. What do you guys think? Joel Cheesman (12:07.49) To me, I look at it competitively and I'm still digesting this because Jim sent it. last night I just saw the video, like appcast and programmatic has always been a burr and indeed asks and. Appcast acquiring Bayard, an agency, like somehow those pieces might fit together. but to me, this hurts agencies and like the programmatic guys, unless I'm saying it wrong. And I think that's ultimately what they're trying to do. Squeeze out competition. Chad (12:10.638) Mm. Joel Cheesman (12:37.132) That's what they've been doing for a long time since they, since they kicked out job boards down the algorithm, you know, into algorithm abyss. they've always thought about how do we screw the competition? And maybe this is another move towards that. Chad (12:50.797) Anything, Amy? Emi B (12:52.834) I think you basically covered it. I agree with both of you. I'm just interested to see how this works out. I don't think it's going to work out very well in New Launc. They've tried everything. They keep trying new ways to keep the business alive. Nothing really works. So, yeah. Chad (13:05.208) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (13:08.568) Well, there's clearly, as we talked about, there's a clearly avoidant innovation at Indeed. And I think that's why the CEO shuffle is going on over there. So if you don't have innovation and you can't provide great products, it's like, how do we squeeze people? How do we add products and nickel and dime people to death? And this is kind of what we're seeing. It's like, this is a desperation move, which we've been seeing for years at Indeed. Chad (13:12.779) yeah, god yes. Emi B (13:30.028) Yeah. I think they're trying to innovate. It's just that they're what they're innovating is a bit crap. Yeah. Chad (13:32.553) We Chad (13:37.156) Well, I think it's a force for the trees kind of thing. I mean, they see what's good for them. And to be quite frank, they don't give a fuck about anybody else. We've heard from Matt over at UPS. We've heard from Megan over at Marriott that, to be quite frank, if they keep making these decisions, it just gives them more reason to look at other things. mean... Emi B (13:44.664) Mm. Joel Cheesman (14:02.936) Mm-hmm. Chad (14:03.524) UPS is already hiring directly out of their applicant tracking system out of their CRM because they have shit tons of candidates. Marriott has over 10 million candidates, right? So it's like, you're going to push them in different areas and they're going to spend less. They're going to spend less. And then you do things like this and then you really start to piss them off. anyway, I tell you what is not going to piss them I know. I know. I know. Joel Cheesman (14:27.274) It's, it's the hubris, Chad. It's the hubris that killed career builder monster. It's like, we're the shit and we're going to do what we want to do. And you're going to get in line and take it. And consumers don't like that and they go elsewhere eventually. So good luck with that indeed. Emi B (14:29.966) You Chad (14:41.378) You know what consumers do like though? They like free stuff. That's right. And kids remember that there's always free stuff with the Chad and Cheese. Just go to ChadCheese.com slash free. And if they go there and they register, Emmy, what could they possibly win? Joel Cheesman (14:46.616) Yes, they do. Emi B (14:59.918) They could win so much stuff. They could win chicken cock whiskey. Still waiting for my two bottles. Oh my God. I'm just waiting for my one bottle. absolutely. Oh, chicken cock whiskey. Going over to the tech talent experts over at Van Hack. And then what else could they get? Bourbon barreled age syrup. So that's going to go over to Bob and Doug McKenzie over at Kiara. Lovely soundbites. Chad (15:03.62) Ooh, two bottles. yeah. Chad (15:24.172) Okay. Emi B (15:29.44) And if anyone wants a t-shirt, you've seen those love soft to the touch t-shirts, you know, yes. what's that? Just a tip. Yes, they could get t-shirts. So that's going over to those red shoe wearing weirdos over at Erin app. Then we've got craft beer. So that's going to go over to the job data geeks at Aspen tech labs and the best free stuff of all. If it's your birthday, you get, woo. Joel Cheesman (15:37.548) hahaha Chad (15:38.2) Yeah Chad (15:44.9) Mm-hmm. Emi B (15:58.924) Run with Plum! Chad (16:00.568) Right, baby. Wait, you have to register. Emi B (16:04.322) to register, absolutely. Chad (16:05.686) at chadcheese.com slash free. Joel Cheesman (16:08.12) That's right guys. And don't forget our, our shout outs are sponsored by Kiara simply awesome candidate texting software celebrating another trip around the sun this week. have listeners, Tom Bickle, Brittany Porter, Seppi Nyeri, a proud Iranian. know she's, she's challenged. So if you know, if you know Seppi, her a shout. I know she's concerned about what's going on in the middle East. Heather Myers calling to George, Jenny Shiaka, Sean Paul, Seth, Robert Rudolph, Biddy Henneken. Chad (16:12.317) yeah. Chad (16:24.26) love her. Joel Cheesman (16:38.553) Mary Ellen Slater, Carrie Corbin and Shannon Pritchett all celebrating another trip around the sun. Happy birthday. Chad (16:43.586) There we go. And you can possibly have your birthday on stage with Chad and Cheese, one of the disrupt stage in Wreckfest. Well, Steve, you know where we're going, because you're going to be there too. Travel sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Nebworth is calling, that's right, Wreckfest UK in Nebworth, July 10th. The Chad and Cheese are going to be on the disrupt stage with Steven, our favorite Scott McGrath. Joel Cheesman (16:58.154) Mm-hmm. Yeah, he's gonna be there. Chad (17:13.09) JTMO are going to be there and Emmy, you're going to be hosting the stage too. Which one are you going be hosting? Joel Cheesman (17:17.068) God. Emi B (17:17.998) Oh, I knew you're gonna put me on the spot. I was like, what's the name of that new stage? I'm gonna have to come back to it. The Emmy stage, that's all you need to look for. Go onto the app, go onto the website. You'll find me there. So it starts at 10 o'clock, I think. That's when I'm doing the opening for my stage. Ta-da! Yes. Absolutely. Chad (17:22.572) the Emmy stage. Just look. Joel Cheesman (17:34.924) The Emmys, I like that. We should have a new award. The end of year Emmy Awards. I like it, I like it. Chad (17:36.556) The Emmys, the Emmys. Well, there we go. Joel Cheesman (17:46.52) All right, guys, let's get into it. Who loves a good poach? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims Metta is aggressively poaching his staff with lucrative offers, including, get this, $100 million signing bonuses. Altman believes superintelligence is the next step in artificial general intelligence, where the aim is to create AI which can vastly outperform human cognitive abilities. Altman reportedly told his brother, quote, Chad (17:49.987) off. Joel Cheesman (18:15.736) There's many things I respect about Metta as a company, but I don't think they're a company that's like great at innovation. Ouch, sick burn Altman. Chad, what are your thoughts on the poach-a-rama between these tech giants? Emi B (18:26.19) You Chad (18:30.616) mean, all this and OpenAI who has received $62 billion in funding, they're under pressure to grow headcount as well, right? But think about it, $100 million signing bonus, that's nothing to brush off. But you've got to ask yourself, why are these over-the-top bonuses? Why over-the-top signing bonuses from Meta? Because Google Anthropic Emi B (18:45.998) Mmm. Chad (19:00.416) Open AI, their newest models are leaving Meta's llama for in the AI dust. mean, have you seen or played with any of that new stuff? The VO stuff, the, ma- it's amazing. So Meta is sounding the AI alarm in an effort to try and catch up. Not by out innovating the competition. no, that's not Meta's MO and it hasn't been for a very long time. When Meta is behind, they either copy, buy competitors, or they poach their talent, right? OpenAI thus far has retained quote unquote their best talent, but how? Well, I'm sure they're highly compensated already, not to mention who wants to play catch up when you're already one of the main horses in the race with other global leaders in AI? Why would you leave all of your hard work and start from ground zero? Sometimes it's just best to stick with the devil you know, and that's Altman. Emi B (19:31.565) Mm-hmm. Chad (19:57.964) Whether you like the tactics or not, at least meta is trying because it seems Apple has given up on AI altogether. Apple just released a paper from their AI researchers. That's right. That was air quotes, kids, which dispels the major models are actually reasoning. So apparently if you can't build it, you go to meta, you go to the meta route, you try to buy it or you go the Apple route and you just deny it even exists. Either way. AI, whether it's reasoning or becoming better at predicting patterns, has been pretty fucking awesome. You've got to say it, And it's leaps and bounds different today than it was literally just six months ago. So all the way around, Meadow's behind. They've got a way to go after it. Apple's behind. I don't know what the fuck they're going to do. Joel Cheesman (20:53.848) I mean, you like a good poach. What are your thoughts on this story? Emi B (20:56.802) do like a good poach, always. Listen, I mean, you're right. Look, Meta is way, way, way behind all these other companies. you know, Chad, you're saying they haven't been great at innovating. And that is true. They've copied everything, you know, they're, they're, they're reels, for example. That's just a straight copy of other companies. They don't know how to innovate before. They used to, but they don't have that reputation anymore. Chad (21:24.388) Mm-hmm. Emi B (21:24.408) So the only way they're going to attract people really to the organization is by throwing money at them. And that money, yeah, it's huge amounts of money. It's giant amounts of money. And that's just a signing bonus. That's not the annual basic. That's not the stock options. That's not none of the other incentives. So that total package just to get those really strong tech minded people into the organization, I think from Mark's point of view, that's going to be worth it. Chad (21:39.745) Mm-hmm. Emi B (21:51.054) Because you get those great minds into your organization, they're going to help Metta to innovate. That's going to down the line realize itself in increasing revenue. Now, the problem that Metta also has, though, is whether or not money is enough to sway people. If it was me, yeah, you're going to give me $100 million? Yeah, maybe I'll take it. Yeah, I'll be there for a couple of years. But when you get people who are more ethical maybe than I am, who care about the culture, who care more about the mission, the vision in a company, building something which is actually going to be groundbreaking, that may not be enough to sway people. And that's what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thinks as well. He thinks that they've got the culture. He thinks that they've got the ethos, the mission, which is far superior to meta. I'm interested to see whether or not, know, when it comes down to it morally, where people are going to stand. Joel Cheesman (22:51.416) So Emmy's price tag is 100 million in case anyone was wondering what that dollar figure was. Emi B (22:53.826) Yeah, come pay me. Show me the money. I got a house to buy. Show me the money. Chad (23:00.612) I would take less. would take less. I would take less. Joel Cheesman (23:03.476) much less. Yeah. Yeah. 10 mill gets me blue chew for the rest of my life and a, and a beach somewhere. you know, you know who remembers my space? we do, but also Mark Zuckerberg does when Facebook launched to the public, my space had roughly 90 % market share of, social media. know how that worked out. So Mark is very aware that I don't want to be the next my space. I don't want my tombstone to somehow. Emi B (23:08.536) Yeah Chad (23:08.976) Hahaha! Chad (23:24.9) Mm. Emi B (23:30.222) Mm-hmm Joel Cheesman (23:32.738) connect me to the people that I kicked their ass at some point. So to Chad's point, at least he's trying. A hundred million is insane. A hundred million is like Ronaldo money, like messy, like that is insane. So either Altman is full of shit or there's some serious stock options being thrown at these people because a hundred million dollar salary is pretty nuts. So I don't know. That's sort of hearsay to me, but the point is, for Facebook to compete. Historically, Facebook in the 2000s was incredibly innovative. And then they became like, we're just going to acquire all the innovation. So let's go by Instagram, let's go by WhatsApp. They're at a point where there's no one really to buy that's left. They can't go by TikTok, another competitor to put them or an AI competitor that they can probably do. So let's resort to this. My feeling on poaching is if you can get away with it, it's great. Like you pressure your opponent, Chad (24:13.124) Yeah. Emi B (24:14.594) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:32.568) To put a hundred million dollar price tag, the next employee at open AI that comes up for review is going to be like, Hey, a hundred million is on the table at Facebook. What do you guys got for me? So you, you, you press your competition to pay more for the talent they have without actually spending any money. So generally it's smart. think that where it becomes dangerous is if you, you try to piss with the big dogs, bigger dogs than you. So there's a great story. You mentioned Apple, Chad, Adobe back in the day, was poaching from Apple. And this was the old boys club when like everyone agreed we're not going to poach from each other, like gentlemen's agreement, which is bullshit. And that'd be that's illegal. But anyway, back in the day, Adobe was poaching Apple people. So Steve jobs sends an email to Adobe CEO. which yeah, this, this is, this is your history lesson, everybody in case you, in case you missed it. So, so. Chad (25:03.204) Mm. Joel Cheesman (25:29.752) Job sends an email that just says recruiting in the subject line. And then he says, uh, let me get this right. Cause I don't want to, I don't want to mess it up. So he says, uh, quote Bruce, who was the Adobe CEO Adobe is recruiting from Apple. Uh, it seems you have, uh, he quip, uh, that Adobe has already poached one of some of their talents is our talents. Um, however, the policy at Apple is to never hire from, uh, on a, on a competitor. He says, it seems you have a different policy. Um, Chad (25:56.1) Mm. Joel Cheesman (26:01.908) One of us must change our policy. Please let me know who. So we put the pressure on Adobe to say either we're going to start taking Adobe people or you're going to stop taking our people. this case, Adobe was a bigger fish than, or Apple was a bigger fish than Adobe. Facebook is still a bigger fish than open AI. So I think it's a good move on their part. If it was reversed, I'd say probably not do it. Chad (26:09.771) Right. Emi B (26:11.67) Yeah Chad (26:25.924) Well, they did spend 14 billion to buy 49 % of Scale AI. And then they took Scale AI CEO Alexander Wang into meta. That's only the beginning of what's going to happen. But they did spend, go figure, 49%, not controlling. not controlling so that they can't play the antitrust. They're doing a lot of Microsoft kind of like open AI games at this point from a funding standpoint, but they are still buying and they're trying to buy stuff. Joel Cheesman (26:50.039) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (27:03.928) All right guys, let's take a break and come back and talk some Trump. Joel Cheesman (27:11.416) Alright guys, terrorists are in the news again. know that you thought maybe they were gone. Immigration is in the news again. Let's check out a quick video highlight from last week's news. Emi B (27:14.894) You Chad (27:15.364) Woof. Joel Cheesman (28:07.416) Yikes. So the pressure is on. Last week, President Trump had directed the Department of Homeland Security to halt immigration enforcement operations targeting farms, meatpacking plants, produce operations, and hotels following a string of high profile ICE raids over the past week. But an about face came just days after President Trump signaled sympathy for producers relying on immigrant labor only to reaffirm his administration's commitment to carrying out Chad (28:09.901) Jesus. Joel Cheesman (28:37.334) mass deportation, especially in blue states. gets political all this with the effects of tariffs yet to come, even though the housing market may be a canary in the coal mine as well. Chad, a lot going on with the economy and immigration, your thoughts. Chad (28:54.552) He's trying to have it both ways. You can't have it both ways. I mean, you can't you can't be sending immigrants out of the country and having ICE raids. I mean, it's they're they're freaking storm shock troops for God's sakes. They're sending people out. And these are the people that are doing the work, the migrant work at the farms. And now he's being, well, yes, this is very hard for them. And we should it's like, you're the problem, dude. You can't you can't you can't send your shock troops in. and then say, well, we're going to make it better. You can't have it both ways. You can't do both. And I mean, there's video of ICE going across farmland, actually trying to round up migrants. And it's like these individuals are doing the hard work that Americans won't do. Right. Then you take a look at the actual jobs number. So you take a look at how many people actually from a participation number left, right, over 600,000. Joel Cheesman (29:39.702) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad (29:54.456) Then you have the actual jobs numbers. Well, tariffs are smacking the jobs numbers in the fucking face. And that is a huge issue. When the market isn't stable, consumers stop or slow spending, which is why AT or At Home is in bankruptcy. So this is one of the companies that's in bankruptcy. 260 stores across 40 states. They're looking to close. At Home, They were feeling the pain. They hired a new CEO, Brad Weston, last year to try to get the train on tracks, but then tariffs removed the tracks completely. Again, you can't have it both ways. You can't grow an economy and starve the economy at the same time. So we're seeing the same thing on the workforce side of the house and then on the spending side of the house. We need stability and we don't have stability. Emi B (30:51.671) No. Joel Cheesman (30:55.874) So he's, I don't know if he's wanting it both ways. By the way, have you guys seen the Trump phone that's coming out? Was this news in Europe? is doing a phone, actually it's the Brothers Trump. They're creating a gold phone. It's 45, 47 a month, because he's president for number 45 and 47. Chad (31:04.023) Jesus. Emi B (31:06.036) No, what is a Trump fine? Joel Cheesman (31:22.07) And apparently they can't, it's supposed to be made in America, but they can't make enough for the launch. they're going to be made in China, which is very ironic. But anyway, so yeah, the Trump phone coming, coming soon to no store near you anytime soon. he, if you look at Trump's favorability numbers, the only thing, well, the only thing I guess with independence that's working for him is immigration. so he looks at. Chad (31:33.324) and I bet they don't get hit by tariffs. Emi B (31:35.651) Of course not, but yeah. Joel Cheesman (31:52.15) He has farmer friends. has big business friends. He has restaurants that he goes to and people he knows there. And they're all telling him, dude, we don't have people to pick the food, to slaughter the animals, all the restaurants, like restaurants are going to be empty. Like farms are going to be on like, so on one hand he hears that and he's like, yeah, that's bad. I need to be able go to my restaurants and eat and feel like the lifestyle that I'm raised had. But then he has this issue of immigration that he's still fairly good on. Chad (32:04.26) to serve, to cook. Emi B (32:14.83) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (32:22.486) compared to his other other issues. you have a Stephen Miller who's like Gestapo and chief and, telling, telling ice that we need more people. You need to like arrest more people because this issue is a good one for us. So then they go down to the home depots. They go down to the lows and they're like, let's get everybody out of here. Everybody's arrested. Apparently they're targeting blue States shocker. So Stephen Miller's like, let's keep the immigration thing going. Let's hit it. Let's hit back on blue States. Chad (32:47.342) Big, big surprise. Joel Cheesman (32:52.396) But he's caught in this catch 22 of we need people to do this work, but I have this issue that's fairly popular for me. What the hell am I supposed to do? And this is all in light of the tariff like effects are coming. Like the whole 30 day thing where everything stopped is coming to a head and we're all going to see it in action. So he's got a train wreck that's coming. Emi B (33:05.902) Mm-hmm. Chad (33:07.118) Yes. Chad (33:15.832) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:17.706) And he's trying to, he's trying to dance, but I don't, I don't think it's working. The train is coming and it's, it's coming down the tracks and it's not going to be pretty, for the Trump administration. I'm afraid. Emi B (33:31.724) No, to be honest, I kind of listening to all of this, I agree with both of you. Well, I don't think he's trying to play both sides because I don't think he's intelligent enough to do that. Definitely not. Well, it's not even playing one D chess. Yeah, he didn't think things through. So his own party obviously wanted to push forward the immigration issue, but... Chad (33:45.464) I didn't say he was playing 4D chess, okay? Emi B (34:00.258) He didn't actually realize the long-term effects of this, which is now what he's hearing from, like I said, the farming industry, the hospitality industry, the construction industry, because all of those industries are largely made up of immigrants. Like you said, they're made up of people who are doing jobs, very long hours, sometimes very hard, physically demanding jobs, sometimes six days a week that Americans generally don't want to do. They want to do your knowledge-based work. Chad (34:13.656) Mm-hmm. Emi B (34:29.614) which is in the office space work, not your manufacturing jobs that he wants to get back or the physical type of jobs. So it's good, like I say, that he's now feeling the effects of this. It's good now he's now admitting that his policies are now hurting American industries. What he does about it, I'm not actually too sure. I'm interested to see where he's going to go. But he does have to back down from my point of view. If he wants to stay in power, if he wants to appease his government, his party, he's going to have to do something to try and kind of, I suppose, make both sides happy to some extent. And that is why he's going down the route of, yes, he's going to protect the farmers, he's going to protect the hospitality sector, but he's going to ignore the other sectors and still force, you know, the immigration raids on, you know, the other types of jobs. Joel Cheesman (35:11.245) Mm-hmm. Emi B (35:25.848) But I think what's eventually going to happen is that American employers are going to, they're going to push back. They're going to start demanding solutions like they're doing already. They're going to, they're seeing their industries crippling. They're seeing farmers farming industries losing money. They can't, they can't replace them with American workers because American workers maybe will not work the longer hours, will not work the however many days a week. And that's going to put their business, you know, you know, put their business out. So. he's in a tough situation at the moment, but this could be the thing that, or one of the many things that will hopefully make sure that he doesn't return to power in four years time. Chad (36:05.71) can only hope. Joel Cheesman (36:06.038) confusion is the worst part because people just don't do anything. Like, I don't know if we're going to have immigrants, if they're going to be fucking arrested tomorrow. So there's this, this whole like stoppage in business and Emi B (36:16.566) I think they'll just concentrate on a couple of industries. don't like, you yeah. No. Chad (36:19.812) It doesn't work that way, Emmy. It doesn't work that way. No, because you have some people that are working in farming, same families. And then some people are working at the Home Depot and so on and so forth. That's not how communities work, right? That's not how communities work. Not to mention, we talk about farming. He's already hurt the farming industry by killing USAID. That used to be $2 billion of revenue to American farmers. Used to be $2 billion. It's not anymore. Emi B (36:26.616) Yeah. Emi B (36:32.044) Well, I suppose they, yeah, you can't just get rid of one. Emi B (36:43.009) Hmm. Emi B (36:48.525) Yeah. Chad (36:48.888) So there is no, he's got to please people. He's only pleasing one person and that's himself. He takes a nap, he forgot what he just said. I mean, that's what it is. So I wish it was as easy to say, hey, look, why don't we just leave these people alone over here? They're all connected. They're all connected. They see their friends and family getting deported. What do you think that makes them feel like? And what do think they're gonna do? They're getting the hell out. Emi B (37:01.431) Yeah. Emi B (37:15.235) Yeah. But isn't that what he's doing at the moment by his appeasing the farming and the hospitality sector at the moment? Yeah. Yeah. Chad (37:18.338) Right, so there. Chad (37:23.448) He's saying it, it's not happening. Again, there are videos of ice running across fields, mean, might as well call it abducting people, for goodness sake. So yeah, it's all bullshit to be quite frank. Emi B (37:30.264) Hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (37:38.84) To me, you can narrow it down to two things. Trump likes money and he likes to be liked. And if you start with that, with everything he says and does, it kind of starts to make sense. think you mentioned the next election presidential, it's not that late. He has midterms in 18 months or so. That's his window to get as rich as possible. Emi B (37:46.062) I'm Power. Emi B (37:55.456) Well, yeah. Emi B (38:02.306) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (38:06.144) and not totally go down in history as an, a total dipshit. And he's trying to balance that and the shit like the Trump phone and the crypto shit and what he's, what's going on in the middle East. Like it's all about Trump getting rich and Trump being liked and being, you know, like when, the Saudis bring him under the middle East brings them in and the plane is yours and the luxury shit. And like, that's what he likes. He is not comfortable. He left the G seven meeting in Canada. Chad (38:07.822) And he is. Chad (38:15.396) Mm-hmm. Emi B (38:31.906) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (38:36.128) A beautiful part, beautiful part of Canada, by the way, Chad left because he doesn't like dealing with that shit. He doesn't like bureaucracy and democracy and I got to get consensus. Like I'm out of here. Cause you talking to you, European people piss just like aggravate me. I'm out of here. Take me back to the middle East where it's a bunch of authoritarians with a lot of money, having nice dinners and shit. That's what he likes, not the Europe stuff. So to me, like if you narrow it down to money and like, Chad (38:47.852) It's like governing. Yes. Emi B (38:56.172) Mm-hmm. Emi B (39:01.656) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (39:05.824) You can understand Trump a lot better than if you try to, I don't know, pretzel your brain into figuring out what the hell he's talking about. He doesn't, the communication's awful. Marco Rubio comes, you know, after, Israeli bombs and says, Israeli acted, Israel acted unilaterally to bomb us had nothing to do with this. If anybody bombs the us we're coming for you. And then Trump right. Like throws that away by saying like, yeah. Chad (39:24.578) Yes. Yes. Chad (39:32.004) Took a nap, got up, yes. Joel Cheesman (39:33.92) Yeah, we knew about it. We're involved. We green light like so it's so fucked up. It's so fucked up. anyway, it's, it's like, it's like being at, it's like being at Amazon. anyway, so let's go to our next story. Amazon CEO Andy, Andy Jassy anticipates AI will reduce the company's corporate workforce in the coming years as it implements more generative AI and agents for internal operations. Emi B (39:34.062) Yeah. Totally contradicted him, yeah. Chad (39:41.238) It is. Chad (39:47.268) you Joel Cheesman (39:58.624) In a blog post, Jassy said they'll need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, but more people doing other types of jobs." quote. And I'd expect there to be fewer driving jobs as Amazon reportedly hopes to start dropping 10,000 robo-taxes yearly through its recent acquisition of Zoox back in 2020. Chad, is Amazon putting a banana in our tailpipe and are we going to fall for it? Chad (40:27.18) Yeah, people aren't paying attention. yeah, we'll definitely, definitely fall for it. So we've, we've sat on the show for years, no matter who's in charge, Bezos or Jassy, they want to cut overhead and create wider margins. The easiest way to do that is to cut out humans and replace them with robots or automations. It's funny because we just recorded an episode earlier this week on the Europe show. It'll drop next week where we talked about Amazon posturing with European. countries boasting the investments Amazon is making in several countries, Germany, UK, France, yeah, so on and so forth, because they want more European market share. since tariffs are hurting US and people are pulling back from spending, where can they go where tariffs aren't hurting them? They're going to try to get into Europe. Zoox on the other hand, Joel Cheesman (41:03.704) cross. Emi B (41:20.535) Europe. Chad (41:25.348) They have approximately 4,000 employees, which is pretty good growth. It's up from 2200 and 22, no, 2023. So two years, almost doubling in size. The company is expanding its workforce and it continues to develop the testing automation stuff. I think this is going to be interesting as you've done the way Mo, Joel, Tesla has been talking about automations and Tesla taxis for, yeah, coming soon for Joel Cheesman (41:46.732) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (41:50.968) Coming soon. Coming soon for 10 years. Chad (41:54.626) Yeah, the last decade, right? And then then Amazon put some money into this. mean, we've got some very, very big players, Google, Amazon, Tesla. This is going this is what I see, where I see innovation actually happening. And I hope Google and Amazon eat fucking Elon's lunch on this. Emi B (41:55.288) Ha Emi B (42:17.464) Fingers crossed, fingers crossed. dear. Joel Cheesman (42:22.348) You know, I, there's a, there's a podcast, British guy runs called diary of a CEO. And it was really interesting this week. he interviewed a guy who's known as the godfather of AI, guy named Jeffrey Hinton, who's who's English as well. I mean, he'll appreciate that. and I'm, I'm so, back and forth when I hear, people say like there's, it's going to create more jobs than it does. Mark Cuban's like, Chad (42:28.366) Mm-hmm. Emi B (42:28.76) Steven Bartlett. Emi B (42:38.03) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (42:51.896) This is going to be great, but then also people that it's doomsday. so this guy, he was out there at the beginning and he's got a, he's got a great opinion, but it's not, it's not shiny, happy people. I'm going to play this and then, uh, come back and comment on the other side. Joel Cheesman (43:54.434) So I don't know exactly, you I don't know what's going to happen, but I, but I do think Amazon, Microsoft meta, all of Elon stuff, they do believe that all of these jobs will be replaced. when I, when I see Amazon saying, Hey, we're weaning ourselves off, there'll be, there'll be fewer people, even though the new jobs will be created. And then you have Microsoft, they're planning to cut a lot of salespeople, in the thousands number, they employ a lot of people. Chad (44:22.136) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (44:24.596) So whether or not, I don't know what the future holds, but I do believe that all the tech companies out there do believe that we can do everything with AI. And we're seeing that this is the canary in the coal mine to me. We're going to see all the big companies and big tech do this. If it works, you're going to start seeing the SMBs do it. And you're going to see products created by the likes of Amazon that make it easier to replace human workers. And we'll see how it turns out, but I do think they believe that this is the route. And we're seeing that unfold with these stories like the ones from Amazon. Emi B (44:53.678) I agree with you there. think this is the tip of the iceberg. Lots of companies are already doing this. It's nothing new. I think it's going to hit the knowledge workers. So the people who, like myself in HR, people in finance, for example, we have a lot of administrative parts of our job which can be automated. Fine. I do believe that means that it's an opportunity for our roles to evolve. because so much of our time, so much of my time is spent doing admin that I don't actually need to do. So hopefully with the introduction of AI, introduction of different types of technology, it means that we'd be able to add more value to an organization. But I think that the message that Andy Jassy had to his employees was a good one and is a good one in the fact that people have to get ready for this. This is a reality. This is not something that is not hypothetical anymore. We know that AI is here. Great. Well, what does that mean for us? If we want to future proof our jobs, we need to put ourselves in a stronger situation. So if you're not good with AI at the moment, get good. If that means going to workshops, experimenting with tools, building prototypes, that is what you need to do right now, today, to future proof your job. Because otherwise, you're going to be left behind. you're not going to have a job to go to, or you're definitely not going to have the job you have now in the future. Chad (46:20.292) So it's really hard to do that today because people are working full-time jobs or more than one full-time job, right? So it's hard to actually do those things. Now, when he was talking about ditch digging and those types of things back in those days and before the 80s, companies used to spend a lot of money on upskilling and developing their employees as a part of work. They don't do that anymore. Emi B (46:27.298) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad (46:50.252) It is, it's not something that is ingrained in the actual systems, right? They wait for the government to be able to do that. They wait for, you know, schools to do that. So we literally just talked to Patrick McGee last week, the episode dropped this week about Apple in China. Apple spends $55 billion a year in China to help upskill their workers. They've trained 28 million workers. They've spent $55 billion a year. That's not happening in the US. That's not happening in many, The UK is a mini US. It really is. It's unfortunate. It's unfortunate, but it really is. But that money's not being spent. So the upskilling and development isn't happening. That's not happening. you Emi B (47:18.84) Wow. Yeah. Emi B (47:26.306) Not happening in UK. Yeah. Emi B (47:30.958) Baby America, yeah. Chad (47:44.224) If it has to be all on my shoulders and I'm working two to three fucking jobs, when am I going to do it? Right. So we're in this much like Joel said earlier, this catch 22 position ourselves, and we're being told to do all these different things. And I'm trying to make rent. Right. Companies have to start putting money into their people. Period. Upskilling development. Those are the things that we have to do. If we don't do those, shit's going to collapse. Emi B (47:46.414) Mm-hmm. Emi B (48:11.63) But if the organization doesn't provide that, like you said, the onus is on you to find time. And I agree, it's not easy. People are busy. People are working long hours. But people have to start thinking ahead in the future. So that time that you spent, you know, I don't know, like, you know, kind of watching TV maybe on a weekend, you you could spend an hour a week. You could spend an hour a week just learning a new skill. It might not be everything. You might just learn. 1 % more than you did last week, but those 1 % add up. So in the future, you're going to be in a better situation. Joel Cheesman (48:47.48) I fear that if Jesse really believed that if we just upscale people, they'll be fine, then Amazon would pay for these people to be upskilled or learn new skills. What he is saying is, best of luck to you. There'll be some jobs left. I don't know who's going to get them, but you need to have certain skills. mean, if he really believed that Amazon would put up and train these people for the new jobs of the future that he's talking about. Chad (49:01.156) margins. Emi B (49:05.816) you Joel Cheesman (49:17.334) I don't know that he thinks there are jobs in the future. Otherwise, who would be training his people for that? Or doesn't know what they are. Chad (49:22.008) or doesn't know what they are. Yeah. Emi B (49:23.806) No, you don't know what new jobs are going to come up in the future, but he also hasn't said that he's not going to invest in his employees. He just said to get ready. So hopefully, Later. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (49:32.482) Correct. Correct. Which is very, which is very American. Good luck to you. Hey, we might, there might be a job here or not. Go train yourself and figure it out and then we'll bring you back. Rugged individualism, capitalism on the way up, socialism on the way down, everybody. Chad (49:40.672) It's rugged individualism, rugged individualism. Emi B (49:48.334) you Joel Cheesman (49:52.108) By the way, I was so pissed off. got fooled by an AI video for the first time. I thought it was real. And I was like, God damn it. Even I got fooled. So God, this shit's common. People are going to be fooled for like news stories and all right. When we come back, we'll, we'll talk a little zoom and Klarna. Emi B (50:00.622) Chad (50:00.928) it... dude. Yes. Yes. Yes. Joel Cheesman (50:13.368) All right. Welcome back to the feel good episode of the Chad and she's podcast zoom zoom CEO. Eric Yon believes, work life balance is unattainable for leaders to tech are dedicating his life to zoom and his family. probably in that order, he acknowledges the challenges Gen Z faces in the job market and the potential job displacement by AI, but envisions a future with shorter work weeks, possibly two or three days in the future. Chad (50:15.992) You Joel Cheesman (50:40.086) Meanwhile, Klarna CEO, always in the news, has launched an AI powered hotline where users can provide feedback to an interactive AI version of himself. Dystopia on steroids. Chad, your thoughts. Chad (50:55.876) love that Eric Yoon saying the quiet part out loud, right? I mean, he's saying that I gave up all my hobbies. You should too. Well, you're the fucking CEO. I don't get your compensation, right? I don't have your shares. don't, I don't, yeah, I don't have any of that stuff, right? So you want me to work as hard as you. You can fuck off. But this is beautiful. This is beautiful because now everybody who might've applied to Zoom before, they know what that company's about. They know what to expect. Joel Cheesman (51:06.837) Yep. Jamie Dimon. Emi B (51:10.901) Mm-hmm. Chad (51:25.068) right? So I appreciate that. do appreciate that. I he's an asshole for saying it, but that's what he thinks and that's how he runs his company. Okay, great. Now you know, don't apply, right? Beware, right? That's what's going to happen. On the the Klarna front, I mean, I've said it before, I hate Klarna's micro loan sharking business with a passion, but I gotta say Sebastian knows how to keep the news outlets and socials buzzing. This is exactly what companies should be doing instead of leaving someone on hold or asking them to fill out an old style fucking feedback form. Why not ask them to go ahead and provide that feedback to the AIC CEO, right? Plus these conversations are data that's training the models with every single interaction. So I don't like corner, but I do. I think this is smart. Emi B (52:18.872) think it's a bit weird though, don't you think? Chad (52:22.328) Joel couldn't tell whether that fake was fake or not, right? I don't know that it's weird. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (52:26.134) mean, they're doing quarterly reports with an AI, whatever, analyst or whatever that is. So this is their brand. Emi B (52:31.575) Yeah. Chad (52:31.672) Yeah, I- Yeah? Emi B (52:35.074) I know. See, I'm with you. didn't, to be honest, I didn't know too much about Klana other than the brand name before, you know, kind of joining the show, but everything I read about Sebastian, I'm just like, you are an odd individual, really odd. And are all Swedes odd? Okay. I had no idea. I haven't met enough Swedes. And like, look, I suppose everything I read about him means I shouldn't actually be surprised because I read somewhere that he leaned into AI. Chad (52:48.504) He's Swedish. He's Swedish. Joel Cheesman (52:49.324) He's Swedish, yeah, that just suck. Emi B (53:04.782) you know, to read his last earning calls or one of his earning call script for him. I was like, okay, that's weird. Now you're having this AI hotline, which apparently lets you feel like you're talking to him, but you're actually talking to an AI clone of him. It's strange. But you're right. It collects data. It's apparently that data or the data that they get from the call is transcribed, is summarized, is put into innovation dashboard. And apparently in 24 hours, they can act on Chad (53:08.9) Mm-hmm. Emi B (53:32.398) For example, if you said there's a bug 24 hours, it's not gonna be a bug anymore the next day. So yeah, I can see some benefits from that point of view, but I still think that people want to speak to a human at the end of the day. And I don't think you can get customer service fully automated in this way. yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a weirdo. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Chad (53:40.036) Mm. Chad (53:49.772) It's just creepy. You feel like it's creepy. I get it. get it. I get it. Well, now. Joel Cheesman (53:53.026) That'll, that'll end, that'll end. It'll feel like a person at some point. I'm waiting for their job. I'm waiting for their recruitment to have like the AI CEO, talk to you about the job and give you the job description interview. This guy, this guy's going to be interviewing everyone at some point because he's, he's clearly, he wasn't hugged much as a child. He needs a lot of attention. which sweet, sweet Swedes aren't known for their loving demeanor. So, I mean, it's not, it's not that surprising. Chad (54:04.93) Interview. Emi B (54:09.869) Yeah Emi B (54:13.807) Yeah! Let me talk to everybody! Are you sure? I need some sweets. Can we just... Chad (54:20.708) Good. Joel Cheesman (54:23.032) They're a little cold. They're a little cold, uh, figuratively and, and literally, but, um, and I, I always find that, that zoom is a brand. they're not, if they're not like fully remote work life balance, like your zoom, your whole brand is like, I can be at home and, like work life. So it's, it's always, I think a brand killer for them when they talk about there's no work life balance. You got to get back to the office, which they've done. so we haven't had a buzzword in a while. Emi B (54:39.116) Yeah. Chad (54:42.626) Weird. Joel Cheesman (54:51.884) You remember quiet quitting. You remember the great recession, like all the things. So there's new one now it's called the infinite work day. I don't know why that's just now catching on. but so new research from Microsoft found that 40 % of people are checking emails, before they're out of bed before 6 AM and nearly a third check back in after 10 PM as an employee. And we're also finding from the survey that 20 % of workers do work on their days off. Chad (54:55.416) No. Emi B (54:59.758) Jeez. Emi B (55:13.55) Mm. Joel Cheesman (55:21.676) So even if you're remote now, you're working all the goddamn time. It's no, it's no, it's no surprise that people are losing their shit. burnout is real. there was an article about, yeah, working from home. Cause you're not, you're dealing with work and then by, the dog needs a walk. like the sitter needs like all these things need to be done and you're pulled in both directions. People are losing it and something's got to be done about that. I think. Chad (55:31.982) Burn out. Joel Cheesman (55:51.33) to really ease all the stress, Chad. We need a dad joke. Emi B (55:56.418) Okay Chad (56:00.228) We'll see if this eases anything. Go ahead. Joel Cheesman (56:01.696) Alright guys, alright guys, what, what, what, come on, all my, these are awesome. Emi B (56:01.748) I'm thinking no, I'm thinking not. Emi B (56:09.366) Ave, ave, day. Joel Cheesman (56:12.652) That's right. what does, what does masturbation and brain damage have in common? What does masturbation and brain damage have in common? Not bad. after a few strokes, there's nothing else to do. There's no turning back. Chad (56:17.806) Joel Cheeseman. Emi B (56:18.99) There you go, there's the answer. Emi B (56:30.885) gods, gods! Joel Cheesman (56:34.912) Emmy, we'll see you soon. Chad, we out. Emi B (56:36.32) Yes. Yeah, I'm definitely out.

Batten down your LinkedIn profiles and sharpen those résumés—things are about to get messy. In this episode, “ Monster + CareerBuilder: End of an Era? ”, we spill the tea on why two of the internet’s original job-board dinosaurs are up for auction faster than you can say “résumé black hole.” But wait, there’s more! We’ll peek behind the curtain at Indeed’s latest foray into AI chatbots—because nothing says “we care about your career” like a robot that still can’t find your typo. Then, we’ll roast Workday’s “economy of skills” pitch (buzzword alert!) and decide whether it’s the next big thing… or just another narrative for Josh Bersin to spin and make a buck. Next up, it’s SmartRecruiters’ Winston AI squaring off against those crusty old ATS relics—think Rocky, but with fewer eye pokes and more API integrations. And because we can’t resist charting growth curves, we’ll compare social media’s meteoric ad revenues (hello, viral cat videos) to traditional media’s snail-pace earnings—spoiler: nostalgia isn’t exactly a cash cow. So grab your popcorn (or that stale office donut), sit back, and enjoy the snarky insider tour through the highs, the lows, and the utterly absurd of modern recruitment tech. Grab popcorn: job-board dinosaurs for sale, AI bots trolling résumés, & social ads vs. TV—wild snarky recruitment tech ride! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:01.374) I'm back, baby. Chad (00:03.944) whatever Joel Cheesman (00:30.832) Aww. Joel Cheesman (00:36.592) podcast, we've got fun and games. Hi, boys and girls. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Pet Sounds Cheeseman. Chad (00:45.34) I'm Chad, indeed, scammy texts. So was. J.T. O'Donnell (00:49.538) And I'm JT, my back hurts, so Donald. Joel Cheesman (00:52.912) And on this episode, indeed is chatting. CareerBuilder plus Monster are selling and Smart Recruiters is evolving. Let's do this. Chad (00:54.046) I don't wanna know. Chad (01:06.43) Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. Joel Cheesman (01:07.728) Did you miss me? Mr. Carter reference. love it. Who was your favorite character on Mr. Vinny, Vinny Bobberino. Horshack. Horshack was pretty good too. Mr. Carter. Jesus. Chad (01:15.39) shit Vinny Bobberino. yeah, definitely Vinny Bobberino. Yeah So, what are you doing? What are you doing? J.T. O'Donnell (01:22.744) Mm-mm. Joel Cheesman (01:28.91) Yeah. So, I'm, I'm in the, I'm in the, I'm in the, crossroads of like college visits, graduation and, my, my dad falling, all kinds of stuff are going on, with me right now. But, I took my daughter, went up to Chicago, took in a Cubs game. then we went, drove out to Notre Dame, visited Notre Dame, came back to Chicago, hung out, ate some Italian beefs. Chad (01:30.354) out on birthday week. Chad (01:53.054) Sweet. Sweet. Joel Cheesman (01:57.488) and a deep dish. And then we visited Northwestern and the University of Chicago and came back and had a bunch of family come in. And my oldest son, first born, graduated high school. He'll be going to Indiana University in Bloomington in August. yeah, so big, big things happening here on the ranch for sure. Chad (02:02.984) Very nice. Chad (02:13.871) that's scary. Scary. J.T. O'Donnell (02:15.457) Nice, congrats. Chad (02:19.774) Party University, Party University. Joel Cheesman (02:22.352) I mean, very few aren't party universities, yeah, Indiana is pretty good time, I'm sure. Chad (02:26.886) Not like Bloomington. Like ranked in the top five of party universities. Solid for like 20 years, dude. So okay, no, that's good. All good. All good. Joel Cheesman (02:38.66) He obviously chose it for academic or he's academic or academic or intellectual academic reasons. Anyway, clearly, clearly he's my son. So yeah, I'm back and we, and we missed the day, the last week and then, I'm two weeks out. So I'm ready to rock today and we got career builder monster. Indeed. got everything. We got so much red meat today. I'm ready to rock, but I do want to say, speaking of old and, and good stuff, Brian Wilson of the beach boys passed away. And I know, Chad (02:40.784) Of course. Yeah. How about you, JT? What'd you build to? Chad (02:53.224) OK. Chad (02:58.237) It is. J.T. O'Donnell (03:05.515) Yeah. Chad (03:06.142) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (03:08.496) You guys probably know the beach boys. lot of, a lot of the young ones don't, uh, any beach boy memories, favorite songs. JT's nodding. J.T. O'Donnell (03:16.205) I got to dance, I was a cheerleader in high school, captain of my squad. And I got to dance on stage with the beach boys to be true to your school. They chose cheerleaders from across the state to do a routine on stage. So that's my big beach boys memory in front of like 15,000 people. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. That's a thing. Be true to You want me to, I mean, I'll bring the routine out at rec fest. mean, you didn't let me know. Joel Cheesman (03:19.51) Shocking, shocking. Joel Cheesman (03:26.576) Joel Cheesman (03:31.385) stop. Chad (03:33.148) I can't, yeah, can't, I can't. I can't, I cannot do that. I'm just gonna shut up. Joel Cheesman (03:43.162) So did you meet them or were you just like a dancer in the background? J.T. O'Donnell (03:45.23) Yeah, of course, you know, they came back and did the obligatory shook our hands and then hit the stage kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I do remember everybody was like, dang, these guys are old, right? You know, I'm 17 years old. You know, so. Joel Cheesman (03:49.424) Was Brian Wilson still around by then? Was he totally out of it? He was totally off his tits, right? Joel Cheesman (04:00.237) Yeah. Chad (04:03.378) Dude's doing shrooms. Joel Cheesman (04:03.714) It wasn't the Kokomo video, which by the way, no one's favorite song is Kokomo of the Beach Boys. John Stamos playing the bongos. I'm going to go Sloop John B is my favorite Beach Boys song and Pet Sounds, the album, of the hundred best ever. If you love the Beatles, there is no Beatles without the Beach Boys. And of course, without the Beatles, there's not a lot of what came after that. So if you love the Beatles. Chad (04:12.094) It's memorable though. It's memorable. Yeah, it's memorable. Joel Cheesman (04:32.58) pay homage to the Beach Boys, the Beach Boys. You guys are clearly bored with this conversation. So let's get to it. Chad (04:36.616) Beach Boys. Joel Cheesman (04:43.662) Shout outs as you guys know, are sponsored by our friends at Kiara. That's text recruiting made simple and affordable. my, my, my shout out, pretty obvious one, father's day father's day is this weekend. I've my biological stepmother, have, have gone, to the big sky up above and, my father at 85 is still chugging. he's, he's not without his faults and his, his, you know, memories fading, but, this Chad (04:50.098) made some. Chad (04:55.656) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (05:12.4) I'm celebrating father. I'm really focused on father's day and being father myself, my son leaving for school. So like, it's just sort of on the mind. if you're near your father, like hug him, tell him you love him. because father's day doesn't get a lot of respect and I have a little comedic clip, that kind of encapsulates what, father's day has become. but, check this out. think, I think you'll enjoy it. Chad (06:04.082) Arbor Day. Chad (06:35.42) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:37.968) Shout out to fathers. Happy Father's Day everybody. All the fathers out there. What you got JT? Mother, mother, mother JT. J.T. O'Donnell (06:40.991) Happy Father's Day, gang. J.T. O'Donnell (06:45.375) My shout outs to Mark Eben, who just made a, what they're calling a bold prediction. You'll find it in an ink magazine. And he's saying that, you know, because of AI and the next three years or so, people are really going to be seeking out human interaction, right? You're to get out of the office. You're going to get out and want to connect. And I agree with him. I think that if you remember this little thing called the pandemic, right post pandemic, everyone was spending money on experiences. experiences, experiences, right? It was like, that was the reaction to it. And I think with AI, we're going to have a very similar reaction. I've been told, and I haven't seen it in quotes, but I've been told by multiple people who know me that Gary Vaynerchuk has said there'll be a day where people pay to take a walk with you or something like that, you know, that we're just going to get to a place where we're going be paying for human interaction. And I don't know if it's necessarily human action, but more like knowledge exchange and we trust humans more and we want to just talk to a real person instead of a bot. So I'm with them on the prediction and I think it's cool. Chad (07:45.82) Hmm. Well, JT totally stole my shout out. Although, although I do have his tweet that he put out, is a little condensed form, quote, within the next three years, there will be so much AI, in particular AI video, which we're going to see a little bit later, People won't know if they see or what they see or hear is real, which will lead to an explosion of face-to-face engagement, events, jobs. Joel Cheesman (07:46.455) All right. J.T. O'Donnell (07:50.987) Right. Right. Joel Cheesman (07:51.34) What? Chad (08:15.643) Those that were in the office will be in the field call it the Milli Vanilli effect Chad (08:25.956) Okay, I get the deep fake aspect. I get the deep fake aspect. We're not going to know. It's like, don't believe your lying eyes kind of thing. That's going to be an actual thing. But the whole hot take on explosion to face to face, I think humans are more wall-y than they are really caring about needing the social vibe, period. mean, the reason why in the pandemic, Joel Cheesman (08:27.172) It needs a better name. It needs a better name. Chad (08:54.782) we needed it is because we couldn't have it. Now we can have it whenever we want it. And we don't do it. Right now we can do it, right? And we don't want it. Now, Gary Vandertuk, that dude is fucking off his rocker. They might pay him for a walk, right? I get that. They pay Gary Vandertuk or Mark Cuban for a walk, but they're not gonna pay Chad and Cheese. They might pay JT for a walk maybe, but come on. I mean. J.T. O'Donnell (09:21.613) Okay, but do remember when they automated the phone and you got so sick of hitting one, five, seven that everybody just started going zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero to speak to an operator? That's what I think about when I think about AI. We're massively automating everything with AI. Everyone's playing with everything. You're eventually going to get to a place where you just want to talk to a human. And I do think that's going to happen. Joel Cheesman (09:31.344) Mm-hmm. Chad (09:41.272) I get that. just don't think we're going to we I think we've gotten to the point where we don't even know the name our neighbors names anymore. We don't even go to our neighbors kids softball games anymore. I remember growing up. That's our neighbors would actually come to games and stuff that doesn't happen anymore. And we don't I mean, so I just don't see that happening. It's very optimistic and I love optimism, but humans are stupid. I mean, we're just going to self disrupt. We're going to self-destruct. Joel Cheesman (10:03.716) The explosion in pet ownership says that people want that sort of organic connection, but not with people, because people suck. Like, my dog, cool, I'll hang out with my dog, but Chad, no, that's a bridge too far. Chad (10:11.422) Yeah. Yeah, we and just on the record, humans do not deserve dogs. We do not deserve dogs. They are the best thing on the planet, bar none, period. Joel Cheesman (10:30.116) Chad loves dogs. Cuban, a proud IU graduate. Mark Cuban, by the way. So you can party and do great things, kids. You can party and do great things. J.T. O'Donnell (10:31.031) That's my dog's birthday today, I'm not gonna disagree with you. Yes, he's six. Chad (10:31.228) I do. hello. Chad (10:39.581) Hahaha J.T. O'Donnell (10:40.077) There you go. Joel Cheesman (10:45.796) Brings us to free stuff. J.T. O'Donnell (10:45.869) and I just want to comment that it's been six months before these two have finally decided that I can actually do something and not mess it up on the show. So I would love to announce that today I am now going to explain the amazing free stuff that you can get from this show. But first, can I just say upfront, you can't win any of this junk if you don't play. So please go to Chad and cheese dot com slash free. Do you hear me now? Don't complain when you don't win. All right, folks. Chad (10:47.166) You know he does. Joel Cheesman (10:57.738) You Chad (11:02.781) Yes. Joel Cheesman (11:13.648) Sorry, it's ChadCheese.com, not ChadAndCheese.com. This is already off the rails, Chad. J.T. O'Donnell (11:16.409) sorry, Chad, you see? And this is why they don't give it to me. I got no rehearsal, people. I was thrown into this. Zero rehearsal. Chad (11:21.19) Hahaha! J.T. O'Donnell (11:26.113) Let's go. right. Let's start with some whiskey because it's shocking. It's all booze. We're going to go with whiskey from Second City Lovers over at Van Hack. Thank you, Van Hack for the whiskey. You can win bourbon barrel aged syrup. That way you can claim you're not drinking when you're having your pancakes. Bob and Doug McKenzie over at Kiora. T-shirts. I can attest. The t-shirts. Chad (11:28.968) Yes. Joel Cheesman (11:30.254) All right. Chad (11:41.171) Mm-hmm. Chad (11:48.136) Yeah? J.T. O'Donnell (11:53.006) T-shirts, I will attest, they are super soft. They're very nice. Those are for the red shoe wearing weirdos apparently at Aaron App. By the way, they told me to say all this. Sorry, I'm in advance. Some craft beer, some craft beer from the job data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. And here's the biggie. If it's your birthday, you are going to get some rum with plum. Chad (11:57.566) you Joel Cheesman (12:06.906) Chad told her. Chad (12:16.904) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (12:19.024) you Joel Cheesman (12:22.82) Little more feeling next time. Little next time. That's right. All right guys. Another, another, another trip around the sun for Karen Wong, Eli Carstens, Kimberly Ulstrup, TJ LL, Robin Walsh, Zach Martin, Catherine Henry, Eric Baker Mayfield, Linda Whitmore, Summer Baruth, Katie Crissa, Jennifer McClure, and Jeff Lackey everybody. Jeff Lackey. Happy birthday, everybody. Happy birthday. Chad (12:23.036) You can't win if you don't go to ChadG's.com slash free. Chad (12:31.838) Mm-hmm. Chad (12:46.61) There it is. There it is. J.T. O'Donnell (12:47.287) Happy birthday! Chad (12:52.21) In what time is it? Joel Cheesman (12:53.872) Oh, is it time to go somewhere? Chad (12:57.438) Yes. Well, Stephen, you know where we're going because you're going to be there too. As a matter of fact, we're all going to be there. Travel sponsors by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Next on the board is RecFest UK in Nebworth. That's July 10th. And this week on LinkedIn, the boys over at RecFest pushed out a promo video that was primo. You got to check this out. Go ahead and roll that, Chad (13:43.837) Rupert. Chad (13:58.878) 2050. Chad (14:13.512) That was all AI kids. Google's new VO3, AI avatars are fucking wild. I mean, literally Google has, first and foremost, they lost the lead in AI, right? Open AI came out and next thing you know, Google's like, what the fuck? J.T. O'Donnell (14:17.356) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (14:32.016) Mm-hmm. Chad (14:38.268) Those guys, they've got DeepMind, they've got a lot of shit that's actually happening right now, and it's pretty amazing the kind of content that they're putting out, but it's also scary as shit. Joel Cheesman (14:49.764) It's and it's off the it's off the tracks already. the best one that I, it's two Yetis, two Sasquatches and one's black and one's white. And they do like mushrooms and Coke. It's like, it's pretty funny. It's pretty, so people are getting really creative with this stuff and we'll get to the creator economy, at some point in the near future, but we have a lot of other stuff to cover before that. All right, guys, the doctor is in the doctor's in per the better. So wash. Chad (15:07.859) Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (15:11.095) topics. Joel Cheesman (15:19.064) and the much better looking one. CareerBuilder Plus Monster is reportedly closing its U.S. headquarters, terminating employees and putting itself up for sale. The company, owned by Apollo Global Management and the Ontario's Teachers Pension Plan Board, that's a mouthful, is exploring a sale process and providing notices to most U.S.-based employees, despite the company's statement contradicting the termination letter. It looks like it's going down. Chad, you're pretty close to this in more ways than one. What are your thoughts? Chad (15:20.595) Yes. Chad (15:50.408) So she was incredibly excited to be able to get the scoop on this. She asked me, like, hey, did you know about the Monster Career Builder News? I'm like, no, what? She read it to me like, holy shit. Yeah, she got the scoop on it. She even got the scoop on AIM Group and everybody else. So was pretty amazing. J.T. O'Donnell (16:08.001) Nice. Chad (16:09.566) So the question is, is this the end of an era or a new beginning? I'll get back to that later. The last decade has truly been hard to watch after being a part of the big launch of the combined Monsterboard OCC merger in January of 1999, which created Monster.com. What we've watched over the past decade with Monster is what happens when accountants start controlling a company. No vision. no understanding of what companies were acquired and how to blend those acquisitions into an ecosystem, and an overall lack of innovative focus and leadership. beat newspapers, became more prominent than major advertising agencies, only in the end to be handed over to some fucking bean counters. Then you have Career Builder, the nemesis of Monster, who built probably the best sales machine this industry will ever know. They knew how to blend their acquisitions into the career builder ecosystem. But in the end, they were sold to Apollo who did what private equity does best, rip great companies apart and sell them for pieces. Now back to my question. Is this the end of an era or a new beginning? Because we're talking about the process or the prospect of sale. First off, the tech is old. Even major systems are rebuilding. So Monster plus Career Builder, would have to start from the ground up on tech, making the tech currently worthless in my honest opinion. The candidate databases, well, you can buy that data for much cheaper than actually an acquisition. The major asset I see are the people. But once again, Apollo isn't a people company and buying people is fleeting because they can walk out the door the next day. Last but not least, the brands. Monster and CareerBuilder were once worldwide and known. brands. But unfortunately, those brands have become incredibly tarnished and have atrophied with bean counter and PE neglect. So we just dropped a great episode, an interview from Unleash where we found out that gem.com that domain was $2 million. So that's a nice benchmark, I think, for a company like maybe StepStone with designs on coming to America, just pay a cool 10 million and walk away with a monster and career builder domains and brands. Chad (18:36.87) and let the day begin. Joel Cheesman (18:39.696) Did say step stone? Did someone put that in your ear? Maybe you've heard that one, heard that one before. Yeah. Chad (18:42.812) Yeah, yeah, it was one of my friends over in Europe. Joel Cheesman (18:48.689) well, before we get to my predictions, I want to go, I think it's time, Chad. Chad (18:53.778) Yes, history lesson. I knew it was coming. Joel Cheesman (18:57.168) All right. Chad touched on this, but it's really fascinating. At least I find it fascinating. So if we go back in time to the world of display ads in the, in the mid late nineties, major newspapers were getting five, 10, 20 grand for one display ad on any given like say Sunday, example, advertising agencies, recruiting advertising agencies were making money hand over fist, basically creating this stuff, putting it out for, Chad (19:06.91) Mm-hmm. Chad (19:21.214) like. Joel Cheesman (19:25.36) uh, for businesses, for employers, and then the internet happened. And basically the world said, let's take the ad on the paper and put it on the computer screen and we could do it for so much cheaper. We're not printing paper. We're not doing all those things. So there was this, this whole re this whole array of newcomers, uh, there were about a dozen or so, and they were selling ads, like free ads, uh, $99 unlimited. The ad could be as long as you want. And you had, you had two brands. Chad (19:51.784) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (19:55.384) Mainly monster monster and Chad, you're close to this, but monster was basically like, look, we're going to, we're going to undercut the newspapers because we can. And in the next five, 10, 20 years, we're going to be getting that five, 10, $20,000 potentially for a package on monster for advertising. So, so their, their mindset was kill the paper, kill the newspaper. You know, Craig's list obviously was, was a big part of this well. So you, you fast forward. It's like, let's build these brands. Let's do Superbowl ads. Let's. Chad (20:10.44) Yeah, for more than one job. Joel Cheesman (20:24.76) buy blimps, let's do all this crazy shit because we need to be the brand when employers think I need to post my job. Holy shit, right? if history doesn't repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. So we see indeed, and this goes back to our relationship where we met first was when you were direct employers and a guy named Joe Jason Goldberg, who was then CEO and founder of jobster, which was one of these upstarts because Google became a thing and I don't think anyone sort of thought of it, but Google gave you the ability to say, look, I need a job in Toledo. I'm going to search for a job in Toledo. There was no monolithic site that I would go to potentially to do that. Now Monster and Crible and everybody still had great search rankings, but then Indeed comes along and says, well, we can undercut all this big brand stuff by going to Google and driving traffic from that. They were largely ignored by monster who was now a public company career builder who was like focused on we're a newspaper, but we're online. We're doing parties in Mexico. We're taking people out to games. We're doing all things that agencies did. And all the while indeed is undercutting the entire process. Job seekers go into indeed and job boards are dumb enough at the time. And a lot of people saw this, like, why are you letting them index your jobs? Why are you letting them do this? But they kept letting them do it. They could have destroyed indeed early. They could have destroyed simply hired, which indeed eventually killed, but yeah, could have totally just killed them in the womb, done, monster keeps going, but they didn't. In fact, they even put APIs on their sites to backfill their jobs, which shocker had a backlink to jobs, the key phrase anchor text jobs, which helped indeed further get better search rankings. Chad (21:49.31) could have bought them. Yeah. Easily. Joel Cheesman (22:10.692) to quicken the demise of Monster and Cribbler. Well, before they knew it, 2008 happened, the world, great recession happened and companies started saying, why do we need Monster? We can use Indeed, which is cheaper. We only pay for clicks. Like it's just so much better. So there was this earthquake that Indeed and Cribbler never recovered from. They have Like you said, fast forward today, indeed and LinkedIn are like 80 % probably of the market share monster and crib builder, smart part. are $200 million revenue business combined, apparently. So there is some value there. We know they, we know monster at least has some global presence, but ultimately these companies were killed by indeed, indeed kill a lot of their competitors. And now we live in a world where we are now we'll get to indeed later, but indeed again, history doesn't repeat, it rhymes. Indeed, I think is facing a similar threat and we'll get to that in our next in our next piece. So, but, but you have companies that once ruled this landscape were once these huge monolithic brands and they're, basically gone. mean, these companies are for sale clearance yard sale, TJ Maxx clearance rack. Nobody wants them. Nobody they're shrinking. They're not growing. So that's what we have. Now what happens next? Chad touched on acquisition. I have three scenarios that I think are potentially possible for the career builder plus monster future. Number one is I still think ZipRecruiter could go private. think Apollo could roll up a ZipRecruiter acquisition, go private, bring all these brands together. get them up to snuff or whatever, do whatever Apollo does, cut as much fat as they possibly can, maybe get this thing to some crazy, crazy, profitability, and then they could go public again, or they could maybe sell it to somebody else. So I think Apollo or private equity could roll this thing up with, with zip recruiter. number two, number two, yeah, you once said that about step stones. So number two is, indeed, recruit holdings. Look, Joel Cheesman (24:27.332) They got this thing down pat. They've whether it's workopolis, workopolis is a, zip recruiter got workopolis, but so it's simply hired, indeed knows this backfill. all they would have to do is, is have these properties roll the, roll the indeed con, you know, content around job postings. They've done this before. So recruit holdings could further, you know, sort of consolidate this market, really kill the competition. Chad (24:38.538) indeed. Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (24:55.288) and roll that $200 million combined revenue into recruit holdings. Kitty now number three, we're telling is probably the most interesting is an international player that wants to get into America could easy button this thing, a step stone, seek job and talent for a, for pennies on the dollar. You guys can have a footprint in America brands that people know in America and you guys could hit the ground running. and in America, the largest economy in the world. number one, private equity rolls this thing up with zip recruiter. Number two, recruit holdings just buys it, kills it, throws in a backfill or number three, there's an international player that wants to make a splash in America. Those are my three predictions for what happens now with career builder plus monster. Chad (25:46.418) JT, you've had a lot to soak up. What do you think? J.T. O'Donnell (25:49.55) I mean, if I was in the room with Joel right now, I'd just pat him on the head and say, you're so cute. First of all, I love that you're talking about the brand. Go ask anybody under the age of 25 if they know what the heck career builder and monster are. Nothing. Secondly. Joel Cheesman (25:53.602) A lot of bullshit to step over is what she's saying. Chad (25:53.682) Yeah Chad (26:04.574) You got tons of trust though, that's the thing. That's the thing that matters the most, which I only think, which is one of the reasons why I think it's only a $10 million. J.T. O'Donnell (26:10.445) It's, it's, it's a no, it's stop. Nobody's looking at this from the job secret perspective, which is, you know, I appreciate you letting me be here. They hate career builder and monster. They hate indeed. That's not going to change. The perception is there and there's nothing you're going to do to change that. Okay. Job boards as we know it are going to die. And that's what they are labeled as. And if people can't see that and that the change is coming and how we're going to recruit and connect. Chad (26:21.03) I get that. J.T. O'Donnell (26:38.249) My gosh, it's adorable, but I wouldn't touch those assets. You can't do anything with them. Let them sunset. You just can't. Job seekers want no part of it. Ask them how they really feel. Joel Cheesman (26:53.968) Did I mention the combined revenue of $200 million a year? J.T. O'Donnell (26:57.549) It's a drop in the bucket and it's crashing. Let me tell you a story. In 2018, a Fortune 100 company subsidiary hired me to go through their budget. They were spending half a million dollars between Cabir Builder and Monster. I said, go into your ATS system and show me how many hires you got from both of those last year. Goose egg. Half a million dollar goose egg. So I'm sorry, there's a lot of people that just, to hold onto budget, pay for stuff. Not even sure if it works or not. That $200 million is going to dwindle. That is why they are selling it. And I'm sorry, they were amazing. They had great runs. All the stuff that you recapped about the innovation. Yes, but people innovate and then they don't. And indeed is in a heck of a lot of trouble, a heck of a lot of trouble. If they don't pivot, this is where I give LinkedIn props. LinkedIn has figured out that the futures video has built TikTok for careers, whether you like it or not. That is where that's all going to happen. They've built a billion dollar creator economy for the white collar worker. They have pivoted. They understand they need to pivot. And so that's the truth. I gosh love you. Joel Cheesman (27:59.12) I don't, I don't think, I don't think JT's fallen for the banana in the tailpipe. the, the sad thing is, is this story might be, well, it's not over, but it's close to over. And we've been talking about this, these companies for eight years. And it's kind of sad that we won't be able to talk about them much. There will be a final, like they're done. They're out. Monster.com is now an energy drink URL and they're out and cribbillers just is just. J.T. O'Donnell (28:01.165) Absolutely not. No. Not with the people I work with every day. Uh-uh. J.T. O'Donnell (28:25.505) Yeah, right. Joel Cheesman (28:29.604) That's a bit of melancholy for me. take a quick break and get back to when we come back, we'll talk about indeed the next victim of history. Chad (28:30.897) sad. Chad (28:38.115) next victim, step up. Joel Cheesman (28:45.84) All right guys, watch out paradox indeed is developing conversational AI tools, career scout for job seekers and talent scout for employers. That's creative to simplify the job search and hiring processes. The tools currently in beta testing will be unveiled at indeed future works 2025. You want some more indeed do's you know you do if you're listening to this show indeed job offer scam texts are on the rise. These scams, which often promise quick cash for product testing or data entry are particularly insidious because they take advantage of people who may be struggling financially. By the way, they also have a new CMO and a new focus on AI with their new CEO Chad. There's a lot of indeed news going on. What are your thoughts? Chad (29:22.984) Yes. Chad (29:33.384) So new conversational AI, tell me you're five years behind without telling me you're five years behind. This feels like a relic that Chris Hyams left behind for Daco. Anyway, before we dig too deep, what's your reaction on the Chris Hyams being canned story? I mean, my bad, my bad. Deciding to leave story. What's your take? Joel Cheesman (30:02.7) yeah, I missed last week to comment on that. I, you know, it's, it's apropos that, Apple's developer day, was, was recent was recently because I think there's a lot of comparisons that you can make between Apple and indeed. So indeed you had some, well, relatively innovative, founders, CEOs, you had Ronnie and Paul. I mean, when I say innovation in our space, means let's copy Google, let's copy Google and make it for jobs. But that was innovation for our space. So it worked. and then Tim Cook is like, hi, I'm comes in company guy says all the right things. Super nice. Doesn't rock the boat drives them into, incredible growth, a growth period. think when he took over, they had around 300 employees. Now they are who they are today. but the world changed and just like Apple, the world is moving on from a device in your hand. they've They've tried to do headsets. like they innovation just isn't working in an AI world, with, with what Apple has been famous for, for over a decade. So indeed is that this crossroads of like, Hey, this whole job posting thing was fun or maybe JT would say cute. but the world is changing. moving into AI. moving into a totally different realm. And Chris Himes is not the guy to take you to that place. So, so nice guy, just not. not the one to take them into where they are going now. And I don't think, I think Deco is a, is an interim guy. I don't think he's the one that's going to be there long-term, but I, but the problem is these jobs suck. Nobody, nobody that knows shit wants to like run a job site. So they're going to have a lot of fun trying like, thank God recruit holdings is a good staffing company because they're going to have to find someone to drive this Turkey. And it's, it's, it's not going to be something a lot of people want to do. So J.T. O'Donnell (31:42.573) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (31:55.728) That's, that's my comment on indeed. I think they're at a crossroads or trying to figure out we've, we've talked. In nauseam about the spaghetti they've thrown at the wall, hoping that it sticks. Now they're going to have somebody with hopefully some AI chops to try to throw some, stuff at the wall that does stick. Um, which I think takes us into conversational AI and some of the things that they're doing. interestingly, I was, I was. Chad (32:03.688) Nuh-uh. Joel Cheesman (32:21.646) I've mentioned this, but I was on a call with a, an executive who's a former indeed, employee. And he said, you know what the biggest threat to indeed is? And I, I think I said programmatic, and he said, Nope, it's not programmatic. the biggest threat it's not LinkedIn. It's paradox. He said, why would you post a job when all the data is there? The paradox can, like, you got it. Right. So, so shockingly. Chad (32:44.702) You've got them. You've got them. You've got them. Joel Cheesman (32:48.964) Yes. He says that and then indeed launches a conversational AI competitor, I assume, to Paradox who's been doing this thing for 10 plus years. So you tell me who's better at this thing. And I don't think it's easy to do. We've seen chat bots come and go. I don't think it's easy. I Indeed has its work cut out for it. So those are my basic thoughts in terms of where they're going. think, you know, the CMO that they have, you can tell a lot about where a company is going by their new executives, especially when a new CEO comes in. Chad (32:56.744) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (32:57.485) Hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:18.584) So, so the new, the new CMO, no experience in, recruiting zip, not like he didn't come from, from Baird or like he doesn't have TMP experience. where he, comes from is, automation platform. worked for the company called Sligo. I believe it's how you pronounce, pronounce it. he says in his, in his updated LinkedIn profile, says, quote, I'm excited to help elevate the brand meeting indeed. Chad (33:25.96) Imagine that. Joel Cheesman (33:47.292) power growth through AI enabled marketing innovation. So that gives you a little tip of where indeed is going. When he says AI enabled marketing innovation, that's where they're going. This guy would not have taken this job unless they sold him on. We're a lot more than just jobs. We're going to the next phase and we'll have a fun time talking about the next phase of indeed, but they have their work cut out for them. Chad (34:09.118) I'll see. J.T. O'Donnell (34:09.153) I, yeah. Well, one, they got a pivot, just like I said before. Two, they've got money. And three, it's not easy, you're right, but it's gotten a whole lot easier thanks to AI. I know a company right now that didn't have the money to build their Android app, right? It's hundreds of thousands of dollars two years ago to hire an Android app developer. You can build an iPhone app overnight, right? Now it's being completely built with AI. No developer needed. So when you start to think about what we're going to be able to do, Chad (34:27.678) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (34:38.871) they're going be able to speed up getting there. Like you're right, Paradox doing this for 10 years, amazing. But that first movers advantage, they also spent a lot of money and had to do it a lot longer and harder, you know, than to where we are now. So I don't rule indeed out. I think they have to do something extremely dramatic though, because the job seeker as a whole does not like them. Yes, they're the biggest one. But if your source does not like you, if you can't pivot and get them to not feel like they have to use you. but they want to use you, right? That's what they have to be looking at. then, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it works, but my two cents. Chad (35:15.71) Four points, four points, four points. First off, who's gonna answer a message from Indeed's conversational AI if they're worried about being scammed? It doesn't matter whether it's a text or a messaging app. Searches for Indeed text scams are up over 500%. Talk about shitty timing, right? Talk about shitty timing. Number two. Joel Cheesman (35:17.391) Historically, go ahead, Chad. J.T. O'Donnell (35:32.161) You are proving my point. J.T. O'Donnell (35:37.741) They are not trusted. Chad (35:41.636) Indeed, we'll have the same old non agentic tech issues that Monster and CrewBotter had. Yes, they do have the opportunity and they have the money to be able to spin up new tech. The problem is they're talking about conversational AI. Everybody else is already 10 steps ahead of them with agentic. large language models and agentic, right? Number three, as Joel had said, And we're seeing this over and over and over, not just with with paradox, but with fountain, with gem, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Hiring companies are finally engaging candidates that they've already bought in their CRM and their ATS, which lessens the need to buy more candidates from Indeed. And fourth and final, Indeed has built bad and misguided products like CPSA, CPA, candidate monetization, and trying to spin rate hikes as healthy budget bullshit, it's all left a bad taste in the entire industry's mouth, including job seekers. Now, will this kill Indeed? No. Will Indeed's control weaken? Most definitely. Will employers smile when they start cutting Indeed's budget? You bet your fucking ass they will. That's the thing. They're not looking at what's actually happening and Joel Cheesman (36:42.288) Mm-hmm. Chad (37:03.676) What kind of narrative they've been playing. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe that's why Hinds is out on his ass or decided to leave. I don't Joel Cheesman (37:11.64) Look, similar to monster when indeed came around, companies are actively wanting to put money in something other than at the time it was monster. Now it's indeed. And Chad and I have talked to multiple big company heads of talent that say we've reduced budget in double figures. and they're looking, they want to do more and, and things like conversation AI are doing that. So I find it hard, Chad (37:20.53) Yeah, exactly. J.T. O'Donnell (37:22.562) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (37:40.408) If indeed came to me and I'm trying to get off the indeed heroin drip and they go, Hey, we got conversational AI now. I don't think I'm, on board. I'm like, dude, I S I have made a decision to get off your heroin drip a long time ago. I'm not getting back on because you have some new tech and historically. In our space, particularly just because the company launches new stuff because they think it's the future does not mean they're going to get it right. Be known. Chad probably remembers was monsters sort of foray into social media because social media was hot and monsters are going to be cool. And it just doesn't usually work one because the brand is associated with one thing and they try to switch it up. and then the other thing is they don't have the core competency. They don't have the talent to do it. Job boards and people who sell job postings have a really narrow like competency to like now sell something. Chad (38:07.678) Facebook. Joel Cheesman (38:35.234) Outside of that is really, really hard. And I don't think you should discount that. J.T. O'Donnell (38:39.533) I'll just say one more thing. If I was running an enterprise and I had a big budget and you're not hiring as much right now, I would really be pulling back that Indeed spend and I would start an earmark and say, let's go test every hot new thing out there. Right? You all introduced me to Flakity. We're partnering with Flakity right now. We're getting 98 % net new traffic to directly to companies, career sites. That's interesting. That's all done through video on social media. Right? Like there's so many cool things starting to happen out there that are really legit, that are not a lot of money for you to test. That's what I would be doing right now. I'd have a total test bed. Let's try 20, 30 different of these startups right now and see what works because they're gonna hit. They're gonna be the next new thing. Joel Cheesman (39:17.156) That's cool and sexy, JT. That's right. Well, one final word for indeed. Joel Cheesman (39:27.184) Let's go to the tale of two innovators, innovators in quotes, everybody. Our friends at Smart Recruiters has launched an AI powered hiring platform featuring Winston, an agentic AI companion. say streamlines the hiring process for recruiters, candidates, and hiring managers. Meanwhile, Chad, your boy, Josh Bersin is touting Workday's latest innovation dubbed the Workday economy. That's creative. As big as Workday's marketing department must be. That's what they came up with. he Burson's touting it as quote, a bold new strategy in quote, it's going to quote super fuel Workday's growth and quote super fuel, Chad, not just regular fuel. What are your thoughts on these two innovators? Chad (39:57.468) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (39:58.926) You Chad (40:07.688) you Chad (40:14.024) So here's a great excerpt from Rich Lewis Jones LinkedIn post, quote, fair play to work day for catching up with the rest of the industry. But if you think this is a new bold strategy, Josh Bersin, and believe it is, you've been living under a fucking rock. I put fucking in there for the last 10 years and only been listening to those who get paid to tell you it is now. End quote. Now, Rich. Didn't come out and say it, but guys like Josh Bersin aren't just analysts. They're paid content creators. They create narratives and content specifically for clients like Workday. Call it corporate propaganda or whatever the fuck you like, right? It's a great way for a huge company like Workday to get their narrative out. Is that bad? No, but as HR practitioners, it's pretty damned important that you first know this is happening. and second, have multiple sources in which to educate yourself. Okay, so enough about Workday. Let's stop talking about them and talk a little bit about smartrecruiters versus Workday, right? This is a smart recruiters versus Workday segment, but I don't like that comparison. I think it's more of like an apple to a truckload of oranges, which is why I like throwing in iCims into the mix here. Yes, kids, iCims. because I think iSIM's announcement this week was incredibly telling. iSIM's announced agentic capabilities with a drum roll please, press release. While SmartRecruiters had a live on stage Apple iPhone unveiling of Winston. Did you see that thing? SmartRecruiters went the iPhone route because it was big, right? So it gives you an idea which company is adding the Joel Cheesman (41:55.152) Sorry, a little late on the sound bite, Chad. Joel Cheesman (42:06.244) Mm-hmm. Chad (42:09.764) agentic me too layers versus a company that's fully embracing tech today by rebuilding their systems for the future. So when we see companies like Google, which we did this week, start shedding search and ad teams and executives from those ad teams and search teams reported buyouts are happening and now focusing squarely on AI and agentic products like Google mass. You can see the importance of throwing out old models. and retooling for the future and from all three companies we just talked about. SmartRecruiters is the only one I believe who is committed to doing just that. The other two has one selling propaganda. The other one is just dropping press releases, MeToo press releases. Joel Cheesman (43:00.172) I love what SmartRecruiters is doing. And by the way, full disclosure, Josh Bersin, SmartRecruiters is a sponsor of the show and we love them. Chad (43:06.867) Yeah. Chad (43:10.379) We've been on stage with iCims, smartrecruiters. We've never been to work day. Joel Cheesman (43:14.672) Work day won't call us back, unfortunately. Work day won't call us back. I just love the play to win attitude. And I particularly love when companies say, you know what, if we're going to be disrupted, we're going to do the disrupting. And so many companies get just set in their ways and their profits and they don't change. And smart recruiters said, you know what, this is the future. J.T. O'Donnell (43:26.093) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (43:40.88) We're going to change it. was reminded Chad of a conversation we had with Dan Finnegan in 2019 when he was CEO of, of job bite. said, he said, quote, uh, we felt that the era of the ATS was over and that the opportunity would be the recruiting platform and suite of products that service the entire value chain of recruiting, uh, was a limited window. And that time was now I'm guessing that Dan felt like he wasn't supported in that, in that vision. Chad (43:45.982) Mm-hmm. Chad (43:50.6) Jump right. Chad (44:10.014) Mm. Joel Cheesman (44:10.106) which is why he's at in border now. But in 2019, you know, he saw where the world was going and many have not embraced it, but I see smart recruiters embracing it. I think, I think it's fantastic. And I think that. Oddly enough, I I'm starting to see a paradox ads on Google about they are a conversational ATS. And I feel like the new thing now is going to be conversational ATS. And we see Winston. Chad (44:34.046) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (44:39.856) going that route, we see Indeed kind of going that route maybe, and obviously Paradox going that route. And I think part of it is it's harder to value a chat bot or a conversational AI company, but if you can start valuing your company as an ATS, like that becomes something that I can start putting my head around if I'm an investor or buying this thing. So I think this is the wave of where this is going. We covered it first and you can see it in our archives, our chat with Dan Finnegan. Chad (44:55.294) platform. Joel Cheesman (45:09.744) But this is where I think the business is going. And I think it's fantastic. Rich Lewis Jones. Awesome to call out Bersin and say, quote, people are being influenced by people being paid extortionate amounts of money by big tech businesses to position them as trailblazers buyer. Beware. God bless rich Lewis Jones, who's a VP at smart recruiters for saying this publicly. Chad (45:18.066) Ha Joel Cheesman (45:38.604) idiots like us Chad say it all the time, but people go, those are dumb ass podcasters don't know shit. So God bless him. I love it. I love this story. Smart recruiters keep keep crushing it, man. I love it. J.T. O'Donnell (45:49.944) question for you guys. if I look at the three, smart recruiters is the most nimble, the most agile, not huge. And if you think about it, it's a great time not to be overly huge company in our business because the amount of tech that investment, right? You're nimble. Name one massive company from our space, a workday size and ISIM size that was able to just let go of the debt, accept it, pivot in order to stay going. Name one. Joel Cheesman (46:01.007) nimble. Chad (46:14.43) Well, think so. Smart Recruiters has about 2500 clients, right? That's still a big, a big pivot for them. Still a big pivot for them. Now Workday, I think if you take a look at Workday, Workday is a bunch of different ecosystems. You've got the piece of shit recruitment piece that's on there. You've got the HCM, you've got pay, you've got all this stuff, right? And then you've got iCims. J.T. O'Donnell (46:25.909) Okay, fair. Chad (46:41.462) and smart recruiters, which are both, which is why I like that comparison better because they're both applicant tracking system, both in the recruiting talent acquisition side of the house. And that's why I believe the leader makes all of this shit happen. Rebecca Carr was the the chief product officer at smart recruiters, right? She brought in Sharon. who was the CEO of one of the companies that they acquired. She's now the CPO. She's now the chief product officer. You've got two product people that can see where products going and where the industry is going. With iCIMS, what do you have? You have a company that couldn't go IPO, and now they're trying to look pretty and skinny up to hopefully get acquired. Again, that's my opinion, trying to get acquired. They're having a bean counter situation, much like Monster did. Right. So they're not going to spend a lot of money to retool smart recruiters is. So, I mean, there are a lot of dynamics that are happening. But to answer your question, smart recruiters, not a small company, not a humongous company, but to make that kind of pivot in the time frame that they did. I was on stage with them in Madrid in February and they just made the fucking pivot. I mean, they just did it. I mean, that's that's amazing. And that's quick. J.T. O'Donnell (48:01.23) It's going to be a win. That's what I think more companies have to do. I'm with you. That was the point. You just got to go. You got to go for it. There's no, no more time left. Yeah. Chad (48:05.085) Yeah. Chad (48:08.582) Yeah, well we saw what it did to Monster and we saw what it did to CareerMotor. Joel Cheesman (48:09.346) Rich, Rich, Rich Lewis Jones laying the wood to Josh Burson. Chad (48:14.622) Thanks. Joel Cheesman (48:20.112) We'll be right back. Joel Cheesman (48:24.848) All right, JT, this is right in your wheelhouse, baby. Warm up, warm up, get it warmed up. right. User generated content on platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram will surpass traditional media and add revenue this year for the kids. That's TV, radio, billboards, et cetera, marking a significant shift in media consumption. This change driven by a shift towards digital platforms is impacting traditional media, forcing them to adapt. to retain advertising income and attract younger audiences. Historic shift, JT, your thoughts. J.T. O'Donnell (49:01.005) Oh yeah, mean, the governor predicts $480 billion economy by 2027. Economy, economy, it feeds itself. You know, one of the things that we haven't figured out is that we're going to stop trading time for money. Jobs, as we know it, where you trade for hours, right, is done. Okay. We now need to trade our knowledge for money. If I can solve your $10,000 problem in 10 minutes, you give me $10,000. And once we all started to figure it, the creator economy has been doing that for a while now, haven't they? They've all got that figured out. but it's now coming to the mainstream, which gets me so excited. I mean, you all have been creators forever. You're it. You're old school. You're OG. You too. And so when you see where it's going and all the ways that you can monetize, right? The diversification of income streams, that's the new income security. Instead of being held by golden handcuffs, one paycheck, trading my time for money, that company can rip it out for me at any time and I am scrambling, right? Joel Cheesman (49:37.69) Say more, say more. Chad (49:38.792) Huh? What? Chad (49:49.779) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (49:59.18) This, we have hit the tipping point. Everyone is a creator and it's not, people get way down and go, I'm not an influencer. No, you're a context creator, right? Share your knowledge, share your education. I mean, there's a reason why TikTok launched just a month and a half ago, a new knowledge creators fund, okay? Where they will hand pick you and if you're doing videos a minute or longer that are just educational in nature, they're like giving you a huge payout on top of the normal payout. because they see where it's going, right? So this is so exciting to me because everyone listening to this is a context creator. Everyone could be monetizing multiple different ways besides their day job. And that's where you create this income security that doesn't exist anymore. So, yeah, this girl's all in on this. Joel Cheesman (50:47.834) How do traditional companies combat this? Do they acquire? I love the ads on TV that look like a story from a mobile phone. Even the ads look like social media content. Do they buy? What happens? Chad (50:53.81) In a choir they hire. J.T. O'Donnell (50:58.178) Bye-bye. J.T. O'Donnell (51:01.591) So yeah, yeah. think so. What do mean, how do the companies purchases? Joel Cheesman (51:08.912) How does Paramount discuss, like how do they buy the, like somebody's gotta buy Snap at some point, right? Like somebody, like some of these. J.T. O'Donnell (51:17.073) right. 100%. Yeah. I mean, you think about it, it would be great. But what you're also seeing is a lot of agencies, right? There's a huge rise in agencies. Why did I start Pro Voice? We already have 60 white collar workers making money signed by our company that we're partnering. Partners are coming to us and saying, hey, we need somebody to talk about this or that or that. Somebody worked for the FBI, a cyber psychologist. Chad (51:24.286) Yeah. Chad (51:32.488) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (51:44.608) right there. And so the people that will win will put these agencies together, make it very easy for these companies to come and buy. And if you think about it, it's micro influencing. We already know you don't go pay Kim Kardashian a million dollars. You go pay 100,000 micro influencers, you know, $10,000. You get way better engagement. Right. So we already know the shift is away from the mega influencer down to the micro influencer. So you look at that, you look at the agencies, it is so easy to execute and everybody wins. Joel Cheesman (52:14.532) And then how about the AI influencer? J.T. O'Donnell (52:17.185) Well, and so that's exciting because there are mobile apps. If none of you have checked out mobile apps like, no, seriously, there's free mobile apps where you can download a video of yourself talking for two minutes and then you can give it a script and it just recreates you. And it's pretty solid as long as you don't use too many hand moments, right? It's like, it's really, really solid. right? Don't be doing that. But, you know, we'll have video authentication. And even then, like people, if the personality is there and the content is there, they don't really care. Chad (52:40.252) J.T. O'Donnell (52:46.731) You know, so it's, we're in a really interesting time right now in terms of the ability to monetize. Any single person listening to this, recruiting HR, you literally could be monetizing as a context creator right now, today. Crazy. Chad (52:57.43) Yeah. And I think it's got to be something that's authentic. Number one, if you don't have 25 years in the biz like Joel and I do, right? I mean, we've got 25 years in the biz. That's experience. People are going to pay us for our knowledge, right? If you're a kid who's been in for five years, not so much. So it's got to be something different, right? And you've got to lean into what your strength is, right? J.T. O'Donnell (53:19.137) I disagree. J.T. O'Donnell (53:24.737) That kid with five years of knowledge has enough knowledge to influence everybody that has less than five years of knowledge and are going to relate to him better than the person that has 25 years. They've already got studies to show this. So you can monetize at any stage that you're at if you choose the right lane and you choose what you're going to monetize about. So, but to your point, lot of very experienced people are missing out right now. You guys got on the train early. So many people out there that can't get paid what they're worth anymore in a traditional job. Get into the freaking creator economy. Chad (53:45.981) Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (53:53.762) This is your second act where you could be making dumb money, dumb OnlyFans money right now with your knowledge. And that to me is the exciting thing for folks like us, you know? Chad (54:04.274) What's important though is they engage an agency. And I know that you're working very hard on that because user generated content is a business. That's pure and simple because if you're not, you've got to treat it like a business. You have to understand your targeted audience. You have to understand your TAM. You have to understand engagement, the tech platforms, marketing message, sales outreach, what you're going to use for that outreach if there's an agency or different mechanisms. It can be incredibly hard even if you have a million followers, right? You might not be getting all that you could out of that. I mean, it's whenever I talk to people who want to run a podcast or they want to become a quote unquote influencer, I'm like, what is your business model? And that's where they need people to be able to lead them into business models. And that's where agencies come. J.T. O'Donnell (54:58.901) Right, right. That's exactly what we do at Pro Voice, right? From the beginning to figuring out what your model is, to making sure that you're monetizing correctly. The truth is you don't need a million followers anymore. It doesn't matter anymore on platforms. The right piece of content goes viral, you will make a lot of money. You don't need a lot of followers to make a of money. What you need, and you are absolutely right, is the right process, the right monetization model, and consistency. A lot of people give up. I did 10 videos, it didn't work. It doesn't work that way. This is like brushing your teeth. This needs to be habit. And you all know that, and that's where most people give Chad (55:05.052) Yeah. Chad (55:23.666) Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (55:27.78) Well, you may not need a million people, but you may need a thousand penises. Let me introduce you to Bonnie Blue. Speaking of OnlyFans, if you don't know Bonnie, Bonnie was famous for having sex with a thousand guys in a pretty short period of time. Well, even, even OnlyFans has a line that you can't cross. Bonnie has recently been banned on OnlyFans for wanting to do the following. Check it out. Joel Cheesman (56:32.366) going too far but never going too far are the dad jokes everybody. Chad (56:33.694) Oof. Joel Cheesman (56:40.218) Guys, have you heard Grindr's launching a new app for roosters? Grindr's launching a new app for roosters. It's called Any Cockle Do. Any Cockle Do. Happy Father's Day, everybody. We out. Chad (56:54.578) We out. J.T. O'Donnell (56:55.308) We out.

Hold onto your berets and bottomless mimosas—Chad, Lieven, and Emi are back with another transcontinental rollercoaster of HR tech, political chaos, and tech unicorn carnage. 🦄 One AI unicorn rises (Parloa) while another fakes it ( Builder.ai —aka “Actually Indian Developers”) 🛩️ Ukrainian drones = startup innovation meets Russian dysfunction. Take that, 🇪🇺 Elon’s Tesla is getting ghosted across Europe faster than a bad Tinder date. 🍳 Emi praises boozy brunches while Lieven mourns Tesla. Balance restored. 💸 RecruitRoo’s leaping across Europe like a caffeinated marsupial with a visa stamp.🇺🇸 And finally—Americans fleeing the land of the free for croissants, healthcare, and mild political sanity. Plus: Red wine + Coke, tipping culture crimes, and one very cerebral Putin joke. It’s The Chad & Cheese Podcast: Euro Edition.Fraud? FOMO? Frogs slowly boiling in AI sauce? We got it all. Press play, kids. It's chaos... with accents. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad (01:40.499) Hold on to your berets and lederhosen kids. It's the Chad and Cheese Podcast as Europe. I'm Chad. Your planes are on fire, Sowash. Emi B (01:48.47) And this is Emi Ikyomayemi Kroba Numanayo Berejigo for those in Europe who don't know me. Yeah, that is my full government name. Chad (01:52.341) Excuse me? Lieven (01:59.718) I'm Lieven cheering for those Ukrainian drones Van Nieuwenhuyze. Chad (02:03.241) There you go. And on this week's show, a unicorn is born, a unicorn dies, and when did the UK import kangaroos? Let's do this. Chad (02:16.625) Okay, so I'm sure you both have seen the news out of Russia. Right, right. Okay, so I mean, it's all over the news. And what do you think about, and Levin says it was part of your name, what do you think about the Ukrainian drone strike? We're talking about like 4,000 kilometers inside of Russia. Lieven (02:37.408) I'm sure someday someone will make a movie of this. It's amazing. You have to just think about it. Those special forces operators entering those trucks, they smuggled those drones 4,000 kilometers behind enemy lines. They gathered them. They created some kind of a house with an open roof. They put on the truck and they parked the car next to some enemy airplane, what's it called, an airport. And then they... launched all those drones which cost about 300 euros a piece and they damaged for 7 billion euros on Russian planes. That's amazing. Chad (03:17.077) That is amazing. So what do you think, what do you think, Emmy? Emi B (03:20.374) think it's wild. mean, I'm not even sure what world we're in right now. It's very confusing. Like you said, it's a movie. It's gonna be a movie. It's like some dystopian universe. Weird, weird, scary. Chad (03:25.717) Mm-hmm. Chad (03:33.503) like to think of the Ukraine war as a startup versus like a big old slow moving company. So Ukraine is out innovating Russia and they're using cheap drones, as Liebman had said, to take out a third of Russia's bombing capabilities by suicide drone, droning those, I guess you call it suicide droning Russian bombers while they're sitting on the tarmac. That's like an old AI company, like let's say IBM. who was bested by a young startup, OpenAI. So, mean, tech just isn't changing business. It's obviously also changing the battlefield. It's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing. We're seeing it everywhere. the thing that I think, there are two big areas, especially in the US, and now we're definitely seeing it in Ukraine, where innovation, Emi B (04:18.944) Yeah. Chad (04:28.777) has happened. That's been on the battlefield over the years where development of major technologies have happened and space and being able to see those things happen, especially to a much smaller country, one that was the underdog, is pretty amazing, especially being here in Europe, obviously. Not really close, but still here in Europe. Emi B (04:37.141) Hmm. Emi B (04:48.442) Yeah. 100 % totally agree with you there. Lieven (04:53.66) If this was a buyer-sale, I'd definitely be buying Ukraine. Chad (04:57.841) Amen. Their stock is definitely up. That's for sure. Okay, let's go ahead and let's Emi B (04:58.549) Yeah Chad (05:05.381) Yes it is. Go ahead, leave and all you man. Lieven (05:08.906) Shout out, okay, my shout out goes to Elon Musk and Stella Li. You've probably heard of Elon Musk, but do you know Stella Li? Okay, Stella Li apparently, I didn't know her either, but Stella Li is the number two of BYD, Chinese car manufacturer, and she's visiting Brussels right now. And it's not a coincidence, Elon Musk isn't as popular as he used to be, definitely not in Europe. And the Tesla sales has... Chad (05:13.647) who's Stella Lee? No, huh? Emi B (05:19.134) Nice. Emi B (05:33.706) Really? Lieven (05:38.762) Do call it plummeting? Is that the right word? I'm not so good in English. Plummeting, it's going down. Okay, it's going down very hard. yeah, it's like, indeed it's like the drones and the total EV market is skyrocketing. So this is kind of a contradiction, but if you look at what Tesla is doing, they're totally losing it in Europe. And I'm going to read you the numbers and Sweden. Chad (05:40.787) Yeah, plummeting, yes, taking a dive, much like those drones. Lieven (06:04.704) The car sales plunged 53 % and in Germany it was even more. I I read something about 70 % because Elon has really, he got involved into German politics and the people were, they didn't really like it. Then you have Portugal, Tesla's going down 68 % and in those markets Tesla, the EV, I'm sorry, EV sales rose by almost a quarter, 25%. Well, that's a very big. Chad (06:27.935) Yeah. Yeah. Lieven (06:31.808) Difference also down 30 % in Denmark, 36 % in the Netherlands, 90 % in Spain. Spain is a bit slow, it's coming. And in France, 67%. So basically Tesla is totally dead in Europe and BYD is the new king. Chad (06:48.533) Well, so I took a walk before we started recording and we see I see B Y D's here in Portugal all over the place or dealerships literally just saw a new seal, which is a really good looking car. But yeah, I mean, this is this is B Y D's opportunity. They are the number one EV automaker in the world now. Period. They've taken over Tesla and they're now kicking their ass out of Europe. I mean, to be quite frank, I mean, I think Lieven (07:01.984) Yeah. Chad (07:17.233) Elon obviously has done this to himself, as you had said. Yeah, I mean, he's getting involved in politics and trying to pay much like he did in the US. I mean, he gave a million dollars a day away to voters. I mean, this is this is just this is the most crazy amount of fraud and money in politics that I think we've ever seen. It's just it's gone off the rails. Emi B (07:19.734) 100 % Lieven (07:44.882) And he supported European politicians as well, the extreme rights politicians, which are like the descendants of the Nazis in Germany. I mean, you don't do something like that in Germany and get away with it. Emi B (07:56.852) And now he's crying online about, at my company, look how I've been targeted. Is that, honey, you did this to yourself. Lord. Of course, putting stickers over the logo. Chad (08:03.593) Yes. Yes. Lieven (08:03.956) Yeah, yeah, exactly. People are ashamed to drive a Tesla right now. And I think... Yeah, and it's... Chad (08:13.589) Well, and the resale value has dropped. They had great resale value before. They have shit for resale value now. And again, I mean, a lot of this has to do with the then narrative. Everybody bought into the Elon narrative, and now they're saying that's just a bunch of bullshit. So it's obviously backfiring on him. I know. I know. Elon for president. Emi B (08:32.576) Mm-hmm. Lieven (08:35.23) I used to love Elon. mean, if you go back two years in this podcast, was a very big fan of Elon Musk. thought, yeah, indeed, for president, I said it once and I'm so sorry for it. Yeah, but it was two years ago and I thought Elon Musk is brilliant and I think that I still think he must have some stroke of intelligence from time to time. But he totally lost it. But you have to admit he by himself changed the whole car industry. Chad (08:44.03) Yeah? Yeah? Emi B (08:44.81) Did you? my god. Chad (08:50.421) Hmm? Chad (08:56.149) Too much ketamine. Emi B (08:57.174) yes. Lieven (09:04.66) Without him, I would still have to drive my Audi to the garage to have a software update installed and I had to pay 1000 euros for it. Now it just stands on my drive, my whatever, on my parking space and it's updating by itself. So, Elon changed everything. Chad (09:11.987) Mm-hmm. Chad (09:17.481) Yep, upload via Wi-Fi or data connection or whatever it is. All right, Emmy, what kind of shout out do you have for us? Is it car related? Lieven (09:21.822) Yeah? Indeed, Emi B (09:28.264) No, and the thing is I feel really bad now because that was obviously a really intellectual shout out. And I'm like, my God, okay, how do I follow that? was like, my shout out is to bottomless brunches. So yeah, so for people who don't know, this is actually one of my favorite things. So this is not just breakfast and lunch. This is basically where you go out at midday and they give you a 90 minutes to two hours of alcohol with your food. And unfortunately, I'm just one of those people who I get a little bit excited. I'm like, what? Free alcohol for two hours? Chad (09:37.301) Bye! Chad (09:42.068) Lieven (09:57.088) You Chad (10:02.343) Mimosa's? Emi B (10:03.254) Yeah, mimosas, margaritas, I was mixing everything. Hence why, know, in my, actually I was gonna tell you my real age, I'm gonna lie because it's online, I'm gonna say in my 30s. I can't cope anymore. You know, that was on Sunday and I am still recovering today. But yeah, shout out to those alcoholic bottle and brunches and apologies for bringing the intellectual tone down. You're never gonna let me on the European show again. Chad (10:24.533) Chad (10:33.365) Stop it. You're on the Chad and Cheese podcast for God's sake. Emi B (10:33.974) Yeah, true, actually, yeah. What am I talking about? I'm on the right show. Lieven (10:37.024) that says something about mixing red wine with coke, right? Chad (10:41.973) No, stop it. Stop it. Yeah, we're gonna have Europeans or French up in arms all over. Yeah, French listeners. Emi B (10:43.026) No one knows what's in this mug. It's like, it's... Yeah. No, trust me. It is, it's like a sangria. It's like a red sangria. You have to try it. It sounds disgusting, but tastes awesome. Tastes awesome. Yeah. Lieven (10:49.236) Yeah. Lieven (10:59.636) this. Chad (11:00.691) Not doing it, not doing it. My Portuguese wine is wonderful without Coca-Cola, without Coca-Cola. My shout out is for European tip culture. And we talked about the no tax on tips legislation for the US. And now here's an explanation of why tips really aren't a thing in Europe. Take a listen. Lieven (11:05.408) By itself, by itself. Emi B (11:25.408) No. Chad (11:38.538) Beer. Lieven (11:54.88) All right, fair enough. Emi B (11:56.241) Love that. Chad (11:57.457) So shout out to Europe for hopefully continuing to pay their workers a living wage. And maybe one day, maybe one day, it's not going to be anytime soon, I can guarantee you, the US will actually follow along with said living wage. You guys have both been to the US. It's weird, right? Tell me it's not weird doing tips because it was funny. My daughter came over for an unleashed. She lives in Brighton. Emi B (12:02.288) Yeah. you Chad (12:26.357) She came over friendly, she had a bunch of her European friends with her and they said, okay, Kennedy, what's the tip amount? Should it be about 10 %? She's like, oh no, no, it's gotta be at least 18 to 20%. And they all looked at her and said, shut up. That is not true, yeah. Emi B (12:40.534) Yeah, I'm thinking that. No. And the thing is, it's like doing a maths exam. You know, you're like, okay, what is 18.5 %? I don't know what 18.5 % is. You know, I'm just like, is that enough? And then I look at their face and they're like, okay, that's not enough. Okay. Let's put down a little bit more. Literally, it's so confusing. So confusing. Yeah, we don't tip here. Yeah. Chad (12:54.741) I'm Lieven (13:02.974) Yeah, I really hope you're not going to import that in Europe. I know the UK also has some kind of a tipping culture, but yeah. Chad (13:02.997) I love it. Go ahead, leave it. Chad (13:12.145) in like London, like London, some of the bigger cities you start to see some of the tipping culture happen, but it's definitely not as pervasive as it is in the US. So if you go to literally just a local coffee shop, not even a Starbucks, but they'll have the little machine and you have to do your little tap on the little machine, it will ask you, and this is literally just doing a takeaway with coffee, what tip amount you want to ask, you want to add. And you have to click custom. and zero for no tip and feel like a total asshole. It is is guilting you into spending money because that motherfucking company won't pay their people. Emi B (13:43.87) Yeah. Lieven (13:44.607) Yeah. Emi B (13:50.742) But do see the side eye they give you though, when you go, no tip, and you're like, oh, I'm sorry. It's like, yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, don't put it on us, too like pay you. Chad (13:53.109) yeah. Chad (13:57.353) Yeah, tell your boss to pay you some more. Lieven (13:57.471) Yeah. Lieven (14:03.594) But I think those people still got paid decent, but now they feel I could get a tip also. And that's a problem. Chad (14:11.189) Yeah, I mean, it's something that's been literally ingrained into the entire society. And to be able to think that somebody has to live off their tips day to day is just ridiculous. I mean, it's something that people are like, well, if they want, they can go try another job. Well, in a lot of these smaller communities, that's not, they don't have those opportunities, right? So anyway, no tax on tips. Emi B (14:34.454) It's not possible. Yeah. Chad (14:40.905) We talked about it last week or two weeks ago on the show. It's literally a mirage. We should be following the Europeans. And that being said, guess what time it is, kids? Lieven (14:48.2) Mm-hmm. Lieven (14:54.272) Thank you. Chad (14:57.217) Here we go. Number one, let's talk about the unicorn. Okay, I gotta get this ready. Give me a second, give me a second, give me a second. This is awesome. So let's talk about unicorn builder.ai. Okay, let's talk about these guys. Ooh. Lieven (15:20.309) Ha Chad (15:22.133) Oh shit. So once hyped as the UK's AI golden child, builder.ai is now in a meltdown mode accused of listen to this faking revenues, laundering cash with India's Versailles and passing off human engineers as artificial intelligence investors furious CEO. Yeah, kinda. He's he kind of left, but he's still around. Emi B (15:25.562) lord. Chad (15:50.453) AI. what does that stand for? Well, apparently it stood for actually Indian developers. Levin, this feels vaguely familiar. Remember WeWork and the WeCrash? Tell me a little bit about what you think about builder.ai. Lieven (16:08.948) I must say, I love the business model. So you have some great idea and then you use the idea to get tons of money. And then you pay yourself a really large sum. So it was almost something about 500 million from, yeah, from, from Microsoft, I think, and some other huge companies. then you use the money mainly for yourself, I think, to get, give yourself a decent salary and you live the life. And then when it's... Chad (16:13.279) Yeah. Chad (16:18.345) large sums. Half a billion. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Emi B (16:27.603) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:32.275) Yeah. Yacht. Lieven (16:37.788) almost finished then you get some more money because you still have a great idea and the third time probably you will file bankruptcy and then the business model is over and you start all over again with a new great idea I think I should try it I mean this is the perfect time for this business model Chad (16:42.197) Mm-hmm. Emi B (16:51.504) promoting that. Chad (16:55.583) That is deep sarcasm, kids. It's deep, deep sarcasm. What do you think, Emmy? Emi B (16:57.808) gosh. The thing that, like what I don't get, because they had lots of people investing into this organization. Yeah, that huge. was like, so we said Microsoft, I think there was SoftBank, QIA. So these are big organizations, giants, you know, but they actually were so gullible. You're like, how are these organizations so gullible? There's like, did you not do your due diligence? You know, you just taking everything on face value. Yeah, we did this. So it's like, okay, yeah, cool. Let me just send over money. That is ridiculous in this day and age. Chad (17:07.232) yeah. Chad (17:29.247) Mm-hmm. Emi B (17:31.638) And I think this has got to be a massive wake-up call for them. You cannot be like this. With all these new startups coming up in the world, they should take a step back and go, OK, where did I fuck up? In a lot of places. And they're probably, all those other investments into these organizations, I feel like they're going to be sweating it now. They're going to think, OK, what else? Is this just the tip of the iceberg? It's going to be a wake-up call for the industry, not to rest on the laurels. Yeah. Chad (17:45.833) Yes. Chad (17:58.463) Yeah, yeah. So builder.ai, I mean, was a huge hype machine, which became, you know, obviously one of the UK darlings. And why not with a 1.4 billion valuation backed by, as you'd said, Microsoft? Here's one that scares the shit out of me. Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. Do you want those guys coming after you? I don't think so. And enough VC Kool-Aid to fill the tames. The pitch, AI powered. Emi B (18:04.181) Hmm. Emi B (18:12.689) Mm-hmm. Emi B (18:17.226) Yeah. Chad (18:27.313) app developments at the push of a button. The reality, hundreds of underpaid engineers in India writing code manually while sales reps used chat GPT to fake AI demos. That's not innovation. That's bullshit wrapped in a venture capital hoodie. It gets worse though. Builder.ai engaged in a shady as fuck revenue stream with the Indian media firm. Versailles who's owned by a daily hunt where both companies swapped almost identical payments millions of dollars for services that conveniently inflated their books revenue went from a chest thumping 220 million down to the reality of 55 million after someone popped the hood and realized this AI Ferrari ain't got no engine And while the CEO stepped down, he's still clinging to the board seat and now wants to buy the company back again. Very, very we workish, right? Like setting your house on fire and asking for the insurance company to, you know, go ahead and give the, the, the money to us plus the deed. A company blatantly lied about its tech, juiced its financials, fooled investors and screwed over customers and somehow Emi B (19:31.53) Wow. Chad (19:53.947) Nobody is in cuffs. I mean what the actual fuck I mean seriously if some Joe off the street or Jane off the street Perpetuated this kind of fraud and that's what this is. This is fraud They'd already be sporting an orange jumpsuit. So Any any predictions out there? Do do we see people in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits in this case because we did with Theranos Emi B (20:19.23) Yeah, and I think they will, you know, that that's I think that that's why these people are to be shitting themselves right now because they're not going to get away with this. It's too public, you know, people there's too many big firms involved in this to let this lie. So absolutely. I think that, yeah, people are going to jail for this and it'll be good. It's a good wake up call for the industry. Chad (20:27.477) Mm-hmm. Chad (20:41.631) What do you think, Levin? I know you want to try this scheme, but this is a... Lieven (20:41.898) think so too. Emi B (20:47.254) Okay. Lieven (20:50.496) I still believe that the momentum is right. It's a perfect moment. If you say AI, people jump. But now you have to say agents. AI was last year. But I think they promised something like building apps like ordering pizza, which sounds like great marketing. But if it's not true, then it's just a lie. And then it's fraud. So you can't claim all these things that will be possible if you can't. And they probably never even believed that they were possible to do it. Chad (20:55.647) Mm. Lieven (21:18.016) It's not because you have a slick AI pitch that you have a strong foundation. It wasn't anything more than that, I think. So people going to jail for that amount of money, probably, think Microsoft will want its money back and it's gone. Chad (21:21.927) Mm-hmm. Chad (21:33.365) It's interesting because WeWork, SoftBank, didn't go after WeWork, right? And I almost think it was because it could have been like a black mark on SoftBank as an investor. Although, if you don't keep these startup founders accountable, what's to stop this from happening, right? I mean, if there are no guardrails, and in this case, yet, because they're not in an orange jumpsuit, there are no guardrails. So I really believe, and this I think goes for the investor community as well as practitioners, because practitioners, HR practitioners, are also investing in products, right? And this is customer service. We talked about Klarna and how they fired 700 people only on the download to offshore those jobs, right? So we've seen a bunch of kind of like sleight of hand and fraud. I think it's going to be incredibly important that practitioners look at, first and foremost, the solution or the problem that they have. And I always say this and Julie laughs at me, but you have to fall in love with the problem to be able to figure out what the solution actually could prospectively be. And if that is 700 engineers in India, just as long as you're being told the truth, it doesn't matter. Right, it's all about the outcomes at the end of the day. So I think we do focus much like, which like Levin said, you slap AI on something agents and orchestration on something. ought people automatically go crazy fanfare. These guys got half a billion dollars. What's that? It is. Lieven (23:13.066) Fear of missing out? Totally. It's fear of missing out. FOMO, you don't want to miss the big next new thing, so you just invest. Chad (23:19.743) Mm-hmm. That's exactly right, that's exactly right. And listener, don't get the FOMO because we got more to come and we'll be right back. Chad (23:32.987) All right, from a dead unicorn to guess what? Chad (23:41.455) yeah. Chad (23:47.509) So this one. Chad (23:51.935) That thing's long, slow down. Joel loves that. You can tell Joel loves that because it's so long. So this one is from Silicon Canals. In a significant development for Europe's AI landscape, Berlin-based startup, Poloa, has emerged as the continent's latest AI unicorn. The company secured 106 Lieven (23:57.511) us. He really does. Chad (24:18.933) million euros, that's 120 million USD, in Series C, the funding realm, elevating its valuation to $1 billion. Parloa specializes in, wait for it, agentic AI, offering an AI agent management platform that enables businesses to develop and deploy AI agents capable of natural and personalized customer interactions. Lieven (24:32.328) Yeah. Chad (24:45.981) The recent funding led by Durable Capital Partners, Altimeter Capital, and General Catalyst will support the company's expansion across North America and Europe, as well as investments in new capabilities and talent acquisition. That means hiring kids. That means hiring kids. Levin, your next door neighbor just minted a new unicorn. Any thoughts? Lieven (25:09.396) This one is something I would invest in myself really, because it's all about conversational AI with voices. And this is going to replace, it's happening right now and it's terrible in fact. This is going to replace thousands of people's jobs, people who are in customer care, customer service, people who are first line help desks. All these things are going to be replaced by this kind of conversational AI tools. And I've tested some tools like this and it's already amazing. Like you can... Emi B (25:27.712) Yeah. Lieven (25:38.492) use the advanced voice mode from Chet CPT, where you can just have a perfectly normal conversation. If you use this, and they actually do it in a customer care environment, you can save millions and millions on people's salaries. It will work 24-7. It won't make any mistakes. It will stay polite even the client is roots as hell. And it knows everything. This is something every company will need. And this is... Chad (26:00.361) Mm-hmm. Lieven (26:07.496) something which is going to destroy lots of jobs. And this is not a good evolution, if you ask me, but it's going to happen and you can't stop it. So why not invest in it? Chad (26:15.295) Yeah. Why not make some money off of it? All I got to say is. Lieven (26:23.283) Yeah. Chad (26:23.381) What do think, Emmy? Emi B (26:25.014) I mean, it is sad. You are going to lose jobs, you know? And I think more and more organizations are going to go down this route. I think in the past where people will worry about this type of AI replacing customer service roles, there may have been some skepticism about it. I can't really say that word properly. You know, because I said it hasn't got the human touch. When things go wrong, they're going to have to escalate it to a human anyway. Chad (26:41.524) Mm-hmm. Emi B (26:51.988) This is actually proving something different. This is actually showing that you can actually replace people in customer service roles. So yes, I agree that roles are going to be lost, which is unfortunate side of things. Does it mean that those people in those roles will have to pivot to something else? Yeah, because that is the way of the world. Roles do not stay the same. Roles evolve as technology evolves. However, from Palo's point of view, I think that whilst everything's looking rosy at the moment, Chad (27:14.229) Mm-hmm. Emi B (27:20.916) they are going to still have to prove themselves. They're going to have to prove themselves in terms of customer retention numbers. They're going to have to prove themselves in terms of churn rates. So if they can get those NPS scores up, if they can continue to prove that, what we're doing is the future, other people, you know, we are better, we are more advanced, we are saving money, we are doing X, Y, Z to progress our organization, other people are going to follow, but they're going to be the leaders of the pack. Chad (27:32.981) Mm-hmm. Chad (27:49.823) All I gotta say is... Chad (27:57.173) Yeah, I mean, Parlo is leveraging the big words of 2025 agentic and orchestration by providing customer service voice automation products. Lee even talked about it. This is revolutionary stuff. It's great stuff. So why is this important for the HR space? Well, simply many TA and HR departments are looking for validation to start adopting such products for their needs. And these voice AI systems can help. Emi B (27:57.897) You Chad (28:27.037) with candidate engagement and scaling your hiring without shoving candidates into a black hole. So the beautiful part about their products is that number one, they have an automation with AI agents, so that's full robot. And number two, assist with human agents with the AI, right? So you've got kind of like that little buffer zone of having a human there. So instead of going full Klarna, and leave an Emmy, you never want to go full Klarna. Parloa understands how you market this type of product, number one. Not to mention offer the full meal deal or human equipped robot, right? One scales better and is less expensive and the other gives an option for the human touch. But let's face it, the human touch factor is just having human customer service reps train the AI. Emi B (28:55.978) Nope. Chad (29:23.765) So this is boiling the frog or more of like a Trojan horse method of slowing or yeah, slowing training of the AI, right? And then starting to slowly seep it into our culture and making it an everyday occurrence. That's what sells. In our space, a company I've advised for years, TalkPush, now out of Ireland, are already offering the ability for its clients to use voice for interview scheduling. Emi B (29:41.867) Yeah. Chad (29:53.045) hiring status updates, reminders, document requests, et cetera, et cetera. mean, things for like background checks, extending offers, all via voice. So this is happening in our space. The worst part about the hiring process for candidates is being told you didn't get the job. That's not really the bad, the worst part, it's the wait, it's the black hole and never getting any type of interaction, right? So that's a pretty easy budget. for a company to spend to be able to say, look, we need to be able to raise our NPS scores. We need to be able to actually engage candidates. We can't do that today because we don't have an amount of humans, because humans don't scale well, right? But this does. So what I see is a company like Perloa starting to humanize full robot products without going full Klarna right out of the gate. Emi B (30:38.507) Mm. Lieven (30:50.272) Hmm. Chad (30:50.773) Klarna was looking for an IPO, they were looking for some flash in the pan, there was all sizzle, no steak. These guys look like they're actually taking the time to do it the right way. But at the end of the day, much like Leven had said, this is gonna happen, kids. This is gonna happen. Emi B (31:08.522) the way of the world. Lieven (31:09.416) And in fact, it's going to be an improvement. If you don't mind the jobs being lost and like you said, Amy, they're just going to pivot to something else. It's happening all the time. But, do you remember yesterday when you had to call, some kind of a company? If you want to file a complaint, press one, if you want to press two, et cetera, this is making people angry. And now you're actually going to have a system. Which can do something service agents. Emi B (31:17.14) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad (31:17.322) Mm-hmm. Chad (31:32.693) Mm-hmm. Lieven (31:38.578) It's like actually listening and offering solutions. And I tested something like this and it's really amazing. Emi B (31:44.576) Really? Yeah. Chad (31:44.873) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if you haven't take a look at Talk Push again, they're out of Ireland. So they're here in in Europe. And again, I'm biased because I've been an advisor for about three years. But the voice opportunity as well as just the regular text chat bot is is amazing is amazing. So Talk Push dot com. Yes. Push it real good. A little salt and pepper for you. Lieven (31:51.338) Fuck push. Lieven (31:55.84) Mm-hmm. Lieven (32:04.052) I'm going to, I'm going to look into it. Stock push. Okay. Perfect. Emi B (32:10.71) Chad (32:14.293) All right, we're go ahead and move on to Recruit Roo and they have an expansion. This is one from the AIM group. So hold on to your CVs. Europe Recruit Roo, the HR tech startup from Dublin. Wait a minute, Recruit Roo, like Kangaroo? Isn't that Australian? Why aren't they in Australia? Recruit Roo apparently is hopping across the border faster than a caffeinated kangaroo. Emi B (32:15.978) I need to start singing in public. Emi B (32:31.99) Mm. Chad (32:43.827) With operations already in Ireland and the UK, the company is now expanding into France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, and Poland. Their mission to revolutionize the recruitment process with their tech-driven solutions, making hiring as seamless as possible across the continent. Levin, you have some pretty amazing experience revolving around expansion in Europe, and House of HR has expanded. in a very successful way in many countries. So how do you feel about recruit roos go to market expansion? Lieven (33:21.024) In this case, think it's about international recruitment. And definitely within Europe, the complexity and compliance slows everything down. Like you always say in the show, Europe has a bunch of countries in it. It's a fact. You have not one legislation, have how many countries are there. keep forgetting, far too many. Europe has a bunch of countries in it and they all have different legislations. Chad (33:24.746) Mm-hmm. Lieven (33:49.312) If they can offer a solution to smooth things down, to slow it down, to make it easier, it will probably work. The only thing I think is we already had several companies like this in the show. We had some people talking at the Congress, the Eurogroup in Congress last year, doing something similar. I think this is already a red ocean. Plenty of competitors and you have to offer something which is totally new. Chad (34:07.541) Mm-hmm. Lieven (34:18.538) But I'm going to look into a recruit rule deeper to figure out what exactly they are doing different than the others. I should have done it for this show, but I didn't have the time. But we'll get back to this later. Chad (34:34.431) Where you're gonna want to I mean I'm gonna go ahead and jump in recruit roost seems to have moved from staffing to tech to EOR Okay, so maybe not moved but incorporated tech and EOR into their staffing making them look less like a traditional staffing firm and more tech forward So France Spain Germany Denmark and Poland Is it me or is that five new countries with five majorly different languages? Emi B (34:35.153) Hey Chad (35:03.113) by an Irish English speaking country. So plus the immigration laws as you talked about, leaving compliance around immigration for all those countries differ. To me, this seems incredibly aggressive. Incredibly aggressive. What do you think, Emmy? Emi B (35:21.706) Yeah, I agree. The expansion plan is aggressive for a company that's only been around for a couple of years. know, so it's bold. So let's see how well they do. But if they do well, if they have the in France, in Germany, in Denmark, in Poland, then the rest of Europe is going to be so much easier for them. So I'm interested to see where they're going to go. Chad (35:42.879) Do you think it's kind of like a litmus test they're going into? Because these are all, these are five different countries, five different cultures, entirely, right, five different languages. Do you feel like this might be a litmus test to see where they actually stick? Emi B (35:48.085) Yeah. Emi B (35:59.24) I would agree to some point, but these are the countries that they do have to go to first. So they have to be bold. They have to be ambitious. They have to be aggressive about their plans if they want to conquer the rest of Europe. So I'm interested. But the other thing I was going to mention, because, Leven, you said there's other, which I didn't know, you said there's other people doing this already. And you were wondering, what's the differentiating factor? Chad (36:03.775) Okay. Chad (36:08.213) Mm-hmm. Lieven (36:24.384) Mm-hmm. Emi B (36:25.126) What I liked about this organization, so yeah, they handled all that kind of their visa side, but it's into offer once that once all that kind of paperwork is and that's how the thing is done, then they move into that relocation support. And I don't know many companies that kind of do both, you know that housing, the travel itineraries, anything to like, it's almost like a like a relocations concierge within a platform. That could, yeah, that could be what actually sets them apart. Chad (36:49.673) It's an EOR, yeah. Emi B (36:53.922) And when they're moving into these other territories, this is why people go, OK, this is why you're different, recruit route to other organizations, and this may propel them in the expansion plan. Lieven (36:54.802) Absolutely. Chad (36:56.853) Mm. Lieven (37:07.2) And there is a market for it because, for example, in Belgium, it's not allowed if you are in a secondment company like we have some. It's not allowed to supply the logistics part like housing. We even call it bedding. We're not allowed. In the Netherlands, it's allowed. In the Netherlands, even you are obliged if you, to use a strange word, import people from Poland or Romania to work in the Netherlands. You have to provide housing. You have to make sure. Emi B (37:14.698) Yeah. Emi B (37:22.879) Yeah. Emi B (37:32.596) Yeah. Chad (37:32.757) Mm. Emi B (37:35.242) accommodation for them. Yeah. Lieven (37:36.096) They're embedded in a community and you can't just buy a whole street with all houses for Polish people. No, they have to be part of communities. You have to spread them all around town. Actually, it's like that. have one of our companies called VEBO has 800, we call it beds to house those people. So it's perfectly fine. And in Belgium, it's not allowed. And I don't actually know why. Sometimes some politician thought it was good to... Emi B (37:46.41) Okay, yeah. Lieven (38:04.212) keep those things apart, housing and maybe to make sure people don't put them in very bad houses to save money. I'm going to check this out. I want to know it now. So if they can help us with that, we will be welcoming them. think we are constantly struggling with our people. want to give a job and they can't find houses. So could be, you know. Emi B (38:10.186) Maybe, yeah. Chad (38:16.745) Mm-hmm. Emi B (38:18.932) Exactly. Emi B (38:26.73) This company is going to help you. Chad (38:28.063) Yeah, I think what we've seen with Deal, Rippling and the other EOR organizations, and that was one of the things that we said with Deal and Rippling and Atlas and some of the bigger EOR companies, is that they're going to do the employee records stuff and then they're going to move toward hiring, right? So they're down funnel already, which is where a lot of the money is. But then to be able to actually be the entire supply chain, that's the key, right? These guys, what they've done is they started on the staffing side. Emi B (38:43.094) Mm-hmm. Chad (38:57.205) and they're moving toward EOR. Exactly. So they're literally just going backwards where Rippling and Deal, they focused on down funnel stuff to be able to get a lot of the logistics and a lot of the, one of the reasons why they could get so much money is because the HCM and the EOR side, that's more expensive and you're gonna get a lot more money down funnel than you are up funnel on a town acquisition. But from a strategic standpoint, to be able to own the entire Emi B (38:57.93) And then that's the idea. Emi B (39:16.725) Mmm. Chad (39:27.093) process and cycle, that is key. If you can own the entire process and cycle, that is amazing, right? So yeah, I personally think that this is incredibly smart, but again, these are literally, it kind of feels almost like a Trojan horse because they started off as a staffing company, started using technology, which is awesome, right, for efficiencies and whatnot, and then they started moving into EOR, which is what we're seeing here. Emi B (39:30.25) Game changer, yeah. Yeah. Emi B (39:48.907) Mm-hmm. Chad (39:56.687) Excellent. Well, we've got one more segment, kids. Americans are leaving and they love Europe for some reason. I don't know what that's all about. We'll be right back. Chad (40:12.661) All right, so in a twist of irony, some Americans, kind of like me, are now seeking the very freedoms abroad that the US once symbolized as the political landscape shifts, the question arises, is the US the American dream now found on European shores? A growing number of Americans are eyeing Europe, not for vacation, but for a permanent escape. Driven by concerns over political polarization, threats to personal rights, and social issues, individuals like Doris Davis and Susie Bartlett are considering countries like Portugal, imagine that, and Spain as their new home. Relocation firms report a spike in inquiries and applications for Irish, French, and UK passports that have surged. While Europe isn't without its own challenges, we all know that. Emi B (40:56.115) Chad (41:10.921) For many, it represents a haven of relative stable and safe places to live. Emmy, do we really want all those crazy Americans in Europe? Emi B (41:25.44) Well, you go to other parts of Europe, not London where I am. No, I'm only joking. You know I love the Americans. What I would say though, and I get it, I have family in America. I work with a lot of Americans in my organization and I feel for you, like I feel the heaviness of what it must be like to live in a country where Trump is in charge. Chad (41:27.817) Hahaha Lieven (41:29.704) And shut, it will only be. Chad (41:47.925) Mm. Emi B (41:51.37) where the country, which like you said, was the American dream. It was my American dream. I always wanted to live in Dubai, you know. Now I'm like, I might come on holiday, might. I definitely don't want to relocate there. So they look at Europe and go, my God, look, it looks so sophisticated and it's safe. But you have to, people have to be a little bit more realistic now because they need to take off the rose tinted glasses. So whilst, for example, it may not be as tough and as polarizing as the U.S. right now. Is it safe in all parts of Europe? No, we don't have gun culture in Europe, but we have knife culture. You have the US taking away, like, know, reproductive rights and coming down on marginalized group. Well, look at London, look at the other parts of the world. How many far right organizations, so political organizations, are now coming into power? So many. So Chad (42:44.629) Mm-hmm. Emi B (42:46.898) It's not the safe haven, the rosy tint glass world that people believed it was in the past. So that's my only cautionary tale. Chad (42:58.665) Hmm. Lieven (42:59.764) But it's... Emi B (43:00.342) You Chad (43:02.25) leaving. Lieven (43:03.06) But it's definitely better than America right now. Even though it's not a... So I think Americans are welcome, that's for sure. But it will also be a very natural selection. The Americans who are disgusted with everything that's happening and are coming to Europe are the kind of Americans we are welcoming even more. So in French, they have a saying, Emi B (43:05.802) yeah, yeah, definitely better. Lieven (43:32.35) disgusted people are leaving, only the disgusting people will be left something like that. And this is what's happening, I think. People who are actually considering, I don't think most Americans will be leaving, of course not, but the people who are even considering it, that it could be a way out, are the people we would definitely welcome. And that's what's happening now with those university people from Harvard. The French, Macron offered them all a position at the Sorbonne, the French university. Chad (43:36.981) Nah. Chad (43:40.693) That's a good one. Emi B (44:02.111) really? Yeah. Lieven (44:02.506) which is, probably as good as Harvard is. The same in Belgium, the best universities in Belgium offer to generously guest professor, guest lecturer spots to those people who wanted to be here. So... Chad (44:03.421) yeah. Emi B (44:05.588) Yeah. Chad (44:05.845) Smart. Emi B (44:13.055) Yeah. So other people are going to profit and benefit from Trump's mistakes. Yeah, that's the word, that's the term. Lieven (44:21.278) Yeah, and if Bruce Springsteen is not allowed to enter the US anymore after his tour, he can stay. mean, his daughter is horse riding in Barailiff in our streets. Emi B (44:33.078) Hahaha Chad (44:34.549) I mean, it's pretty simple. People want stability, not chaos. And for the first few months of this administration, US applications for Irish passports were up 60 % from last year, according to the data from Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs. So personally, as one of, quote unquote, those people. And after serving 20 years in the US military, it's fucking hard. I mean, no president has ever been perfect. Lieven (44:39.861) Yeah. Emi B (45:04.192) Yeah. Chad (45:04.603) ever, right? But I have never, I have never felt like one was trying to dismantle the country. And this is one that I believe and I've actually fought for. So, you know, just a quick example, we have multiple couples flying over to spend time with us in Portugal during our, you know, our five months, our five month stint that we're here before we actually jet back to the US for some events. Lieven (45:05.181) notes. Chad (45:33.341) And as I've said in the intro to this topic, the American dream isn't gone. No, it's not. It's alive and well in Europe. Emi B (45:43.839) Mm. Lieven (45:44.916) but you will be having some rebuilding to do in three years when he left. Chad (45:48.821) Yeah, no, there's going to be a lot of rebuilding. And I think, you know, the brain drain is one thing. And that's going to be a long that's going to be a long process because there are a lot of individuals who were actually thinking much like Emmy was thinking, you know, hey, that the American dream, I want to go there. I want to be able to live there. I want to be able to experience that. And now that is all shattered. And it really doesn't, you know, in the eyes of people that are not American, it's shattered. because I'm not welcome anymore. And when you don't, and you're not welcome, you don't feel like you belong. You're sure the hell not going to go there. Emi B (46:25.472) You're not gonna come running back. Even if Trump hopefully is out of power within three and a bit years, America still needs to build the trust with the rest of the world. They're still gonna go, okay, Trump may be out, but other people are there maybe still thinking the same way. Yeah, it's gonna take a while. It's definitely gonna take a while. Chad (46:29.299) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad (46:40.373) That's the hardest part. That's the hardest part. Yeah. So I know Joel's not here. Um, but, uh, I do have a joke. You have a joke. know Joel is a more experienced at the, at the bad dad jokes than I am, but I'm going to, I'm going to try. So did you hear that someone got 25 years in prison for saying Putin was an idiot? Yeah. Yeah. Five years for insulting Putin and 20 years. Emi B (46:54.988) dear, dear. the Chad (47:13.087) for revealing state secrets. Lieven (47:15.508) Right. Chad (47:18.229) DAAAHAHAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHA Emi B (47:19.756) God. I'm like, hold on a second. Did I get that? no. Yeah. I'm like, wait, hold on a second. Yeah. Am I intelligent enough to get this? It's like, Chad (47:23.859) I know, it's a little bit more cerebral than one of Joel's, Listener, thanks for joining and have a wonderful day. Emmy, leaving again. Thanks for coming back, doing the little Europe with me. We out. Emi B (47:38.774) Yeah We out! Lieven (47:42.78) We out.

HR is broken—and no, it’s not just your jaded coworkers whispering that by the watercooler. Jordan Birnbaum, former nightclub impresario turned I/O psychologist (yes, seriously), joins The Chad & Cheese Podcast to make the bold claim that HR can’t work... because it was never built to. 💥 📉 HR needs to be blown up and restructured like Blockbuster in a Netflix world. 🪑 “Seat at the table”? Bring your folding chair. 🧠 Compliance should be in Legal, comp in Finance, and HR? Maybe just focus on helping people instead of terrifying them. It’s guidance counselor vs. Dean of Discipline, with a dash of behavioral economics and a splash of snark. Oh, and AI might burn the whole thing down anyway. So grab a vodka tonic, cancel your next HR all-hands, and listen up. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:32.431) This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Cheesman joined as always, Chad. So washes in the shotgun position as we welcome Jordan Birbaum, co founder at the Glenda group, Jordan, welcome to HR is most dangerous podcast. Chad (00:38.254) Hello. Jordan Birnbaum (00:49.314) Thank you, I am so delighted to be here. However, I was told that there would be no snark, so I have to kind of readjust my expectations for the next few minutes. Chad (00:57.134) You haven't been paying attention. Joel Cheesman (00:57.399) I'm sorry, do you know what show this is? Jordan Birnbaum (01:02.286) I have been a long time listener. I am a big fan of you both collectively and individually. And each of you I find has something really powerfully unique. I love that Chad is constantly looking at how things are about to change. He embraces change like no one I've met. And Joel, your tidbits on LinkedIn are amongst the most usable content that I have. So. Let me just kick things off by totally ingratiating myself to both of you so that you'll be inclined to be kind to me from here on out. Joel Cheesman (01:34.735) Totally buttering us up, Chad. I'm not falling for the banana in the tailpipe on this one. Chad (01:37.072) Smart. Yeah, you can tell he's an IO-psych. He knows. He knows how to bring people in. He knows. Joel Cheesman (01:44.419) All right, Jordan, a of our listeners won't know you. Give us the elevator pitch. Jordan Birnbaum (01:49.908) Well, I would say that they should know me like 700 episodes ago, but that's a different discussion. I am an IO psychologist with a really varied background. I've been a market maker of Japanese equity warrants. helped take an internet company public. owned a nightclub in Los Angeles for 10 years. And then I became an IO psychologist and designed a product called Compass for ADP that won HR tech product of the year. Joel Cheesman (01:55.791) You Jordan Birnbaum (02:15.372) And since then, I have been doing a lot of consulting around the intersection of behavioral economics, behavioral science, and industrial and organizational psychology, which is for me a wonderful landing place and I'm having a great time. Chad (02:31.61) What kind of club? That's the question. Jordan Birnbaum (02:34.314) It was called the Vanguard. It was on Hollywood Boulevard between Gower and Bronson. We were primarily known for electronic dance music. It was really large. We held 2,000 people. And we had a great sound system, something called the Function One. And so all the best DJs wanted to play our plays because of the sound system. So every weekend we would bring in the big international DJs. If you're familiar with EDM, it's all the biggest names, Tiesto, Chad (02:50.061) huh. Jordan Birnbaum (03:03.95) You know, one of the fun things, one of the big like fun tidbits I like to share is the first time that we booked David Guetta, it was for 8,000. The last time we booked him, it was for 80,000. So just to give you sense of like what has happened in that career. So I had a wonderful time with the Vanguard, the stories we could do an entire episode on just both the experiences of being a club owner in Hollywood and also like Joel Cheesman (03:04.365) Chad's a huge fan of the EDM, can't you tell? Chad (03:13.744) huh. Cool. Jordan Birnbaum (03:33.378) the psychological experiences of owning a tooth, you know, seeing 2000 drunk people every night gives you some insights into the human. Joel Cheesman (03:40.591) All right, biggest star that came in and you hung out with. Ooh, Prince, that is really big. Jordan Birnbaum (03:43.907) Prince. Chad (03:45.616) Ooh, that's big. Jordan Birnbaum (03:47.544) But it's a long list though. It's, and there, know, and Prisms are regular. yeah, so. Sunday night, Steve. Chad (03:49.988) That's big. No shit. See, this is why you didn't get invited on earlier, Jordan, because we weren't invited to see Prince. So I don't wanna hear any shit from you. Joel Cheesman (04:01.913) Yeah, he buried the lead on that one. He buried the lead on that one. Jordan Birnbaum (04:06.144) In my defense, I didn't know you yet. Chad (04:08.656) It's not my fault. Joel Cheesman (04:08.909) Now is Prince in your background? People that are listening can't get this, but you have a wall of memorabilia from Einstein to John Lennon. I'm guessing there's a Prince figurine. Okay. Yeah. His purple, purple badness. Jordan Birnbaum (04:13.722) yeah. Chad (04:20.196) Got it. there he is. Yep. Jordan Birnbaum (04:25.55) He's Mozart. His genius is unmeasurable. Joel Cheesman (04:31.96) Yeah. Chad (04:32.9) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:35.481) Did he make you pancakes or play basketball with you? that okay? Jordan Birnbaum (04:38.734) Neither. He did pitch me on letting him take over the club whenever he felt like it. And so he wanted me to just clear my calendar. just whenever he got a whim, he would create like some kind of huge event. And I wanted to, but I was like, I got, you know, I got 150 people to pay, man. I'm like, can't just chance it on you. so that opportunity evaporated. Chad (04:48.346) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (04:57.657) Yeah. Chad (04:57.68) I got stuff to do. Chad (05:02.042) It would have been yes if Charlie Murphy would have been pulling it together. It would have been yes. Joel Cheesman (05:02.223) So now you're... Jordan Birnbaum (05:06.668) Yeah, put a little bit of it there. Joel Cheesman (05:07.097) So now you're ahead of the much less sexier Glinda group. Give us, what's behind that name? What's the story? Jordan Birnbaum (05:14.838) So, you know, I mentioned this tool that I created at ADP called Compass. The way that it worked was we used email-based coaching that I wrote that was very heavily behavioral science-based. And we got people really bought in and they ended up having some pretty impressive score improvements. And what I would tell everybody is I don't know anything about leadership that we don't all know. What this was, was what happens when you apply behavioral science. Chad (05:44.272) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (05:44.716) Anyway, when I was forming the Glinda group, I partnered with a former colleague of mine from ADP who was with me while that was happening. And she said something to the effect of, know, I've seen you use behavioral science to affect lots of people. But the thing is, is that you did it for good. You're like a wizard, but for good. I was like, yeah, I'm like Glinda. And we just sort of chuckled and then looked at each other was like, wait a minute. And sure enough. And then... We probably in the back of our minds knew but the wicked movie was coming out like, you know, basically 30 days after we announced so We figured that was a good good omen Joel Cheesman (06:22.999) And Glenda the good group is too long. So Glenda group. Yeah. Jordan Birnbaum (06:25.772) Wait, yeah. Chad (06:26.768) I actually like Glenda, the good girl. Well, we're here today, Jordan, because you actually penned an article called, Why HR Doesn't Can't Work. And we kind of feel that day to day, but you've kind of like broken it down into different archetypes and things like that. So go ahead. What did you do? How did you come to this in the first place? Because obviously we've seen where HR doesn't can't work, but you broke it down in a very technical way. So talk a little bit about that. You saw a problem, you just wanted to attack it this way. How did you go about it? Jordan Birnbaum (07:07.374) You know, I don't know that I could even answer how it came to me. would say that one of my, I think that one of my gifts is that like I sometimes will just notice stuff and point it out and it's pretty obvious that it was there. It's just hadn't been seen yet. And so I feel like that's what happened here. But I just, while I went back to school, one of the good things about going back to school after you've been in the workplace for a long time is that, Chad (07:14.809) and a dream. Chad (07:25.136) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (07:35.342) it's something it's an entirely different experience. And now you get these theories and you get, you know, I have two decades of experience now to compare to these theories. And I think that probably in some of that thinking is where this realization came up where it's like, even if you think about like, what's the purpose of performance management? Like, is it to hold people accountable? Or is it to drive their performance? Because those would take two very different approaches if you had clarity on what it was all about. And so that to me is a little bit representative of the whole problem with HR, which is that the people who are responsible for like making us afraid and keeping us in line are also the same people who are responsible for motivating and engaging us and making us loyal to the company. how does that work? And what I realized was that it was very reminiscent of the archetype of high school. Joel Cheesman (08:20.556) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (08:27.95) If you thought about like the Dean of Students who was there to make sure that we were all scared of consequences if we misbehave. And then you had the guidance counselor who was there to be like this really safe and nurturing figure to help us discover ourselves. And what I realized was that somehow in HR, they thought it would be a good idea to take the guidance counselor and the Dean of Students and combine it into one role. And that's a really bad decision. Chad (08:32.154) Mm-hmm. Chad (08:36.058) paddle. Jordan Birnbaum (08:58.338) because the two worlds undermine each other and that is what leaves HR unable to fully execute on either. Chad (09:06.554) So if it's so flawed, which we've seen different aspects, no question that it is flawed, what do we do about it? Do we have to implode the current system framework and rebuild? Joel Cheesman (09:19.555) load up. Jordan Birnbaum (09:23.318) I think we do, you know, and I tell sort of like a fanciful imagining of how HR first came to be. And if you sort of take a step back, what I think it is, is that HR is all the stuff that senior leaders didn't want to deal with. And usually the type of people who end up in senior leadership roles are very achievement oriented. And so they like... objective metrics that they can hit. And they like unambiguous victories. And that the two things that people aren't are unambiguous or objective. And so it's easy to see how most senior leaders would gravitate to things like sales and marketing or even client success. But when it comes to things like training and developing people and keeping them engaged, that is so far. Chad (09:54.608) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (10:19.914) outside of what the normal course of business is. Sorry about that. That is so far outside of where the normal course of business lies, that it seems like we just grouped all of this stuff together to say, okay, here's the human stuff. But that's a terrible way to categorize it because there are so many different important distinctions in what that overall grouping is. And so what I would say is, you know, it seems like anything related to compensation, insurance, anything along those lines, that feels a lot more naturally fitting with finance. anything with compliance, with complaints, sexual harassment, anything at all around things that could create liability for the organization, that very clearly belongs in legal. Like legal is a great Dean of students. We are scared of legal. And so if legal is responsible for driving that stuff, it's actually gonna be much more impactful. Being able to deal with financial people when we're worried about like our Chad (11:02.853) legal. Chad (11:20.858) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (11:25.694) insurance companies trying to screw us over like, yeah, that's what we want is like the aggro is in there who are going to get in there and solve stuff. So ultimately, what I think we need to do is break up HR according to what are the various functions that they play and think about realigning them with the goal being that HR should be about supporting the employee. We got to make HR into the guidance counselor. That's the part that is missing within our organizations. Who is there to make sure that the employees are doing all right? And that's where HR belongs in my opinion. Chad (11:56.89) Well, on the talent side too, you take a look at we've broken talent acquisition away from talent management. And to be quite frank, it should be a fluid talent lifecycle, right? It should be the acquisition of talent, bringing them in, engaging them, developing them, and then moving them up or out, right? I mean, that's what we should be doing. And in many cases, I mean, they're gonna move out on. They're going to move out on their own as much as we have to push them out or up as well, right? But yeah, I see where there's, it's almost like HR to some extent was like a catch all. Jordan Birnbaum (12:35.992) And it shouldn't be, you with regards to talent acquisition, I'll tell you something else too. This is one where we could go even a little bit further down a rabbit hole. like, I feel as though talent acquisition, it belongs more in the BUs. Like the more specialized you are in that business, I feel like the more effective you're gonna be at finding the right kind of talent. And so whether or not we cap someone's job at recruiting, Chad (12:44.101) Mm. Chad (12:54.16) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (13:04.262) or that becomes part of some broader function embedded within a business unit. think that there are a lot of arguments to be made that if we integrate talent acquisition into the BUs as part of a re-imagined role that, to your point, stays much more connected to that talent when they come in, is involved in onboarding, is involved in performance management. Exactly. Joel Cheesman (13:17.039) Mm-hmm. Chad (13:29.156) or they understand the business. Jordan Birnbaum (13:32.118) So I think that that's another part of this whole reimagining. Joel Cheesman (13:35.245) What's the what's the tip of the spear in this happening because asking a department to become less powerful by eliminating or moving positions, it feels like it's not going to happen in HR. So where is this change going to come if it does come? Jordan Birnbaum (13:53.582) Well, so I don't know that I'm willing to accept the first premise because, know, something I'm going to tell a quick story and then I'll share with you why I'm telling it. And it's the story of Blockbuster and Netflix, right? Blockbuster was in one of the most dominant market positions of any company in any industry in history. Uh, oh yeah. Especially in late fees. Yeah. Very nice call out. Joel Cheesman (14:14.383) They got a lot of my money. Chad (14:16.218) Yeah. I always loved the manager's choice as well. Jordan Birnbaum (14:22.4) Netflix realizes though that there are so many problems with blockbusters customer experience from driving there to videos out of stock to returning to late fees. I mean, it's stuck. It was not a good experience. so Netflix comes up with this, you know, DVD by mail to solve for those problems. And it's a big hit. The problem for Netflix was that Once they proved that this was a viable business model, there was nothing stopping Blockbuster from flipping a switch and sending a note to all 55 million of its subscribers saying, hey, you can now get your DVDs by mail if you'd like. And so they did. Netflix actually had gone in and pitched that they wanted to get purchased by Blockbuster for like hundred million dollars. And they got laughed out of the room. And Blockbuster said, why would we ever buy you? We can just do it. And so they did. But then along came... Chad (15:07.578) Mm hmm. Yeah. Jordan Birnbaum (15:16.448) activist investors, I won't mention any names. And they said, are you telling me that you're gonna introduce a business model that will have us lose our late fees? Are a cash cow? Are you morons? Undo that program immediately. And they kibosh the DVD by mail program for Blockbuster, which gave Netflix a second life in which they then reinvented themselves by going from mail to streaming. And now, you know, I think Blockbuster probably topped out under a billion dollars in their market cap. And I don't even know where Netflix is today, but I think the reason that that story is important is because it makes agility cool. And if you can make agility cool, people can get behind just about anything smart. And so I think that if we can make agility cool for HR practitioners, Joel Cheesman (15:57.006) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:06.128) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (16:13.474) The people who deal with comp, I think that they would love to be in finance. I think they would love the respect. I think that we would love to be with their number oriented peers. The people in compliance, I think would love to be in legal and be part of that archetype. And the HR practitioners to whom my heart goes out are the ones who really want to help people and now find themselves in a position where they're always conflicted between helping the organization versus helping the people. And so for them, If we can tell them, your job is just help the people, I think they would love that too. So to me, this is one where everybody actually wins so long as we can like let go of our fiefdoms for a Joel Cheesman (16:43.375) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:54.448) very hard as human beings, as human beings. Joel Cheesman (16:55.265) I know I was going to say... You think a lot of people. Jordan Birnbaum (16:57.486) It doesn't mean it's worth the, we shouldn't aspire. Chad (17:00.312) Yeah, mean, that's the, I mean, and again, that's the hardest part is we get comfortable, right? And that's where things start going wrong is because we, in the uncomfortable is where we actually find innovation and we find solutions to problems. But when we're not looking for problems, because it's the way we always done it, right? I agree. I do like, the idea, I don't know that I think that they should be like embedded in the business units, but I do believe that there should be individuals who are like concierge talent people who should be connected because there has to be, there has to be an underlining infrastructure that's being used from a technology standpoint because there's so many different pieces of tech on the talent side of the house, the people side of the house that, but those individuals, today we ask recruiters, to be experts in all the different areas of the business and which means they know none of the business. Maybe, you know, pieces, parts here and there, but they're not experts in anything, right? And we need them to be experts in the business. Not just talent, but the business of talent. That's where, you know, again, the difference between staffing and talent acquisition is talent acquisition is staffing's business. They make money off of that. know what that actually means when the rubber meets the road, they know what the revenue looks like, right? Town acquisition is their job and they don't go any further than that. So I do agree with that and I can see Joel wanting to rip in there. Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (18:48.163) Hahaha! Joel Cheesman (18:48.431) hype dream is maybe too mean. It's but people change is scary, Jordan. And HR is probably the most risk averse of all the departments in the in portfolio. So a total redesign of HR sounds scary. What also sounds scary is I've been begging for a spot at the table. HR needs a spot at the table of the company. Jordan Birnbaum (18:58.906) yes, Joel Cheesman (19:20.417) if you dismantle it and make it less of what it was, it feels like that seat at the table gets further away. Help help me understand why I'm wrong in that and how it can maybe help them get to the table. Jordan Birnbaum (19:37.816) So it's so interesting. I think that part of the reason that it's so hard for HR to get a seat at the table is because, which part of HR? Are we going with risk management or are we going with talent development or what's the orientation of that senior leadership? And wouldn't that determine then who within the HR organization might actually get a seat at the table? And so I think that part of what my argument would be that by breaking this current makeup of HR into the separate business functions that we both clear a path for the individuals within each of those functions to rise. But also we create the necessary seats at the table because getting HR a seat at the table, it's like, I don't know what that means. And that's entirely the problem. Like getting sales at the table, I know what that is. I know what client success is. I know what product management is. I know what R &D is. I don't know what HR is. I don't know if that means talent growth. I don't know if that means employee engagement, performance, talent acquisition, training. There are so many different directions that you could take that that's a huge part of why there's no seat at the table because it's like 25 seats. Chad (20:52.59) So you take a look at business structure and I think it's interesting because Joe will ask, know, who's gonna make HR is not gonna make that decision. And to be quite frank, it's not up to HR, it's up to the CEO, it's up to the C-suite. So we've actually talked about Salesforce doing this new business. I believe it's with a Deco, isn't it? Where they've created this new company that is focused on being able to use agents to really do the staffing side of the house. Jordan Birnbaum (21:04.163) Mm-hmm. Chad (21:21.488) In in in that whole process of thought around that new model, I thought, holy shit, Salesforce doesn't need a Deco. They already have connections to the CRO who they who they sell directly to, right? The CMO, the CTO, the CPO, all of the people who are already at the table. You're already selling to them, right? And if you have a talent delivery structure. in which you're delivering key talent to those individuals, you're literally bypassing that of talent acquisition. Now, you wanna have people embedded in your team who can actually have a concierge service around that. But I can see kind of like, let's say for instance, kind of like a straw man structure of what you're talking about. Is that what you're really kind of getting across is like, look, the structure's already there. The people who have seats at the table, are gonna stay at fucking table. They don't have seats at the table, especially because they're so splintered from an HR standpoint, HR, TA, TM, I mean, all the way through payroll, et cetera, et then you can literally just go to where the power and the control already resides. Is that what I'm hearing that you're distilling? Jordan Birnbaum (22:39.562) If you are in compensation and benefits and you want to see it at the table, your best advocate is the CFO. If you are in compliance and you want to see it at the table, it's your general counsel is your seat at the table. And if you're in talent, you don't currently have a seat at the table because you're mushed together with all these other things. And so this might actually get talent a seat at the table, by breaking us down into these core functions. Chad (22:42.737) huh. Chad (23:09.36) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (23:09.612) My only point is that until we have clear archetypes around each of the business functions, this will be a mess. And that once we can identify what are the different archetypes that exist within HR and where do they belong naturally. And even if it means that HR becomes four different business units, which I don't advocate, but that would still be better than what we currently have because by cramming them all together, we undermine them all. And it's one of the reasons why I think we've come to accept such low engagement scores. This idea that two out of three people not being into their jobs is normal and okay, that's crazy. Joel Cheesman (23:53.081) You'll appreciate a reference to the untouchables. Sean Connery, Kevin Costner. There's a scene in that movie where they're they're getting a new recruit to join the team. And the comment of if you want an apple, you get it from the tree, not the barrel. And I feel like HR is a whole lot of barrel apples where they've been around a long time. They've done it this way forever. Like change is not going to come from them. So my question is around generational. Jordan Birnbaum (24:00.056) worth. Joel Cheesman (24:22.723) challenges, like anyone that's in college school right now to learn HR and the business, they're learning probably old models and old archetypes around what it is. How important is the generational gap? How do you close it? And how do you make sure that the next generation of professionals have sort of your vision and not the old school vision? Jordan Birnbaum (24:45.464) Well, my vision comes from learning the exact same stuff. you know, maybe part of the solution isn't that we need to be teaching different things, but rather, you know, growing up in a technologically informed age has given each subsequent generation a new perspective on this stuff, which leads to ideas like this. You know, I think you're always going to have progressive and conservative within any band. but my, again, my point is that, you know, on a certain level, if AI is coming and everything's getting recreated anyway, then well, this, we might as well take advantage of the moment, you know, like Lewin's whole change theory is like, first you got to unfreeze the ice before you can do anything. And that's what everybody always forgets to do. Well, AI is unfreezing the ice. So we're going to have just like COVID did COVID Joel Cheesman (25:34.351) Mm-hmm. Jordan Birnbaum (25:41.07) You know, unfroze the ice and it allowed us create an entirely new reality. AI is about to unfreeze the ice. So I guess what I'm suggesting is, is that we take advantage of it by thinking about HR, not in terms of traditional HR, but about what are the different functions and archetypes within HR. And let's start thinking about each one of those individually instead of as a group, because that is leading to endless amounts of problems. Joel Cheesman (26:12.375) Ultimately, AI might add a lot of layers to this that you don't have to put finance together. That's just AI is going to... The new HR person is going to have a hand on all the AI tools and they're going to, I think, house that within and not have this whole sort of deconstruction of the department. That's my own two cents. Yeah. Chad (26:12.441) It seems like. Chad (26:32.889) or could actually hasten it if you think about it because it could be easier to actually put some of those pieces into the CFO's hands or the CRO's hands or what have you. And just taking a look at the talent acquisition side of the house, once again, as Jordan had pointed out, being able to actually have talent experts in your space who's not just focused on talent acquisition but also the onboarding, just the concierge services. Joel Cheesman (26:42.703) Sure. Chad (27:02.564) being able to be that counselor per se around the career. And that's why a lot of people leave their jobs. They've got shitty managers and they have, which is a horrible experience. But if you have concierge service that also helps develop where you can see your path in the company, which most people can't see. And then you're actually getting the development, the training and those types of things. know, there could be, this could be a different answer. But back to Joel's question, who makes that decision? Because to be quite frank, I don't think the CEO, most CEOs fucking understand how important talent is. They say it left and right, but we're still low balling talent. We're still paying them a hell of a lot less. We're still treating them like shit. We're still not providing a clear. career paths. I mean, we're not doing any of these things that we should be doing to be able to keep that talent. So to me, the CEOs are full of shit when they say that they believe talent is the number one thing on the list. What's your thought around that? Because again, if it's going to change, it's going to have to come from the top. And I don't think the top knows what the fuck is going on. Jordan Birnbaum (28:16.918) So there's a couple of different big questions hovering here. so I think the first is like, well, is AI gonna take everybody's job anyway, rendering this entire conversation moot? And maybe, but I just don't understand how we're going to make it as a society. If we let AI take everyone's jobs, don't know why it would stop at the C, why couldn't it be the CFO and why couldn't it be the CEO? then eventually why wouldn't it just be AI selling and selling to and buying from itself on LinkedIn? And we're just all gonna sit home and play video games. I don't understand what kind of society we'll have if that happens. Chad (29:01.612) one fueled by universal basic income. That's the one. Joel Cheesman (29:05.775) Fembots and OnlyFans, Jordan, is the future. Jordan Birnbaum (29:05.932) that maybe. Jordan Birnbaum (29:10.094) But, but assuming that human beings will continue to sell and buy, uh, to and from each other, then I think, um, our next bet's bet is just to figure out, right, then how do we optimize our experience of work using AI to help us to operationalize the unbearable stuff and, you know, spend more time in the really valuable stuff and then also spend less time working. Joel Cheesman (29:14.178) huh. Jordan Birnbaum (29:37.334) and get back to an actual work-life balance. Joel Cheesman (29:40.461) Maybe get back to drinking a little bit. Jordan, you have a cute little cocktail description of all these hierarchies and archetypes, etc. Just what's your favorite cocktail? Jordan Birnbaum (29:54.508) I am a vodka tonic kind of guy. mean, I will, I'm a margarita. I really enjoy margaritas too, especially when my wife and I go out, like we'll do margaritas together and there's just something fun about that. But yeah, like I would say that like in a pinch, I'm a vodka tonic guy. Joel Cheesman (29:58.489) Simple man, simple man. Chad (30:03.833) on the beach. Joel Cheesman (30:14.947) Fair enough, fair enough. Chad (30:16.25) That's too easy. Jordan Birnbaum everybody. And Jordan, if somebody wants to connect with you, talk about these crazy deconstruction ideas. Where could they find you? Jordan Birnbaum (30:28.974) Glendagroup.com , one word, or Jordan Birnbaum on LinkedIn. And you can even find me on Psychology Today. if you search for my name, you'll get all my articles and you'll decide whether or not you think I'm crazy. Joel Cheesman (30:45.241) That's Glenda with an I, the good witch. And this is the good podcast. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out. Chad (30:52.634) We out.

This week on The Chad & Cheese Podcast , the HR gods giveth—and then drop-kicketh your CEO. Mo Clough returns to the mic just in time for the Indeed implosion: Chris Hyams “decides” to leave (read: got yeeted), and his old boss steps in like, “I’ll take it from here, champ.” 🔥 Indeed’s parting gift? Doubling your ad spend and calling it a “Healthy Budget.”   🕵️‍♀️ Meanwhile, Deel and Rippling are still engaged in a tech bro slap fight that includes fake customers, espionage, and… an axe? ⚖️ Workday gets slapped with a class-action lawsuit over alleged bias in its AI tools. It’s either ageism or just their recruiting module being trash—TBD.🤖 And if you weren’t stressed already, AI’s coming for your job. Literally. Mo suggests a bunker. Chad suggests more booze. It’s HR meets high drama, served with sarcasm, suspicion, and strong opinions. Because “unfiltered” isn’t just a style—it’s a survival strategy. 🍷 Drink up, kids. The robots aren’t just coming—they’re updating your resume for you. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad (00:29.899) Welcome back to the Chad and She's, HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. I'm Chad. Well, it's about damn time, so watch. Maureen Clough (00:38.456) And I'm Maureen, AKA Mo. Should I be building a doomsday bunker or something? Clough. Yeah, probably. Chad (00:44.196) I think you might, I think you might. And on this week's show, indeed gets healthy. Workday gets some action and Bozo rides again. Let's do this. Chad (00:57.759) Hey Mo, whatcha up to? It's been a while, where you been? Maureen Clough (01:00.206) I know. This feels like a homecoming. I'm so happy to be back. It's been like a minute, huh? It really has. Or it felt long to me. I missed you guys. I missed you guys. And I still miss Joel. I still miss Joel. Goes straight to his head. Chad (01:03.499) You Chad (01:07.1) It has been. I don't Chad (01:18.057) Yeah, well, mean, so last week he and I were out birthday week, right? This week he's enjoying quality time with the kids, probably sitting in pool side having Taco Bell in the core's light. Yeah, last week though, I I lived it up and it's funny to actually say this. It's surreal to say this because last week I played golf in Spain, went kayaking in the Ria Formosa, played about 10 hours of paddle. Maureen Clough (01:32.504) That's the life, man. Maureen Clough (01:44.622) Such a flex. Chad (01:46.827) had my birthday party at my favorite bar. Oh, I gotta show you what I got. Give me a second, give me a Maureen Clough (01:51.48) Show me, show me. Wait, we love birthdays. Getting older is so hot right now. That's so awesome. All right, my gosh. my gosh. If you guys aren't watching on YouTube, that's a loss for you because what he just brought out is fairly massive. What the? Chad (01:59.95) Yeah Chad (02:07.375) It is massive and what it is is five liters of port. Maureen Clough (02:15.006) my, don't you like sip port? Like port is something you have like a little, so that's gonna last you a while, right? That's not coming through TSA on the way back over to the States, huh? No, no, no, get detained. Yeah. Chad (02:16.458) get that. Yeah, which means We're going to have to have several parties to get rid of this fucking thing now my buddies No, no, this is this is staying. Yeah, no my buddies. It's tenure Sandman Tawny port. Whoo. Anyway, buddies buddies got that for me as a birthday gift five liters of point always trying out Always trying Maureen Clough (02:45.026) Your friends know you well. They know you well. They know the way to your heart. Chad (02:49.013) Always trying to outdo me is what it is. Always trying to outdo me. Maureen Clough (02:51.086) Did they succeed? mean, that is a pretty, I mean, that's tough to compete with, let's be honest. Yeah. Yeah. They killed it. Good job, Chad's friends. The bar is higher. Chad (02:55.965) Yeah, yeah, no they did. Bunch of, bunch of horseshit. Yeah, bunch of horseshit. So what were you doing? What were you doing? You just out and about? Were you on the island? What's going on? Maureen Clough (03:09.108) Out and about, yeah, I've been all over the place. I just got back from my 20th college reunion, if you can believe it. I know, I was like, what? I just cannot believe that that happened. It's like, man, life is moving really fast, right? It's that like Ferris Bueller quote, right? Like, how? How am I here? It was just bizarre. But it was so much fun getting back to campus and seeing my old friends. And so many people looked exactly the same to me. Chad (03:15.404) stop it. I can't. Chad (03:36.213) So was on campus. OK. Maureen Clough (03:37.422) Yeah, it was on campus. So I went back to Boston for it and it was a blast. Got to catch up with some of my best friends and see people who like, to be honest, I literally forgot existed. And I was like, oh, you, you know, but it was, it was really nice. It was like a, it was a heartwarming thing to remember back in, you know, the day when I was a little, little baby, you know, walking around the streets of Boston thinking I knew everything, knowing nothing, you know, it's funny how that works, right? Yeah. I was all eager and like really had hope. Chad (03:58.227) Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Bright eyed. Ocea tail. Mouth, I know. Maureen Clough (04:05.784) And now I'm just like this downtrodden, beaten woman just trying to get through. Chad (04:12.235) I'm trying to get through life people. Okay, we gotta get out of the Debbie Downer stuff. We gotta get out of the Debbie Downer. I can't have you there. can't have you there. We're gonna go directly into, you know. Maureen Clough (04:14.127) Maybe building a bunker. don't know. Doomsday is coming. We're to be happy. We're going be happy today. Chad (04:27.366) you know it as an and you get to go first because you've got you've got a fun one. Maureen Clough (04:29.778) man, do I ever have a shout out for you? My shout out goes to a guy named Oliver Widger, who is just this like complete sensation. Now he's kind of a national hero. I think he's emblematic of what so many people feel right now, which is like completely left behind, like the American dream is no longer possible. Like things are just out of reach. And so he did something pretty sick. Why don't you go ahead and roll that for the audience? Chad (04:36.618) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:49.515) Yeah. Chad (04:54.079) Beautiful Bane footage, here we go. Maureen Clough (04:55.997) Hmhmhm. Maureen Clough (05:21.39) conventional wisdom. Maureen Clough (05:30.616) Dude, like this guy, you should see, I mean, everybody's like, yeah, man, you're the best, but we all are like feeling this so hard. And he was faced with a job that he despised. He had this condition that could render him paralyzed if something goes awry. And he was just like, what the F am I doing all this for? Like, what is the point? And decided to just like embrace the moment. And I feel like that is going to be the way so many of us approach life. Chad (05:44.213) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (05:55.938) And as someone who's always been a constant worrier and a people pleaser and looking far off into the future, like I could take a page out of this guy's book, right? Like it's about the now. And so I think he's like actually straight up a hero. And I think a lot more people are going to be doing some version of this, not necessarily this bold or this like splashy, but this guy's also a genius because bringing people along on this journey. he amassed this crazy platform, right? He could be like a keynote speaker. He could do brand deals for the rest of his life. I don't know if that was his plan, but the guy is a genius and he's just inspiring a lot of people to go and do the things they love and be present in the moment. And I just think that's pretty cool. And he got to Hawaii, by the he actually made it and was, he got like a big, huge heroes welcome. He met with the governor. Like people are all... Chad (06:39.113) It's like Waikiki or something, right? Maureen Clough (06:40.882) It's like crazy. Yeah, people are like rooting for this guy and he's getting dinners bought for him. He's going all over. I mean, it might be his 15 minutes, but man, he's using them so, so wisely. And he's just, I really feel like that's compelling. And he got to Hawaii and I thought it was really funny because he posted corporate America, I won. I was like, wow. If that doesn't sum up how so much of the population feels right now, I don't know what does. So anyway, hat tip to that guy. Chad (06:51.275) Amazing. Chad (07:04.821) Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sad. He obviously, you know, kind of eyes wide open situation, right? He comes down with this with this with this illness. You know, he kind of laughs and said, you know, I just went ahead and took all the money out of my 401K, sold my cars, did this stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, there's no question in, you know, we we are really trained in the U.S. to build. Maureen Clough (07:15.308) Right, like look at the prospects. Maureen Clough (07:23.566) Great idea, as they tell you, right? Chad (07:36.989) wealth until we retire and then enjoy it. And to be quite frank, mean, I really enjoy kind of like the European lifestyle where we don't rush through everything because that's what it feels like in the U.S. It's like you graduate high school, you go directly into college, you go undergrad, and then you go directly into grad school. And here it's so much slower. It's like, take a gap year. Find yourself. And people like to find yourself. Right. It's like, no, it's a fucking thing. I mean, seriously. Maureen Clough (07:39.244) Yep. Yes. Maureen Clough (07:45.219) Mmm. Right. Maureen Clough (08:02.03) So right. It is. We would all do better if we were to all take gap years and chill the F out and not just be on this constant treadmill for achievement and like success and under 30, Forbes 30, it's like, let it go, chill. I agree with you. I think it's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, lists, it's all that. But, you know, and I think people are having their own version of that. Like I said, I mean, Chad (08:06.568) and in Chad (08:10.684) Yes. Uh-huh. Chad (08:18.229) Yeah, lists, lists. Maureen Clough (08:26.924) I'm about to move to a rural place in Washington state with my family, because I'm just ready to get out of the rat race, you know, sky high expenses in Seattle and everything else. And it's just like, what are we all doing? Like, I want to be with my family. I want to be with people I love. I want to slow down and take appreciation for, you know, the finer, smaller moments in life and not just be on this treadmill that's just really feeling very uninspired and really unfulfilling. So, yeah, I think you'll see a lot of people kind of mixing it up. Chad (08:30.667) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (08:55.126) in this year because and in future years, I think because so much is uncertain. So much is uncertain. So I think people will lean into that. So that's like kind of a silver lining there. Chad (09:04.947) It is, it is. Many, many new influencers coming your way. I have rapid, rapid fire shout outs. So I list, let's say, of shout outs. So shout out to Wedgie, AKA WedgeHR, the video interviewing platform, announced a stealthy strategic investment round while adding a COO and a CRO on the way. Matt and the kids over at Wedgie are bulking up and sound like they're actually getting serious, which is good. Maureen Clough (09:08.173) Haha! Maureen Clough (09:11.628) Ooh, I like it. Maureen Clough (09:31.342) You Chad (09:31.499) now shout out to, employee Inc parent company of job bite lever and jazz HR introducing their first AI companions, companions, just another way to say assistant maybe I fuck. don't know. but can, yeah, I mean, come on companions, dating. I got nothing. got nothing. But imagine trying to integrate this companion into three separate. Maureen Clough (09:44.622) It depends on your style, I guess. Hahaha. Chad (10:00.543) code bases. They've got three different applicant tracking systems. That's going to be interesting. Going to sit back, going to watch, maybe be cringy, who knows, but we'll see. And the last, but never least shout out is to Pride Month. No rainbow logos necessary. It's about how we treat everyone. And I mean everyone around us, respect, humility, happy Pride Month everyone. those are my rapid fire shout outs. Maureen Clough (10:09.475) Ha Maureen Clough (10:25.966) Hell yeah. Chad (10:30.499) and we're going to go ahead and jump into the free stuffs. Kids remember, remember there's always free stuff from the Chad and Cheese. go to Chadcheese.com slash free mo. If they sign up for free stuff, what do they get? Maureen Clough (10:35.343) man, free stuff. Maureen Clough (10:47.096) Well, I mean, it's the Chad and Cheese show, so you know alcohol is gonna be involved, right? So you can get some whiskey from Van Hack, then. my God. Always, always. And then if that's not your sort of flavor, you could go little less spirit forward and do bourbon barrel aged syrup from Kiora. That's pretty delightful. Chad (11:07.249) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's our boys. Our boys from Canada. Maureen Clough (11:14.414) my gosh, Hoser is such a good one. my God. Anyway, I digress. You can get some t-shirts from Erin App. Pretty solid. And then two seasons ago, all right. hey, I love it. And then craft beer, back to alcohol, got to go back there. Craft beer from the Job Data Geeks from Aspen Tech Labs. Chad (11:22.219) Mmm. There's two seasons ago. T-shirt. T-shirt, yeah. Chad (11:37.855) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (11:39.796) And if it's your birthday, you can get some rum with plums. Chad (11:42.464) yeah. Chad (11:48.267) The only way you can get that kids Chad cheese.com slash free. Register register register. Now this is because we were off last week. It was Chad cheese birthday week and this is going to be a week of May and a week of June birthday. So get get ready kids. We have so many listeners Jesus. So happy birthday to Tom Hunley James AKA Jim Andrew Chuck. Sean Johnson Travis. Maureen Clough (11:55.598) So good. Maureen Clough (12:01.208) You Chad (12:18.121) Windling Adrian Aston Villa Anita Brekka or Anita. That's Anna Brekka. I'm sorry, Anna Nancy from Philly bear Savoy Anders Storman Daniela McDonald Andy Peterson Martin Dangerfield Scott Allen Les Wessel Jim Stroud Bosco. That's right. I said Bosco Vujo to Vic Olga and this free guy Maureen Clough (12:27.662) You Chad (12:46.377) man, we've got people all over, it's awesome. Then all of those really crazy foreign names, and then we get J Arnold. Jane Superman Curran. Maureen Clough (12:57.646) That's a great one. That's my middle name too, by the way. Okay. Chad (12:59.485) Nicole, that's Joel. Joel did that one. Yeah. Nicole Bowers, Lindsay Nimmer, Courtney Howard, Jamie Hartley-Ribaro, Jesse Sims, Tristan Deguer, Vince Morgan, Laura Roots, Christine Hampton, Michael Duby Brothers-McDonald, Matt That British Guy Alder, and our favorite porn star Hung Lee. All of those kids. Maureen Clough (13:21.921) You Chad (13:29.279) people are signed up for free stuff. That's right. And a big, you know. Maureen Clough (13:33.42) Woohoo! Maureen Clough (13:37.39) You Chad (13:37.823) Happy birthday. Maureen Clough (13:40.014) Happy birthday. Chad (13:41.579) And then what's next? What's next? Chad (13:48.747) So, travel sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Next on the board is Wreckfest in the UK. You're gonna be there. Are you excited? Maureen Clough (13:56.108) Yes, I am so pumped. I love me some British people. I'm so there. Such an Anglophile here. So yeah, sign me up. Can't wait. I totally am. I'm stoked. British humor, dry British humor. Get me there. Chad (14:05.191) Such an Anglo file. Dough. Well, that's all it by the way. We're all going to be there. JT, Emmy, yourself, Joel, myself and our favorite Scott. Maureen Clough (14:23.854) Yay! Stephen McGrath. Chad (14:24.778) Who is it? Maureen Clough (14:30.167) You Chad (14:31.507) No, Steven, you're gonna be there, shut up. But yeah, no, we're pretty stoked about it. I going to Wreckfest, we've been going, geez, this is probably our fifth year, I think, and not consecutive because of the stupid COVID thing. But it's just a blast from the standpoint of it being literally like all hands meeting for some companies. I mean, some companies actually bring over 100 people. Maureen Clough (14:33.88) Hahaha! Maureen Clough (14:46.19) thing. Maureen Clough (14:58.264) So awesome. So tight. Chad (14:59.273) Yeah, and to be able to learn, to be able to gel and be around your peers, have a couple of drinks, be cool, be cool. But at the end of the day, mean, it's fun. There are like 10 or so tents that you go into. We're gonna be at the disrupt stage. And that's what we're gonna be doing in July. I can't wait, to be quite frank. It's gonna be a blast. So when are you gonna get in? You're gonna be in early, aren't you? Maureen Clough (15:06.712) Yeah. Yeah, it still work. Maureen Clough (15:23.982) Stoked. Stoked. Yeah, I'm doing a vacation prior to that in Italy and then I'll be rolling over. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't live in Portugal like some of us. my God. Damn. Not fair. Chad (15:34.123) it sucks to be you. Okay, enough of that. Chad (15:49.129) All right, believe it or not, we're gonna be talking kids a lot, a lot today about this little company you've probably never heard of called Indeed. We've seen some major changes over the past couple of weeks. Terry Baker left Daxstra, Thad Price left Tauru, and just this week, according to the official script or statement, Chris Himes has decided, if you're not watching on, Maureen Clough (16:16.302) Some air quotes. Chad (16:17.515) YouTube I'm using air quotes decided to step down as CEO of indeed because nothing says Making your own free will decision like your boss stepping into your position Enter indeed's new and returning CEO. That's right. He was CEO before Hi, hi Sayuki. I hope I got that right. Hi Sayuki Dico a deco ba the CEO of indeed's parent company recruit He's the CEO of the parent company and he's coming down kicking Chris to the curb or I'm sorry, he decided to leave. Yes, the new CEO is also the CEO of Indade's parent company, Recruit Holding. So Mo, what are your thoughts about kind of like the CEO shakeups that are happening in the industry? Maureen Clough (16:49.251) Yeah. Maureen Clough (17:02.904) I mean, I think when people quote, air quote, decide to leave and then their old boss comes in and replaces them, it's usually something else that's going on behind the scenes, is my guess, or something perhaps like performance related or maybe even some brewing potential. Obviously, I don't know anything about this current situation, but like sometimes it can be a way to signal that there might be some upcoming litigation or some settlement that's happening behind the scenes, right? You just never know. But yeah, it's... reading his substack statement, Chris Himes, I was like, hmm, this is a quite vague description of what you're doing. he spoke about something around the lines of like, ethical AI and responsible AI being so critical and wanting to go focus on that. And then in the next paragraph was like a core component of indeed moving forward. will be these AI agents and these talent scouts that are going to help each job seeker. And I was like, well, wouldn't you want to do the ethical responsible AI like at your company? it just, was kind of like, right. was like, I don't know. Reading in between the lines here. I'm not quite sure that you decided to go. mean, would, would be lovely. Wouldn't it be nice to just like up and quit your job right now? Like, like in this market, come on. But yeah, I think it's a little different for the average CEO to be moving on. So yeah. Chad (17:58.08) Yes. Chad (18:03.881) with a lot of money. Chad (18:18.122) Yeah. Maureen Clough (18:22.296) But yeah, they're shaking it up. Most other people are holding on to their jobs for their dear damn lives. And these guys are rolling on out to perhaps greener pastures. don't know. Chad (18:31.851) I think it's a little sus to be frank. I think it's a little sus. But I do think we have a recording of Chris's response when Deco said that he wanted his chair. Wait a minute. Can we get that audio? I kid I kid I kid. So yeah, it's a new day at Indeed and it's about goddamn time. Himes should have been kicked out last year after the disastrous flirtation with CPSA and CPA. It was a total debacle. Both were rebranded pretty much bullshit products. Now, I'm personally a fan of CEOs innovating and unfortunately, Himes is not an innovator. Nope. the engine. Maureen Clough (18:48.046) That's awesome. Chad (19:17.021) out of the Indeed Ferrari and he dropped it in a fucking horse and buggy. mean, Indeed, slick, easy to use search engine with the best user experience in the industry, but Himes turned it into a job board with PaperClick. Woo, big deal. The user experience has been downgraded. PaperClick was introduced by the original founders, Paul Forster and Ronnie Khan over 15 years ago. Maureen Clough (19:32.75) you Chad (19:44.851) and indeed is still just a post spray and pray system that is now forcing companies, now forcing companies to pay more because the leader was too inept to figure out cost per qualified candidate for starters, for starters. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to see what Deco is gonna do. I believe he is much more disciplined and has a much better grasp. on the recruit ecosystem. So there's more indeed news. Next in the news, Hyam's farewell gift to the industry. Guess what? Higher prices branded as healthy budgets. So what the hell? Yeah. Maureen Clough (20:33.72) That is quite the euphemism there, man. my God. Bold. Chad (20:35.795) It's good, right? It's good. Wait, do we call it a price increase? No, we don't call it a price increase. We call it healthy budgets. can see like a Hollywood, know, the budget's healthy. anyway, so Julie, the job board doctor, so wash. Yes, she's she's very close and near and dear to my heart. She writes last week, quote, it's a what is a healthy budget? It's a minimum spend. Maureen Clough (20:40.974) Healthy budget. Maureen Clough (20:47.724) It is so hilarious. Maureen Clough (20:57.774) You Chad (21:04.139) spend, plain and simple. Before 2023, advertisers could set their own budget caps per job or campaign, giving programmatic providers the flexibility to move jobs in and out of performance, right? In other words, the model worked. If a job could be filled cost-effectively with, let's say, 10 bucks, it was. But then, Indeed decided to implement a hard minimum, $25 USD and 15 pounds in the UK per advertised job. That means eliminating or at least seriously devaluing programmatic optimization for agencies still choosing to play ball with the industry's biggest gatekeeper." quote. Mo, what do you make of these healthy budgets? Maureen Clough (21:49.39) Oof. Oof. I mean, who's got a healthy budget in 2025, man? Like, come on, like read the room. I get that you don't want to call it a price increase because that's like pretty bad PR for you, but like, come on, come on. This is, you got to be thinking about other people and your customers. Like, what about putting your customers first? Like, I understand that you haven't innovated or made things happen the way you should at the company, but putting that on the backs of these agencies and scaling at what 2.5X for the cost, like that's ludicrous to me. How did you think that was gonna land? Come on, like, is anyone happy about this? I doubt that, right? It's like, come on. Chad (22:30.315) Yeah, because I think agencies, first off, they're going to have to be screwing around and reformulating how they do campaigns, not to mention companies. mean, I've got some quotes. I'll share some quotes with you. so in proper indeed fashion, they introduce an arbitrary healthy budget rule, which has literally created a complicated version of a very simplistic model. Maureen Clough (22:39.534) Yeah. Chad (22:56.405) prices for clicks should rise and fall dynamically with the market. And if a position is not filled during a campaign, that campaign needs to be funded again. Pretty simple, right? Much like if you don't fill a job after 30 days, duration-based, what do you do? You buy another fucking job for God's sakes, right? You repost it. Indeed has done nothing more than create self-induced chaos and over-engineer a model that should have evolved. Maureen Clough (23:07.468) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (23:15.041) Exactly. Chad (23:25.543) not gotten more expensive. I've got some really cool quotes from some some industry leaders. Doug Monroe, CEO of Adzuna, who's actually a competitor. He's looking to throw a little shade. That's OK. We've seen the movie that he says we've seen this movie before. When you can't grow by improving the value you deliver to your customers anymore, you try to grow by squeezing them on price. It works for a bit and then it doesn't. Maureen Clough (23:37.198) You Maureen Clough (23:49.624) Mm. Chad (23:52.811) Again, throwing a little shade, but I totally get it. Then Martin Lentz, who's the CEO over at Jobbico in Austria, says, funny enough, moves like this can open doors for smaller job boards to win clients back. Could be a net positive for the job board ecosystem. And Martin also says, quote, indeed, lean's duration while StepStone, the most expensive post-based board globally, quietly launches Maureen Clough (23:54.957) Yeah. Chad (24:20.829) StepStone 360 higher, a programmatic budget model using AppCast tech. And he predicts there might be a collision course here. indeed, collision course with StepStone would be interesting because they're two very, very big organizations. And then last but not least, I'm saving the gravy because this is the good stuff. This is actually anonymous, but it's from an enterprise practitioner who uses Indeed. Quote. Maureen Clough (24:31.264) Interesting. Maureen Clough (24:41.486) haha Chad (24:48.363) If this enforcement change is accurate, it's not a small tweak, it's a shift in how we need to use Indeed. For us, it would likely mean cutting back on job volume, not increasing budget. Any roles that don't justify the $25 minimum just won't run. And we explore other options. My guess is it would reduce our Indeed spend by 15 to 20%. We've already... been watching our investment there very closely and this would only push us to be even more selective. this practitioner, and I've heard from more as well, he just wanted to go semi, not on the record, but semi on the record. But it feels like many of these companies are just fed up with indeed bullshit. And that's why I, my honest opinion, right? And this is conspiracy theory, but I think that's why Chris, the curb to be quite frank. It means, you know, Maureen Clough (25:28.867) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (25:39.694) Interesting. Chad (25:45.035) Chris decided to leave in a very different way. But in talking to a lot of these enterprise companies, I'm getting to feel that this is just another win for bigger platforms like Paradox, Fountain, Smart Recruiters, Jam, and all the other systems of record that help hiring companies leverage candidates that they've already purchased that reside in their candidate databases. So this could be a desperate Deja Vu money grab a collision course or a solid reason hiring companies start pulling budget from indeed and all of this after the CEO got canned. I mean my bad decided to leave a very fucked up storm for this poor guy Dico. I think he's got a lot of power. got a lot of money any any additional thoughts on on this and just it seems really weird all of this happening. Maureen Clough (26:30.83) He'll be all right. Chad (26:41.693) in this same scope of time. Maureen Clough (26:44.736) Yeah, no, I totally agree with your analysis there. And I think, you know, the fact that you have industry leaders saying what they did, of course, you know, some of them having a vested interest in throwing some shade. the industry insiders, especially those who are willing to talk off the record and tell you the scoop from their perspective as customers and prospective customers. mean, that that is very telling. Right. And and certainly, I think it is something that's going to open up the space for other competitors to come in and scoop up some unhappy customers of Indeed. So definitely seems like an own goal to me. And yeah, I agree with your assessment that it seems highly unlikely that Chris Hyams really voluntarily decided to opt out. I think he probably having his hand forced just a tad. Chad (27:26.175) You know what this feels like? This feels like indeed tariffs. That's what we should call this. These are indeed tariffs. I don't know where. Yeah. Yeah. Indeed tariffs, indeed taxes, indeed taxes. Yeah, I mean, to say that it's an own goal, it's it's hard to see the force for the trees, right? When you're actually sitting in the CEO position, you know that there are yes men around you all. Maureen Clough (27:34.06) my gosh. Healthy budget or indeed tariffs. I love it. my gosh. It's hilarious. Chad (27:55.515) Not saying that they don't have some people that actually speak their mind, but I doubt that's the case. I've spoken to companies for years and also agencies for years who have been looking for reasons and ways to just get the fuck, just to stop spending money with Indeed. again, if Chris did decide to leave, good for him. Maureen Clough (27:56.014) That's a point. Chad (28:21.803) because it was way past time and I can't tell you because I sent a bunch of messages out asking you know what they thought of Chris leaving and every single one of them told him it is way too late. He should have left a long time ago. So enjoy your time away Chris. Enjoy your time away. We'll be right back with another little company called Workday. Maureen Clough (28:40.888) Rough. Rough. Chad (28:52.691) All right. Workday has been in the news. I'm sure you've seen this, But before we get rolling, I want to be able to show a video of Jeffrey Poole, who's actually the CEO of a startup called Warden AI. They're an AI compliance firm for HR tech companies. Jeffrey had a few words to say about the situation. So let's go ahead and roll that. Maureen Clough (28:58.508) Yes, I have. Big news. Chad (30:24.683) So if you're not aware of the case, I'm gonna give you a quick and dirty. I'm gonna give you the quick and dirty on the case. And this is something that's right down your alley, Mo. Derek Mobley, a black man over 40, claims he applied to over 100 jobs through companies using Workday's AI screening tools and was rejected every single time his lawsuit. Now, Greenlit, this is big. Maureen Clough (30:34.926) yeah, it is. Chad (30:52.363) to proceed as a class action suit alleges that Workday's algorithms discriminated against him based on age, race, and disability. And to be quite frank, whether it was all three or not, if they catch one of them, it's gonna be a fucking home run. The court's decision to allow the case to move forward suggests that AI-driven hiring practices may soon face the same scrutiny as their human counterparts. Mo, knowing you're an advocate of seasoned workers, not aged. seasoned workers, what are your thoughts on this claim and it going class action? Maureen Clough (31:24.649) Aged workers. So I think that there is a high likelihood that there is some merit to this case, but we don't know yet. We have to point out there's no, these are solely allegations at this point. We do know, however, that AI tools have created biased outcomes in the past for applicants. This is not the first time this has ever happened. Amazon had a tool that was found to actually be biased against women and it was used in the hiring process. So they had to sunset that once they figured it out. So that has happened. We also had a tool. Chad (31:37.737) Right. Yep. Maureen Clough (31:57.518) that was called iTutor. was a company called iTutor Group that was hit by the EEOC. And they were using AI to proactively screen out women over the age of 55 and men over the age of 60. Because of course, men got to age a little bit more than women because our world sucks. So this is a thing that definitely happens. There's bias in all humans. There's bias data in, bias data out. I think this is plausible. Age discrimination is one of the hardest types of discrimination cases to prove. Chad (32:13.867) Ugh. Chad (32:26.603) Mm. Maureen Clough (32:26.624) and it has the highest burden of proof. And typically, and I'm not a lawyer, I want to point this out, but my understanding is that it cannot usually be used in a mixed mode of fashion, which is why I'm interested in the race and age and what was it? Was it disability? Was that the third in here? Yeah, I'm interested in the fact that that has all three. Now, there were four other plaintiffs that have since joined the case and it is, I mean, I think this does have a lot of implications for Chad (32:43.103) Yep. Yep. Maureen Clough (32:56.174) a lot of companies everywhere because the question then is, do you have the responsibility as the company actually employing the technology or is it the company itself, Workday, that's providing these services that has the onus of ensuring that there's no way that bias can come into the fold? But this is, I think, probably going to be, I mean, if this is found to be legit, like imagine the size of this class action group. Like, holy, holy crap, what 11,000 companies use Workday. everyone and their mom applies on workday platforms. Like even finding the people who are part of this class is going to be nuts. But I can tell you anecdotally, I've heard from countless people who've said that they've experienced, you know, a quick rejection, whether or not that actually is age discrimination remains to be seen. And quite frankly, I mean, I would never say I hope to see age discrimination out there. We all know it happens, but I will say if this does not found to have merit, it's Chad (33:49.461) Yes. Maureen Clough (33:53.854) I fear going to create somewhat of a chilling effect on other very legitimate cases of age discrimination. So it's weird to say, I hope it's legit. I hope it actually happened, but I kind of do in a way. But yeah, it's going to be really fascinating to watch this one come through. think there are massive implications. There's so much AI and non-AI, just all this technology that's out there in the hiring process. And all of them have the capacity to discriminate or have bias against people for a variety of reasons. And as was suggested, my whole podcast, it gets laid early, is about ageism in the workplace. And it's one of the least discussed forms of discrimination, the most widespread, and the hardest to actually prove in court because of the way the Supreme Court rolled back in 2009. So this has big, big, big implications for all of us over the age of 40. And we will have to just see what happens. But yeah, very, very intrigued to see what happens. Chad (34:48.201) Yeah, well, just in case. again, we're not going to have a decision yet, but. Workday, come on workday, mean, because workday is recruitment module or what have you like that most people. I've heard many companies call it gift with purchase. It is something that companies get for free after they buy their buy the HCM right. So, you know, there's there's there's not all. Maureen Clough (34:53.452) No. Maureen Clough (35:13.872) yeah. Chad (35:17.227) as much thought and R &D put into that module, which to me, to be quite frank, I would be partnering with some other companies who focus laser focus on that. mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's ridiculous, right? But Workday has generated 8.45 billion in revenue, okay? Maureen Clough (35:22.766) Such a strong point. Maureen Clough (35:28.45) Yeah. Build. Build by our partner, yeah. Don't open yourself up to this potential litigate. Yeah, fascinating. Good point. Yeah. Maureen Clough (35:45.336) Damn. Chad (35:47.177) Workday, you need to do better and you need to do it faster. On this show, we've had several experts, practitioners and government officials. We've talked about this specific topic of scaling bias with AI for years now, because humans have bias, no question. But take that bias from that one person, then scale it. Explosion, kids. That's what happens. We knew this was coming. Workday knew this was coming. If you take human bias and you train AI or Maureen Clough (36:03.502) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (36:08.468) Huge problem. Yeah. Chad (36:16.917) take a biased assessment and train AI or create a bias process and train AI. I mean, there are so many different situations, right? All that bias will scale incredibly fast. So remember again, Workday has no excuse to having a substandard product. They have 8.45 billion in revenues, okay? They've got plenty of money. Don't give me this, I can't. Maureen Clough (36:38.178) Yeah, it's fair. I didn't know. Chad (36:42.123) Crying for work day. I don't wanna fucking hear that shit, right? They got enough money, they should be able to do this stuff right. This is their job. Hopefully, moving this into a class action penalty territory scares the shit out of vendors into not releasing substandard products. That's what we need. And last but not least, if you're a vendor out there, listen to me, if you're a vendor out there in the HR space, I want you to take the word unbiased. And any cinem-cinemab- Maureen Clough (36:55.586) Yep. Everywhere. Yep. Chad (37:11.015) out there and strike it from your sales and marketing bullshit spiel, okay? Because we all know that there's no such thing as a base model piece of tech without bias. So let's try and revert back to the days of truth in advertising and stop acting like you're Elizabeth Holmes pitching Theranos, okay? I mean, it... Maureen Clough (37:23.15) agreed fully. Maureen Clough (37:32.974) Yeah. Sam Baker and Friede or any of those bastards, yeah. Chad (37:38.877) Yes, think so we start we start seeing fines for things like this, but they have to be bigger fines. They've got to be bigger fines. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Maureen Clough (37:44.012) Yeah. They gotta be big. Yeah. It's like the drop of the bucket finds don't do shit. That's the reality. People like account for that and they just, you know, they have enough money to cover it so they're not inclined to change at all. It's so true. Problematic. Chad (37:56.543) Yeah. Well, and again, if you are a company like Workday, you're pretty much giving your recruitment module away for free anyway. Okay. In my, in my opinion, what I've heard in many companies and other vendors say it's, it's free with purchase, right? Okay. Then go ahead and lop that off and then start partnering with companies very closely so that they can take the risk. Yeah, they're going to get the revenue, but you're not really getting big revenues out of the recruiting side anyway. Maureen Clough (38:26.253) on point. Chad (38:27.051) At the end of the day, just be smart about how you do business. And this is for all of those big, all the acronym companies, the SAPs, the ADPs, the UKGs, all of them, right? If you can de-risk yourself, right? You make billions of dollars. We totally get that. But if you can de-risk yourself, especially on the recruiting side of the house, because we all know that you don't spend enough money in your recruiting modules, partner. Maureen Clough (38:53.172) I agree. You can even white label if you want, right? Like just bring in the best in class solution to your tool. And like if you want a one-stop shop, you can just pull that in. No one has to know. No one has to be the wiser, but don't open yourself up to this litany of bad press. mean, whether or not this goes and gets settled or they're found, you know, to have actually engaged in age discrimination, this is pretty bad press for work day. Chad (38:56.608) Yes. Maureen Clough (39:15.074) I know some people say there's no such thing as bad press. I kind of disagree. But anyway, I mean, there's already a lot of anger about like the annoyance of using an ATS like work day. mean, people are constantly bitching about it online. So like to have this sort of thing come to the surface is not helpful for your image. And yeah, I mean, again, like I weirdly kind of hope that this is found with merit because otherwise I just. Chad (39:18.302) I do. Maureen Clough (39:39.872) This happens everywhere. We see it all the time. It is legitimate. And I just don't want people to be afraid to speak up or to actually fight back when it's legitimate. let's pray there's such a weird thing to say, but you know what I mean. Chad (39:53.993) Yeah, we don't want to see you get nailed workday, although we want to make sure that if there is a case, that the case is brought and the rest of the industry can actually go ahead and see that there will be ramifications. Maureen Clough (40:08.75) Yeah. And one other thing is I wonder how much of this actually is like AI. know that AI is such a buzzword and it's brought into the conversation in order, I believe, often to just like bring eyeballs with it, right? And the fact of the matter is it's incredibly possible that Workday was doing all of this potentially without any AI at all. Like these tools can be programmed and is that on them to ensure you can't program them or it's just, it's an interesting conversation. But yeah, I'd be curious to see how much. Chad (40:14.859) Yes. Chad (40:21.791) Yeah. Chad (40:29.023) Yes. Yes. Maureen Clough (40:37.684) of this is AI related versus just like software related. Chad (40:42.175) Yeah, agree 100%. Chad (40:50.185) There we go. Okay, kids, you've probably never heard of these companies before, but this is one from TechCrunch. The dramedy continues as Deal, our friends Deal and Rippling. Deal, the $12 billion darling of global hiring has accused its arch nemesis Rippling of deploying a corporate espionage scheme that feels more like a misdirection for me. According to Deal, Maureen Clough (40:50.7) Hahaha Maureen Clough (41:00.302) You Chad (41:18.963) A rippling employee spent six months masquerading, masquerading as a customer to infiltrate their systems, allegedly to pilfer proprietary secrets and replicate their products. Masquerading, infiltrate, and pilfer. They went through the James Bond dictionary or some shit like that. This isn't the first salvo in the corporate cold war. no, kids. If you've been listening. Maureen Clough (41:39.562) That's amazing. No. Chad (41:48.467) Earlier this year, Rippling accused Deal of enlisting a Rippling employee as a spy who, when confronted, reportedly destroyed his phone with an axe. that was after hiding in the bathroom, by the way. Hiding in the bathroom, trying to flush it down the toilet. wouldn't go down the toilet. Lawsuits are in California, Delaware, and even Ireland courts right now. Mo, is this a battle over business ethics or just... Maureen Clough (42:00.718) Right? Hiding in the bathroom. my gosh. Can't make it up. So funny. Chad (42:17.265) in audition for the next Kardashian reality TV show. Maureen Clough (42:20.748) Like truly, I actually want to sit down with a drink and read the entire complaint. Like it is hilarious. Like I actually just read a little bit of it and I was like, wow, this feels intensely personal. Like they're hurling insults that are like basically schoolyard style. And I'm like, can we just get these guys in like an MMA fight and just like call it good? Like you guys have this intense hatred for one another and it's just, it's hilarious. Honestly, it is hilarious. But yeah, it feels. Chad (42:24.235) Ha ha ha! Chad (42:32.649) It is. Maureen Clough (42:49.91) It feels like very tit for tat, like you did this, so I'm going to do that. like, know, manufacturing detail. mean, like you said, the language that's used there, masquerading, pilfering, whatever else the third one was, like it's so dramatic. Like, come on. It's like, who knew HR tech companies could be so exciting, right? Like this is, this is really hilarious. But legitimately, I'm curious to go through. It's like 125 page complaints. So like, maybe I'll have to have a whole bottle, but like it's. Chad (42:59.753) Yeah. Chad (43:03.465) It is. Maureen Clough (43:18.004) It looked really freaking funny. And I remember I was actually going through another article and I hadn't known this. I hadn't known that in the past, Rippling had actually opened up an investigation via a congressman in the US for an investigation with the Department of Labor, I guess, to see whether or not Deal was pretending that its employees were actually were actually contractors in order to like save money and have enhanced performance and all this stuff. So they had raised the flag and I'm hoping I'm not mixing up the two because it is possible that mixing up who went after who. But the point is it's so much shit like you keep going back and peeling back the curtains. It's like, my gosh, this years ago involving like the Department of Labor and making all these accusations. And it's just like, wow, you guys, you really can't stop going at it one another's throats. Like it's just wild. Chad (43:53.515) There's so much shit in this thing. my God. Maureen Clough (44:10.306) But this is the gift that won't stop giving. mean, I just like, I love the story. I'm like, what's gonna happen next? Give me some popcorn. Chad (44:15.999) I think they threw all of the suits and all the information in the chat GPT just to start creating press releases. It's like come up with the craziest shit and then it, anyway, I'm feeling. Chad (44:35.401) So this is definitely turning into a mudslinging contest. Deal allegedly got caught red-handedly, red-handed, yes, not handedly, red-handed, yes, paying a spy in Rippling who worked for Rippling and then to counter Deal accuses Rippling of dealing with Russian companies around sanctions, which they're not allowed to do. And now this from TechCrunch. Maureen Clough (44:39.469) Yes. Maureen Clough (44:44.046) Yeah. Chad (45:01.291) quote, specifically deal alleges that one of Rippling's employees who holds the job title of competitive intelligence spent six months impersonating a legitimate deal customer to gain unauthorized access to deals system to meticulously analyze, record and copy deals global products and the way deal does business for Rippling's own benefit and use end quote. how did Rippling's competitive Intel person gain access, number one. I mean, if you are a legit client company, as they state, how did they get access? I mean, how did they get access? And there's a ton, there's just a ton of noise that personally, I think it's a distraction. While Deal is trying to misdirect you, the listener, an HR practitioner slash buyer from thinking about. Maureen Clough (45:40.942) That's a very good question. Chad (45:56.917) their alleged Mr. Bean corporate espionage team. Personally, I'd steer clear, mean, again, this is me, you do what you do, but I would steer clear of both of these companies. Just the mudslinging that's happening, the bullshit that's happening, there are plenty other EOR types of organizations that are out there that you can deal with and not have to go through this fucking drama. Maureen Clough (46:00.654) Bozo. Yeah. Maureen Clough (46:07.566) you Maureen Clough (46:17.802) yeah. Maureen Clough (46:22.552) Dude, and they're poor employees. Imagine working at either of these companies right now. This has nothing to do with almost every single person at the organization, and yet they've been embroiled in this dramedy, as you said. They're like the punchline of every joke now. It's like, my gosh, how embarrassing. I feel for them. And man, if I were working there, I'd probably be fleeing for the exits, let's be honest. That's brutal. Chad (46:32.681) Yeah. Chad (46:36.468) You Chad (46:49.301) We just went to an event in Vegas about a month or so ago and Deal had a big booth right at the entrance. And you walked in and you could see the people kind of like looking side eye. It's like, what the fuck are they doing here? I mean, and I get it, they still have to do business. And I'm not saying that they shouldn't be doing business, but. Maureen Clough (47:07.807) Awkward, yeah. Chad (47:14.879) when you go over and you start having those discussions, Rippling was in the back corner, by the way. So they were both there. But it's just really, really fucking. Maureen Clough (47:25.87) It's so bizarre. just, yeah, my heart goes out to any employees who are caught up in all this. Brutal. So bizarre. Yeah. Chad (47:31.423) How bizarre, how bizarre, okay. We've got one more to go kids. Yeah, that's right. I think you're probably gonna like this bunker. Chad (47:44.723) All right, so this one could prospectively give you nightmares, kids. I'm just gonna play this video clip. I'm gonna play this video clip so you can see it and then gonna talk about it on the other side. Here we go. Maureen Clough (47:51.47) What doesn't this year? Chad (48:27.371) Holy shit. Maureen Clough (48:32.216) That's... Maureen Clough (48:54.542) Hmm. Sure did. Chad (48:58.027) So on top of that, in an Axios article, Dario Amandai, CEO of Anthropix said, quote, AI could wipe out half of all entry level white collar jobs and spike unemployment to 10 % 20 % in the next five years. it sounds like it's time to start stockpiling that doomsday bunker. What do you think? Maureen Clough (49:19.214) Dude, hell yeah. mean, what do those tech CEOs know that we don't? They're all building doomsday bunkers and have been for a while now. So I'm like, all right, all right, what should we be doing here? I don't have billions of dollars, unfortunately, so I doubt the bunker is gonna happen for me specifically. I'm like, hearing all this, can we resurface that whole universal basic income concept that I thought was like core to at least Sam Altman's idea of what we should do in the face of all this changing technology? Chad (49:26.987) They are, Maureen Clough (49:48.11) This seems to be happening so incredibly rapidly that no one knows what the F is going on. And it's like, who's driving the bus here? know, like it seems like the robots are. And that doesn't make me feel super warm and fuzzy inside. It makes me feel a little terrified. And I know there've been some recent developments like with AI trying to be turned off by a user and then AI going to blackmail said user with like details that had been fed to them about said user. And I was like, Chad (50:12.341) Yes, yes. Maureen Clough (50:17.216) This is like literally straight out of HBO Silicon Valley. Like this all freaking happened. Like Guilfoyle was like, dude, I'm paying close attention to our robot overlords and I'm going to say please and thank you and I'm going to treat them with respect. This is bizarre. I don't, frankly, I don't know how much of it is like hype and hysteria and, you know, coming from certain messengers, you have to wonder about their reasoning behind sharing said details. Like is it? going to just help them, right? Are they raising money, perhaps, for example? And then how much of it is legit? And when I see the sheer power of what these tools can do after only so long they've been in the public domain as generative AI tools accessible to us, I am like, actually think a lot of crazy shit's possible based on how good this stuff is. It is so freaking good. It's uncanny. That video you just showed us, that like sent a chill down my spine. Chad (50:47.358) Exactly. Maureen Clough (51:13.498) Like, I know it was really a banal topic of like planning trips, but like think of how else that could go. anyway, I don't I don't want to be a doomsday or naysayer type, but like, like, please someone get the rails on this thing. Like, who's going to stand up? Who is going to regulate this stuff? Who's going to actually give a flying fuck about A.I. ethics and responsibility so that we don't find ourselves in this dystopian fucking nightmare? Like, who's going to do it? I want to know. So far, I'm like, Chad (51:20.789) Yeah. Chad (51:42.132) Yeah. Maureen Clough (51:43.382) I don't see anyone rising to the occasion. Chad (51:48.098) As I said in Europe, see Europe is the only one looking to actually protect as the current administration in the US is actually telling the rest of the world, if you have any government contracts at all, you need to get rid of DEI and you need to stay away from our AI. So you've got that. That's one thing. Then you're talking about UBI, so universal basic income. That's going to be hard as fuck to be able to do in the US when they're doing the tax cuts that they're looking to do. Right. So how are you going to pay for that shit. Right. Not to mention we don't have tax schemes in place to be able to have robots or companies who are actually displacing workers and a tax base because obviously there's no income. There's no tax base. Right. You have to be able to displace that. So how do you do that. How do you tax those companies to ensure that there is you be available and then Maureen Clough (52:20.278) true. Chad (52:43.743) Last but not least, the real versus fake, I think we are getting played in many cases. So Klarna, we got played by Klarna. let's just say we got played by builder.ai. got build, both of them, right? They took half a billion dollars at Builder and now they're like winding shit down, right? Klarna. Maureen Clough (52:52.054) Yes, we did. 100 % of hype. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (53:05.855) gets rid of 700 people, no they didn't, no they didn't, they actually fucking offshored those and they weren't FTEs, so therefore they weren't on their rolls. So I mean, it's like we've gotta really take a look at what's real versus fake. I think those types of organizations, we're gonna see a lot of those, there are gonna be a lot of fakes. We need to call that fraud, they need to be in orange jumpsuits, but, but, there are amazingly smart people that are out there where I think this is real. Maureen Clough (53:10.99) Hmm. Maureen Clough (53:18.083) Right? Maureen Clough (53:26.83) Thank Chad (53:33.803) So we're gonna be, I think we're gonna see a lot of this fake shit come through and then we're just gonna get numb to it and go, ah, that's not a big deal. And the next thing you know, we have 20 % unemployment. Maureen Clough (53:43.842) Yeah, unemployment. Yeah. It's certainly spooky. And I agree with you. There is more than meets the eye. A lot of people are saying one thing and actually doing another. There's a lot of fabrication happening. And so, yeah, you have to be discerning. So good news, the American average person is super discerning and very intelligent, right? Just kidding. But just kidding. So yeah, it's going to be a wild ride. I mean, it's like, Chad (54:06.446) Just kidding. Maureen Clough (54:12.898) we're all strapped into a roller coaster that we didn't necessarily elect to get on, right? And we're going down, we're going on those loops together. So I just, you I try to be as positive about it as possible and I do see some incredible applications of AI. I see it as democratizing access to entrepreneurship and unfurling like a lot of opportunity for people who wouldn't otherwise have had it and an ability to learn new skills and do more with less. All of that stuff is super cool. And then I see the darker side, right? Chad (54:43.573) and you have to breathe. But I'd like to speak for America because talking about us like that, you Maureen Clough (54:43.798) Yeah, you have to breathe. Chad (54:53.131) Well, I know that which is why it's a little bit easier. Mo, it's been real. It's been fun. Thanks a lot for coming back. We haven't seen you forever. Hopefully you come back sometime incredibly soon before Nebworth, before Nebworth. Next week, the Cheez Man is going to be back. But until then, we out. Maureen Clough (54:55.448) But you're in Portugal. So you got out. Maureen Clough (55:03.278) So fun. Maureen Clough (55:08.492) Yes. Before and after, for sure. We out!

🧯HR compliance isn’t sexy—but it will  save your ass.🧠 OutSolve’s Jeremy Mancheski joins the show to: Decode the alphabet soup of I-9s, DEI, and AI Laugh through the regulatory circus with sharp wit and sharper takes Most of all, wow Joel with posters. YES POSTERS!?! If you think compliance is boring, this episode will slap that notion with a laminated labor law poster. Buckle up. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:29.237) Yeah, what's up boys and girls? This is the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always riding shotgun is Chad. So wash as we welcome Jeremy Manchesky to the show. He is CEO and founder of out solved Jeremy. Welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. Jeremy Mancheski (00:47.938) Thank you, good to be here. Joel (00:49.909) Good to have you. Well, a lot of our listeners won't know you, probably may not know OutSolve. Give us a quick sort of elevator pitch on you and the organization. Jeremy Mancheski (00:58.318) Sure, we're a company founded in 1998, I was the founder, focused on HR compliance. We handle a lot of the stuff that HR folks don't want to do but have to do. Chad (01:12.334) Yeah. So I always told Joel that starting a company to do the boring stuff, the important stuff, but the boring stuff is a smart business. And apparently since 1998, that's, that's been a smart business. yes, yes. Joel (01:28.021) Boring is usually really profitable for some reason. Jeremy Mancheski (01:29.89) Well, well, I can assure you, no one's six-year-old self ever said, you know, when I grow up, I want to do HR compliance. Joel (01:35.797) You Joel (01:41.013) haha Chad (01:42.116) do poster updates. We'll get into that. We'll get into that. Jeremy Mancheski (01:43.981) That's right. Joel (01:45.084) please, yes, yes. I'm waiting, I'm patiently, Chad, for the posters. Chad (01:48.784) Joel's 14 year old self keeps thinking concert posters. It's not that kind of poster, Cheeseman, but we'll get there. So Jeremy, the landscape of compliance has changed dramatically. And I mean, you being in this business for a while, I was an EEOC and OFCCP side of the house with VEVRA and 4212 and 503 and all these different things. These are very important things, right? But they seem to have... Joel (01:55.817) That's a shame. Jeremy Mancheski (02:14.434) Sure, of course. Chad (02:18.252) either changed dramatically lately, AAP as well, changed dramatically lately, just pretty much gone away. So when you take a look at the landscape today, we have companies asking us left and right, not just about DEI and what we should do on the DEI side, but also on the compliance side. So what are you hearing from companies and knowing that it's not the most stable of times? What's the advice you're giving back? Jeremy Mancheski (02:51.084) Sure, and like every, like your listener base, we have companies who lean left, lean right, people at those companies who lean left, lean right. The first 25 plus years of Outsolves existence, affirmative action planning and compliance, was a major part of the business, for sure. Obviously, there's been some change. January 21, Chad (02:58.32) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (03:19.822) I'm sure as I write my memoir one day, it'll be enough snow fell on that day in New Orleans that it was the equivalent of 100 years. True story. Over a foot of snow fell in New Orleans the day the executive order 11246 was rescinded. Yeah, 100 years worth of snow one day. Made it tough to get to the office to start getting this figured out, but here's the strange reality. Chad (03:37.413) Wow. Joel (03:45.845) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (03:48.556) Some companies left, some companies right. You'd think that would have put that portion of the business completely on its heels. It's actually quite the opposite. Companies do want advice and they see these choppy waters we're in and they just want to know what to do. I've said since 1998, Outsolve has no political leaning. We're here to make our customers compliant. Part of that is helping them navigate Chad (03:55.493) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (04:17.516) whoever's in the office. Remember, I've seen Republicans, I've seen Democrats, and this is obviously a very extreme administration in lots of ways, certainly not just related to my little corner of the world. The administration has some of this simply wrong. 1-1-2-4-6 in no way created quotas. 1-1-2-4-6 in no way created illegal DEI. And certainly, think anyone, regardless of what side you're on, Chad (04:43.652) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (04:47.874) would see that this administration gets focused on headlines, not necessarily the entire story. And in here, the headline is illegal DEI. And furtherance to that is meritocracy and trying to tear down what they see as some of the holdouts to policies that may not suit that agenda. So to your question, Chad, Joel (05:02.975) you Jeremy Mancheski (05:15.63) Is your earlier question, you asked me, you said, this a four-year problem? Is this something that changes? At this point, who knows? I think it's very reasonable to say that should a Democrat come into office or certainly a more moderate Republican in the next administration, we could be right back where we were just as quickly as these executive orders stripped some of these— Chad (05:38.224) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (05:43.969) other executive orders, we might see them put back in place. But for now, many companies are still trying to navigate the waters. You mentioned VEVRA, 503, those are still the law, gotta comply. And companies are still obligated to ensure a non-discriminatory workforce. So once you get past the buzzwords, you're not too far off of where you started. Chad (06:03.759) Mm-hmm. Chad (06:08.272) So Bush though, in the latter part of his term, I mean, he doubled down OFCCP, right? They put a lot into OFCCP enforcement to ensure that people, companies who are taking cash from their dollars are doing right by veterans and individuals with disabilities and so on and so forth. So we did, and you're 100 % right, Republican. And he was doubling down on those things because he thought it was right. so right now, again, it feels like you have to focus on what's in front of you today, not four years down the road. Is that what companies are really focusing on at this point? Although you still have to set up for who might be in next so that you have to do data collection and the things that were important before they're still important because data, we live in a world of data. We need that data. So talk about. Jeremy Mancheski (07:02.67) Well, 100%. It is an interesting timeline. Normally, companies like to plan for what's going to happen next year, two years, five years. You can't do that right now. Look at tariffs, for instance. They come, they go, they're in, they're out. Same with HR regulations. Today, we're trying to see what the very next step will be. And what I mean by that is they're going to be Chad (07:11.984) Mm-hmm. Chad (07:22.384) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (07:32.734) an enforcement arm of OFCCP. OFCCP has been stripped down approximately 90%. What data analytics would the administration suggest? Just last week, disparate impact is being challenged. That's often misunderstood by the federal contractor community and misinterpreted as adverse impact analysis, two very different things. What we can focus on today Let's talk about the EEO1 report. If you think posters are sexy, let's talk about the EEO1 report. There you go. I'm not. I'm not. I can't wait to get to that. But the EEO1 report has effectively an unbroken line of data collection for 40 plus years. No one really knew or even now knows whether current EEOC would even collect it in the Trump administration. Chad (08:06.64) Get ready, Cheeseman. Get ready, Cheeseman. Joel (08:07.989) Don't steal my thunder, don't steal my thunder, Jeremy. Jeremy Mancheski (08:30.722) Fortunately, last week we got an instruction manual came out. And even though non-binary gender was never part of the E01, this administration wanted to make it clear that it's not part of the E01. So that's the big change, non-change for the E01. Exactly, exactly. We don't want it even creeping in. Chad (08:49.69) Thanks for the clarification, right? Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, that's great. Jeremy Mancheski (08:55.79) But what we have, what we have is hopefully end of May, I think it's May 20, we think the EO1 data collection will happen and that's going to trigger quite a few things for companies out there. One, the requirement to file. You got to do it. Again, unbroken line. You will also find that that form is used for many state obligations, certifications, maybe even internally with 10K filing. for public companies, for RFPs when companies produce that. Lots of things that I've been saying, this administration has cut twice and measured zero. A riff on the old cut once and cut once, measure twice. But here, we're not sure of the impact of everything that's going on. So data collection remains important. 503 and VEVRA still have to do it. and what we're calling non-discrimination and employment analysis, 95 plus percent of our customers are still continuing the long doing. Joel (09:59.317) Cut once, measure twice. Tell me you're old without telling me you're old. Chad's former life was knee deep in this stuff. Mine less so. And when we spoke a few months ago, what really crystallized the importance of this to me was your recent purchase of a posters company. We just talked about the feds, but you guys have to worry about state and local laws and laws on a global impact as well. So talk about the posters, help the people like me who aren't as well versed this, like what you guys do and how important it is keeping companies out of court. Chad (10:28.868) Changes, yeah. Jeremy Mancheski (10:31.31) her. Jeremy Mancheski (10:39.598) Joel, I hate to correct you, but we have bought two poster companies. Joel (10:44.339) Woo hoo hoo hoo hoo. I can feel it Jeremy. Speak to me baby. Jeremy Mancheski (10:47.822) Sure. That's right. That's right. That's right. The two-poster business, Federal Wage and Labor Law Institute. There you go. No, not even close. It's a big market. Federal Wage and Labor Law Institute out of Houston and Labor Law Center out of Southern California, Santa Ana. Those posters are actually some very basic blocking and tackling for HR. And what we found Chad (10:48.24) a poster monopoly happening here, Jeremy. Be careful. Be careful. Joel (10:55.155) and antitrust issues. Jeremy Mancheski (11:17.486) It's one thing to say, let's go to your break room and let's look at the poster up there. It's another thing if you are a 50 state employer and you have to figure out how to maintain compliance at various sites. Imagine, let's say you pick a large fast food chain. How do you keep that poster compliance managed? And we do that through a few different ways. Of course, individual poster purchase, but... most do a subscription. And if you think about change, change being the driver of something changes on a poster, that's why you need a new one. Keeping up with it is really, really complicated for large businesses. So subscription model makes sense. We see this year, we anticipate lots of federal and state updates, which means we're going to be shipping, when I say literally millions of posters, that's what I mean. I'll have to get you all some pictures of our facility in Santa Ana. It's amazing. It's a large, large operation. But the connection to the other products and services we have, we found that compliance, HR compliance, everything from EEO, affirmative action, what we're learning is I-9 compliance, and of course, state posters. Joel (12:24.679) huh. Jeremy Mancheski (12:46.402) those usually fall to similar contacts within a company. So for us, providing connected solutions is critically important and a real value add to the customer. Chad (12:59.118) So AAP, as you had said, very big part of the business at one time, you guys diversified, right? Now let's take a look at, you know, kind of like the small business side of this. There are many companies that are out there that are laser focused on AAP. That to me seems like a cottage industry that's pretty much, I mean, they're going to have to diversify quickly or they're just going to have to go to the way of the dodo. What have you seen, because again, this is small business and small business runs this country. Talk a little bit about what you've seen with regard to AAP providers and then also companies asking questions around AAP. Jeremy Mancheski (13:40.558) Sure. I actually have spent quite a bit of time talking with my large and small competitors throughout this. The stark reality is there isn't a lot of guidance. So how customers can be best protected. Remember the concept of illegal DEI. The OFCCP has even suggested Chad (13:48.474) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (14:06.754) They've suggested OCCP become a of watchdog for illegal DEI. So if last year we're selling affirmative action, this year we have to pivot to monitoring nondiscrimination and part of that being ensuring no illegal DEI. Air quotes, I know we're not doing video on this, but consider air quotes around illegal DEI because we still don't really have a solid definition. big companies, small companies, and everybody in between are struggling to try to keep their names off of government watch lists, recognizing, of course, that the government is just as capable of using AI tools as any of us would be to maybe search websites, find something on diverse slates, find job postings that are seemingly using language related to DEI or something to that effect. Chad (14:44.708) Mm-hmm. Joel (14:44.81) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (15:05.784) So companies are kind of in the woods right now. I spend probably half my day speaking with customers, asking pointed questions in this direction. And we have a process for them that involves a non-discrimination and employment analysis, real analytics. Because like you say, Chad, data is a key driver. Metrics related to data are key drivers within HR. Joel (15:33.693) You, you, guys are on the front lines of, of what customers are talking about. What's worrying them. We've covered sort of the, new administration and the white house, some of the state issues, DEI. What else is on the tip of, of customers tongues? I mean, you've got gig economy, privacy, you have mental health, like there's so many issues. What are some other hot topics that clients are talking about with you? Jeremy Mancheski (15:57.27) Immigration. We found a lot of our customers who were responsible for affirmative action plans are also responsible for completing I-9 forms. Again, take something so simple as verifying immigration status or the appropriateness to work with someone and magnify it across a large enterprise. And it's very, very cumbersome. You mentioned where we... Chad (16:09.232) Mm. Jeremy Mancheski (16:26.638) We're adding new products and services and diversifying. I9 solution we found was something that was absolutely on the tip of our customers' tongues. It was coming up in so many conversations. One of the advantages of having a decent-sized workforce, Outsolve has about 150 employees, and the vast, vast majority of those are customer-focused, having conversations with HR people every day. Chad (16:52.24) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (16:53.246) and now navigating all this change. if they're asking about immigration and I-9s, well, that's a service we can provide. Another thing that's come up quite a bit, how can I balance state compliance, as we say, with federal compliance? It's complicated because remember, you have very blue states and you have very red states. Guess which ones are following the lead of the federal government? Chad (17:24.08) Yeah, fairly simple. Yeah, yeah, the red ones. So when we take a look at, and it sounds like very smartly, you guys have actually gone into the non-discrimination employment analysis instead of disparate impact. Is that kind of like a renaming per se? Joel (17:25.319) over my shirt maybe red Jeremy Mancheski (17:43.31) It's a renaming and a refiguring of analytics to make sure we're not stepping over any lines, invisible or otherwise. Title VII still exists. So companies have to ensure a non-discriminatory workforce. And if there's the concept of certification, I think the new administration suggests, what do we need affirmative action for? A company can just simply validate somehow. Chad (17:46.864) huh. Chad (17:52.528) You Chad (18:09.189) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (18:12.814) in a process that hasn't been determined, or certify that they have a non-discriminatory workforce, I don't know how you can certify something you haven't analyzed. Chad (18:22.32) Yes. Yes. So it also seems like in the renaming or the retooling, let's say for instance of disparate impact. Same thing with the, the EI and every company that I've, I've talked to around this is like, what do we do? It's like, what, what, what has given you the great outcomes, right? What, what, what are you doing? I don't care what you call it, but what's best for your business. Um, whether you're going to, you know, a female heavy, college or university, which you know, we, they're actually more females in academia today than, than there are males. You're going there. It's probably going to be heavy on the, on the female side. Again, this is all about outcomes and getting to the people that actually have the skills that you need. The question is, do we call it DEI? And my answer is always no, just call it hiring. Why do we have to put labels on all this shit? It drives me crazy, Jeremy. Jeremy Mancheski (19:15.922) I completely agree. Completely agree. know, one thing I've found, you DEI was never a significant portion of Autsault's business. know, affirmative action is compliance, right? DEI is sort of the like to have and often well intentioned exactly what it says it is, creating diversity, equity, and inclusion. Now, it's seemingly a bad word with this, a bad term with this administration. But I- Chad (19:26.446) Mm-hmm. Right. Jeremy Mancheski (19:45.806) I'm advising clients right now and what I'm suggesting to them is, what were your objectives to begin with? For some companies, candidly, DEI was public relations. I think it's a dirty secret of DEI. Some companies it was something to put on a website, something to appear to be welcoming, et cetera. Others took it very, very seriously. And of course there are varying degrees in between. I think it's important Joel (20:00.458) Hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (20:14.636) that companies who consider the path forward set clear objectives in their minds. What are you trying to accomplish here? And you can still do DEI that is not illegal. A great example, affinity groups. Companies had affinity groups. Now, theoretically, you can have an affinity group as long as everyone's invited. Lots of things along those lines. Set some objectives. Make realistic, have a realistic understanding of what you're trying to accomplish and don't overstep. Joel (20:54.965) So we've covered a little bit of the past, a lot of the present. I want to talk about the future. What are some of the issues that you see coming down the pike? Obviously AI is changing everything, remote hybrid work. What's coming down the pike? What should we be looking for in terms of pitfalls and threats throughout 25 and into 26 even? Jeremy Mancheski (21:15.374) Sure. You know, it's funny. Go back even a year and AI was the hugest rage. Everyone needed it, didn't know what it was, but we got to have some unit of AI within our business, right? And AI is obviously going to be a strong driver, particularly in the HR space, for a long time. I think and I sense that the world is taking, I don't want to say a step back, because that would suggest there's some... Joel (21:35.359) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (21:43.874) hindrance of technology or progress or whatnot. I don't believe that to be the case. But I think we're trying to be more thoughtful about how to use it, not just throw some AI against the wall and hope it sticks. I think we want to really think about it. Some of the very early adopters of any technology for that matter face the most scrutiny. I think we saw AI recruiting early on that was deemed in some instances even discriminatory. Joel (22:11.839) Yeah, we did. Jeremy Mancheski (22:13.038) And really, and I think this administration would see it even more so as discriminatory. So I think everyone's being a little more thoughtful. Everyone's a little more mindful. So yes, AI. Hybrid workspaces. Boy, we all went off the same deep end, for lack of a better term, on that during COVID. I think companies are. Joel (22:38.677) Mm-hmm. Jeremy Mancheski (22:41.088) in some respects, rethinking policies and productivity and maybe rewriting some of those policies. It's the Goldilocks effect, not too hot, not too cold and just right. think we were too hot on some of the stuff and I think we'll probably find a way that's too cold and time will tell on all this. So I don't love making big policy shifts on things like this without letting some others. figure out the pitfalls first. Joel (23:12.319) Fair enough. Chad (23:12.344) Not too hot, not too cold, but Jeremy Manczewski is just right, my friend. So Jeremy, if somebody wants to connect with you or learn a little bit more about Outsolve, where would you send them, sir? Joel (23:15.189) Just right. Jeremy Mancheski (23:25.742) I would tell them to call me or email me directly. My email is jmancheski, M-A-N-C-H-E-S-K-I at outsolve.com. Love hearing from clients, non-clients, HR people who undoubtedly have thoughts, comments, questions, and I promise I'll answer. Chad (23:45.484) Even competitors, because you guys are having to, to, to really pull together in this time of change. So yeah, that's, that's awesome. And that's great to hear, Jeremy. That's awesome. Jeremy Mancheski (23:52.79) Absolutely. As an industry, I've been around this industry for 30 plus years now. Known some of my competitors for that long. Had competitors who are now employees and vice versa. If we can't stick together now, when are we going to? Chad (24:11.45) Amen. Joel (24:12.243) Jeremy spoke on Chad and Cheese. We out! Jeremy Mancheski (24:17.728) I swear I was waiting for that. Chad (24:18.734) So bad. So bad. We out.

It’s Chad & Cheese  birthday week, baby! That’s right— two birthdays , one week , and after 8 years and almost 1,500 episodes, we’re treating ourselves… poolside for Cheese, beachside for me. Margaritas were definitely  harmed in the making of this celebration. But before we vanish into vacation mode, we’ve got a little gift for you . A fresh episode of Talent Chasing —where Moneyball  meets Office Space . What’s that mean? Not even Jasper knows. You’ll just have to listen and find out. This one’s a doozy: Brian Johnson, Jasper Spanjaart, and Chad (Yea The Chad) dig into Shedeur Sanders, NFL talent, fifth-round pick. Yeah, we said fifth . The guy had the stats, the swagger, and still got passed up more than a junior dev with a philosophy degree. Why? Race? Dad’s fame? NFL execs allergic to personality? We dig into all of it. So unwrap your birthday bonus, hit play, and embrace the chaos. It ’s our party, and we’ll snark if we want to. More at talentchasing.com PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Jasper (00:24.995) Hello and welcome to another episode of Talent Chasing. My name is Jasper Spangard. I'm a filmmaker and journalist joined by former military drill sergeant Chad Big Drill Sowash and Brian aka Frank Johnson who scouted two World Series winning San Francisco Giants teams and played for a whole bunch of three, sorry three, God's sake Brian, is two not enough. I was also about to mention that you played for a whole bunch of MLB teams, but then again, it sort of pictures you as a journeyman. Brian (00:41.654) Three. Jasper: Three Brian, isn't two enough? Chad (00:48.716) Never. Jasper (00:53.699) which again is true. But hello, you beautiful, young, bold American souls. I'm happy to be in a recording space with both of you once more. How are things, guys? Chad (01:05.857) All good here, man. I am back in Portugal, baby. I mean, that urge has back, can't be happier. All the sun, all the beach, all the water, all the beer, can't beat it. But you just got back from Japan. Talk a little bit about that. That's one hell of fricking flight, man, or series of flights. Jasper (01:09.615) Euro Chad. Jasper (01:22.991) A series of flights. So it was from the Netherlands to Indonesia where we had a wedding, a friend's wedding, which was beautiful. Then we flew to Japan after that via China. So I saw pretty much all of Asia in one trip, I feel like. But I spent the week in Tokyo watching baseball, eating far too much sashimi and sushi. Chad (01:34.16) wow. Chad (01:50.187) No such thing. Brian (01:50.656) No such thing. Jasper (01:50.703) Just, just no, there's no such thing. And beautiful beer too. The Japanese do beer quite excellently for my mate. Um, no, and it was, it was just completely captivating that the Tokyo is, is batshit crazy. It's, sort of the craziest city you can ever imagine. It's literally 15 cities sort of bolted into one. Um, fascinating. If you ever get the chance to get out of there, you absolutely must. I've got a whole range of tips and things you need to do. And whilst you're there, um, avoid the Shibuya crossing, but go to some far less known museums. much better way to spend your time there. but I remember vividly cause the, the, the day I flew out was the day of the NFL draft. So it was my first ever experience. well, following the NFL draft, literally from afar, 35,000 feet up in the air, somewhere above the South China sea. and I love the draft. I always make a note of staying up at least for the first and second round. those days. But it was weird because I had to follow it just shitty Wi Fi on the plane, trying to get updates from you guys and from Twitter that wouldn't load. So yeah, it was was it was interesting. Brian (03:02.464) It was interesting. And we talked about it last show when you were, you know, out and about doing your Asian Jasper trip. But the pre-draft conversation about Shadoor Sanders was fascinating. Amazingly, the post-draft story of Shadoor Sanders is even more interesting. And what's fascinating for me, and we've talked about this before, Chad (03:20.781) Mmm. Brian (03:29.558) There's about eight different storylines or eight different opinions you can have on the should do or Sanders situation and you would be accurate. That's what makes it intriguing is that there's a lot of things that play here that you got talent on the field, okay, which you would think could be primo, but it's part of the mix. You got personality of the player, you got interviews that were done. The Giants say one thing, other teams say another. You have Chad (03:46.455) Mm-hmm. Brian (03:57.644) You don't have 32 teams needing quarterback, you have like four or five. And then so that comes into play. So it's a shrink shrink market. So it's not a normal market there. For quarterback, you have the helicopter parent. We have the the you know, whatever round you think he deserves. You have in evaluating his talent, you have, oh, he doesn't throw on time. Oh, he's he's doing this, doing that. The bottom line is he carried a program from nothing to national relevance NFL teams to where they're facing huge TV audiences every week. And then some would say, well, it's because of that. People don't, know, there was a report. I don't know how true it is. Doesn't sound true, but whatever. One of the other ports was that Brian Dable was concerned that Dion Sanders would be in line for his job if things didn't go well or whatever it may be. So. Chad (04:26.839) Mm-hmm. Jasper (04:30.175) Exactly. Chad (04:37.783) Mm-hmm. Brian (04:52.8) Fascinating, fascinating. All these lines could be accurate. What's that? Chad (04:55.031) Deon's the last guy he's got to worry about for God's sake. He should just worry about himself. He should just worry about himself because Brian, Brian Dable, to be quite frank, I don't know how in the hell he's still in that position. But anyway, anyway. Brian (05:01.237) Yes. Jasper (05:07.353) But before, because what I want to, what I was about to mention is we talked about Shadur Sanders at length before, you know, I jetted off to Asia and I was just dumbfounded by his freefall. Because he doesn't go in the first round. So for those, you know, non NFL fans out there, first round, 32 teams. So each team gets to take their player, their favorite player of the draft, essentially. I was 100 % expecting, you know, Shadur Sanders to go in the first round. Just based on talent is based on what he did at Colorado, based on what he did at Jackson before that, the type of character he is, know, we've talked at, know, Brian's talk at Nauseam about, you know, quarterbacks and, know, what makes a good quarterback the fact that you need to be a bit, a little bit confident and we'll, we'll delve into that later. Um, but you know, this is a quarterback who completed 70 % of his passes in college, like 134 touchdowns, like 227 interceptions. Chad (06:01.517) with not a great O line. Brian (06:03.51) Zero all-in. Chad (06:04.969) Yeah. Jasper (06:04.975) But fill me in guys, because I wasn't there. What happened? Just then what was it like following this sort of process? Cause this is the biggest freefall of talent that I think I've ever seen. And it's the worst part of it is, I don't think people understand this fully. If you're not an NFL fan, it's there for everyone to see. Everyone gets to enjoy. And this is Schadenfreude at its global, at a global stage guys. Like this is, this guy's freefall was depicted to the entire world. Chad (06:20.941) Mm-hmm. Jasper (06:35.011) But what was it like following the draft from your guys' perspective? Because I wasn't able to watch. I was just reading tweets and messaging you guys. But tell me, what was it like? Chad (06:45.205) I for me it was it was as much of his slide as seeing the teams take other quarterbacks and who they took before that. mean Tyler show I mean he's he's older. I totally get that they want a little bit more mature guy but I mean to me he just didn't seem like he should have gone even close to that that high even Jackson Dart for goodness sakes. Then you got Jalen. Milro, Dylan Gabriel. Dylan Gabriel was taken by Cleveland before they took Shador Sanders. And it's like, how in the hell? Don't get me wrong. Big 10 quarterback, played at Oregon. Great team. They've got an NFL kind of like pro set offense. Totally get that, right? Totally get that. But he does not have the physical attributes. He does not. Jasper (07:31.385) Yep. yeah. Chad (07:42.829) have the physical attributes that should or Sanders does. So to be able to watch this for me, and again, as we were talking about it coming out of it, it was like, how can they not take this guy in the first round? Of course they will. Yes, he had some interview hiccups. Maybe he didn't want to go to those teams. Who in the hell ever wants to go to the Giants, especially right now? But at the end of the day, a lot of these things that Brian was talking about have actually come out and have made me think a little bit deeper about You take a look at personality and how that actually goes to marketing, right? And the Cleveland Browns are getting one hell of a personality marketing bump from a fifth round draft pick. That's from their fifth round draft pick, not from their quarterback that they took earlier, right? Number one. And then the second biggest one for me is that it's blending that personality and then the helicopter parent. Deon. was doing interviews and they're saying, well, you know, what if, what if should do where he picks a team that you don't want him to? And he's like, excuse me, pretty much he's controlling everything. And I totally get it. Dion is a, an, for all intents and purposes, he is an expert in the space compared to many other people, right? He's gone through the draft. He's gone through, he's been an NFL, an NFL player. He's been on both sides. He's been a coach, right? He's been a commentator. He's done all of these things. So therefore he really feels and he brings the chops of being an expert, but it's also the ability to have hubris and that's something that Dion's never had. So you've got one of those things where it's like, that can my team not only take on a Shador Sanders who also is going to have that kind of personality, perspective Lee and also hubris, but to Are we gonna have Dion in the fucking locker room too? So those are two big things for me, especially after the fallout. Just wow, just big, big wow. Brian (09:51.05) Yeah, completely fair. think Dion has not gotten the criticism that he deserves post draft. We talked a little bit about in our project because I don't think we realize how possibly this could play out. And now that it's played out, I think you're exactly right. For any of us that have coached at the high school level or the middle school level and realize that parents are heavily involved, here you have, just like you described, Chad, a parent who you're right. Chad (09:57.591) Mm-hmm. Brian (10:21.1) As far as his knowledge base is concerned, it's all on one level. He's dominated since he was a long time. And he dominated the draft, he dominated after the draft, he dominated everything in football. And so as a coach, now all of a sudden he's done really well as a coach in two different spots. So he deserves that acclaim. But sometimes a criticism of former athletes, former professional athletes, is that when you get back into the real world, it's hard to have that humility. Like in coaching, you don't remember when you stunk as an eight-year-old and you struck out four times, right? You don't remember when the 12-year-old, you had a hard time finding your release point when you're pitching. You know, when you guys shellacked one game or whatever, maybe, or he threw a bunch of interceptions. You'd forget those times. And so as a star, that's why many star players don't turn into good coaches because you have to have the humility because you need to coach in different ways for different people. The star... Chad (10:52.813) Mm-hmm. Brian (11:20.62) Probably needs a little more cerebral approach, keeping their confidence up, boom, boom, boom. The player who lacks the star skills, they need to make sure that they are fundamentally sound and thinking about A, B, and C that's different from the star. So that's why catchers are such good managers in baseball. That's why Dan Campbell with the Lions, he was a bench player for the most part. He got hurt a bunch of times in his career. A great way to be able to understand each person on your roster. Chad (11:43.597) Mm-hmm. Brian (11:49.622) Dion didn't have that and therefore he made big, big mistakes as a parent slash coach slash Dion and Shiloh's agent that he oversold his product, not because they're not any good, but because he did engage the market well. Chad (11:58.807) Mm-hmm. Jasper (11:58.895) Yeah. Jasper (12:07.619) But do we feel like, mean, this level of scrutiny though, I feel like it's unparalleled. I've never seen, you know, a young kid in, in, know, both Shiloh Sanders and Shaddur Sanders, both of his sons who have been scrutinized just to a point where I go, sure, but they can't help that that's their dad. Like, and they've looked up to this guy their entire lives and to give them some credit, you know, they've flourished under him, you know, they have flourished at their own level. But at what point do we... does perception of that family take overtake, you know, just performance in the way we assess talent because, know, it's, it's a dramatic slide. Sure. I didn't anticipate it. Like, okay, he's not going in the first round. Surely he's going to go in the second. Okay. Surely he's going to go into third. No, he wasn't taken until the fifth round by a team that as Chad just said, already took a quarterback early in the drought. I don't think I've ever seen that before either. Like taking two quarterbacks in the first five rounds, but beyond that it's, it's. Chad (13:00.045) Mm. Jasper (13:05.263) It feels unfair. It feels unfair. It feels like these kids, if they had a different back name, different last name, they would have been drafted in the first round. I think that applies honestly to both of his kids. Chad (13:17.677) I think so trying to make a correlation to kind of like the corporate world. remember working with tons of Fortune 500 companies and they would do college recruiting. So they would go on campus, these big campuses. And this is the first time I ever heard the term helicopter parent. And I was like, what the hell is that? Well, with these kids and their young adults, right? Their parents would show up to interviews with their parents would actually start the negotiation for their pay and their salary. Now, now, now, these parents have a hell of a lot more experience in all of those areas. Interview, salary negotiation, all those types of things. And there's all these reasons why, obviously, companies don't want to see that happening. They don't want to the parent in the office, right? They don't want to get notes from the parent. They don't want to get calls from the parent, right? This is, you're an adult now, you got to take this thing over. So you see this translate and I've seen many times and heard many times companies say amazing candidate, what they did in the classroom, what they could articulate in the interview, but we just can't have the perspective distraction of a parent feeling like they're sitting down beside them in the office. Right. And so you'll see this on the corporate side too. And that's where, you know, the first time I heard helicopter parent. So I can see this, especially when you're talking about Dion. We were talking about Dion, this guy's not just metaphorically sitting there. He's literally sitting there and he has access to every fucking TV channel, any broadcaster that he wants whenever he wants. And he can bring down a head coach, which, you we talking about Brian Dable earlier. He's going to bring himself down. But can you imagine if Shador did not get playing time? like he wanted, how, perspective-ly, Dion could come down on that entire organization. Brian (15:20.768) Yeah, or if Shadour goes to the Giants, he plays great. The team loses anyway. Dion's going to be talked about for months and months and months. But for me, would go to, let's talk about the other pieces as well, because the helicopter parents are great point. But I think also you have to come into play is race, right? The profile of a black quarterback, number one, right? We didn't have black quarterbacks for Chad (15:25.805) Mm-hmm. Brian (15:48.992) forever until recently, relatively recently. So is that the perception of of glitz and glamour, the perception of arrogance from a black quarterback? Right. So in the United States, we have a racial history here. And regardless of whether some people want to feel like some things have to do with race and some things don't take that argument out. Race involves everything. It touches everything. It may not be the only thing involved. And I think that's a lot of times perception gets wrong. is that just because race involved doesn't mean nothing else counts. Doesn't mean nothing else influenced it. That's why again, Shadoor's situation is so interesting because all these things come into play. when we had Ryan Leaf come to draft, number one pick, Peyton Manning, arrogance all over the place with both those guys in different ways. There was never a talk of making an example of, there's never a talk of a slide. And sure enough, unfortunately, Ryan Leaf had some other issues that came up to bed, Johnny Manziel. Now, the only time we've seen this happen with a I don't wanna say the only time, but we saw this slide happen with Aaron Rodgers, a white quarterback. But Aaron Rodgers wasn't the, we can't look at his pro career and look back in college and say, well, he came out as the number one prospect and came out as the guy, as the man. Same with Tom Brady. Tom Brady didn't play a whole lot in Michigan. He shared time in Michigan, so he wasn't Tom Brady at the time of the draft. So even though he slid further than Shadour, it's not the same situation as Shadour. Jasper (17:15.083) I wanna, yeah. Are you making it? Chad (17:15.454) No, no. Brian (17:16.202) Nor is Aaron Rodgers same situation. So we've never seen a white quarterback being made an example of, right? If we can say that, because I think that's pretty obvious that he was made an example of, regardless of what reason it was that we agree or disagree on. He was made an example of and it's gonna be fascinating to see him go forward. And it is a good, slate for him to be able to really show what he can do and plenty of who cares what team is from his talent is gonna overcome because Chad (17:26.114) Yes. Brian (17:46.688) What thing you can't get away from, which Damien Woody in the video you sent to us Jasper, you can't get away from talent. If you're a talented quarterback, you're gonna get an opportunity. Chad (17:55.444) Mm-hmm. Chad (18:03.725) Look, Joel popped in. Yeah, we've got a podcast in 15 minutes. Joel Cheesman (18:04.113) Not bad. Brian (18:08.062) nice. Jasper (18:08.623) No, but I think you're, I think you're making a fantastic point, Brian. And just to pivot back on some of the names that you just mentioned, because I did get some Aaron Rodgers vibes. Like there was some Aaron Rodgers, you know, when he was initially in the draft process, there was that whole ordeal of, okay, is this guy too confident? Is he too cocky? Same sort of thing, right? Johnny Manziel, same sort of thing. But we mustn't forget both of them, Rodgers, Manziel were first round picks. They were first round NFL draft picks. Shadr San is a fifth round draft pick. That means four times in a row, every team that possible passed on this guy, four times. And I feel like this, again, it's just, it's incomprehensible to me. Sure, you've got the name affiliation and you've, but you must be, as a team, you must be so insecure about your own livelihood to not pick this guy in the first four rounds. Like if you're honestly, if you let the fear of, Chad (18:40.727) Yes. Jasper (19:07.801) Deon Sanders might come in, his dad might come in and he might take over my job, blah, blah, blah. You must be horribly insecure in your own job because if you're not confident enough to pick that guy in the first four rounds, in the first three rounds or the first two rounds, what are we doing? Honestly, what are we doing? Chad (19:24.745) What the hell were the Browns thinking though? They took a quarterback first and then they traded up to get Shador. What the? Jasper (19:28.557) Yeah, that's I don't get either. Yeah. I don't get it. I honestly, I don't get it. Yeah, no going. Brian (19:34.422) Well, I think, I'm sorry, were you finished Jasper? ahead. So I think going on your point Jasper of the organizations, I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, but I think if you look at the four or five teams that really need the quarterbacks or Pittsburgh and Cleveland, let's just focus on those two. I think this was something that was sent down from above because just look at the mannerisms of Andrew Berry in his press conference and look at the head coach sit next to him in the press conference. Everybody's bending over backwards to make it seem like, know, Shadour's, you know, the one thing Andrew Barry say was he was oversold, right? So they're doing everything they can to make it seem like, this wasn't done on purpose. This wasn't done on purpose. And it's fascinating, you know, the comments out of the New York Giants, the zero comments from the Pittsburgh Steelers who needed a quarterback even more than Cleveland. How on earth does Cleveland does The Pittsburgh Steelers not draft a quarterback in this draft. It's ridiculous. And with a guy like Charlotte and with Tom, with Tomlin there as their head coach, I mean, that speaks to me again. Your boss told you not to do it. doesn't matter if you agree with him. You have to do what your boss tells you. And so you just stay out of the limelight because you can't change what your boss is saying. The bosses of those two organizations told them. Jasper (20:38.543) It's. Brian (20:59.764) You cannot take this guy for whatever reason you want to point out. It's hugely got to be racial, number one. And I hate to say that, but it's got to be part of it. The social media following has got to be a huge part of it. And the and there I'm sure they're reading the same reports we all did. He doesn't throw on time. You know, they're they're worried about the Johnny Manziel coming up. They're worried about a Ryan Leap. So they don't want to make a mistake. I get that part. But it's just when you look at the tape, no one's playing the game like he's playing. Jasper (21:03.161) Yeah. Jasper (21:08.526) I swear. Brian (21:28.556) except for Cam Ward with Miami. He was great. And I hate the argument that says, well, doesn't run, Sanders doesn't run like Cam Ward. Who cares? Dan Marito didn't run well, right? A lot of guys don't run well. Who can operate in the quarterback position? Cerebrally, Shadour is right there with Cam Ward. And maybe better, it's hard to read that kind of stuff. But cerebrally, the mental stuff, Shadour is in a class by himself. I think that's gonna show up. Jasper (21:43.929) Yeah, but- Jasper (21:51.318) You- you- you- Jasper (21:58.691) No, easily. again, you've alluded to the fact that, okay, only five or six teams needed a quarterback. But honestly, when does the draft ever become about need? I get that when you need a quarterback, you draft quarterback. But there's teams like the New York Jets, my New York Jets. Okay, great. You sign a guy in free agency. Great. know, Justin Fields, good, decent quarterback. Hasn't been a starter for two years, but he's good. Good enough. Really? You're not going to take a flyer on Shaduo Sanders in the second or the third or the fourth round. Really? Like honestly, it's just, I, again, I can't speak to the level of surprise I felt because it's, it feels wrong. It just feels wrong. And, and, and you're, think you're absolutely spot on in the fact that the race has to be an issue with this. And yeah, Dion Sanders is a personality of its own. We've, well documented that even on our podcast, you know, the type of character he is, but at same time. I didn't expect that type of backlash to happen based on the character he's got. Like sure, because next year we'll see Archie Manning probably in the draft, right? He's going to be the first round, first round, I think he's going to be a shoe in lock in for the first overall pick. Chad (23:03.638) Aren't ya? Chad (23:08.235) He might, I mean, his uncle played for four years. You never know with the Mannings because the maturity level those guys have, not to mention the NIL money that they're gonna be pulling, he might stay longer. He might. Jasper (23:15.36) No. Jasper (23:21.647) could be if he's not secured of a first round draft slot, sure, but that's why it's just all the war- and then again, no? Chad (23:28.267) I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case with the Mannings. The Mannings are smart. They understand that he's got to be ready for the NFL. He can come out early because he's going to go in the first round. That does not mean that he's ready for the NFL. And if anybody knows, talk a little bit about that, Brian. I think that's one of the things that the Mannings, from my standpoint, I look to see what they do because they know fucking football. If any family knows football, that family knows football. Jasper (23:34.999) Hmm. Yeah, but who's to say? Chad (23:55.917) I think that he will come out when they think he's ready. now here's also a twist to this, Brian. You got the whole Manning family, right? Who are also big out in the marketing space. mean, you've got a couple of uncles who have won Super Bowls, right? And you got this quarterback who has this big marketing opportunity. He had the same thing with Deion Sanders. But you're afraid of Deion Sanders, right? Jasper (24:08.172) Exactly. Jasper (24:24.994) Exactly. Chad (24:25.165) So I think back to back to your point, you know, is is this a race thing? I there's got to be some implications to that Brian (24:34.944) Yeah, without a doubt. think that's a great example that proves that point. Again, it's just different. It's just different when a Black person is involved. And regardless of what it exactly was, it's going to be hard for us to decipher. But race always plays a part. We're in the United States. Our racial history has been denied. It's been trying to get rid of it from our schools, trying to act like it didn't happen. And therefore, That means that it continues to linger and linger and linger and we don't acknowledge it. Just like in a relationship with your wife. You have a fight, right? And you have a fight. You did something wrong, but you'll never admit it and you'll never bring it up and never... Tell me right now if that relationship is going to last forever. Probably not. And if you do it once, it means you're going to do it a couple of times. So that's going to be hard to maintain. Same thing that's happened in the United States with our culture. It's always there. White folks deny it ever happens. And they're they accused black folks of always playing the race car. It's just anyway, it's just an issue that's there again, like we talked about. It doesn't mean it's the only issue that's there. It's an issue that's there. But with the Manning family, it's fascinating because look at Arch Manning. He didn't play last year. And so that's a little close to two years when his kids going to not be able to play a game to your point, Chad, in that if I'm if I'm Peyton Manning, if I'm Eli Manning, if I'm Archie Manning senior, I'm thinking Chad (25:59.757) Cooper. Brian (26:03.388) Nowadays, you got to be ready when you get there, especially if he's going to be the number one overall pick. You got to have experience to play this game, especially all these guys who have played five and six years because of COVID, an extra year of COVID eligibility. These guys are coming in seasoned and ready to play. If he's only getting one year of actual D1 competition, he may not be ready. Chad (26:24.619) Yeah, well, you take a look at you take a look at Richardson at Indianapolis. He did not have enough. He should not have come out. Period. Period. But Brian (26:28.214) great call. That's right. That's right. but he can run. He can outrun everybody. He can throw the ball a million miles. That doesn't matter at the quarterback position. You have Chad (26:40.077) He's just not short and mid. He has no short and mid game. Everything is long or he is running. Brian (26:43.98) Here we go. You gotta be able to make the layup. can't slam dunk on everybody every play, right? Chad (26:50.369) Yeah, you want me to play that Jasper? Okay. Jasper (26:51.491) Why don't... Go for it, yeah. Brian (27:06.602) thought Joe was going to be our special guest. Chad (27:41.389) Jesus. Ads. Trisha, you're gonna have to cut that first part and get ready. Here we go. Jasper (27:46.735) for Trisha. Jasper (29:45.507) Yeah. Yeah. Beyond the fact that, Go ahead. No, no, Brian, go ahead. Chad (29:45.867) You're just not him. Brian (29:48.064) So I have a problem with this, but go ahead. Chad (29:52.108) Hit it. Brian (29:52.47) So I like his one point of that, that, you know, they're in the talent acquisition business. Yep, I get that. But again, not every team needs us. So we're not talking 32 teams, we're talking three or four that really need to have quarterback talent. And we just saw them not in the talent acquisition business. And as far as how you evaluate it, he's saying that, I just disagree that because this, well, Chad (30:00.459) Mm-hmm. Brian (30:21.868) pull back a little bit. What I do agree with him, I think is the social media presence. And this is what we talked about with Tim Tebow. I think that was his strongest point, because I think with the Tim Tebow situation, we know that the social media piece they don't want because of all that. then you combine that with Deion Sanders. And that, I think, was the stew that they were trying to avoid. What's happened? And again, I think we talked about with your fifth round pick, as you mentioned, Chad. Chad (30:26.539) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Brian (30:50.42) I've never seen this much exposure and this much of the Cleveland Browns being a focal point from a fifth round draft pick. It wasn't Myles Garrett, your number one defensive end who just who's the highest paid guy in the NFL. It wasn't Joe Flacco who had a great season two years ago that saved the franchise and took them to the playoffs when your main guy got hurt. It wasn't the owners. It wasn't the GM. It was your fifth round traffic, not your third round draft pick, Dylan Gabriel, who's a solid player. It was your fifth round pick. And that is, I think, something that Cleveland's gonna benefit from that they didn't anticipate. Jasper (31:28.917) I mean, it's, makes, makes for an interesting sort of conundrum, doesn't it? I mean, you just alluded to Tim Tebow and I think he was very much one of the first players in the NFL to really undergo a level of scrutiny that no one else went through because he was, he was a talented guy, just a talented quarterback, first round draft for the Denver Broncos was traded to the New York Jets where he didn't get to play quarterback at all. Still don't know why, because they needed good quarterback play at that time. And it's just. The whole circus around them, that was always the same, right? The way they sort of phrased it, the media phrase was the circus around Teebo. Teams don't want the circus around Teebo. Well, guess what? The NFL is a circus already. It's a circus already. Like no matter whether you sign Tim Teebo or not, it's going to be a circus no matter what. Journalists are going to be there. They're going to ask different questions, going to ask stupid questions, going to ask right questions. It's always going to happen. Chad (32:08.513) Yes. Yes, it is. Jasper (32:21.647) But to me, it's it's just staggering to see this happen over and over again with, you know, you need a talented quarterback. You like, there is absolutely no one that can tell me he's not a talent quarterback. Shadrassana is a talented quarterback. 32 teams should have been in line for him, waiting and hoping and wishing that they could be the one drafting him. Instead, they all said, no, not our guy. Cause we don't want the circus around him. And that to me is just, it's staggering that It's, it doesn't feel like it's about talent acquisition anymore. It doesn't feel like it's about talent anymore. It just feels like we're so incredibly concerned with what the media perspective will be that that will be the one thing that will shy away from any type of talent decision-making because based on talent, he should have been a first-round pick. based on all everything around it and the whole sort of worrisome like, okay. What are they going to write about us? What are they going to say about us? leads them astray and leads them to different decisions. And that is, it's so weird. It's honestly, it it feels, it feels like the NFL is not ready for this. Like college football has made leaps and bounds and you know, with, with NIL coming in and the way, you know, plays are now being paid and, know, getting, you know, sponsorship deals and marketing deals. It's weird that the NCAA has sort of overtaken the NFL when it comes to that. And I do know, I know that, that, you know, NIL is, is, is still, you know, up for discussion, whether it benefits the integrity of the sport, but at the same time, it feels like they are the ones embracing personalities and the NFL just wants boring, basic people to do the job that it's task at hand and well, don't try to do much else. Chad (34:09.751) Well, and I think the hardest part about this whole thing is we talked about this on one of our one of our baseball shows where we're talking about the personalities out of baseball. The personality is in football, and that's exactly what's selling the game. It's what it's what makes it the most. It's the most profitable sport in the world. Period. It's the number one grossing sport in the world. The National Fucking Football League. Right. Take a look at that. You take a look at the Dallas Cowboys. makes more than the than the English Premier League does. Just the Dallas Cowboys, right? So then you talk about, well, we don't want the circus. Yes, you do. That was an excuse. That was an excuse to say no to this circus. But you're looking for another circus because you want to sell jerseys because you do want the limelight on you, right? Especially, especially, hopefully on your way to winning. So then you take a look at. A kid who is in two. Jasper (34:57.303) Exactly. Chad (35:10.093) two teams, Jackson State and then obviously Colorado did an amazing job. And like you'd said, Brian, zero offensive line. He had to make plays happen. He had to make plays happen. It was funny because Cam Ward was giving Shidora a hard time saying, well, if I threw bubble screens all day, I could do that too. I could have that high percentage rating too. It's like, shut the fuck up, Cam. You had an offensive line. OK? Brian (35:28.349) you Chad (35:37.129) It might not have been a great, but you had an offensive line should do or did not have one. So I just see so many, so many cards in this house of cards that are just tumbling from all this bullshit excuse from these different teams. think a lot of it. And again, not, not trying to be mean to Dion, but I think a lot of it is that they are afraid of Dion. They're afraid of. Brian (36:02.124) I agree. I think both your points are correct. think I want to circle back to the race card again, because again, for me, as a studier of race for the last 50 years, being in a multi-ethnic environment, Oakland, California, being in a multi-ethnic environment, and again, a predominantly Black city in Detroit, Michigan, my whole life. Being sensitive and aware of racial issues when I started, like I was like eight years old when I first, the light went on, I saw the world through a different lens. I think race is a fascinating conversation. And I think as we talk about this, Jasper brought up the great point of Tim Tebow, right? But we often forget to bring in Colin Kaepernick. Chad (36:36.493) Mm-hmm. Brian (36:53.068) Collin, if you look at examples, two examples of players being excommunicated and removed and blacklisted from the NFL, those two guys hit it spot on. Tim Tebow, because of social media following and because his arm isn't that strong. But you could say the Baltimore Ravens won a Super Bowl with a quarterback that didn't have an arm that was that strong either, but whatever. Chad (36:53.292) Yes. Chad (37:10.24) Mm-hmm. Chad (37:17.943) That hell of a defense. Brian (37:18.902) But that would like the like the should do our Sanders doesn't throw on time. That was the that was the thing that was done with Tim Teebo is that he didn't throw even though they want to play off game with them. He was communicated from the NFL just like Colin Kaepernick. So it's fascinating to see the two situations Teebo is because of social media following Colin Kaepernick situation just because he was black and because he was challenging the system and peacefully quietly took a stinking knee. Jasper (37:48.131) you Brian (37:48.372) And so it's. Chad (37:48.929) And he was, and and he was actually advised to take a knee by a green beret who I trained in Fort Benning, Georgia, by the way. yes, but. got to bring it back to me guys. Got to bring it back to me. But again, I agree a hundred percent races of discussion. need to have more of, right? Not just in sports, but outside of sports. but because it's so uncomfortable, it is, it's uncomfortable. Brian (37:51.422) Exactly right. Exactly right. Really? Jasper (37:57.931) weighted name drop, weighted name drop. Fantastic job. Yeah. Brian (38:00.448) Love that. It is all about you. Brian (38:16.716) Yeah, it is. Jasper (38:18.337) It's... yeah. Chad (38:18.827) We need to have those uncomfortable discussions and we need to have them just to make ourselves better. It's not throwing mud, right? It's to be able to ensure that the humans that we work beside, left and right, that they are getting a fair shot at shit. And that's not a bad thing. Brian (38:34.026) and that you're factoring in all the pieces into play. Like we're doing this conversation. We're throwing out a whole bunch of different threads to this that are all compatible. Race is often thrown out because it takes all the oxygen in the room when it comes up because white folks, quite honestly, have a hard time talking about it. Black folks don't have a hard time talking about it. Latino folks don't have a hard time talking about it. Asian folks don't have a hard time talking about it. It's white folks have a hard time talking about it. Chad (38:42.541) Mm-hmm. Brian (39:00.308) And that's what sucks up the energy in the room or the atmosphere in the room is because we, me, my people, we get defensive and feel like, no, if I admit the racism was a part of our history, then it means I didn't earn anything that I've ever done. That's not true. That's overthinking it. That's not true. And that has nothing to do with the conversation. Anyway, so I'm glad we're able to have the conversation here and really factor in all the pieces of Shadoor Sanders' story because it's fascinating. Chad (39:07.757) Mm. Jasper (39:31.203) Now I think one final point I do want to make, and I know we've done an extensive episode on Dion Sanders himself. So, I mean, people should very much just go back and listen to that because we're going to probably duplicate what we've already said. But I wonder just with Dion Sanders, whether his, the way he acts, the way he talks, the way it like, it's almost as if people just perceive that as him being arrogant and brash. I just see a confident guy. Honestly, for me, honestly, it just boils down to confidence and a faith, you know, in something higher than him and of sort of faith in himself. But why do we see that as a danger as society? Brian (40:15.692) He doesn't cuss, he doesn't put anybody down, he defends his players, he promotes his players, he's building young men. Jasper (40:20.173) Nope. Only talks people up. Yeah. Why it's, it's, it's almost as if we're not ready for a powerful black man of that stature. It almost feels that way. Chad (40:24.171) He's a powerful black man. Brian (40:30.908) I think you're right. And what we don't hear about at all when we talk about Deion Sanders is they were the number one team, the only team in history to have a football team in total with a great point average over 3.0. And I posted that on social media. People responded back to me like, that's a lie. Did you go to Snopes? Did you find out that's true? Is that a lie? And I had to throw a video on there. The academic advisor, a white woman, was there to justify it or verify it, right? Chad (40:38.861) Mm. Chad (40:44.094) yeah. Chad (40:58.082) Yeah? Brian (41:00.204) as far as visually, and I got no comments after that. They said it was untrue, but the academic. So this program, not only on the field, was garbage before he got there. And over time, he's built them into not only a team to be reckoned with on the field, but also academically. These young men are building a foundation for themselves under his stewardship. That is amazing. Chad (41:12.596) Mm-hmm. Chad (41:25.835) Yes. Well, Dion, one of the things that I love about Dion is his discipline, not just on the field, but off the field. And what he's doing is and one of the this is the biggest thing. He is a mentor. Right. Not just to his sons, but to everybody on that damn team. That's why Travis Hunter followed him. Right. He was able to to to show lead. Jasper (41:34.898) yeah. Chad (41:55.019) and show discipline, right? And then also enforce that discipline, especially when it came to grades, behavior, those types of things. He understands this is a business. You have to understand your personality, the marketing, developing yourself, but also outside of that, it's a much bigger thing. And much like you talk about, Brian, this is fantasy land. You've got to prep yourself for when you're out of fantasy land. And those grades are going to be the foundation of the deal. of how you do that. Brian (42:26.06) That's right. And the athletic part is the easy part, right? That's what we enjoy as kids or as young athletes or young men. We enjoy that part, the hard part. It was hard part for me. The academic part, that wasn't fun. Going to class at eight o'clock in the morning wasn't fun. Studying for finals wasn't fun, right? But you had to do it. And I love to your point, Chad, that Dion has forced his team, used the power and the leverage he has as the head football coach and forced them to show up to class, be in the first row. We've all seen the videos. Chad (42:33.879) Mm-hmm. Chad (42:48.247) Mm-hmm. Brian (42:54.838) You got to be in the first row. You got to be on time. You got to be all these things. And here they have produced and we don't hear anything about it, which is, which is too bad. Chad (43:05.751) Great. Jasper (43:06.287) It feels like a slap in the face of all of that. Yeah. Chad (43:10.135) Yeah, well sliding, but the beautiful part and we'll end on this is we have a Chador Sanders who we know is incredibly talented that got knocked down to the fifth round and that's going to put a chip on his shoulder that you hope the Browns thought they could actually use. Who knows? We'll see. Jasper (43:24.717) He got humiliated, yeah. Jasper (43:29.325) I hope so, yeah. Brian (43:36.554) And the humiliation, Jasper, was the point, right? That was the point. And I think what it's going to do is going to fuel that fire. It's going to be He'll be fine. He just signed a contract for four years for $4 million. He'll be fine. He got plenty of NIM money. His money's fine. Jasper (43:39.535) Exactly, that's the point. Yep. Chad (43:39.671) Yeah, well that was the point. Jasper (43:50.188) I think we'll be fine. No, I don't even worry about his money. I just I just really hope that guy. Brian (43:54.7) He's gonna be fine. It's gonna be a fun story to continue to watch. Jasper (43:59.535) I hope he just gets a shot somewhere, whether it's with the Brown somewhere else, I just want that guy to show the world what he does as a starting quarterback because he's gonna... Brian (44:06.836) And is it an interest? I think many of America or many of the world really he's following is amazing. People are tying into that. Because we all like underdogs, We all as human beings, Jasper (44:17.46) Yeah, and the NFL just made him an underdog. Brian (44:20.118) Exactly right. And the NFL made this a bigger story than it was gonna be before. And it's fascinating, again, to you guys' point, the NFL is already about chaos and all kinds of stories and villains and good guys. Shadour Sanders, when he goes off and takes his team to the playoffs, that's gonna be fun to watch. Chad (44:20.407) Yes. Jasper (44:39.094) Ooh, buddy. Chad (44:41.575) And we will be following kids. So every week come on back to a little talent chasing. We'll be back next week. And again, we will follow should or Sanders as well as all the other amazing talent, not just on the field, but in the corporate ranks as well as Chad. So wash jester Spaniards in our Frank. I mean Brian Johnson. We appreciate you coming subscribe like and come on back. Have a good one guys. Jasper (45:10.478) appreciate you, see you soon.

Fear and Loathing in DEIThis week on The Chad & Cheese Podcast, we go full DEI—fear, backlash, boomers, clowns, and Costco. Buckle up. TEDx speaker and DEI whisperer Dr. Poornima Luthra joins the chaos to explain why equity makes some people clutch their pearls… or their privilege. Poornima breaks down the five flavors of corporate DEI fear  and why even woke allies are sweating through their Patagonia vests. We unpack how unqualified dudes named Bill keep running the show and why that’s not “best in class.” Political DEI backsliding? Check. Costco as the unlikely hero? Double check. Poornima pitches a survival guide for allies who don’t want to be labeled the “DEI police.” And yes, her new book Can I Say That?  is basically a DEI crash course for folks who fear getting canceled but still want to get it right. 🎧 Listen now. Learn something. Or at least pretend to at your next staff meeting. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:31.488) Yeah, this is the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is in the shotgun seat as we welcome Dr. Poornima Luthra. She's a TEDx speaker and leading academic on the DEI space. And she's an associate professor at the Copenhagen Business School. and she's also an author. Dr. Luthrah, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad (00:39.53) What's up? Poornima Luthra (00:59.032) Thank you so much for having me. Looking forward to this conversation. Joel (01:02.422) Pleasure is all ours. A lot of our listeners and viewers do not know who you are. So give us the elevator pitch. What did I miss in the intro? What should I have expanded upon? Let us know who Dr. Luther is. Chad (01:13.418) She's getting ready to go on vacation. That's the most important part. Poornima Luthra (01:16.366) Absolutely, absolutely I am. But for now, for the next 30 minutes, I'm here. Well, my name is Poornima. I'm an academic. I've been in academia for a long time, 18 years after finishing my PhD at the National University of Singapore. And I've been in the space of talent management, HR, researching and teaching in this area for this period of time. I'm the author of multiple books within the diversity, equity, inclusion and inclusive leadership space. My fourth book comes out in a few weeks in May and it's titled Can I Say That? and really unpacks the resistance and backlash that we're seeing to DEI. So I spent the last two years really exploring this, studying this, trying to come to terms with why does this backlash actually exist? And that's probably something we're going to take a look at today. I live in Copenhagen in Denmark. I am going to be taking on a new role in Imperial College Business School in London. going to be making that shift really soon to a senior faculty role over there. Very excited about taking that up. Chad (02:13.11) Nice. Joel (02:14.176) Congrats. Chad (02:19.868) Awesome. Awesome. So what brought you to the DEI inclusion kind of ranks? mean, because you could have there could have been many things that you could have done, but you did this. Why? Poornima Luthra (02:31.214) I think the two things, and the thing on a professional front, it really started with getting exposure to various theoretical perspectives around DI during my PhD program. And that sparked interest, of course, but I think there's a more fundamental personal reason here. I think if you ask my parents as a child, I always had a very heightened awareness around social inequity that I saw around me. I noticed it a lot more living in Asia, traveling around the world. I, of course, came from... Chad (02:40.726) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (02:57.934) and had those opportunities, very privileged background to be able to do that. But I also in travel also noticed social inequity around me in different contexts and in my own environment and circumstances being a woman, woman of color. And there were number of different experiences through my life where this felt like it was the right pathway to go down to ensure that the world is fairer. for other people. And of course that narrowed down into focusing on organizations once I did my PhD and then got into the research and teaching realm. Chad (03:36.598) Gotcha, gotcha. from across the pond, from across the pond, you're seeing what's happening here in the US. We had very solid DEI practices, EEOC, OFCCP, all the acronyms, right? All the enforcement, all the education. From across the pond, what do you see happening right now? Because we're here, we see stuff, but from across the pond, what are you seeing? Joel (03:37.675) So. Poornima Luthra (03:39.918) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (04:01.228) Yeah, I I am tapped quite into it. Of course, you only feel the nuances and the details once you're in a particular context. But the reality is that what's happening in the US does affect the rest of the world. And as it's often said, when the US sneezes, the rest of us seem to catch a cold. But I'm hoping we're not catching too much of a cold right now. But what we're seeing is a backlash, perhaps the peak, if you'd like, of a backlash towards DEI. Chad (04:03.862) Mm. Poornima Luthra (04:29.698) the administration in the US government. And we're unfortunately seeing the ripple effects of that across the pond. know, many companies have been issued across Europe with a letter from the American embassies on removing DI training, the usage of the term diversity, equity and inclusion, or its acronyms, if they are engaging with Joel (04:48.438) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (04:57.442) federal contracts. you know, there is a clear impact on this side of the world and there are real consequences to many of the clients and companies that I work with. Joel (04:59.755) Mm-hmm. Joel (05:10.102) A lot of your research talks about or highlights the opposition to DI as a rooted in fear, whether it's political fear, consumer fear, et cetera. Can you elaborate on how this fear manifests in corporate settings and its impact on decision-making by organizations? Poornima Luthra (05:27.746) Yeah. So resistance and backlash to DEI, if you'd like, has always been there. You can trace this back around the world, whether it's the civil rights movements in various parts of the world, movements for women's rights. And you go back to the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and we've always seen resistance to DEI. It just takes different forms. It shows up in different ways depending on the context, global context in which we're in. Yes, we are seeing in the last two years that backlash amplifying and we're probably seeing the peak of it unravel itself right now. Now, if we try and look at where this comes from, it comes from seeing DI or people feeling that DI is a threat and a threat to what is the next question that would come up, a threat to my status, to my cultural values that I hold so dear to me, to the opportunities that I've had in the organization that I'm with that are suddenly challenged. I don't enjoy the same privileges or advantages that I used to enjoy. So the carpet or the floor under me is being shaken and that creates a certain set of emotions. And so when we get into the emotional space and we try to understand, well, what does DEI actually evoke? It doesn't just evoke emotions in those who are part of the dominant group. who have enjoyed advantages or privilege, it actually evokes emotions in all of us, even those of us who are working in the space. Chad (06:50.848) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (06:55.51) And it creates emotions that are around feeling overwhelmed, feeling anxious, feeling worried, feeling uncertain, feeling inadequate. And when you look at the research on emotions, these emotions come down to the core human emotion of fear. And when I was doing my research, one of the things that came up is we as human beings don't like talking about fear. In fact, we're fearful of talking about fear itself because we find the concept of fear something that we really struggle with. But until we address that this actually, these emotions that we see play out in organizational environments and conversations that we're having and in actions, that they actually come from this core human emotion of fear. And then how do we let go of that fear? How do we understand that goal? But I want to emphasize that this fear is experienced on all sides. This is not just fear that's experienced with those who are from the dominant groups. This is experienced across the board. And so my research shows that there's five main types of fear that we experience. It's the fear of change, things needing to be done differently, me needing to address the fact that the systems around me were catered for some groups and not others, depending on which side I'm on, it might benefit me, it might not. It might be fear of needing to do things differently in terms of how I've been hiring, needing to come to terms with the very idea that I am biased and the systems around me have bias embedded within them. Chad (08:22.262) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (08:22.35) So that fear of change. And then it's the fear of getting it wrong, right? Saying and doing the wrong thing. And that I see plenty of it's, can I say that? Can I do that? Am I doing the right thing? It feels like we're all walking around eggshells right now. Even someone like myself, right? And it says, I walk into spaces these days. I know that 10 to 15 % off the audience is quite likely gonna have a very different worldview compared to me. And that number could be more depending on the company, depending on Joel (08:36.16) Yeah. Chad (08:36.406) huh. Poornima Luthra (08:52.074) where people are from. you know have to be cautious, careful, you almost worry or are concerned with the words that you're using so that you get people along the journey rather than creating that block. So there is a fear around what can I say, what can I do in the climate that we're in. I don't want to be cancelled, you know it's all of those different things. And then it's the fear of taking actions and the personal consequences to it and that is Chad (08:53.686) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (09:19.158) leans a bit more towards those of us working in the space that we're always going to be labeled as the Vogue police and I put that in quotation marks or perhaps the DI police or there she comes or there he comes or there they come. They're going to be the ones addressing it. They're going to be asking us to do something differently. Those labels that are attached to those of us who are trying to do this work. And then there's the discomfort, right? And I alluded to it earlier with the fear of change, but that also creates in us this discomfort coming to terms with the very fact that we are biased is challenging for many people. have an, am not biased bias, right? We'd like to think that everyone else is biased, but I'm not, I'm very rational. And so, you know, that discomfort, also the discomfort with having these difficult conversations. We live in a very polarized world and it's almost... Joel (09:59.876) Thank Poornima Luthra (10:09.504) a world where you either take a stand on A or you're taking a stand on B and we've created an environment that is a zero sum game with how we've communicated around diversity, equity and inclusion that has required people to take one of two stands. But there's a lot of nuance to this. There's multiple perspectives that coexist. It's not so straightforward and it's not so simple. But in that zero sum game in this polarized world, we have created that disconnect. and almost like a big vacuum in between and having those conversations is very challenging. And the last one is taking action, the fear of taking action or not seeing the positive results if you'd like off the action. So you feel it feels right now like we're taking, we've taken two steps forward but we're taking 10 steps back right now. And sitting with that, especially for those who work in this space can be quite challenging because it is how do you... Joel (10:58.378) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (11:05.826) keep the resilience going? How do you keep the strength going? Where do you find the motivation when the backlash is so severe? So those are the five fears that have come up through my research. And I think they cover a fair bit of how many of us are feeling right now. Joel (11:21.162) And don't forget number six, the fear of clowns. I just want to make sure everyone's clear on the sixth fear that everyone has. Chad (11:24.534) Hey, there's got to be equity in this. Okay. There's got to be equity in this. yeah, quick. I don't think so. They're all scary. So quick story. We were a bunch of individuals during a conference taking some time out and we're talking through DEI and we had one of our friends who's a DEI leader was talking and he had to go take a call. Poornima Luthra (11:30.136) That's it. Joel (11:31.198) All clowns are inclusive. Chad (11:53.278) And while he left, this older white woman said, look, I don't know that I would ever want to give away my advantage. I don't know that I, she was being truthful. She was saying the quiet part out loud. said, I don't know that I would ever want to give up that privilege. I guess my biggest question is, do we have to wait till the boomers die and until we actually get into, which I think is where a lot of the fear is happening in the U S where whites will be the one in the minority group. And about 2035, 2040, do we have to get to that point to we actually start to embrace this? Because to be quite frank, this back and forth just seems like a political Kabuki theater to me, more than anything else, because we all know that diversity is better for business. Looking like your community is better for business. Selling to people that look like you, talk like you is better for business, right? So are we just going to have to wait till the boomers die? Joel (12:34.326) suicide. Chad (12:50.934) It's what it feels like. Poornima Luthra (12:51.726) I mean, I love that perspective. mean, it's just, you know, no one wants to think that we have to wait for a whole generation to perish before we make progress. I'd like to think that we can bring people along the journey. But you know, the way the world is right now, it's hard to stay optimistic. I'm a realistic optimist. I can't do this work and I cannot have done it for the period that I have without kind of having that optimism. Joel (12:53.332) I got dark. Chad (12:56.374) Hahaha Chad (13:13.12) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (13:20.11) But at the same time, I also want to be realistic that do we have to... Look, an entire generation has an entire generation that's intersecting with gender and with race, a particular group has enjoyed those advantages. I wish we could bring people along the journey. And I would argue that the arguments that we have made around diversity, equity and inclusion have not necessarily got them through that journey. of self-reflection. So I think we need to hold the mirror up for those of us who are doing this work. We need to find better ways of communicating around this. We need to ensure that people understand that this is about leveling the playing field. It's about fairness. And come down to the core. Yeah. Chad (14:06.462) These people don't want fairness though. That's the problem. They want their advantage, right? They want their advantage. So again, how can you get somebody to buy into equity if they understand that equity means I lose my advantage? Poornima Luthra (14:24.162) Yeah, and I think that's a zero sum way of looking at it. And that's what I mean by I think we've painted the picture incorrectly. Like we have painted that picture in the DI space that if we prioritize one group, we're prioritizing women, it's at the expense of men. If we're prioritizing marginalized racial identities, depending on where we are in the world and what that looks like, then we are, you know, deprioritizing the dominant groups. If we're prioritizing the LGBTQ plus community, it's at the expense of Chad (14:28.34) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (14:54.05) cisgendered heterosexual individuals. And that's the game that we have played. And that's incorrect. And so that fundamental shift that we need to make away from the zero sum game, this excessive focus on numbers and targets without doing the real work of systemic and cultural change is why we are where we are today. So yes, this is a direct consequence. in the zero-sum thinking that we have created in how we have communicated and the efforts that we've made around diversity, equity and inclusion. And so if you ask me, this is a pivot point, this is a shake-up, if you'd like, of how we do this work and a real need to go down to the basics of what does diversity, equity and inclusion stand for. How do we make it happen? And that's about systemic and cultural change, really addressing the bias that's embedded in our processes, in the ways in which we're doing things and how we're interacting with each other. But the reality is that this takes time. This takes effort. This takes commitment from organizations. And the quick fix is always going to be the quotas and the targets. And if we continue down that pathway of quotas, targets, and numbers, and obsession with numbers, we will continue the zero-sum game. Chad (15:57.43) Mm-hmm. Joel (15:59.062) Thank Joel (16:05.75) Hmm. Poornima Luthra (16:10.072) So I think organizations really need to wake up and ask themselves that if we want an organization in the future that does hire on the basis of competencies and strengths, that is reflective of the customer base that we are trying to serve, that is reflective of demographic groups, that is getting the best people into the organization, that is creative and innovative, then we've got to address those systemic biases that are at play and challenge the culture as well. But this requires effort and I'm not necessarily sure I'm always convinced that leaders in organizations want to put in that effort and that commitment to seeing it. It's always quarterly results. It's how things are changing. It's the annual report and how the numbers are looking. So it requires a real shift on boards. It requires a shift in senior leadership around how we do this. What are we prioritizing? And really seeing this for the medium to the long term and not looking at those quarterly results. But that's the world that we live in, right? Chad (16:49.755) huh. Yep. Poornima Luthra (17:08.704) I'm not very optimistic. If we stay down this pathway, you're right, Chad. We're probably going to have to wait for a generation to leave this world, as morbid as that sounds. But yeah. Joel (17:20.362) Changing the world one funeral at a time. And I quote Axel Rose, Chad, you can have anything you want, but you better not take it from me. That's right. Chad mentioned, Chad mentioned how we all know that it's that DEI is good, in a corporate environment. I'm curious about the workplace impact of resistance, to DEI, particularly on employee morale, retention, productivity. talk a lot about this in your, in your writings and speeches talk about. Chad (17:23.413) Yeah. Chad (17:27.52) Take it from me. You're in the jungle, baby. Joel (17:49.94) the impact of resistance to the EI. Poornima Luthra (17:53.464) So first of all, it's not always a guarantee that diversity, equity and inclusion results in positive outcomes. Okay, it, know, or rather that diversity results in positive outcomes, right? And so when we look at the research out there, this is what is known as the diversity paradox. Putting people together who are different from different backgrounds, experiences, skills, whatever combination we'd like, doesn't always result, Joel, in those wonderful things of lower. you know, job turnover, retention rates, job satisfaction. It doesn't. There is an ingredient there and that ingredient is the equity and inclusion piece that we often don't prioritize in our organization. So what we were talking about earlier with the systemic and cultural change, that is what we do need to be focusing on because you can't just put people who are different together and expect the magic to happen. That doesn't always happen. In fact, it can lead to greater miscommunication, misunderstandings. Joel (18:25.098) Mm-hmm. Okay. Chad (18:35.627) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (18:50.498) People look at things in different ways. They might be that some groups might continue to be alienated, not feel like they're included or that they feel like they belong. And that creates increased job dissatisfaction and it actually adds to stress to employees. So it's not always a guarantee. And I think this is where companies make a mistake with prioritizing the D over the E and the I without realizing that the hard work of E and I needs to be done first. before you get the D in so that you can get those wonderful outcomes at the end of it. So that's known as the diversity paradox. It's not always guaranteed. So if we assume that we've got the diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we've got this resistance at play, this resistance is going to, in its current state as it is right now, it is going to have a consequence if it stays the way it is on people's morale, on how people are feeling, especially if folks are from marginalized groups, what does this mean for me? What does this mean for my opportunities in the organization? We're gonna see heightened levels of job dissatisfaction. We're going to see people feeling insecure with what's next for them. Are they going to be on the chopping block? When there's promotion opportunities, growth opportunities, am I even gonna be considered for it? Is the process actually gonna be a fair one? Because without some of these equity practices in place, Joel (20:12.886) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (20:13.518) It is very easy for bias to slip in and dominate the kind of decisions that we're making. So it's difficult to predict, Joel, what we're going to see in the next few months and years. And I think many of us are just kind of holding on just to see how this plays out, especially globally. Because a lot of my work is, of course, much is outside the US. But I also see pockets of resistance to the resistance, especially in Europe. Joel (20:30.954) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (20:42.006) And that's been nice. While there's also been the wave of companies here shifting some of the language around this, we've also seen leaders saying, is part of our value systems in this country or in this community or in Europe, that this is important to us and we'd like to continue that. So we're seeing that resistance to the resistance. So I feel it's early days right now to see how this is gonna have an impact on employees more broadly. Chad (21:07.435) huh. Joel (21:09.302) It's not just about the D Chad. It's not just about the D. Words of wisdom. Chad (21:10.012) So, but that's what I've been told my whole life. so let's talk a little bit about this meritocracy versus DEI. And I'm going give you a great example. Bill Cassidy has been in Congress for 17 years and the state he represents, Louisiana is one of the poorest, least educated and unhealthy states in the union. And yet the Louisiana Senator heads the U S Senate committee for Let's wait for this health education, labor, and pension. So how does someone with such a horrible track record lead such an important. Committee is this meritocracy? Because what it feels like to me is the old boys club. Poornima Luthra (21:57.688) Yeah, so I mean, again, look, I'm sitting outside, so I won't comment on individuals and their background, but we're seeing plenty. You can go ahead and do that. But we see plenty of evidence of this where it's people who don't have the skills or the competencies to be actually able to do the job. Those that have the skills and the competencies have been let go. Chad (22:03.503) No, we will. That's fine. Poornima Luthra (22:18.51) from these roles. So we have to ask ourselves, is this really as you say merit and meritocracy? Now, if we look at the very definitions of merit and meritocracy, meritocracy is really about hiring people who have the right skills, backgrounds, strengths, competencies, and they're bringing value to the team. Now we have to ask ourselves, is that what we're seeing? Because if you look at the research around meritocracy, you will see that meritocracy is actually a myth. Because the very idea of who we think has merit Chad (22:48.086) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (22:48.16) is very deeply biased in itself. So it's a construct that is biased. You know, there's research that shows us who do you think of when you think of someone who's brilliant? Who do you think of when we think of someone who's confident? Who are the images? What are the names that come up? So we are all socially conditioned into assuming that merit is in the hands of certain types of people. And we assume that those people, whether it's because of their gender, whether it's because of their background, socioeconomic status, Chad (22:50.656) Yes. Poornima Luthra (23:17.422) whether it's because of their race, that they somehow are more competent than someone else who doesn't have those characteristics. So the concept of merit and meritocracy as we see today is actually deeply flawed and deeply biased. So how do we actually create real genuine meritocratic systems that requires effort, that requires us to unpack the bias that exists. in these decision-making processes around how we decide that someone like that should take up such a role? Are we asking the right questions? Are we genuinely looking at competencies? What are we putting down in our job descriptions as we think about who we want to hire? And are we actually blocking bias throughout that process so that we get to an outcome where the person that is hired for that role is truly competent and able to do the job? Chad (23:45.206) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (24:11.362) But as we see it right now, especially in the last few weeks in the US context, we can see a number of different positions that have been filled by people who don't, who on paper at least, from what I can see from where I'm sitting, do not have those credentials or experience to be doing those jobs. And I guess you have to believe in some kind of... Chad (24:24.832) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (24:34.862) whether you call it karma or something, that this will play out, right? That there will be consequences to it. My issue is that who's gonna get hurt in this process? Which groups are going to be heavily affected and hurt and harmed by this is what we need to ask. And that's not something I wanna see play out. Chad (24:43.382) huh. Yes. Joel (24:55.894) Karma, the cosmic justice system is gonna get everybody. So Dr. Luther, we're seeing a parade of companies abandon DEI publicly, but we're seeing some bright spots. Costco has been a shining star. You look at this from a global perspective. I'm wondering whether it's Costco or someone else that you've worked with. Chad (24:59.318) God, yeah. Which gave us the drunken frat boy as the sec def. Chad (25:12.854) Costco. Poornima Luthra (25:14.21) Mm-hmm. Joel (25:23.114) What can we learn from their approach to maintaining their DEI commitments in the face of political pressure, societal pressure, et cetera? Poornima Luthra (25:32.29) Yeah, I think we've seen a number of cases where companies have backtracked both both in the US. Of course the number of companies, but also in Europe as well, where their shifts to language where they're removing things from their annual reporting where they're cutting down teams. They're removing roles and then you see other companies that are taking a strong set stand. Many of my clients, you know across across Europe and Asia are taking a stand saying no, we're going to continue this. This is. in line with our company's values. Now what we're seeing play out is what we're seeing with Costco, right? We're seeing customers shift who they're buying products from. I know personally within my own networks that like myself, many others are making conscious choices about the companies that we are supporting in our day-to-day purchases and things in companies that I'm also engaging with as well, but also challenging the companies who are you know, backwards if you'd like or retracting on their commitments that going in there and challenging these things. But we are seeing that share prices do fall. IBM was the latest, I think, in the past few days and you've seen share prices fall. So, you know, there are consequences to this and the more companies that see that there's a consequence both from a shareholder value perspective and from a customer perspective, I think that's when we'll start seeing companies really realize that this isn't just, you know, going with the wave of what the political climate is, but this is actually good for business and that customers do care and employees do care. I think we do need, I think we haven't seen enough of that happening yet, but we'll come to a stage where employees are also stepping up and vocalizing this. I think right now, again, there's a lot of fear. I think people are really afraid of their jobs and holding onto it. Chad (27:26.454) Mm-hmm. Joel (27:26.454) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (27:26.638) So I don't think we're seeing enough of that internal backlash to the backlash, but that will come. It has to come. If it continues down this pathway, it will come. Joel (27:37.91) Dollar dollar bills y'all I'll let you out on this. Dr. You talk a lot about allyship. I don't know if you've you could tell but you're talking to two white guys. We always we always want to know how can we do better what can we do and allyship I think sort of really encapsulates your opinion on how we can how we can help the movement talk about allyship. Poornima Luthra (27:44.312) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (27:49.166) you Chad (27:50.133) What? Poornima Luthra (27:59.918) So allyship is for everyone. Of course, those who are like you, white men, do need to be allies, but so do all of us. At the end of the day, there's always going to be someone who experiences bias and discrimination in society and workplaces in different ways compared to me. So I'm also very much like you, always looking for a pathway down how we can do better. So in my second book, The Artifact of Allyship, I really look at these seven behaviors. of what we can all do. And for me, it starts with introspection. It starts with the self work. We do need to be curious. We need to be humble. We need to honestly introspect. So we need to have this deep curiosity to find out how people who are different from us, how do they experience the world around us? I think we don't do enough of that, that deep curiosity. We assume that people have the same experiences. We might intellectually know that they don't, but we don't necessarily truly believe it and we don't feel it in us. So that deep curiosity, then it's honest introspection on our own biases, coming to terms with that discomfort that I am biased. And what does that mean? How does that show up? What does bias look like in my day-to-day interactions with people in terms of the decisions that I'm making or what I'm saying and doing, or just the people around me, who am I engaging with on a day-to-day basis? And do they have a very similar worldview as myself? How much am I challenging my own echo chamber? that I live in, right, that honest introspection. And then it's humble acknowledgement of my own privilege, but also to reframe privilege. think that's one of the things I write in my second book is the word privilege is something that's got such a negative rap to it. And it's just something that we, for those of us who hold privilege in various different forms, one is gender, of course, and it's race, but it's also so many other things. It's the accent with which I speak with, the passport that I hold, the education that I've had, the doctor in front of my name. Chad (29:28.843) Yeah. Poornima Luthra (29:55.064) that gives me privilege and sitting with that very fact that what am I doing with this privilege? How am I using it to lift others? So reframing how we look at privilege, not as something to be ashamed of or guilty of, but to really use it as a leverage for what I can do differently in my own spheres of influence. And that's the introspection part, that's self work. And then in the book, I go on to then talking about how do we engage empathetically? How do we have more authentic conversations that move beyond this polarized way of looking at things? Can we create space for multiple realities to coexist? Because right now we're living on two sides of a valley. How do we come together to have those conversations that we should be having to understand from different perspectives? We may not agree. Chad (30:25.888) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (30:40.984) But at least we need to have those conversations so that we can understand where someone else is coming from. And then having vulnerable interactions. To move the needle further and faster, we have to show vulnerability that I'm willing to admit when I've been biased, when I've made a decision that did favor someone without having the right rationale for it. Can we have those vulnerable interactions? And then quite honestly, the last one is courageous responsibilities. We all got to step up within our own spheres of influence to change things, shift the language that we're using around us, the low hanging fruit. There's lots of things that we need to do systemically and culturally as well. So if we are in leadership positions, how do we make sure those things happen? So those are things I talk about. So it really starts with us and then of course expands out outwards. Chad (31:29.11) So last but not least, the newest book. Can I say that? Right? want you to do a little promotion, but for me, I was internalizing as I was actually reading this and it sounds like you've created a dumb white guy guy to understanding the non white guy stuff. Right? It's like, like you said, we understand what we do, what we know our personal experiences. And this is, you know, non us stuff. And these are things that are incredibly important. So it sounds, it feels, and you, you tell me. Poornima Luthra (31:32.046) Mm. Chad (31:57.92) And then also, where can we get the book? It feels like a guide for a guy like me to not be too worried, but to actually dig in and try to understand the others around me. Give us a little bit more about that. Poornima Luthra (32:10.316) Yeah, so the book is a guide to how you can do and engage with diversity, equity and inclusion by letting go of your fears, right? And I'm saying your fears, I'm also talking about my own fears as well, even those who work within the space. So it's really a book for everybody. have the intended audiences by no means only white men. I'd love white men to read the book, but it's certainly for all of us across the two valleys. so that we can let go of this fear, have those conversations that we need to be having, but also to take actions to bridge the gaps that exist. And I do believe that fear is at the heart of it. And if we can let go of that fear, I do think we can make progress. So yeah, I'd like to think that the book is for everyone, but of course, and it is within a workplace context. So I do have my delimiters around it. And I'd like to see that it is something that resonates. Joel (33:03.562) Mm-hmm. Poornima Luthra (33:08.514) with people across the aisle, that it isn't just for the believers of DI, that it's also for the non-believers who currently are challenging this or feeling that this isn't about them or that they are in some ways feeling that DI has gone wrong. I'm really hoping that this book helps us all let go of the fears that we hold. And book comes out in May. I think it's a little later in the US as per my publishers. So it should be out in June or July in the US. and will be available on all regular channels, Amazon and the like. Joel (33:40.976) Love it. Love it. That is Dr. Purnima Luthra. Doctor, for those that want to connect with you, buy the book, etc. Where do you send them? Poornima Luthra (33:50.606) A LinkedIn. I'm really not very good at other social media channels. So LinkedIn is best. I post Monday to Friday with content as well. So if you want to follow, if you want to just be challenged or inspired whichever way, or you want to share, engage with my content on LinkedIn. Joel (34:10.368) is a platform all of our listeners are familiar with. Enjoy your vacation. Thanks for launching it with us. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out. Chad (34:13.142) Yes, they are. Poornima Luthra (34:16.344) Thank you. Chad (34:17.792) Thanks. We out.

Buckle up, buttercup—it’s a bumpy ride through HR hell and economic WTFs on this week’s Chad & Cheese: Spy Games Update:  Rippling accuses Deel of espionage so shady it could trigger its own Netflix doc. Globalization Partners whispers, “Same.” Klarna drops an AI avatar earnings report so cringe, it screams “IPO thirst trap” while micro payments scream back in predatory. AI interviews are here, and they suck. J.T. preaches job-search strategy while Chad wants to Max Headroom his way out of the uncanny valley. AwardCo hits unicorn status by slapping gold stars on bad management. Recognition? More like “congrats for not quitting.” Trump tells Walmart to “eat the tariffs” like it’s a McRib—Chad sees chaos, J.T. sees campaign cosplay. Senate says no taxes on tips = working-class win. Joel says try paying a living wage, you cowards. It’s corporate espionage, AI awkwardness, and political head fakes—all in one glorious trainwreck. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:37.353) them eat tariffs on a Qatari luxury jet. Hi boys and girls. This is the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Hicks versus Nick's Cheesman. J.T. O'Donnell (00:38.892) Thank The Chad (00:46.862) This is Chad, Skype is dead. Sowash. J.T. O'Donnell (00:50.964) And this is JT. I can't take this weather in New England anymore, Odon. Joel Cheesman (00:55.103) And on this episode, eating tariffs, taxing tips, and dancing unicorns, everybody. That's right, let's do this. The Chad (01:08.502) You were all, I mean, you're now sleeveless, but you just had a big, like, coat sweater. I mean, I don't want you to freeze, just on account of us. J.T. O'Donnell (01:12.172) Oh yeah. You want me to go there? there. I mean, hey, if you're in New England, you get it, you get it right now, right folks? Like they're telling me a nor'easter, 35 degrees and I'm gonna see snow. It's May 22nd. I am. The Chad (01:22.03) It's almost June. It's almost June. Joel Cheesman (01:25.705) mean that hot pink sweater increased the temperature in my house. It's so warm. Like I don't know what you need. J.T. O'Donnell (01:30.42) I'm supposed to be on the golf course on the river swinging away. Instead, I'm going to have a simulator golf lesson today because we can't go outside. What is that? is that? River. Yeah. So, yeah. So in New England, there's a up in Maine is Sunday River and they have the number one golf course in Maine. It is absolutely beautiful and stunning. But if you go and you go into the river and so, Joel Cheesman (01:42.443) So you're wearing a hat that says RIVA, R-I-V-A-H. Is that a golf course in New England? The Chad (01:59.372) River. J.T. O'Donnell (01:59.852) This hat is sold out, just, know, it's the only one you can get and I love her. I love her. You don't always hear my accent. I can bring it out. The Chad (02:03.512) So no, she's got it. She's got it. Joel Cheesman (02:06.251) What do we think of the, have we seen the trend of the upside down text on hats? That's a thing now? I don't, I don't, I'm too old to get it, but I noticed it. The Chad (02:13.334) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (02:13.42) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (02:17.034) That works for me. I love hats. I'd wear them every day if I could. I do. And I decided today. What? The Chad (02:18.894) You know who else? Who else is too old? They know who else is too old to get it? Skype, because it's dead. 23 years old. Hey, and could we could we possibly call Skype the blockbuster of video calling? I mean, they were the biggest in the space and they just got smothered by tons of other video call companies. Zoom, Google Meet, WhatsApp, Facebook, WebEx. mean, all these other and even. Well, yeah, the its younger sibling. Microsoft Teams is more used. J.T. O'Donnell (02:31.382) Wait, I think I still have credit. Joel Cheesman (02:50.827) Microsoft fucked that up. Joel Cheesman (02:56.787) Mm-hmm. Yeah. The Chad (03:00.066) Then Skype and they say they're going to just roll Skype into Microsoft Teams, which means they're just literally going to make accounts accessible. I think. Joel Cheesman (03:08.203) I'm still getting over. I'm still getting, yeah, I'm still getting over Flickr leaving Flickr without the E. Everybody remember all my photos on Flickr. Damn it. Damn it. All right. So yeah, we got snow in the forecast in May, New England. Here it's here it's fifties and cloudy and what's the weather weather in Portugal, Chad? J.T. O'Donnell (03:08.652) Where are my credits? I think I still have money. The Chad (03:13.582) I J.T. O'Donnell (03:14.173) Thank you. The Chad (03:19.182) Will still has a MySpace. The Chad (03:26.381) ridiculous. The Chad (03:32.238) 85 baby, I had to shut the curtains because there's so much sun coming in. 85 and beautiful. No clouds. Joel Cheesman (03:38.291) Nice. So what's on top for you this weekend, Chad? The Chad (03:44.088) Beach, beach, yeah, beach and bar, bar, beach, restaurants, that kind of stuff. Yep, bye. J.T. O'Donnell (03:44.556) What you doing Chad? Joel Cheesman (03:45.097) Bitch, yeah. Joel Cheesman (03:50.699) Bar beach, I got it. I got, you'll appreciate this, the Indy 500 I'm going this weekend. This weekend, yeah. Oh, we got seats. You know, I'm too old for that shit. I got seats, I got a plush recliner somewhere. Indy's not the best place in the world to live, but in May, it's not bad. Like you got the race, usually the weather's turning. The Chad (03:56.615) yeah. Are you going to the infield? Where are you going? OK. Joel Cheesman (04:19.231) We got Caitlin Clark playing again. We got the Pacers Pacers and a big one last night against the Knicks. so yeah, mayors usually pretty high in Indianapolis. So it's not, it's not too bad. Not too bad. How about you, JT? Yeah. The one month out of the year. The Chad (04:20.952) Got the Pacers. Whoo. That was awesome. The Chad (04:30.914) You get a few days out of the year. It's great. J.T. O'Donnell (04:33.324) Yeah, graduation party's nephews graduating. So yeah, weather permitting if we can get to the outdoors. Yeah, I'm pretty chill. Joel Cheesman (04:38.377) Yeah. Yep. Yeah, cold cheeseman, cold cheeseman graduation. I'll be I'll be absent in a couple weeks for his graduation party and everything. So yeah. All good stuff. All good stuff. We got shout outs. J.T. O'Donnell (04:48.128) Nice. Nice. The Chad (04:49.326) That's awesome. That's freaking awesome. Well, good for him. Are you ready to the shout outs? Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (04:56.972) Good luck. Joel Cheesman (04:58.249) You know they're sponsored by our friends up North, Kiora. That's text recruiting done simply and cost effectively. JT has got some stuff she wants to get off her chest. J.T. O'Donnell (05:08.556) Yeah. My shout out is to Shannon with one end Burgess, the, um, prosecution's expert in the Karen Reed case this week got on there and, uh, talked about all his wealth of knowledge and then was systematically dismantled by the defense when they pulled up his LinkedIn profile and three versions of his resume, all of which claimed he had a bachelor's degree, uh, in various different titles and all a lie, all a lie. They caught him in a lie on the stand. The Chad (05:08.558) Huh? What? Joel Cheesman (05:25.163) you J.T. O'Donnell (05:37.516) He had to come back for more testimony the next day. Shockingly, the LinkedIn profile was private and all the references to it were suddenly gone on the profile page of the company that he works for. And it's been revealed he has associate's degree. He's been going after the bachelor's though for 17 years. So he's going to be getting it any minute now. But, you know, the crazy thing about it was everybody was like running around saying, yeah, but you know, everyone pads their resume, but he really blew it. Like you shouldn't pad it that much when you're on the expert stand and like, The Chad (05:43.694) Ouch. Joel Cheesman (05:44.267) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (05:55.507) Mm-hmm. So he's a doctor. The Chad (05:57.326) Okay. Okay. J.T. O'Donnell (06:07.648) That's why we don't believe resumes anymore. And that's why we don't believe it. It's just, you just proved why the system should die. And we have to find something different, you know? Joel Cheesman (06:09.899) Mm. Mm. The Chad (06:10.072) Yeah. The Chad (06:15.95) And let's say he did have a bachelor's degree. I don't know how many people have like bachelor's degrees from 20, 30 years ago, right? It's about can you do the job now? Can you prove that you can do the job now? So yeah, mean, is... Joel Cheesman (06:17.227) Cheers. J.T. O'Donnell (06:24.993) Mm-hmm. job. J.T. O'Donnell (06:31.628) Chad, that's the thing. He had an associates and 10 years of experience. He could do the job. Why July? Why July? You know, and it just did ruins it for everyone else. Like you can't trust a piece of paper anymore. Right. The Chad (06:39.564) Society, Society. It's like you gotta have a certain thing. So it's like you push people. Not saying that it's good to lie. Don't get me wrong, don't pad like that. But yeah, I totally get it. So why was he on the stand? Was this because he was lying about his credentials to get a job or? Joel Cheesman (06:42.602) Hmm J.T. O'Donnell (06:56.284) No, he was brought in to introduce some new evidence in the timeline of what the prosecution was claiming, which was also systematically dismantled by the defense. was just a nightmare. And then he admitted he claimed it was brand new, but then in his own testimony admitted that they asked for it over a month ago. So it was like what they truly call like an ambush of the defense. It's a crazy trial if nobody's watching it. If you are, everybody just message me because I don't have enough people to talk about it with. Like I'm obsessed. The Chad (07:03.352) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (07:25.768) obsessed with this case as many people across the country. But this one just blew my mind. Like they're putting up his LinkedIn profile. I mean, it's screenshotted forever. I don't know where this guy's going to get a job after this. Like it's everywhere, you No. Karen Reid. The Chad (07:36.558) it. Joel Cheesman (07:37.003) Is this part of the Diddy trial? I'm lost. What is... You mean there's another trial besides the Diddy trial right now? The Chad (07:40.43) Now there's just, there's just trials everywhere. Netflix. man, Netflix is going to have just so much fun. You've got Rippling versus Deal. You've got Diddy. You got this guy. I mean, there's just so much content out there available. Yes. Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (07:44.518) Yes, a field day. J.T. O'Donnell (07:52.748) There's so much good stuff coming. Joel Cheesman (07:54.283) Buy Netflix stock. That's an insider. That's an insider deal. That's an insider deal. Well, Chad, I don't know how I follow that because that's good. Clowns on the stand. But I'm going to go with another clown, Ronald McDonald. This is my second week that McDonald's is getting my shout out, saving the world one Big Mac at a time. I mentioned the new jobs that they're going to be creating, 900 new stores across the country. And just like Taco Bell, they're going to be open later this summer. That's right, kids. If you need that, that McFlurry craving satisfied at 2 a.m. in the morning and who doesn't, who hasn't been there, go to McDonald's and get it up. But, but here's a bigger reason why McDonald's is getting my shout out. A lot of us out there suffer from migraine headaches. I'm one of them. I don't know. I'm sure a lot of other, if you listen to this, you probably get in the migraine right now and migraines can be cured. J.T. O'Donnell (08:33.664) with a french fry dip. J.T. O'Donnell (08:44.704) you're not going. Joel Cheesman (08:50.921) Get this by McDonald's. out, check out this footage everybody. The Chad (09:08.533) weird. The Chad (09:21.55) placebo effect. It's called placebo effect. Joel Cheesman (09:21.715) It's McMagic, baby. It's McMagic is how it works. McDonald's, McDonald's curing migraines, everybody. Shout out, I'm loving it and I'm feeling better from fries and my Diet Coke. Thanks. J.T. O'Donnell (09:24.022) Yeah. The Chad (09:33.826) I have to make a little placebo effect via cholesterol. My shout out this week goes back to last week. Last week I asked Matt Lavery and Joe Shaker to try out Portillo's sandwich called The Leo named after the newest pope and first American born pope also from Chicago. And here is Matt's review. The Chad (10:01.656) I love the closeup on the sandwich. Joel Cheesman (10:25.405) Here we go, Cubs. Joel Cheesman (11:05.899) Mm-hmm. The Chad (11:43.736) question. Joel Cheesman (11:47.381) He's so diplomatic. The Chad (12:14.583) End of story. Joel Cheesman (12:25.867) Cheers. J.T. O'Donnell (12:31.148) What? The Chad (12:31.566) Matt Lavery does nothing halfway. Joel Cheesman (12:34.219) That was was good. Portellos. Yeah. It's a restaurant. It's a Chicago staple. We have one in Indianapolis, so I get to enjoy those. All right, couple things. Couple things real quick. I made a bet with Lavery on the Cubs over and under on wins for this season, which was 90. They're on pace to win 97 games, so I'm not looking real good at the moment on that bet. J.T. O'Donnell (12:35.052) What's a portillo's? The Chad (12:37.124) my God, my God. J.T. O'Donnell (12:38.176) Was it Portillo's? We don't have those in the Northeast. Okay. J.T. O'Donnell (12:44.958) All right, send one to New England. Italian beef. The Chad (12:46.606) Italian beef. Joel Cheesman (13:03.891) Matt's going to get a pretty good bottle of Irish whiskey on that. number two, Matt, Matt, that is that is one dry looking Leo man you get that thing should be swimming in a hot tub of gravy. I'm a little disappointed that looked really, really dry to me. I don't know. Hey, hey, hey. The Chad (13:08.002) the Portillo's gift card. The Chad (13:16.942) Hey, hey, hey, don't you shame him on his Italian beef. He likes it the way he likes it. Just because you're a wet sloppy sandwich eater doesn't mean that Matt has to be. Joel Cheesman (13:27.103) I want to wear my Leo. want to wear it. need to do laundry after I eat that thing, man. That's, that's, that's how I do it. That's how I do it. But shout out to him, man. Love, love me some at slavery, man. Love me some at labor. The Chad (13:34.926) Matt Layrie is amazing and just waiting for Joe Shaker to give us his review as well. And in the meantime, kids, got to sign up for free stuff. That's right. Go to Chadcheese.com slash free where you can get a free t-shirt from who? That's right. If you can see it, if you're watching video, Aaron App, from Aaron App. We've got a new design coming soon. Hopefully we'll release that kind of tease what's happening. We've got a bourbon barrel aged syrup from the boys over at J.T. O'Donnell (13:38.582) That's awesome. Joel Cheesman (13:47.071) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (13:47.21) Mmm, yeah. Joel Cheesman (13:55.655) Aaron Joel Cheesman (14:01.451) Mm-hmm. The Chad (14:07.502) Keora up north at Keora whiskey two bottles of one bottle of kind of two bottles of chicken cock from Van hack craft beer from the job data geeks over at Aspen tech labs love those guys and if it's your birthday you know what it is you get rum from plum one winner with a birthday could possibly win rum from plum you got to get a chad cheese.com slash free J.T. O'Donnell (14:24.662) Mm. J.T. O'Donnell (14:30.55) Fingers crossed. Joel Cheesman (14:37.749) That's right, Chad. Another trip around the sun for Shelly Billinghurst, another Canadian, Matthew Brigham, Jeff the doctor retired, Dickie Chasen's, calm. Quinnen. Well, that's Irish. Jacqueline Adair, Jeanette leads Matt Soroka, Sean Campbell, Madison, Richard, Stephanie, Trasic, Caitlin fail, Bruce Carey, Kevin Robinson, Sarah Grossman. And last but not least, Chad. The Chad (14:41.924) I love her. Joel Cheesman (15:05.597) You and I, if you know you know, celebrate another birthday this coming week. Happy birthday, Chad. The Chad (15:12.75) A lot of superstars, a lot of superstars. And they'll get a chance to see us in Nebworth. That's right, we're traveling thanks to Shaker Recruitment Marketing. But next on board for events is Wreckfest in Nebworth July 10th. Who's excited about this one? JT, you excited? Is this your first one? Joel Cheesman (15:15.455) You J.T. O'Donnell (15:21.213) Bye! Joel Cheesman (15:21.579) Ooh. J.T. O'Donnell (15:32.864) So excited, kicking off my vacation. Psyched. Absolutely. The Chad (15:36.92) Freaking awesome. Yeah, she's gonna be at the festival. I mean, if you've never been to RecFest, come on kids, come on kids. This is like the Lollapalooza of recruitment events. It's outside, it's a festival, and I think around noon or 1's when the beer starts flowing. So you get to learn, you get to connect with your peers. Hopefully you've got all your peers, all your friends, got the whole office there, and you get to learn, enjoy, and just get that gel, that wonderful gel happening. Joel Cheesman (15:52.171) Mm-hmm. The Chad (16:06.486) within the actual organization. It's the only way to do it. That's the bonding. Joel Cheesman (16:11.467) And rumor has it one Stephen McGrath is gonna be there. Is that true? The Chad (16:14.518) yes. Yes. You're going to Nebworth, Stephen. J.T. O'Donnell (16:14.91) you Joel Cheesman (16:21.259) That's right. taking the stage is no way, sis, Chad. That's right. They're back. The Oasis cover band, the real Oasis is on tour this summer. But if you can't make that, it's a lot cheaper to go to a direct fest, get some good stuff, get some, get somewhere and feel like, feel like the rock and roll star that you all, that you all are. J.T. O'Donnell (16:36.564) It's going to sound the same. The Chad (16:39.362) We're all gonna be there. Emmy's gonna be taking the stage. Mo's gonna be taking the stage. JT's gonna be taking, I mean, you guys are probably gonna be everywhere. J.T. O'Donnell (16:40.3) Thank Joel Cheesman (16:44.135) Mm-hmm. Damn. J.T. O'Donnell (16:46.558) No, I'm going to be anybody that's a newbie that's listening to this. We're going to form a posse. We're just going to have the newbie posse. No stage needed. Let's go message me. That's all good. It's going to be fun. Joel Cheesman (16:50.921) You better show up. Don't... Don't... Joel Cheesman (16:56.683) Don't tease us with that stuff. Joel Cheesman (17:05.009) Alright, it's clown time. That's right. The corporate espionage conflict between HR tech giants, Rippling and Deal has intensified. Now implicating a third unicorn, Boston based HR software firm, Globalization Partners. That sounds made up. This new company reportedly discovered and reported similar deal conduct to federal authorities, prompting an ongoing investigation. How many spies does Deal have? around the world. It's very thought provoking. Chad, what are your thoughts on this ongoing circus? The Chad (17:43.66) It's just time to sit back and continue to watch kids and watch all these things roll in. We keep hearing new companies kind of like throwing deals name out there, Rippling's name out there. So yeah, I mean, again, we've got a corporate espionage story happening. Who would have thought that would happen, right? So yeah, I mean, it's it's not surprising. I mean, if they've done this with Rippling, who's to say they haven't done this with others? Not saying that they have, but who's to say that they haven't, right? So, yeah, not not surprising, not surprising. Joel Cheesman (18:15.083) What's the over under on DLCO surviving at this point? Are six months, six, seven, eight a year? The Chad (18:22.062) I don't understand how we, mean, so we're still in kind of like the Trumpian, you you can't admit when you're wrong kind of bullshit. I wonder how long that lasts when it comes down to the investors, right? The investors, if they start losing revenue, it's gonna be an issue and he's gonna have to go. I really, I'm gonna stick to my guns on this one. I really believe they have to get rid of the entire C-suite. Joel Cheesman (18:29.983) Hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (18:38.901) Mm-hmm. The Chad (18:51.542) It's not just the CEO, COO. mean, everybody had to know about this. CFO is his dad. He was a part of this thing, right? So it's like they have to get rid of everybody, top down, not the staff who's doing the work, but just the C-suite. Joel Cheesman (18:58.655) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (19:07.921) At the CEO, can't go IPO with this dude at the head of the table, Yeah. The Chad (19:13.004) Yeah, and they were set to. mean, they were at least on a good run rate too. Joel Cheesman (19:18.973) And Rippling clearly is. They're submitting paperwork and getting this shit done. Have you ever heard of Globalization Partners? That sounds like the stepbrothers to like new company that they've created. Globalization Partners. The Chad (19:26.21) Yeah. You The Chad (19:32.822) Yeah, EOR companies are all over the place these days. So yeah, it doesn't surprise me. Joel Cheesman (19:36.565) Yeah, that's true. That's true. J.T. O'Donnell (19:39.008) I mean, tagging in on free media, right? Like if you see something going on, why not tag in on that and get some visibility? You didn't know the name, you know now, Joel. It's pretty multisyllabic, but hey, I mean, way to rock it. You know, is the way I look at it. Meanwhile, I'm just going to say it. I've said it before, why this thing's gone down over and over again. They're doing this all over here and somebody's crushing it over here. That's going to come out of the woodwork. We see this over and over and over again. This hurts all sides involved in that right now because they're too busy dealing with, with that. So. The Chad (19:41.24) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (19:50.859) You did. Joel Cheesman (19:58.207) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (20:09.482) Mark my words, it'll be interesting to see who comes out of nowhere. But it's going to be someone who's flying under the radar. Joel Cheesman (20:15.787) crazy. All right, a name I will remember not globalization partners after this call is Klarna. Klarna. That's right. We talked about Klarna backpedaling on their AI first workforce last week, they're actually hiring people again, but they also doubled down this week as they prepare to go public. I can't believe this is actually news, but the the quarterly earning report was delivered by an AI The Chad (20:19.501) Yes. The Chad (20:23.0) Yes. The Chad (20:35.798) you Joel Cheesman (20:45.373) Avatar, take a quick look. Joel Cheesman (21:09.131) All right, you get the idea. Chad, what do we make of this? Is it a trend? Is this a one-off? Are we going to see more of these AI presentations? I mean, this is going public. Why is there CEO not up there? I get the idea, right? Like we're an AI first company. So here we are AI. I'm not sure what to make of it. What says you? The Chad (21:31.79) So I think Klarna CEO is becoming just as thirsty for attention and unreliable as Elon Musk. These avatars are gonna be all over the place. I whether they do stupid shit like this, CEOs, I mean, this is more of a trick than anything else. I have zero love for Klarna as a business, just to get that out there. It's a micro payment system that is nothing more than a. J.T. O'Donnell (21:52.108) you Joel Cheesman (21:54.069) Mm-hmm. The Chad (21:57.9) micro payday loan scamming system, AKA modern day loan sharking kind of thing, right? But for the kids out there, here's a quick rundown. Klarna was prepping for IPO. So they made these bold AI claims they couldn't back up. So they needed people again, and they started with cheaper offshoring instead of hiring back. So it wasn't actually on their rolls. Made it look like it was AI to some extent. Joel Cheesman (21:59.851) Predatory. The Chad (22:25.922) Then the economy, for orange reasons, started another downward slide. So the quote unquote, you know, not doing IPO writing was on the wall, which means hire people and re equip with new AI enhanced system. So Clarence is literally going to do what they should have been doing in the first place, using people to train the AI every single day. You've got hundreds of people that are training the AI and then the AI gets smarter. And then you can start to kind of like bleed it into the system. Joel Cheesman (22:26.187) Mm-hmm. The Chad (22:55.671) But they tried way too fast and he stepped on his own balls on this one. Joel Cheesman (23:04.405) JT, are job seekers gonna embrace this? J.T. O'Donnell (23:05.323) Yeah, so I'm more obsessed. Yeah, I'll go a different route about the actual AI piece of it. So I tested them. There's lots of them out there. I tested one called captions. You can download it for free on your iPhone, upload two to three minutes of video. The key is to not use a lot of hand gestures or motion so that you can look realistic. It's darn real realistic. And where I find it interesting being so focused on pro voice, you know, my talent agency is that companies are going great. This is our solution for our executive team. We want our executive team out there, but The Chad (23:29.4) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (23:29.589) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (23:35.264) Dang, they suck on video. So this is going to be the solution to make them sound good and look good. And as this technology gets better and better, pretty seamless. And so all that says to me is that we're going to be looking even more so now for authentication that the video is original, that it is real. And the thing that you notice about it is it's a little too perfect. You know, where's the skip, the stutter? Where's the natural inflection in the voice versus sounding melodic? The Chad (23:52.014) Mm-hmm. The Chad (24:02.382) Where's the humanity? J.T. O'Donnell (24:03.794) Right. Like exactly. And so you're just going to see very quickly the need for that. Hey, here's the little sticker on the bottom that says this is authentically me. You know, like this is a real recording. This is not an AI recording. And I believe that that will come soon enough. But what it does tell you is that everyone will be required to do video. And I've said this a million times over every single person listening on this call. I don't care what your level is. If you don't understand, you're going to have to authenticate yourself on video. You're an ostrich with the head in the sand within two years, everyone will have to do this. And so. The Chad (24:21.602) Yes. Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (24:33.706) You know, get started, you know, stop with the face for radio, get over yourself. You have to go into interviews. You have to meet with people. You have to talk to people. Video is just another form of doing that, you know? And so get comfortable as opposed to relying on the AI like he did. Cause yeah, I felt like. The Chad (24:48.238) Joel never thought we would do video. Joel never thought we would do video and then look what we're doing. J.T. O'Donnell (24:51.496) No. Here we are. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (24:57.013) So much of going public is the story. Numbers work and I know that that is obviously a big part of it, but people want to know what your story is, what your vision is, who's leading this, who's steering this ship. And to me, this AI narrative only works for Klarna. I don't see every company coming forth or having this something be standard. there is a threat, like this is a really good video. The Chad (25:01.166) Too much. Joel Cheesman (25:26.827) Like if I just not know it was AI, I would probably do a second take. Like, that a real person? Like, no, it's not. It would take me a while and it's just going to get better and better and better. So at some point we will be able to just have me on the podcast and you don't know if it's me or an avatar and we'll get there at some point. But this only works in my opinion for Klarna because they are an AI first AI workplace story. And although they are hiring people again, I mean, they've been able to shrink the company from 5,000 to 3000 because of AI at the end of the video, they talk all about how AI we're an AI first company. So it only works for them. I don't think if you launch a new EV that you could do this. I don't think, Elon's avatar is going to be the same kind of impact as this. People want to know the human beings behind it. They want to know the story. They want to know, they want to feel something when they invest in a company. It's not just about the numbers. and sense. The Chad (26:21.358) We talked about this before the story does matter unless it's just bullshitting right and in this case They're bullshitting he was bullshitting the market, which I would call fraud When you're saying that you're doing something and you're telling investors that you're doing something and you're doing something entirely different Hey, we're going strictly AI. no, they're offshoring. That's bullshit. That's fraud So that's not a story. That's a bullshit fucking a lie and the same thing with fucking Elon Musk Joel Cheesman (26:29.674) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (26:34.975) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (26:41.567) Yeah. The Chad (26:49.912) How long has he been talking about these robo taxis? It's like, yes, I totally get it, but the thing is, we have gotten so far away from the numbers that we're believing bullshit left and right. We need to focus, there has to be a good blend, but right now it's less on the numbers and it's more about what's your vision. Well, his vision is a bunch of shit at this point. Joel Cheesman (26:54.24) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:13.161) Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure a lot of Tesla investors were wished there wasn't so much Elon out there. Maybe it was a little less Elon would probably be good for that company. It'll be really interesting when they when these guys go public, like are people going to buy the shit? they not? Because the market has a way of correcting a lot of this shit. And if the market says the numbers don't add up, the whatever the what do you guys are doing? We don't like it, the markets gonna but if the market rewards them, J.T. O'Donnell (27:28.204) Okay. Joel Cheesman (27:41.129) You may see a lot more AI, may see a lot more reports and earnings and things that are automated. The Chad (27:46.638) I just hate, I hate the fucking product. It's micro loan sharking is what it is. I hate it. I hate it. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (27:52.881) I'm yeah. Yeah. Micro, not so much sometimes. hurt. I'm hurt. All right, guys, let's talk about automation gone wrong. And JT, this one's right up your right up your alley. Interviews, interviews are who Okay, the increasing use of AI powered job interviews is starting to be met with skepticism and frustration from job seekers on social media. While some acknowledge the potential benefits of AI and screening more candidates a growing number of users. The Chad (28:03.918) J.T. O'Donnell (28:05.676) What? Joel Cheesman (28:26.601) are finding the experience impersonal, dehumanizing and time consuming. JT, you talked to a lot of job seekers. I'm sure a lot of them have dealt with these automated interviews. Your thoughts. J.T. O'Donnell (28:39.902) Yeah, I mean, it's heightened by the fact of what's going on right now. You know, in all my years of doing this, this is way worse than 2008. You know, there's a lot of highly educated white collar workers out there that are scratching their heads going what's wrong. And so they don't understand how bad the market is. So it's easy to blame the AI when in reality, everybody's experiencing it. It's not a you problem. It's a the market problem. But you want to look to blame somewhere. And so it's really easy to say it's the AI screening and The Chad (29:04.238) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (29:09.94) You know, I'm not getting my shot to speak to someone. And if I did, you know, they would see I'm the candidate for the job. Well, there's a thousand of you. Even if you got that shot, it doesn't mean you would get the interviewer move forward in the job. And I think that's been really hard and technology is always the easiest thing to blame. So, you know, I see job seekers, secret frustration at all time high. Where I get more worried is about when they're forced to do things like autonomous video interviewing, where that video captured of them is going to somebody else and is owned by somebody else. and things like that that are really disturbing for them. And so I try to remind them to not use job boards and mass supply online and do all the things that just aren't a good use of your time and honestly just make you feel bad about yourself psychologically. And instead learn to do the smart things, the more intentional things, the more focused things to be a job shopper, not a job seeker, which will make it feel more human to you and you also happen to get better results. Joel Cheesman (30:02.826) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (30:07.626) Yeah, I mean, we're going to keep using the technology. Some of it will fail, but it's not going to go away. know, AI is going to get more more sophisticated. And someday I'm going to be a candidate talking about what I know. And that's going to turn into a bot that goes and talks to a recruiter. And they're going to have a conversation and eventually get to the place that, we should meet in person, right? Like all of that's coming, not in 10 years, but in two years. I'm already seeing some of it now. So it's bad before it gets better, but you've got a heightened market right now that's making it feel worse and hence the job seeker frustration. Joel Cheesman (30:12.863) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (30:28.011) you J.T. O'Donnell (30:37.365) Easy to blame. The Chad (30:39.192) So quote from the article, the experience of auditioning for a computer can feel somewhat surreal, end quote. Yeah, our robot overlords have arrived, This is, you're gonna get used to it, you're gonna have to get used to it. Some companies are gonna be different. Some companies are gonna have actual humans. Some companies are gonna have avatars like the Clarn avatar that you just saw, and you're not gonna be able to notice the difference until maybe later. But I think we could get rid of all the weirdness by doubling down on the weirdness. Stick with me, JT, stick with me. Do you remember Max Headroom? Yeah, the 1980s, in the 1980s, Max Headroom, a virtual TV host, a fake AI generated talking head, he was one of the early Klarna guys, with a stuttering, glitchy voice and fast talking sarcasm, complete with slick back, J.T. O'Donnell (31:17.504) Yes. The Chad (31:36.43) plastic hair, this guy could be the answer and could be the interviewer. Go ahead and roll it, Joel, so that the... The Chad (32:10.702) Max. The Chad (32:18.892) I Max Headroom's the answer, kids. That's it. We switch over a thing. We've got Max and maybe a Maude Headroom. Who knows? But we could make that happen. Joel Cheesman (32:29.141) It would actually be really good branding if a company was like, you know what? We're not even going to try to fake you out. Like this is a robot and maybe actually put a robot, you know, like do some shit like that. That would be funny. So, so what's happening is on tick tock and other social media is that people are actually recording the automated interview for tick tock and other social media. So what tends to be happening is there's glitches in these programs and they just repeat over and over. The Chad (32:38.424) You The Chad (32:48.472) Glitchy. J.T. O'Donnell (32:48.95) yeah. Joel Cheesman (32:58.539) and people are recording this and embarrassing the whole process. I think it's probably time for a little history lesson. For the kids out there, some of you might be too young to remember the black hole. Let me introduce you to the black hole. The black hole was I submit my resume and I never hear shit from anybody. It's total silence. Still happening. Okay. So, so now for a while it was like, holy shit, someone's replying at the time was probably chat bot initially text and whatever came back like, holy cow. And we didn't care that it was a bot because we're actually getting engagement. The Chad (33:22.542) Still happening. J.T. O'Donnell (33:23.158) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:40.805) actually like going back and forth with a company as opposed to just not hearing anything and maybe getting a postcard in the mail six weeks later saying thanks for applying to the job. So I'm with JT. This is going to happen. Companies are not going to go back and say, we're going to hire people to interview you. Like that's, that's not going to be a thing. The tech will get better. They'll look more like the clarinet guy and less like Max Headroom. J.T. O'Donnell (33:58.732) Like that. Joel Cheesman (34:06.643) And this is, that's how resume, that's how interviews are going to happen. Now I think there are going to be some positions where I'm not going to talk to a robot. I'm a, I'm a SVP or I'm a whatever, like for some positions, this isn't going to happen. But if you're at the level of high freak, know, high frequency turnover, entry level seasonal stuff, like this is your reality. And my question is, would you rather go back to the black hole where you heard nothing or getting max headroom during your interview? J.T. O'Donnell (34:36.268) More, let me build on that though, okay? Because the other thing I think we did was we made applying easy and we made people lazy. At the end of the day, you're a business of one selling your services to an employer, okay? They are going to pay. Now, yes, you want them to have a great candidate experience. We've talked all about that and you want it to be a good partnership. I get all that, so don't come at me folks. But what we've lost is the fact that if you want to reduce the amount of candidates you get, if you want candidates that are more passionate, the way you make them jump through hoops is you give them the tools and the ability Joel Cheesman (34:46.955) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (35:05.643) to put skin in the game in the way that will serve you. And this is where it's been broken for too long. So I'll give you a great example in full disclosure. I advise this company, but McCoy just dropped the newest version of their app. And this is what it does. You log in, you upload your resume, your LinkedIn profile. You give it a job URL, job posting. It reads it, it scans it. tells you what the top pain points are. And it tells you what four videos you should record. Do you want a script? Let's pull the script out of your job history and let's put it on a teleprompter and let's record it for one minute or less videos. Let's put it on a URL and let's send it to a hiring manager. Let's send it to a recruiter. The recruiter now sees the real person first interview. That skin in the game separates you. You're not going to do that for a thousand jobs. You're going to do it for the ones you actually care about. It's going to reduce the amount of applicants, increase the quality and allow it to sit fully with the job seeker. That's the kind of technology that is out there and happening and working right now. And it's going to be taking over in the next year. So we're going to keep hearing about all these low end. The Chad (35:47.491) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (36:02.346) you know, garbage in garbage out cheap AI versions, but it's going to get more and more sophisticated. And the job seeker has to accept that it is their job to sell themselves, whether you like it or not. So use tools like this to make a value impact. You know, it's the way that I look at it. And I, know, I'm always really honest with them about that job seekers have lost sight of that. You know, they can complain all they want about recruiters and HR and everything else, but you want a job that pays thousands of dollars. What are you doing to get that job? And so. The Chad (36:10.658) Mm-hmm. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (36:30.366) Again, I'm an advocate for the job seeker, but I think in some ways we've left them off the hook a little too much. Joel Cheesman (36:36.329) and they're not stupid. Like I've always said, eventually robots are going to interview robots. And the only time human beings interact is when they show up for the job. And I appreciate the take, but I also think like it's funny how employers will clutch the pearls when they go, my God, job seekers are automating their job search process and lazy apply and all. So yeah, so it's, this is just going to shake out to where The Chad (36:45.57) Your avatar talks to my avatar, yeah. The Chad (36:57.87) Kind of like job seekers are ghosting us. Joel Cheesman (37:06.288) Applicants have bots that are going to bat for them at these companies and interviews and companies are going to bat with bots and it's just bots on bots. And I don't know how it's going to shake out, but it's, it's all very dystopian and scary, scary to me. It's all very scary. Bots on it could go very right as well. It could go very, very right chat. All right, let's take a quick break. yeah, we'll be right back. The Chad (37:20.91) That's on bot. could go wrong very quickly. J.T. O'Donnell (37:24.524) I'll talk to you The Chad (37:25.644) Yeah Joel Cheesman (37:38.549) Chad, they've been hybridating for a while, but my God, stock of unicorns is back, baby, and I am here for it. Utah-based AwardCo has raised $165 million in a Series B round, surpassing a $1 billion valuation. The company plans to use the funds to expand its global recognition platform, accelerate product innovation. J.T. O'Donnell (38:02.88) to say. Joel Cheesman (38:07.709) and deepen employee engagement. The company now serves 6 million users across 160 companies. Chad, your thoughts on this newly minted unicorn in the employment space. The Chad (38:19.842) getting a headache. think I might need a McDonald's Diet Coke and a fucking Big Mac or whatever the fuck they call it. So one billion valuation for a recognition platform. Am I getting that right? Well, you know, your labor market leadership and just overall culture is complete and utter fucking wreck when you need a recognition platform. Joel Cheesman (38:26.26) Yeah, you do. J.T. O'Donnell (38:29.164) Thank Joel Cheesman (38:34.827) Mm-hmm. Blame the kids. J.T. O'Donnell (38:35.99) Mm. The Chad (38:49.218) and it's getting that much fucking cash. So we talk about the disconnect almost every week from leadership to the frontline workers. Leaders are making huge comps and the people doing all of the actual work, day-to-day work. They're making not a living wage in many cases, right? And yet we think a pat on the back from a fucking platform is gonna do this. We think that's the answer. That's where we need to come back to reality. How the fuck does a company like this get $165 million, get a billion dollar valuation when that's not even the fucking problem? That's what bothers me. That's what bothers me. J.T. O'Donnell (39:25.792) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (39:29.676) Yeah. There's a book I've talked about a lot called Punished by Reports by a guy named Alfie Cohn, it written in the sixties, anticipated the problems with A's, praise and other bribes. And they wrote about this, how we've conditioned a generation from a very early age, right? With the carrot so that they've knocked all the intrinsic motivation out of people. It's all become extrinsic, but extrinsic motivation is very hollow, right? You're psyched for a second until you're not. So the dopamine hit of the award is what you're holding them onto. But all it does is The Chad (39:44.162) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (39:58.75) over time just make them super depressed because they're not internally intrinsically motivated to do anything. And it explains why so many people get into jobs and careers where they're just miserable because what they pursued a paycheck and they pursued the ability to answer the question. What do you do in a way that made them feel like somebody respects them, right? Regardless of how it made them feel like we have an epidemic problem here, particularly in the U S. So to see a company like this expanding Honestly, all it's going to do is create more of that dissatisfaction, that lack of intrinsic motivation. It's focused on the wrong thing, in my opinion. Joel Cheesman (40:35.071) We actually have some historical footage of a review, employee review from 1964. Joel Cheesman (40:48.683) So we've, we've, we've come a long way, which, which leads me to my history lesson number two. Yeah. So let me, let me take you, let me take you back to a trade show in a let's call it circa 2001. Chad, you'll remember this booth, successories. was full of people in three piece suits with a myriad of plaques, trophies, banners, et cetera. The Chad (40:53.685) not another one. my God. J.T. O'Donnell (40:56.34) all about the history. Joel Cheesman (41:16.523) Rewards used to be here's a plaque for your service at the company and that's this. Yes. And success stories is still there. Uh, so I will say at least this is a step in the right direction. I'd much rather have Uber eats and, uh, AirPods, uh, than I would a trophy or plaque in my, in my room. Look, the kids today are insecure and they're dead inside and they need this ongoing affirmation that they matter. And a company like this. The Chad (41:19.498) yeah. We saw them all at SHRM. Joel Cheesman (41:44.235) The timing is right. Yes, Chad. I know that you and I old people are like, what this company got? This is a billion dollar company. You got to be kidding me, but the kids need the Dopa hits. They need the hits. They need the gifts. They need the stuff like in this company. Look, you got bonus Lee in a similar situation achievers. There are all kinds of companies like this. And apparently the investors look at it and the kids need these real time nudges that they're special. The Chad (41:50.926) ridiculous. The Chad (41:56.158) retrained. Joel Cheesman (42:12.873) and that they're snowflakes and that they are one of a kind. And this company is right there to profit off of it. The Chad (42:21.868) J.T. O'Donnell (42:23.34) I can't even, I can't until they're 35 and they wake up and they're, miserable and they, yeah. The Chad (42:26.742) Again, getting the headaches. J.T. O'Donnell (42:32.268) Ugh. Joel Cheesman (42:33.877) All right, more good news, everybody. Tariffs. President Donald Trump and American retail giant Walmart traded stern words this week over the impact of tariffs after the company's announcement of impending price hikes drew ire from the president who accused Walmart of unfairly blaming the tariffs for their unexpected or their expected price increases and ordering the world's largest retailer to quote, eat the tariffs. The Chad (42:36.442) Jesus Christ. my God. Joel Cheesman (43:02.099) and not pass the import costs on to consumers. Chad, the president keeps going after good American businesses. What's your take? The Chad (43:11.832) I think we should allow a good American business to talk a little bit about tariffs. We had Beth Benicki on the show a couple of weeks ago. She's been all over the media. She graced the Chad and Cheese podcast. And we got a little clip. So go ahead and play it. The Chad (44:08.632) So, much like Trump said with Mexico's going to build the wall, news alert, Mexico didn't build the wall, then Trump said that tariffs would be paid, would not be paid by Americans, but by other countries, news alert, as everyone with half a brain predicted, they're paid by Americans. And in this case, the administration is afraid that if... J.T. O'Donnell (44:10.209) Hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (44:30.401) Mm-hmm. The Chad (44:33.55) the 5,000 Walmart stores, close to 5,000 Walmart stores in the US start raising prices, there's gonna be a fucking rebellion. So he's pressuring Walmart to eat the tariffs. He's gonna be pressuring a lot of companies because we see Ford, Subaru, a lot of the auto companies saying they're gonna have to raise the car prices by anywhere from $750 to $2,000. And that, again, depending on the actual tariffs, Joel Cheesman (44:52.491) Mm-hmm. The Chad (45:02.114) That could, that could prospectively go up. the biggest misdirection of this entire debacle is this administration caused this high priced tariff chaos. And now they want credit for starting to clean up the process. They fucking the mess they fucking made. Period. Joel Cheesman (45:29.087) What's so stupid about this? So the first big one was Amazon. Like, no, you can't put in your little listings with the price increase. And now it's like, Walmart, no, you gotta eat the price of this. Like, the whole point of tariffs that we were sold is that more stuff would be made in America, more jobs would be coming back to America. If he's telling... The Chad (45:31.992) You The Chad (45:38.678) Exactly. Transparency. Stop that. J.T. O'Donnell (45:39.649) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (45:57.255) Walmart to eat the cost, you're basically saying Walmart don't raise prices, but the whole point of the tariffs is so that prices are increased on those items, so that people behaviorally start buying stuff that's American because the Chinese stuff is too expensive. So it makes me think that Trump has no like understanding of tariffs because the whole idea is like, well, maybe stop bringing in China stuff, as opposed to like, well, you should eat the tariff. The Chad (46:07.31) Mm-hmm. The Chad (46:17.984) Idea? Yes. Joel Cheesman (46:26.891) It just, it makes me think that this thing is unhinged. There's no strategy. It scares me. And I think that most companies, big companies are going to eat this. They're going to eat it for a year and a half and they're, they're gonna, they're gonna pray to baby Jesus that the house goes big Democrat and that, that laws are passed that he can't The Chad (46:43.169) if they can. The Chad (46:47.598) You Joel Cheesman (46:52.981) do tariffs or the tariffs get rolled back. But I think most companies are taking this sort of strategy of like, look, just shut the fuck up, eat the tariffs, whatever Trump says do. And I think you're going to like he went after Apple. said Apple. Okay, yeah, make them in India. But that's not why we did this. Like it's you need to start making these in America. It just doesn't make any sense. Like again, he doesn't understand what's going on. And Apple's playing by the rules. It says, okay, China is too expensive. The Chad (47:14.584) Not gonna happen. Joel Cheesman (47:22.603) We'll go to India. It's not, you can't go to India. And he's playing this like socialist game of like, I'm going to control where you go and where you produce. But I think Apple and Tim Cook being Tim Cook is going to say, Mr. President, you know, the president's correct and we're going to make moves and we're going to make investments here. But in their, in their back room where they're talking, it's going to be like, look, let's just suck this shit up for a year and a half, wait it out, put tons of money behind Democrats that are running, in The Chad (47:45.464) Wait it out. Joel Cheesman (47:51.861) for Congress next year and a half and senators that are up. Like that's where we need to be pointed and let's just suck it up until now or for the time being and that's where we are. But the big picture is this is how it's supposed to be. This is what Trump wanted like price increases, buy American, jobs come to America. It's self-defeating to say Walmart should eat these tariffs because you're not achieving what you wanted to achieve in the first place. The Chad (48:17.486) Well, most of what Walmart has is from China and Beth, who was just on, she's an American company and her shit's produced in China. mean, and we had a whole podcast going down the math of why she did that and why she can't produce here in the US. I mean, there are reasons behind that. And there's no way in hell Apple's pulling out of China. There's no way. They spend hundreds of billions. I say that again, hundreds of billions of dollars in China every fucking day. Joel Cheesman (48:23.189) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (48:43.963) yeah. The Chad (48:47.182) year. Joel Cheesman (48:48.617) and every phone not sold in America is made in China. And if this gets reversed, your iPhones will be made in China, like once again. Once again. by the way, Beth is a small company that can't call the White House and say, you know, like she can't eat it. She can't survive. look. The Chad (48:51.842) Yeah. Yeah. The Chad (49:00.983) Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (49:03.126) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (49:10.357) shit's going to hit the fan. If there's empty shelves at Christmas and back to school and all these things that people go to Walmart for and expect to see product on the shelves, shit is going to hit the fan. and it sounds like from her, the 30%, she can, she can deal with that and there'll be product back on the shelves, but, she's, she's hurting. And so are a lot of other small businesses. Yep. The Chad (49:19.032) Mm-hmm. The Chad (49:32.344) Still gonna have to raise prices. J.T. O'Donnell (49:34.184) isn't, isn't, isn't the MO here, I'm going to create the chaos, and then I'm going to be the savior from the chaos. And so you're going to remember me as the savior. So that idea of nothing being on the shelves at Walmart, he'll want to swoop in and fix that. And then he'll take the airtime and say, look what I did. I saved Christmas. You know, I don't think we've ever, right. Right. That's what I'm saying. We've never had, if you've ever seen that entrepreneur that's The Chad (49:53.134) that's what this is happening now. 145 to 30 because there's going to be, yeah. Joel Cheesman (49:54.485) That's. J.T. O'Donnell (50:02.44) just wild enough that starts a company. And if you really post-mortem their whole journey, there are as many failures as there were successes. But if at end of the day, they end up the success, that's the story that gets written. Right. And most of time they can't run their own company when it gets to a certain size, because just the way they built that business is not the way you sustain that business going forward. And you sit and look at it, what he's doing, nobody knows how to react to it. It's like watching something chaotically spin and everyone, like you said, is just going to sit back for a year and a half and wait and hope it settles. It's not going to settle. This is a whole Joel Cheesman (50:30.315) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (50:32.34) different way of that he likes to sit and live in and conduct business in. Right. And so it's crazy. The Chad (50:38.114) chaos. Joel Cheesman (50:39.575) can correct. I mean, if the house goes all damn, then it grinds to a lot of this stuff grinds to a halt, I think. J.T. O'Donnell (50:48.608) Fair, fair, but again, we're a year and a half out, which doesn't solve. So we also type for year and a half while we watch this, this crazy up and down, create the chaos, save everyone from the chaos, create the chaos. And he understands cycles. He understands media cycles. He understands sign beds better than anyone. We were talking about that before we went live on the show. He has mastered the art of, as long as I get it out there, if someone's heard it, people run with it, I win. And so, you know, because it's out there. The Chad (50:55.842) Mm-hmm. The Chad (51:05.006) Mm-hmm. The Chad (51:10.648) Could be the biggest lie in the world, but it doesn't matter because it's out there. Joel Cheesman (51:14.535) This is the 4D chess theory that Trump is behaving in such a way that no one else understands it, but it all makes sense in the end. I'm not sure I'm buying it. I'm not sure I'm buying it. I'm not sure I'm buying it. All right, guys, let's take a quick break. Look, if you like what you've been hearing, if you like the show, please leave us a review. Please subscribe YouTube, wherever you listen to podcasts, we want to hear from you. The Chad (51:22.838) after the economy collapses. Yeah, that's good. J.T. O'Donnell (51:25.324) You never know. Joel Cheesman (51:39.243) And definitely there's not enough of you when I go to conferences that have signed up for free shit Look, we'll send you stuff literally like just go to Chad cheese comm slash free or click the free link and sign up for shit, dude It's awesome. It's awesome. It's awesome. No other podcast in our space does this do it? We'll be right back J.T. O'Donnell (51:45.78) It's good stuff. The Chad (51:50.924) No marketing emails, none of that shit. Joel Cheesman (52:02.751) The Senate has unanimously passed like everybody, everybody the no tax on tips act that offers a $25,000 tax deduction for cash tips for workers earning up to $160,000. The bill now heads to the house where it could pass standalone or as part of a larger GOP package. Chad, your thoughts on no tax on tips. The Chad (52:28.75) I mean, it sounds great, but no tax on tips is total bullshit. It's a massive misdirection. Tips are supposed to be a little thank you for good service, not something you depend on to feed your fucking family. So to me, it's pretty simple. Pay your people a living wage. Your employees should not have to live day to day off of the tips they make. And many people do. So I know, I know, I know. Welcome to America, Chad. This is a fucked up system. It's how it is. Okay, okay, I get it. then why put a no tax cap of $25,000 on tips? While government spends all their time taxing the hell out of the lower and middle bracket earners, wages have barely moved at 14 % since 1978, while motherfucking CEOs see comps in the same timeframe over 1300%, 1300%, 1300%. We get excited about not taxing tips. It's a misdirection. Don't fall for it. Pay a living wage. Your people and your customers deserve it. Joel Cheesman (53:39.243) JT. J.T. O'Donnell (53:41.29) Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. don't think they should be taxed on that. And I think that the base rate should be a lot higher and I've just seen the results of it. So I have a daughter that worked at a place where they were all paid starting 17 up to 20 an hour smoothie joint. Think about that 17 to 20 an hour, right? Base. And those kids were pulling in another 20 to $25 an hour in tips. mean, these kids busted their humps. That place had a line out the door. The vibe was amazing. They were all able to pay for school. It was just such a beautiful. The Chad (53:53.742) Mm-hmm. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (54:10.856) example of that piece. I also know another place right now that it's a flat 25 % tip is included in everything in this particular club, right? So it's a club where you go in and you eat, you walk out the door and you're just charged your card, right? But you're going to complain heavily if the staff wasn't amazing. So once again, they're guaranteed, they're all heavily invested in making sure you have a great experience because the setup is so good for them. They're making this a great career. It's a career. The Chad (54:25.166) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (54:39.338) of being incredible at customer service. And I think not realizing that, I mean, we're continuing to just decimate that field. If you've been places lately where people just don't care the kind of service they're giving you, right? They're completely checked out. think, you know, giving them more incentive for that would be better. And I'm with you on the wage piece. It's got to go up. Joel Cheesman (55:03.37) So. Joel Cheesman (55:07.819) Senate hardly ever does anything unanimously. The fact that they all voted for this is scary to me because if they all agree on something, I'm worried about that in today's world. it's so political because it's so easy. It sounds so good. How could you be against this? And it's really frustrating because they can do this, but they can't do the hard work of The Chad (55:16.814) Polling, polling. Joel Cheesman (55:35.947) minimum wage law that's fair to everyone. And I think that to be distracted by wow, look what look what the government did is really is really a shame. Roughly 2.5 % of the workforce earns most of what they they do by by tips. So it's a very small percentage of the workforce. And frankly, a lot of them don't make enough to be taxed federally anyway. The Chad (55:37.442) Yes, yes, yes. J.T. O'Donnell (55:38.294) facts. Joel Cheesman (56:05.597) What about the people washing dishes in the kitchen? What about the cooks that are making the food in this same restaurant? how do they feel knowing that the wait staff isn't getting taxed on the tips? Like, why can't we just bite the bullet, raise minimum wage to a place where people can be proud of what they do? Really, let's turn this back to me. I want to be able to tap and go when I get a drink at the bar. I don't want to like think about what am I tipping on this? I got it. I got to get the check. I got to wait for this shit. Let me tap and go. Let me tap and go. That's really what this is all about. Let me be more like Chad is really what I'm saying. What I'm saying. J.T. O'Donnell (56:34.22) Thank J.T. O'Donnell (56:38.23) here. The Chad (56:49.134) Yes, Europe's tip culture much different obviously than the US tip culture. And again, Europe pays a living wage for the most part. I mean, tipping isn't even a thing to be quite frank, unless you're like in a big city like London or something like that, which is really like a little America. But the big difference here between the two is that in the US, it's all about turning tables. So they want you in and out as fast as you can possibly get in and out. It's because they have to get to that next tip. Joel Cheesman (56:58.923) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (57:06.922) Mm-hmm. The Chad (57:19.116) Right here, I have dinner, it's three hours. It's three, nobody's rushing me. Now do I also have somebody coming over and saying, hey, would you like this? Hey, would you like this? Hey, would you like this? No, usually I have to kind of like put my hand up to get something. But I mean, that's the big difference. And again, if you're paying your people a living wage, then they shouldn't have to live. J.T. O'Donnell (57:22.7) Yeah. The Chad (57:44.682) off of tips and that's and that's to me the big thing and the whole misdirection is as Joel had said they should be doing bigger things much bigger things like pushing the wage up so that this isn't even an issue. Joel Cheesman (57:53.579) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (57:58.091) Yeah. Tip exhaustion has hit America. Everything is a fucking tip. And by the way, Chad, the, the, the States that have implemented $20 an hour, uh, minimum wage, remember like cats and dogs are going to be living together. Mass hysteria hasn't happened. Yeah. The Chad (58:00.76) haha J.T. O'Donnell (58:01.324) Hmm. Facts. Well, it's down too, isn't it? think, hmm, it's down. The Chad (58:14.884) yeah, it's working. Well, in what happens is when you pay all those more people more money, what do they do with it? They don't put it into fucking stocks and bonds and buy fucking yachts. No, they don't. They put it in the fucking economy. The very next day in many cases, right? So it's like, if you want to get your economy rolling and churning, pay the lower and middle section of the economy. Those people pay them more because they're going to spend more. Joel Cheesman (58:25.099) Spend it. Yep. J.T. O'Donnell (58:26.814) spend it. J.T. O'Donnell (58:30.59) and greed. Joel Cheesman (58:45.035) And get rid of tariffs because that's a regressive tax too. The Chad (58:45.848) Duh. Yes, duh. J.T. O'Donnell (58:45.932) Thank If you're trading your time for money and somebody's willing to give you more money for your time, you're going to hang onto that job, right? It's just the whole, it's obvious. If I was running a business like that right now, I'd, I'd raise rates just to get the better talent, get them to stay. Joel Cheesman (59:01.023) Think about how better recruiting and retention would be if you did that. It works, Chad, just like my dad jokes. That's right. That's right. Here we go. What do you call a redhead with a yeast infection? What do you call a redhead with a yeast infection? The Chad (59:03.918) you no. The Chad (59:14.278) my God. my God. I don't even want to think of a yeast infection for God's sakes. Go ahead, go ahead. Joel Cheesman (59:23.956) A gingerbread. Joel Cheesman (59:28.363) We out! The Chad (59:31.01) We out. my God. J.T. O'Donnell (59:32.104) We out.

Is DEI dead? Or just taking a disco nap while corporate America loses its damn mind? In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, Joel and Chad welcome the unicorn of corporate consultants—Dr. Joel A. Davis Brown, Esq.—to separate fact from fearmongering in the DEI world. Spoiler alert: DEI isn’t dead, it’s just rebranding while dodging culture war shrapnel. 🔥 Highlights include: • DEI isn’t failing—it’s just catching heat from folks who confuse fairness with personal attack. • JP Morgan ditches “DEI” for “DOI” like it’s a witness protection program. • Why banning politics at work is like banning air at the office—good luck with that. • Equity explained via fire drills. Yes, really. • McKinsey drops truth bombs: diverse teams = more money. Shocked? Neither are we. • Chad goes full white-dude apocalypse about 2045—Dr. Brown calls it what it is: "replacement theory lite." • From “pride-washing” to performative allyship, we’re calling BS on corporate cosplay. Bottom line: If your DEI program is just rainbow logos in June and a dusty PowerPoint from 2021, you’re doing it wrong. 🔊 Tune in before someone rebrands “diversity” as “strategic synergy optimization” and calls it a day. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:31.95) This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheesman joined as always. Chad. So wash is in the house as we welcome Dr. Joel A Davis Brown, a corporate diversity and inclusion expert. And with a name like Joel, you know, he's got to be good. Welcome to HR is most dangerous podcast, Dr. Chad (00:41.836) Doc! Joel (he/him_) (00:54.124) Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here with you. It's good to meet you both. Joel (00:57.55) excited to. Chad (00:57.834) Wait, real quick, we didn't ask in the green room. At least I wasn't around. Maybe I was getting water. Have you listened to the pod before, Doc? Joel (he/him_) (01:05.972) No, mean outside of just prepping for this, no. Joel (01:09.272) fresh meat. Fresh meat. Well, before we get into the q &a, I want our audience to know who you are. So give us your elevator pitch on you what you enjoy sort of your professional background as well. Chad (01:10.784) Yes! Yes! Love it! I love it! Joel (he/him_) (01:28.216) True War, what do I enjoy? I enjoy working with organizations that are human centered that want to help their people grow and build a culture that supports everyone. So that's what I do. I'm an organizational development consultant. Sometimes people say, what exactly is that helping organizations perform better and to create cultures that allow people to leverage their best and highest skill set. So that's what I do. Joel (01:50.35) That's good. That's a tight pitch. That's a tight pitch. I like that. So we're, so we're focusing on, on, on, on DEI and I I'm really curious as someone who lives in this space on a regular basis, what is your take on the current state of DEI? Chad (01:52.614) That is a very tight... It's like he's done that before. Joel (he/him_) (01:52.854) Thank you. Joel (he/him_) (01:56.428) That's a few times. Right. Joel (he/him_) (02:08.984) It's predictable. So if you had talked to me, let's say probably five or six years ago and said, where are things going? I could have told you that where we are right now is where we would be, which is through a down cycle. This industry and this field has been through this before where there's some success, there's some social. Chad (02:23.8) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (02:34.072) turbulence that causes people to be more focused on this and then all of a sudden there's backlash. And so I think a lot of the pronouncements that DEI is dead are premature, inaccurate, and self-serving. But we know that there's still work to be done. I think there's opportunity for us to reframe and to help people to understand what it really is about, which not surprisingly has not been helped by some of the the statements and some of the propaganda that we've heard in social media and just in this social space as it were. Chad (03:08.312) So what is it about then? I mean, if they're taking the narrative and they're owning the narrative, how do you take the narrative back? What is it about? Joel (he/him_) (03:16.376) It's about helping people to work together and to work together effectively. So if I were, for example, to say to you, hey, you're gonna be working with, let's say the Chad and cheese, your counterparts in France or in South Korea or in South Africa, you would say, well, how do we do that? And so I would say, this is where we had to be aware of, know, different cultural perspectives on how to get people to work together. That's the diversity part. Equity is dealing with historical. inequities where people are not always given the same opportunities and they want to make sure that people have equal or equitable opportunity to get jobs, to work, to advance within the professional sphere or their workplace. then, know, inclusion, who doesn't want to feel included? So you want people to feel like they're part of a team, that their viewpoints, their contributions, their Chad (03:58.616) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (04:07.338) skill sets are going to be welcomed. And so that's really what it comes down to. So it's not this demon that I think a lot of people have thought about. Any industry, of course, always requires a little bit of work. No industry is perfect. And so whether you're talking about attorney, lawyering, or being an accountant, or working in the medical profession, there's always room to be better. And we're no different, but that doesn't mean that DEI needs to be thrown out. Chad (04:29.038) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (04:34.232) All together we're eliminated as some people have suggested Chad (04:37.72) Well, it seems like diversity has really been under the microscope and we've forgotten about equity altogether because it's obviously a part of the narrative that nobody wants to talk about, at least in this administration. And it's the one that for me is one of the most important. Obviously they're all important. But when we have individuals who are doing the exact same job as others and just because they're female or just because they're a person of color, they're actually making less. from an equity standpoint, from the standpoint of earning wages and going home and being able to put food on the table and so on and so forth. I mean, that just seems fair. I mean, fairness, right? Maybe equity is the wrong word. Maybe we should start using more around fairness. Why has that been lost in this entire narrative? Because we're not talking about it. Joel (he/him_) (05:30.84) Right. I think because a lot of companies have taken a very lazy approach to how they address equity. And I think a lot of times these words have been confused. So for example, you have a number of people thinking that DEI is affirmative action and people don't know what affirmative action really is about. So for your listeners, let me just break down, I'm giving a short story of how this shows up. So I went to the University of Minnesota, Big Ten. And I remember we would have fire drills just to make sure that if there was a fire. Chad (05:36.238) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (05:58.456) that everybody got out safely. So when the alarm would ring, obviously for those of us who could actually hear, that was the effective way to communicate that there was a fire drill taking place. But for those who couldn't hear, they had different methods in place. So they would flash the lights as a way of letting people know. Chad (06:00.323) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (06:17.814) hey, you need to get out the building. But for those who were visually impaired, they also had a different system. And so again, it's making sure that everybody has equal access to whatever measures are necessary for them to have a healthy life, to be able to pursue freedom and the pursuit of happiness, whatever that looks like. So that's really what equity comes down to. And I think what it really illustrates is how we have to showcase the different realities within the United States and just within the globe. Not everybody is going to have similar opportunities. And so that may mean, for example, companies making sure that they go to different universities or that they do a little bit extra not to create quote unquote special rights, but to make sure that other people are apprised of opportunities or are given opportunities that may not otherwise exist. So when I practice law, for example, I know that Chad (06:48.334) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (07:10.218) a number of the wisdom that was passed on, or a number of the opportunities that were shared with, let's say some of the junior associates, many of whom, most of whom were male, were done as sporting events. So people would go play golf and that's where someone would say, here's what I'm going to, here's some advice about your performance, here's some things I think you should do in order to be more successful as an attorney, as a junior associate, here are things that you can do to make sure that... Chad (07:26.036) yeah. Joel (he/him_) (07:34.122) our firm actually hires you and that information was passed along in these kind of discrete conversations that other people don't have access to. So then how do you make sure that other people can have that same type of knowledge and wisdom? shared with them. And so that's why you would have, for example, pipelines where, let's say, underrepresented groups such as women or, let's say, ethnic minorities might get that same type of treatment that they otherwise would not be able to get. So I think it's about going back to the basics and the fundamentals and helping to explain to people what these things actually mean, because we know in a news cycle where things are very quick and they're based on entertainment, Chad (07:46.85) Mm-hmm Joel (he/him_) (08:10.038) they don't really always allow for really cogent explanations. And a lot of times it's just gonna end up becoming propagandized in a way that again, it's not gonna be very helpful. Joel (08:20.302) You sound, you sound very healthy about this whole issue, which I'm going to have to, I'm going have to get the name of your, of your doctor. Uh, when you, when we're done with this, see what kind of meds you're on. Uh, cause we know he's not a drinker from, Chad (08:28.014) You're therapist? Yeah. Joel (he/him_) (08:33.366) No. Joel (08:34.252) My drug of choice. You talk about the, the pendulum. my sense is that it's less about it comes and goes and more about it rebrands. In other words, you change it to change the perception. And, Chad talked about the lack of equity or equity being deleted. And I think that's true. You see JP Morgan changing it to DOI, diversity, opportunity, and inclusion. So my question to you is, do you think it really is a pendulum that says it goes away and then it comes back? are we still doing it, we're just rebranding it to stay out of the headlines, to stay out of the crosshairs of an administration? Do you really think it's going away or are we just rebranding it, putting a different label on it? Joel (he/him_) (09:22.09) And maybe saying that it goes away is probably not the most precise words that I use that I apologize. I would say those who are invested in it will stay invested in it and those who are doing it for superficial reasons will find a reason to say no. So, you know, there's been a lot of talk around companies and organizations that have decided that they don't want to pursue or continue with their DEI work. We also need to recognize too that we're living in kind of an unprecedented time where there is perhaps I've never seen an administration be hostile to this effort, at least in my lifetime, and I've been around for a little bit, right? So I think a lot of it is around survival and a lot of organizations trying to make sure that they're not going to be targeted, so I get that. But we also historically have had organizations that, yes, when it's convenient, when they find it to be good for their bottom line, they'll champion this type of stuff because Chad (09:57.016) Mm hmm. yeah. Joel (he/him_) (10:17.28) it helps to increase our profit share. And so that's certainly not different. So that's what I mean by the pendulum swinging back and forth. We knew, for example, during Me Too and Black Lives Matter, are a number of people who did not, or organizations that didn't want to be seen as lagging behind or somehow undervaluing DEI because it just wasn't good for the profits they wanted to make and it wasn't good. Chad (10:34.083) Mm-hmm Joel (10:38.018) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (10:39.018) according to their consumers. So I do think some of it is rebranding. This work has been called a number of different things. And there's a number of different acronyms for those of us who have practiced and been practitioners of this work. So I think it's a combination of both. But I think more of it really is around who actually has a commitment and understanding that it's not a superficial thing. So a number of organizations may think, well, we'll have a program, for example, during Black History Month. And that's the extent of our DEI work. Well, that's not really DEI work. And I think that's part of the challenge. A number of leaders and I've worked with and decided not to work with companies who I think want to give this short riff and just want to do the most politically expedient thing by saying, yeah, we'll do it for a month or two when really it should be integrated into your business function. It shouldn't really be a programmatic thing. Chad (11:08.302) Yeah. Joel (he/him_) (11:30.198) When people come to me and say they want to do programs, that tells me they're not really invested in doing this work. So part of it is realizing this work is long-term. This work has to be strategic. It has to be integrated. It's not just episodic or programmatic or something that you just do simply to be, to be, not to be placed on someone's watch list. It is part of a healthy strategy to say, we want to get the best out of all of our people. How do we do that? And I don't know any organization, any business, any company that doesn't want to extract the most. Chad (11:47.63) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (11:58.582) out of all of these people to make sure that they can accomplish the organizational mission. That's really what it comes down. Joel (12:04.462) I I can't just rainbow rainbow find my logo once a year. I can't just do that. I got to really Chad (12:04.974) . Chad (12:09.42) You can. Joel (he/him_) (12:10.168) No, that wouldn't be good. And we call that, for example, pride washing. If you're trying to appeal to the LGBTQ plus community or you'll see it in different contexts where someone just says, I'm to put a little sticker out there. I'm going to come up with a clever slogan. We'll go to, let's say, Juneteenth festival or we'll join some type of local or regional civic effort. But that's it. And I think that's the reason why DEI, frankly, has gotten a bad name is because a lot of organizations are not doing good work. They are resistant to the work and they're not fully invested. And I think if more organizations try to do this at a high level and took the advice a number of solid experienced practitioners gave them, then I think we'd be in a better place. So for example, let me just address the pink elephant in the room. I've talked to a number of people over the years who will say, Chad (13:00.75) Yeah. Joel (he/him_) (13:03.778) Well, this doesn't apply to me. And some of them will be white males. And I said, well, why do you think diversity doesn't apply to you? Diversity refers to a system. Within a system, what is the heterogeneity? Who is different? Anybody who is there, who is part of a group, is part of a diverse system, unless everyone acts the same, comes from the same cultural background, which is rarely the case. So diversity necessarily includes anybody within the system to make sure that we all understand how can we accentuate our strengths and mitigate weaknesses in order to do the best work possible. The only time where perhaps you may not see a focus on let's say men or let's say people who are white or people who are heterosexuals when it comes to the equity piece, but DEI is paired together for a reason because you have to have all three. You have to recognize who's different, what's there, what's present. How do we make sure everybody has equal access and how do we make sure that everybody can belong and feel included? And again, be allowed to bring their skill sets and their talents to bear on the organization. So I think we do that education and I think we understand that. And there's plenty of data out there. I here's the thing. There's tons of data that indicates that DEI works from a leadership perspective, from a business perspective. If you're just about making money, we are in a capitalistic system. So if you're just about making money, DEI when practiced well, when done well, obviously works. So the question then becomes, why are people resistant to this was because again, it's been misbranded, it's been mislabeled. And I think a lot of people who have political agendas want you to believe that there's something different than what it actually is. Chad (14:41.006) So you talked about not getting the investment and to me, and actually I've built veteran hiring programs for large force and 500 companies over the years. My wife has actually done the same thing for the individuals with disabilities community. And for me, it has to do with really interested and not being performative. Most of these companies, most of these companies, they're putting CDOs in place who shouldn't be CDO in the first place. I mean, they don't have the business chops to be able to do what they're doing, not to mention they don't give them the investment in support so that they can actually create programs within the organization to be able to do exactly what you're doing. You're talking about is being able to really support the business and How are you supporting the business? By looking like the community, by being a part of the community, right? And we've lost that in this whole capitalistic society is the company is the company. It's not a part of the society anymore. That's bullshit. It's part of the society. It's part of the community. So therefore it should reflect what the community looks like. Am I way off base here? That's the question. Joel (he/him_) (15:46.622) No, not at all. No, and not only should it reflect the community, it should reflect the world. We live in a global economy now, which is highly independent. And so you, know, if I sell a widget or let's say I come out with my own version of a smartphone. Chad (15:51.831) Yeah. Joel (he/him_) (16:01.354) I wanted to reach as many people as it can, and I need to understand the needs and the sensibilities and the profile and the cultural background of the people who I want to attract to buy my phone or to buy my widget or whatever product or service I'm selling. So it just makes sense then to understand sensibilities. It makes sense to make sure that you have the best talent, and the best talent is gonna come from a variety of different disciplines, from a variety of different backgrounds. To your point about CDOs, for those who are listening to me and know what that means, Chief Diversity Officer. Oftentimes what I see happen that frankly can be problematic, organizations will retain or create this position for a chief diversity officer. And then the CEO, the CEO will say, okay, you deal with this stuff because I can't, I'm too busy. And my thing is as a CEO, and I work primarily with people in the C-suite. Chad (16:40.398) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (16:52.17) It is your job to make sure that you are developing and attracting and harnessing the best talent. It is your job to make sure that you're reaching the customers all across the globe. It is your job to make sure that when people walk through your door, they're not leaving a week, a month, a year later, that you're really making sure that people feel comfortable and psychologically safe. And sometimes the error is the CDO is a person who has scapegoated with doing all that work. And people think, Chad (17:18.382) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (17:18.644) I don't have to think about this. I don't have to think about this from a marketing standpoint, from leadership standpoint, from a community partnership standpoint. That's the CDO's job, which means that the CDO gets set up with doing something, but then they're encountering resistance with every conversation they have, which is why the work doesn't go well. Which is then why another reason is the confirmation by the say, see, we see that DI is not working well. Did you really set yourself up for success? Did you really invest or did you really just hire one person who was understaffed? Chad (17:42.102) huh. Joel (he/him_) (17:48.408) and didn't have the resources to do what really should be an enterprise level initiative and strategic operation. Joel (17:58.254) talk about money for a second. I mentioned that, it's profitable to be, to follow this strategy. What are, what are the numbers around that? And what would you say to the company, the companies that out, I don't want to say outlaw, but, frown upon talking about politics or talking about some of these issues at, at the office, because we're all about shareholders and profits, because I think that we need to, we need to build a bridge between this is a profit making strategy. Joel (he/him_) (18:01.996) Kitchen. Joel (18:31.928) But I'm quite sure that you can elaborate much better than I could on that. What are you saying in terms of the dollars and cents of doing this? Joel (he/him_) (18:39.48) Well, we haven't seen most of the data that we have around the profitability, the increased profitability of DEI goes back to 2020. So there's a little bit data. So I would love to see something from 2024. But if you look at studies from places like McKinsey, et cetera, et cetera, the studies just show that particularly when you have organizations that are led by diverse teams, whether you have female CEOs, whether you have boards that reflect the community that they live in, you're looking at profit margin increasing by a significant amount. And when I say significant amount, I'm looking at between, let's say, 10 to maybe 25%, 30%. And so that's a significant increase for the business. In terms of your question related to politics, The way that we think about politics is going to be based on your value system. So I've had a number of people say to me, particularly after the last election, well, we're not here to really talk about politics. I said, well, people expressing and sharing their cultural background and how they're impacted does not necessarily them talking about politics or not necessarily getting into policy per se or talking about the horse trading that takes place within. a legislature or within Congress are talking about how their communities, how their families, how their lives are being impacted. Is that political or is that more of a human discussion? And even if it is political, so what? I politics is affecting everything that we do. There's a congresswoman, former congresswoman out of Ohio, her name is Nina Turner, next door to you. And she always says, if you don't do politics, politics would do you. And so I think Many organizations, of course, are very much attuned to politics and policies and who's in, let's say, the state legislature or in the White House and Congress because they're looking at what's going to impact their bottom line, who's going to support policies that help us to do better, whether it's through lobbying or whatnot. So I think, you know, when leaders make this whole idea that we don't want to discuss politics, I think it's rather disingenuous. But I think to the point, Joel (he/him_) (20:43.256) It usually comes down to who is disfavored within the system. So if it's, let's say, BIPOC communities or LGBTQ, then it's political. We don't want to talk about this. We just need to focus on cultural groups. And we're seeing some of this play out in states like Utah and whatnot, particularly as they try to turn back LGBTQ rights and any type of LGBTQ civil rights legislation. Anyone who's sharing just their lived experience and their cultural background, Chad (21:06.232) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (21:12.074) is really not talking about policy per se or politics. They're talking about their lived experience and that should help to inform what type of products and services we provide, what type of organizations we are, but more importantly, what type of community partners we are. That's part of, again, thinking about thinking holistically in terms of what type of organizations do we want to be and making sure that we don't see ourselves as the point was made earlier, see ourselves as apart from the community organizations and companies are made possible because of the community and it behooves us to make sure that we're paying attention to the needs of the people that we're supposed to be serving, the people who make up our workforce and the people who live in the areas where we're situated and where we're based. And so I hope we can get past that. A lot of what's taking place right now, frankly, is political. So when we hear DI is bad, DI is wrong and organizations are being targeted, all that's political. So again, it depends on who's in favor, who's in power and what rights and what privileges you're discussing. That's usually an indicator of when someone or what... someone means when they say that something is political, usually just is a code word for saying, we don't want to touch this because we're either afraid of the blowback that we're going to get, or we're just not investing in it. And we just want to come up with a convenient excuse to not do something. Chad (22:30.092) When you take a look at business operations and instead of calling it DEI, whatever you want to call it, I mean, there are companies that I talk to on a weekly basis that are like, we are continuing X programs, right? What should we do? What should we call them? Should we just go ahead and dismantle? Like, no, it's a part of your business operations. You don't have to label it anything. Joel (he/him_) (22:55.288) Correct. Chad (22:55.372) It's called hiring, right? If you are going to a community college and there is a specific group that is female focused and you've been engaging them for years, don't stop that. Continue to do that, right? Continue to do the things that you know work for your business and expand on that. The thing is, you don't have to call it out as DEI. This is basic business operations for you and your organization. This is how we profit. This is how we become more productive and this is how we stay a part of the community. Now, The question is, if that is the answer, why in the hell are we making this so complex? Joel (he/him_) (23:34.336) Well, I'm just going to be real. Why are we making it complex? Yeah, well, in some ways, don't think, I think it's, again, a political calculation. So there are some people, for reasons I don't understand, who look at these types of things from a zero-sum lens. So there's the idea that if you Chad (23:40.258) Yeah, because it is. Joel (23:42.473) Hahaha. Joel (he/him_) (23:59.766) black person, you get something or something is designed to help you to succeed. Therefore, I'm somehow going to be at a disadvantage or something. I'm losing something. you, let's say a female leader within an organization, you get something, there's a pipeline dedicated to help you to become the best version of yourself. Therefore, I as a male am losing something. And it's really, I would say immature thinking. And it really highlights what I think is a problem that we're having within the US right now, which is this whole idea of others somehow being attended to and supported means that somehow I'm suffering or that I'm somehow going to be disadvantaged. When the water rises for one, it rises for all. When we're able to make sure that one person is succeeding, then it helps all of us. And part of what I get frustrated by is when I think about a lot of the barriers that exist within a society, just think about where we would be in 2025 if we didn't have to continually renegotiate and relitigate these issues. If we didn't have to think about, well, okay, we're in 2025, we still got to deal with race, we got to deal with gender and sexual orientation and disability and class and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We could be much further along. We could be in a place where we could be more advanced, we could solve a lot of the social issues, we'd probably be lot happier as a species. And that's the thing that's frustrating to me is there still is this tribalism where we think that, well, if someone is being supported, that somehow, Chad (25:15.437) Hmm. Joel (he/him_) (25:25.388) there's less and I think that goes to what's happening politically within the country. That's what goes to what's happening socially in the country and it shows a lack of leadership. That's what it really comes down to. So I love what you said about, you know, why do we need to call anything? Cause to me, any leader I work with, if they want to be transformational, I will say to them, you should be thinking about this anyway. You should have global awareness. You should have social awareness. You should be trying to make sure that every person you come across, every person's part of your enterprise is able to do their best job. If you're not. then what kind of leader are you? If you're simply focusing on, I just want this particular segment of my community or organization to do well, you're a leader, but not the type of leader I would want to follow, and not the type of leader who's gonna have positive impact. And I think we're seeing a lot of that where... Chad (26:00.417) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (26:10.2) people see and hear some of this type of demagoguery and some of these rationales and they think it feels good. It's like whipped cream. You eat the whipped cream and you think it's gonna be something substantive, but at end of the day, it's gonna leave you feeling empty, probably more empty and on a sugar high than what you thought before because you're going by these slogans and the scapegoating that takes place. They let you think, oh, because I deny someone something. that I probably already have an advantage of, or I probably already have access to, that somehow I'm going to be doing better. And it's an illusory idea, and it's a full-hearted concept. And that's really what I think we have to get to is all of us, a collective notion that when one of us can succeed, it helps all of us. And all of us are in this together. And again, whether we call it as one of my friends and colleagues have said, diversity, difference, and dialogue, or what do you say? Difference distinction and belonging. I've heard that I'm not interested in frankly trying to come up with the latest or Word or phrase of what de I should be called Yeah, I'm not gonna do the wordsmithing to me I think it's important to show commitment and to let people know exactly where my values lie But to your point if you're doing this and you're doing this well, this should be embedded in your philosophy Chad (27:07.758) Yeah. Chad (27:15.656) campaign yeah Joel (he/him_) (27:31.004) There shouldn't be a separate DEI program or DEI focus. It should be embedded. And of course, it can be one of your organizational pillars, but it should be something that is well integrated into your strategy, your thinking, and also your actions on a daily basis. Chad (27:37.368) Mm-hmm. Joel (27:43.404) Did you see Chad perk up when you said whipped cream? I noticed that. That was good. was good. politics we've covered, I want to cover generational divides. You mentioned sort of, you know, the boss thinks this, we're all about money and shareholders. But my sense is you have a generation of younger workers who want to work for a company that has an opinion, that wants to work for a company that lets me voice my opinion. Chad (27:43.49) Put down the whipped cream, cheeseman. Put down the whipped cream. yeah. you Joel (he/him_) (28:10.68) Sure. Joel (28:11.244) I think from a dollars and cents perspective, that's a retention tool. If you can retain talent because they enjoy being there and feel like they can express their opinion, that saves money because you're not recruiting and replacing those workers. I'm your thoughts on generational divides on this issue. Are you seeing that and how would you sort of encapsulate that? Joel (he/him_) (28:32.05) Absolutely. And I see it happen in one of two ways. Number one, I think because of some of the progress that's been made, I don't know if Gen Z and I guess is it the, what's after Gen Z? Is it the Alpha generation? that what they're calling it? I don't think a lot of people realize the quote unquote business and legal case for DEI. I think because a number of people have been able to benefit. So for example, there was this video, Chad (28:47.928) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (29:01.944) where this young man was saying, why does it matter what color someone is if they work at Wendy's? And are you saying that a person should just be chosen just because of their gender or their race? What sense does that make or their religion? And I don't think people realize some of the historical injustices and things that they are not privy to and they didn't have to fight. So I think part of what has to be done is re-educating people that these things that we've secured are tenuous as evidenced by this current, you call it administration regime. Chad (29:20.888) Yeah. Chad (29:27.48) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (29:31.83) this current administration has made, I think, helped to highlight to people that these things can be taken away in a moment's notice. So I think that's important. The other thing I see is that, there is this social consciousness and, in some cases, impatience where people, young people realize, yeah, I want to work someplace that has certain values. I want to work someplace that is connected. they don't separate themselves and their values. Chad (29:37.548) Yes. Joel (he/him_) (30:00.684) from their nine to five job to when they're at home or they're with their friends or they're in the community, which I think is smart. The only thing I would say to some of the young people, because I've seen this in some of the organizations is your organization, your workplace can't be everything. And sometimes I see this hard line stands, well, my organization needs to be my therapist, my organization needs to be my, you has activist strain, I had to be a best friend, it has to create my family, the family I didn't have that I'm estranged from. No entity and frankly no person, for those of you who want to be married, can do that. You have to understand that organizations are there and they can do some things. Organizations can, I think, help to build a sense of community. I think organizational values are going to be important in terms of choosing where you want to work, where you spend your dollars, where you spend your time. But I think there also has to be a healthy, balanced perspective to realize that, organizations, I think, should lend themselves to some of these larger social issues. But at the end of the day, the main thing we have to focus on is how do we achieve our organizational mission? And so that's where this goes. And so where I think sometimes DEI can get a little bit far afield is, let's say, again, your job is to make a widget. Well, really where DI is most effective is saying, how do we make sure that we can make the best widget and that everybody has access, we're leveraging everybody's wisdom, everybody has access to move up throughout the organization and can matriculate and to accelerate their career in a way that is healthy and equitable. That's how that works. Chad (31:40.014) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (31:41.804) That doesn't mean, for example, that organizations are always gonna be well equipped to be professional activist organizations. That's not how they're designed. And so I think a little bit of a balanced perspective can help. That doesn't mean, however, that, because I don't want anybody coming away from this and think, he's just saying that you should just sell out just to make a buck. No, not at all. But just realize that a certain organization or system is only designed to produce a certain outcome. And let's make sure that we understand that. Chad (32:06.648) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (32:09.792) You can hold people accountable for their values and how they support people within the organization, but we can't expect organizations to solve all of our personal needs or all of society's ills or to cure all of society's ills. There's a time and a place and I think organizations realize that, which why they can partner with other organizations to help support philanthropic efforts and things of that nature within the community. Chad (32:33.806) So I have a theory and I need you to weigh in on this theory, Dr. Joel. So in 2045, the population is supposed to flip, right? And the white people are supposed to be the minority as opposed to the majority. And I think this is freaking a lot of white dudes out. And I think there is this looking forward and you hear this, I mean, it's total bullshit around Joel (he/him_) (32:36.268) Let's hear it. Joel (he/him_) (32:40.088) Cool. Chad (33:02.816) a lot of the reasons why we're focusing on immigrants right now, right? At least this is what I'm feeling. This is my theory. I think white dudes are freaking the fuck out that 2045 is gonna come, 2045 is gonna come, right? And their legacy is going to be lost. What are your thoughts around that crazy theory? Joel (he/him_) (33:13.688) Hahaha Bye. Joel (he/him_) (33:21.944) Well, we hear that in terms of replacement theory. So that's the theory that's bandied about. I think we're already seeing parts of that. I mean, what it really comes down to is people feeling like the country that they knew that they're invested in and their political position within or social position within the country is being lost. And that's happened because you got, you know. Chad (33:26.519) Yes. Joel (he/him_) (33:44.076) gay folk getting married and you got quote unquote this idea of Latinos running across the border, I'm being facetious. You had a black president and right, and elected twice, right? So, and then you had a Southwest Asian and black vice president. So I do think people are scared. I do think people are being fear-based, which I think is in fact informing a lot of the dissent and a lot of the hostility towards DEI. Chad (33:46.35) you Chad (33:50.253) Yes. or the tan suit. you Joel (he/him_) (34:13.92) So what I like to do in my conversations, as I've already shared with you, I like to keep it real. So a lot of times I think we have conversations and we like to sound academic and keep it above the board. And I think there's a place for that. But I do think we also have to address what's under the waterline and the part of the glacier that we're not talking about. So for example, when I have been in those situations again, where people say, and they'll be very curmudgeoning, I really don't believe in this DEI stuff. And this is just reverse racism, all these sorts of things. Chad (34:23.982) Mm-hmm. Joel (he/him_) (34:43.168) What I like to do is ask them, what's your fear? What's really going on with you? And I will propose a grand theory and say, is your concern here that you're not part of the conversation? Is your concern here that somehow you're going to be minimized, you're going to lose power? And then sharing with them that in reality, I liken it to you have this sprawling mansion and you have this oversized bathroom. And also what I'm saying to you is you probably don't need the the tub, the jacuzzi tub and the shower, let's just get rid of one of those and you're still gonna be fine, right? So I think having those real conversations, right? Probably the jacuzzi, maybe. But I do think that's part of it, right? I do think that there is a concern that people are going to be replaced. And I think what people need to realize is what's happening is we're transforming and we're being enriched. No one here is, at least from my standpoint, Joel (35:17.122) Keep the jacuzzi, by the way. Keep the jacuzzi. Chad (35:18.798) you Joel (he/him_) (35:37.656) is going to be replaced, nor should they be. I think we're better when we entertain all healthy, inclusive positions and opinions about the world. But there is also a reality that the world is constantly changing and the way we were, let's say, back in the quote unquote good old days is not what we're going to be. And how can we leverage what's there and learn from what's there? That's the most important thing. How do we learn from the diversity that we have, the changing demographics? How can we be better? And in some cases, The perspectives aren't new. These are things that have been around there for quite some time. So maybe this is a time for us exercise greater curiosity and empathy and say, how can we learn? How can we be better? And how can we make sure that people, no matter who they are, no matter where they come from, can be honored and welcomed and respected? But to your point, that is a larger conversation. And I do think that is part of the fuel-based hysteria. that we're seeing with respect to and in relation to DI is that people think they're be replaced and people feel like what's been done historically to marginalized groups is also going to happen to them. And I think that's where greater education, more storytelling and more honest dialogue needs to take place so people understand what DI is designed to do. It's not designed to replicate historical grievances, it's designed to correct. and to support and help remediate historical grievances, at least with the equity piece. Joel (37:03.148) You ain't Jacuzzi nobody, so wash, just for the record. Let's take a quick check on White America, shall we? Joel (he/him_) (37:05.718) Hahaha Chad (37:11.394) Uh-uh. Joel (37:14.126) All right, Joel, I'll let you out on this one. By the way, I like the sound of Dr. Joel. I like that. That sounds some sensuous night at home. I might throw that in. Voting with your dollars. Where should we be spending money if we support this issue? Where should we maybe be driving past and avoiding on this issue? Where do you shop to support and where do you put your dollars? Chad (37:19.415) You Joel (he/him_) (37:19.714) Thank you. Joel (he/him_) (37:42.712) Well, I am putting my money in places that not only I'm avoiding spending money in places that don't support social justice and a lot of the values that I align, but more importantly, I'm putting my money in places that do so places where I think it could help those communities and those entrepreneurs, businesses and enterprises that are underfunded, undervalued and perhaps invisible. All right. Joel (38:05.626) We name names on this show, Dr. Joel. We name the names. Chad (38:08.63) No target. No target. Joel (he/him_) (38:10.772) I mean, so yes, I am spending a lot more time at Costco. I don't live in a Delta hub, but I certainly am using Delta more often. I always loved vintage ice cream. So, I mean, what I would say to people is, you know, do the research because of course you can find out very quickly which organizations are invested in DEI and social justice, which ones are not, and also check to see if they're being performative. I had a situation very recently where from my 50th, we were going to be hosting it at the Miller Caves in Milwaukee. Miller has this, there's these caves where they used to house the beer to keep it cool and chill. I know it's gonna make you guys pretty excited about that. But unfortunately, Miller is a very progressive organization. The parent company Molson Coors is not. And so we made the decision. Joel (38:57.43) Say more. Chad (38:57.807) yeah. Joel (he/him_) (39:06.936) A hard one, but a very quick one to say we can't have any type of celebration there because of your stance on the I and we also make sure that we communicated that. So I would say as you as consumers, as us, whoever you may be as citizens, as you make your decisions, also communicate to the organizations why you're not supporting them and also to make sure that you're giving your money to places that are supporting the values that are important to you. So again, Apple is still holding on to the D.I. initiatives. I know they're allowed. There's some law firms are now starting to pull back. So these are all intentional. These are options for intentional choices. These are options for us to decide where we're going to spend our money. And also in some cases, I'm saying, I want to kind of be more mindful and start the system. So in any situation where I feel like there's a compromise or I feel like people are not reflecting my values, that's one thing I'm going to keep home. And I want to support more local businesses, particularly those from underserved communities. so wherever you might be, whether it's in Columbus or Indianapolis, Indiana or elsewhere, Chad (39:54.03) you Joel (he/him_) (40:06.184) Do the research. Look up local vendors and retailers. Figure out where you can put your money that's going to have the greatest impact, particularly with social justice organizations, and continue to fund those places, particularly that are under attack for reasons that we've already talked about based on their affinity for DEI or justice or freedom as we used to know it. Chad (40:28.792) Well, kids, that is Dr. Joel A. Davis Brown. That's right. Dr. Brown. Well, first and foremost, I'd like to know just from an equity standpoint that the Golden Gophers are not going to get an equal amount of national championships from our Ohio State Buckeyes. at the... them some time. Joel (he/him_) (40:46.504) the haterade. Look at you. Look at you. I'm more worried about my Milwaukee Brewers at this point. They can't seem to stop anybody from putting home wines, but that's neither here nor there. Joel (40:57.174) It's early. It's a long season. Chad (40:58.466) Given some time given some time. somebody if one of the listeners want to reach out they want to connect with you and or you know they might want to buy the book. Where can they find out more about you connect with you and buy a book. Joel (he/him_) (41:11.042) Sure, so my book is The Souls of Queer Folk, How Understanding LGBTQ Culture Can Transform Your Leadership Practice. You can find me at JoelDavisBrown.com. You can find the company at Newmost.com, that's spelled with a P, it's a Greek word, P-N-E-U-M-O-S. You can find me on LinkedIn, or you can find me at Instagram at JoelABrown. I'm trying to not be as much on social media, but I still need to be hip and cool and be able to know what's going on. So go subscribe to my channel. Chad (41:36.91) Gotta get on the TikToks. Joel (41:38.382) And speaking of hip and cool, Costco. Joel (he/him_) (41:39.704) Yes, that's what I mean too. Up to, that's right, correct. Yes. Joel (41:42.542) Costco, it's not just a dollar 50 hot dog. It's diversity, equity and inclusion. That's another one in the can Chad. We out. Joel (he/him_) (41:46.008) hahahaha Chad (41:48.174) Yes! We out! Joel (he/him_) (41:50.774) Yes. Yes.

Buckle up for a wild ride with Joel Cheesman and Emi Beredugo, where they sling HR hot takes with the finesse of a fast-food fry cook! This episode’s a rollercoaster of laughs and eye-rolls, diving into the AI-first workplace fiasco like it’s a soap opera. Klarna’s CEO got a reality check after ditching 700 customer service reps for AI, only to realize bots can’t sweet-talk angry customers. Now they’re on a hiring spree to bring back the human touch—oops! Duolingo, meanwhile, thought AI could teach languages better than people, but TikTok’s Gen Z army clapped back, rage-quitting the app and calling it “disgusting.” Ouch, that’s gotta sting.Then there’s IBM’s bigwig, Arvind Krishna, tossing shade at HR by saying AI freed up cash for “essential” jobs like sales. Emi’s not having it, firing back that HR’s the backbone of fairness and inclusion, not just fluffy admin work. She’s all about adapting to AI without yeeting humans into oblivion. LinkedIn’s new AI job search gets a nod for letting you type “I wanna save the world in sweatpants” and matching you with dream gigs, aiming to hook passive job seekers while sparing recruiters from resume spam. Wrapping up, they tackle the EU’s 2026 Pay Transparency Directive, a game-changer forcing companies to spill salary tea upfront to shrink gender pay gaps and stop wasting everyone’s time. But, plot twist: firms better get their org charts in order or face a discrimination lawsuit mess. And they serve it all with wit juicier and tastier than a McDonald’s chicken strip! AI Takes Over IBM HR ⚠️ | Klarna & Duolingo Hit the Brakes on Automation, LinkedIn AI Job Search PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel Cheesman (00:35.897) Yeah, big P O P P a no info for the DEA. Hey boys and girls. It's the Chen Cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel the real creator of the world equalized cheeseman Emi B (00:49.102) And this is Emmy, the Duchess of Borodego. Joel Cheesman (00:52.173) And on this episode, it's earnings season again. Score one for the humans and pay transparency anarchy in the UK. Let's do this. Joel Cheesman (01:05.963) Emmy, what's good? Emi B (01:07.662) Hey, how you doing? How you doing? It's been a long time since you've just been me and you on the podcast. Yeah, yes. Joel Cheesman (01:13.005) I think it was last year, November. Yeah, before the holidays, it was a good primer for some downtime. And now Chad is Euro Chad, full effect. We'll get to his video in a second where he explains what's going on. But how you been? Emi B (01:21.262) Absolutely. Emi B (01:26.678) You Emi B (01:31.309) Do you know what? I have, I'm now looking forward to a holiday. I'm just looking at my calendar and thinking, it's mid May. I haven't been on holiday since October. So yeah. Just a little, I just want to chill. I just want to be on the beach exactly sipping a margarita. And I, yeah. look. Joel Cheesman (01:39.822) Yeah. Typical European. Time for a little vacation, a little holiday. Joel Cheesman (01:53.357) Now is your passport up to date? Is your passport renewed? You don't want to get into that again. There you go. Emi B (01:58.7) Don't, don't, please. Like I'm getting like trauma and like PTSD and like the whole passport debacle. But yes, my passport is now renewed. Joel Cheesman (02:07.961) Well, I'm glad I'm glad you told me that story. So you're if I'm if I'm encapsulating this, you went on holiday. It wasn't you have to renew up to six months or six months prior to to leaving the country, which alerted me to think, I probably need to renew mine. And I got to say government efficiency can happen. I renewed my passport totally online. Emi B (02:14.838) Yeah. Emi B (02:26.018) Yeah? Emi B (02:35.298) Really? And it all worked? Yeah. Joel Cheesman (02:35.449) I didn't go into a post office. I didn't like fill out any forms. The picture that I got, we go to drug store. People will know Walgreens. And they usually give you little hard copy photos and then you like put that and you take it to the post office. They gave me a digital copy this time and I thought, well, that's kind of weird. Like why would I'm not going to print it out and send it? It's not my new Christmas card, right? But they gave me digital and they gave me digital because Emi B (02:41.036) Yeah. Emi B (02:56.226) What, like on a floppy disk? Or how do I do it? On a chip? Or... Joel Cheesman (03:03.689) On in America now you can up renew your passport. can upload the photo. You don't have to send in your old old passport. So I did it and it's probably been about two weeks and I got an email yesterday that it is on the way. So if you haven't renewed your passport, if you're thinking like, it's going to be a pain in the ass, it's really quite easy now. So I don't know how it is in the UK, but in the US now, at least if you already have a passport, it's super easy to renew it. Emi B (03:06.413) Yeah. Emi B (03:23.512) Just get online, yeah. Emi B (03:30.03) I think I'm pretty sure we can do it online, but I went in and I did a 24, no, a couple of hours one. So went in, filled out all my forms, came back a couple of hours later. So I got my new black passport, which is really weird because my last passport was red. So anyone online looking at it and it's cheap and flimsy, but yeah, that's me now. Yeah. So I can go on holiday soon. Joel Cheesman (03:36.429) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (03:44.782) huh. Yeah, they're right. Joel Cheesman (03:52.035) Is there, stupid question, is there a reason why it's kind of, it was kind of a burgundy, right? The British passport. Emi B (03:57.782) Yeah, that'll be Brexit. Brexit with all the fuck-ups and changing everything and making everything worse means that we now have black passports. Joel Cheesman (04:02.914) huh. Joel Cheesman (04:09.571) So is a, like if I'm in France, is it that burgundy? Emi B (04:12.312) Yeah. What if you're British and going to France? Joel Cheesman (04:18.617) No, your passport used to be burgundy and now it's black. Is there a reason why it was burgundy? It's not Brexit, is it? Like, Brexit wasn't like, we're gonna make passports black now. Emi B (04:20.928) Yeah. Yeah. No, we... But I think that's part of the reason. So when Brexit happened and we left the EU, we now have the black passport saying United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, British passports. All of our passports are black. Yeah, because we left the EU. Honestly, it's flimsy. My Lord is flimsy. I mean, I've just bent it for anyone looking online, but crap. Joel Cheesman (04:38.721) Okay. And you say it's cheap. Wow. The US one now it's like a it's almost like a credit card. The first the main like with your picture and everything. It's it's really yeah, it's really it's really robust. So yeah, we're Emi B (04:53.384) really? they speak to the guys over here, please. Honestly, this one's shit. We need a new passport. It's crap, honestly. Joel Cheesman (05:02.787) As long as the barcode works and they get you in and out of the... Emi B (05:05.486) Yeah, as long as it gets me on the freaking plane next month on the beach. I'm not even supposed to be in the country. Do remember last month I said I was supposed to be in Dubai hunting down, you know, the, you know, being involved in a deal and rippling saga. Yeah, I'm still here. So hopefully, hopefully July, I will be there. June or July. Joel Cheesman (05:12.973) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (05:25.261) Well, here's your chance to show off how much vacation time do you get as a British citizen? Emi B (05:29.678) I think to be fair, I've got holiday rolled over. So I think at the moment I've got about 35 days rolled over. I probably actually shouldn't say this online because my, yeah, yeah, just going to rub it in. And my manager will be listening and probably so will my VP go, no, I mean, haven't spent your holidays. But yeah, I've got loads of holiday, loads of holiday, but we normally get about 28 days. So I will be chilling on that beach. Absolutely. Joel Cheesman (05:33.241) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (05:54.327) Loads of holiday loads of holiday, but we're glad we're glad you made time for the show this week, especially with with chat out. So without further ado, let's get to some shout outs. As you know, shout out sponsored by our friends up North, Kiora that's tech recruiting made simple and affordable. I'm going to start with my shout out. My shout out goes to McDonald's McDonald's. That's right. You got them all over the world and it's fast food. So it's Emi B (06:06.263) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (06:23.609) right up my alley, but I'm going to give you three reasons why McDonald's gets a shout out for me. Mickey D's is crushing it. First, they drop chicken strips on the menu. They have the chicken sandwich, the chicken nuggets. Now they got the chicken strips and they have a new creamy sriracha sauce that's just to die for. So that's just one reason I'm giving them a shout out. Number two is they have a new chief people officer, guy named Pat Myers who previously served at Target. and did some cool things there. So we'll be seeing some probably interesting things from them. And lastly, they announced last week or this week that they plan on hiring up to 375,000 people as they look to open 900 new US locations through 2027. I'm loving it. I'm loving it. McDonald's gets a big shout out from me. Emi B (07:05.774) thousand. Emi B (07:15.106) Wow. Yep. Joel Cheesman (07:21.123) Gotta love it. What you got, Emmy? Emi B (07:23.15) So my shout out is for, it's actually for a person. So you may not have heard of this person in the US, but if you're in the UK, hopefully you have. you know, if you haven't, go check him out. His name is called Keith Rosser. So Keith Rosser, he doesn't know I'm doing this by the way. So I'm going to see him tomorrow and I'll let him know. But he's actually the director of Read Screening. And he's also the chair of an organization called the Better Hiring Institute. So. Joel Cheesman (07:45.326) Mm-hmm. Emi B (07:51.52) In my opinion, Keith is a bit of a powerhouse in the world of recruiting. And the reason why I think he's a powerhouse is because he knows his stuff inside out when it comes to TA. But most recently, he's been working with the UK Parliament and he's been working with them to create the first ever UK hiring task force. Now, this hiring task force is all about putting UK hiring on a map. we know we're coming for the US and hopefully we're going to be number one. And the idea is to make... Joel Cheesman (08:17.219) Mm-hmm. Emi B (08:21.642) What? Okay, listen, we will gonna be number one, you wrestling listeners. You're be learning from us. Joel Cheesman (08:26.105) It's not 1892 anymore, I mean, sorry to tell you. Emi B (08:28.974) Okay, whatever. But the idea is to put the UK hiring on the global map. So we're going to make the UK hiring better. We're going to make it faster. We're going to make it fairer as well. So he's got big goals, big ambitions. So really, really important goals. And look, to be honest, I'm really excited because I'm going to be working alongside him as part of this task force. And even better, because I checked his profile out today and he has a link on LinkedIn. He said that the word has actually spread outside of the UK and it's open in US. So the White House is actually sending someone over. So I'm going to be meeting someone. So let's see how that goes tomorrow. like I said, hats off to Keith. He's making history. So well done. Congratulations, Keith. Joel Cheesman (09:16.035) like that you pronounced it Keith and not Keefe, which is a typical English. Emi B (09:19.086) Listen, I'm trying to push up for the podcast. mean, I'm from Southeast London for anyone who's from London. Like I ordinarily say, Keith. Joel Cheesman (09:25.315) Hosh up for the podcast. Joel Cheesman (09:31.683) Posh up. I'm going to use that this weekend. I'm going to Posh up for the weekend. Yeah. You know, you know, I love, you know, I love, I love the Brits. I love Britain. mean, ancestry says I'm 60 plus percent British and Scott or English and Scottish. So I'm all about the Brits. but just Emi B (09:35.502) why I called myself the Dutchess, you know, I've got to pretend, you know. Emi B (09:48.272) there you go. There you go. And I love the Americans as well. I told you before, I was supposed to live in America and then life took a different turn, a different path for me, but you never know. One day, one day, in about four years time though. Yeah. Let's have that conversation again in about four years time. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (09:53.945) I you. Joel Cheesman (10:02.081) I'd like to say the door, I'd like to say the door is wide open, but I'm not sure in Trump's America that it is wide open. Although Yeah. Yeah. Cause we do, we do have a spot open because Chad, as you know, has left the country and is now in Portugal and, in Chad and Chad fashion, he's, he's, he's got an excuse. I'm not sure I'm buying it. I'm going to, I'm going to play his video. sent this in from the beach. Very nice of him to do that, but let's check this out to see why, why Chad is not here and what his shout out is. Emi B (10:15.342) Exactly, we can replace. Yeah, one in one out. Emi B (10:26.082) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (10:49.902) Mm-hmm. Emi B (12:00.458) He's okay. Look at him. He's okay. Joel Cheesman (12:01.669) I don't know. Do they have clouds in Portugal? I swear every video he's in, it's just clear blue skies everywhere. Emi B (12:10.158) And look at it, I'm just at the beach chilling like, yeah, of course my mic broke down at the last minute. Chad, we don't believe you. You're lazy. What are you doing? Get back on the mic. Joel Cheesman (12:23.033) All right, real quickly, Chad's getting into my lane here a little bit. There are no sweet and sour peppers on a Portillo's Italian beef. It's either sweet or hot. This sour thing, no clue. And my challenge to Joe Shaker and Matt Lavery is, is there any difference between the Leo and just a regular Portillo's Italian beef? Because I see nothing different. They're selling it differently. Emi B (12:31.374) I love this. I love how you know. You know your food. Joel Cheesman (12:51.801) But it's pretty much the same ingredients from what I can tell. so unless I'm wrong, let's get some Chicagoans in on this. And by the way, Chicago Pope one, uh, green Bay Pope zero, just in case you're keeping those, they're big rivalries by the way. Uh, if you don't know me. Yeah. All right. Well, uh, there Portela's, uh, tying beefs are not free Emmy, but we have, we have free stuff, uh, from Chad and sheaves. Emi B (13:03.37) are they? Okay, okay, I'm learning. Emi B (13:15.054) Okay. Come on. Joel Cheesman (13:18.871) more stuff to love about us. So, we were giving away whiskey, some bourbon from our friends at Van Hack, more Canadians, as you know, we have a nice selection of chicken cock for everybody, that gets to win that. course, everyone loves chicken cock. That's right. That's right. We have free t-shirts from our friends at Aaron, Aaron app.com. Uh, we also have free beer from our homeboys and home girls at Aspen tech labs. And yeah, you know how we do, you know how we do. If it's your birthday, we might send you a bottle of rum from our friends at plum, not to mention free syrup from our friends at Keora. That's Pappy's bourbon aged. Emi B (13:37.057) You Joel Cheesman (14:05.485) barrel syrup. So who's celebrating a birthday this week and last week because we missed I was in Vegas. got Jim Lowe, Alicia Buchler, Lucas Roscoe, Karen Heatwool, Katie Gentry, John Tehan, Kevin Lowe, Alan Jason Bourne, Laura Martinelli, Nikos Lavidas, Loka, Paul Norman, Ed Newman, Jenny Rutt, and Ward Crispin. Chrisman, sorry, I'll celebrate another trip around the sun, which leaves us to travel sponsored by our friends at Shaker Recruitment Marketing while they're having some portillas. We'll be thinking about them as well. We'll be at Wreckfest, Emmy, as you know, which you will as well. That's July 11th, 11th, 12th, yeah? Emi B (14:39.384) Happy birthday. Emi B (14:50.164) Yes, I will be there. 11th, I think. I was going to say 10th or 11th. It's one of those days. Joel Cheesman (14:57.795) 10th, 11th, 12th. It's that Thursday in there, whatever that Thursday is. Cole Cheeseman is making his third appearance in Nebworth. He'll be passing out t-shirts, taking notes, and maybe I can even talk him into having a beer. Otherwise, we'll have some fun there. Anything you're looking forward to at Nebworth in particular? Emi B (15:19.47) Do you know who I am looking forward to? Now she's going to love this. I met this fabulous, I'm telling you, fabulous woman last week. Actually, she's from the US, flew over from the UK, and she is just a similar role to me. She does a recruiting enablerment role. And for people who don't know, there's not many of us around in the world. Recruiting enablers quite an emerging function. So I remember when I joined the company, I remember that kind of stalking and LinkedIn. Joel Cheesman (15:21.739) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (15:27.991) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (15:41.049) Mm-hmm. Emi B (15:48.832) Now I had the pleasure of meeting her in person, but she's also going to be talking at RecFest and she's actually going to be talking on the stage that I'm hosting. So if anyone's thinking of coming down, definitely buy your tickets, definitely get over, watch Molly on stage. She is fantastic. Joel Cheesman (16:03.15) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (16:06.849) I'm glad you mentioned poetry, which is run by a bunch of Scots from what I understand, and I'm looking forward to seeing my favorite Scott. Emi B (16:15.598) Stephen will be there. Joel Cheesman (16:17.235) One Stephen McGrath and I'm also excited if you see the see the thing behind me there. Does that? Does that mean anything to you? Yeah, so so. So no Asus, the cover band is the entertainment this year again at Neoworth. At least that's that's the rumor, so I am really excited, excited about that to get back to the UK. Alright, before we get to topics, we got some. Emi B (16:25.41) Definitely maybe. Oasis, so maybe gonna be the one that saves me. yeah, I heard that. Joel Cheesman (16:46.873) layoff news to talk about Microsoft laying the hammer down on about 6,000 employees. That's about 3 % of their workforce. Chegg, 22 % of their workforce match group, which owns Tinder and a bunch of dating apps that I'm sure you've never heard of. 13 % and CrowdStrike, 5%. As far as LinkedIn impact, they're owned by Microsoft. There is some evidence that some LinkedIn people got laid off. Someone on LinkedIn. Emi B (17:02.435) Never. Emi B (17:09.71) Mm. Joel Cheesman (17:15.883) Ironically said today has been a rough one in which a lot of good friends, colleagues and world class talent will be leaving us and other users said the laughs would be the largest at the company since 2023 when Microsoft eliminated 10,000 jobs. Any comments on the layoffs? They certainly keep coming. Emi B (17:34.574) Yeah, and it's, do you know what? is, I feel for those people because those people who are getting laid off at the moment are going into really crap market. And I keep seeing online, I keep seeing on LinkedIn, I keep talking to people who are great at their jobs. They are fantastic. They know their jobs inside out, but there are so many people being laid off. So when they're applying for jobs, they're competing against so many people. And I'm not talking about You know, in the past, maybe people may be out of work for three months, maybe six months. I know great people who've been out of work for over a year, or they're at a certain level or were at a certain level in their previous jobs. And they're now having to drop down to lower levels just to get back into the marketplace because people have got bills to pay, you know? And I think that's just a, you know, it's not just in the U.S. We have that in the UK. We have that in other countries as well. So it is upsetting, it is hard and I do feel for those people. Joel Cheesman (18:36.857) Yeah, and a lot of it seems like it was at the management level, which we've talked about how Gen X is getting fucked again in life and how they've reached a point where they should be really crushing it financially and professionally. And they're too highly paid. So let's let's put millennials in their place who are lesser lesser paid and get rid of Gen X. So all right, we're here for it. We're here for it, America. Gen X, Gen X sex will kill you. Drugs will kill you. Everything sucks. Emi B (18:39.884) Hmm. Yeah. Emi B (18:48.867) Yeah. Emi B (18:58.062) We got you. Joel Cheesman (19:04.941) We're used to it. We're used to it. Let's get to topic. Shall we? Emi B (19:07.724) It might get better. Joel Cheesman (19:12.569) All right, let's talk a little man versus machine, shall we? I Klarna and Duolingo, early adapters of an AI-first workplace are facing challenges in balancing AI automation with human labor. First up, let's talk about Klarna after replacing 700 customer service agents with AI. They're now planning a hiring spree to ensure human customer support, citing quality concerns. Shocker. Emi B (19:14.926) Mmm Joel Cheesman (19:37.998) with an over reliance on AI in the past. Emmy, what's your take on Klarna's news? Emi B (19:43.566) So my take is that this Sebastian guy who's the CEO of Klana, I think that his cockiness has actually, you know, fucked up. It's turned back around. I remember him saying, do you remember like, was it last year or maybe the year before, you know, AI is going to replace all jobs. AI can replace all jobs. We don't need humans. It's fucked up because at the end of the day, when something goes wrong, Joel Cheesman (19:54.585) Mm-hmm. Emi B (20:11.918) with a service, you don't want to speak to a machine. You don't want to speak to a chat bot. You want someone who's actually going to understand your issues and help you be a bit more empathetic and be able to resolve those issues for you really quickly. Machines can't do that yet, but he seemed to think that he knew better than anyone else. So for me, think, yeah, OK, cool. You know now, but what at the expense of other people that you've got rid of? What about them? They're now in that shitty job market. So yeah, I think it's a Joel Cheesman (20:27.225) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (20:38.691) Mm-hmm. Emi B (20:40.492) I think it's a bit of an idea, to be honest. Joel Cheesman (20:45.699) So the pendulum swings back and forth and it's swinging back into sort of the benefit of the humans. You know, these are stories you're probably heard of even in the UK, Walmart, Target, Dollar General. They've all recently either cut back their sort of self-service or self-checkout, either eliminated or cut back on it. Now part of it is people steal shit when you can just serve yourself. Emi B (20:53.005) Yeah. Emi B (21:11.438) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:13.013) but, it's also complicated things. And I'm even in my own use. like, I like to think I'm a fairly smart guy, but it's like, it doesn't scan. I don't know what fruit I'm getting. Is it organic or not? I got to call the person over to get information. The car doesn't work. I try to tap like there's so you end up spending more time. Like at the checkout when you're on your own and getting someone else. So it's like this big mess and, and Amazon, as you may know, Emi B (21:27.31) Should have weighed it, yeah. Emi B (21:36.834) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (21:41.281) recently launched this sort of cashless, just walk out store. And it was huge news. SNL made a really funny skit on it with with black people saying like, they won't just walk out. Anyway, it's funny skit. But like, shocker, people just steal shit. They break shit. This is why we can't have nice stuff, Emmy, as because employees aren't there. But yes, companies are realizing like, yeah, we can't just full on Emi B (21:47.286) Yeah, what is that about? Emi B (21:59.51) Yes, of course! Joel Cheesman (22:09.165) wholesale automate this shit and think that it's gonna turn out okay. And I can tell you that I have an 85 year old dad and I have a 14 year old dog, both of them need healthcare and I'm on the phone with vets and nurses and all this shit. The automated whatever decision tree that I have to go through is awful, awful. It has not yet type one if you'd like to pay your bill. Emi B (22:18.456) Good. Emi B (22:31.566) And you didn't say that press one to speak to this person press two. It's like just, just put me through to a freaking person. Yeah. And you just press zero until you get through to someone. Zero zero. Yeah. Don't want to talk to a freaking automated machine. Joel Cheesman (22:38.601) Number two, if you'd like a reschedule, like what the, yeah, it's like zero, zero. Talk to someone, please talk to someone. Yeah, so, and I do think that there's a opportunity for companies that are people heavy. You're never gonna walk into an in and out and get automated. Like there's certain experiences that you just expect, like Chipotle. Emi B (23:01.614) Nah. Joel Cheesman (23:06.969) If there's ever a kiosk in Chipotle, like I'm out. I mean, it would take a lot for me to get out of Chipotle, but like that there are certain brands that you expected. think with McDonald's, it's okay. Cause you want your $5 meal deal and you're okay to be at a kiosk and kind of deal with some shit. But for a lot of brands, dude, they're, they're running into a problem, uh, with sort of not, not seeing that this whole automation thing isn't quite what it's, it's a cracked up to be. Emi B (23:07.756) I love it. Chipotle again. Emi B (23:31.628) Yeah, you just, you just can't fully automate all of a human job. You know, you can do the low level, like kind of low level administrative side. Yeah, absolutely. No, no problem. Automate the hell out of that. But when, when it gets more complex, when it requires decision-making, when it requires creativity and problem solving, AI is not there yet. So you cannot fully rely on a machine to do that for you. And it doesn't feel. Joel Cheesman (23:43.833) Mm-hmm. Emi B (23:59.502) You know, cause you know, like you said, you know, when you're on the phone and you just say, just get me through to a fucking person, you know, you want that you want, you want someone to actually empathize and understand how you're feeling and help you feel safe. I help calm you down. A robot is not going to do that. So he kind of fucked up from this point of view, thinking, or just thinking about the cost element only, which is what I think he was doing and not thinking about the human element. And that's where you're going to lose your customers. Joel Cheesman (24:27.161) Yeah. And there's a lesson there for recruiting how people feel about that as well. All right. Next up we got Duolingo, who recently cut contractors in favor of automation. they're facing significant social media backlash for the move with users criticizing them as harmful to employees, customers, and the environment, which I'm not quite sure I get. Emmy, your thoughts on Duolingo and the, the anger that the market is showing. Emi B (24:30.21) Yeah, 100%. Emi B (24:48.781) Mmm. Emi B (24:53.332) Yeah. So this is the same kind of thing as another organization kind of following down the Klan route and everything's going to get AI fast and everything's going to be automated and cutting back on human contractors to do the work. Yes, it's going to save you money. But again, when things go wrong, you need a human, you need someone on the other side to actually kind of help you out and put yourself put as well as put themselves in the. customers, the users shoes to help resolve the issue. I don't know, Joel, did you see the kind of the TikTok kind of comments like to the post? Joel Cheesman (25:35.374) No. Emi B (25:36.094) No, because it made me laugh, right? Because some of them were saying, and I remember one of them was like, they were like properly calling out Duolingo. They were saying things like, know, was firing all your employees and replacing them with AI, a hiccup, because they were talking about some hiccup that took place. You know, they saying using AI is disgusting and language learning. Yeah, it should be pioneered by people, you know, and people are even rage quitting now. Joel Cheesman (25:53.817) from the How to Train Your Dragon. Yeah, heck up, yeah. Emi B (26:01.464) So they've got to this stage where they're so pissed off with Duolingo, they're like going, fuck it, no, I don't want it. Let me just log off. Let me not just put my money into this organization. And now they're now going, my God, okay, we're kind of fucked up a little bit. Okay, maybe we are in the wrong. And they say, no, no, no, no, chill, relax. Humans are still in charge. We're still involved, kind of. But I think that again, it's the same kind of thing. AI. Joel Cheesman (26:01.592) Mm-hmm. Emi B (26:29.312) is there to help you. AI is helping to make you more productive. AI is not there to totally replace the human. So at the end of the day, they're going to have to think of a way to say sorry properly. Maybe they say sorry in 30 different languages. Maybe that's what they do. Use that tool. Joel Cheesman (26:32.814) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (26:49.059) You know, I meant to take a look at the videos, but I got caught up in a tarantula versus centipede battle, which I typically get into when I'm on TikTok. know, generally young people, we're talking back, look, young people aren't stupid. Young people read, you know, read or least read or see news about your college degree is worthless. Emi B (26:51.768) Yeah. Emi B (26:56.042) and love it. Joel Cheesman (27:17.695) Every entry level job is getting automated. Companies aren't hiring young people anymore. and they're kind of pissed off and they're like, fuck this shit. we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna smack companies that go full automation because I think they see their own challenges in companies doing that because every company that says we're going fully automated, automatic. Emi B (27:41.422) Don't let know. Joel Cheesman (27:41.995) automation, that's my, that might be my job or that might be a competition for an opportunity that I might get, or I'm not going to get now because of that. So I, I certainly feel like there's going to be a human uprising with younger people in saying like, we're going to support brands that hire people. We're going to, we're going to give our money to companies that hire people and have customer service reps. Emi B (27:45.089) Yeah. Emi B (27:58.222) 100 % Yeah Joel Cheesman (28:08.62) who are human being that are carbon based life forms, like we are going to support those businesses. And let's be honest, the best way to, provoke change is with your dollars. And if young people decide we're not going to support companies that go fully automated, then you won't see companies go fully automated automation, right? so I think Duolingo is an example of that. Now the challenge that Duolingo has is that their stock is, is at all time highs. So they're looking at, Hey, Emi B (28:31.095) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (28:38.797) we're being rewarded on wall street, but on main street we're being smacked. So I think companies will ultimately say like, yes, automation is going to happen, but we need to boil the frog a little, a little longer than just wholesale. We're going off fully automated and, and you know, one day we'll wake up and say like, shit, yeah, it is, it is fully automated and we didn't even sort of recognize it. And I think that's kind of where we're going. Emi B (28:43.171) Yeah. Emi B (28:54.924) You can't just do blanket exactly. Yeah. Emi B (29:04.3) Yeah, 100%. But you know the challenge there as well, because I know that obviously the younger generation obviously at the moment they're saying, look, we're going to go for the human first organization. We're going to go for the people who are more empathetic. But like I said before, the market is shit. So when they're out of work for three, four, five, six months, are they still going to be hold that moral high ground or are they going to think I got bills to pay? And that's, think that's going to be a kind of a moral dilemma that the younger generation, even like older generations as well, are going to have to think about because they're going to have to balance that situation, the economic situation with, with their morality. And I think that's a tough one. Joel Cheesman (29:45.497) Yeah. Yeah. Certainly you can, you, your price McDonald's is not in and out or Chipotle, right? Like, yeah, I want to support the company hiring people, but the shit's a little tight. So I'm going to, I'm going to go out of Matt. Yeah. I mean, and history teaches us that the machines will win. I think it's just a balance of companies, not just swinging for the headlines and saying like fully audit, like no more people are going to be working here. Uh, that kind of gets you into trouble. think. Emi B (29:51.311) Yeah. Emi B (29:57.612) Yeah, I got bills to pay. Yeah. Emi B (30:07.104) Yeah. Emi B (30:14.382) 100%. Joel Cheesman (30:15.075) That's kind of a bad idea. All right, a little bonus time in the man versus machine news. IBM CEO says replacing HR staff with AI actually led to more essential, I'm using air quotes, hiring for positions like sales marketing and customer service. Ouch, it looks like we can eliminate HR in light of hiring more essential people. What are your thoughts on that, Emmy? Emi B (30:41.838) Great. Well, I'm pissed off because he's basically telling me, so this is the CEO, Arvind Krishna, telling me that my role in HR is not essential. What am I? I'm just fluff, you know? And that just means this is someone who doesn't really understand HR, doesn't understand the nuances of HR, doesn't understand the strategic value that HR brings, doesn't understand how HR helps to advance an organization, that the fact that he thinks that he's just bringing a machine. And don't get me wrong, you can automate many parts of a HR professional's role, but you can't, like I said before, you can't automate it totally. But he's saying that, yeah, just, you know, automate it, get rid of all HR and that extra money that's left over. We're going to bring in the strategic software engineers because they're going to drive our organization forward. I think he's short-sighted and I think he doesn't understand his organization. Joel Cheesman (31:33.155) Mm-hmm. Emi B (31:37.612) And I think anyone who works for this Arvind Krishna at IBM, they should think carefully about who the leader that they're working for. And if they get the opportunity, go work for a more human organization, go work for a more empathetic organization, go work for an organization that actually understands the value that HR can bring to organization. Joel Cheesman (31:59.321) Mm. Emi B (32:01.422) It does hurt. Joel Cheesman (32:04.121) So, so, so I'll give some props to Chad, uh, who posted this on LinkedIn and made a comment about how I look at as long as HR is viewed as a cost center, this shit's going to happen. Um, and I think it's imperative that HR start getting the proverbial seat at the table and start looking like part of the vision of the company and part of the, the, you know, the profits. to come into the business because you have, when times are tough, you have every CEO going on stage and saying like, people are our greatest resource. and then when times are, you know, like, and then times like this, it's like automate everything. Fuck them. Yeah. Like, so, so, and, and so until, you know, HR it's really imperative that HR start. And we hear so much about like, well, if, if, Emi B (32:37.3) Mm-hmm. We love our people. Yeah, yeah. People what? No, out. Joel Cheesman (32:55.521) AI is going to take the role of scheduling and sourcing and all these things that you stick all up all this time. Like you should have more time to think about the big picture of, of, the business and where you fit in and how pro like how the profits come in. And I think a lot of the tools that are being created, give you, give you a dashboard of data to help you tell that story. we interviews in Vegas and unleashed, you know, kind of underscored that. Emi B (33:03.542) Yeah. Emi B (33:21.111) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (33:22.297) I also think that some of the stuff that Kevin Wheeler's talking about, I don't know if you know Kevin, he's got a substack. He's been around a long time. But he talks about, he's pretty medieval about shit's over. Like the recruiting jobs, know, a lot of the HR, like a lot of these jobs are gone and there's nothing you can do about it. But in light of that, just like, you know, the meteor that hit the earth and killed the dinosaurs, something else came in place of that. And he talks about jobs like Emi B (33:29.25) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (33:52.025) chief empathy officer and cultural curator, among others is new jobs that will be created out of out of sort of this replacement of HR. Look, a great English scientist, right, Charles Darwin, adapt or die, and people in HR have to adapt to this new reality. I don't think they can just say, hey, you're dumb. think they have to evolve, adapt, take on new positions, take on new roles just to survive if they're going to. Emi B (33:58.53) Yeah. Emi B (34:20.652) Yeah, and I, yeah, I'm with you to some extent. And this, and this guy that you mentioned as well. mean, do I think that AI is going to replace the jobs? I mean, there's so much press out there saying, yeah, AI is going to take your jobs. AI is going to take your jobs as HR professional. AI is going to take your job as a recruiter. I don't believe that. I do agree that your roles are going to adapt. Yeah. You don't need to be as an AI professional spending all your time or so an AI professional or recruiter for spending all your time scheduling interviews. This is admin. Important, as admin. Yeah. Where can you add value by advising hiring managers and interviewers on best practice on how to hire them fairer, how to hire more inclusively, how to hire so how to improve your process so it's more effective, how to find people who are going to drive your organization forward. And I think for so long, HR professionals have been saying, I need to have a seat at the table. I need people to listen. And but I've I've been hearing this ever since I joined, like entered the recruitment agency. And I think I've been in it for about 18 years now. You know, the story has a change. So I don't know whether or not is we as HR professionals, that we're not positioning ourselves properly or other organizations just still see us as a fluffy function, you know, that we don't add much value. I'm like, I think it's somewhere in the middle, but I think that this kind of person like Arvind Krishna, the IBM CEO, Joel Cheesman (35:20.685) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (35:37.133) Mm-hmm. Emi B (35:47.372) I think he is a dinosaur. I think he's not a great person to follow. I don't think he's really truly believes in his organization. He's just seeing HR as a lower, lowly kind of function. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so yeah, I want people who can go out and make money. I want people who can develop the actual products. Joel Cheesman (36:00.097) A necessary evil, a necessary evil, you will. Like I want salespeople, I want these, but this is a necessary evil. Emi B (36:11.49) But I don't realize that the recruiters, for example, are the people finding the people who are going to do that, who are going to sell your products and build your products. They're the people who retaining the people within the organization. They're helping you to design the structure. Yeah, it pisses me off. Joel Cheesman (36:24.717) Yep. I think, think similarly to, to Klarna, like 700 customer service people gone and realizing, shit, we needed those people. Like the same thing may happen in our space as well. Emi B (36:31.754) fuck yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (36:40.313) All right, let's get to earning season. Two of our favorite companies, Recruit Holdings, parent company to Indeed Glassdoor and also Zip Recruiter reported Recruit Holdings reported a 2.1 % increase in Q4 revenue to around 5.7 billion US dollars driven by growth in the HR technology sector, which includes Indeed. It saw an 11.5 % year over year uptick. meanwhile, zip recruiter reported a 10 % decline in first year, first quarter revenue to $110.1 million. And the company forecasts a similar decline for Q2. your thoughts on all of this earnings goodness. Emi B (37:24.842) I what I would say, I'm surprised that recruit holdings, like you said, who own Indeed and Classdoor are kind of holding ground, but ZipRecruiter, I kind of feel a little bit sorry for them now, you know, because I do, because I just think everything's just going wrong. It's like they can't do anything right. I mean, they've got a shitty product. And I'm like, every new angle, every new feature, every new product they come out with, it doesn't make a difference. It doesn't make a difference. And I'm just thinking, Joel Cheesman (37:49.337) Mm-hmm. Emi B (37:54.414) I heard that they're saying they're quietly optimistic. I don't know why they're optimistic because the numbers are saying otherwise. But I'm almost thinking, give up, it's okay. Yes, you had a good run, it's okay, don't worry. Joel Cheesman (38:01.369) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (38:05.017) You're tired of beating the dead horse is what you're saying. You're tired. It's just, it's just. Joel Cheesman (38:13.677) All right. So year to date recruit stock is down 20%. Zip is down 28%. So I think the indeed recruit holdings was a little bit of financial engineering. Well, you had the Japanese yen versus the fluctuations in exchange rate with the US dollar. Apparently when you adjusted for that, the revenue increased only 1.3%. Emi B (38:26.542) really? Joel Cheesman (38:41.837) So almost half was sort of financial engineering, I think. and then you have, I think, I think, I mean, I think they're, they're probably getting a little more out of each job. but their forecast, was negative. so I think indeed is trying to make a little bit of, a chicken salad out of chicken shit. so I'm not, I'm not a wall street expert, but it just sounds a little bit dicey. Emi B (38:46.382) The little cheeky fucker's doing that. Joel Cheesman (39:10.593) Zipper Cruder, I'm with you, man. Like, fuck every week. It's like, they suck. So you know what? I'm not just listen to some past episodes if you want to hear my shit on it, but they're I think they're done, dude. They need to be bought, go private like somebody. It's like, don't there's an old adage in Wall Street. Don't don't catch a falling knife. And I think Zipper Cruders like don't acquire a falling knife. Like just let it go. See how far down it can go and make Emi B (39:12.366) Everything! Emi B (39:19.434) I mean, I think so. Dischat shop. Yeah. Emi B (39:36.078) Let it go. Yeah. What's that song? Let it go. Let it go. Yeah. Absolutely. Bye Zip. 100%. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (39:39.831) Let it, yeah, Disney, there you go. Yeah, that's good. Just let it fall and eventually it'll hit bottom and then we'll buy that shit for nothing, which I think is what happening to LinkedIn. All right, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk a little LinkedIn. Emi B (39:56.238) Okay. Joel Cheesman (39:59.801) All right, Amy, LinkedIn's new AI job search promises to let users describe jobs in plain language, matching them to relevant roles without exact keywords. Large language models interpret intent, aiming to uncover unique opportunities. Ooh, magic tricks. LinkedIn says features like job match, assess fit, and hiring status insights save time. And in case you missed it, you and I talked about LinkedIn's recruiter AI tools last year launched. Emi B (40:26.029) Yeah? Joel Cheesman (40:26.521) promise to find candidates faster and launch ads more efficiently. It's peanut butter and chocolate, right, Emmy? What are your thoughts on what LinkedIn is dropping? Are you picking it up or not? Emi B (40:32.91) Hahaha Emi B (40:38.04) Do know what I am? Because I'm a little bit of a fan of LinkedIn. So I don't mind when they kind of throw out new products and their new AI features. Some stick, some doesn't. But I actually quite like the stuff that they're doing for candidates, you know? And it's kind of like this kind of, you know, chat GPT style where you can sit there and go, okay, what is my perfect job? So, mean, Joel, I mean, I love my job. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I love my job that I'm doing at the moment. However. Joel Cheesman (40:46.169) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (40:59.148) huh. Emi B (41:02.838) My ideal job, if I had to work, it'd be like two hours a day. I'm going to sit at home in my sweatpants and then I'm going to like, yeah, have a holiday and maybe review some reality TV. Cause I'm a massive reality TV fan, you know? So give me some like kind of married at first sight, love is blind, you know, love Island. That'd be my ideal job. So what LinkedIn is saying now is that you can just use that chat GPT style kind of prompt, put in your ideal job. Joel Cheesman (41:09.421) be on holiday. Joel Cheesman (41:15.065) Mm-hmm. Emi B (41:32.97) into the LinkedIn search and it will pull up those kind of job searches for you, those job search results for you, making it that whole process of job hunting just that little bit easier. So I think they're doing great stuff in terms of putting themselves in a job hunter's shoes and empathising with them a little bit more because it is tough out there. So why not make it easier? Joel Cheesman (41:57.101) You know what? You know what I did not have not heard at the two conferences that I've been to this year? LinkedIn's new recruiting tools are amazing. They are game changers in our business like no. Well, I'm talking about. I'm talking about the recruiter stuff. The recruiter stuff, not the job seeker stuff. So the recruiter real quickly on the recruiter. LinkedIn makes so much money from recruitment they they can't just. Emi B (42:00.334) Yeah. Emi B (42:05.646) I didn't say amazing or game changing. I said I'm a bit of a fag. Emi B (42:14.536) Okay. Yeah. Joel Cheesman (42:24.771) hatchet the shit up and like change direction. They like they need to boil that frog really slowly. So if you're expecting incredible innovation out of LinkedIn for recruitment, don't hold your breath because they make so much money from recruitment, they're not going to upset that apple cart anytime soon. Now to the job, the job seeker side. It's time for history lesson. Emi B (42:48.206) Joel Cheesman (42:50.937) All right, 20 years ago, I sat down with some executives at CareerBuilder and they said to me, do you know what the number one search is on CareerBuilder? Do you wanna guess? All jobs. All jobs was the number one search. Why? Because everyone wanted to go through every job. They did not trust that CareerBuilder would give them the right jobs for their searches. Maybe they didn't trust that the employments would put the jobs in correctly. Emi B (43:02.293) No. Joel Cheesman (43:19.961) They just weren't willing to roll the dice. They wanted to see all the jobs, at least maybe near them, right? So, are you, do I think that job seekers are willing to just roll the dice with LinkedIn saying, our AI is so good, it will on a silver platter give you only the jobs that you want? Maybe, but I think there's a greater chance that job seekers are like, okay. Emi B (43:25.516) Okay. Emi B (43:42.712) Think it's gross. Joel Cheesman (43:46.829) I'm going to trust but I'm going to verify. okay, all your LLM stuff, that sounds really cute, but I'm still going to look through all the jobs anyway, because you might have missed some of those. think that most of what LinkedIn is doing is they know that active job seekers are going to go, they know that active job seekers are going to like, take a baseball bat to search, look at every job possible, apply to every job possible. Emi B (43:49.142) Yeah, of course, yeah. Emi B (43:55.832) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (44:13.721) they want to do is attract more of the passive job seekers. Because I can tell you that getting recommended jobs from LinkedIn has sucked. They literally think I'm the host of a, they literally think I'm a host of an Applebee's because I'm a co-host of a podcast. Like they cannot connect host and host for what I do. Emi B (44:26.99) I Emi B (44:38.245) Lord, yeah. Joel Cheesman (44:39.339) So if AI can say like, okay, we know you're not going to come here and look for a job, but if we can sort of like tease you with a pretty good job, that's really a great fit, or like exactly what you're looking for, we might get you to come to LinkedIn and apply to that job. So I don't think this is about the active job seeker. I think this is about getting that passive enough, enough of a little, a little tease, a little bit of something there that they might want to get that they'll, that they'll apply, apply to the jobs. And I think for recruiters, recruiters are kind of sick of shitty candidates applying to jobs. And, and the fact that you have lazy apply and all these automated tools that are like apply to every job under the sun and we'll customize your, your, your resume and cover letter to be the perfect candidate. I think, I think employers are over that shit. So if, if LinkedIn can get you a better passive job secret to start applying to these jobs, that's going to make their customers happy because they have a real problem with shitty. Emi B (45:13.046) Yeah. Yeah. Emi B (45:19.574) It's fine. Emi B (45:27.585) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (45:39.307) resumes and fake applicants and all that other shit. So that's, I think this is where it's going. I don't think it's a panacea, but I think it's an incremental improvement to get better. It's one less reason why podcasters can't complain about, about LinkedIn, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. And speak, speaking of complaining guys, if you like the show so far, if you like us or not, we don't care. Leave a review, subscribe, go check us out on YouTube. Emi B (45:47.182) But it's, yeah, exactly. It's step by step, yeah. Emi B (45:55.854) I'll be there with them, I'm still championing them. Joel Cheesman (46:08.598) we want to hear from you and we want to connect with you. But when we get back, Emmy's going to tell us all about pay transparency in the UK. Emi B (46:16.524) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (46:20.545) Is this your first summary that you're reading? okay. All right. I'm to sit back and bask in the genius. Here we go. Emi B (46:23.16) Yeah. Emi B (46:31.95) Okay, so what I'm going to talk about is the EU pay transparency directive. So that's a bit of a mouthful. I'm trying to say it again, EU pay transparency directive. So for me, this is actually a big deal. And I think it should be a big deal for anyone who's actually recruiting in the EU, especially if you care about pay equity, fairness in hiring, or just not wasting a candidate's time in interviews. So for people who don't know, this is a law. that actually requires EU employers to be open about how they pay people. And the whole idea about this is to try and close the, you know, close the gender pay gap that still exists, unfortunately, in 2025. And for all those people in the EU who are accrued to the EU, have business in the EU, this is coming in 2026. So Joel, do you know, I mean, I know you had this in the US, but you know, how much do know about what's actually going on in the EU and what's actually coming next year? Joel Cheesman (47:30.937) Is that your summary? Are you done? All right, there you go. Good job. Joel Cheesman (47:38.435) So I'm by no means an expert in the EU legal system and what they're doing around this. I can tell you that it was certainly a topic that we discussed fairly frequently when the Biden administration was in office. I think a lot of this is gone by the wayside under the Trump administration. I mean, to me, lot of this is market driven anyway. mean, number one, jobs that have a pay range perform better. Emi B (47:51.372) Mmm. Joel Cheesman (48:07.065) If you want people that can look at a pay range and go, that's a job I want because that's a major reason why people apply the jobs is they know what it pays. So you don't have a lot of randos that are like, what's the pay and shit, I was expecting more. Yeah. So like, so it's just, it's just better jobs. Number two is it's better for diversity because people that don't want to bargain negotiate that don't want to do the hard sell. Maybe the job doesn't, you know, Emi B (48:15.83) Exactly. Emi B (48:19.86) It's competitive! Joel Cheesman (48:35.853) benefit from it or you're not a personality type that does that. Like, you don't have to barter or bargain around what the job pays and you're going to get it you're going to get a more diverse group of people apply to the job. And frankly, the market is going to do this for you anyway. Indeed, another job search sites already put what they think is a pay range for the jobs that they have on there. So you might as well put it on there. Otherwise, the job site that you posted on is going to do it for you. Emi B (48:41.922) Yeah. Emi B (48:53.752) They're doing it. Joel Cheesman (49:04.205) So for those reasons, you can make all the laws you want, but the proof is in the pudding that if you put your pay range in the job, it's gonna be good for you on many, many fronts. Emi B (49:13.582) I 100 % agree. And look, I know that this is going to be hard work for organizations. And I'll give an example. I used to, I think I've mentioned before on the podcast, prior to coming back to the UK three and a half years ago, I lived in the Middle East. I lived in Dubai for 12 years. I recruited across the GCC region. Very rarely did we have to advertise salaries on our jobs. And then came back to an organization in the UK and I said, hey, we put all of our salaries on our jobs. I was like, what? Why? Why would you do that? How would you negotiate with candidates? Surely if you put a salary range on your job descriptions, candidates are always going to ask for the top end of the range. know? So to be honest, I was nervous. I can put myself in the shoes of recruiters or organizations who are now facing this and now realizing, shit, I'm going to have to do this next year. But there are so many benefits for doing this. So many benefits. Like I said, if you care about fairness, you care about inclusive hiring, if you care about reducing the gender pay gap. Like I said, I don't understand how in 2025 we still have quite a big gender pay gap. Sorry, I can't talk properly at the moment, but that is still actually the case. So let me just go through it with you, what organizations need to do. And I need to do this very quickly before it actually rolls out in 2026. So the first thing they need to do is actually that before a candidate gets to the interview stage, Joel Cheesman (50:12.153) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (50:32.472) Hit me. Emi B (50:40.962) they need to display, they need to tell the candidate salary. So the most practical way to do that is actually to put the salary range on the job description. Or if they don't want to put it on the job description, they definitely need to tell the candidate before they attend the interview. So why are they doing that? Because this is going to level the playing field. I mentioned about gender, you mentioned it as well. Females are more likely to find it harder to negotiate towards a... you know, the top end of the scale. Males, and obviously I'm generalizing here, but that tends to be the case. know, females tend to, you know, ask for a lower range because they go, I'm not meeting all the criteria. So maybe it's a bit cocky to ask for that much. Underrepresented groups do that as well. Like people with disabilities, for example, black people are more likely to do that. This levels of playing field, kind of it's going to interview, they know what to expect. And it also means you're not going to be Joel Cheesman (51:10.051) Yeah. Joel Cheesman (51:23.822) Mm-hmm. Emi B (51:38.082) a hiring manager, interviewer, recruiter, just wasting time speaking to a candidate who's never going to accept your salary. So that's number one. Then what people cannot do or organisations can't do, they can't ask people what their current salary is or what their salary expectations are either. All you can say is, this is a salary range. Does that work for you? Joel Cheesman (51:53.497) Hmm. Emi B (52:03.2) And the good thing about that, because what I've experienced in the past, and I remember having an argument with someone in comp and bens in, you know, a couple of roles back, where they said, Emmy, why aren't you asking for their salary certificate? And I'm like, I don't give a fuck what they were paid before. You know, I know this organization, this organization is notorious for underpaying people and they are. Joel Cheesman (52:03.203) Yeah. Emi B (52:26.068) Yes, I love that sound back. But a notorious for underpaying people. So what does that mean? What you're to give them a little bit of pay rise ago? Hey, well, I did good because I gave you like a 2k pay rise when really that's still way under market rate. So don't say this is what that directive is saying. You can't ask about salary. You got to be totally transparent as well. So candidates and employees can ask people, how did you come up with that salary range? Joel Cheesman (52:26.809) you Joel Cheesman (52:40.025) Yeah. Emi B (52:51.47) You know, what, what bonus structures I'm play and what exactly do I need to do to get to the next level in a salary band that a lot of people can actually do that now. And that's again, another great thing. Another puts power back in employees hands. So all these kinds of things, like I said, it's going to make it easier for employees. He's going to make it those checks, those pay gaps that we've seen is going to reduce it a little bit. And yes, is it a shock to the system? But it's a good shock. It means like, you know, it's going to. Joel Cheesman (52:51.672) Mm-hmm. Emi B (53:20.982) It's going to benefit the employees, it's going to help retention, but it does mean that organisations need to get their ducks in a row because they now got to look at, what is my organisational structure like? What are the job descriptions like? How can I actually, am I actually paying people the right salary band for the role that they're actually doing? Am I, have I actually correctly levelled it? Do I actually understand what equal pay for equal work means? Joel Cheesman (53:40.793) Mm-hmm. Emi B (53:47.298) Because if organizations haven't done that, they're going to leave themselves open to more discrimination claims as well. Joel Cheesman (53:52.439) Yeah. And isn't there something about not asking about gaps in resumes? Yeah. That's something. Emi B (53:56.684) Yeah. yeah. So that's not part of this directive, but that's something that I know that organisations still do. They still have that bias. I was like, why have you been out of work? Now, we know that females are more likely to be out of work compared to their male counterparts. They're the primary caregivers. And because of that, because whether it's maternity or they're looking after a relative, for example, that means that when they've been at the workplace for a while, Their skill set isn't diminishing, but yet when they come back into the workplace, the employees are more likely to go, no, sorry, you've been out for a year, two years, so we're not going to pay as much. Contributing to that pay gap, which is where this salary pay transparency is coming in to try and address that. Joel Cheesman (54:37.305) Mm-hmm. Joel Cheesman (54:43.511) And speaking of contributing to the gap, let's get to this week's dad joke. Are you ready? And speaking of inappropriate, all right, have you heard the book about the transgender whale? Have you heard about the book about the transgender whale? Emi B (54:50.185) Okay. I love the segue there by the way. Emi B (55:05.134) Do you know what? Like, again, every time I come on this podcast and hear these dad jokes, I get scared because I'm just like, where the fuck is this going now? No, no job. I haven't heard of this. Joel Cheesman (55:17.325) You haven't heard about the book about the transgender well. It's called Maybe Dick. Emi B (55:19.924) No, no. Emi B (55:24.418) no, that is far! Okay, so that took about two seconds to get, but that is shit. That is definitely shit. That is bad. my God. Yes, we out people. Joel Cheesman (55:24.985) Hahaha Joel Cheesman (55:30.999) Ha ha! Joel Cheesman (55:34.873) We out! Podcast Outro: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? Podcast. The Chad. The Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shoutouts of people you don't even know. And yet, you're listening. It's incredible. And, not one word about cheese. Not one. Cheddar. Blue. Nacho. Pepper Jack. Swiss. So many cheeses, and not one word. So weird. Anywho, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way, you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out!

Your CEO thinks everyone's thrilled  to be here. Your employees are mentally on a beach in Portugal. 🏖️ In this episode, Dr. Beth Linderbaum joins The Chad & Cheese Podcast to drop a reality check harder than a Friday morning HR memo. Turns out, ping pong tables and direct deposits aren’t enough to make people actually  want to stay. 😬 We’re talking real engagement—like actually caring about the job—and spoiler alert: it’s not about the money. It’s about fit , growth , and not having a boss who thinks Slack messages count as mentorship . Oh, and yes, Gen Z does  want feedback faster than you can say “OK Boomer.” Also: why your fancy AI might be better at building human connection than your VP of People. 💸 Forget the cash.  You want loyalty? Try career paths and leaders who don’t suck. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:34.587) Yeah, this is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, writing shotgun is Chad Sowash, and we are excited to welcome Dr. Beth. Work doesn't have to crush your soul, Lenderbomb. She's an SVP at Wright Management. Beth, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad (00:40.216) Hello. Chad (00:50.828) Yes! Beth Linderbaum (00:56.943) so happy to be here with my fellow former Ohioans. Yeah, that's right. Chad (01:00.782) Buck eyes, baby, buck eyes. Always a buck eye, always especially. Joel (01:01.921) Buckeyes, baby. And a big fan. She wanted a middle name, just like we do on the weekly show. That's major props. If this were Firing Squad, you'd automatically get a rousing applause, unfortunately not. So we know a little bit about you. Our listeners probably do not. Give them the 411 on Beth. Beth Linderbaum (01:07.789) I did, I won in one. Chad (01:11.694) That is mage prop. Yeah. We done. Yeah. Too easy. Too easy. Beth Linderbaum (01:25.037) Sure. Beth Lenderbaum, I lead North America Delivery for Right Management. And as you said, my middle name is work doesn't have to crush your soul. I really believe in building cultures that are soul nourishing instead of soul crushing and helping our clients do the same. just to be a little punny to start us at right, we do believe there is a right way to do things. And we think the right way is See I got a sound effect. Look at that. The right way is... No, no. They're all good and surprising. I like that they're sometimes unexpected. yeah. Good, good. I love it. So we believe there's a right way to do things and it's career focused and human centric. Joel (01:55.563) Woohoo! Do you have a favorite? Sorry. Chad (02:03.576) with Stephen. Joel (02:06.181) All right, we'll pull some in here in this interview for you, just for you, just for you, keep going. Joel (02:17.465) And a great URL, write.com. I mean, come on, come on. Has it always been that? Has it always been that? Beth Linderbaum (02:20.813) Yeah, R-I-G-H-T. It has a, it's funny because apparently our founders, their name spelled left L-E-F-T and their wives said, you can't be left consulting. You have to be right consulting. So that was, that's a story from the archives for you. Yeah. Chad (02:21.538) No, you can't beat that. Joel (02:40.113) Thank God for wives. Chad (02:40.632) Well, and I got to say, she's doing it right. She's got a microphone. She sounds good. mean, usually we do these things and we have to go through at least 10 minutes with a startup CEO out of Silicon Valley for God's sake. So you should have all the gear and sound good and stuff. You're right on it. The bomb, lender bomb. Yeah. Joel (02:57.403) Yeah, her other middle name is not fucking around. Not fucking around. like it. Beth Linderbaum (02:57.766) good. Beth Linderbaum (03:02.155) Well, until my kid, he's eyeing my microphone. He thinks it's going to be perfect for his gaming setup. So I've been protecting it. Chad (03:09.432) Yeah. Tell him he just needs a headset. He doesn't need, he doesn't need that kind of equipment. so what are we talking about here today? We're talking about money can't buy you love slash loyalty, right? You did some, you did some, you did some research. Joel (03:10.065) you Beth Linderbaum (03:13.645) No. Joel (03:20.197) Yeah. Why fit and development are the keys to employee retention. It's a long title, but it says a lot. Beth Linderbaum (03:21.356) That's right. Chad (03:28.568) So why the research was, did you see a need? Did you see a gap where their company's coming to you talking about loyalty? Obviously we see that, you know, back when, you know, at least when Joel and I were growing up, I don't think you're as old as we are. you know, we had grandpa's debt, they stayed, stayed 40 years at a place. Loyalty was key, right? That doesn't exist today. None of that stuff exists today. So. Did companies come to you and say, how do we actually get more loyalty back, retention back? How did, what is the genesis of this? Beth Linderbaum (04:02.753) Yeah. Well, actually part of this comes from our history in the outplacement business. Because that was how we started as an organization, it gave us a lot of insight into careers. So we have over 45 years experience in supporting people in career mobility and career transition. And we realized that this isn't something you should wait until someone leaves the organization to do. And so we really have a firm firm belief that careers are important and we knew things intuitively, but we said we need to start putting numbers and research behind our point of view. And so that's really what was the spark of the research. And I think it's very timely in terms of, I think the transformation that we're seeing in workplaces today to be able to provide these insights and say what truly does drive employee engagement. And spoiler alert, what we found is that organizations and leaders are definitely out of touch. Chad (05:02.696) that's a big surprise. Come on. Are you saying, are you saying, are you saying Jamie diamond doesn't know what's going on? I think that's what she's saying, Joel. think she's saying Jamie diamond doesn't know what's going on. So is that the biggest, mean, so loyalty connected to leaders not really being connected is what it sounds like, to, the needs of their employees. What are those needs? And apparently it's not, it's, it's not money. Joel (05:02.809) No. Beth Linderbaum (05:04.938) hahahaha Chad (05:32.076) Or maybe it is. What are those needs? Beth Linderbaum (05:33.247) Yeah. Well, first, let me talk a little bit about what we're calling the engagement illusion. Because I think it's important to talk about that disconnect. So when we asked leaders, how engaged are your employees, 83 % of leaders said, my employees are fully engaged. They're just delighted to come to work. They love being here. It's amazing. Yes, that would be another term for it. Chad (05:57.09) They're delusional. Beth Linderbaum (06:00.781) When we asked employees the same question, 48 % of them reported being fully engaged. And so this was kind of the start of the disconnect. And I think if you see other research being posted right now, you can see engagement is at an all time low. There's lots of headlines around this disconnect happening. And so for us, we're not in this great resignation anymore. We're in this engagement illusion or delusional leaders, as you're saying. We see leaders and organizations being out of touch. And so that really leads us into what is important to employees. once again, and I'll get into this a little bit, but the leaders are once again out of touch. But first, let me tell you what employees say is important to them when it comes to their engagement. So when we modeled this out, Chad (06:49.838) Hmm? Beth Linderbaum (06:53.023) about a third of the variance in engagement was accounted for fit with the organization. So when we defined fit as like, is this a place that aligns to my values? Do I believe in this company's strategy? Do I get along and can I get along with these people who work here? So it's really fit with the team, fit with the organization. So that was the biggest driver. The second biggest driver was career. And we define career as meaning and purpose. So can I feel successful at work? Yes, promotion was one piece of that, but it wasn't the full definition. Can I be successful? Can I do meaningful work? Can I feel purposeful? And are there opportunities for advancement? So all of those things are how we define career. And then the third most important thing was training and development. So I still haven't gotten to money, if you notice. Chad (07:46.862) Mm-hmm. Joel (07:47.025) Mm-hmm. Beth Linderbaum (07:47.741) Number four was pay. And then the fifth was logistics. But pay and logistics were only about less than 20 % of the variance in the model. Chad (07:58.68) So what roles were these? Because for many roles, obviously, as we take a look at, obviously CEOs, they've had compensation hikes and it's just skyrocketed. Middle level and middle class has been shrinking. And then we've got, you know, that below that middle class line where wages, many cases aren't actually hitting living wages. So who, who did you, who did you talk to here? Joel (07:58.865) So there's. Beth Linderbaum (08:01.941) Yeah. Beth Linderbaum (08:22.593) Yeah. Yeah, I'm definitely not salespeople. It was a white collar population. So I think that is a call out because we know if your basic needs are not being met, of course, money and benefits are going to be really important. But once you've had that baseline need being met, really, it's not that that's going to drive Joel (08:25.438) All salespeople, all salespeople obviously. All salespeople. Chad (08:28.163) Yeah Beth Linderbaum (08:50.015) engagement, satisfaction, happiness at work. And so, yeah, and well, if I could throw back to some of my grad school days, you know, there's all those research studies that show like, you know, if you win the lottery, will you be happy at first? Absolutely. But then your happiness goes back to that baseline level. So this isn't the only research that's saying money isn't the end all be all of happiness. But I think it is important to call out that this is a white collar population. Joel (09:17.361) So white collar population, this sounds like a millennial thing. This sounds like a lot of kids don't care about money with old people saying everyone's happy because we're paying. Like who, is this a generational issue? Are older people more into money and the younger folks want, you know, all that other stuff, the fluffy stuff? Talk to me about the generational gaps. Beth Linderbaum (09:30.753) Yeah. Beth Linderbaum (09:39.039) Yeah, I will. I always struggle with the generation stuff because I feel like we're making sweeping generalizations. So we actually didn't include generation, but we did include stage of career because I think there is probably more meaningful differences in stage of career. And what was interesting, and stage of career will probably loosely map to some of the generations in the workforce right now. So for early career individuals, it still was fit. career and training and development that were top three, but actually money was higher in importance to them than later stage career. And I could kind of relate to this because I was in grad school once, I ate ramen noodles. My first paycheck, that was delightful. I can go out to dinner, I can afford to do things. So I think early career, we did see a little bit higher on money, but it was still in the bottom. Chad (10:28.984) Hahaha Beth Linderbaum (10:36.247) bottom of the model in terms of the variance accounted for. Chad (10:39.808) It's interesting. You talk about fit, right? And then Joel was just talking about generations. We're, we're Xers. We grew up, we were raised by boomers. Boomers were raised by the greatest generation. Right? So it had nothing to do with, you happy? Had nothing to do with fit. It had to do with Gordon Gekko. Greed is good. Go get your money. Right? So it's interesting. It's interesting that it seems like it's actually moving and we see this like in different countries. like Denmark and Sweden, more happy. They're a much happier nation. Now the GDP is not incredibly high, but it doesn't matter because they're all happy over there. Where we're focused on GDP and money and not as much happiness. So are we starting to tip the balance to start caring about happiness? Beth Linderbaum (11:35.989) I think we should be, but I would say I don't know if we are. That's why I think this research is provocative. Because when we asked leaders the same, like what drives engagement, actually they got it right in terms of fit. They said, yes, fit is such an important driver, but they thought number two was money and benefits. So I think it's one of the things where, I have a background in IO psychology. Chad (11:46.755) Mm-hmm. Beth Linderbaum (12:05.333) I have a lot of training on personality theory, what motivates human behavior. And it's always amazing to me that I show up to corporate America and what we're doing is often the opposite of what inspires performance. And often the things that inspire motivation and performance are also the things that make you happier in life, right? Feeling connected to your work, feeling purposeful, feeling values alignment in what you're doing. So I think it... Joel (12:26.598) Mm-hmm. Beth Linderbaum (12:33.557) I would say we are not focused on the right things and hopefully we start having a conversation about this so we can think differently about it. Joel (12:43.321) So Beth, I know you're an Akron and a lot of things, a lot of... Stereotypes around the area say that things are bad. I'm here to tell you if you think that things are kind of bad all over the place. We just had a pandemic not so long ago. We had a lot of political geopolitical issues. How much of world turmoil goes into people's attitudes changing with, know what, life is short. What's important. Where should I be spending my time? It's not all about the dollars. How much has the world in the last five years? change people's attitudes in the workplace. Beth Linderbaum (13:21.714) I think a lot and actually going back to what Chad was sharing. So part of the reason there's been a shift, and I remember I took a whole summer course on this when I was in grad school, part of the reason in the shift of loyalty from I have an employer for life to what our generation and future generations have moved to is that many of us watched our Boombird parents get laid off, right? We watch them get mistreated. We watch their pensions get impacted. Chad (13:41.72) Hmm? Chad (13:53.614) Mm-hmm. Beth Linderbaum (13:54.505) as a result of those impacts, it changed our psychological contract with our employer and how we think about it. And so now there's a little bit of more of what's in it for me. And I do feel like we're kind of in another like workers revolution in terms of, okay, like we want higher standards. We want something more out of our employer. And I truly believe that employers who are up to meet that calling are gonna be the ones that advance and accelerate in the world as we move forward. Chad (14:28.942) I think it's interesting because as we talk about the boomers and having 40 years with the company and whatnot, back then before trickle down economics, companies would put money into training and development because it was part of, there were different tax schemes there, but it was also good because you were developing your own workforce, right? To be able to move them up the ranks or move them laterally, whatever it is. And we've lost... Beth Linderbaum (14:37.186) Yeah. Beth Linderbaum (14:52.811) Mm-hmm. Chad (14:58.324) That that whole structure within most organizations isn't as robust or, is totally absent compared to what was there in the seventies and eighties and then started to be dismantled in the nineties and moving forward. So this to me just makes sense, but the United States is focused on money. It is, I mean, it just who we are, right? Capitalism, capitalism, capitalism. It's never enough. Profits need to be bigger, et cetera, et cetera, right? How do we move past that thought process and help companies understand that if you have happier employees, you have more productive employees. If you have more productive employees, they obviously produce more, which is good for your bottom line. They stay longer, which is good for your bottom line. How do we get to that point? What needs to happen? Beth Linderbaum (15:57.001) It's sad because we've taken away a lot of the leadership development programs that help prepare leaders to be better. I was actually with a client yesterday and they said, we have like incompetent leaders leading incompetent leaders because we've gotten rid of all of these programs. Yeah. Yes. And by the time they get promoted, when they finally figure out what they're doing in one role, they get promoted and you backfill it. And so I think that training gap is huge and we're going to pay the Chad (16:13.198) Yeah Beth Linderbaum (16:25.943) price of that. And yeah, I think we are. And I think the other thing that I see a lot of is short term thinking, like first order thinking versus second and third order thinking. It kind of drives me nuts because it all starts at the top, right? Boards want shareholder returns. So there's kind of this hierarchy of pushing for profits and pushing for immediate results. Chad (16:28.238) think we are. Beth Linderbaum (16:53.805) But that's not necessarily what is going to drive results for the long term. And so I feel like, yeah, it's a little bit dire, but this is why I actually take a lot of joy in the work that we do, because I feel like we're kind of a force against that trying to be, sometimes I feel counterculture in the world we live in, but really trying to like push the envelope and develop leaders in a way where they can go out and make a difference and be the voice of, Chad (16:58.478) Mm-hmm. Beth Linderbaum (17:22.591) connecting people and seeing how to truly motivate people through purpose and meaning. But yeah, I yeah. Joel (17:27.985) Going back to the world we live in, like you said, I to get your take on the impact of the return to office phenomenon, you know, work from home, I'm guessing has a good positive effect on people's happiness in the workplace. We're also seeing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts going by the wayside. I have to assume that that is a detriment to Beth Linderbaum (17:38.636) Mm-hmm. Joel (17:55.525) people being happy, but I want to know your thoughts and any studies that you guys have seen. Beth Linderbaum (18:00.257) Yeah. Well, I will say, I think the work from home debate is the wrong discussion. Like we are wasting breath. Organizations, HR, senior leadership, like they keep talking about something that no, it's just, it's wasted breath. So actually the logistics, where I work, when I work, how I work was the lowest driver of engagement. we're. spending hours and days debating about return to office when we would be better off spending that time talking about are we hiring leaders that fit? Are we giving them meaningful work? So I feel like there's a real missed opportunity there. I'm kind of like when I hear leaders talking about it, it drives me nuts. But we also know the leaders who are most passionate about often are the ones that are not about empowerment. there may be more about control, right? And so they're not going to be the ones talking about how do we provide meaning and purpose to our employees. So yeah, I'm kind of over the work from home debate. Chad (18:55.075) Mm-hmm. Chad (19:01.218) So do. Do we have to wait for these boomers to die for this to actually start to take hold? Because what it seems like we're seeing is we're seeing a bunch of ill-equipped leaders. They haven't gone in, in most cases it's not their fault. They haven't been pushed through learning development like they should, right? Like every organization should. And so now they're just doing what they know best and that's try to, try to keep a hold of. Beth Linderbaum (19:09.185) Ugh. Chad (19:33.282) the control and they feel like they're losing control as people are leaving. Are we just going to have to wait until these boomers who know one way how to do things and that's the, obviously the iron fist to die out before we can actually start to be more happy in the workplace. Beth Linderbaum (19:52.301) I don't know about that, although my kid was calculating the age of some senior leaders in the world and saying, how long do we have to live through this? I'm like, my God, that's horrible. Even kids are thinking about this. But another way path forward is to look at leadership competencies differently and also to look at DEIB because you know who are more empathetic leaders? Joel (19:55.345) So dark. Chad (19:58.958) Huh? See? Even kids are thinking about this shit. Beth Linderbaum (20:18.445) And it's proven by research, it's women. Maybe we should promote more women because it's not DEI, it's not affirmative action if they're more capable at the job, right? Like they actually are more capable at the job. So I think maybe there is a little bit of an answer on not letting go of making sure we are driving diversity and supporting diversity at the top in leadership roles. Joel (20:46.245) You get Gen X next everybody. So be careful what you wish for all the boomers dying out. I know, but you get us next. Technology is always the solution to everything these days. We've got a problem, let's buy some software that'll fix it. We've seen solutions like 15.5, tons of engagement platforms to help people feel good. Chad (20:50.754) We're a very, very small cohort though, that's the thing. Joel (21:11.885) About their jobs is software solving some of these problems, making it worse, making no difference at all. What's your take? Beth Linderbaum (21:19.275) Yeah, actually, I appreciate that as part of the right way, we've started to develop a point of view around this. it's really, we believe technology has an important role, but that role should be creating deeper human connection. And it really can't do that as a standalone, right? It has to be an enabler. Actually, I have a Northeast Ohio Talent Management Roundtable where we were talking about how everyone is using AI. Chad (21:37.175) Mm-hmm. Beth Linderbaum (21:46.845) one of the women in that had gone to a conference and she said, it's not AI that's going to replace humans. It's humans that use AI that will replace humans that don't use AI. And I think that's a great take on where we're heading. Joel (22:03.227) Sounds like something on our show that you might have heard at some point. Chad (22:03.416) Do you? Yeah, and we're hearing that a lot and we're hearing that a lot. I think I think the the thing for us and I think we've actually we talked about, I think it's coaching hub or coach hub, something like that, where it is almost like your assistant and it gives you kind of like some some coaching options on your journey to leadership, right? To be able to get there and do it on a daily basis as opposed to just something. Beth Linderbaum (22:25.517) Mm-hmm. Chad (22:31.176) that you never go through, which is pretty much what we do today, trial by fire, or actually going to a school. Do you see more of those platforms taking hold where we have assistants that are just trying to guide us through being a better leader? Beth Linderbaum (22:44.685) Yeah, so my husband and I have talked a lot about this actually and I think some of that already exists. Like you can go into co-pilot. I've asked it for leadership advice. It gives pretty good leadership advice. My husband asked it. He's just stepped in a new management role and he's like, how do I support a team who is under resourced and we need to do these things? He asked it the questions and read back to me what it said. I'm like, that's great leadership advice. I know Marshall Goldsmith has a free platform that you can try. So I think there are ways that it's gonna make us more effective. I was a little jealous. said he had a, he met a colleague who their company had an AI platform that if you needed to figure out how to do something at your company, it told you how to do it. Like it would read all the processes and manuals of the company. I'm like, my God, that's amazing, right? Cause if you work for a big corporation, figuring out how to get things done sometimes is really hard. So I think those things are going to be great, but it's not going to replace the, if we need to raise our complexity as humans to deal with the complexity that we face, AI isn't going to do that. That's where human interaction, where coaching in particular, I have such a passion for coaching because coaching is a tool where you can create a whole new worldviews for yourself. Chad (23:43.649) yeah. Beth Linderbaum (24:08.695) That's not something AI can help you with. Having those deep changes, I think you really need someone to sit alongside with you and witness your change and be part of your change, not a computer. Joel (24:22.981) Wow. You and your, you and your husband have some interesting pillow talk. If that's what you're talking about with your husband. I want to talk about, the process before the interview, the higher even starts. We're seeing a lot of data that data that says you got to have the salary range in your job postings. If you have a good salary range, people are going to apply more. Right. So that, that indicates that money does matter. At least initially and some interviews you don't even talk about money until further in the process of the interview. So my question is, is there a disconnect between maybe what people think they want in a job versus when they actually get into it and realize, this isn't just about money. I really hate my boss and I hate the culture and, and should job seekers be thinking about the interview process differently as opposed to just how much am going to get paid? Chad (25:09.686) Eat this place. Beth Linderbaum (25:15.339) Yeah, I think sometimes we do underestimate that. We think, if I get paid a lot of money, there's a lot of jobs I could do until you do those jobs and realize there's no amount of money that would make you want to do that job. So in the research at one point, we did uncover like a little bit of that disconnect. It wasn't something we wrote up, but there was a little nuance there of like, wow, people might not always know the difference between when they're out searching versus what genuinely will make them happy. But I think people are learning. We've had candidates come through our transition program. I remember one in particular, he was a senior executive and he was wanting to do something more meaningful and purposeful. but he landed another executive job and he went in there and he was like, no, I'm leaving. He realized pretty quickly, I just signed up to do the same thing that I was trying to get away from. And so he made a real career shift and went and worked with a startup that has much more meaning and purpose. Yeah. Chad (26:19.182) That's what we're taught what success is though, right? And it was funny because I remember starting a sales gig and we had another guy that was selling right beside me and he, his background was he was a VP at AT &T. And I asked him, I'm like, what the hell are you doing here? You're doing the same work that I'm doing as, you know, an early 20 year old. And he's like, I need, I need to get away. I made my money. I needed to be an individual contributor, but that was so foreign to me. And the way that you think, the way that we were taught, that you start at the bottom, you finish at the top, and then you retire on a private island, which nobody can do anymore, and just do your thing, right? So it's interesting when that's beat into your brain of this is what a career path looks like, it's really hard to kind of deviate, isn't it? Beth Linderbaum (27:14.965) It is, it is. And well, back to the career research, one of the things that we found was that late stage career fit came back out as the number one driver where mid-career career factors were more important, like purpose, meaning, and promotion opportunities. Mid-career, that was more important. Late career, we're back to, no, I just want something that's a good fit. You know, like I'm here for my values. I'm here for. you know, I just want to do something that I want to do, right? yeah. Yeah. Chad (27:49.326) want to be able to take a nap when I want to take a nap and walk the dogs when I want to walk the dogs and I'll get on a call when I need to. Beth Linderbaum (27:55.597) Well, guys have made a different career path choice, really, right? Yeah. So what was that about for the two of you? Joel (27:55.728) life. Chad (27:58.466) Yeah. Yeah. Joel (28:01.457) We're doing the interview, Dr. Beth. Don't put us on the couch. Don't put us on the couch. Chad (28:04.782) you put that cheese, put Cheeseman on the couch. He needs it. Go ahead. She's going to answer the question. Joel (28:10.353) If there's not a burrito bowl involved, I'm not interested. is Dr. Beth Linderbaum, everybody. All right. All right, Linda or sorry, Beth, where can they download the report? Learn more about you connect to a right.com. Beth Linderbaum (28:26.143) Yeah. So yeah, if you want to connect with me, I'm on LinkedIn. So just find me on LinkedIn, Beth Linderbaum, and you can download all of our research at our ight.com, right.com. Just go there and download. We have three chapters of the research. And actually this year we're going to be doing a part two. Chad (28:38.318) Too easy. Beth Linderbaum (28:46.989) And we're going into taking it global. So we'll see if there's global differences in what drives engagement and how connected or disconnected leaders are. Yeah. Ooh, I'll come back. Can I come back? Joel (28:55.727) Are you teasing us? Are you teasing us, Dr. Beth? Chad (28:57.1) No, yes. I want to. Yes, of course. Yes. We want to know how the rest of the world shakes down. Joel (29:02.577) Shut. Joel (29:06.011) That's right. Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Beth Linderbaum (29:06.123) Yeah. Chad (29:09.547) We out.

Live(ish) from the Gem booth at UNLEASH Vegas—powered by caffeine, chaos, and questionable judgment—the boys duct-tape together an episode that stumbles through everything from Warren Buffett’s recruiting wisdom (??) to StackOne stacking cash like it’s Monopoly night. Joel is dazed and confused over Appcast with Recruitics news (sorry, not sorry), taking the usual swing at ZipRecruiter, and somehow drag Indeed into the dumpster fire, even though they weren’t invited. It’s unfiltered, unscripted, and probably unwise. Sleep-deprived? Definitely. Worth it? Debatable. Tune in for the mess. We’ll pretend to be professionals again next week. Maybe. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel : We're giving our listeners a rare glimpse into the green room as we chat. We should preface this week's show with: we're totally unprepared. We've been recording for like, how many hours? Ten? Chad : Hours, hours. Joel : Ten hours? Chad : Yes. Joel : So you're in for a treat of mismanagement and confusion this week. Chad : You lucky bastards. Joel : Lucky bastards, you. Chad : We're rolling? Joel : You're rolling? Okay. Chad : Ready? Joel : You need to hear it. There you go. You ready to do this? Chad : Yeah. Joel : Let me apologize in advance, everybody. Podcast Intro: Come on. Just slam an iron brew and let's do this, boys. Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, rash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Joel : Oh, yeah. Talking shit till the tariffs kick in. Chad : Yes. Joel : And they throw us into Alcatraz. Hey, boys and girls. It's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel the Oracle Cheesman. Chad : And this is Chad, tired as fuck, Sowash. Joel : And on this episode, StackOne raises Appcast searches and LinkedIn gets creative. Let's do this. Chad : Creative. Joel : What you got? Chad : Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay, so first and foremost, just so that we get this out of the way really quick. Joel : Yep. Chad : Mark Coleman, I apologize. Yes, kids. The very first thing that happened, I came down to check out day zero of Unleash here in Vegas. Saw our friend Mark Coleman. Went to shake his hand, and he was talking to two guys. So, I was just kind of trying to be stealthy. He put his arm behind his back to kind of shake my hand. I didn't see that he had coffee. Joel : A little reach around? Chad : Yeah, he did. Joel : A little reach around for you. Chad : Mark's great with the reach around. [laughter] Joel : The Irish reach around. [laughter] Chad : So, I go to shake his hand, and I just give him kind of like a little wiggle. Yeah, he had coffee, and it went all over the front of his white shirt. Joel : Oh, my God. Chad : Yeah, so sorry, Mark. Didn't mean that, and my bad. Joel : So, I was at the Las Vegas Knights Edmonton Oilers game one playoff series round two last night. Chad : Now, I heard because Omar was not happy. Joel : Yeah, I ditched... Chad : You didn't make it to family dinner. Joel : I ditched dinner. I ditched barbecue, which is pretty unlike me. Chad : I was there. You remember that, Omar. Joel : Yeah, I ditched barbecue. Chad : That's not easy. Joel : It was a great game. Shout-out to Ben Sesser and BrightHire and our girl Megan at Marriott, not Marriott. Marriott. Marriott. Chad : Chariot Marriott. [laughter] Joel : Marriott like chariot. And I'm proud to say there was no booing by the American crowd, mostly American crowd, when the Canadian National Anthem played. I know that's a thing now with my Canadian relatives and in-laws. Chad : In Boston, it's a thing. I mean, come on. Joel : I was crossing my fingers like, please don't boo. Please don't boo. And they did. Quite a show. You get your money's worth before the puck even drops. It's a show. It's a Vegas show before the game even starts. So, shout-out to the Vegas Knights. It was a good time. Now, you think as I do that Vegas is a little slow right now. And we've seen death of Vegas videos on social. Chad : It is. Joel : And I will... But it's not dead, but it's definitely about 10% to 15% less people. Chad : It's not dead. Yeah, I think, well, I mean, and the people who, again, you'd said, are here made this commitment a year ago, right? Joel : Yep. Chad : So, they were going to send the team just to be able to make sure they got the ROI that they could get out of this. But, yeah, I mean, we've been here since Saturday. Saturday was kind of okay, but it wasn't like Vegas tourism trap shit, Joel : Right. You weren't swamped. Chad : And then today, I mean, everything, lines were short. I mean, we even went to... Joel : Getting a taxi is easy. Chad : Oh, yeah. We went to Area 15. We went to the Mob Museum. We did all the touristy things, and we got in easy, right? So, yes, I'm not saying that Vegas is dead, but it's having problems right now. Joel : It's having problems. Chad : Unlike my shout-out, and do we talk about shoutouts? By Kiora. By Kiora, that's right. By our Canadian friends. Joel : Text recruiting made simple. Chad : Canadian friends. Yes. So, you might have heard of these guys, StackOne. They are probably, I would say, one of the smartest startups that are out there. We see StackOne, Merge, Combo, they're all integration platforms. What is the hardest thing to do when you are a startup? Joel : And the most important. Chad : It is, yes, it's integrating to these bigger platforms, because if you don't integrate to these bigger platforms, guess what? Joel : You're invisible. Chad : You get zero fucking sales. That's right. See that right there, kids? Zero fucking sales. So, yeah, very smart. $20 million in Series A. Joel : That'll buy a lot of beer. Chad : I love it. I love it. Love those guys over there. Love what they're doing, and hopefully this will propel them. Joel : Every startup we talk to, when they ask, what should we be doing, it's integrate. And these guys are an easy button. Chad : It's a cheat code, man. Joel : It's a cheat code. Chad : It's a total cheat code. Joel : Easy button, getting into all the systems that you need to get into. I like that shout-out, and I think there are some really good companies around that space and offering some pretty good services. Chad : I have heard stories about Merge. This is secondhand, but vendors that I've actually talked to said, hey, look, that sounds great. It's an easy button. And they're like, Merge isn't really that great at integration. And I almost wonder if they're trying to go, and this is also a problem with many startups, is they try to open the TAM up way too far instead of focusing on a specific specialty and then growing out of that landing in that specialty and expanding out of that specialty. Joel : Because they integrate on everything. Like Salesforce and Slack. Chad : It's too much. It's too much. So hopefully StackOne's not doing that. Joel : Stay focused. Stay focused, Johnny. Chad : Stay focused, Padawan. Joel : Stay focused, Johnny. Well, Chad, my shout-out is really heartfelt because I want to let you know that not all heroes wear capes, Chad. You probably heard that our beloved Warren Buffett, American icon, is stepping down as CEO of... Chad : He deserves it. Joel : 94 years old. Still sharp as a tack. Anyway, at 94, he made a special... Let me say this. The shout-out is not for his investment prowess. It's not for his all-shucks, common-sense, Midwestern values. It's not just the nice guy that he is, and stories of that are everywhere. It's because the man is a hero for all of us that don't exercise every day, that aren't eating salads every day. The man made it to 94, sharp as a tack. Chad : Good for him, yeah. Joel : He admittedly drinks four Cokes a day. Not the diet stuff. Not the zero is my hero. The full. He has McDonald's for breakfast every morning. He loves Dairy Queen. He loves Utz chips. His comment, and this is great, Chad, he said, the age group with the lowest fatality rate are six-year-olds in America. So why not eat like a six-year-old? Shout-out to you, Warren Buffett. Shout-out to you. In my next fast-food meal, probably In-N-Out as we walk out of this expo hall, I'm going to be thinking about the Oracle of Omaha. Chad : I think being a billionaire has something to do with life expectancy as well. You have... Joel : You shut your mouth. [laughter] Chad : Amazing health care, right? Because you can afford all of that. So he probably goes to the... He probably gets a workup and a colonoscopy every three months or some shit like that. And good for him. If it works, it works. Joel : Maybe good genes. Maybe good genes. Chad : If it works, it works. I mean, he's got to have good genes. So at the end of the day, it's all good. Joel : We should give him some free shit. Chad : You know who? Everybody loves free shit. Joel : Yes, they do. Chad : Everybody loves... Joel : Even Warren Buffett. Chad : Yes. And if you like free shit, and of course you like free shit, you just go to chadcheese.com/free where you can get T-shirts from our friends over at Aaron App. It's got this lovely Guns N' Roses montage. But it's Chad and Cheese on the front. If you like craft beer, and who doesn't like craft beer, kids? We're going to send you a box of craft beer, one a month, to a lucky listener. That is coming from our friends over at Aspen Tech Labs, the data geeks at Aspen Tech Labs. Then we've got whiskey. We've got double cock happening. We've got chicken cock, baby, coming to your front door. [laughter] Joel : Double cock surprise. [laughter] Chad : Two bottles of chicken cock. One for each hand. Cock for each hand. That's coming from our friends at VanHack. More Canadians. I love those guys. And if it is your birthday, you've got to have a little rum from Plum. Beautiful rum. Only if it's your birthday, then you get put in there. But you've got to go to chadcheese.com/free. Register, and you might win some stuff. Joel : Still amazed that there aren't people that are signed up. People will be like, I love the show. You guys are awesome. Chad : Go to free. Joel : You sign up for free stuff? What's that? Chad : Go to free stuff. Joel : Give me a break. Chad : It's really easy. Joel : It's free. And you'll get something, in most cases. Chad : You'll at least get a T-shirt. Joel : You should get something from us. Yes. All right, so we're going to pass birthdays. We'll save those for next week. Chad : Pass birthdays, yes. Joel : But that doesn't mean that Plum's sponsorship is any less important to us. Chad : Oh, no. Of course not. Of course not. Joel : Let's go to topics, shall we? Topics! All right, guys. LinkedIn is in the news. Their Wire program, now called BrandLink, lets brands place video ads in premium publisher and influencer content. Video consumption on the platform is up 36% year over year, with video posts driving 1.4x more standard ads. More ads, Chad. That means more money. Chad : Makes sense. Joel : Selected creators earn ad revenue, paving the way for more video content on LinkedIn. Paying creators for their content, Chad. Sounds familiar. Chad : Problem here, though, is there's bias because they say selective creators, right? So what's the vetting process? How are people getting in there? I mean, it's, yeah, but that's bullshit. I mean, especially when you're talking about some influencers who have a lower follower base because they're more specific. That's total bullshit. So it's like, what LinkedIn needs to do, I love all this data. Duh. Video works. No shit. But at the end of the day, it's like, how are you getting to those individuals, right? And who are you allowing in? I do notice, which I love, there are shit tons of females doing videos in those feeds. So that's pretty awesome because usually everything is so male-dominated, but females are getting a lot, a lot of time on there. Joel : As they should. Chad : I love it. Joel : And next time JT joins us, we'll need to ask her her opinion of this creator ad revenue. Chad : It's going in the right direction. Let's just say that. Joel : I mean, look, it's great that platforms are finally getting on board with paying people that are creating content that is driving engagement and usage of their platform. It just kind of makes some sense, in my opinion. Now, we have some more LinkedIn news. Our friend Max Armbruster had a post this week. He said, I need a reality check from my LinkedIn network. I'm hiring for remote roles, and here's what's happening. Product support analyst. He's paying €73 per application. Account manager, €43 per application. And solutions architect, a whopping $133, euros, excuse me, per application. Is it just me or is this the LinkedIn norm now? Any thoughts on Max's distaste for what he's paying for applications on LinkedIn? Chad : I think it is the norm now, which is, I mean, whether you like the answer or not, the problem is those aren't, you don't know if those are qualified candidates, right? So if it was like more of a CPQA, a cost per qualified applicant scenario, I mean, those aren't bad numbers, right? And then you just serve up specific slates. So I think that model is incredibly smart only if it's qualified applicants. Paying that much for just an applicant, I mean, any Tom, Dick, or Harry who they don't meet the requirements is total bullshit. But if they're going toward, I'm sure they are, if they're hitting the qualifications, that just makes sense. Indeed, or Indeed, Indeed's really shitty at matching. LinkedIn should be better at matching because they've got more fucking data and context on who you're connected to, right? And the shit that they put out there. So I would expect LinkedIn to be able to match so much better than what they do. I know they're getting into "AI matching". We'll see how that goes. But at the end of the day, yes, I think that if they're qualified applicants, $73 is fucking cheap to actually find somebody to go toward hire. Joel : I love that Indeed wasn't even in the show notes and they made it into the show. I'm sorry, Indeed. I tried one week to not have you guys be on. Here's my solution for Max. He needs to join the creator monetization program and get money for his content that he can use to lower the price of his cost per applications. There you go, Max. Problem solved. Problem solved. Let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll talk about Appcast's search ads. Joel : And we're back, everybody. All right, Appcast has launched Appcast Search Ads, the recruitment industry's first programmatic search advertising solution. We'll have to fact check that one, but Appcast wouldn't lie to us, would they? It's integrated into their Appcast One talent engagement platform, building on Appcast's decade-long expertise in programmatic job board advertising. This tool targets high-intent candidates for hard-to-fill roles with employers paying only for completed applications. That's music to your ears, I'm sure. Joel : Key benefits include 20% more total applications, 15% lower costs for qualified candidates, and 25% reduced time to fill. That's per the company. The solution offers full funnel tracking from click to hire, conversion-focused optimization, and prioritized ad spend on critical roles, enhancing ROI and efficiency in recruitment marketing. A lot of hype words in that. Didn't have time to run it through the objective filter, but Chad, what are your thoughts on Appcast search ads? Chad : So I read it, and it was like, what the fuck does this mean, right? It's like, I really wish that some of these companies would get out of the buzzword bingo bullshit and just put it in. Joel : Buzzword bingo bullshit. That's good. Chad : That's good, right? Joel : Yeah, that's good. Chad : Put it into somewhat layman's terms to help people understand, and I think that we get kind of like forest for the trees, and we drink too much of our own damn Kool-Aid sometimes. This was not an easy – I read it three fucking times, and I'm like, what does this thing do? Joel : And how is it different, and how is it the first ever? Chad : How is it the first, right? But one of the things that strikes me kind of odd is I see Appcast moving way too far down funnel, right? And they talk about how they're getting the higher signals from the applicant tracking system. If I was a company and I was allowing somebody to have that data, it's nobody's fucking business outside of my company to know who the fuck I hired, right? Now, if you're working with a staffing agency, and again, a traditional model that's been around for how many goddamn years, we need to evolve the model. I do love – they have, I think, a setup to be able to get into CPQA and actually give qualified applicants and get some really good cash out of that without overextending, right? But first and foremost, message is shit. Second, they're going way too far down funnel and over freaking architecting shit. They need to fix the issue that's in the room right now, and that's the qualified applicant. I don't pay you for hires. I pay you for qualified applicants. Give me fucking qualified applicants. Joel : So our friend Alexander Tchaikovsky had an interesting take on this problem and solution by saying that the automated job apply problem has hit a problematic standpoint to where there needs to be some friction between the applicant and the apply. In other words, if there's payment, there's going to be friction around the application and the automated application process. Chad : I don't think so. Joel : Let me quote Alex's problem. Unveiled last week, Recruitix supply anywhere strongly confirms what many thought leaders in the recruiting have recognized as a significant industry problem, automated applications. Product promises to help reduce unqualified applicants and combat fake applications. It introduces a form of positive friction, a term gaining traction. You must confirm your phone number before applying. Chad : That's Recruitix. Joel : Oh, shit. Chad : To continue though because it's a good wrap into what's happening. So this is, I mean, two entirely different things. You've got an ad network and then now you've got this process methodology that is automated applications. Joel : So basically, let me wake up for a second. I needed a venti coffee. So Appcast is basically creating an Indeed pay-per-click model. Chad : Well, it's search, yeah, ad search. Joel : Okay. And Recruitix is adding friction to the apply process. So we're in on Recruitix, not so much on Appcast. Chad : Well, I don't think Recruitix is really adding friction. They're adding validation into it, right? So there are some validating measures. Are you qualified here, here, and here, right? So I don't know that I'm allowed to actually say who the technology is behind this, but they've been building this stuff for a very long time. It is agentic, and it's incredibly smart. I think it's smart, but again, I hope, much like I said with Appcast, that Recruitix actually focuses on asking those questions that are necessary to see if they actually match up with the requirements and then charging at a CPQA rate as opposed to CPC and not playing that stupid cost-per-hire bullshit. So, yeah. Joel : Recruitix, Appcast, two different things. Chad : Two entirely different things. Joel : My bad. That's my bad, Chad. Eight years. Chad : Hey, it's all good. We got the news out there. Joel : I got a mulligan every now and then. There you go. All right, let's take another quick break. I'll grab a coffee, or not, because we're on video. You won't see that I have a coffee. But anyway, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll talk about ZipRecruiter. All right, Chad, ZipRecruiter, once a top U.S. Job board, faces a crisis with revenue down to $111 million from $240 million. An $11 million Q4 2024 loss in clients dropping from 170,000 to 58,000. Yikes. Its reliance on small businesses, which if you've listened to our interview with small business recently, you know they're kind of hurting a little bit. Chad : Yes. Joel : Anyway, its reliance on small businesses, failure to win enterprise clients, something you are hot on, and a 74% price hike have fueled a stock plunge to $5 to $6 from a $32.90 high. Competitors like LinkedIn and Indeed fare better. Experts predict a buyout. Point at this guy, buyout. Likely buy Recruit Holdings, who called it. That's right. Our friends at AIM are calling it too, though antitrust rules are unclear. Chad : I think they quoted you. Joel : To survive. They probably did, if they're smart. ZipRecruiter must diversify and go private to escape public market pressure. Stop me if you've heard this one before, Chad. Is ZipRecruiter finally in its final throes of legitimacy in business? Chad : So I'm just going to say this. Hey, ZipRecruiter board. Hey, are you out there? It's just us. It's just us. Joel : Let me check if it's on. It's coming through. Chad : It's just us. Fire Ian. What the fuck is going on here? So we've talked about this before, and even, I mean, years ago. I mean, we're probably talking about 2019 pre-COVID. We were talking about how ZipRecruiter had to go upstream to enterprise because they were not recession-proof, number one, with small business, right? And they needed to at least try to get more into enterprise. Well, they have failed that. Then they went IPO. They had this amazing opportunity to literally do CPQA, qualified applicants before everybody else because they had the tech built. They had a whole fucking AI center in Israel, right? They were on the path. They started tightening the belt for IPO so that they look good, they look pretty, right? And then what happened? They went off the fucking rails. They were on path. So every startup that is out there today, focus, focus, focus. And if you're looking to go for that next round of funding or maybe, who knows, going to actually get acquired or something like that, you still have to focus on the mission because if you don't do that, you're gonna go off the fucking rails. ZipRecruiter was one of the darlings of our fucking industry, and look at where they are today. Joel : Focus is the key word here. Chad : Fuck. Joel : And small business accounts for 85% of the hiring that happens in the United States. ZipRecruiter did a fantastic way of branding themselves as the small business option. Chad : Spending a lot of money to do it. Yeah. Joel : Spending a lot of money to do it. But if you were a bar, dry cleaner, a small business, you knew ZipRecruiter and you used it. The minute they started talking IPO, AI, Phil, expand the TAM. We're enterprise. We're everything to everybody. The wheels fell off and they never came back on. And they never are going to come back on. Chad : They're not. Joel : They should be praying to the gods of job boards that Recruit Holdings comes down and writes a check and folds them into the glass door. Workopolis just have all that. Because they own Workopolis, so they can like, have a whole, like, just do it. It's over. ZipRecruiter's not here, by the way, as far as I know. So, yeah, a little tired of stopping my foot on this, but it is what it is. I'm ready for my dad joke. Chad : No. Joel : And it's awful, so. It's awful. I just googled dad joke and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna tell you what it is, and it's awful. Are you ready? Chad : It's literally about 90% always awful. Joel : How long has the show been? Hold on, 30 minutes. Perfect. Chad : What a good one. Joel : Our listeners will forgive us because it's so short. All right. Chad, you ready for this? Chad : Yes. Joel : What do you call a fish wearing a bow tie? What do you call a fish wearing a bow tie? Chad : Bow fish. Joel : So fish decayed it. [laughter] Chad : That was good. Joel : Live from Vegas, we are at the Jim booth. Thanks to them for letting us... Chad : Thanks, Jim! Joel : Stick around for a while. We appreciate it. Until next week, when we're back on track. Chad's in Portugal, I think. Chad : Yes! Joel : Until then, we out. Chad : We out! Podcast Outro: Thank you for listening to, what's it called? Podcast. The Chad. The Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shoutouts of people you don't even know. And yet, you're listening. It's incredible. And, not one word about cheese. Not one. Cheddar. Blue. Nacho. Pepper Jack. Swiss. So many cheeses, and not one word. So weird. Anywho, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way, you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out!

Can AI really  recruit humans without turning the process into a bad episode of Black Mirror ? Terry Baker from Daxtra says: maybe… if you feed it better than your average intern. This week, The Chad & Cheese Podcast welcomes a man with more AI mileage than your uncle’s ‘98 Camry. Terry dishes the dirt on training data disasters, resume forgery worthy of a Netflix doc, and why bots still can’t handle the emotional trauma of job hunting (or office coffee). We’re diving into: Resume validation so intense it should come with a blacklight 🕵️‍♂️ Why “Excel proficiency” might mean yoga for some folks 🧘‍♂️ And a future where AI writes your performance review and  roasts you for using Comic Sans. 💀 🤖 It’s not man vs machine—it’s man with machine… as long as the machine doesn’t ghost your candidates. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:28.445) Ohhhhhhhh Yeah, this is the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Join us always. Chad Sos is in the house as we welcome Terry Baker, CEO at Daxtra. Terry, welcome back to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Terry Baker (00:45.003) It's good to be back with you guys. It's been a while. Chad (00:47.084) Not his first time, that's for sure. Was the first time in Ireland, was that the first time you were on the show when we were at the Guinness? It wasn't at the warehouse, so that was the second time, okay. Joel (00:47.447) X not Terry Baker (00:52.727) No. Terry Baker (00:56.943) I think so. Joel (00:57.021) I'm glad you added on the show to that was the first time at the Guinness fact. Yeah. On the show. Yes. Yes. Well, Terry, Terry, you know, we're adding fans all the time. So there are people that don't know who you are. Haven't heard you on the, on the show. give them, give them kind of the elevator pitch on you and about Daxter. Chad (00:59.31) On the show. On the show. Terry Baker (01:02.244) The other. Terry Baker (01:13.766) Sure. I've been in HR tech for the hard to say, but 30 years, formerly at Panda Logic, RealMatch sold that company for 200 million. Got a great exit. Thought I was done. Went three months on the beach. And, you know, I communicated with Chad when I was on the beach and I was like, this is really fun. And then... Joel (01:27.357) You Chad (01:29.262) I hope so. Terry Baker (01:43.328) One month went by, two months went by, it's kind of got a little boring. And so I started doing some private equity capital work and the company called Strato pulled me in on a due diligence they were doing with Daxter Technologies, a Muscle Burrow backed company that's been in AI for 23 years, which is amazing. And so they pulled me out of retirement and got me back and I've been enjoying the ride ever since. I haven't been to the beach in a year. Joel (02:13.021) Is, the, I was going to say, the yacht getting gassed up? Is that why you're calling us from a room? You're usually, you know, you usually look like a Duran Duran video yachts and like, you know, caught the cock cocktail shrimp and yeah. So it's, it's nice of you to tone it down for the show, Terry. We appreciate that. Chad (02:16.142) That's sad. That's sad. Terry Baker (02:25.894) The very Chad (02:26.496) He's hungry like the wolf. Terry Baker (02:31.108) Yeah, we did have a good day on a yacht in Newport Beach. That was fun. Chad (02:37.365) Yeah, I know it's a good time. It's a good time. Hoping for more of those, hoping for more of those, especially God. Joel (02:38.074) on a Terry Baker (02:39.566) Yeah. Well, let me tell you a little bit about Daxter because they've been doing natural language processing, machine learning, parsing resumes, job descriptions for 23 years. And I think the data that HR tech is based on, you look at any ATS system, if they don't have a good parser, they're not getting good data. So AI is only as good as the data you generate. Joel (02:44.733) Yeah, please. Chad (02:53.88) Mm. Terry Baker (03:08.618) And we've been generating really good data for quite a long time. And now we've moved kind of down funnel. Now we don't just parse resumes job descriptions, but we do grading, scoring, ranking on scaling data, enable recruiters to see who the most qualified applicants are in just seconds. And then we do the engagement part. So if you've found the most qualified candidate, you don't want to send them to a chat pod. You want to... Chad (03:37.304) You pivot. Terry Baker (03:38.414) you want to engage them directly, pivot. That's a good word. We can now call it Daxter Engage. And that engagement helps solve the black hole, getting conversion of candidates, particularly the most qualified, quickly, effectively, and with little effort for the recruiters. So that's what we do. Chad (03:58.2) So let's talk to this real quick. So you get a job description and tell me where I'm going off the rails here. You get a job description, you parse it, you rip it apart, you contextualize it, you know exactly what the requirements are. Then you jump into the databases, whatever those databases are, external, internal, yada, yada, yada. Then you do the matching at the matching points. You hit a certain threshold, whatever the company wants that to be, let's say 90 % match or what have you. And then you engage those individuals. to be able to either get more information and, or just to apply. What happens after that? Is that first and foremost, is that a good picture? Okay. Terry Baker (04:33.434) Well, there's one little piece that is a good picture. There's one little piece that we provide during that process and it's called the DAC agent. lot of companies are getting into antigenic agents, are so much smarter than bots, right? They learn, they take actions, they make recommendations. And so when a recruiter... Chad (04:47.295) Agents Cheeseman. Joel (04:48.775) Agents. Chad (04:56.27) Well, they're specialized. Terry Baker (04:57.786) Yeah, when a recruiter runs a search, we're learning from that specific recruiter's work log and building an agent that is making recommendations and then pushing the engagement part directly out so the recruiter doesn't need to worry about it. Everybody that's applying gets a campaign response, but the most qualified applicants, they get to talk to a human, which is what they prefer, right? Because it's what enables Joel (05:25.053) Mm-hmm. Terry Baker (05:27.078) the hiring manager and the recruiter to humanize the engagement with the most qualified applicants. Joel (05:35.229) Here and I know you I know you like baseball, you're a big Padres fan. So I'm gonna start out with a nice little little lob for you to knock out of the park here. Okay, ready? What? What? And you get this as a as a sponsor of the Chad and cheese podcast as well. Who are some companies leverage? Who are some companies leveraging Daxter's technology? Terry Baker (05:42.444) perfect. Chad (05:49.038) You get one. Terry Baker (05:53.35) Just small little companies like I'm gonna play many Machado here and just hit it hit it out So little companies like Google Amazon Apple Metta Ernst and Young We have a lot of people that have taken our technology and then grained it into their recording platforms And when they buy our technology they do the companies to have the resources to do this, they put it through a trial and they look at the accuracy, they look at the speed, they look at the privacy. And we've won all of those particular clients because of the parsing nature of our application. And a parsing is just kind of the foundation that you build on. All right. Joel (06:39.869) All right, Terry, the ad's over, the ad's over. got your list. All right, that's good, that's good. Chad (06:42.776) Well, here's the thing, though. But here's the thing, because you've got big tech companies like that. Right. And some of them, like Google, have come into our space and they exited. They got the fuck out. Right. So, I mean, I think that says a lot, first and foremost, from the specialty, right. The focus in this industry is not easy to be able to not just parsing, but we're talking about matching. There's so many different aspects. Joel (06:47.836) Yeah. Chad (07:10.25) of what we do in our industry that even the big boys can't do. So, I mean, I think that says a lot and we don't have a lot of parsing matching types of tech in this space. Now, quick question around that because of LLMs and because of agentic, do you think that's going to change? Do you think that it's going to be easier for some companies to be able to get massive amounts of information, train those LLMs and then start parsing matching on their own? Joel (07:23.271) or list. Terry Baker (07:25.616) Mm-hmm. Terry Baker (07:38.682) Yeah, I think big companies are going to produce their own LLMs for specific use cases because every LLM is trained differently and they're not necessarily trained for HR tech, right? For qualification of candidates. So to some extent we've seen parsing become a little bit of a commodity because I can take a job description and I can go to chat GPT and dump it in and look at what's coming out of it. But if I have to do, you know, 10, Chad (07:42.531) Mm-hmm. Chad (07:48.451) Mm-hmm. Terry Baker (08:08.616) Resumes a month. It's just not going to work So we're focusing on the high volume hiring highly complex jobs where you need certifications You need not only hard skill qualification, but soft skill qualification and that becomes Really tough to do and so we've doubled down on parsing. We're actually releasing a new parser next month that will be vector based and Will extract even more data out of a job description and automatically match it to a job posting. So you get that accuracy and speed. Joel (08:45.585) Let's, let's touch on Terry. know that this is something near and dear to your heart, sort of the, humanizing of AI through, you know, technology. And you, we've all been in the, at this for quite a while. And you know, the, the, the black hole candidates don't hear back ghosting, like all these things have, have been a real deterrent to the job seeking experience. You're a real, you're really high on how technology is humanizing. the whole process. Can you talk about that a little bit more? Terry Baker (09:18.342) Yeah, think recruiters are a little bit scared right now that AI is going to replace them. And I don't think AI is going to replace humans. Humans will, with AI, replace humans without AI. So you have to have a recruiter that knows how to utilize AI to take care of the right tasks. But we promote the humanization of hiring through AI and automation because We want recruiters to focus on what they do best. And what they do best is selling candidates and selling hiring managers on the right candidates. All the other tasks. of looking at qualifications of resumes, we simplify that. We grade, score, and rank them to do engagement. We automatically run campaigns with SMS and WhatsApp. So the team-based approach, so everybody within the organization can see the data that is coming in and that data gets captured. One of the things that we do is ensure data integrity within the ATS. So we don't run without an ATS. We add value on top of ATSs and ensure that all that data, you know, I came from programmatic job advertising and so many candidates get stuck in recruiters email boxes, right? They run a search, they run back the data, they look at the data, they pick one or two candidates and put them in the ATS. Joel (10:35.325) Mm-hmm. Terry Baker (10:49.018) We automate that whole process so everything goes in the ATS, gets updated, gets validated. We can even do data validation, right? Because in today's world, so many applicants are going to chat GPT, dropping in the job description, job posting, pulling out the data and putting it in their resume. We're seeing resumes balloon. because of the use of large language models. So how do you do validation of that for a recruiter who may not know that this candidate, they're ranking really good because they're meeting all the requirements from the job description because they got that from chat GPT. Joel (11:12.541) Mm-hmm. Terry Baker (11:29.294) So how do you validate that? You do that through third party sources. You can put a notification, this resume was generated by ChatGPD or it's got a lot of large language model content in it. You need to validate this through third party databases. Joel (11:43.76) huh. So the, so the, so the policeman, the validators, if you will, is, technology. So, so Google kind of knows what content is being created by AI, similar to resumes being produced via AI. Does that turn into a game of whack-a-mole? I mean, are we just into for a future that the lazy applies with the world, just get better about hiding whether they're AI or not. And then our tools and the policeman have to get better at policing that. And it just keeps going on and on. Terry Baker (11:54.085) Yes. Joel (12:14.705) Or is there an end in sight to that dilemma? Terry Baker (12:17.284) Well, I think the end in sight is validation through third party sites. And if you can do that in real time, which we do, then the recruiter knows this was in a resume, wasn't in their LinkedIn profile or wasn't in their HubSpot resume that they utilized two weeks ago. Chad (12:20.867) Yes. Joel (12:35.961) Okay, so it's much different than a Google looking at text and saying that's that's AI produced. You're talking about cross referencing something like LinkedIn to verify that that's that's fascinating. Okay. Terry Baker (12:43.874) Exactly. Chad (12:46.382) Well, and if it's, and if it's AI produce, who gives a shit as long as it's true, right? The validation part is what Terry's talking about. So that validation part. And then also, I, I don't understand why we're not moving more toward, uh, validation screening testing, right? Like coding tests and those types of things for, for, for many different types of positions. Uh, and I know that you guys are really focused on being able to provide kind of like those, those, uh, Terry Baker (12:47.93) Yeah. Terry Baker (12:52.419) Yes. Joel (12:53.479) Right. Chad (13:15.95) technologies and those different pieces to help companies get to that validation point. Are you guys looking at, or do you have partners where you are currently doing those kind of like coding tests, screening, those types of things to not just validate what you're seeing on their LinkedIn and other points of reference, but also actually what they can do. Terry Baker (13:33.83) Yeah. Yeah, that's where the DACS agent comes in. It can look at a resume, look at a job description, say where the gap is on skills. It can say, for engagement with this candidate, ask them the following three questions or give them a test on this particular criteria. Chad (13:40.087) huh. Chad (13:56.536) The agent has testing capabilities as well. mean, like creating tests. Terry Baker (13:59.724) It can, can, eventually we'll get there. Today it's doing recommendations, but yeah, we'll get there. Chad (14:04.138) Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Joel (14:08.509) Is this exclusive to Daxter or are you guys like third party? Is there a solution out there that will verify resumes that everyone can plug into? is this exclusive for you? Terry Baker (14:18.136) No, we're using a company called PitchMe. And PitchMe does real-time validation. use people data labs. We've used LinkedIn. We have a product called Magnet. A recruiter can go directly and pull down a profile right off of LinkedIn and put it right into the ATS and compare it. Joel (14:21.169) Okay. Chad (14:41.838) Amazing. So when you're taking a look at the landscape that's out there today, because there's so much that's happening, there are a lot of legacy companies and some could look at Daxter as a legacy company. The only difference is you guys have been doing AI the entire time, right? you're a little bit more fluid. It's a little bit easier for you guys to move. But when you take a look at the landscape today, what do you see happening with some of those Joel (14:42.077) Good advice. Chad (15:08.82) legacy core platforms like the applicant tracking systems. What kind of disruption disruption do you see happen? Terry Baker (15:16.346) Well, I think everybody is looking at Agents to build value into the recruiting process. So if you're an ATS company, what we have to do is add value beyond what they're doing, utilize our AI data to take it one step further than what they're doing. So you guys even promote Winston, right? You promote, you know, there's LinkedIn agents, there's agents across all different kinds of ATSs. Chad (15:23.714) Mm-hmm. Chad (15:32.494) Mm-hmm. Terry Baker (15:45.968) But are they solving the problems that recruiters want them to solve? And are they manually eliminating the tasks that recruiters get bogged down in? And that's our goal, is to ensure that those tasks become easy and an agent can fulfill them. Chad (16:03.306) Is there a specific industry that you guys hone in on to ensure that you can really focus, industry and or level? So you've got obviously high volume is much different than mid-level, et cetera, et cetera. Then you've got warehouse, warehouse workers much different than healthcare workers. Do you guys hone in? How does that whole process work? Terry Baker (16:12.858) Yeah. Terry Baker (16:21.392) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Panda logic, we use bots to qualify warehouse workers and delivery drivers. And all you had to do was ask three questions. If they answered them right, you send them a link to, you know, day one start and they show up at a place and they start working. That's not the same for high complex jobs, nursing jobs, right? Chad (16:33.794) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:41.87) Mm. Terry Baker (16:47.108) doctor jobs, trucking jobs even require certifications, right? So we're looking at jobs that have at least 500 applicants per job, which means there's a volume that we can accelerate and highly complex jobs. So it's high volume and highly complex jobs where we can extract all the data and the more data you extract, better the qualifications. is for these higher level compliant types of jobs. So we're not talking about stand-up jobs, we're talking about sit-down jobs. Joel (17:22.106) Any idea? Chad (17:26.414) Mm. Joel (17:27.429) Any idea why LinkedIn doesn't use LinkedIn to verify applications? I'm kidding. Let's move on to another question. So let's back to... Terry Baker (17:32.837) Hahaha Chad (17:35.47) Anyways, we could talk about how LinkedIn doesn't use LinkedIn data to actually match shit because I mean they're bad at all of it to be quite frank Terry Baker (17:36.101) Yeah. Joel (17:43.453) All right, Terry, back to your scary comment. Just something in the news this week that just terrified the hell out of me. Elon obviously is in the news big time with firing federal employees. Write us an email, let us know the five things you did this week. It came out that he said he's going to use AI to throw all the content of the email in an AI and AI will decide whether you can keep your job or not. Chad (17:52.174) Joel (18:12.729) Is this the kind of future that employees can expect going forward that everything you do, everything you write, say produce, et cetera, is going to get chunked into an AI and the AI will recommend whether you keep your job or not. You're nodding your head. Yes. But I want you to expound upon that. Chad (18:26.926) You Terry Baker (18:27.523) Yeah, well, my wife likes Elon and she asked me to name five things I did in the house last week and I didn't. Joel (18:35.559) That's only cause she owns four cyber trucks, but that's a different podcast. Terry Baker (18:38.454) Yeah. But yes, I believe that now this one example of five things you did last week to validate and to either make a determination to fire somebody or keep somebody is kind of ridiculous. But I can tell you my last performance reviews that we did all had chat GPT. Content in them right we sent out questions How did you write on these this and that and everybody went to chat GPT now I'm through performance reviews, and they're all the same answers Right because everybody took these performance questions put them in chat GPT took the content back and that was their performance review So how do you distinguish between? Anybody that's using a large language model? Right, right Chad (19:27.082) Outcomes. Outcomes. Terry Baker (19:31.494) So yeah, it comes down to what did they provide? What was the quality of data and some measure of timeframe. You can't just do one instance and make a hiring decision or a firing decision over that. It's gotta be over time where this data is being collected and being evaluated. And I think performance reviews already reflect that in the world today. We're using AI to do performance reviews and we should. Chad (20:01.934) We had an instance where GoFigure, one of our favorite companies on this show, Amazon, they used AI to advise and also to fire individuals who weren't performing. And many of these people were actually on vacation. So they weren't performing, of course, because they were on the goddamn beach because they were taking their time off. So mean, it's one of those things where we definitely need to, as you talk about humanizing AI. The shit that Joel's talking about is what everybody's thinking. They're like, my God, they're just going to throw this stuff in a blender and it's just going to go crazy versus being able to take a look at a job. A job, especially recruiting is a list of tasks and being able to see which of those tasks are administrative. And you can actually take off the back of a recruiter so they can do the things that they need to do, like talking to candidates. Terry Baker (20:44.902) Yeah. Chad (20:59.48) talking to hiring managers, actually talking to people. the whole humanization piece to me really rings true. Terry Baker (20:59.834) Yeah. Terry Baker (21:05.454) Yeah, here's the positive equivalent to your example with Elon. If you're doing upskill analysis of current employees and you have a new job description and you run that job description, know, most employees are not updating their resumes and providing it to the company, but they're doing tasks each day. And if you look at those tasks, you compare it to a job description, we can analyze the skilling and the gap of that skilling. Chad (21:13.87) Mm. Terry Baker (21:34.54) and present learning modules to reduce that gap and enable internal employees to actually get higher quality jobs, higher paying jobs within the organization. And I think a lot of this is a positive aspect of using that same methodology to helping companies improve their hiring process by tapping into existing employees. And I think the world, you know, You guys know the labor market as well as I do, and there's underperformance of jobs. And I think if you can tap into first your existing employee base and identify a skill gap, get them trained up to that quality of job, you save yourself so much time, money, and energy. You have somebody that already appreciates the culture. They want to continue working there. It becomes just a... really positive approach to hiring candidates. Chad (22:33.824) It seems interesting to me that we have had technology that can enrich resumes, right? For years now, where it just goes out on the web, looks at different points, enriches a profile and or resume. There's no reason why we can't do that for employees to be able to collect data on performance, right? To be able to enrich the actual performance profile of that individual so that you know and so that they know. Exactly what's happening day by day. So, I mean, I think there are some really good aspects and as we take a look at Doge and the stupid shit that they're doing if they could actually analyze performance Outcomes right versus doing this stupid send me an email thing I mean at the end of the day we could be more productive and then obviously the people that are you know, they're they're shaming out They're not doing as much work. They're not gonna be able to hide as easy Terry Baker (23:02.138) Great. Terry Baker (23:29.186) Exactly. Yep. Joel (23:30.951) I want to jump back to, to Amazon again, real quick, Terry. they were, they're sort of well known for a few years back of creating, an algorithm or an AI around hiring that became a really biased product and they, and they killed it. Chad and I talk about companies killing their DEI efforts every week. seems like from the making the technology, talking to the customer's point of view, which you live every day. Chad (23:33.912) Jump back, jump back. Joel (24:00.911) Are companies still doing it? they still concerned about biased hiring through AI? Are you guys still iterating and improving the technology? Like what's the state of DEI from your point of view and hire? Terry Baker (24:13.476) Yeah, that's a good question. So I was on a board call this morning. I'm on the board of ZRG, a top 10 executive search firm. They have a consulting practice. And the consulting business is being impacted by the fact that DE &I is somewhat going away. And there's a push on that, but I don't think it's a positive push. I think we've gone through two cycles of DE &I. We've gone through the Biden version where hire somebody based upon their whatever, but not their meritocracy. And then we've gone to the Trump model where no DE and I exists. there's two really broad spectrums that are both wrong. And in the middle, you want a cultural that's diverse. You want a cultural that performs. So you have to marry DE and I with meritocracy. I once hired a a diverse HR rep and she's like, we need diversity in this company. I'm like, yes, we do, but we need diversity with meritocracy. She's like, what's that? Well, it's meaning you can do your job adequately. You can perform. You have the skillset to make this happen. If you have meritocracy and you've got DE &I, it's perfect match, right? Why not make that happen? but it's been not coexistent in today's world. Chad (25:45.934) Yeah, I think that's easier said than done, depending on how large the company is. because obviously there are many areas of the United States where there just aren't the skill sets. and you want to be able to ensure that you can develop the, the, the community that's around you because that is your workforce, right? So being able to actually dip into that community and go through the training process, either with community colleges or, or if you have internal training. I mean, I think there's, again, there's no one way of doing things. And that's the problem that we're talking about is that, you know, there's this way, there's that way for a company. They have to figure out what works for them. Jamie diamond doesn't want anybody out of the office, right? Okay. Okay. That's their culture versus Daniel leck. Everybody can work from home, adults. They can do whatever they want. We have to stop this trying to do black and white scenario. Dei. We need to be able to take a look at the actual culture of the organization and then that individual, me, I get to decide whether I want to come work for you or not. Terry Baker (26:51.802) Yep, that's the right approach. Joel (26:56.465) We talk about different. Terry Baker (26:56.528) But not very many people are doing that. And what do you need from a technology standpoint to make that happen? You have to do skill analysis, you have to do hard skill, soft skill analysis, you got it. Great. Yeah, exactly. Chad (27:03.042) Well, they... Chad (27:07.106) Things that are important to me, the company and the candidate, right? Yeah. Joel (27:13.021) Terry, do you ever see a rage against the machine moment with AI? I've mentioned on the show all the time that my 18 year old has more vinyl records than I do. There's a need by humans to want to go back in time or feel a certain way. AI is changing that how we apply to jobs and how we're up skilled is changing that. Any guesses from you or do we, at some point do companies say we have no AI whatsoever in how we hire? And that's certain attraction for lot of candidates. Are we there yet or do think we'll get there? Terry Baker (27:48.994) No, but we got to get there. So one of the initiatives we're looking at, and we've been doing AI for 23 years. Generative AI is new in the marketplace and needs to be adopted. And a lot of the agentic agents are being generated from internal large language model usage. But I think that there's a problem with utilizing this. think about deepfakes, right? Joel (28:17.863) Mm-hmm. Terry Baker (28:18.232) in stealing somebody's picture, stealing somebody's voice, and propagating that and creating a resume that's not authentic and that's not you, that's a problem. And that will be something that I think over time we'll be able to identify and dismiss. But it's a hard problem to solve. Joel (28:40.209) And that's why Chad and I, Chad and I are buying the Kinko's brand and we're bringing back a resume printing and cover letter printing for the, for the kids, for the kids. Cause they, they love, they love all that stuff. That's Terry Baker, boys and girls. Terry, thanks for joining us for those that want to connect with you or learn more about Daxter. Where do you send them? Terry Baker (28:45.753) Yeah. Terry Baker (28:49.574) Let's not go back there. Let's not go there. Chad (28:50.03) Faxing. Faxing. Yes, faxing. Terry Baker (29:05.67) Daxter.com . It's pretty easy. D-A-X-T-R-A dot com. And we're here to make recruiter's lives better. Chad (29:07.982) too Joel (29:11.165) pretty easy. Joel (29:16.135) Thank you, Terry. Good to see you again, Chad. That's another one in the can. We out. Terry Baker (29:17.368) All right, good to see you guys. Chad (29:20.61) Way out.

When corporate espionage meets Silicon Valley drama, the lawsuits fly faster than crypto coins at a Miami tech bro party. 🔥 It’s Over the Top energy all the way as Rippling and Deel square off in a corporate slap-fight featuring spies, subpoenas, and a crypto side hustle gone sideways. Buckle up, kids—this beef is messy, petty, and beautiful. Just the way we like it. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. Cue the affidavits. 🎯 Other Big Topics in This Episode: RTO = Layoff Lite: Uber, Google, and Microsoft are dragging employees back to the office—with layoffs disguised as "come back or else." UPS Delivers... Bad News? Empty Ports, Empty Shelves TikTok Saves Grandma Wrexham’s Hollywood Hustle Gen Z + AI = No Entry-Level Jobs Canada Claps Back Economic Gut Punch: Stagflation, layoffs, and a labor market on edge —aka your weekly reminder that winter is indeed coming . PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:27.995) OHHHH Joel (00:34.139) Pack it up, pack it in. We came to win. Hey boys and girls, it's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel "Shadeur" Cheeseman. Maureen Clough (00:43.534) And I'm your co-host Maureen, AKA Mo. What if I need 30 plus dolls? Chad (00:49.68) You probably don't, but we'll talk about that later. And this is Chad, "Historic Promotion" Sowash. Joel (00:57.147) And on this episode, deal strikes back, UPS says don't come back, and Uber tells workers that they'd better come back. Let's do this. Chad (01:09.832) 30 dolls? What the hell is 30 dolls? Joel (01:10.565) Baby got back. that's the Trump thing. Who needs, they'll get two dolls instead of 30. Who the hell's getting 30 dolls? The Trump family, I guess. The Trump, yeah. Maureen Clough (01:13.422) I need 30. I need them. Chad (01:18.726) No, wait. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Maureen Clough (01:18.734) Probably his kids, probably his kids, yeah. I I just, kind of feel like I don't need someone who's giving guided tours showing off gold angels and his ostentatious wealth to tell me that I should have only two dolls. Sorry, just not landed. Yeah, exactly, he's like, come on, man, come on. Chad (01:31.08) In a gold toilet. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so let's talk about the economy and jobs real quick. Okay. Listener. Okay. Listener. Just listen. Just want to hit this high points real quick to be able to jump through this. us job openings fell to 7.2 million in March, private payroll growth slowed way below expectations. GDP hits the negative. Yes. And Q4 GDP. Uh, was 2.4%. We're now looking at about negative 0.03. Um, then the conference board said consumer confidence dropped almost eight points this month, the lowest reading since May of 2020. What the lion did in a hundred days. It's in a hundred days. Maureen Clough (02:16.814) Thanks Maureen Clough (02:20.238) It's like a grenade. It's crazy. Yeah. Debbie Downer. God, no, no. Please don't do that to me. Joel (02:23.46) starting the show off on a high note, so I love it. And I thought we'd talk about the draft. Chad (02:29.884) What about WeChat? Well, that's, Joel (02:31.515) No, sorry. But I do have a Seattle question, Mo. I'm seeing a lot of TikToks and whatnot about the port of Seattle being empty because nothing's coming in and you being on the ground, kinda. that, I know you don't have like that Pacific front, ocean front property. Like, this a topic in Seattle? The port is empty and people freaking out or not so much? Chad (02:41.618) Mm. Maureen Clough (02:43.706) Maureen Clough (02:47.947) on the ground reporting live. Yeah, I haven't been Chad (02:48.038) On the ground. Maureen Clough (02:53.43) Not port side, my friend. yeah. Oceanfront property by the port. Chad (02:57.029) Or does she? Maureen Clough (03:01.262) I don't leave my house, your guess is as good as mine. I don't know, I don't live port side, but yeah, I'm sure it's, of course it's taken a hit. Of course it's pretty... Chad (03:09.384) You eat Joel (03:09.411) I read books from the 1800s and I never leave my house and I have my own Victory Garden in the back. I am ready for the end of days. I am ready for the end of days. Geez. Chad (03:12.584) Yes. Well, that being said, we did talk to somebody who did understand what was happening, what was happening. Right. So the biggest topic of discussion for me personally, beyond higher prices in the last hundred days is the impact on small businesses. And I want to go ahead and set up a clip from an interview we did earlier this week with Beth Benaki, the CEO and founder of a small business called Busy Baby. You might have seen her on Shark Tank, but Maureen Clough (03:19.95) Leave their house. good, good. Fill me in. Maureen Clough (03:33.582) Mm. Yeah. Chad (03:48.252) Beth is frantically trying to figure out how to stay alive after these terrors. Let's go ahead and play this clip real quick. Joel (03:54.907) She is not alone. Maureen Clough (03:56.654) Mm-mm. Chad (04:37.352) fucking crazy. Chad (04:51.09) That was from earlier this week. Again, our interview with Beth, the entire interview was amazing. She has done so much work to even see if she could bring her manufacturing back to the U S she's done the dollars and cents. She's done all that. The SBA says there's about 33 million small businesses in the U S which account for Joel (05:06.011) Mm-hmm. Chad (05:13.224) 46.4 % of the private sector jobs. Now, Beth is only one story. Totally get that. She doesn't reflect all of the 33 million, but just think of hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of small businesses who employ people in your community. People who pay taxes, people who spend in the local economy. The ripple effects are real, and that's what I think we need to really focus on. Joel (05:30.106) Mm-hmm. Joel (05:42.147) I love the insider info she gave us about Walmart and Target and I think Home Depot going to talk to the president, which happened and he sort of changed the tune on some of this, but not enough to make a big difference. Yeah, the ripple effects on this, I don't think we have any idea yet how this is going to hit. Maureen Clough (05:59.178) Mm-mm. the dominoes are falling. Chad (06:01.426) Well, you were talking about prices and she said, I'm not as worried about prices. We're looking at empty shelves at this point. And that's what's the most scary, right? I mean, it is one thing that we have and we'll talk more about, you know, jobs in the US and whatnot and how they're going down and wage. Obviously the power, the dollar buying power is much lower as well. So yeah, this is all, I mean, literally ripple effects. Joel (06:08.975) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (06:09.678) Hmm Joel (06:28.609) It empty shelves impact everyone. It's not a, I've got money to weather this and I can still buy my stuff. Stuff on shelves means we're all screwed. Like no matter if you have money or not. So that was very, very, very telling, from what I saw. Maureen Clough (06:29.484) It's heartbreaking. Yep, exactly. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Yep. This is hitting everybody. It's just heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. Chad (06:40.327) Yeah. Joel (06:47.183) which is the theme of this show. So let's get into. Chad (06:47.304) All right. Let's, let's bring it up. Let's bring it up. I'm going to bring it up kids with Rexam's third straight and historic promotion. So shout out to Rexam. This has never been done before. Never been done before from the national league promoted from the national league to league two, league two to league one. And now they are promoted to the championship league three consecutive years in 2021, their first full season of owners that being, Maureen Clough (06:48.908) Yeah. Chad (07:15.912) McElhenney and Reynolds, their revenues increased by 404 % to just under 6 million. That was year one. And then 2022 to 2023, they rose 75 % from 6 to 10.5 million. 2023 to 2024, Wrexham announced a record profit, AKA turnover. to 26.7 million pounds, making out 155 % increase from the previous year. They're just growing, growing, growing. And if you want to know why, it's really simple. Watch Welcome to Wrexham. If you watch it, you can see this is a master class in business. While you see NFL icons like J.J. Watt buy into Premier League teams that get relegated down to the Championship League the very next year, McElhenney and Reynolds bought cheap at the bottom. Joel (08:09.627) Bye Lowe. Chad (08:10.022) the national league, they created a story and they blew the doors off the league. So shout out to a masterclass in business and three straight historic promotions to Wrexham. And it only took a Canadian and an American to make that happen kids. Joel (08:25.637) So how many more till they till they get to be in the Premier League? For those not as versed on this sport as you are. Maureen Clough (08:25.678) power of different teams. Maureen Clough (08:31.82) Yeah, I got a Ted Lasso level of education on this. So like, that's the only reason I understood a single word of what you just said. Chad (08:38.78) Which is, which is, which is why you've got to watch welcome to Rexham because they, from the season one, they actually show you the pyramid of the league, right? The premier league being on top. And in their case, they were at the bottom of the national league. And, so that just watching the promotions, which is awesome. but at, at the end of it, I don't know. I didn't think they'd go to the championship league already. I mean, they shot up through the ranks. Joel (09:03.493) Mm-hmm. Chad (09:05.668) I think they're buying power and they're mainly their star power and their their tick tock ability. Their Wrexham, a welcome to Wrexham ability gets gets these guys to become superstars on the big and small screen. So there's this huge lure to get to get people from leagues that are well above the league they're playing in. So can they get some awesome like top shelf talent from the Premier League to come down? to the championship league, I think that's gonna be the question. They've been able to do that before, but they've never had to spend this kind of fucking money. Joel (09:34.907) Hmm. Joel (09:42.021) Well, they better get some American or Middle East money if they want those kinds of stars to come. Otherwise you messy and Rinaldo are going, going elsewhere. Chad (09:45.306) Hahaha! Get get get Ronaldo. He doesn't need the money anymore. Go ahead and get Ronaldo. Joel (09:53.403) You ever know? Have you tried? There's a Wrexham logger now. Uh, I'm seeing, I'm seeing ads for it. Uh, I'm going to have, I'm gonna have to try it, but it's apparently a, an old witches brew recipe and that they brought back. so it means it's old. It's got, you know, like, Oh, we w it's 1742. The brewery was founded. Yeah. Cause cause you appreciate old is better. Right? Mo you like, you like the old, you like the old, you like the old folks. Chad (09:56.978) I haven't tried it now. Yeah. Chad (10:04.509) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (10:05.688) What does that even really mean? Like what's an old witch's brew? It's just old. Chad (10:13.212) Means it's delicious. History delicious. Maureen Clough (10:14.84) Okay, it's got some history, some weight. Yeah, old is gold, man. Old is gold. Love it. Speaking of old folks, so my shout out, my shout out, well, thanks to the American dream of living here, basically, as I was talking about with my barista this morning, like no one is basically going to be able to stop working until they drop dead, which is really cute. Joel (10:23.405) All right, what you got? What you got, Mo? You Maureen Clough (10:39.458) But so this shout out is actually to a woman. This woman, she went to a restaurant with her son and she saw this waitress and she was there, the server, and she was probably around 81. Well, I know she's 81 because of the news article, but she's 81 years old and she's barely kind of minute. The server was and she's having a hard time with mobility. Yeah. And, know, 81 looks different, right? But 81 looks different on other people. Like I know an 81 year old who like is crazy active, but whatever. She was not doing super well. Chad (10:53.212) the server would be one? Holy shit! You don't say. Maureen Clough (11:09.26) and this woman and her young son were in the restaurant, they noticed her, and this woman was like, God, this is so screwed up. This woman told me she's working because she can't afford to retire, and she's trying to keep up with, in her words, quote, the young whippersnappers. And I just wanna do something for this woman who's working her tail off. And so she did a TikTok about this 81-year-old server. It went viral, and they raised $300,000 for this woman so she could get the F out of the restaurant. And I'm like, Chad (11:28.253) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (11:36.11) So simultaneously like heartwarming and wonderful because look at the power of people coming together and giving a damn about the fellow man. And then it's also like, my God, how did we get here? Like we have to do something different because this is just, this is wrong. yeah, it's nothing new. Chad (11:50.08) systems been broken. mean, you take a look at wages, you take a look at the tip culture, you take a look at... mean, it's broken from the top down, bottom up, whatever you want to say. But yeah, unfortunately, that just fucking sucks. Maureen Clough (11:57.344) all of it. Maureen Clough (12:01.19) Mm-hmm, totally. It totally does. Such a good one. That would be a lot of points. That's like you're winning. Mm-hmm, yep. Sure is. Joel (12:04.773) By the way, everyone, if you have whipper snappers on your bingo card, be sure to stamp that. think that's the first on the show. That's, ooh, whipper snapper. That is a winning formula for that. Chad (12:07.528) Hahaha Chad (12:12.648) How many points is that in Scrabble? That's the question. Huh? Yeah. Whippersnapper Scrabble. Alright Cheeseman, alright. Joel (12:25.655) Okay, guys, you know, we, you know, we love Canada on this show, which is a great opportunity for me to also say that our shout outs are sponsored by the good folks at Kiora. Text recruiting made easy and affordable. So my shout out goes out to Mark Carney. If you watch Fox news, you might not even know what the hell's going on. Anyway, Canada has a parliamentary system. have conservatives and liberals before Trump came in. Chad (12:34.311) Love them. Chad (12:41.733) Maureen Clough (12:45.014) Hahaha Joel (12:53.861) Justin Trudeau, incredibly unpopular. He had been in for 10 years. It was kind of time for a change. And they had a cool guy named Pierre out in, think, the West part of the country. He was up by 25 points before Trump got into office. Trump gets into office, talks about the 51st state, talks about taking over, talks about Governor Trudeau, et cetera. Trudeau steps down, Mark Carney comes in. And thanks to Trump, the liberals... Chad (12:58.28) Yep. Maureen Clough (13:21.838) Okay. Joel (13:22.427) Got back into power, Mark Carney, Mark Carney went, that is a snort from Moe, not one of the old guys on the show. So in his speech, Mark Carney said that Trump's trying to quote, break us so America can own us, end quote. And this was a rallying cry for all Canucks who don't really relish the thought of being a 51st state. Chad (13:24.328) Was that a snort? Maureen Clough (13:25.794) Yeah, I'm dying. It's amazing. Maureen Clough (13:33.102) You Joel (13:45.709) or any part of America. So shout out to him. By the way, Mark Carney is a Harvard grad, which I've talked about quite a bit on the show is fighting the power of Trump. And by the way, Mark Carney spent very little of his life actually in Canada, most of it's in Ireland and England. anyway, Trump is so bad that he can put a Brit in power in Canada. probably messed that up for my poor Canadian friends. But Canadians love Chad (13:51.932) Mmm. Yeah. Maureen Clough (13:52.216) Mmm. Maureen Clough (14:05.742) You Joel (14:14.787) Independence from Trump and they love free stuff, Chad, as we know. Chad (14:16.102) Yes. And they love, and they love Chad and cheese. They love Chad and cheese. Why? Because if you go to ChadCheese.com slash free, could perspectively win, get ready kids, bourbon barrel aged syrup from Kiura from yes, the great white North from Kiura. Maureen Clough (14:18.199) You Joel (14:20.015) Hell yeah, they do. Joel (14:31.45) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (14:32.238) You Chad (14:35.15) Whiskey, a cock in both hands, chicken cock possibly. Whiskey, two bottles, two from Van Hack, our friends up north at Van Hack. Then we've got craft beer from our friends, the job data geeks over Aspen Tech Labs. More about those guys later. T-shirts from Aaron App, that's Aaron App. And if it's your birthday, another Canuck company. Maureen Clough (14:42.844) boy. Joel (14:56.251) Mm-hmm. Chad (15:04.101) You can win rum from plum. Just go to Chadcheese.com slash free. Ooh, I love Canada. Joel (15:13.423) That's right, some listener. Little sound bite, you like the plums, huh? Yeah. And Plum loves it too. They didn't even come up with that. We did. So... Maureen Clough (15:13.762) I think that's Maureen Clough (15:21.388) I bet. Chad (15:23.346) Yeah. Joel plays that before, before he goes to bed every night. Joel (15:28.357) What do you know about what I do before bed every night? I'm a little scared about that comment. Anyway, celebrating another trip around the sun, our listeners, Annie Jarvis, Glen Hill, Garvich Sharma, Jerry Frank, Peter Sharipa, Shana Berthold, Keegan Osepich, Stefan Jean, Sarah Addison, Bennett Sung, Robert Rayner, Alfonso Zamora, Herb Drew, Chad (15:31.848) Christine, Christine told me. Maureen Clough (15:34.67) He's watching you. Joel (15:55.739) Come on Eileen Kowalski, Joshua Skloot, Lou Adler, Joe Shaker. We'll get to travel here in a second and our very own JT O'Donnell celebrate a birthday. Happy birthday everybody, happy birthday. Chad (16:02.312) There we go. Maureen Clough (16:06.99) Aww. Woohoo! Chad (16:07.016) There we go. Well, what a great segue. Joe shaker birthday and shaker recruitment marketing. What do they do? They're our travel sponsors, kids. That's right. We're going to unleash next week coming up May 6th through the eighth, where we're going to be in Vegas on Wednesday, the seventh, uh, are going to be spending a little time in the suite at the Cosmo filming a new sessions season with our friends over at smart recruiters. Uh, then that night we're going to do a film rap VIP party. Uh, all you have to do is go out to Joel (16:14.139) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:39.784) LinkedIn, look at Joel's LinkedIn profile mine and we'll have the details there. Um, but dude, there ain't no party like a Cosmo sessions, wrap party. Uh, and then we're going to be hosting two talks in the gem booth. That's J E J M gem booth on Wednesday, the seventh at 3 30 PM and then Thursday morning at 10 30 Vegas time. If you come to unleash, we're to be there. Maureen Clough (16:50.286) You Joel (16:57.135) Mm-hmm. Chad (17:09.436) Find us whether we're drinking. Well, we're going to be drinking. We'll see you. We'll see you there. Joel (17:13.945) Mo, are you too young to remember the Jim animated cartoon from the 80s featuring a, I don't know, socialite named Jim? Yeah, you are, okay. Chad (17:19.016) Aww. Maureen Clough (17:20.589) Yes. I am, apologies. Chad (17:23.848) But the thing is though, we also have video because we saw that apparently some of the concierge services and the valet services are not gonna be readily available in Vegas. Can you play that? Beautiful bean footage. Maureen Clough (17:38.766) It's a shame. Joel (17:44.261) What's going on in Vegas? Holy shit. Chad (18:35.93) Ouch. Yeah. So, I mean, and again, a lot of times media can like overplay some of this stuff. They said occupancy rates are like around 82%. So, it still feels kind of full, but I mean, in Vegas, when you're used to being popping at the seams right now, Europeans aren't coming over, Canadians. You know where the Canadians are going? Have you seen the reports on this? They're going to Mexico, which means... Maureen Clough (18:36.29) Good times. Yeah, let me know. Joel (18:37.243) We'll be there. We'll see it for ourselves. Joel (18:54.501) Mm-hmm. Joel (18:57.925) Canadians aren't coming. Maureen Clough (18:57.93) Mm-mm. not coming. Chad (19:05.308) The US is literally flyover country. Literally, the entire US, flyover country. Maureen Clough (19:06.47) man, we so deserve that. We so deserve that. my gosh. Wow. That's wild. That's wild. I mean... Joel (19:15.939) I got nothing. I got nothing. Let's just get to topics. Chad (19:19.688) Please save me with some good topics. Maureen Clough (19:23.244) Hmm. Joel (19:23.323) we got some more, more goodness, Chad. That's right. your, weekly weekly dose of, of deal and rippling the feud keeps escalating a deal officially agreed to be served legal papers in Ripley's lawsuit deal backed by Andreessen Horowitz. Maybe you've heard of them who has a $3 billion stake in the company counter sued, alleging defamation by Ripley's CEO, but wait, there's more. Chad (19:28.114) Bozo. Bozo? Maureen Clough (19:30.242) Bozo, definitely. gift that keeps on giving. Joel (19:53.243) Crypto startup Toku claims deal was part of a scheme that exploited its private information and tried to place spies among its ranks of employees. I don't know if this is going to get any crazier, but I hope that it does because it's a lot of fun to talk about the corporate spy drama continues. Chad, your thoughts. Chad (20:16.338) So the defamation case that Deal is actually throwing at Rippling, I think is interesting. They have like little pieces, parts of emails that they say are defamation. Parker Congrad was asked for a comment and said, quote, Deal did not directly refute Rippling's central claim, right? And he's focusing on the central claim that it paid employees to steal Rippling trade secrets, end quote. Maureen Clough (20:37.646) You Chad (20:46.284) the Russian sanctions is also another piece on this. mean, there's just so much smoke that's happening. It's in, and at first as, as listeners, you know, when rippling first came up that with this, we're like, come on guys, this is bullshit. And then we started getting evidence. Then we got Keith O'Brien giving us under testimony affidavits, right? They, had affidavits where we could read down through what the hell's going on. And unfortunately we live in a time. Joel (20:52.866) huh. Maureen Clough (21:01.142) You Joel (21:03.867) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (21:06.712) He's a man. Chad (21:15.122) where accusation without evidence is happening all over the fucking place. Right? And it's literally just trying to change public opinion. That's where we're living today. So show me the evidence deal. You say there's, there's defamation. You say there's Russian sanctions. Also, what was the other company's name? the cryptocurrency company. Yeah. Cause I trust them. evidence. Joel (21:19.822) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (21:20.814) Goddamn true. Maureen Clough (21:26.062) you Joel (21:32.325) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (21:39.628) Hehehehehe Chad (21:41.734) Release the fucking evidence. If you want to put this out in public, then do it. Do it like, like, I mean, rippling didn't really do it because it was, it was, an official affidavit, but get that shit done so we can all take a look at it and you can do it in court. Joel (21:54.021) Mm-hmm. Joel (21:59.567) Go deep. Mo? Maureen Clough (22:03.33) God, I'm sorry, you're killing me. Yeah, I mean, I found the whole thing pretty, I mean, this thing is just like unbelievable. I truly cannot wait to watch this on screen. It's gonna happen for sure. But I mean, to me, it's like, like you said, Chad, the evidence sounds pretty credible. Like you said, this guy was testifying in court under affidavit, like this is not like a nothing thing that he just spun up. So I would love to see something that's irrefutable that suggests that this was all just like one big ploy against them. I doubt we're gonna see that. It sounds pretty legit to me, but it did make me crack up. And I also saw a past video on YouTube that was about like the genius of the bozo at the head of Delm, Deal, not Delm, what's Delm? Who am I? At the head of Deal. And I'm like, this guy doesn't seem so smart to me. So we'll see what happens. But yeah, it's just, it's hilarious. And people can just throw accusations out there like left, right, and center and like. At least give us something to back it up. I totally agree with you. It's so stupid. Joel (23:03.739) All right, all right kids gather around the bonfire. Maureen Clough (23:08.654) Aww. Joel (23:09.455) That's right. That's right. We, never get out of high school. Everybody let's, let's, let's take a trip down memory lane. Shall we 2013 Xenefits Xenefits co-founded by our friend Parker Conrad got millions in investment from guess who? Andresen Horowitz. That's right. So when Buzzfeed exposed Xenefits for all its bullshit and it's sex in this stairwell, stories, Conrad was pushed Maureen Clough (23:13.664) Mm-mm. We don't. So true. Maureen Clough (23:19.726) You Chad (23:26.392) Andreessen Horowitz Maureen Clough (23:26.922) Andreessen. Maureen Clough (23:37.961) my God, forgot about that. Joel (23:38.693) Conrad was pushed out. David Sachs, if you listen to the All In podcast, David Sachs was the COO of Zenefits at the time. He was moved to CEO. Guess what David Sachs current title is? He's Trump's crypto czar. You mentioned, you mentioned Tycoo, the crypto company. I don't know if there's a connection. Maureen Clough (23:41.784) Woof, man. Chad (23:45.064) Mm-hmm. Chad (23:49.628) Big surprise. Maureen Clough (23:50.892) Hmm. Chad (23:57.938) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (24:02.71) You Joel (24:05.999) But it sounds kind of fishy, fishy to me. Anyway, Xenefits goes to hell. Conrad launches Rippling, which let's be honest is a poke in the eye of Andreessen Horowitz. I'm sure. Cause they backed him over at Xenefits. So they go to deal and they go deal. Fuck Rippling. We're on your team. They dropped $3 billion on deal. Maureen Clough (24:07.97) That does. Ooh. Maureen Clough (24:22.584) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (24:30.048) Ugh. Joel (24:34.499) And now this shit happens. Not 3 billion. Maybe it's 3 billion. Anyway, it's a lot of money. Google it. now his, I don't, I don't get all the facts in my history lessons. Everybody. I like to, to, empower you to, find your own stuff. But anyway, so now deals in trouble and at risk of looking like a real shit. And so, Chad (24:40.2) 300 million? No, yeah, they don't have 3 billion in. Yeah. Maureen Clough (24:42.316) No, it's worth it, yeah. Chad (24:45.528) Google it. Making work for our listeners. That's awesome. Maureen Clough (24:49.282) I love it. You guys, you guys do some shit. Chad (24:56.025) yeah. Joel (25:04.675) Andreessen Horowitz are like, my God, we got to save our investment. We can't get beat by Rippling. So now this has become our lawyers at Andreessen Horowitz and Deal versus the lawyers at Rippling. I'm sure they all know each other and have lunch at that laundromat, French laundromat or whatever it is in the Silicon Valley. Mo gets that reference. She gets the French laundromat because that's where she, that's where she. Chad (25:18.716) Guarantee it. Maureen Clough (25:24.25) French laundromat, I think we need to call it. Oh, well, how could we forget? Remember Gavin Newsom and like his people? Oh yeah, I go there all the time, all the time. It's like my McDonald's. Joel (25:32.891) So, so now, so now this is becoming Godzilla versus King Kong and lucky us with a podcast. get to talk about this never ending high school drama about everyone being pissed at each other and getting, getting even through legal, legal means and just counter suing and eventually probably going to the French laundromat to like decide who's getting what and how much, uh, the shit show continues in 2025 and I'm here for it, Chad. Chad (25:50.108) Yeah. Maureen Clough (25:50.296) So fun. Joel (26:02.061) I'm here for it. Chad (26:03.034) I, everybody's here for it. Like I said, this, this has never happened in our space. Something this size. We've got spy, we've got bumbling Mr. Bean spies. We've got, mean, we got Bozo going to Dubai trying to get Mr. Bean to come with him. I mean, it's just like, this is, wow, this is amazing. But again, evidence kids, give us the evidence. Maureen Clough (26:07.758) That's insane. Maureen Clough (26:13.55) That's insane. Joel (26:17.083) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (26:25.784) Yeah, I guess we have to see that. my God. Yeah, we have due process here. Hello? Chad (26:28.754) Can't, can't do it. Chad (26:35.09) Be careful. Joel (26:38.085) Be careful with all of that. All right. That is our history lesson for the day kids. Let's go to our next story. Power to the people. Yeah, not so much. this week Uber raised it's in office requirement to three days, clawing back remote workers, not to be outdone. Google is requiring remote workers to return to the office three days a week as well. They have until June to return and if they don't comply, well, they'll be fired. Maureen Clough (26:38.158) Allegedly. Joel (27:05.774) Microsoft is laying off nearly 300 people on the heels of eliminating quote low performers and quote. did you see Intel just laid off 22,000 workers, roughly 20 % of its head count cats and dogs living together mass hysteria. Mo, what are your thoughts on all the RTO layoff news? Maureen Clough (27:24.014) Dude, I mean, thank you for calling it RTO layoff, because that's exactly what it is. It's like, it's a forced function. They know that not enough people are going to come back to the office. They're doing it on purpose so they can save on costs. We all know what this is. It's going to impact certain people more than others. We all know that. They know that. They're counting on it. They don't give a shit. It is infuriating to see this happen again and again and again. And when I talk to people who are currently employed within any of those companies or any big tech companies, Chad (27:39.442) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No. Maureen Clough (27:51.51) It's like the Lord of the Flies internally. Like everyone is throwing one another under the bus. They're trying to save their job by any means necessary. They're not fucking thinking about the customer. They're not thinking about what's right for the company. They're trying to save their own butts, right? And who could blame them? And so these companies are dealing themselves this situation where they don't have people in place at the company who are thinking about what the company wants them to think about. They're trying to save themselves. So it just creates this like super toxic horrendous environment that it just makes me so angry because it doesn't have to be like this. Like I don't understand why they can't find a different path, a better path and why we can't have more humanity in the workplace. Cause we are freaking humans at the end of the day. We are not robots and I know they'd rather replace us with them and some of them are. But one thing that did not get picked up in any of that also is how tough tech is right now for a specific generation. And that's Gen Z. So Gen Z is usually, mean, tech is all about the youth, right? They love them, they think they're the best hires. They all die in this hill. I hate that tech seems to want to not hire or not keep any of the older workers so that they can then hire only younger workers and exploit them. Hate that. But now they're deciding that they would actually prefer to hire robots instead of young people. So entry level jobs are going out. Chad (28:51.624) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Maureen Clough (29:10.242) by the white side. There's not an ability for Gen Z to get some of those early career experiences. There's no mentorship because again, everyone's covering their own ass. They're not thinking about bringing someone along and teaching them the tools of the trade. You've got AI outsourcing. You've got a lack of skills and training in these organizations. It's really like good luck. If you get this job sink or swim. by the way, you got to be using AI and you got to tell us how you used it and if it worked or not because we don't have a training program and we're just like fly by seat of our pants type of operation. But this is Joel (29:15.099) you Maureen Clough (29:40.242) so shitty for everyone of all ages. And I just feel absolutely horrible for anyone who's just mixed up in this. And I can, I know that the pendulum will swing back at some point and it will be more and of an employees market. I just, no one forget that this happened. Like these companies are showing you exactly who they are right now with how they're treating their workforce. Do not forget it. And if you're a customer who can make a choice, don't forget this either. See what they're doing to their people and go elsewhere. So. Joel (30:09.177) Vote with your dollars. Maureen Clough (30:09.666) That was my. So infuriating. Chad (30:13.618) So this is the short-term mindset that we've put ourselves into. We used to focus on community, growing the community, not just being a part and giving back to the community, but that's where our talent's at, right? And being able to build talent pipelines through developing, you know, at the high school age, middle school, high school, community college, you know, what have you, that is all out the door. It is all about this quarter, dollars and cents, right? Maureen Clough (30:42.2) true. Chad (30:43.152) So short-term mindset in that pain that we're hearing about all over the place. people are going to remember that people are going to remember that shit. if you're at Microsoft, take the 16 week severance, get the fuck out of there. They're showing, they are showing who they are. They're showing who they are. Google Uber, they're boiling the RTO frog. And also there's the layoff pieces that are in there, but Maureen Clough (30:55.554) I'd get the hell out. No one ever comes back from a pip. Are you kidding me? Like, get out. Maureen Clough (31:06.563) Yep. Chad (31:10.088) I know we talk a lot about the big names like Google, JP Morgan, Chase, Uber, and many others who are pushing RTO, but Aspen Tech Labs, that's right, our friends over at Aspen Tech Labs, they dropped the following information last week on the job board doctor. Quote, remote jobs continue their strong trajectory, increasing 27.5 % compared to Q1 2024. Insurance information tech, IT. accounting sectors are leading this trend underscoring the persistent shift towards flexible and remote working arrangement end quotes. So the big names are forcing RTO. Many of the others are vying for the same talent echoing Spotify as you're an adult work from wherever you like. So yes, the headlines make it feel like everybody is moving back to the office, but the numbers say it ain't so Joe. Maureen Clough (32:05.069) When- Maureen Clough (32:10.35) I was not expecting that one. Joel (32:10.521) Well, we interrupted you. had something to say. Go for it. Chad (32:14.184) What you gonna say? Maureen Clough (32:15.746) I may have lost my train of thought, because that just really was quite jarring. Joel (32:17.605) Well, I'll talk and if you, if you remember, just, chime in. Okay. a few weeks ago, it was last week, LinkedIn invested in an office space, which I said at the time, well, if, anyone has remote work job listing information and trends on remote jobs being posted, it's LinkedIn. So to make that investment, they must know something about the future of remote work that we don't. this feels like. Maureen Clough (32:25.516) Amazing. Maureen Clough (32:30.35) Mmm. Maureen Clough (32:44.226) Mm. Joel (32:47.771) A world that is dividing between tech and those that aren't in tech. And if you're in tech, going back to the office, having people leave, they don't want to go back to the office and less head count is a good thing. And if you can do it by avoiding the layoff headline, that's a great thing because saying we're going back to the office and losing 5 % of your workforce is a lot better than saying we're firing 5 % of our workforce. Microsoft as of this writing, uh, Meta and Microsoft. Maureen Clough (33:10.766) Exactly. That's precisely right. It's a PR play. Joel (33:17.295) both reported quarterly earnings. Meta jumped 6 % on an earnings beat, citing some advertising resilience. Microsoft also blowout quarter jumped 9%. So these tech companies have incentive to go back to the office if nothing else, because they can eliminate headcount and increase earnings. Microsoft said in their report that 30 % of all code written now is AI generated. That's a lot of developers that aren't going to have a job at Microsoft. And it's early, it's early. And to Mo's point, how many of those entry level jobs that Microsoft used to bring in people are not going to be brought in anymore and mentor those folks. The other side of it is that it's a softening labor market. There are fewer opportunities for better paying jobs. People used to be able to jump ship and get a 20, 25 % raise in a new position. Chad (33:46.79) And it's early, and it's early. Maureen Clough (33:48.34) Mm-hmm. It's only gonna go up. Maureen Clough (34:00.482) man. Maureen Clough (34:05.304) Yep. Maureen Clough (34:11.496) yeah. Joel (34:11.641) Those days are gone. So you have power back to the employers, which means get your ass back to work. We're laying people off, but not saying we're laying people off. and it's, this is a continuing trend that we're going to see. mean, I, I'm, I'm, I'm inspired by Chad and it's in Spotify and there are those organizations, but I fear like this is going to trickle down to smaller businesses that say, if Microsoft and everyone else big that I know uses does this. Maureen Clough (34:17.429) Mm-hmm. Do as I say. Maureen Clough (34:24.802) Yeah. Joel (34:39.247) Then I should be doing it too. They just don't have the shareholders, the boards that are sort of pushing them into that direction. Maureen Clough (34:47.126) It can also be, yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, they can compete. Yeah. no, what I was gonna say is I think that they're actually gonna double down on offering things that people actually want because they need to compete. They probably don't have as much money to throw at these people as these bigger players. So they're gonna be like, hey, you know what? You can work from home a couple days a week or all the time, whatever. And they get expansive access to more talent. it just... Chad (34:47.27) I disagree. I think that's how they get the good talent is because yeah, exactly. Go ahead, Mo. Maureen Clough (35:10.542) I mean, Zillow is doubling down on their remote first policy for that reason. They've had like 4X the applications and talent available to them because they are a fully remote organization and they optimize for that. And so it's just, I think it's kind of an own goal for a of these companies because they're going to see people leave. And by the way, like you said, people are not able to earn what they used to be able to earn at these corporate jobs, even at these big players. I have people reaching out to me saying, you know, first of all, I can't get a freaking job interview. And you know, five years ago I did all the time, but when they actually look at the job, Chad (35:30.877) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (35:39.768) that they're interested in, the range of pay is like sub what they made in 2021. So like you said, this market is changing, the demand is changing, it's softening, and so there are gonna be some implications. So people are gonna be able to win, other companies are gonna be able to win on benefits and making accommodations for people that bigger companies apparently refuse to do. Chad (35:45.085) Mm-hmm. Joel (35:59.237) I mean, we also know that the number of remote jobs being posted is decreasing quite a bit. unless they're reframing them as different kinds of opportunities, we do know that there's a lack. Chad (36:09.01) You're talking about at those companies or overall? Joel (36:12.185) Jobs being posted as remote jobs is decreasing. I know indeed. Chad (36:16.488) So remote jobs continue their strong growth trajectory increasing by 27.5 compared to Q1 of 2024. That's Aspen Tech data and they're the data kid. So what you're reading, I don't know, to take a look at the actual data source, could be companies, specific segment or cohort of companies, but the actual data in Aspen Tech goes out and they look at Joel (36:25.701) that. Okay. Chad (36:45.32) corporate career sites, top down, scrape those sites, and that's where they get their job data. So that's 27.5 % growth. Maureen Clough (36:53.122) Your study was sponsored by commercial real estate probably. Let's be honest. We can all cherry pick the data, right? We can find the survey. Joel (36:57.979) Mine was, mine was, well, mine was, mine was in D-Day. This is from October of 24. The share of job postings, advertising, remote or hybrid work options fell from a high of 10.4 in February of 2022 to 7.8 % as of October, 2024. So a little bit of. Maureen Clough (37:04.715) Indeed. Chad (37:14.898) And that's a bad index because you have to pay to get on there. And also they don't go after all the jobs like Aspen Tech does. So you're looking at subsets of data versus again, it's like LinkUp, which we'll talk about here soon, the same kind of thing, right? They're looking at the broader expanse of job data where Indeed is more focused on really what they're getting paid for. Joel (37:31.183) Mm-hmm. Joel (37:40.217) Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. We'll be right back. Maureen Clough (37:43.586) Make sense. Joel (37:51.355) All right, gang, follow this one under Canary in the coal mine. Uh, United parcel service, also known as UPS announced it will lay off 20,000 workers, about 4 % of its 490,000 strong global workforce and close 73 facilities by June of 2025, aiming to save $3.5 billion. The cuts part of a network reconfiguration plan STEM. from a strategic reduction in Amazon shipments, which are down 50 % projected through 2026, and economic uncertainty from Trump's tariffs. It's worth noting the Teamsters Union representing 330,000 of the UPS workers warned of a fierce fight if the company violates its contract to create 30,000 jobs in light of the news. Chad, your thoughts. Chad (38:46.14) Yeah, UPS, I think the whole UPS Amazon relationship started out really well for UPS and it gone into the shitter. So I don't think they want those, they don't want those packages or that contract anymore because it's starting to become a loss for them. And I believe this does have to do with a tariff anchor around the economy's neck. mean, what should we expect at this point? But, but. UPS is also shutting down facilities while opening brand spanking new robot clad ones. And this is an evolution that we've talked about over the years. For example, working in an Amazon or UPS warehouse is backbreaking work. Amazon actually blew through entire population of workers because the work was hard and the expectations were unreal. UPS leans heavily into the working with unions. which is good because unions won't allow that type of Amazon treatment. And UPS doesn't want to burn through total workforce like Amazon has in some cases. Now that means less backbreaking jobs, but then creates new segments of jobs for people skilling up to maintain the logistics slash robotic machine. So yes, I see where the economy. with less ships coming in from China will need less dock workers, less conductors on trains carrying product, less over the road truck drivers and less last mile UPS warehouse and delivery workers. But this might be the perfect time to transition and hopefully start training some of those laid off workers as robotic mechanics and also more of the over the road drivers for when this tariff lunacy is hopefully over. So Positive I see the optimistic side on this looking for optimism and and seeing that you know UPS again working with unions It's an entirely different kind of like scope than what you'll see with with with an Amazon Joel (40:41.626) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (40:42.808) Thank you. Maureen Clough (40:55.106) Dude, thanks for that little injection of hope. We need some silver linings, man. Thank you. I was gonna be like, hey, next time I do the show, can we get some happy news up in the mix, please? So you don't have to call me Debbie Downer. my gosh. Okay, yeah, I like that. I like that. So hopefully there will be some upside to this really shitty news. So yeah. Chad (40:57.48) Here for you. Here for you. Chad (41:02.362) You Maureen Clough (41:13.848) But yeah, mean, now that I can't get $30 because I'm not going to have any money and they're not shipping them in, like, of course that's going to have a cascading effect, like your guest said, right? The ripple effect and the domino effect of all of these decisions. And it just extends so far out into Main Street and into our communities. And so we'll see that. Chad (41:30.926) Get your kids a sharp stick as Joel Cheeseman would say. Joel (41:31.131) Where's here's sharp stick and yeah. so a little, a little, comic relief, maybe Mo I found this video on tech talk, which is dripping with sarcasm, but there's some truth behind it. Maureen Clough (41:32.704) Yeah, yeah, just. Joel (42:51.343) No, of course not. Anyways, I thought you'd enjoy that. Maureen Clough (42:52.398) That's so good. That's so good. Thank you. Chad (42:56.242) should be a spokesperson for the Trump administration. Joel (42:58.395) She's good. So I looked back in history because I was curious. The last time UPS laid off 4 % of its workforce, any guesses, any guesses, any guesses? 2008 was the last time they made financial, the great recession. So this is serious business. we know some of the people at UPS and do believe, I'm sure, that they will, just like in 2008, Maureen Clough (43:01.646) You Chad (43:09.736) COVID. financial, wow. Maureen Clough (43:12.494) Mmm, that's a telling time. boy. Joel (43:26.009) repurpose, refocus, do what's right by the workers. think that's a huge part of what UPS does. So while I do agree, like this is a canary in the coal mine. stuff like these, again, these guys see the data, they see what's coming in, what's, what's coming down the pike. When you see Jamie Dymans saying that a recession is likely, it's, it would behoove you not to take some of that data and advice and not. you know, prepare for it. And I think that's what UPS is doing. hopefully to Chad's point, the jobs that do come back will be higher level jobs, automation specific new job titles. Totally. So, it's, it's, it's gonna be painful guys. It's going to be two dollars instead of 30 for awhile. but just like our friend there at target, get used, maybe get used to it, but will we come out better? I sure as hell hope so. I sure as hell hope so. Also, I it was funny. Maureen Clough (44:09.688) That's what they're telling us about AI. It's gonna be better jobs. it's so tough. Chad (44:12.71) Mm. Joel (44:25.755) You probably saw Amazon was coming out with the tariff addition, additional costs from tariffs. And then the Trump administration said, this is a hostile, hostile move, which is. Maureen Clough (44:29.89) Yes. Chad (44:34.524) was hostile. Maureen Clough (44:35.811) bent the knee. Chad (44:41.458) Transparency is hostile. Maureen Clough (44:42.432) Yeah, exactly. Joel (44:42.563) I'm- well- Again, this guy just doing stuff that's unconventional. I don't remember a president basically dictating what businesses could do at this level. There was some commentary about, if lower price goods go up, let's call it 50%, then they'll be more equal to stuff that's made in America. Someone said, well, Chad (44:55.24) because we've never had a dictator before. Maureen Clough (44:55.63) Mmm. Yeah, I was like, mmm. Joel (45:13.091) Why wouldn't America come and just raise the price because all the cheap shit is now more expensive. And Trump said something like, well, if they do that, you know, they better not do that. We're watching them, et cetera. It's like free market, this stuff, like it's just kind of sad that, that the white house feels like they need to attack someone like Amazon. A business from putting like, Hey, here's the cost, but with tariffs, here's the cost that you're going to be paying. and basis basis, bend it over bent over. Chad (45:37.0) transparency. Yeah, that's all it is. Joel (45:41.793) And it's taking it and not, it's just, it's just a sad, it's just, it's just unfortunate. Maureen Clough (45:42.446) Immediately. It's crazy. Chad (45:46.266) It's the fellatio 2025 baby. Admit it. That's this administration. Maureen Clough (45:49.858) Yeah, that's right. That's the t-shirt you wanted that we were like, We're like, maybe not, Chad. Joel (45:54.075) Felatio 2025, yeah. That sounds like a great one to have on stage at the next SHER meeting. Guys, if you like what you're listening to, if you love the show, hate it, whatever, leave us a review, subscribe, go check us out on YouTube. We are everywhere if you haven't noticed. And if you're not plugged in, please do so. We'll be right back. Chad (45:55.196) Yeah. Maureen Clough (46:07.79) You Maureen Clough (46:12.046) You Joel (46:19.995) Winter is coming. Actually, it's just ending here in the Midwest, but it is coming. And a post entitled, quote, winter is coming, but not quite yet. End quote. Our friend Toby Dayton, you know him as the Sasquatch of statistics warns of an economic slowdown signaled by a weak jobs report. He predicts potential stagflation in 2025 with inflation at 3.2 % and unemployment possibly hitting as high as 5%. The silver lining. Maureen Clough (46:25.198) you Joel (46:48.731) Toby's firm is forecasting a net gain of 211,000 jobs in April above the 130,000 estimated. And from our friends at Aspen Tech Labs, US job postings stalled in February, showing zero month over month growth and a 3.5 % year over year decline, signaling a cautious hiring environment. Job creation dropped 10 % from January. And 9.8 % from February in 2024 reflecting a slowdown. Who says this isn't a feel good podcast, Chad. What are your takes on all these numbers? Maureen Clough (47:22.701) You Chad (47:27.206) I'm going positive because if I don't, I wouldn't be Euro Chad. I'm almost out of here. Okay. So take a look at the, the, the, the, the linkups, this week in jobs data update says daily active job descriptions featuring the term, the term agentic have spiked from virtually zero to 2000 plus in just over two years. then Aspen tech labs, yep. Those kids again, Aspen tech lab shows that in Q1. Joel (47:33.209) EuroChat is coming. Maureen Clough (47:33.518) That's not fair. That's cheating. Chad (47:57.128) AI related job positions increased 25.2 % compared to Q1 of 2024. So AI roles are increasingly strategic and command high compensation. Hear that? That's more money kids. With median annual salaries reaching about $155,000, $156,000. Not too shabby. Not too shabby. So good on growth, good on evolution. Now we have to do is get trained up for it. Maureen Clough (48:26.136) So the A, another good one. Okay, maybe that one's my favorite. But okay, so, but the AI related roles that you mentioned that are getting upticked right there, does that mean like they're actually functionally working on AI solutions there or they just are using AI at the company? Do you know, there a date on that? Chad (48:32.391) You Chad (48:46.94) No, they're AI solutions, they're AI related roles. So they're not just using, yeah. Now, linkups, theirs was actually focused on the term in the job description being agentic. So that was more kind of a parallel where Aspentech Labs is focused on specifically AI related jobs. Good question. Maureen Clough (48:50.486) Okay. They're not just like average person just using, all right, yeah. Cause now everybody has to do that at their jobs. Maureen Clough (49:12.92) Okay, okay. Yeah, I still, I'm a little concerned about the fact that we all are being told we have to use AI at our corporate jobs now and that we have to prove that we don't need to hire anybody else. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that, but Quiet Part Out Loud is happening more and more. But yeah, it still strikes me as crazy that there doesn't seem to be any sort of skills-based training on this. They're just like letting people fly with what I would imagine is pretty sensitive data internally at their companies on these platforms. And they're just like, hey, Chad (49:23.62) Yeah Maureen Clough (49:42.094) use it and let us know what happens. Genie's out of the bottle, I guess. I don't know. It's kind of a wild ride. And I wonder where we're going to land. I guess it's good that more high paying jobs are coming. I also hope that people who are over 50 can access them, since there's a crazy bias that was released in a recent report by Generation. and done with Google.org about how anything that touches AI at all as a role, you're like 60 % less likely to consider someone over 60 for that job. So that sucks since I know I was like, yeah, like exactly. You better be in the middle and you better somehow stay there. Yeah, it's a wild time. It's a wild time. I know I probably should. Chad (50:13.938) Sounds like we're screwed on the bottom with Gen Z and we're screwed at the top. I mean, you better be in the middle. Joel (50:24.455) You better start a podcast or some shit. If you're like, better just, you better just become an influencer, start a podcast, something that's where the world is going. Who's the CEO that was like, if you want me to hire, you have to prove that we can't AI the job. Okay. So, for sure. Chad (50:26.576) It gets late early. That's all I gotta say. It gets late early. Maureen Clough (50:33.995) God. Maureen Clough (50:39.842) That was Shopify. That was Shopify. I'm sure in others that just haven't leaked, Like, or people who like say the quiet part out loud are just, I'm surprised that people are just out there saying it, but I'm sure it's happening behind the scenes in cloaked language all the time. Joel (50:52.527) My fear is that we haven't even begun the job loss, the inflation, the empty shelves. When there's run on toilet paper, like Katie bar the door, shit's going to hit the fan. Canada sort of set the stage of you can stand up to America. Our little 40 million person country can stand up and vote accordingly. Maureen Clough (50:59.042) Right. Chad (51:01.084) We have it. Chad (51:08.028) No pun intended. Maureen Clough (51:09.23) Dude. gross. Joel (51:22.363) and fight this guy. And I feel like lot of other countries will be empowered to say like, not necessarily the emperor has no clothes, but maybe, you know, it's a red tie and a really ugly blue suit instead of you know, emperor's gown. But so I question, know, so I don't think China is backing down. I think this is really focused on China. I don't think they're going to back down. I think this is a, like almost a war of wills. And I question whether America Maureen Clough (51:32.494) I love it, the fashion critique. That was funny. Chad (51:37.404) And a back tattoo. Joel (51:52.293) can suck it up and deal with it because this is not, this is not the generation of our grandparents and great, great grandparents, depending on your age. Look in a year and a year and whatever change, there's going to be another election. and if shit is bad, the Dems will take the house and then we'll be in court again and impeachment and she'll be sucky. China doesn't have that problem. Like there is no reelection. There is no like cycle that they can shit. So Chad (51:54.492) We can't handle pain. Maureen Clough (51:56.3) Mm-mm, we're not doing well. Joel (52:20.557) I question America's ability to stick this out. And whereas a company like Apple can say, okay, we're going to pivot extreme to India. Companies like small businesses that we focused on, like don't have that luxury. So the stress on our system is going to be immense. And I, I question whether or not we can, we can play the long game. Unlike. Maureen Clough (52:24.536) Good point. Maureen Clough (52:40.814) So true. Joel (52:46.821) Dad jokes, which I can play the long game all day, baby. I can go all day. Chad (52:51.752) Oh we know, oh we know. Maureen Clough (52:52.782) Bring us home, baby. Joel (52:54.299) If a man and a woman need a marriage license to get married, what do two lesbians need? If a man and a woman need a marriage license to get married, what do two lesbians need? Chad (53:08.242) Did you buy a lesbian joke book? Because it seems to be like scaling that way for some reason. I'm sorry, go ahead, go ahead. Joel (53:16.003) A Liquor License. Maureen Clough (53:16.206) I got nothing. Maureen Clough (53:21.101) boy. Okay. my God, bye. Chad (53:22.14) We out. Joel (53:22.765) We out!

💼 Indeed vs. ZipRecruiter: The HR tech legal slap fight ends with a conspiracy theory? 🧠 Big Tech's antitrust tour: Meta and Google are getting legally undressed by regulators. 🦾 AI replacing humans: A startup literally called Mechanize  wants to automate everything . But don't worry, the CEO swears it’ll "enrich humanity." Just like trickle-down economics did. 💣 It's either China or SkyNey as Palmer Luckey is back—this time pushing AI weapons. Tune in before the machines take your job and  your podcast mic PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:34.132) Yeah, just counting the days til the Christie Nome OnlyFans account launches. Hi, boys and girls. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Draft Day Cheesman. Chad (00:44.861) This is Chad, antitrust, Sowash. J.T. O'Donnell (00:47.66) And I'm JT. It's finally summer here in New England O'Donnell. Joel (00:52.404) On this episode Indeed drops big tech flops and the AI war machine pops. Let's do this. Chad (01:03.429) Love the weather getting nice before I get out of here. That's, that's beautiful. That's just beautiful. Joel (01:08.02) Does it feel like Portugal or does Portugal have its own sort of feel? Got the ocean breeze there, yeah, the laid back atmosphere. Chad (01:13.671) Yeah. Yeah. Portugal. Yeah. Yeah. It's just an entirely different, it's an entirely different experience, but it is nice. It's going to be 80 degrees here. So that's nice. That's one. Joel (01:22.163) I get it. Joel (01:26.964) It is, it is nice. And I, uh, I'm, participating in my annual half marathon, uh, down in Louisville this weekend and, it's supposed to rain all weekend. enjoy this while it, while it lasts, my 85 year old dad, 85 year old dad is doing a, uh, a 5k on Friday. we'll see, pray for, pray for my father to make it out alive in a 5k. Chad (01:33.411) Chad (01:39.835) You might be running with robots. J.T. O'Donnell (01:46.83) Meanwhile, good for him. Meanwhile, we're breaking 60 here in New England, breaking 60 in New England and sunny. And that means everybody's like shorts, shirts off and walking around with the dunks. You know what mean? It's like, it's a good life. You got it. Yeah. Chad (01:49.607) Thank you. think you're dead. Yeah Chad (01:59.165) Ha ha ha! Joel (02:00.692) Is that Dunkin' Donuts for our non-Northeast listeners? Yeah, I'm sure the Birkenstocks come out. The whale shirts, shirts with the whale in it come out. Chad (02:03.645) The...the dunks. J.T. O'Donnell (02:08.812) It's a vibe. Chad (02:09.981) It's a real vibe. J.T. O'Donnell (02:12.046) Mm-hmm. Chad (02:14.907) Yeah. dude, drafts today too though. Thursday. Thursday. Joel (02:17.78) drafts today and the Browns have a, an epic history of picking really good in the top two or three players. so they have the number two pick today. I'm, I'm going to go with Travis Hunter. I'm fine with, mean, he's probably the best receiver and the best corner in the, in the draft. So that's kind of a unicorn pick. I'm fine with that. Chad (02:22.274) Jesus. Fucking it up. J.T. O'Donnell (02:24.622) you Chad (02:28.241) fucking it up. Chad (02:37.041) Yeah. Yep. he's amazing. He's amazing. Joel (02:42.952) But I'm not sure a Flacco, Kenny Pickett, Deshaun Watson, quarterback trio is what they want to go in with for the full season this year. think they probably pull a quarterback somewhere out of the draft. Chad (02:54.363) Yeah. To think that the Browns could also ruin Travis Hunter, it just makes me sad. It makes me sad. He needs, I mean, he'll play great secondary wise, but he needs somebody to be able to feed him the ball. Deshaun Watson's a mess. I mean, and everybody, it's just, it's a potpourri of quarterbacks at the Browns right now. It's fucking horrible. Joel (03:05.534) Mm-hmm. Joel (03:15.026) Yeah. Yeah, it's, the land of misfit toys at the quarterback room for sure. For sure. J.T. O'Donnell (03:16.92) There's a word, potpourri. Whose grandma house were you at Chad? Chad (03:19.261) you I was being nice. I'm trying to get into Euro Chad mode. Joel (03:31.636) I'm kind of, I'm kind of hoping like for a dark horse, will Howard, pick up at the QB spot. think will Howard is a, he's, will Howard I think is a, is a, he's an uncut gym. I think he could be a solid, at least backup in the league. We'll Chad (03:37.007) god again, you're trying to ruin a good- Chad (03:48.781) He could be, he could be a Josh Allen. He's got the same stats that Josh Allen does. I mean, I mean, just from a physical standpoint, I mean, he's played all the way through, and obviously won a national championship, which Allen didn't do. but I mean, yeah, don't do it Browns, please, please don't do it. Joel (04:07.828) I think you're a little out of control with the, uh, with that comparison, but we'll see. We'll see Tom Brady, right? Go back to the Northeast for JT Tom Brady, greatest ever arguably. Uh, you know. Chad (04:11.409) Comparisons, mean, you know, it's early. It's early, yeah? J.T. O'Donnell (04:16.054) Well, the only way can contribute to this conversation is I'm married to a Raiders fan. He's been a Raiders fan for 40 plus years and it's just so sad every year I just watch him. Chad (04:28.241) Yeah, yeah. Joel (04:28.788) My oldest is a Raiders fan. think just because the jerseys are cool. Just the black and the silver is cool. Yeah, and Vegas is cool. J.T. O'Donnell (04:34.51) And they're in Vegas now. Chad (04:36.145) Yeah, but when we were growing up, Howie Long, man, watching Howie Long just destroy motherfuckers, that was, I mean, you know, that was back in the day when, yeah. Yeah, Marcus Allen. J.T. O'Donnell (04:39.072) Yeah. Joel (04:43.508) Kenny. yeah. Jim Plunkett, Alan, who was the corner with all the goo on his hands. Remember that guy? well stick stick it. No, no, no. Stick them used to be a thing. Remember guys would put stick them like all over their arms and like the ball would just glue to their hands and the Hendrix. No, Jim Hendrix was a linebacker. Anyway, the Raiders had a guy in the eighties who had like stick them all over like his uniform and shoes and Chad (04:52.285) That sounds like a porn. Yeah, I do it. Yeah, was. Yeah. yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (04:58.338) Yeah. Amen. Joel (05:13.396) It got, it got disgusting, disgusting. But yeah, come on Browns. Come on Browns. Do the, do the right thing. Do the right thing. Chad (05:15.312) Nasty. Chad (05:19.697) Yeah. Do the right thing. Don't, don't, don't draft Will Howard. Yes. Yes. Shout outs. Joel (05:24.02) This time a shout out sponsored by our friends up North. Kiora text recruiting made simple and affordable. Chad, what you got this week? Chad (05:29.447) Kiaora! Love it. Well, my shout out is to Shungun, you know him as Roy, Roy Lee, who got kicked out of Columbia for building interview coder AI, which was built to cheat on coding interviews. He raised 5.3 million to build something new. Go ahead, let's roll that beautiful bean footage. You can check it out. J.T. O'Donnell (05:48.76) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joel (05:57.565) Let's go. Chad (06:00.839) Okay, for all those kids not watching on YouTube, guys are out of date. Chad (06:09.787) And he's obviously lying. He's not 30. Chad (06:36.209) So I could see you doing this, Cheeseman. You've got the glasses for it. Chad (06:56.573) Alerts are going off. Joel (07:13.236) Every guy needs this, by the way. Chad (07:14.215) Here he goes. Here he goes. He got it. Chad (07:21.413) as calendar pops up. Chad (07:30.685) Okay, so this guy creates a tech called Cluely, which looks like it's going to pretty much attach to those meta ray bands that Joel owns. Has a heads up display so that you can see it, your date or the person across the table, maybe a company interviewing you, they can't see the answers that are popping up in your glasses. And this guy, again, just got thrown out of Columbia. Joel (07:40.852) Mm-hmm. Chad (07:58.919) for building an interview coder that was helping coders cheat. 5.3 million, yeah. Joel (08:03.262) just got five and a half million dollars, right? To do this thing. Yeah. Do you remember the scene in Terminator where the guy, Arnold's in the hotel room and the guy knocks on the door of the super and he's like, Hey buddy, what are you doing there? And it's like possible responses. And the last one was like, fuck you asshole. he goes, fuck you asshole. That's what that reminded me of. J.T. O'Donnell (08:06.734) You Chad (08:19.291) Yeah. Chad (08:22.919) That's exactly it. That's exactly it. But Roy did say every time technology has made people smarter, the world panics, then it adapts, then it forgets, and suddenly it's normal. The question is, I know guys will think this is normal because we love to cheat, especially on dates, but JT, is this something that, I mean, if you know a guy's wearing glasses, maybe he's got those Ray-Bans on, would you say, okay, J.T. O'Donnell (08:24.322) Yeah, there is a simple fit. Chad (08:50.043) What's happening behind those shades? Joel (08:52.83) post foster grants. J.T. O'Donnell (08:53.0) I mean, literally the first thing I thought of when I watched it is like every girl is just gonna say, your glasses off to talk to me. they say take your glasses off to talk to me, right? I mean, I'm sorry. You're gonna need to make those in contacts. Chad (08:59.709) There you go. There you go. Easy win. Joel (09:04.392) Which, which let's be honest with, with some of the girls I've dated taking off your glasses might be a good thing for some, for some of the guys out there for them as well. Yes. Yes. Bad eyesight has always been an advantage for me. Advantage for me. All right. JT, what you got? Chad (09:10.701) for them as well. Yes, carry on. Chad (09:20.509) J.T. O'Donnell (09:24.366) So my shout out is to the 1,504 people that joined me live last week. We officially launched Pro Voice Talent Agency, which I'm super excited about. Thank you for letting me share it. It's the first white collar talent agency that is repping professionals and helping them land brand and partnership deals. And I will also just say my book came out on Amazon, which I'm so excited about. Yeah, Pro Voice is now live. This is 20 years of my life. The story around how I... Chad (09:44.603) Yeah, pro voice baby. That's awesome. J.T. O'Donnell (09:52.526) got my own pro voice and how I've coached people to get their own pro voices and earn a knowledge paycheck, which is very simply stop being held hostage and trading time for money with a single paycheck. Let us show you how to build multiple income streams so that you've got income diversity and security with a knowledge paycheck. And so that's the is about. Thank you to all those people. The response has been amazing. We have signed a bunch of people already, which is just exceeding all goals and expectations. And I'm just a happy person this week doing what I love and helping people. Chad (10:20.049) Wait! J.T. O'Donnell (10:21.4) you know, build their dream. Yeah, yeah. The agency's launched. Deal, partner deals. It's a good life. Yeah. Chad (10:22.737) great weather, a book's out, you got all this coming together. I love it. I love it. Joel (10:28.776) So help walk me through this real quick. I come to you and I say, I need you to be my agent. What happens? J.T. O'Donnell (10:34.158) So you come to us and first we, you essentially audition by coming into the program and learning how to be a pro voice, right? So you go through the training, you pass, if we see and like what you're doing, we sign you. When we sign you, we put you in a platform that allows you to not only gain followers for free, but monetize those followers. And then through the monetization of those followers, we're able to identify what you could be charging for. What can you be creating in this world that people would pay good money for? So there's a whole journey that we take you through. Chad (10:39.879) There's an audition. Ooh. Chad (10:53.644) that's J.T. O'Donnell (11:03.256) But additionally, we've signed deals with various companies who are looking for white collar talent to do video and to talk about whether it's product services, jobs, for example, shout out to Flockety, amazing partnership with Tracy, so that people can monetize in that way. And it's incredible. I've done it all. One of the big things is I literally showed people in this training that I've done this in under two hours a month. Let me show you how I made money here. I made money here. I made money here using my ProVoice. so that you don't feel held hostage. If you want to keep a day job, keep it, because it's going to give you a lot of great ideas for content. But if you also, over time, want to transition out of it and be paid for what you know, then this is the way to do it. And it's been happening for a long time, but I will say AI has created this incredible moment. The technology that's come available in the last six to eight months is really what pushed my ability to be able to launch this agency confidently, because I won't do anything where I can't make people money. It's got to be there. And the tech really came full circle, something that Chad (11:54.557) Nice. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (11:58.85) would have cost you $2,000 a month to just get started with, probably not seeing any return, is now zero cost. So think about that. We've got the runway to get you up and running and monetizing. And that was the big shift. so very, very exciting times. Both of you would be great pro voices, by the way. Yeah, right? Cha-ching. Joel (12:12.468) You had me at monetizing. And where would I go to find out more? J.T. O'Donnell (12:19.616) Yeah, if you just go to the company work at daily.com and you will see Pro Voice Talent Agency in the menu bar, or quite frankly, it's already ranking on Google. So if you put in Pro Voice Talent Agency, you'll find it there too. Joel (12:22.388) Mm-hmm. Joel (12:30.036) you with the SEO. All right, I'll give you guys one guess at my shout out. Chad (12:30.973) Very nice. J.T. O'Donnell (12:31.512) Yeah. Chad (12:34.193) Food. J.T. O'Donnell (12:34.584) Food. Chad (12:36.797) Cheers. Joel (12:39.796) Shout out to Chipotle this week. They are opening their first location in Mexico. No location has been announced yet, but I didn't know this. Chipotle has 58 restaurants in Canada, 20 in the UK. I didn't know if they had it in the UK. And they have six in France and two in Germany. But to go to Mexico, which is so close, is interesting. Now, word of warning to Chipotle. Taco Bell did this and they failed in Mexico, in China, by the way. Chad (12:57.604) wow. Chad (13:03.655) Yeah. Joel (13:09.256) Panda Express failed in China. So apparently something about Americanized Mexican food failing in Mexico. So can Chipotle knock the trend? Can they buck the trend? I guess we'll see. think it's a black market effort to get avocados under the tariffs. I think there's going to be an underground railroad for Chipotle from Mexico to the, yeah, funnel, they're funneling guacamole avocados from Mexico. Chad (13:11.73) Yeah. Chad (13:28.861) a kind of fun funnel. Yes. Joel (13:36.03) to avoid the terrorists. That's my thought. But shout out to Chipotle. And you know what goes great with a burrito, Chad? yeah. Chad (13:45.063) free t-shirt. You have a nice free Chad and Cheese t-shirt or I don't know maybe some chicken cock. I love that. But first you got to go to chadcheese.com slash free. You can get that t-shirt. You can get that t-shirt. Sponsored by Aaron App, our friends over at Aaron App. Bourbon barrel aged syrup from the boys up north at Keyura. J.T. O'Donnell (13:49.208) you you Joel (13:52.944) yeah. Chad (14:10.769) Craft beer from the Data Geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. Whiskey, chicken cock baby, two bottles. Whiskey from Van Hack. Again, another, another, that's right, Canadian. And then our last Canadian. Jesus Christ, we got Canadians everywhere. If it's your birthday, you're gonna want some rum from Plum, but you can't win if you don't actually register. So go chadcheese.com slash free. Joel (14:29.778) Gotta love it. Gotta love it. Chad (14:40.893) play and win. Joel (14:42.004) That's right, Chad. Another trip around the sun for listeners Duarte Mendonca, Danielle Kozinski, Matt Lozare, Gia Johnston, Chris Brevik, Michael Simon Cowell, Tony Hoban, Joe Samuelson, Scott Lazerman, Yoni Zapiro, Steve Gilbert, Charlotte Marshall, and Lars Schmidt. Happy birthday, everybody. Happy birthday. J.T. O'Donnell (15:03.118) Happy birthday! Chad (15:06.801) Very nice. Then go figure. It's time for events. Events, where's my McGrathic events? Yeah, come on. I feel naked without Steven McGrath talking about events. Joel (15:13.626) Events. Chad (15:23.741) Oh, Steven. Yeah. So thanks to shaker marketing, uh, we're going to be going to unleash in may, may six through the eighth coming up really quick. That's right. We're going to be doing this in Vegas on Wednesday, the seventh. We're going to be, uh, during the morning, we're going to be in the suite and the Cosmo filming the new sessions season with our team, uh, the team over at smart recruiters. Uh, that night we're going to have a film VIP wrap. Joel (15:32.19) Vegas, baby. Chad (15:51.591) party, we'll have more details to come. But this, this again, this, isn't your regular party. We're filming during the day. That's right. Big film wrap at night. then we're going to be hosting two talks in the gem booth, one on Wednesday, the seventh at 3 30 PM Vegas time. And then Thursday morning at 10 30. So don't drink too much chicken cock cheeseman. if you're coming to unleash, look us up. Joel (16:16.869) Mm-hmm. Yeah, good luck with that. Chad (16:19.749) Again, gonna be at the Cosmo in a suite. We're gonna be at Jem in the booth. We'll be around, look for us. And who knows, Joel might be drinking some chicken cocks. Joel (16:29.909) Don't tease him, Chad. Don't tease him now. Chad (16:33.036) It's all about the tease. Joel (16:41.958) All right. How about some Indeed and ZipRecruiter news? Indeed's lawsuit against ZipRecruiter filed in October was dismissed without prejudice. On April 8th, the suit claimed ZipRecruiter made false and misleading statements about Indeed to steal its customers. ZipRecruiter denied the allegations and vowed to contest them. Things ended with no monetary payments or restrictions on Zip's operation. And court documents suggest both companies discussed Chad (16:44.093) Hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (16:45.23) Bye! Joel (17:10.95) an amicable resolution to avoid further litigation. Chad, your thoughts on all this kumbaya between Indeed and ZipRecruiter. Chad (17:20.221) Yeah, I mean, to be fair, when Indeed does clear, they're not clearly messaging to the market and they hardly ever do. But when Indeed does either, you know, poorly articulate or they have a half-baked product like CPSA or CPA, it's really hard for the market to understand what the fuck's going on, let alone competitors. So in this case, what it sounded like is the sales staff was pretty much putting out what they heard. Joel (17:43.22) you. Chad (17:49.711) A version of what they heard. And again, when you have a company like Indeed, who's really not articulating well, they're putting half baked products out on the markets, you know, things could, you know, things could get kind of, kind of shook up. But to me, this messaging from Zippercruter is purely diversionary as they, their own products. They have poor messaging themselves and they have shitty products. Phil. so to To me, this feels like two over-promising and under-delivering competitors trying to divert attention from lackluster product and revenues. It's all a bunch of drama for your mama. Let's get back to business. Joel (18:37.332) JT. J.T. O'Donnell (18:38.35) I think it's financial. It's bad out there right now for them. So do you really want to be wasting money on lawyers? That's pricey. 500 bucks, 1000 bucks an hour. So, you know, I don't think either side really wants to burn their cash when they've got much bigger problems ahead of them, which is, you know, people are dumb with job boards, especially job boards with a lot of bogus jobs. The experience is defined. And if you've been in the market for a long time, the vast majority of job seekers have made up their mind about you. If someone works with job seekers every day. Chad (18:55.773) you do. J.T. O'Donnell (19:07.938) They don't like what's out there. And so, you you've got to figure out how to be new in the space. I would be spending my time and money on looking for hot properties to purchase, you know, the way Metabot and stuff, for example, like this is where you're going to have to redefine yourself. Cause I just think a lot of these brands aren't going to be able to come back. It's too far to find. Joel (19:27.86) So you're saying it's a profit deal, huh? You're saying it's a profit deal. All right, guys, I want to make this real simple. Let me put on my aluminum hat here while I get conspiratorial on you guys. Recruit Holdings buys Indeed. They buy Glassdoor. Zip Recruiter would be the final leg of the stool. J.T. O'Donnell (19:30.22) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (19:37.877) no. no. Chad (19:55.613) You've got Simply Hired. Joel (19:55.796) While this case, while this case was being brought up and being, being, you know, the lawyers go back and forth, somebody recruit holding said, Hey guys, listen, we're buying zip recruiter soon. So let's just sweep this little lawsuit thing under the, under the rug. And then we'll be announcing our acquisition of zip recruiter, you know, in the next year at some point, uh, by the way, zip recruiter stock down 23 % year to date, a market cap of about $580 million. That is couch cushion money for recruit holdings. So, the government's too busy with antitrust with the big tech time for recruit holders to come in, snag up zip recruiter and add it to the stool. That is indeed glass door and soon to be zip recruiter. You heard it here first. Chad (20:41.233) ZipRecruiter's already dying. ZipRecruiter's already dying. mean, what's the use of even buying them? It's like buying Monster Career Builder, which you've also predicted. They're not even a competitor really anymore. They're taking themselves off the board. That's the point. And again, as JT had said, they got their own problems. They got revenue problems. And it's not because of ZipRecruiter. J.T. O'Donnell (20:47.916) Yeah, exactly what I think. Joel (20:50.994) You, you take a competitor off the board, baby. Take a chess piece off the board, just like they did with glass door and they'll put indeed content on there. Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (21:06.818) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (21:10.614) Mm-hmm. That's not the property I meant. Joel (21:12.69) And what's the best time to, what's the best time to buy when there's money problems, when they're, when, when zip is desperate, needs a sugar daddy, who they calling recruit holdings, baby. That's why this, that's why this case is, is swept under the rug. Everybody, everybody. let's, let's keep this thing, litigious. Shall we, meta Chad (21:15.835) What's the best time not to buy is when you're having money problems. Chad (21:24.199) They're probably calling everybody. They're probably calling everybody. Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (21:29.24) Joel (21:37.256) Google, Microsoft, Amazon, all the big tech is in the news, not for all the good reasons. Metaphase is an FTC lawsuit alleging illegal monopolization via Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions with a trial underway and potential divestitures. That's a tongue twister looming. lost two antitrust cases, one for search monopoly, another for ad tech facing remedies like breakups or bans on the horizon. Microsoft fired 2000. J.T. O'Donnell (21:39.85) Yeah. Joel (22:06.494) quote, low performers this week with several with without severance. A memo outlines strict tools, including rehire bands and transfer limits for low scores. More layoffs may hit managers in May at Microsoft and Amazon last but not least is stepping up plans to lower the ratio of mid management executives to lower level employees because they're cheaper. Probably Chad, your take on all things big tech this week. Chad (22:33.5) Yes. Chad (22:37.031) So on the employee side of the house, these companies are huge and they're going to continue to do these things. They feel like they've got control in the market and they do right now. So they're going to continue to really push people out or push them down. Because again, money, if they're out, they're not paying them. If they're pushing down, it's less that they're paying them. But when it comes to the monopolies side or the monopoly side of the house, It's been a long time coming for monopolies. mean, the US government has been asleep at the wheel, allowing some of these app acquisitions to happen. In Google's defense, though, they built search and Chrome, right? And it looks like they might have to divest in Chrome. I mean, Chrome is literally just an extension of Google search. I mean, it's a smart extension, right? It's amazing. YouTube should have never been allowed. It's like it's the number two search engine. Right behind, right behind Google. and then obviously the ad exchanges is, is, a huge issue. Meta on the other hand, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, they've got kind of like this buyer berry mentality and they've talked about it, which was dumb, but they've got this buyer or, or, Barry. but the thing that the two big arguments Zuck has is TikTok, surging and YouTube. which is also seen as another social network, right? So he can kind of like back out on those two. And as we talked about Microsoft, Microsoft has gone through antitrust before they were the last big antitrust company. and they started to engineer cheat codes around antitrust where instead of buying. Microsoft invests large amounts funding startups like open AI. didn't go buy open AI. They just put over a hundred million dollars in. Joel (24:18.612) Mm-hmm. Chad (24:35.707) Right? So this allows Microsoft the oversight and control without the worry of antitrust. So I guess, you know, the big question for me is how in the hell do they get around this? Cause this is, mean, this is, this is still market manipulation. and then you can talk about Apple. obviously they hold a 55 % market share, on search on mobile because go figure the iPhone and then Amazon. mean, Joel (25:00.808) Mm-hmm. Chad (25:03.897) Amazon just owns the whole damn system for God's sake. So we need antitrust and we need it now. J.T. O'Donnell (25:17.486) I think you covered that. can't, I don't know, yes to all that you said there on that whole side of it. think it's fascinating. I'll be interested to see who buys Chrome. I really think that a lot of people, I think, would love to get their hands on Chrome. For me, the big thing was what, Microsoft is laying the groundwork for what I think a lot of these companies are gonna do, which is you're fired and you can't come back for two years. And I think that is lost on a lot of people what that means. It's really easy now in an interview to be like, oh, you just got laid off from Microsoft? Did you get severance? Joel (25:17.566) JT. Chad (25:34.397) Mm-hmm. Chad (25:45.787) Yeah. No. J.T. O'Donnell (25:47.374) It's not an illegal question. It's not an illegal question, folks. Right? So there you go. When you can't say yes, guess what? I know you're not welcome back there. I know you've got let go for performance. This stuff is real. We don't understand that these companies get to decide. And this is one of the reasons I've been talking to people for so long. Stop outsourcing your brand to your employer. Joel (25:47.86) That's crazy. That's a brand. That's a brand shot in the foot for Microsoft. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (26:10.702) Everybody sits around their resume and says, want these companies on my resume. That's your brand. You allow them to manipulate you. And so I get worried with these people that feel like they have to work with these big companies and they want to have all these pedigrees because it's not doing what it used to anymore. And it really can set you up for something like this. These people worked for Microsoft so they could run around and say, I work for Microsoft. And now I'm going to have people coming to my doorstep saying, can I hide that, JT? How do I deal with that? So much bigger ramifications than people realize. Joel (26:42.174) Love it. Joel (26:45.492) So my favorite part about this whole story is how Big Tech, kissed Trump's ass, went to the inauguration, wrote big checks. And then when, when Metta, gets its feet to the fire, Zuckerberg offers $450 million, on a $30 billion, penalty, right? so like, let's take a huge discount and then, Trump and, and, the FTC, guess. Chad (26:58.941) Mm-hmm. Chad (27:05.863) Chomp change. Yes. Joel (27:14.994) said no. Zuck calls Trump apparently meets with them in some form or fashion moves his offer from 450 million to 1 billion. And Trump says no. So like after all this ass kissing and probably doing like bending over backwards for the government when they want information or terrorist stuff, like, like for, like for the government to just say like, fuck it. Nope. You're on the hook for 30 bucks. So that's the, that's my favorite part about this whole story is how Zuckerberg and Metta like did everything they thought they should be doing to get like a pass and got screwed on Google. Man, Google has, think six products with a billion plus users. And it's, I think it's less about monopoly than it's just good stuff. Like they just have a better search engine. They have a better browser. They have the best, video play and they're, they're been competitors in the past. Chad (27:49.373) Mm-hmm. Joel (28:11.796) so it's, hard to me, to give Chrome away or divest Chrome is a throw away that to me, that's like, okay, we'll, we'll give up something. YouTube probably would be a better product as a standalone company. Like I do, I do believe YouTube is held back a little bit by Google, but a lot of the other stuff, docs and Gmail, like, I think it just works and people use it. So I, and like you said, Chad, to Microsoft, this is the, this is the playbook. Chad (28:22.407) Mm. Yes. Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (28:25.986) you. Chad (28:40.893) Yeah, it's new. Joel (28:41.266) launch it, go hard, flood the zone. And then by the time the government and the legal system figures it out, you've already got 90 % of the market and you can kind of call the shots from there. think JT crystallized or set the table for what Microsoft's doing pretty well. Amazon is interesting to me. And we'll talk a little bit about AI taking over later in the show, but there's not a company Chad (29:03.943) Mm-hmm. Joel (29:09.008) out there that's trying to do more with less. I think that middle management piece is going, and JT, talk about the white collar worker and the knowledge-based worker all the time, and this is, we're seeing it, right? This is the knowledge-based middle man getting squeezed out, going for less expensive workers. And I think that is a pretty interesting development at Amazon. J.T. O'Donnell (29:30.446) The executive wasteland is enormous right now. It's just littered with people who thought if I just do good work and climb that ladder, I'm going to be the one that survives, right? And now look who's losing their jobs. It's crazy. Chad (29:34.593) I bet. Joel (29:42.579) Mm-hmm. Chad (29:42.907) Yeah. Yeah. Well, you take a, you take a look at before all the layoffs, I mean, it was bloated. I mean, it was bloated and, I think, you know, being able to, and, and, and hopefully you get, get a lot of these executives and they turn around and they, have new startups. I mean, hopefully this leads to more innovation. Right? So you take a look at two things. First and foremost, you're getting rid of some of those individuals and hopefully they go out and create their own innovative organizations. And then you have the antitrust, you split them up and hopefully there's much more innovation because they are split up, right? One thing that gets me the most though, and I wanted to mention this, is that we always give China shit for stealing IP. I mean, always. That's one of the things that everybody, every business person talks about. What about how Amazon plays around the edges with IP? They develop products that are on their platform, they duplicate those products, but they go around the IP edges, right? And then they sell against the originals who are on their platform. And then they rank above them. Right? So, I mean, this, this to me, mean, if Google is easy, Microsoft, mean, Facebook, you know, they're having some issues with, obviously YouTube and, and Tik TOK, but Amazon shit, that is a not, that's, that's a shot out of the park. then add AWS on top of that. Jesus. I mean, it just seems, it seems easy. I don't know why we're so slow other than we're lazy. Joel (31:12.468) Hmm. Joel (31:18.996) By the way, there's an article in Quartz talking about how Gen X is getting screwed again. They started our careers in a recession, dot bomb, 2008, mortgage crisis, COVID, and now like robots are taking over. And in our older years where we should be making the most money possible, now is when all the robots come and AI comes and takes all the jobs. And while we're the most, the highest paid people, guess who gets screwed? Guess who gets nothing. Chad (31:24.349) You Chad (31:30.813) Mm-hmm. Chad (31:50.095) And guess who got it all? The fucking boomers got it all. Fucking boomers. Joel (31:51.39) Gen X once again. Fucking boomers. All right, let's take it. The, yeah, the silver tsunami, the silver tsunami, all the, all the laundromats that are going to be handed down to, to the lucky, the lucky people. Yeah. Yeah. Let's take a quick break. Come back. We'll talk about more doomsday AI stories. J.T. O'Donnell (31:53.302) and That's okay. There's a great wealth transfer coming. We're good. We're good. Chad (31:59.078) That's what I'm hearing. Chad (32:07.483) And homes, yeah. Joel (32:18.964) All right, guys, a recent survey of 84 C-suite executives found by Spark and Missions revealed entry level positions for college grads are being eliminated at 52 % of companies. That's one out of two for people who aren't good at math like me. The survey also revealed that execs believe 51 % of grads lack verbal communication and presentation skills, while 50 % lack problem solving and critical thinking abilities. What's more, a recent Indeed survey says more than a third of workers regret earning a college degree. yeah, and a startup called Mechanize launched this week promising to quote, the full automation of all work, end quote. JT, the kids are not all right. What's your take on the future of entry level jobs for college grads, college in general, and human work totally disappearing? J.T. O'Donnell (33:06.264) Yeah. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (33:13.294) Yeah, so first of all, I would agree completely. We're seeing that there are no jobs for college grads. As someone who works with, you know, I always have friends that I've grown up with, can you coach my child? The articulation thing is a real problem. I'll get them senior year of college and then we'll get them in their first job and then more recently their second. And the way that they communicate with that two year time in the workplace, significantly different, right? So we do have a really true issue there. And I think any parent listening here today needs to understand that. your child in order to graduate and get a job is you're going to have to focus on those communication skills big time. College degree thing, we've been talking about that for a while. I'm just seeing so many young people get in and decide to not finish. And again, my youngest daughter just took a semester off. Junior in college, she's making six figures a month in her business. So she took a semester off to say, I think I need to work on the business mom. I'm like, six figures a month? Yeah, you probably do. That's crazy, crazy business money. Joel (34:12.532) Not a month, a year. 100K a month? 100K a month? She's making 100K a month. What? All right, say more. J.T. O'Donnell (34:20.16) Yes. Yeah. So do I need to say anymore? And so she's like, is it makes sense to go to I can probably finish mom community college online. Yeah, she probably can. So you just have to ask yourself, they have so much access to information and knowledge. They have no bad habits. They have no preconceived notions. your kid, you know what she does do? She's watched every episode of Shark Tank. So there are going to be. young people out there that need to go at it a different way. And if you're a parent out there listening and your kid saying, think I can make money doing this, give them a shot, because there's no jobs for them to get when they graduate right now. And that's going to be that way for a little bit here. So teach them to be entrepreneurs. Their business is one. Joel (35:02.686) God, I'm a loser. God, I'm a loser. I'm sitting here talking to you idiots with an aluminum foil hat on my head. Chad (35:04.065) Yeah. Look at that. Look at, look, look at the hat you got. Yeah. I mean, this is on you, man. This is on you. Joel (35:12.692) I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque or something. I don't know what. Chad (35:16.029) Bugs Bunny, good one. So around these kids not being able to get any of these skills, this is the problem of the system. We don't have mentorship and development like we used to. We don't. And then now we take a look at education and then we look at it as bad. Are you fucking kidding me? That's because the system's fucked up. Because we have... Joel (35:18.654) Yeah, fuck's funny. Chad (35:44.997) We have charged way too damn much and put all these kids in debt. Right? And then, well, wait a minute, before we did that, blue collar jobs were bad. Right? You don't want to be blue collar jobs. You want to go into college. Well, then everybody went into college and then they charged the shit out of them. Right? So, I mean, this is a systemic problem from the top down. And this is about fucking workforce. Period. This is all about workforce. And if we don't have people right now, Understand robots are coming. If we don't have people doing the jobs, you're not going to get the revenues. It's just not going to happen. To the mechanize. So they talk about full automation of work and full automation of the economy. Okay. So when you hear something like that, you think of the clarinus CEO, right? Who's just bullshitting and he's doing that for pre IPO buzz, right? It's all pre IPO PR buzz. Well, the difference is that the mechanize founder Joel (36:28.948) in. Chad (36:40.413) and see CEO to may Bursa Bursa glue. That's a hard one. He's not a slouch lives in the Bay Area, still an associate director at epoch AI, a company that is in big letters on their website, quote, investigating the trajectory of AI for the benefit of society. What the hell does that mean? Well, epoch analyzes the economic impact of AI. and produces benchmarks for AI performance for companies like OpenAI. They do a much better job of sequencing those types of things. So before he was at Epoch AI, the CEO, he was a research scientist at MIT. Yes, MIT. Then before that, he was also a research intern at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford. Yes, at Oxford. He also had a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge. This guy's no slouch, okay? So at the end of the day, you want to think of market potential just in the US, right? Because they're looking at agentic and they're looking to actually take over human jobs. There's estimated $18 trillion. in aggregate wages just in the US alone. So this is where I call bullshit. He said, and he argues, that having agents do all the work will actually enrich humans, not impoverish them, through economic explosion, explosive economic growth. Okay, so this guy is fucking killing me. He doesn't understand that the only... He can't make trickle down work. We haven't been able to make trickle down work. AI is not going to make trickle down work. This is lunacy. The problem is we have incredibly smart people who have these visions that are out there and they just don't align with reality. That's a problem. We talked about it, about mentorship, development, education, blue collar. That was all vision. It all went to shit. This is the same kind of stuff, man. Long diatribe. Joel (38:56.744) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (39:06.424) I have great faith in the creator economy though. I do. just, economy, right? I say that word because you see how it's, for example, TikTok in China is not our TikTok. It's an educational platform. It's where people are just learning and absorbing all sorts of things. And when I think about the creator economy that's coming upon us and how people could teach what they know, learn from others, and that becomes a monetization center. I do see a world where that's pretty exciting and that there's a lot of opportunity there. What I struggle with is how many jobs are being lost until that innovation, you said it best, the bigger the disruption, the bigger the innovation. We've seen that historically, but they never coincide at the same time. So we're in, we're going to a lot of pain here for a while. We're going to have a lot of pain here, but I think I am ultimately an optimist and as someone who is seeing the possibilities and actually executing on them in the creator economy and seeing what we all can do. I mean, you're part of the creator economy right here with this podcast. it's incredible. what I think we'll be able to do and that's exciting and interesting to people. You know, like I'd rather use my brain that way than to do that stuff that doesn't light me up. So I guess I'm overly optimistic but I see an incredible future ahead, pain for a while but then a really interesting future ahead. Chad (40:14.781) I think it's amazing. I don't think it's enough to actually bridge the gap that we're actually heading into. I think it's gonna be good for some people. It's not gonna be good for the greater good period of all those people. It's just too big. Joel (40:32.852) I bring up my new, uh, Tik Tok fascination. It's, called, it's called friendliest catch. And they catch these crabs that have barnacles growing on them and they, they pinch off the barnacles. It's like dermatology meets with the wild kingdom. It's, fascinating stuff. And there's another guy that does it with lobsters. So barnacles grow on these lobsters. They pick them off. It's great. It's great. It's awesome. Learning. No learning. No entertained. Chad (40:36.388) good God. J.T. O'Donnell (40:36.782) Bring it. Chad (40:43.516) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (40:58.22) Incredible. Monetization of what you know, right there. But still good. They're getting paid per click. Paid per click. Paid per click. That's it. You know, you get a million views. That's not jump change. Chad (41:02.045) going to say, how do they make money doing that? That's what it is. Yes. Joel (41:03.558) Entertained, yes. Chad (41:10.749) And then you sell that crab on top of it. you're double dip. Oh yeah, they throw them back into a net. No, they throw them back into a net. Joel (41:14.738) They throw them back in. throw them back in. It's a party. put them on the operating table. They clip the barnacles off and it's like, Hey buddy, they even give them a little snack when they throw them back in. It's great. Friendliest catch. it out. By the way, since this is a recruiting show for the most part, Kevin Wheeler, friend of the show, had an article on his sub stack recently. It was really good. want to quote what he said. I am tired of hearing AI won't take your job, but someone using AI will. J.T. O'Donnell (41:17.398) You give them names, you do memes, merch. Joel (41:41.63) This is false reassurance for recruiters. AI isn't just automating tasks. It's dismantling everything recruiting has been based on. The role isn't evolving. It's disappearing. Wow. That, that got my attention. Chad (41:57.373) That's a deeper discussion. I don't agree, but yeah. Joel (42:01.894) All right. Let's take a quick break. If you like what you're hearing, make sure you go leave us a positive review or a negative view. We don't care. We just like reviews. subscribe to our YouTube channel or slide in our DMS. I don't know. Do something, whatever the kids are doing these days, whatever the kids are doing. Yeah. Sign up for free stuff. we love you. Go buy, go to work at daily by JT stuff, buy your kids stuff like she needs any more money. Good God. We'll be right back. Chad (42:14.961) Chatcheese.com slash free. Get a t-shirt. Chad (42:24.669) Pro Voice book. Joel (42:30.452) All right. I'm calling this the word doomed segment of the show because it's been so happy go lucky up to this point. right. Palmer lucky and Dural founder urges the US to heavily invest in weapons, arguing that quote Pandora's box and quote was opened decades ago with autonomous systems like anti radiation missiles. The hell is that? Speaking at a Ted live event, he warned that failing to advance AI weaponry. risks China surpassing the US in a future autonomous weapons race. and I mentioned my half marathon this week. I'm in big trouble too, because these robots run. More than 20 robots raced against thousands of human runners this week in a half marathon in Beijing organized to showcase China's advances in humanoid technology. Chad, this isn't your military. from 40 years ago and it's not the world you joined 53 years ago. What are your thoughts? Chad (43:29.937) So robots running half marathons, I mean, that's just an effort to humanize and normalize. mean, you get it, right? They are testing, don't get me wrong, but they also want to normalize what we're seeing. Lucky, he has three major messages that he can use in this endeavor for him to make more and more and more money. Fear, China's gonna beat us to the next super weapon. That's scary, that's fearful. Hearts and minds. Americans don't need to die on the battlefield, right? That's win hearts and minds. Hey, allow the robots to do it. They don't need to do it. And then history. This is probably the most scary. So from a historical sense, Lucky's right. There are definite innovations and technologies that helped us win wars, tanks, airplanes. And what if Germany or Japan beat us to developing the atomic weapon in World War II, right? If you haven't seen Man in the High Castle, go watch Man in the High Castle. I don't believe he's right, or I do believe he's right, but I believe we should be developing these weapons under strict oversight. Elon can turn on and off Starlink at will. That should not be allowed and should be under government's oversight, period. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as DARPA, you know, the, agency that developed the internet GPS drones and a variety of advanced robotic systems, they should be leading in watching these efforts, not allowing guys like Musk and lucky to prospectively burn the goddamn world down. Joel (45:19.892) JT. J.T. O'Donnell (45:21.414) I just don't think I can add beyond it. It's just so your brain, we've all seen enough movies. Your just brain goes to those extremely dark places with what this can be used for and you know, in all of those movies, it didn't end well for us. So, you know, I, yeah, I don't even want to belabor it. I'll let you, you take it over with that beautiful hat of yours. Yeah. Joel (45:41.896) Not just movies, but real life, which brings us to this week's. Chad (45:48.413) my favorite. Joel (45:49.204) All right. Let me take you back to September 1939, known as an event known as the charge at Grahonti. Poland on horseback charges the German armored resistance or invading force. I'll let you guess how that ended for them. Not very well. A lot of dead soldiers and a lot of dead horses. Poland was fighting a war from 1914. Chad (45:58.706) Mm-hmm. Joel (46:16.436) Germany was fighting a brand new war and technology almost always wins in a military conflict. So it makes perfect sense to be very afraid that China or Russia's or North Korea's AI is better than ours and we have nothing to fight back against it. The challenge, what's going to be interesting is can AI disable nuclear weapons? I'm speaking science fiction. I don't know. There are people smarter than me. Can they, can they put some gamma rays, some crazy shit like, star wars base space force like knock some nuclear weapons? I don't know. But if, if the world has been a pretty safe place when everyone knows that mutual assured destruction is going to happen, we've all been kind of cool. We've all been kind of playing it on the low key. But if somebody gets a weapon that they say, Chad (46:53.095) Hawk. Chad (47:07.367) Mm-hmm. Joel (47:13.394) we can eliminate the nuclear threat. It's going to be bad for the sides that don't have that technology. I, I totally, totally appreciate where he's coming from from there. So sonar, what was it? Radar gun missile. I don't know what the hell is going on. Yeah, I don't, I don't really do military stuff that well, but dad jokes, dad jokes. I do. I do pretty well guys. J.T. O'Donnell (47:18.414) you Chad (47:29.649) Radar gun missile. Chad (47:36.146) Yeah. Chad (47:39.973) is your weapon of choice. Yes, yes. Joel (47:41.596) Yeah, this is my deadly weapon. Weapon of mass destruction, if you will. All right, guys. What's the hardest part about eating a vegetable? What's the hardest part about eating a vegetable? Chad (47:56.797) There's so much iron in the vegetable. Joel (48:00.766) putting them back in the wheelchair. Chad (48:03.325) come on, man. That's so bad. So bad. Joel (48:06.406) We out. J.T. O'Donnell (48:06.892) Me out. J.T. O'Donnell (48:11.554) Just kidding.

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!

What do you get when you mix a Shark Tank alum, a silicone baby mat, and a $230K tariff bill? A broken supply chain, that's what. In this dollars-and-sense  edition of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, Beth Benike—CEO of Busy Baby—joins the boys to explain how a product designed to keep sippy cups off the floor is now caught in a global trade war. From American factories ghosting her, to Chinese partners defending her IP with literal raids , Beth's entrepreneurial journey is part "How I Built This" and part "Game of Thrones." We talk: 💸 Tariffs that double product costs overnight 🍼 Baby shower gifts priced like luxury handbags 🚫 Walmart contracts vs. reality 🇺🇸 The myth of "Made in America" for small businesses 🤯 And why your kid’s Christmas might look more 1970 than 2025 No politics. Just cold, hard manufacturing math—and one mother’s mission to keep America from running out of bibs. 🎄 📦 Tune in before the shelves go empty. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:31.086) What's up boys and girls, this is the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Cheesman join as always, writing in the shotgun position is Chad. So wash as we welcome Beth Benike, CEO of a little business called Busy Baby, to the podcast. Beth, welcome to HR is most dangerous podcast. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (00:51.27) Welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Chad (00:54.388) She's been on Shark Tank. She's been on Guy Razz's How I Built This. I mean, this is, she's used to this. Joel (00:54.828) The pleasure and honor is all ours. Joel (01:03.63) CNN, yeah, it's all pregame. It's all pregame to the Super Bowl, which is our show, Beth. So everything you've done before this is just getting you prepared for this show. aside from the media properties that you've been on recently, a lot of our listeners will not know who you are. Give us the elevator pitch on you and what Busy Baby is. Chad (01:10.112) chat and she's podcasting. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (01:28.577) Yeah, I'm Beth. I am a mom who was in the army, had a kid when I turned 40, and came up with an idea for a baby product and took that product to market, got to go on Shark Tank with it, finally found some success about seven years in now and had my legs cut out from under me this week when tariffs were announced. That sums it up, I think, pretty quick. Joel (01:51.118) What is the product? Beth Benike - Busy Baby (01:53.901) So the Busy Baby Mat is the original product I came out with and it's just a very simple concept. It's a silicone place mat that serves as a clean place for baby's food. It's suctioned down to your high chair, your restaurant table, and then it has a tether system that allows you to hook up baby's toys. Since the invention of that first product, my brother and I, my brother quit his job joining the business. We've expanded to eight products that are all interchangeable, all designed to keep things within reach off the ground at home and on the go. Chad (02:21.75) Nice. Joel (02:22.37) chance I've been a customer at some point, or maybe one of my wives has been a customer at one. Chad (02:28.566) Yeah, you would have been a good husband if you would have bought one for yourself. So you didn't have to pick that stuff up when you were at the restaurant. Yes. Horrible husband. So we don't want to talk about politics this podcast. We want to talk about dollars and cents. And everybody's talking about how we want to be able to help entrepreneurs, small business people like yourself, to be able to thrive. Right? And so we want to be able to dig into the dollars and cents. You talk about Joel (02:33.816) Horrible husband, Horrible husband. Decent podcaster, though. Chad (02:56.692) This being a Silicon Place mat. So the first order of business for me is why did you choose to be able to start manufacturing in China? Why, what were the decisions behind that? Cause obviously there has to be a lot of research. have to take a look at cost margins, all those things, all the business things that you have to do when you're starting a business. So help us understand, get into your head when you were in those early, early decision-making process and research. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (03:24.685) You know, honestly, it wasn't a choice. There was no choice. I looked in America as a 10-year army veteran. I wanted nothing more than my products and everything about my business to be made America. And I actually further wanted it made in Minnesota. I worked with a factory here for 18 months. They tried to develop their own material because at that time, the biggest and first problem was the raw material was cost prohibitive because it's imported. It does not exist in the US. So that's the first problem. The material. Chad (03:27.413) Really? Chad (03:52.575) Wow. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (03:53.271) does not exist here. Silicone is made from silica, which is a very fancy pure sand, and it's actually very plentiful in the US. We just don't mine it. It's not usable. It's under the ground. So that's number one. Number two is factories in the US have to run very large volumes because obviously it's more expensive to manufacture here. They have to buy material in massive quantities to get price discounts. Chad (04:06.912) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:21.79) Beth Benike - Busy Baby (04:22.153) And so they can't do an opening order of a couple thousand units for a company. It just doesn't make sense for them, for their business model. And I get that. Exactly. But at the same time as a startup, a mom of an infant working a full time job, I couldn't commit to the two million dollar minimum, which I just was offered this week, to work with a factory because now, you know, things are happening. Chad (04:30.987) scale. Chad (04:43.627) What? Beth Benike - Busy Baby (04:47.851) back to looking at US manufacturing. I talked to, we have requirements as well. Because we're making products that are made for babies, that has to be done in a clean environment. Most silicone factories are making O-rings and like parts for cars. They're not, it's not clean sterile environment. We need to have that clean environment. We also have a special kind of manufacturing. It's not injection, it's a press. It's a different type of machine. It's not common in manufacturing in the US. So when we do find someone who can do it, that's the... Joel (04:48.078) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:56.533) Yes. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (05:16.637) a challenge in itself and then to have that conversation with them like this week because I've gotten so much media, they're reaching out to me saying, hey, we can do what you're talking about. And as we furthered the conversation, they said, well, our minimum contract is $2 million a year. In the six years I've been making this stuff, I've never made a total of $2 million worth of product. So there's no way I could commit to a one-year contract of $2 million. It makes sense for them that that's what they have to do. I'm not mad at Joel (05:18.412) Mm-hmm. Joel (05:38.008) though. Yeah. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (05:46.069) added, it's just not a feasible option for me. Joel (05:49.166) And currently right now you have $30,000 of product in China. And what would it take to get it here? What are you going to do with it? Like what? Where do we go from here? Chad (05:49.302) Yeah, Beth Benike - Busy Baby (05:55.201) Mm-hmm. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (06:02.539) have $158,000 of product in China. The $30,000 that I think you might be thinking of is what we budgeted for a reasonable tariff. So we did not have any tariffs prior to this administration. We knew what they were coming, so we budgeted. A reasonable tariff is 20 to 30%. So that would have, you know, we were at 20%. I think that's around $30,000. So we were budgeting for that. Our tariff right now is almost $230,000. Chad (06:06.655) Wow. Chad (06:16.907) Mm-hmm. Chad (06:26.24) Mm-hmm. Chad (06:31.358) And the product cost what? Beth Benike - Busy Baby (06:32.908) 158. Chad (06:35.286) Ooh, so, okay, a couple of things. First and foremost, that is ridiculous. Second, what would you have to price those products at when they would actually get here in the U.S. if you did have the money, right? If you did have the financing, what would you have to price them at compared to where they're priced at now? Beth Benike - Busy Baby (06:58.317) I mean, it more than doubles our cost. So the rule of thumb when you have a CPG product that you want to take to market is you need to be able to sell that product for four times what it costs you to make it. Because you have all these other expenses like payroll for the people who help you run your company, insurance. I pay $50,000 a year in general product liability insurance because I have a product for babies and that's a requirement. Chad (07:11.52) Okay. Joel (07:16.174) Mm-hmm. Chad (07:24.598) Mm-hmm. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (07:26.637) marketing to let people know your products exist. I'm sure most of the people on your show have never heard of me or Busy Baby, have no idea what it is because it's very expensive to market your products and let people know they exist. There's a lot of other costs. So when you're doing the basic math, if you have an idea for a product and you're like, hmm, wonder if I could have a business out of this, you find out what it takes to make it and you multiply that times four. And if you can't sell it for that much, at least it's not going to be a profitable business, right? So my product cost now would be closer to $15, maybe just a little under $15. So the product that is normally 30 is going to go up to just under 60. Chad (08:05.738) Mm-hmm. Chad (08:11.606) Wow. And we're talking about, for the most part, and you have to understand the consumer that you're actually selling to. For the most part, these are first time, you know, and they're young and they don't have a lot of money and they got to pay for a lot of other stuff. So this, to me, this is like a luxury item to some extent. And if they're buying it for, you 30, they might be able to swing that, but to Beth Benike - Busy Baby (08:23.84) New parents, Chad (08:39.178) to be able to take a look at how prices are actually going up and especially I would assume on the infant side and then being able to take a look at this as a luxury item that to me seems like a marketing issue as well. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (08:53.433) I mean, it's just an impossibility right now. There's so many new expenses that come with having a baby. Diapers, formula, cages to put them in, all the things. Chad (09:00.736) Yeah. Joel (09:03.255) we know. We know, Beth. We know. Many times over. Chad (09:06.12) Ha ha! Beth Benike - Busy Baby (09:08.596) So my products typically are at a price range of $10 to $30. They're very accessible and they provide a lot of value. Not only are they convenient to have and they keep babies busy so you can do other things like maybe eat your own food while it's still warm, but they're developmentally beneficial as well. We have occupational therapists using our products in their therapies with kids and teaching babies to learn how to self-feed. They're very useful. And they're at a price... a very reachable price point. Like if you think about giving a baby shower gift, maybe it's not the new parents. Maybe you have a friend having a baby and you have to get a baby shower gift. That $30 to $50 price range is the most common price range people are willing to spend on their baby shower. Now, if I take that one item and double it, I'm now out of baby shower gift range for the people who don't have that new baby expense. I'm definitely out of the range for people with the new babies. Chad (09:49.653) Mm. Joel (10:01.144) Do you sell into like Walmart, Target, or is it all online? Like I can get your products everywhere. do you think happens at Walmart when everything doubles in price one day? Like I have a hard time wrapping my head around because people still need to buy stuff. don't think that, I don't think people understand the gravity of what's coming. Put it in your own words because you live this. What should we be expecting from in the retail market in America and you know, coming in? four to six months. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (10:32.395) Yeah, I mean, probably empty shelves if nothing changes. I, as of this morning, Tuesday morning, I know Walmart is going to talk to the president today because there's probably hundreds of other suppliers like me who reached out to my buyer and said, I'm sorry, I can no longer supply you with my products once I run out of what I have in my warehouse because it's just not possible. We are locked into pricing with Target. We are locked into pricing with Walmart. So just because my costs go up, doesn't mean anything. I still have to provide them, I'm contractually obliged to provide them with the product at the price we agreed to, which did have that 20 % tariff built in, not 145%. So now Walmart's probably heard from enough of people like me that we can't continue to sell you this stuff at this price that they have to go talk to the president themselves. Joel (11:23.96) So that's great to know. It's less about double pricing than no product at all, because you guys are in contract to price these things at what Walmart agreed to. It's going to look like post-USSR Russia looking for food and goods. That's scary. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (11:28.236) Yeah. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (11:32.075) Yeah. Yeah. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (11:37.515) Yeah. And Joel, here's a fun fact for you. 80 % of our country's toys and games come from China. So this right now is the time of year we start production for Q4. Nobody is producing anything right now. We are all paused because nobody knows what the heck is happening or what's going to happen. And we can't invest in the manufacturing for our Q4 products if we don't even know if we can bring them back to our own country. So now you're looking at potential delays. Chad (11:50.436) Mm-hmm. Joel (11:54.222) Mm-hmm. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (12:07.423) and empty shelves during Christmas because Joel (12:10.382) And that's great because the narrative we're hearing, or at least I am, is it's going to go from a dozen presents to 10. But it's not a financial issue, it's an accessibility issue. You're saying there won't even be toys to buy. Chad (12:22.143) I guess both. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (12:24.449) No, we're not producing anything right now. We're supposed to be producing our Q4 stuff right now. We are paused completely. If we get into it, I'm going down a different path and I'm to start production for Europe. But yeah, we're all, everybody's paused right now. Chad (12:36.598) I Chad (12:40.758) Well, I mean, if you, if you think about it, the 80 % of toys that are coming over that do get tariffed more than likely, they're not going to make it to the shelves. If they do make it to the shelves, they're going to be at a different price. And that means all the prices are, have been going up in the first place. So we have less buying power as Americans. So we were going to buy less presents in the first place, Joel. Now, now. Prices are going up even more on those. So you talk about 10 instead of 12. Now it's more like two, possibly, right? Joel (13:13.294) They're going to be a bunch of Gen Xers running around with sticks as toys in the street. It's going to be back to 1970. Chad (13:15.926) That's what we did. I don't see that happening though. So, okay. So there's this big push for bringing manufacturing back and you have actually done the work. You've done the math. You said earlier, you've actually talked to manufacturing facilities and companies to be able to say, okay, look, we want to be able to do that here, but they're not... Beth Benike - Busy Baby (13:32.205) Yep. Chad (13:44.586) That's just not an option because of $2 million can't do it. You've also priced out what it would take for you to buy machines and manufacture yourself and turn yourself into this manufacturing entity. Is that feasible? Beth Benike - Busy Baby (13:59.821) No, not even close. In fact, yesterday, my brother and I went down to a silicone factory about half hour away from where warehouse is. And it's a factory that's been there for over 20 years, almost 30 years. And they manufacture some medical parts that are made out of silicone. So we went down to see their operation. Wonderful, wonderful, smart men and very helpful. Chad (14:02.133) What have been up? Chad (14:09.654) Mm. Chad (14:19.158) Mm-hmm. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (14:25.639) and they walked us through their new set up because they just invented a new product, they created all the machines from scratch, they're doing everything 100 % made in America. And it's very impressive. And for that one product, in the last year, it cost them $4.5 million to build out their manufacturing for that one product. Chad (14:50.902) Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. So if you are a big company and you have cash, right? And you have cash or you can, you can, you obviously you can go and actually get big loans. That's one thing, but we're talking about small businesses here. Small businesses don't have the ability to get that leveraged because I mean, they're pretty much leveraged from day one as it is. So to be able to continue leveraging and over leveraging, it's just not an option. So what does it actually cost? And you price this out to actually bring a machine here. Where would it come from? Go through that whole process when you were thinking about actually setting up operations here in the U Beth Benike - Busy Baby (15:25.602) Yeah. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (15:28.961) Yeah, so keep in mind I have eight products. So this is just the numbers for one, the Hero product, the Busy Baby Matz, Acetone Shark Tank. That product uses eight different machines in the process of its creation. I could get those machines from China, which is where they're made because that's where the manufacturing happens. They do not exist in the US. They are not made in the USA. Chad (15:51.06) Mm-hmm. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (15:57.549) Those machines I could probably get for just under half a million dollars. If I bought them outside of China, they would be 1.4 million for the same machines. So, okay, let's get them from China because that's cheaper. Oh, wait, we have to add on 145 % tariff to that cost. So now we're back over a million. So right there, that's a dead end. I can't afford that. Joel (16:09.55) Mm-hmm. Joel (16:14.286) You Beth Benike - Busy Baby (16:25.431) but then also still have to import the raw material. Again, also tariffed. But let's just say I have magical money tree. Actually, I do have a money tree in my office, and that's not the obstacle. Well, now I need someone to set this up and operate it. Where's the expertise? I'm not going on LinkedIn and finding a silicone manufacturing expert looking for a job right now. So who's going to set it up? Who's going to do the maintenance? Who's going to make sure the thing runs smoothly? But let's just say magically, the manufacturing fairy drops a guy. Joel (16:29.838) Mm-hmm. Joel (16:44.608) What? What? Beth Benike - Busy Baby (16:54.861) that can do that, or a girl. Now I gotta do keep up with production. So that one line can produce just over 100 mats per day. I sell more than that in a day. So that one line isn't gonna be enough. I'm gonna have to have a minimum of two of those production lines just to keep up with my current sales. Chad (17:09.354) How many machines then? Chad (17:18.656) That doesn't, it has nothing to do with growth. I mean, you stay, you want, you want to grow. Yeah. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (17:21.227) No, but the goal for me is to grow. Yeah, I want to go from 250 Walmarts to 4,000 Walmarts. Well, now I'm going to need 50 of those lines. It's it's not feasible for me at this point. Small businesses are not going to bring manufacturing back to the US. We can't. We're paycheck to paycheck. Joel (17:29.912) Yeah. Joel (17:38.574) Beth, you mentioned Europe. And I think what I would have said is, you know, maybe Mexico, maybe Vietnam. So as you're grimacing on that, how did you get to Europe and why are these other countries not an alternative to China? Or are there any alternatives to China? Chad (17:38.774) So, go ahead, go ahead. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (17:59.213) Well, I think you're talking manufacturing, right? I'm talking selling. There's babies all over the I'm not moving. Why on earth would I move my manufacturing? I have literally the most efficient, most proficient, most expertise manufacturing on the planet. They've been with me from day one, held my hand when the American companies laughed me out their doors. They've gone through ups and downs with me when Walmart last minute wanted me to pump out. Joel (18:05.388) Okay, let's talk about manufacturing. Yeah, let's go to manufacturing because Beth Benike - Busy Baby (18:29.375) a new product put on their shelves and I needed that opportunity. They dropped everything and made it happen in a record amount of time. When they've made mistakes, as everybody makes mistakes, they've owned it and corrected it. When I had knockoffs in China, they went to those factories and said, stop making that and stood up for me and stood up for my, have a Chinese patent. They went for on my behalf and stood up for me. I have no desire to. Everybody's jumping right now. I'm going to move to Mexico. I'm going to move to Taiwan. Good luck. Have fun. I'm going to stay with my... They hold every high quality standard that we have for our products because these are products going in a baby's mouth. We have to meet American safety standards. We do third party testing on every single batch. We have a US consultant who makes sure our products are safe. They do an incredible job and they've been with me through everything. I am not going to walk away from them now. Chad (19:25.472) So from a sales standpoint, because... Beth Benike - Busy Baby (19:25.505) to go somewhere that's less quality and more expensive. Joel (19:29.25) He would rather go out of business than find alternatives. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (19:31.861) No, no, that's what I'm telling you. I'm going to sell to Europe. I'm going to sell to Australia. I'm going to sell to Canada. There's babies everywhere. Chad (19:32.658) No, she's looking at selling in Europe, right? That's what you're talking about. Yeah. Joel (19:38.334) Okay, so because there's no tariff. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (19:43.915) because they're willing to take my products and sell them. Our country currently is not allowing me to bring in my products. So I would love to continue selling to just Americans because that's what I can handle and that's what I know how to do. I don't know how to sell to any other country right now, but I'm going to learn real quick. Joel (19:45.048) or they're- Joel (19:59.094) Okay, glad I made that clarification. Thank you. Chad (20:00.352) Those are, yeah, those are, those are other challenges though, right? Because you don't know those markets. So therefore you don't have expertise on how to actually sell into those markets. And as we know, Europe has a bunch of countries in it and they're all different and they all have different cultures and regulations and so on and so forth. So it is much harder. So yes, you would definitely rather sell here on home soil, but since that's not an option, because you would go out of business, you've got to look for Beth Benike - Busy Baby (20:02.237) you. Yeah. Chad (20:30.25) Contingency and the contingency seems like Europe is are there other contingencies? Around the world that you you've started to kind of like research and prospectively start developing Beth Benike - Busy Baby (20:40.353) Yeah, mean, fortunately, because of the the press I've gotten, I've gotten outreach from everywhere. Dubai, the UAE, Australia, I've had a ton of outreach from Canada. I'm not having a hard time finding the people interested in selling the products. It's it's unreal how many people are interested in selling products. Now it's just like, how do I do that? Like, what are the regulations? What is the process? What are the contracts like? What do I have to watch out for so I'm not taken advantage or don't know? I don't know what I don't know. So that's what I'm working as like crash course on global distribution. Chad (21:17.622) you Joel (21:18.562) My ears perked when you said the Chinese factory went to bat for you when knockoffs were being created. I think the narrative in America is that China is a bunch of thieves. They're taking all of our IP. They're repurposing products and undercutting and totally screwing the American businesses. But I'm hearing something different from you, but I'm curious, was them fighting Chad (21:24.991) IP. Joel (21:46.572) back against a knockoff product sort of by their own volition? Do they feel like they have government support to go after a company? what is it like working with China? Is the government one level, but then the commercial entity is another one? Are they hand in hand? Help me understand what it's like working with China. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (22:09.877) Yeah, I mean, it's a team effort. I can't actually help you understand because I don't understand a lot of it myself. The things I do understand about China is they care more about relationships and how you treat each other versus contracts. So, you know, when you treat each other well, the relationship is good and there's value and it creates long lasting good conditions. Chad (22:38.302) Hence, you're not wanting to leave them. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (22:40.277) Yeah, yeah. So when the first knockoff came out, it was actually the month before I aired on Shark Tank. I was fully expecting knockoffs to come out like three to four months after I was on air. No, the first one came out a month before. And because I have IP in China, my patent attorney has a counterpart in China who he reached out to and they did an investigation. went to this factory, determined yes, they are absolutely making a knockoff. And then there's two routes you can go. You can do the legal route, which is similar to what we do here in the US. You can litigate. It's very long and very expensive. But in China, they also have another thing you can do, which is called a raid. And it's essentially what it sounds like. They go in and say, knock at the F off or we're going to burn your shit down. Chad (23:31.318) You Joel (23:32.236) Wow. Street, street justice, street justice. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (23:32.237) It's legit like my percent and so I didn't want to I didn't have the money to do the litigation route So I said well, how much does it cost to send someone in and politely ask them to stop? Knocking off my products and it was a very affordable price and I did that and they stopped the problem is I've spent over $15,000 this last year because an American company knocked me off And when I went to take them down from Amazon, so Amazon has a great process where if you have IP, you can file your patents within Amazon system. When somebody lists a product that infringes on your patent, you just submit a case and say that they're infringing. They check the patent. They're like, yep, them down. And if they want to contest, they can. And we both put in $4,000. And then someone at Amazon will review the case. And whoever wins gets their money back. Whoever loses doesn't. and then they get kicked off Amazon. So when this American company knocked us off, straight up knockoff, we put it in, Amazon took them down, their IP lawyers reached out to our IP lawyer and said, we'd just like you to know, we diligently designed around your patent. You may wanna resend your take down. So we looked at it, sure enough, they designed just enough of a difference, just enough of a difference to make it not infringing on my patent. So I had to spend $15,000 to do some IP strategy stuff, and now they're not selling that product. But that was an American company, not a Chinese company. Chad (25:05.878) Hmm. Okay. So we've been, we've been talking about obviously entrepreneurs, small business and the big reason behind that is I think it's important, especially for our listeners to understand that obviously, you know, small business jobs, but then times that by 10,000. Right. In companies like yours who are facing these issues, it's not just onesie twosies. We're talking about tens of thousands. of entrepreneurs and companies who are having these issues. And I don't want to get you too fired up, but, but, but what about companies like Apple who are getting like a free pass possibly from these, these tariffs? Yeah. I mean, what, what, what about, what about those and how does, what kind of messaging does that actually send to the small business community when you have a Joel (25:53.237) Exemptions. Chad (26:04.784) large company who can afford if any, any company in the fucking world can afford to bring, you know, manufacturing to, you know, the U S United States and charge, you know, $3,500 for an iPhone. Apple can do that. Although they're perspective of getting exceptions. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (26:25.229) I'm going to take the politics out of this because we got to remove Apple because there's a lot of political associations with Apple. And they say since the first Trump administration that they're building a $5 billion factory in Texas. I'm not sure if ground is ever broken on that, but let's take Apple out. And then I'm to bring in Microsoft as a replacement, another big man. But the thing that gets me fired up is Lenovo. Have you heard of the brand Lenovo? It's computers, right? They do. Chad (26:50.41) Yes, computers. Joel (26:50.798) Yep, IBM. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (26:54.891) a little over $15 billion of sales per year in the US. They are a Chinese-owned brand. They no longer have to pay tariffs. They are exempt from paying tariffs, so their computers can come into our country right now, and we can buy $15 billion worth of computers from them, and they're all fat and happy. They don't need to make them in the USA. Why would they? They can make them where they're good at it and keep all their profit. But me? a small, small business, American, veteran-owned business, I am going to potentially go out of business if I don't find a solution here because I can't afford the $230,000 tariff. So, I'm gonna talk too much more about that. Joel (27:38.104) Well, thankfully Walmart, Walmart, and hopefully Amazon are making some cases for you because they do have a big enough, name and bank account to do. So hopefully the Walmart meeting goes well. I'm curious. This is a show largely about the world of work employment. I know you have a small team, but I'm curious about what, what does this mean to your current team? What does it mean to your growth plans of adding headcount and Beth Benike - Busy Baby (27:45.686) Yeah. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (27:54.784) Okay. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (28:05.229) Mm-hmm. Joel (28:05.866) And knowing that most of hiring happens at small business, what do you think on a macro level we should be expecting as more and more small businesses like you are impacted from a headcount challenge? Beth Benike - Busy Baby (28:21.047) Yeah, my team was worried and they know I am determined we are going to succeed somehow. We're going to make it. No one's losing their job. I'm not going to let that happen. But what concerns me and what should concern Americans is the ripple effect of this. When we get a container shipped here from China, it comes into the St. Paul rail yard and there's a woman owned small business called semi-legal trucking. Chad (28:38.987) Mm-hmm. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (28:48.289) that picks up that container and brings it down to my warehouse for us to unload and put in. I checked on her the other day and said, how's it going for you? She says, well, we still have a few trickling in, but the outlook is not good. I might actually lose everything I've used to build this. Now she's an American owned company with American employees doing transportation and logistics around our country. If you look at the math, there's been over a hundred ships canceled so far since this has happened. Each ship that comes over from China contains 8,000 to 10,000 containers. Those ships come to a port where we have hundreds or thousands of employees who work to unload them and put them on rails and put them on trucks. Those employees now don't have any containers to move. What these trucking companies who rely on the logistics of bringing of our economy, of our commerce, they're being affected. The manufacturers currently manufacturing in the US that have clients who are working already on razor thin margins because they are paying extra to manufacture in the US, they're now being hit with import fees on their raw materials and they're afraid they can't raise their prices for their current clients because their current clients can't afford that and now they're gonna go out of business. Like the ripple effect of this is so much bigger than just people like me who manufacture in China. Chad (30:09.942) So what's the most discouraging? Because we get into these news narratives that don't seem to be rooted in reality in many cases. We just were watching one right before we came on. So I guess if it's not good for small business, it's just not good for the American people. Why are we seeing the antithesis of that on news channels all over the place. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (30:42.935) You know, I think that I have unfortunately seen our country become more more divided in the last decade. And people are consumed, consume media. Like we learn things from watching media and media, it's hard to keep things just bipartisan and not make it about something or the other thing, one side or the other side. I have so many people telling me I deserve to fail because they think I voted for Trump. Nobody deserves to fail. I don't care who they voted for. We're humans. What has happened to our humanity that this has all become about politics? And I don't even know what the politicians are thinking or doing. I'm trying to convince myself that there are some really intelligent people with a really outside the box strategy at play here. And obviously we can't know the strategy or it wouldn't work. And at some point this is going to come out and it's going to be the most brilliant thing that ever happened. Chad (31:19.318) Mm-hmm. Joel (31:34.456) Mm-hmm. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (31:42.561) That's what I'm doing in my dreamland because I don't want to think that this is all for, you know, billionaires become richer and all the things we're seeing in the media. But what's the most disheartening to me is the humans and how we're treating each other as Americans outside of the media, outside of politics. If you look at the comments on my videos, people are just being hateful to one another. And unless we come together as Americans and band together for our country, like all this fighting is Chad (31:44.49) Yes. Joel (31:44.493) Mm-hmm. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (32:11.157) making things worse, it's not making anything better. Chad (32:13.462) Yeah, which is why we need to have these no bullshit dollars and cents conversations around how it's impacting business. And obviously if it's impacting business, then we've got to take a look at job growth is going to impact job growth. If impacts job growth, well, then those individuals are not going to have money in their pockets. They don't have money in their pockets. They can't buy stuff. Right. So, I mean, from our standpoint, trying to educate and entertain, but educate the industry and our listeners about how this actually has this downstream effect is incredibly important to us. Beth Benike - Busy Baby (32:46.285) Hmm. Yeah, it's scary. don't know it works. Joel (32:48.93) By the way, Walmart Walmart employees around 2 million associates. So if the shelves are empty, how many Walmart employees are going to lose their jobs? That is Beth. Benaki everybody at busy baby Beth for our listeners who want to know more about you. Maybe buy some some products. Where would you send them? Beth Benike - Busy Baby (33:11.245) Yeah, if we have any left, actually we have a really great product that's a bib that has a tether system, so it's great for restaurants. We have a lot of those. Busybaby.com is where you can find us. Busybabymat on all the socials. And if anybody has words of wisdom and ways to help me, you can find me on LinkedIn. Chad (33:11.722) in Europe. Joel (33:32.046) Christmas in Canada, Chad. Christmas in Portugal and Canada. That is another one in the can. We out.

Chad & Cheese cozy up with Alex Fourlis, SVP and GM at Veritone Hire and low-key philosopher of recruitment doom. They unpack LinkedIn’s growing chokehold on recruiting like it’s a Marvel villain nobody voted for—complete with algorithmic mind control and passive-aggressive InMail. Alex drops truth bombs about the platform’s data addiction, employer branding gymnastics, and the fact that recruiters are basically just paying rent in LinkedIn’s World™  now. Also: 🎯 Are job ads even ads anymore? 💸 Why PPC is like lighting money on fire, one click at a time 🧠 And how to survive when your “recruiting strategy” is just hoping LinkedIn doesn’t change the rules again Spoiler: They always do. ENJOY! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:29.774) Yeah, this is the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Cheeseman joined as always. Chad. So washes writing shotgun as we welcome Alex Fourlis SVP and GM at Veritone Hire. Alex welcome to HR is most dangerous podcast. Alex Fourlis (00:48.574) Thank you for having me guys. Big fun. Joel (00:51.084) He's so subdued after that. I was hoping to get you excited, but I guess not. All right, let's. Chad (00:55.319) Hahaha Alex Fourlis (00:56.202) I'm seeing that Manchester United shirt and I'm a Liverpool fan so I'm kind of hurting right now. I'm bit hurting, you announced this immense new stadium and everything so it's kind of... Chad (01:00.591) Yeah, kind of put Joel (01:01.23) Are you offended by that? you? Uh oh. Chad (01:03.908) Yeah. They had an issue yesterday. Yeah. Joel (01:12.792) I think Liverpool is going to be okay. I think they're going to be all right. I'm not too worried about them. Aside from being a Liverpool fan, Alex, you have a rich history in the industry. I don't know if you're Greek. Let the listeners know a little bit about you and Veritone and specifically maybe what you do for Veritone. Chad (01:16.176) think that'd be okay. Alex Fourlis (01:17.503) thing. Chad (01:33.924) And what's your favorite Greek island? That's what I want to know. Alex Fourlis (01:34.259) Yes. Okay, that's a very, very, very difficult question to answer. There's an island for everything, pretty much. Let's get to that. But if you want my... a nice tip, let's say Milos for now. Like Milos is an amazing island, it has a lot of things to offer. So look it up. Joel (01:38.219) and Chad (01:40.794) Ha ha ha! Joel (01:54.862) Is that the one with the tops, the roofs, the blue roofs, the domes? Chad (01:55.236) Milas. Alex Fourlis (02:02.218) No, it has famously a lot of small colored houses that literally used to house fishing boats and they're literally almost on the sea and has some amazing volcanic beaches. It's the ones where you see the rocks and people diving from white rocks towards the blue sea. Joel (02:22.894) Sounds just like Indiana, sounds a lot like Indiana. So yeah, continue with Veritonin and your background. Alex Fourlis (02:30.11) Yes, I'm more than 25 years in this industry. started from like founding a Greek job board with some friends right out of university. At the time, before 2000, were very few players in the market. And this kind of journey got me through Carrebuilder. I've worked for a big job board, managing businesses on the European level. and eventually moved to Broadbean and now to WaitOnHire. So WaitOnHire shortly as is an integration of two very big brand names in the industry, Broadbean and PandaLogic. So we offer the complete breadth of solutions that someone that needs to attract candidates needs today from advertising, programmatic advertising, anywhere in the world. we can help you get the best candidate at the right time at the right price. Joel (03:30.766) So an employer comes to you and you do what for them? Alex Fourlis (03:34.984) So we will help them distribute the jobs right from inside their ATS or their preferred recruiter software system and distribute it to more than 2000 job boards globally. In some markets, we will distribute from the ATS straight to the job board. In other markets where I have matured like the North American market, we will programmatically manage their campaigns. So we completely automate the delivery of their jobs, manage the budget. Chad (03:51.525) Mm-hmm. Alex Fourlis (04:03.368) the outcomes and the analytics back to them and they don't need to lift a finger. Chad (04:10.042) So you have a deep understanding of not just the duration based market, also the performance based market. So are we starting to see more of a movement in the U.S. obviously to performance and then what are you seeing outside of the U.S. because I know that the adoption outside the U.S. is much slower when it comes to performance. What are we seeing U.S. adoption and then obviously outside? Alex Fourlis (04:34.046) Yeah, just to give you an understanding, we distribute more than a million jobs per month and we deliver back to our clients more than 10 million of applicants every month, right? So the numbers are pretty huge and that's on a global scale, right? So pretty much everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere and in some cases the Southern as well. But what we're seeing right now is obviously... Chad (04:42.863) Hello. Alex Fourlis (04:58.418) in terms of automation and programmatic advertising, the North American market is what we consider closer to maturity. It's still, I would say that there is a lot of room to grow in that market as well, but our focus this year is actually taking programmatic advertising on a global journey. We launched in UK, we launched in Australia, we're launching in Germany very soon. Chad (05:06.597) Mm. Alex Fourlis (05:26.442) We already running campaigns in central Europe. that's where we see things. But in US, definitely the large enterprise clients are looking at programmatic advertising as a core strategy they wanted to deploy. There's a lot of, all the key global players are starting from there, ourselves, our competitors like Upcast. Jovio, they're all present in that market and we're all kind of tiptoeing internationally. Joel (06:00.238) Talk about what you see from a macro perspective. Are jobs increasing, decreasing, parts of the world that are hotter than others? Just give us your 30,000 foot view of jobs right now. Alex Fourlis (06:11.74) No, think that the last two years have not been great for the hiring market. So, in all the key kind of like vacancy reports that we see across the last two years, we see like a declining pretty much trend and it's pretty consistent globally. I would say there's obviously there's always going to be the exceptions, but if we look at the big markets, hiring activity has been decreasing, especially the last 18 months, I would say across North America, Europe and APAC. And I think that's really kind of like hurting different players in the market differently. And there is obviously a lot more focus on budget savings, on getting the optimal expense, on trying different potentially channels, but with the view of managing the budget and the outcomes, and optimizing the outcomes more. So I think that's the pre-evalent kind of trend in the industry right now. It's optimization and efficiency, as said, mentioned many times. That's the same when it comes to hiring and job advertising. And we can see it like the announcements of the public results of every staffing company in the world and every public job board in the world pretty much. Chad (07:33.69) So talk about the maturity models and being able to adopt performance. What about the maturity model around going from CPC, which is literally just spray and pray for God's sake, to CPA and then to CPQC, right? Or CPQA. Right. CPQA. Alex Fourlis (07:50.27) Yeah. CPQA as we, yeah. So I think we are literally on the verge of this big change in happening, at least from the side of the platforms, right? I think a couple of months ago, weeks ago, had Chris Forman talking about this move to down funnel, right? To CPQA. And this is exactly where we are as a business as well. We already have... Chad (08:13.445) Mm. Alex Fourlis (08:20.042) a significant percentage of our clients where we are tracking all the way down to hire and we are increasing it every day is a key focus for us right now. have CPQA data, we have a very flexible model. So pretty much we allow every employer to define what's quality within the ATS status or hiring signals. So for some employers that might be, I want somebody to be going on interview stage for somebody that's a staffing agency that might be Chad (08:41.754) Gotcha. Alex Fourlis (08:50.018) hiring manager approval of the candidate. So there's different definitions of what quality is per client, but we have a consistent model that we measure CPQA, we measure cost per hire as well. So overall what we are seeing is that this is a very critical point of data for us, but it's Chad (09:05.946) Mm-hmm. Alex Fourlis (09:17.266) It's starting to become a demand from the industry, right? So even I know that indeed went back and forth with the decisions of working on like these models. But if you see their integration strategy, the mandates that they have for the APIs, the fact that if you want to use Indeed Apply, you need to be providing hiring signals increasingly. They start having deadlines and thresholds of how many signals you. Chad (09:38.287) Hmm. Alex Fourlis (09:45.054) putting back as a client if you want access to Indeed Apply. And we're seeing pretty much every major competitor, LinkedIn, SICK, I wouldn't say copying, but implementing the exact same strategy that, you know, if you want to have direct apply, like you need to exchange data with us, which is really good. Chad (09:58.385) Mm. Joel (09:59.342) That sounds like copying. Chad (10:01.124) Yeah Chad (10:06.842) Well, we're hearing just rumors that Indeed's actually moving to the process where if you're not providing those signals, that you will not be able to actually do business with them. So they will start on the SMB side of the house. And you can do that because they pretty much have the ecosystem that they can force SMBs to use, right? As opposed to actually owning an applicant tracking system and then working up to enterprise. Alex Fourlis (10:34.664) Yeah, I think not doing business is too extreme. think, as I said, access to specific APIs that are critical to indeed apply, for example, it is the way that how they would push for more adoption. And to be honest, if we want the outcomes to improve for recruiters and employers, that's the perfect strategy. think as the whole sector, we need to adopt that mentality, right? Chad (10:39.216) Mm-hmm. Chad (10:44.528) Mm-hmm. Chad (10:52.015) Gotcha. Alex Fourlis (11:04.486) If you exchange those types of those points of data and those signals, you will by default improve the targeting and the efficiency of those advertising campaigns of those job postings. So I think it's a great thing. know, Indeed is a pioneer in that regard and we are kind of very happy to help the entire kind of ecosystem of clients integrate. Chad (11:21.136) Mm. Alex Fourlis (11:32.04) with those examples. as I said, it's not just LinkedIn. think there's no major leading job in the world that is not following the exact same practice. And I can give you examples like in even StepStone and even like strong local leaders like Nokia in India, they have very, very similar strategies that they employ. Joel (11:55.894) Alex, said, was it 20,000 sources, job boards, other destination sites that you're posting jobs or getting jobs onto? Was it 20,000 you said? Alex Fourlis (12:06.152) No, I'm saying 2000 that are really active in the last 90 days we posted jobs and yeah, it's very easy to blow up those numbers, right? Is it did one side or 150? Joel (12:08.853) 2000. Joel (12:12.398) Uh, what's an extra zero? What's an extra zero 2000, 20,000. Uh, yeah. But, uh, I was, uh, no, this is, this is how I, this is how I lose weight in my head. I'm eating two 20,000 calories, but I think it's only two. Anyway. Um, I've, I've had, uh, I've had vendors and people tell me like, uh, all people really need, particularly in the U S is LinkedIn and indeed. Chad (12:18.978) Joel Joel's been working for Doge. thinks he thinks six million is six billion. Alex Fourlis (12:24.008) Yeah. Yeah. Chad (12:30.298) much easier. Joel (12:41.046) Agree, disagree, and if you disagree, why? Chad (12:48.144) Can you hear him? Oh, there you go. Lost you there for a minute. Go ahead. Go ahead. Particularly in the US. Said, yeah, go ahead and start all over. Yes, particularly in the US. Alex Fourlis (12:49.172) No, I lost Joel. yeah, he's back. Joel (12:53.208) Did you get any of it? Alex Fourlis (12:54.952) No. Particularly in US, yeah. Joel (13:01.816) So I've had conversations with people that say all these programatics, all these other sites, it really doesn't matter. Indeed and LinkedIn are like 80 % of all you need. If you have those two, you don't really need a programmatic solution. I assume you disagree, but I'm curious why. Alex Fourlis (13:17.822) Yes, definitely that may apply if you have a very kind of narrow vision of a very specific job role in a very specific market, right? And might be true in that sense. But if we think across the board in many countries and even in North America, there is strengths and there's sides that are particularly good in certain niche. areas, they're particularly good in certain geographies. And to put it very simply, we all know from like economy and we know from like competition and free competition, the more that you kind of like go into a position as an employer or recruiter advertiser that I put all my chips in like a monopoly or duopoly in that sense, the more in danger long-term is that I have zero control of my strategy. spend outcomes and no way to diversify. Right. So I think the smart thing, and if we look at commercial advertising, Veyton is coming from the commercial advertising space as a business. Right. That's not what happened there. It's not just, know, there's only, I don't know, Netflix and a single channel that everybody goes to. Right. There's actually, I think we are... Joel (14:34.551) and Pepsi. Chad (14:35.716) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Alex Fourlis (14:40.906) in cycles of diversification in every market. And right now it might look that, know, indeed, LinkedIn have conquered the universe and, you know, in four or five times, four or five years time, we might see that this is also starting to change. And by the way, if we look, if I'm a multinational employer, what I'm going to do in Australia, what I'm going to do in China, what I'm going to do in India, what I'm going to do in Europe, that's not a... Chad (15:07.418) Mm-hmm. Alex Fourlis (15:08.938) a solution that can work on 100 % of the globe today. Chad (15:14.276) Sounds like Joel's talking to lazy recruiters. I need two places. That's it. So we're talking about, again, let's, let's just keep it to the big names right now. We talked about how indeed looks like they're trying to mimic what's happening at LinkedIn, right? Raise the walls. They've got a wall. They've got a walled garden, get more data. More data means better matching. looks like LinkedIn is actually doing better matching within their system. We've been on them for a very long time about just really, they've got more information about Joel myself and most people that are on LinkedIn that use it daily than anybody else. They should be able to match on that very well. It looks like they're getting better there from a job standpoint, which means they're looking to, prospectively, I would assume, monetize that area of their business more. Alex Fourlis (15:44.499) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:08.116) you guys are actually working with them around that. Is there, is there a focus on that now? And is it pretty much like they're trying to mimic indeed as indeed is trying to mimic them. Alex Fourlis (16:19.636) No, I think that, you know, just to connect to my history, when LinkedIn popped up in like the mid 2010s, everybody in our industry, I was working at Gary Builder, you know, the product team at the time. Everybody thought that this will kind of like, this is the prevalent model. This is going to kill job boards. Like they have the data, they have like the candidate and we all know kind of like a candidate is king when it comes to the job board businesses. Chad (16:28.08) Mm. Alex Fourlis (16:49.722) I think it took a very long time, but we are now at the point where I think it's going to be an inflection point. Like I think that people start recognizing LinkedIn as also, yes, it's social media, it's somewhere where I build my brand as a business or as an employer, it has other services, but it's also a fine tool for somebody that's looking for a job. And I think that LinkedIn is also serious about the jobs game and they're becoming... Obviously they launched pay for performance. We're now seeing on our view, an explosive growth on that side of the business, the amount of jobs they're receiving and the amount of, of drafting they're providing back. They're the fastest growing publisher in our network in North America. And I think, and as I said, in a prediction I put for 2025, I think that's going to be the year that the online advertising industry will realize that, you know, LinkedIn is as big as we always thought they had the potential to be when it comes to not only to recruiter seats, which is kind of like an ubiquitous product for recruiters, but for jobs as well. That's going to be an advertiser as big as Indeed on a global scale, a publisher as big as Indeed on a global scale. And I think we're seeing this in the numbers literally in the last months. And we see it not just quantity, we see the quality as well. Joel (18:14.819) What? Joel (18:18.808) So speaking of 800 pound gorillas, LinkedIn becoming one. By the way, Chad, I speak to lazy recruiters, which are 80 % of all recruiters, by the way. We haven't mentioned Google. haven't. Well, it sounds like to Alex, we're just going to have to post on LinkedIn and we're done. Alex, we have talked about Google, Google for jobs. Is it an impact? Is it growing, shrinking? What are your thoughts on Google for jobs and how it plays into the ecosystem? Chad (18:28.858) Not for long, agentic, agentic. Alex Fourlis (18:30.216) Yeah. Alex Fourlis (18:46.922) Yeah, I think right now it's on a kind of a bit of a stable mode, right? Nothing that's really in the horizon of changing there. If I'm thinking there's another disruption in the industry, it's more likely to come if search is disrupted by definition from LLMs and different modes and different players that will evolve out of that ecosystem, right? That's moving so fast. So... I think right now it's easier to predict that Google itself will be disrupted potentially. The entire model that's kind of was a starting point even for job search might be disrupted, then they will disrupt the rest of the industry. Joel (19:34.702) And I love that. I'm curious your thoughts, chat GPT, pick one perplexity. What does job search look like on those platforms to you? Is it happening today? Cause it's hard for me to envision searching for a job on chat GPT, but maybe I'm just, old and, and, and it's like, Alex Fourlis (19:52.85) No, no. I've seen demonstrations and I played around it myself. And yes, you can, you know, instruct some of those models to review and, you match your profile to jobs and then go and... Joel (19:58.414) Uh-huh. Joel (20:08.214) Is it pulling from job boards, just job boards around the web? So it's like a vertical search, but it's a conversation as opposed to a search box. Okay. All right. Alex Fourlis (20:11.623) Yeah. Alex Fourlis (20:15.566) Exactly. And you can guide it and say, I want to look at specific employers or specific areas of employment that I want to focus on and find those jobs. We could go and say, I want to find a job as a CEO in a technology business, give me tips or give me sources of where can I find those jobs and it will bring back results. And I can't think and looking at my son when... We were studying trigonometry yesterday and my 12 year old son, you know, was checking the answers through charge GPT to make sure that he understood it correctly or taking, you know, all his answers seems to be kind of a go-to tool for every day. cannot imagine that somebody who's in university or graduating from a university day doesn't start there to seek advice, to seek guidance of how to look for a job. think there was a... Chad (21:06.576) Mm-hmm. Alex Fourlis (21:13.678) An interesting study like circulating last year that a third of graduates from Ivy League universities, they're using AI-supported career search to find their first job. So I think that those types of technologies have a much better chance of disrupting the current business model in the industry. Chad (21:37.201) So are you surprised going back to LinkedIn, I mean it's taken them over 20 years for God's sake to actually get jobs right. And that is literally, I mean the space in which they've worked for the most part. How much better are they getting I guess from the standpoint of being able to deliver? Because one of the biggest issues that companies have had over the years is they can go into LinkedIn and they'll spend money on LinkedIn for the seats so that their recruiters can go and proactively search, right? Not for the jobs. They'll get slots, but for the most part, it's junk, right? Because they really have shitty matching to be able to display the right types of jobs, the right people, et cetera, et cetera. It's taken them 20 years. So we're actually, what I'm hearing is we're actually starting to see the maturation process. Alex Fourlis (22:07.988) Mm-hmm. Chad (22:30.781) get closer to where they're going to actually be doing much better in the jobs arena. And since in the kind of stats that you guys are saying from the Alex Fourlis (22:38.814) Yeah. Look on a global basis, and I'm surprised when people think like it was necessarily junk. The number one source of candidates and applicants that we provide to our clients, and I said like we're talking about, you know, more than 150 million applicants last year, is LinkedIn across the world, right? The number one source of applicants. And the second thing that I want to point out is that they never really went into the performance. or pay for performance came. They did a release two years ago. It kind of went under the radar. So we started seriously kind of like playing around and putting clients on that model. And I can tell you that within the space of some months, LinkedIn is now our second biggest publisher in North America, right? In the mature programmatic advertising market as we started talking in the beginning. So... I'm not going to be saying something that you didn't expect here. What we see is the results are there. In some industries, already are above the benchmark. So they're performing more than the average job board. They're also, you can imagine, technology, finance, marketing and everything. They have performance in surprisingly in industries and areas where we didn't expect. know, transportation and retail and, you know, they're doing pretty well. They're providing a lot of applications to our clients in those areas. And the other very interesting thing is the quality, the conversion from an application to a quality application. The CPQA that we were talking previously for LinkedIn is the best performing job for the last months in North America. It's one out of three of applications that convert to a quality application. according to our clients. So that's a very interesting kind of like metric that's pointing out that they're doing something better in terms of matching. It's still, you to be honest, we are trying to help them in a way. Like when we post the jobs, now we're trying a lot more to put the right skills and the right salary and the right location to help them match against it. The matching is still controlled by LinkedIn, but you know, owned by Microsoft. Chad (24:56.656) Mm-hmm. Alex Fourlis (24:59.144) with all the investment on AI and general AI going across Microsoft right now, I won't be surprised that, you know, we see, if we see on the candidate side of LinkedIn, we see leaps and bounds improvements. So why not the same kind of like improvements being on the employer side of the matching? I would be. Chad (25:09.956) Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Chad (25:19.834) So if I am a smaller site or I am a startup that I'm getting into this space, LinkedIn and Indeed, they're trying to squeeze the entire market, right? And if I am in a specialty job board scenario, let's say it's tech, Indeed has already said that they are going after tech, right? How do I differentiate? How do I compete? Joel (25:46.712) Stay relevant. Chad (25:47.085) against these fucking monsters. mean, this is this I mean, and there are obviously tens of thousands of job boards that are actually out there. So so what's your advice to them other than get you know, get to get to maturation faster than they do? Alex Fourlis (26:03.47) Finally, I did a speech on this recently and I was invited by my first employer, that Greek job board to talk about how do they can compete on that same subject, right? You know, they are 800 pound gorillas. So you need to kind of like have a very clear plan as a job board, what you're doing around that. And for me, there's like two or three key questions that you need to answer. One is the tech stack. So if they want to integrate and go... done funnel and I'm going to build an niche site, let's say focused on, you know, transportation and drivers. For example, just say, I need to think like how my tech stack will serve the candidate and the employer better than they do today. Right. So I need to be kind of very laser focused and seeing drivers, they use mobiles in like, you know, Chad (26:49.328) Mm-hmm. Alex Fourlis (26:58.92) So that should be my kind of like a go-to model of operations for the candidate. I need to think are they ATSs, are they providers that they kind of like focus on that market? You know, there is an ATS, I think it's called 10th Street, that's focusing on that market. Like how do I get a better integration there than, you know, what Indeed or LinkedIn have in place? Because I have to beat them on the tech stack. I need to provide more services. The second beyond the tech stack is the services, right? They provide some content, know, and some reviews, for example, you know, can I do it better, like to service, you know, a very specific needs. need to, you know, I need to pick my fights, I think as a job board and say, okay, how can I provide the best possible content, right? For the Greek job board, that might means, you know, dominate the Greek language search, right? The dominating career content for... the local language that they will never match, right? Versus English. But there needs to be like a focus in technology integrations, in services that I provide to the candidate and eventually to the employer first. we need to decide like, okay, where are the modes? And the third piece, I think it's like potential disruption that comes in the future from things like generative AI. How can I incorporate it? Because... Chad (28:00.4) Mm. Alex Fourlis (28:26.108) As a smaller player, you have that ability of incorporating new technology and new models a lot faster than some of these kind of like big platforms that have to kind of have a more like kind of a release process that takes time and takes more resources to evolve. So I think that's where you're trying to compete. You need to pick your mode. You need to pick your niche. And I think from then on, it's services content and tech stack that you need to see how we did differentiate. Joel (28:59.726) So to piggyback a little bit on that, Alex, you talk about what maybe job boards or other sites need to do differently or how they can maybe think differently from the big elephants in the jungle. What are they doing wrong that they need to fix? I'm of the opinion that they've been their own worst enemy in many ways. Programmatic jobs are awful in many cases. You go to a career builder, search for a job. Chad (29:20.695) Yes. Joel (29:27.618) You're bounced around to four different sites. You got to go through a submission or registration. Like to me, that drives everyone to LinkedIn and indeed where they know they're not going to get that. They know they already have an account. They can easily click apply and get a, get an apply. Haven't job sites been their own worst enemy and shouldn't they correct some of that stuff? Alex Fourlis (29:46.408) Look, definitely, and I don't like to generalize. There are job sites that are doing an excellent job, right? Like if we look at what SICK is doing in Australia or what Carrier is doing in Turkey or Stepstone in areas of Europe, they have created their own kind of playbooks to defend on their market and on their niche, right? And I'm not just talking about this kind of, like we can talk about any sites that are doing extremely well in specific niches. So yeah, I was in Carrier Builders, so I've seen also the other kind of extreme of how do you completely lose the plot? And I was in a product team at the time where we're reviewing things like LinkedIn, like Glassdoor, like other approaches, like Indeed. And we kind of like again and again, kind of I saw in front of me how the leadership could completely lose the plot on major disruptions in the industry. But at the same time, I have to... We have to note the resilience of all these players, That we, know, many times, and I know about the four horsemen of the apocalypse and all that stuff, we predicted the end of job boards and we still, you know, finding new exciting job boards are doing great things that grow today, right? So I think you mentioned in the past, like, players, new players in the market that popping up anytime, like last year, For us, we've seen some boards like Sonic Jobs, for example, doing really well, growing in this market. And we see it in the numbers, in our programmatic exchange that they're doing really well. So I'm sure there's going to be innovation from areas that we don't expect today, and that some of these players will find the solutions and will be thriving for the next years as well. Chad (31:28.016) Yeah. Joel (31:38.222) Well, that's good news, Alex, because we need shit to talk about. So we need these companies to stay relevant. Thanks. Chad (31:41.734) Hahaha! Yes. And that being said, need to, we need to go ahead and wrap this up because we need to talk about, coming to Milos. So, if somebody wants to find out more about you connect with you and, or find out more about Veritone hire, where would you send them? Alex Fourlis (31:53.95) Definitely. Alex Fourlis (32:01.5) at veriton.com and for myself you can find me on LinkedIn. Joel (32:08.108) Alex Forliss everybody, the original Greek freak. Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Chad (32:14.841) We out.

This week on HR’s most dangerous podcast, things get wild . We're diving headfirst into the espionage-soaked saga between Rippling and Deel — corporate sabotage, shredded iPhones, axe-smashing, and a resignation with Meta-level baggage. It's the kind of plot twist even Netflix couldn’t dream up. But wait, there's more China and Dave Chappelle's next-level trolling of American manufacturing dreams. Hilarious and horrifying North Korean IT infiltrations at Fortune 500 companies? (💥 That’s right — the hackers are already inside the house .💥) A 23-year-old CEO and AI startup Artisan get $25 million ...and Shopify creates a world where your job has to beat the bots to survive. If you're in HR, tech, or just love a good spy thriller with a side of corporate chaos — this one’s for you. Get ready to rethink remote hiring, laugh nervously, and maybe double-check your VPN. Listen now. Before your office gets Pyong-yanged. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad (00:39.095) yeah. You put your tariff in, you pull your tariff out, you put your tariff in and you shake it all about. Welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad tariff, hokey pokey. Sowash. J.T. O'Donnell (00:52.241) I'm JT, Thursday is the new Friday, O'Donnell. Chad (00:54.747) Ha Maureen Clough (00:55.664) And I'm Maureen, AKA Moe, where's my cabin, Wiley Clough. Chad (01:01.862) Where's my cabin. We'll get to that. Maureen Clough (01:03.92) Mm-hmm. Chad (01:09.024) Where's my cabin that sounds like, it sounds like a movie reference. What's going on here? wait a minute, no I can tell by your background. You're, you're, you were in a cabin before. Tell us a little bit about that. J.T. O'Donnell (01:12.633) Yeah. Maureen Clough (01:13.435) Mmm I'm home. I was, I just feel like as much as humanly possible, I wanna be as far away from other humans as possible. So that's it. Yeah, I wanna touch grass. No, I love, you guys are the best, but we always do this remotely anyway. So I could be doing this on the moon. So, but yeah, you know, just touching some grass these days, getting grounded. That's what I'm looking for. So. Chad (01:28.182) Should we take that personal? Should we take that personal JT? Chad (01:35.462) Yeah, that's a point. Yeah, that's a point. Yeah. Chad (01:43.286) I it. Touching some grass. Touching some grass. So, I guess, you the big question is are we sick of tariff shit? Maureen Clough (01:45.102) Mm-hmm, we all gotta touch some grass, Maureen Clough (01:52.796) Terrified. Yep. I did not actually, I'm sure I'm not the only person who's come up with that one. Although I like to think it's the Maureen Wiley-Cleff original, but no, doubtful, doubtful. J.T. O'Donnell (01:53.414) Yeah. Chad (01:54.726) Terrified. That was good. Did you use that one before? Chad (02:02.554) terrified. So did we ever think in our lifetime that we would be this focused on blanket tariffs? I thought like, you know, that was something that we talked about in the, in the past, you know, like the 1800s, 1900s, but did we ever think that we were going to be talking about this? J.T. O'Donnell (02:15.535) No. Maureen Clough (02:18.716) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (02:24.409) No, and can I just say that I've somehow gotten on the side of tariff talk. So my feed is blowing up with people who want to give you the detailed explanation right down to the guy that held my attention yesterday for over four minutes with Lego figures. Like he made Lego figures to explain scenarios to help people understand. mean, he was really going for the fifth grade audience and I was there for it. So it's insane. It's like it's everywhere. I can't get away from it. Maureen Clough (02:24.601) Everything old is new again. Hehehehehe Chad (02:33.229) my god. Chad (02:38.998) that's... I like that. Maureen Clough (02:39.438) Chad (02:46.554) Yeah, I mean. Maureen Clough (02:46.8) Hey, I'd love that video. Please send it to me. Chad (02:53.166) It is, it is. I mean, unfortunately, you know, damage is kind of done by now. We've got, you know, the whack job of Howard Lutnick making a statement about millions of Americans screwing in tiny little iPhone screws and they're going to bring back manufacturing to the US. Then China. This is, God, I hate to say this. This is fucking hilarious. China's trolling us, kids. J.T. O'Donnell (02:58.737) Thanks. Maureen Clough (02:59.255) Mm hmm. Yeah. Chad (03:18.244) China's controlling us and I'm gonna show you why. if you're listening to the podcast, you can always come back, go to YouTube and actually watch this, but you've got to see this video. Here we go. So this is what bringing back manufacturing looks like in China's trolling eyes. We've got some big Americans on sewing machines. I mean, come on. Maureen Clough (03:49.766) Yeah, they're getting us good here. Chad (03:50.726) Screwing in iPhone. Make America great again. Maureen Clough (03:56.764) Pretty good trolling, A plus trolling. J.T. O'Donnell (03:57.19) Yeah. Chad (03:58.736) But now, on the back of that, I do have an American who has an opinion as well, and I think this, this coupled together, I think is important. So let's watch this. Maureen Clough (04:32.346) my gosh. Maureen Clough (04:38.14) None of us want to work that hard. Chad (04:38.383) J.T. O'Donnell (04:42.863) It's crazy. It's crazy. know. And I read an article yesterday, a couple was in Canada on a trip and they got on a gondola or a ski trip. And this Canadian couple, the wife just started railing on them about being American. while they were in Canada, they better buy Canadian and all this stuff. And finally the husband that kind of calmed her down, the Canadian husband, they got off and she said, you know, should really go down this trail, like trying to be a nice person. It was the worst trail they'd ever been on. They barely made it down the hill alive. I think she's really angry with us. So I don't know. I mean, you're going to be traveling soon, Chad. Who knows how people are going to feel. Maureen Clough (05:17.468) You got to throw that Canadian flag logo on your backpack or something. Throw them off. Chad (05:17.775) Yeah. Chad (05:22.33) Yeah. Well, where, where we have a place, there are more Canadians because apparently, Europeans wanted to keep it a secret from us dumb Americans. And I don't blame them to be quite frank, but the thing I have noticed because we've had the place for a few years now is that we were literally like the only American in this little village that we have right off, right on the ocean. And, now I go and I'm noticing more and more and more. Americans. And it's like, you hear through the news, a lot of people are like, fuck this, I'm out. And then people are like, I thought you said you were out. Why are you still here in the US? And it's like, no, they're coming now. Stop it. Stop it. Maureen Clough (06:05.82) Chad, you're a trendsetter. I think a lot of people are going to be following in your footsteps for sure. Yeah. Chad (06:11.863) Yeah, I think my wife's the trendsetter. My wife's the trendsetter. Maureen Clough (06:15.564) out while she's a smart one. She's a smart one. And please hook us all up when the time comes. Yeah. We'll do. Chad (06:19.27) Duh. Come and visit, come and visit. All right, let's go ahead. Let's jump into, Yep. Who wants to go first? it you, you Mo? You want to hit it? Okay. Maureen Clough (06:31.856) I'll go, you know, being a fan of jumping on the bandwagon for trends, I went ahead and did what literally everyone on planet Earth is doing according to LinkedIn, my LinkedIn feed, which is pump some prompt into chat GPT to see what kind of action figure it's gonna pop out based on what it knows about you. You guys, this is mine. So I'm gonna go ahead and tell you that I think it hallucinated, it hallucinated a little bit on this one. Chad (06:48.41) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (06:51.473) You Chad (06:53.508) I, you shaved today. That's, that's awesome. Maureen Clough (07:00.63) I would like to also point out, not only am I not a male, I do not play video games. I know almost nothing about video games. Mad respect to people. Chad (07:06.752) you're not a gamer. Chad (07:11.59) So listener there's there's there's an Xbox controller There's a book that says the journey it says writer and you do some writing right? Yeah, okay Then there's a 20-sided die and then a robot underneath it now the 20-sided die is Mainly a Dungeons and Dragons thing. So is that are you a Dungeons and Dragons girl? Maureen Clough (07:16.816) Yeah, thank you. Good point. Maureen Clough (07:21.468) I do, I do, Bit of writing. Maureen Clough (07:31.216) which is amazing. No, I've never played. I don't even know the concepts within. And by the way, like to call the book that I'm allegedly writing, The Journey, is such an insult to me because I cannot stand when people use the phrase, The Journey. Like it kills me. So chat GPT, Chad GPT, Chaddy GPT, whatever we want to call you. You got some work to do. Please don't hallucinate this hard. Like this isn't a front to me. Yeah, like did someone like, right? J.T. O'Donnell (07:53.553) think someone hijacked it. I think someone hijacked your chat GPT and like fed it some stuff beforehand because whoa, that's a mismatch. Maureen Clough (08:01.464) I was like, this makes zero sense on any level, but anyway. Yeah, you should. Let me know, I'll send you the prompt. J.T. O'Donnell (08:05.362) But I now want to try it, so you're going to send me the prompt. Yeah, I know. Chad (08:08.582) Oh, no, I will send you the prompt because mine actually looks like me. She did. I'll send. J.T. O'Donnell (08:12.963) Okay. I thought there was like a prompt going on that everyone was using that was the same. No, everyone's just prompted. it. All right. Chad (08:17.606) Yeah, but I mean, the thing is it's all about prompt engineering. It's about continuing to add to it so it actually comes closer. So hers is probably version one and mine's like 25. I don't know. She got on the bandwagon very early. Let's say that. All right. My shout out goes to Colossal Biosciences. You might've heard of these guys lately because they're the ones who brought back the dire wolf. The dire wolf has been extinct. Maureen Clough (08:19.088) thought there was. Maureen Clough (08:23.462) See? I don't know. Mmm. J.T. O'Donnell (08:30.81) love that. Maureen Clough (08:31.248) Hahaha! Maureen Clough (08:44.988) The what? Chad (08:46.854) extinct for 12,500 years. Watch this. Wait, we're Jurassic Park times kids. Watch this. Maureen Clough (09:05.372) It's cute. Chad (09:09.076) they're here. Chad (09:28.826) wooly mammoth. Maureen Clough (09:28.86) Bring it back. Bring back jobs to the US. Bring back William & Chad (09:33.264) Yes. dude, dude. So, I mean, this is how Jurassic parks started, but I mean, AI is going to kill us anyway. So I mean, why not bring some cool extinct animals back? mean, so, so as they asked in the video, what's, what extinct animal would you guys bring back? Maureen Clough (09:36.088) Wow, that's kind of crazy. Maureen Clough (09:43.876) That's true. Maureen Clough (09:54.864) I'm going Dino for sure. Like I'm going T-Rex. Mm-hmm, 100. Chad (09:57.882) T-Rex, a little Allosaurus or T-Rex, one of those big ones. What about you, JT? J.T. O'Donnell (10:02.726) Just no, no, I vote no. Thanks, Stupor, no. Chad (10:06.95) Too late! Too late! We've got a dire wolf. The toothpaste is out of the tube. It's gonna happen. Do you want a saber-tooth tiger? Raptor? Do you want a dodo bird? I mean, come on. What do want, JT? Maureen Clough (10:18.012) those are cute. J.T. O'Donnell (10:19.025) Everything that died was like killer. It was going to take us out. I just, in the words of White Lotus, no, Piper, no. Buddhism, no. I'm sorry. You're not getting one out of me. Chad (10:23.954) Dodo. think it... I think it... I think it... Maureen Clough (10:24.316) Go out with a bang. Ugh. That was good, JT. I'm impressed. Chad (10:40.067) You Maureen Clough (10:42.204) Things are getting weird out there, man. Chad (10:43.694) Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, I'm going, I'm going with the saber tooth tiger to be quite frank. Like I said, I think we're, we're in the days of idiocracy and we're going to be putting rondo on the, on the lawn soon. So yeah, let's just go ahead. We'll, do that. JT, what you got? Maureen Clough (10:48.87) Hmm. It's very solid. J.T. O'Donnell (11:00.48) my goodness. All right. So my shout out is a little different. Jorge Bastard posted that he runs for EMEA, vice president of sales for EMEA for Canva. That every quarter he now institutes this first week of the month of that quarter is this time where they just regroup and rest and just take time, which is so counterintuitive to a hustle culture, especially as sales hustle culture, right? Delivery. Chad (11:12.71) Mm-hmm. Chad (11:28.816) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (11:28.943) You've just come off a quarter and he got it. He was inspired by somebody in the health space who said, you know, you need to recalibrate. So they clear out the meetings, they review, they work on strategy. No one's pushing to make calls, appointments, et cetera, for one week. And it's all about mental and physical wellness. What I like about it is the fact that right now I'm seeing and hearing a lot of, you know, managers be like, okay, it's our time again, right? People are lucky to have a job. I saw a whole diatribe about like, why don't people have hustle anymore? Chad (11:42.79) Go ahead and connect to him too. J.T. O'Donnell (11:58.14) You know, it's time to bring hustle back. And I just thought it was nice that he was like, no, I get it. My people are hustling. And so they need a week to recoup, you know, and I'm going to work it into their, to the actual business, you know, and not make them take their own sales, their own vacation time. So shout out. think that's well played. Maureen Clough (11:58.396) Kids these days. Chad (12:14.18) Yeah, very well played. And I mean, when we're in a situation where we're doing the, you know, we're, in chaotic times, kids. Okay. Let's just go ahead and say that. So, you know, especially if you're in management, okay, if you're in management, you know that there's some stress that's happening. Not just with you and your family, but obviously with the, with, with the people that you support, the people, the teams that are out there. So again, one of the things that I've been trying to say more Maureen Clough (12:14.821) I agree. Chad (12:42.454) is give some grace to yourself, but then also those around you, right? So I think that's the big key. So that's a great shout out, JT. That's a great shout out. Maureen Clough (12:44.892) Love that. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (12:48.241) percent. J.T. O'Donnell (12:51.665) Yeah, the cool down week. He called it the cool down week. think it's great. I think it's the way to do it. Maureen Clough (12:51.846) He's gonna make more money. I love that and I bet you the productivity and the employee retention and all that's gonna skyrocket and I hope we get to see some really great results from it that can be then trumpeted around. I because right now I saw an article that came out recently that said that it's costing the economy $766 billion a year because of workplace insolvility rising, meaning people are just being rude, people throwing people under the bus, eye rolling, degrading comments at the office. Chad (13:01.042) yeah! Chad (13:18.406) Mm hmm. Yeah. Maureen Clough (13:23.268) And like you said, a lot of that's caused by the stress in these chaotic times and this job insecurity and instability that everyone's feeling all these layoffs, AI coming for your job, et cetera. And so if you're just like freaking nice to people, you can actually change your company's trajectory and the lives of your employees. So you can have a win-win. So I love that that guy is doing that. I hope we can follow up. Maybe we can get him on the show. Who knows? J.T. O'Donnell (13:34.577) Hmm. Chad (13:40.558) So, so, so the problem is toxic masculinity is making a comeback. That's a problem, right? So when you can actually get other males to get in there and say, first and foremost, it's not right. mean, I don't care what the fucking Manosphere tells you, okay? It's not right. These are, all human beings. We're, we're all created equal, should be paid equal, all that other fun stuff. But I think this is where, this is where we need to step up as leaders. J.T. O'Donnell (13:40.614) Right. J.T. O'Donnell (13:47.643) Hmm. Maureen Clough (13:47.887) It's Maureen Clough (13:56.187) Right. Mm-hmm. Chad (14:10.362) and actually have the discussions with our teams. It's not right, right? I mean, you have those discussions with your kids and sometimes, unfortunately, the people that work for you act like your kids, right? So you just have to take the time. You do, right? Maureen Clough (14:13.09) Mm-hmm. Yep. Maureen Clough (14:18.524) Okay. J.T. O'Donnell (14:23.089) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (14:23.26) We want to give our kids good examples, right? And when our leaders do this kind of stuff, you know, this negative stuff, this toxic stuff, it's not set in the right course for people. And so that drives me crazy that I have to actually tell my kids don't do what that world leader is doing because it's not okay. Kind of a weird moment. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (14:25.86) Yeah, yeah. Chad (14:42.49) Yeah, don't do that. I know he's the leader of the free world. so yeah, but one thing, leader of the free world, no, we're the leader of free stuff here at Chad and Cheese Kids. Always, always, always free stuff from the Chad and Cheese at chadcheese.com slash free. What can I get for free, Chad? So you're love this. First and foremost, t-shirts. Everybody loves t-shirts. They're on... Maureen Clough (14:48.028) Details. Maureen Clough (15:02.852) You Chad (15:09.43) LinkedIn all over the place. They're on the socials all over the place. Everybody gets a Chad and cheese. when they get a chad cheese.com slash free, they post it. Joel sent me this morning. You guys haven't seen it yet. I'm to send it to you. Joel sent me this morning, the new design and you know how we love concert t-shirts, right? So the last one, you know, we have like the guns and roses one before that. It was like ACDC. This new one is fucking kick ass. So I can't wait to be able to do that. who sponsors those shirts? Well, our friends over at J.T. O'Donnell (15:26.341) Yes. Chad (15:38.85) Aaron app. we also give away two bottles of whiskey a month to one listener. Just one listener. get two bottles. that's from our friends at van hack bourbon barrel aged syrup. Do you get a theme here? Kids? Bourbon, bourbon barrel, age syrup from our friends at key. Yorra who actually sponsor shout outs. Love those guys from up North. Maureen Clough (15:55.957) Mm, yes. Chad (16:03.362) Craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen tech labs. And if it is your birthday It's time for a little rum from plum the hard part here is because Joel usually runs the soundboard he has all this shit up and I can't allow a Episode to go by Without a little bit of that. yeah. yeah This is this is for you Joel. We miss you Maureen Clough (16:28.444) There we go. There we go. Chad (16:33.446) He's spring break in Canada. He's spring break in Canada. Yeah, he's he's well He's at spring spring break in Canada, which means all of his in-laws have been giving him shit all week because of all this tariff stuff so come back and be able to blow out a little bit, but he's traveling to Canada we're going to be headed to unleash in less than a month unleash America in Vegas Maureen Clough (16:36.54) Joel's proud, he's proud of you right now, you found it. J.T. O'Donnell (16:39.782) Well done. J.T. O'Donnell (16:45.329) Right? Maureen Clough (16:46.198) yeah, fair. Maureen Clough (16:51.036) You Chad (16:59.19) We're doing some cool stuff with the team over at GEM. We're going to be in the GEM booth moderating some panel discussions on the 7th and the 8th. And we're also doing some really cool shit with the team over at Smart Recruiters. Going to be recording another sessions season. That's right. We've got two out now. We're starting to drip out season two. We've got three. We've got another one that's in the can and we're getting ready to record season four. This shit is amazing. We're also going to have Maureen Clough (17:28.412) tight. Chad (17:28.856) A film wrap-up party on the 7th in a suite at the Cosmo. You might be, who knows, you might get a VIP ticket. But what are you guys up to? Are you going back to the cabin anytime soon, Mo? Are you going skiing anytime, JT? Maureen Clough (17:36.87) So much FOMO. It's awesome. I sure am. Yeah. Hitting that up. J.T. O'Donnell (17:45.146) Yeah, it's month season here. So there's not really more skiing left. We're waiting for summer, which is good. just feel this is the season of graduation and charity events and stuff. You know, I just feel like every time I turn around, there's something else to go to. I might slip a birthday in there. So yeah, so there's stuff coming. Chad (17:47.064) It's mud. Maureen Clough (17:50.391) yeah. Maureen Clough (17:59.59) So true. I'm going to my 20th college reunion too. And those are happening as well. It's crazy. J.T. O'Donnell (18:06.928) Yeah. Chad (18:06.95) It's crazy. I went to one college reunion. did not, or not, well, I'm sorry, high school reunion. It did not turn out well. So therefore I haven't been back. Maureen Clough (18:16.252) no, what happened? boy. We're to get this after the show. J.T. O'Donnell (18:18.897) We're back. So you're not allowed back is what you're telling us, Chad, right? Yeah. There's like, you're on a list. Got it. Got it. You're on a list. Nice. Chad (18:21.912) I don't want to talk about it. All I gotta say is old high school, know, somewhat who wanted to be flames. You get a little drunk, people start to hit on you. Yeah. I'm a Julie almost killed a bitch that almost happened. Maureen Clough (18:31.447) J.T. O'Donnell (18:34.149) Not allowed. Well, now that's a story we're going to need to hear over some drinks. Maureen Clough (18:39.61) Yeah, 100%. Chad (18:39.844) Yeah, I'll let Julie tell that one in the meantime. Maureen Clough (18:44.016) Ha ha ha. Chad (18:48.944) Whoo, so have you heard about this whole thing with Rippling and Deal? you have it. Yeah, you guys are full of shit. Anyway, it's literally, okay, listener, if you haven't listened, it's like corporate espionage thriller. So Rippling, which is a workforce management software, it's also a comedy, by the way, they recently sued Rival Deal, accusing them of planting a spy within their ranks. J.T. O'Donnell (18:54.093) No, what did something happen? What? Maureen Clough (18:54.108) What? Huh? Maureen Clough (19:11.664) literally. Chad (19:17.478) can listen to last week's show entitled deal spy games, to get more in depth podcast story. It's juicy. It's juicy. Anyways, now admits this scandal deals head of communications, Elizabeth Diana. That's a great name. Elizabeth Diana has resigned. She had been with the company since November, 2021 and her debark, her departure comes right on the heels of all of the spy talk. Meanwhile, rippling. which has raised over two billion with a B, $2 billion already in funding, reportedly in talks to raise several hundred million more aiming for a valuation of 16 billion. So, okay, so give me your thoughts, JT, you start out first. Thoughts on Elizabeth leaving deal during this whole spy thriller thing, and then also the rippling cash. What do you think? J.T. O'Donnell (20:07.419) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (20:14.513) Okay, so her leaving deal reminds me of every political drama show I've ever watched where the comms person takes the hit. Do know what I mean? Somebody in that organization made some bad choices and you go to the comms person and go, the whole reason we really have you is for moments like this so we can fire you publicly, blame you. Hopefully she's getting the nice parachute, right? And somebody that they know is going to set her up with a job, but that's how that works, right? Chad (20:21.839) huh, trying to get out early. Mm-hmm. Chad (20:33.684) OOOOH Maureen Clough (20:43.196) that's a good one. Chad (20:44.087) Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (20:44.325) I'm telling you, it's the, it's the calm person. That's what they do. Like that's why they're there, you know? So I, I'm hoping she's out there collecting the check on, you know, whatever. being a startup advisor, which I know we all are like, I can't wrap my head around why you need to go for more money. just, what? So you can, so you can say 16 billion with a B like that's just got bad news written all over it. You know, really, really hard for that unicorn status. I just don't think you need it though. You know, so. Chad (20:54.31) Whoo! Chad (21:13.158) Yeah? Yeah? J.T. O'Donnell (21:14.562) I don't know, what do you think? Chad (21:16.518) What about J? What do you think Mo? Maureen Clough (21:18.992) Well, I think that this proves the adage, there's no such thing as bad press is actually incorrect because this was so bad. She was like, peace, I'm out, right? Like I wouldn't want to touch this company with a 10 foot pole. I mean, I would just be like, you guys are on your own. I had nothing to do with this nonsense. Good luck to you. See you later. And hopefully she has some sort of package like you were saying, JT, where she can kind of coast for a bit. But I think I read she was previously at Meta Instagram and did some other pretty high profile stuff. Chad (21:30.63) Yeah. Chad (21:48.356) Uh-huh. Maureen Clough (21:48.75) I'm gathering she will land just fine. yeah, that dumpster fire, I would run as hard and as fast as I could away from it. I would want my name nowhere near it, which is why I feel so bad for the people who were innocent within the organization had nothing to do with this because this company, I think they're tarnished forever. I don't think this is, there's no redemption from this if you ask me, which I don't know. I mean, we'll see what happens. It's all allegations at this point, but based on what Mr. O'Brien had to say, it sure sounds pretty damn credible. So shout out to Mr. O'Brien who gave us the most lurid details that I legitimately think this will be a Netflix drama. It was incredible. J.T. O'Donnell (22:25.873) Do you remember the Lyft, Lyft claimed at one point that Uber made a bunch of calls, a bunch of fake requests for Lyfts and then no shows. I swear that was the thing way back when, right? So it's got that whole competitive, right? And so true, so true. But you know what I mean? Like the fact that it still goes on. Maureen Clough (22:35.106) yes, yes, yeah. Chad (22:36.976) Yeah, yeah. Well, that was that was child's play compared to this, though. Maureen Clough (22:41.678) No. Maureen Clough (22:46.094) It's wild. Chad (22:46.288) I, so, you know, for Elizabeth leaving, all I can say is run Lizzie run, okay? Because, I mean, she had a star-studded resume before, as you'd said, Mo. She was global comms and PR at Google, might've heard of those guys. VP corporate comms at Facebook, head of comms at Insta. Dude, I'd run as fast and far as I could away from this mess, especially with the likelihood that some of her buddies in the C-suite Maureen Clough (22:52.845) No. Maureen Clough (23:01.371) Yeah. Maureen Clough (23:07.42) Right? Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (23:08.163) Exactly. Chad (23:15.14) are gonna be wearing orange jumpsuits possibly, possibly sometime soon. So yeah, I get it. mean, if you can get away from this, and again listeners, if you didn't listen to last week, the spy games, gotta listen, we ran through the affidavit. You gotta listen to that. But then we talk about other unicorns. Maureen Clough (23:16.912) in the big house. Maureen Clough (23:35.644) It was nuts. Chad (23:42.765) in Oh my God, dude, we're talking about rippling needing cash. Talk about warning signals. Okay. So you remember the, I'm going to go back, I'm going to go back a little bit, uh, to March of 2023 when, uh, the SVB debacle happened. Silicon Valley bank. Remember when that happened and everybody was getting ready. So when that happened, I don't know if you remember this or not. Maureen Clough (23:47.61) I hadn't heard that one. It's great. Maureen Clough (23:54.63) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (24:04.07) Mm-hmm. yeah, absolutely. Maureen Clough (24:05.367) Mm-hmm, sure do. Chad (24:10.412) Rippling struck an emergency $500 million term sheet in 12 hours during that SVB meltdown. And as Joel would say, don't allow a crisis to go to waste. But seriously, this is, you know, to me is a huge warning signal. If I were a company looking for a workforce management payroll platform, looking at the unstable market, Maureen Clough (24:16.816) Wow. J.T. O'Donnell (24:19.003) Mm-hmm. Chad (24:37.591) wondering why Rippling needs more cash and remembering Rippling obviously wasn't on solid ground during the SVB meltdown, being able to cover payrolls, hence needing $500 million to be able to do that. yeah, I forgot about the whole spy drama too. Yeah, that thing's going on. In my honest opinion, I would get away from anything that was Rippling or deal at this point. J.T. O'Donnell (24:47.909) Right. Chad (25:05.626) I don't know if you got, even if they were my current provider, I would be in, in emergency mode, looking for a contingency just in case I needed to hop quick. Because the last thing you want to do is not have payroll. I mean, and I also have more news. Are you ready for more news? J.T. O'Donnell (25:19.141) Yeah. Maureen Clough (25:19.344) Yeah, it's kind of important people like that. Chad (25:29.806) Yes, deal who's, who is also also a unicorn, Keith O'Brien deals former spy who was working at rippling has avoided imprisonment. That's right. He's not going to prison for contempt of court, despite admitting to destroying his iPhone, which was central to the allegations of corporate corporate espionage. O'Brien had been accused of acting as a spy for a riot rival deal. After being served with a high court order on March 14th, yes, less than a month ago kids, to preserve his electronic devices, he performed a factory reset on his phone, later destroyed the phone with an axe. Maureen Clough (26:16.156) I just love the theatrics of this. Chad (26:16.646) I'm pausing. Yeah, it's a pregnant pause here. Cause I mean, with an axe and disposed of the remains down a drain at his mother-in-law's house, O'Brien claimed he was under duress, alleging harassment and surveillance of his family. The court accepted the apology and explanation deciding to impose a custodial sentence. So more likely is going to get like a, you know, a ankle bracelet or something like that. But, so do we believe Maureen Clough (26:40.924) monitor. Chad (26:45.668) This leniency has anything to do with O'Brien's cooperation thoughts? Maureen Clough (26:51.964) I'm no expert on this at all, but I would think so. And also like maybe a hat tip for the incredible details he provided. Like he didn't necessarily have to throw in that they mentioned James Bond, but he did. And for that, I'm forever grateful. Also, I mean, I have to say like at some level, he's the little guy in this situation. He was the pawn, pawn ship. Wait, is that a pawn? No. J.T. O'Donnell (26:54.896) Hmm. Chad (27:02.982) He did. Chad (27:13.926) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (27:18.789) Right. Chad (27:20.762) He's the pawn. Yeah. He was the pawn. Yeah. Maureen Clough (27:21.478) whatever the term is, he was the pawn and the masterminds were the high powered individuals. And I feel like so often those guys are kind of untouchable in the eyes of the law. mean, we all just, hopefully, if you like good television, we all just watch the White Lotus. And typically it's like the people in those positions of power, they just can do what they do and get away with it. So I kind of sort of like that they do. And I kind of sort of like that the little guy is not going down for this. Chad (27:44.663) And they do. Maureen Clough (27:51.012) in the same way that I imagine the big guys who orchestrated the whole thing, who are in the positions of exceptional power and wealth and privilege are going to go down. Chad (28:01.86) ArchJT. J.T. O'Donnell (28:02.706) I just, I just envisioned somewhere like in the police or wherever this goes, everybody's looking at this case going, don't want it. Like, I don't like you take this one. Low, low guy in the totem pole. Like you take this one. Like just like, don't, I don't want Mike. No, I just feel like there are people who was like, I'm not attaching this one to my career. These two nerdy HR companies are spy gaming it with this guy. Like I just, somewhere out there they're going, yeah, I don't want that one. Like. Chad (28:16.218) Are you saying if Johnny Cochran was alive, he wouldn't take this case? Maureen Clough (28:23.42) Ha ha ha ha ha! Chad (28:27.782) Dude. J.T. O'Donnell (28:31.845) Give it to someone else. Give it to Mikey. Remember Life's here. Give it to Mikey. I swear that's what they got to be thinking. But I am with Mo. I do think that he must have struck a deal of some type to be able to not go to jail. But the acts, like it just would have been more perfect if he filmed himself breaking his own phone like Kevin is his wife or somebody film it. the fact that he can give it to us in such vivid detail. Absolutely. Right. Again. Yeah. Maureen Clough (28:31.888) That's so funny. Chad (28:34.362) Give it to Mikey. Chad (28:55.686) Oh, we're going to get a re-enactment. We're going to get a re-enactment. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And just a quick reminder, he did all of this for 5,000 pounds a month. Maureen Clough (28:58.413) yeah. I can't wait. Maureen Clough (29:04.924) No! J.T. O'Donnell (29:05.497) I just... Maureen Clough (29:07.9) It kills me to know this. It kills me. Chad (29:09.478) 5,000 pounds a month. That's about 6,000 US dollars. To be a spy, corporate espionage, you think that, I'm gonna get a cool mill each month to be able to knock this out, because we're gonna, know. At least six figures. Give me a break. Are you kidding me? J.T. O'Donnell (29:13.273) I just... J.T. O'Donnell (29:24.977) No. Has he not watched any movies? Like you asked for way more. Like a hit's at least 20 grand. Maureen Clough (29:28.627) Right? way more. J.T. O'Donnell (29:35.685) Bye. Maureen Clough (29:35.834) It's wild. Chad (29:36.718) I know we are a cheap industry, don't get me wrong, but come on. O'Brien, you're worth more. You're worth more. Well, you're not now, but you were. You were worth more. Maureen Clough (29:39.888) Ha ha ha ha ha ha! That takes the cake. Yeah. Yeah, think he's done. Poor guy. Poor family, innocent family, know? that's the part that gets me. J.T. O'Donnell (29:49.328) Yeah. Chad (29:52.355) Excellent. I know. I know. Anyway, as again, the prediction and as you were talking about earlier, Mo, I think and I said last week on last week's show, I think the only way to save deal, the only way to save deal is to clean the C-suite house, period. And I think that from a couple of different reasons, first and foremost, all the people who had nothing to do with it, they're going to fucking leave. And if you don't have the people to actually do the job in the first place, who have gotten you to where they're at, at about 800 million ARR in a very short amount of time, Maureen Clough (30:08.742) Yeah. Chad (30:25.542) What happens when they leave? Right? So you need to get that head shed. You need to get that C-suite restocked with adults in the room and do it quick. Because if you don't, think, I fear you're 100 % right Mo, they're gonna be dead. Maureen Clough (30:27.803) Nothing good. Maureen Clough (30:35.228) You J.T. O'Donnell (30:41.787) Chad, you know the industry best who's third that's nobody's talking about. mean, these two are duking it up. Who's third? And that's where I think I said this a couple of episodes ago, which we keep talking about these two, these two, these two, or whoever where it was talking. It's going to be somebody that's not even talking about that's going to win the game while they play these games. Maureen Clough (30:42.0) Mm-hmm. Chad (30:45.508) Well, so there are so many. There are so many EOR companies. I I love it. Maureen Clough (30:46.022) Great question. Maureen Clough (30:59.26) Who's, that's such a good point. Who's gonna be that underdog who rises up and eats their lunch right now? Great call. Chad (31:00.454) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (31:03.951) Yeah, whoever's listening, message in. Like, let's see. I want an informal poll that I didn't ask that we could do. Everybody message in and tell us who you think is going to be taken over while these two do get out. Yeah. Chad (31:08.902) God. They're so... Maureen Clough (31:14.78) Great call. Chad (31:14.828) Yes. And EOR is so big. It's gotten so much money over the last three years, that there are plenty of, there's Rippling and Deal, right? And then the rest of them, I don't want to say close third, but there's a pack of them and there's a ton of them. So yeah, I mean, this is definitely their opportunity literally to try to go and pick the bones of either one of these organizations. And when Rippling, to me again, sends the signal of warning, J.T. O'Donnell (31:31.035) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (31:37.617) 100%. Chad (31:44.506) That they need more cash. Too easy. mean, that's just too easy. J.T. O'Donnell (31:48.145) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (31:48.496) Yeah, I think that's totally right. And I wonder how many of these competitors that are in this mix are going to capitalize specifically on this whole drama. Because I can imagine like such fire social media content, making fun of it and suggesting an alternative. So I kind of hope they get someone like the Duolingo Owl social media analyst or social media creator in there just like going to town. I can't remember her name, I feel bad saying that. Chad (31:53.659) Mm-hmm. Chad (31:58.374) They should. Chad (32:02.692) Yes. Maureen Clough (32:16.442) she's exceptional and she's done so much for that brand. But I think this is like the moment that you can leverage this and have it, you know, give you some great leads and close this. Chad (32:27.374) My advice is to check out whoever did the, the earlier AI video manufacturing video. That was pretty funny. And then have them actually do that for you as well. All right. We are going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back for a tariff version of buy or sell. Who's ready? Maureen Clough (32:35.308) yeah. Yeah, yeah. Chad (32:49.282) All right, here we go. okay, so it's sell kids. It's tariff week, so instead of having three startups getting cash, we only have one. Damn tariffs. So what happens? What happens when you get a tariff? Okay, so, geez. J.T. O'Donnell (32:59.025) Yeah. It's terrific, like she said. Chad (33:08.154) That was bad. That was really bad. Give me a second. gotta get my... Again, where's Joel when I need him? well, shit. Okay, whatever. Maureen Clough (33:09.884) You Maureen Clough (33:16.625) I don't know how either of you do that. would be like, seriously, it'd be so bad. Chad (33:20.518) We'll do this instead. I do. So Artisan is the AI startup known for its cheeky stop hiring humans campaign has secured a 25 million series a funding round by glade brooke capital. Ironically, despite advocating for AI driven sales agents, Artisan is expanding its human team. That's right. They need humans currently employing 35 people with plans to hire 22 more. 23 year old CEO Jasper Carmichael Jack. That's right. His name is Jasper Carmichael Jack. would go by JCJ. Yes, I would do that. Emphasizes that the provocative slogan was primarily for attention, acknowledging that human labor becomes more valuable alongside AI advancements. That sounds like a bunch of bullshit, Jack. So the CEO is joined by J.T. O'Donnell (34:04.784) I like it. Maureen Clough (34:05.628) Wow. You J.T. O'Donnell (34:22.619) Yeah. Chad (34:25.638) co-founder and chief product officer Sam Stallings. Now she is the veteran of the two at 30 years of age and spent eight years in product at IBM. So I'm gonna go ahead and do this first because I've been talking about agents, agents, agents for the last fricking months for goodness sakes. Does this young duo have what it takes to send Artisan to a big exit or maybe become the new platform for IPO? J.T. O'Donnell (34:33.551) nice. Maureen Clough (34:33.734) Mm. tracks. Maureen Clough (34:40.571) interesting. Chad (34:55.728) First off, Sam working at IBM for eight years. IBM was a powerhouse 25 years ago. So Sam's experience is great, but how often do you hear about Watson? Right? This is not an NVIDIA. This is not a chat GPT, not an OpenAid, you know. Anyway, Artisan is experiencing high churn, which is very normal when you start selling a product. Maureen Clough (35:12.294) Mm-mm. You don't. Chad (35:24.794) That's not ready for the markets. I, currently advise, poetry, Adam Gordon, Mike and Stephen and, the team watching them take gen AI and agents into the market is masterclass. yes, you have to be fast because text velocity today is staggering, but you also need to know when to take a beat and listen to the market. Right. And it doesn't feel. Maureen Clough (35:26.81) Vaporware. Chad (35:54.648) Again, like these guys are doing that. I believe these two co-founders are brilliant. And even as Joel would say, this wave, the agent wave is a big wave. The problem is there are too many surfers on it. It's crowded. And unfortunately it feels like Artisan has a substandard surfboard. So for that reason, I'm going to go with a cell from me. Maureen Clough (36:08.187) Hmm. Chad (36:20.442) JT, what do think? J.T. O'Donnell (36:22.363) So here's the one thing I love about young startup founders is they don't know what they don't know. And they're not sitting with years of baggage behind them where they shoot down every idea because we tried it here, we did it here, whatever. I mean, I think there's something real there. So I love the energy of young founders that can do spirit. They don't carry the baggage. I like that. I'm with you. I don't see IBM as a visionary place. I think Chad (36:25.787) Mm-hmm. Chad (36:36.538) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (36:49.137) If they were much later stage, maybe she would see, you know, how bigger companies run and that could be a real plus, but I don't, I'm not seeing that there. I think the thing that you said that hits home most for me is just how many players are in the space. And when there's that many people in the space, it can be the littlest thing that's going to help you break through. And I'm not seeing or hearing that in what we had here. So for those reasons, there are sell for me too. Maureen Clough (37:15.228) I love it. Well, I'm really glad you guys are touching on the age of the founders because I think that matters. And the reality is you should have an intergenerational team in order to have the best possible outcomes. And people don't remember this in tech, especially there is such incredible bias for youth. And so everybody wants the young founders. But guess what? The young founders don't have experience, which I view as a massive asset in Chad (37:15.654) That's right. That's right. Mo, what do think? Your thoughts. Maureen Clough (37:42.094) you can have all of these things together. You can have these people who haven't tried things before and are not necessarily feeling as though they have the roadmap and that might embolden them in some ways that some other people would be held back by, right? But if you don't have people who've been there done that and have the experience to see around corners, see potential pitfalls emerge before people with less experience, I mean, you're just shooting yourself in the foot. And like so many, did obviously a lot of... young founders in tech companies still make it, right? But like you said, there's so many people on this wave. And so if you have two people who are super young early in their career, and by the way, like young people are freaking brilliant and I am not being ageist against young people. I wanna make that very clear. My whole podcast is about ageism in the workplace. So I'm not being ageist here. I care deeply about the subject. But this is a moment where I think you need people who have experience to help. guide along the way. And one of the things that freaks me so much out about this whole AI boom is that we don't have intergenerational teams and people are hurtling through space in an arms race to find and develop technology the most quickly as possible so that they can make the most money as possible. And they don't have guardrails in place. We don't have regulations. We don't have people who've been there done that kind of sorting through what's going on. And I think that opens us up to so much risk and to the possibility of less revenue and value creation. So for those reasons, I'm gonna pass, but I also do wanna say that I like that the founder Jasper Jack or whatever his name is, I like that he admitted that his billboards were specifically to provoke. Like thanks for saying the quiet part out loud. And the reality is, know, this is what companies everywhere are doing. He's just saying it out loud. He's like. If they can outsource you with cheaper labor elsewhere, or if they can replace you with AI, or if they think they can, it doesn't matter if you're at work in the office five days a week, if you're best friends with your boss, if a company thinks that they can replace you with cheaper labor, whether that be by a robot or a human across the world, or someone who they think they can extract and exploit, who may be younger, for example, because one of the things I can't stand is that I feel like tech companies push out older workers so that they can hire and then exploit younger workers, which is not cool. Chad (40:01.094) part of the recipe. Yeah. Maureen Clough (40:03.1) But like all of these things like I this is the quiet part out loud This is what every company is doing and he's just kind of coming out and saying it and also provoking people and getting buzz So I think that's actually kind of smart and so anyway, that's just a side note. But yeah, I'm still passing I'm out Chad (40:23.354) Yeah, so I do agree. mean, they are on as again, Joel always talks about the way this is a great way of the problem is that you have and just a great example, you have a company like smart recruiters. They were a legacy type of platform from an applicant tracking system standpoint, at least the way that they were set up, right? The way that they were actually built. And they in less than three months, turned the ship around and went full agentic all to the point where they were, I believe the highest quadrant for Gartner's quadrant that they just put out. So they went from, that's how fast you can move if you have resources, right? So the problem is trying to actually start up a new company, right? And trying to compete with organizations that already have all of these resources. Number one, And then number two, are, you're a dime a dozen. You're a dime a dozen. Every single company that's going to want to get funding is going to have AI and agentic out there. They have to. That's where the money's at. And if you don't have it, then you're not going to get the money. Right. And some of those organizations that are out there who are not looking to take cash, because they're focused on, you know, trying to get into the market and get a quick, quick exit. I see that happening, but These guys are Y Combinator. They take 25 million. That's something that I'm personally not interested in. So that is our tariff version of buy or sell kids. So there you go. Let's go ahead and hit the next one. This next one straight out of CNBC. my God. So companies, companies are facing a new threat. Job seekers who aren't Maureen Clough (41:51.388) Hmm. Maureen Clough (41:56.54) So with you. Ha ha ha. Maureen Clough (42:11.013) Chad (42:16.026) who they say they are using AI tools to fabricate photo IDs, generate employment history and provide answers during interviews. wait, no, there's more. There's more, you thought that was bad. This one from Fortune Magazine. So it turns out that North Koreans didn't need to hack your firewall. Nope, you just hired them into your organization as remote workers. Yep, the hacker. is coming from inside the house. So Fortune 500 companies have unknowingly employed North Korean IT workers posing as remote staff. These fake hires funneled their salaries and access back to Pyongyang, possibly even funding missile programs, who knows? So while companies were busy trying to build strong firewalls, Maureen Clough (42:48.028) We're so screwed. Chad (43:10.638) North Korean spies are gaining access via VPN during your company onboarding. I got no words. Who wants to tackle this one? Anyone? Maureen Clough (43:21.104) go, mom, will you please come pick me up? I am freaking terrified. Like this is not okay. And the fact that this is happening at Fortune 500 companies where you would imagine that their compliance and security teams would be top notch, tip top. I've worked in tech for a long time. Like I had to log into so many VPN systems and all this stuff and there were so, it was so irritating as an employee and Chad (43:31.066) Yes. Chad (43:43.27) But they're already in, that's the thing. Maureen Clough (43:44.666) And they're exactly, yes, but it's just like, how did they get through the process without being found? Like that freaks me out because I'm like, come on guys. we had, I hope that this story gets spread far and wide because this is freaking terrifying. Like this is really, really grossly frightening to me. And I think, you know, and I also read another, excuse me. I read another story related to this about the fact that some of these workers that were aided and abetted, Chad (43:50.17) Background check anyone? Maureen Clough (44:13.562) were aided and abetted by US citizens who got paid for facilitating the entry of these fake IT workers. like, should go to, you should be in prison for that. This is like so unacceptable. And I think right now, the fact that this is coming out, I think it means that every company that gives a damn about our country and our security has to beef up their, cybersecurity, their interview process, it sucks. It's a burden that's going to fall, I think, on companies to take up, but it is the right thing to do. It's the only thing to do. This is so terrifying to me, truly. I mean, it like made my blood run cold thinking about this. And especially with all the technology that we have at our fingertips to try to prevent this kind of thing, the fact that it's happening to this degree and has been since 2018, it just gives me the chills. Chad (45:02.32) Mm-hmm. Maureen Clough (45:10.416) Honestly, like it really, it really makes me feel deeply unsafe, kind of like when war plans get sent across signal. That's also a little frightening. So yeah, I'm scared. I'm scared. Chad (45:23.942) JT, can you bring us off the ledge? Okay. Deep breath. J.T. O'Donnell (45:24.753) Probably not. I don't think I'm known on this shift for bringing anybody off the ledge. I'm pretty sure I'm the one that pushes. So, you know, we just came off talking about, you know, instead of hiring humans, hiring bots and how this is all working, we have been talking for so long now about how companies that finally figured out, wait, the jobs I have for remote will let me go get remote workers where they're cheaper. So there's been this massive offshoring ideas and concepts and Maureen Clough (45:26.71) hahahahah J.T. O'Donnell (45:53.868) You know, if it's too good to be true, if you've got a worker that sounds perfect on paper, that's willing to work for five bucks an hour, should we be suspect? You know, and that's where it just boggles my mind for all the reasons you spoke of Mo, but also the fact that these companies are just, they're just so quick to go do these things without double checking. Where, where is this going to go? Is it going to bring us full circle back to people have to physically be in front of us to know that they're real? Maureen Clough (46:14.278) Hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (46:22.405) You know, I've saw multiple tech companies have said they are now only doing in-person hiring and in-person testing because they have been screwed so badly by remote workers. have to physically come in and you have to actually do the work in front of them so they know that it's really you. That's where we've gotten full circle. And I think you're going to continue to see and hear that because of what's happening at this scale. So, you know, how do they adjust for that? How do they compensate for that? I don't know, but it's, you know, it's scary times. Maureen Clough (46:22.748) you Chad (46:23.056) Yeah. Chad (46:37.094) Hmm. Maureen Clough (46:39.132) Jeez. Maureen Clough (46:51.452) really is. Chad (46:52.176) All I have to say... Chad (46:57.102) Yes. mean, we've got the thing that kills me about companies right now. It's move fast, break things. Well, they're going to be breaking their own things from the inside out because they're not doing the background checks. They're not doing the due diligence. They're not doing what's necessary to make sure that they're safe. And as Moad said, it's really hard today to try to get serious about your corporate side when you've got the U S government putting things on signal. It's so, I mean, it's over and over. So yes, I've got to play it twice and then. Maureen Clough (47:31.004) Hahahaha Chad (47:33.574) and we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be back. Maureen Clough (47:35.898) You Chad (47:39.192) All right, so if it can't get any crazier, another one from CNBC, Spotify CEO Toby Lutke told employees in a memo, classy Toby, a memo, that's awesome, that they'll have to show jobs can be done by AI or they can't be done by AI before asking for more headcount or resources. So, wow, a memo, number one, that's pretty impersonal. J.T. O'Donnell (48:03.365) Mmm. Chad (48:08.794) I mean, a memo and then saying, look, you have to prove to me that you deserve these new resources, thoughts. This is, this is not going to be, this isn't, this is, this is going to be a trend. Watch it. J.T. O'Donnell (48:19.598) Office. J.T. O'Donnell (48:23.377) Oh, I mean, first of all, as a 20 year career coaching veteran, right? Coaching people every day, I explained to them, you are not an employee. You are a business of one. You are a service provider. Okay. And your job is to show how you save or make enough money to justify the cost of hiring you, which is about 130 to 140 % of your salary. Do the math back in the work and prove yourself. If you want to stay employable, when all this AI stuff hits, first thing I said to people is understand either figure out how to use the AI or you're out the door. Figure it out, either be the prompt and figure, be the head of marketing. They can do the work of 10 people. I'm not saying you're working 60 hours a week. I'm saying, show them how you can do it in 35, you know, but the work of 10 people, if you don't figure that out sooner than later, you are going to be in trouble. And that is exactly where we are now, because eventually those people way at the top, we're going to understand the magnitude. And I'm going take you totally off subject for a minute, but to show you my husband's a pilot. Okay. He's not spending time on chat. TPT doesn't care. We're planning this trip to Europe. Maureen Clough (49:15.964) You J.T. O'Donnell (49:22.513) He's trying to figure out the miles and he looks at me and says, you haven't planned the itinerary. It's going to take time. We need to clear a schedule. like, okay. I said, why don't you pick those dates? He's picking the dates. I'm putting into chat GPT a prompt about us, what we want, what we want to do. He tells me the dates. I hand him my computer. He goes, what I go, there's your 11 page detail complete with Google maps, hyperlink suggestions. He goes, shut up. He opens it up. He looks at it and he looks at me he goes, is this a public company? Can I invest? Maureen Clough (49:45.413) You Chad (49:50.566) Ha! Maureen Clough (49:50.683) Hahaha! J.T. O'Donnell (49:51.538) Little behind, baby. Little behind with the chat. I love you. I love you. But no. And but my point in that moment was how long has he heard about chat, GPT? But the moment somebody does something that you get, and that's where I feel like executives are hitting now, they are starting to see the magnitude. And so you are going to he is just leading the way of C suites going, show me what you're doing with AI. And when you can show me that this has to be done with a human. Maureen Clough (49:55.462) amazing. J.T. O'Donnell (50:20.001) you're going to see this is just the beginning for that reason exactly, which is why either be part of the AI solution or you're out, you know? And so we've been talking about this for over a year with people, until it happens to them, they, you know, they just don't see it until it, until it hurts, you know? And so there you have it. Maureen Clough (50:22.434) yeah. Maureen Clough (50:28.092) your gun. Maureen Clough (50:37.18) 100%. I agree with literally everything you just said. And what I also found to be really interesting is there was another, there was a snapshot of that memo itself. And so it's clear from the snapshot of the memo that not only is it an expectation for people to actually use AI tools in their day-to-day jobs, there's also an expectation that you share the findings with the group. So there's, it's all self-guided. They expect you to go DIY AI and it's not. something that they're doing a corporate rollout, they're not giving you training. And so that to me seems like such a massive gap and they're putting it on the backs of the workers, right? Which to your point, JT, because of the way these things are shifting, we should be doing anyway, but now they're being forced to by their bosses, right? So it's kind of like, eat your broccoli, like we should have been doing this all along, right? And now there's a mandate, but. Companies don't know what they're doing. This is all fly by night. They're like, hey, use AI. Tell us what you did. Did it work? What should we change? Like, how should we roll this out? So there's still, I view a huge need for AI education across organizations because people don't know what they don't know to your point. And there is a lot of... resistance to AI adoption. It's decreasing thankfully, but there was a huge difference between women and men in their adoption. was like over the course of 18 studies, Harvard Business School did a report that said it was on average 25 % lower adoption rate for women. Wow. I mean, the impact of that, huge. We're actually, we're moving up. It's gonna be better, thankfully. People are getting it. But I also found it interesting. Women, one of the reasons that was... was suggested as one of the reasons they did not want to adopt AI was they felt like it was quote, cheating. And with women who often have this imposter syndrome thing, I can totally see why they're like, ooh, I don't want, know, ooh, I don't want someone to think like I only was able to achieve this because I had a chatty GPT robot helping me, right? But it's, we're finally figuring that out, but there's also much more adoption of AI tools in younger generations than older generations. But there are also, Chad (52:26.106) Mm-hmm. Chad (52:33.402) Right. Maureen Clough (52:46.492) older people over the age of 45 who are AI masters. They totally know it inside and out. the thing that I think freaks me out about all this AI stuff is there's already so much ageism in hiring. And there was a study that came out recently by Generation that was funded by Google, google.org. And they found that it was something like 60 % more likely that people would consider, or gosh, I'm gonna get, I'm like, I literally wrote these down so I wouldn't, botch this, but here I am. Sometimes the numbers get changed, but I promise you it's worth this. finding it right now. So only 32 % of US employers would consider candidates over age 60 for AI focused or AI adjacent roles, like roles that leverage AI, which for Shopify, every employee is expected to use them. So if you're over 60, you're going for jobs, which by the way, by 2030, 25 % of the available workforce will be over 55. So this is going to impact a ton of people in a ton of companies. People don't want to hire you because they don't think that you have what it takes. So we have a lot of work to do. And a lot of it, frankly, is just going to be on us until companies get a roadmap and they're able to help us with training and anti-bias prevention and stuff once they care about that again. Anyway, that was a lot. But. Chad (54:11.174) Yeah. So, I mean, for me, this is the same as it ever was. This isn't new. It's just another version of why do you need this position? Right? And this is something that hiring managers have had to deal with for years, but now there's an AI spin to it. Remember? So now, instead of, you're being fired because of AI. Now it's like, proved to me that you deserve these resources. That AI can't do it, right? That is not cheaper. I think obviously the HR managers, there should be supporting in being able to pull together a lot of this data. but here's a quick hack for, for, for TA folks, forever. We've needed to learn the business side and there's no better time than now due to this rapid transformation in business to help differentiate departments and build business cases on how specific positions are vital and they impact the business's bottom line. This is our chance as TA to actually come in as experts, learn the different disciplines, the different vital positions so that we understand the business more. That's one of the biggest issues is that we have not been strategic enough and we can't be strategic because we don't understand the business. This gives us the opportunity to get into the cogs of the actual business. to see what moves business and what's bullshit. We don't need that position anymore. That's dumb, right? Be the person that focuses on doing that and being the expert for your organization and then they will never call you a fucking cost center again. Maureen Clough (55:50.972) That's brilliant, really good advice. Love that mic drop moment for you. J.T. O'Donnell (55:53.591) Well said. Well said. Chad (55:55.568) Thank you, thank you. Well, that's another week in the can, I guess. Joel's not around, so that's gonna happen again next week. He'll be back, kids, don't worry. Don't worry, either JT, Mo, Emmy will be around too. So we'll be back next week, but until then, I don't have a dad joke because that's a Joel thing. Maureen Clough (56:20.284) I can't help either. Chad (56:21.638) And plus, I don't want to talk about lesbian scissoring or anything like that because that's his thing. So I'm just going to leave it with, we out. Maureen Clough (56:25.433) boy, that would be, that's his lane. J.T. O'Donnell (56:31.92) out. Maureen Clough (56:32.742) Peace.

This week’s episode has more plot twists than a Netflix docuseries, and it all starts with a CEO on the run… Deel’s New Drama: Forget corporate espionage—now Deel’s CEO is literally  dodging subpoenas. Indeed’s Midlife Crisis: Indeed woke up, saw LinkedIn’s reflection in the mirror, and said, “Yeah, I’ll have what he’s having.” LinkedIn’s Throwback Vibes Made in America (By Someone Else): Everyone says  they want manufacturing back in the U.S.—but only 1 in 4 would actually take the job. Bring on the patriotic posturing, just hold the overalls. 🎧 Buckle up as Chad and Cheese unpack the corporate cosplay, legal dodges, and workplace nostalgia no one asked for. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:36.782) Yeah, if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. Hey, boys and girls, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel "No Deel" Cheesman. Chad (00:48.12) This is Chad "A1" Sowash. Emi B (00:50.665) And this is Emi, why didn't I give up wine for Lance Beredugo? Joel (00:55.266) And on this episode, the deal drama don't stop. The boxes are back and OnlyFans says a recession is on the way. Let's do this. Chad (00:58.574) Yeah. Chad (01:08.878) So, before you came on, I was telling Joel that last weekend I went with a bunch of guys and we went paintballing. And I think, and I don't want get your feedback there, do you think that we should have like a Chad and Cheese tournament where people can actually sign up and they can prospectively shoot Chad and Cheese? Joel (01:28.366) Dude, you can get hurt in paintball, man. What are you talking about? Dude, I'm tender. I'm sensitive to paintballs. Emi B (01:28.868) yeah. Chad (01:31.15) Would you do that? Would you do that, Emmy? Yeah? yeah. yeah. yeah. No, people will pay. Really, Emmy? I thought you were supposed to be a friend. Is this how we're doing things? Jesus. Emi B (01:34.964) you? No, no, honestly, is this a serious thing? Are we going to do this? Because people are going to pay for this. I'm not going to lie. They will. Yeah. 100%. Can I go first, Emi B (01:50.184) We are friends, but you know, I'm not gonna pass out the opportunity to kind of kind of shoot paintballs at both of you. Amazing. Joel (02:00.802) We can do it like, remember, remember the predator movie, Chad, where they released the convicts in the jungle and then predators would hunt them. Like you could drop us in a field or something of woods, wooded area, maybe in, maybe in Nebworth at rec fest. can like drop us and pay for all the, for all the companies we've destroyed. they can pay to like come shoot us with paint balls. Chad (02:10.594) I just want, I need to be able to shoot back. Yeah. Emi B (02:14.27) Can you imagine that? can you imagine who's going to come after you? I mean, I won't be... Chad (02:23.768) fucking perfect. Jesus. Indeed'll have like six teams. Thing is they have to be employees. They have to be. So you're not sending like fucking black ops motherfuckers. Joel (02:28.301) it Indeed. Emi B (02:31.696) You Joel (02:37.986) Yeah, the CEO has to put on some fatigues if they're going to do it the right way. Emi B (02:40.348) Chad (02:42.109) yeah, I could see Hines doing that. sure. Sure. Emi B (02:44.99) That'd be hilarious. Joel (02:47.0) So Chad, I see you've got your Buckeyes jersey on. I'm assuming you saw the JD Vance fumble of the trophy on TV. What'd you think of that? Chad (02:51.417) yeah. Emi B (02:53.086) thing. Chad (02:56.819) That frickin douchebag. Well first and foremost, mean, okay. Come on man. I mean, Jesus Christ. You get a trophy handed to you, right? You don't just grab the base, you grab the base. I mean, the guy, first off, the guy's a fucking loser in the first place. He's never held a trophy in his life and that's probably one of the reasons why he did this. Ugh, fuck. Joel (03:25.026) he dropped it. Like of all of all the the visits of teams throughout the years to the White House, I've never remembered any president or vice president dropping the trophy and he's an Ohio Senator. So that was very apropos to everyone. Chad (03:26.498) I know! Emi B (03:42.804) think it's hilarious. Chad (03:43.168) Thanks for reminding me about that. Jesus. God. Joel (03:45.578) It is, it is quite funny. so you two are hung over. Let's set the stage here. You two are hung over and I'm, I'm, I'm, nursing like day three of a cold. I went to Canada on, on spring break and I think I got the, the Toronto flu or something. Yeah. I don't know what that was. yeah, by the, by the way, Canada, Canada is on full anti-America alert, by the way. there's a, there's a place there called Boston pizza. Emi B (03:50.514) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (03:56.232) my head hurts. Emi B (04:00.51) Got the laggies. We are on form today. Chad (04:15.138) Okay. Joel (04:15.712) And it's like huge sign like Canada owns since 1972 or something, even though it's called Boston pizza. Yeah. I, I will tell you though, for all the, the boycotting that's going on in, Canada, they are not boycotting Chipotle. They are not boycotting Chipotle. Chipotle is above all. Yeah. Chad (04:21.834) Oh, yeah. Uh huh. I had to make sure. I had to make sure. Chad (04:35.799) Yeah. Emi B (04:35.828) Exempt. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (04:41.506) All else. All else. Joel (04:43.182) They're exempt from all hate, Chipotle. Of course, yes, that's right. Chad (04:46.862) It's kind of like Apple gets the exception for tariffs and Chipotle gets it from Canada. Joel (04:55.042) The one thing that could bring us all together is Chipotle. Like, let's be honest. Let's be honest here. Chad (04:58.51) That's a very good point. That's a very good point. Oh, don't get him started. Don't get him started. Don't get him started. Emi B (04:59.346) You say that, I've never had it before. So I'm just hearing about it through you two. no, we don't have that in London. Joel (05:03.495) What? What? Chad (05:08.78) Yeah. Emi B (05:09.812) Have I broken your heart now? No. Joel (05:11.468) Wow. Do they not have it in Britain? I thought there was one next to the Five Guys. Chad (05:18.798) Jeez. Emi B (05:19.438) Not that I've heard of, maybe, well I'm gonna, I'll Google it later and see and I'll let you know, but I swear to God, no, never. do you know what? Yeah, yeah. I'd still do like a chicken drumstick, yeah. Chad (05:26.776) KFC man, they're big on the KFC and the McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah. Big on that. Yeah. Joel (05:26.894) every night, Paul. Alright, 10 is to cover this week so what do say we... Emi B (05:39.796) You Chad (05:39.874) Yes. Joel (05:40.43) Shout out sponsored by our friends at a Kiara speaking of the great white North text recruiting made simple by Kiara. I'll go ahead and lead off with with shout out. So my shout out goes out to the fine institution of Harvard. Harvard, you've probably heard of it. America's oldest college, widely known as maybe the best college in the country. So Stella and I. Chad (05:43.662) Mmm. Chad (05:50.292) Eora. Hair free. Chad (05:58.996) Ooh. Yeah. Emi B (06:01.885) Yeah. Joel (06:09.016) chat again, go back to our stage. Stella, Stella has Michigan as one of her schools, that she wants to visit, which is fine with me. It's arguably top, top five public school in the country. So from London, Ontario, we drove to Ann Arbor and it was just, it was just so great to see like American institution, like the buildings, the students, the learning, just all of that. It really made me appreciate the American system of education and any, depending on the list you look at America's institutions are like, Chad (06:15.608) Good school. Let's go to school. Yeah, let's go. Yeah. Chad (06:34.23) Uh-huh. Joel (06:38.574) Seven 65 to 75 % of the top colleges in the world are in America. It's one of the foundations. I think of the pillars of what makes America America, it's, education, it's rule of law. It's sort of the flow of capital and it's free speech and freedom of the press. And to see, I assume people know the news. The Trump administration is going after Harvard. went after Columbia. Um, Harvard thankfully has like a $50 billion, uh, Emi B (06:44.852) Mmm. Chad (06:59.126) Whoo! Joel (07:09.24) trust like, or like, bucket of money, they can they can fight this. And they probably have a few lawyers that would like jump at the chance to like take on the Trump administration. So shout out to Harvard for fighting the good fight. And you've probably seen this chat as a Big Ten fan as I am. The Big Ten is creating like sort of a university NATO. Like the Big Ten schools are getting together. Yeah, like Indiana, Michigan State's on board, I think Iowa. Chad (07:10.368) Endowment. Endowment. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (07:23.992) Mm-hmm. Chad (07:30.294) Really? Nice! Yeah! Joel (07:36.302) Michigan on house day, which I think has to be the two main ones that have to join. Like I think they're voting on it this week, but the big 10 is joining forces, basically saying if, if the administration goes after one of us, they go after all of us and we pull our resources to fight that. So I, I believe Americans institutions can, can hold. think they're going to be tested like they have never been. and it's good to see Harvard not roll over. I think we should all be rooting for Harvard. to take on the administration. mean, from their tax status getting taken away to no international students, mean, Trump and the administration is pulling out every stop to basically put a hurt on education. And that is one of the American pillars that I would hate to see crumble in the wake of the Trump administration. So go Harvard, go Crimson. Emi B (08:27.208) Guy hop. Chad (08:27.224) Well, and it's very fitting Joel that you're talking about education in the U S of a, because my shout out goes out to the secretary of education kids, pro wrestling tycoon. Yes. You heard me right. Pro wrestling tycoon is in charge of the U S education system. And during an interview, she talked about, hell screw it. I'm just going to play this stupid thing. Joel (08:37.739) no. Joel (08:47.724) Linda Mc- Chad (08:56.694) This hurts. Okay. We talk about American education. Joel (08:57.646) You're gonna make me hungry. You're gonna make me hungry at lunchtime, aren't you? You're gonna make me. Chad (09:36.246) Okay. She didn't meet, she was talking about AI kids. She, this is our secretary of fucking education. Okay, okay, okay. So listen, listen, this is a cautionary tale for all the HR and TA people listening out there. Don't try and bullshit your way through AI. Okay. Do your research. Lucky for you, we've already made it easy with the sessions.ai where you can actually go see season two. We just dropped it. Joel (09:41.719) Yeah Chad (10:04.396) where we have HR and TA practitioners talking about how they're actually using automation and AI, their fails, their successes and tons more. So don't be the one who says A1 in your next fucking board meeting kids, okay? Go educate yourself, go to thesessions.ai. Joel (10:21.71) New York strips and rib-eyes for all the first graders in America, I say. I can get behind that. Chad (10:28.238) A1 baby. So bad. Emi B (10:29.214) Seriously. Yeah, that's so embarrassing. my God. Chad (10:35.278) Yeah, yeah, American education. All right, all you, Emmy. Emi B (10:39.71) Joyce, well, my shout out is gonna go to a Democratic representative and by the name of Lauren Ashley Simmons. So to be honest, I never heard of her until actually late last night. I was actually in bed watching TikTok and then I came across this and I was like, ooh, this woman is fire. So basically for anyone who doesn't know, she actually absolutely schooled this Republican Andy Hopper, is his name? Yeah, yeah, yeah, actually go ahead and play it, yeah. Joel (10:40.086) Emmy, what you got? Chad (10:49.038) Okay. Chad (11:04.316) You want me to play it? Alright, let's do it kids. Joel (11:09.247) that beautiful bean footage. Emi B (11:25.524) Hmm? Chad (11:39.117) Mm-hmm. Chad (12:16.914) My. Fucking. God. Emi B (12:19.868) Oh, oh, this is your American education system. This is your government. These are the people. The guy doesn't know what intersex means. And you know. Chad (12:24.814) This is all with Joel (12:30.05) Hold on, Texas is a little bit of a side show for the US. And the right would say California is a little bit of a left turn from the rest of America. Emi B (12:34.278) Is it? Okay, okay. So, I mean, just to give a bit of a back... Emi B (12:41.824) okay. I mean, so just to give a bit of a background, but people haven't seen the full clip. mean, definitely go into TikTok and find it. But this Andy Hopper, so this Republican Andy Hopper, he's trying to pull funding from the University of Texas. So why? Because they are offering LGBTQ plus studies and DEI programs. So Lauren Ashley Simpson is like, know, as you see there challenging him. Do you, what about people who are intersex? And Chad (12:56.279) Mm-hmm. Joel (13:00.494) Mm-hmm. Emi B (13:10.356) Like he said, he heard that he cannot explain, he doesn't even know what intersex is. I think it is confusing with being transgender. And then he then goes on, I don't think we played it, to say that, you know, there's still XX or XY chromosome. And then his Republican colleagues said, Andy, that's not true, publicly. And it's like, you were dumb as fuck. Honestly, I learned this when I was 11 or something. I'm like, how? Chad (13:27.639) Mm-hmm. Chad (13:37.934) Yeah. Emi B (13:39.792) Again, shout out, Lauren Ashley Simpson, you know? Joel (13:41.966) You know, the sad part to me is that people will focus on saying, you know, well, the intersex population is less than 1 % probably. The battle here is for the control of the educational system of America. And I would argue that what Germany put as Jews is now woke and woke has become the parallel enemy. Emi B (14:01.246) Mm-hmm. Joel (14:11.956) me like that's something everyone or at least the right can get behind. So when I hear stuff like this, I think the knee jerk is to say like, it's such a small group. What's the big deal? It's a much bigger deal because if the government, they are people for sure, but the government control, like the Reich took over the educational system when Hitler took over and they put in jail any teachers that went against anti-Jew education, pro-Germany. So Chad (14:22.99) They're people. Emi B (14:33.022) Mm-hmm. Joel (14:40.982) It's not that it can't happen here. there. It's trying. What scares me is that the road that we're on is incredibly scary. It's much bigger than just a 1 % of the population. We're talking about a major shift. There's a reason why Albert Einstein came to America from Germany because he saw what was happening in Germany. And if we start losing our brightest minds because of this kind of trend, like it's really, really, really bad. Emi B (14:43.934) They're trying to, yeah. Emi B (14:49.363) Yeah. Chad (14:49.422) Yes. Chad (15:01.24) Mm-hmm. Emi B (15:04.67) Do I go? Joel (15:08.18) So I would invite everyone to think of this in a bigger context than just an LBGTQ issue because I think it is. Emi B (15:11.645) Mm-hmm. Chad (15:15.958) It is. And no matter what kind of sex you are, you can get free stuff at the Chad and Cheese. You know why? Because we love y'all. So remember, remember, always free at chadcheese.com slash free t-shirts from our friends over at Aaron App, you know those slothy guys over there, t-shirts by Aaron App. Bourbon barrel aged syrup from Canada, the good stuff from Canada, it's barrel aged, bourbon barrel aged. Emi B (15:16.18) 100%. Yeah. Joel (15:24.462) I love the segue. This show, man. This podcast. Emi B (15:24.852) No. Joel (15:36.462) Mm-hmm. Chad (15:45.518) from Kiura. Craft beer from the job data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. Gotta love those guys. Two bottles of whiskey from Van Hack. And if it's your birthday, oh, wait a minute, Emmy, you might win some rum from plum. That's right. But you gotta go to ChadCheese.com slash free. Joel (15:54.126) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:07.732) yeah! Joel (16:10.26) All right guys, celebrating another trip around the sun, our listeners, Barry Doctor. I like that Barry Doctor Detroit, Rick Cosmo Kramer, Jason Crowell, Jonathan Chen, Andreas Iriarte, Mike Kleber Lang, Brian Moore, Dave Lowry, Jonathan Zilla, and our own, Emi Berradugo is celebrating. Chad (16:31.532) Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Mrs. President. My best Maryland. Joel (16:36.142) How's it feel to be 29 again? Emi B (16:40.468) I love it. Happy birthday to me. I love that. Thank you so much. And it feels wonderful to be 29 again. I think I've been 29 for about, you know, 10 times and it's like, I'm just going to stay this year, stay this age. I love it. Absolutely love it. And Joel, are you not going to sing to me either? I mean, I can't just have Chad singing to me. Joel (16:55.918) you Joel (17:04.504) I have a little special prize coming, coming to you now. Chad (17:05.525) It's never good enough. It's never good enough with this one. First, she wants to shoot us. Then we don't give her enough love. mean, my God, that's it. We're going straight to events. That's that. am, am calm down back there. Calm down back there. Don't make me pull this podcast over. Unleash is coming. Kids. Unleash is coming May 6th through the 8th. What are we going to be doing at Unleash and Vegas? Emi B (17:06.452) Bravo! Emi B (17:12.744) The shooting was your idea, not mine. You put it in my head. I'm like, well. Whoa, Joel (17:32.716) Vince baby Chad (17:33.87) Joel, what are we gonna be doing? That's right. On Wednesday the 7th, we're gonna be spending the morning in a suite at the Cosmo filming a new sessions season with the team over at Smart Recruiters. That night we're going to have a film VIP wrap-up party, more deets to come for the VIP party. But there ain't no party like a sessions wrap-up party, hear me? Then we're going to... Joel (17:46.99) Love it. Joel (18:00.216) feel you. I'm picking up what you're dropping. Chad (18:02.574) We're also going to be hosting two talks. That's right. Not one, but two, with our friends over at gem and the gem booth on Wednesday, the seventh at 3 30 PM, probably just in time to get some beer. And then Thursday morning at 10 30 Vegas time. That's right. So if you're coming to unleash, look us up. we're going to be having a blast. And if this is the fun part, if you're wanting to go on to unleash and you don't have passage yet, guess what? Joel (18:14.862) Mm-hmm. Chad (18:31.886) I've got something for you. me a second here while I do all this fun clicking around stuff. And here we go. Chad (19:02.772) And just to be clear, when she says hit me up, she doesn't mean for a date guys. That's my daughter. It's my fucking daughter. Don't be, don't even think about it. I will have your ass. Okay. Well, yeah, you can get, you can get obviously, Kennedy cook on LinkedIn message, message her very professionally and ask her for passes. Okay. we're going to fucking hear about it. yeah. Emi B (19:07.316) No. You Emi B (19:16.756) You Joel (19:24.454) We're gonna hear about it if it's not. And we're calling you out on the show if it's not. I want a free pass to wherever she is. Like beachside, ocean, where was that? okay, nevermind. English beaches, sorry. Emi B (19:25.734) Hey. Chad (19:31.342) That's Brighton. He's in Brighton. That's Brighton. Yeah. Right by Emmy. Emi B (19:31.42) Yeah Brighton UK is beautiful. What do you mean? It's a pebble dash beach. It's beautiful. You don't need sand when you've got pebbles, you know? Chad (19:40.814) You Chad (19:45.518) Oh, I have to say. Joel (19:46.926) Brits get so mad when you diss anything Britain. like blood sausage sucks. What are you talking about? Blood sausage is amazing. Emi B (19:49.908) Yeah, yes, because this is the best country in the world. Chad (19:50.094) you Chad (19:57.134) If that's the case, then why do you come down to the Algarve every goddamn summer, Britain? The entire country comes there. Stop it. Just stop it. No, don't stop it. It's good for business. It's good for business. Emi B (20:10.462) But no, it's, yeah, I'm saying nothing. I'm like. Chad (20:14.616) Ha ha ha! Joel (20:15.48) Let's get to topics, shall we? Chad (20:17.293) Yes! Good stuff. Joel (20:21.708) Alright, well the clown show continues. Emi B (20:24.02) You Chad (20:25.164) Bozo. Joel (20:26.606) All right. Where's Bozo? Earlier this week, Deal CEO Alex Bozo Boazis was apparently on the lam as bailiffs couldn't find him to serve up a nice hot lawsuit, but he's turned up in Dubai, apparently along with his father, the CFO and Deals general counsel. Dubai is a country known for its extradition challenges. So the cat and mouse game continues. Chad, your thoughts on the ongoing drama at Deal. Chad (20:49.742) Mm-hmm. Chad (20:55.576) So remember when I said the only way this company deal survives if, if an entirely new C-suite comes in, takes over and demonstrates that deal now has adults in the room. It would have been bad if the C-suite stayed in place and then fought this case right in place, right? That would have been bad. This is a hundred times worse. These guys are on the fucking run from the law. I mean, what? Emi B (21:05.799) Mm-hmm. Emi B (21:19.7) . Joel (21:22.478) You Chad (21:24.024) prospective customer or current client is going to choose to stay with Deal Now. I mean, seriously, why would you, a vendor whose CEO, CFO, and head of legal are on the run from from Johnny Law? I mean, it's just crazy. one thing, this came in a little bit later. Did you see that Rippling is now pressing Revolut to find out who paid money to Deal's alleged spy, O'Brien? yeah, so apparently apparently DLC Dan West Garth's wife, Alba Basha, West Garth was a crypto compliance lead at Robin Hood. Yes. When all of this went down last year in November, right? So Rippling is now suing Revolut to get the full name and address of the Alba Basha. That's right. Those are air quotes listed on the sender. for that $6,000 payment to O'Brien. TechCrunch reports she's no longer at Robinhood and her LinkedIn profile has been deleted. This is fucking crazy. All hands meeting in Dubai, everyone. Joel (22:37.998) Do we know where, do we know where Revolut is headquartered? They've got to be like some Caribbean, Caribbean country company. Are they UK? Even better, even better. Yeah. Emi B (22:38.249) Wow. Chad (22:42.218) UK, right? I think they're UK. I think they're UK company. Emi B (22:49.812) I'm like, yeah, we'll hunt him down. But can I just say something though? Because do you remember a couple of weeks ago when this story broke, I said that this is gonna turn into a Netflix movie and you weren't too sure because you said it was like, know, HR. Now look at it. It is juicy. It is juicy. And what's gonna happen now, I'm actually gonna insert myself into this story because I'm going to Dubai next month. I'm gonna hunt this person down. Literally, I've got the picture. I'll be there going, hey, where are you? You're gonna see me involved in this. I love this. Chad (22:53.55) Okay. Joel (23:09.102) Mm-hmm. Emi B (23:19.078) I absolutely love this. I'm like, where is my popcorn? You know, I should have had my popcorn today, but I'll definitely have my popcorn in Dubai hunting this person down. Joel (23:26.446) Should we start the GoFundMe to make this into some sort of a movie? Because it's pretty juicy. got to. Emi B (23:30.086) Yes! Yes! Chad (23:31.128) That would be freaking awesome. That'd be awesome. Revolut is in London, by the way. They're at HQ. Emi B (23:35.718) Yeah, get them involved as well. It'll be fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going. I'm going. International spy, spy hunter. That's what I am. Joel (23:39.064) Nice. Chad (23:40.048) yeah, that's what we got you around. Go get them, Emmy. Revolut, DePy, come on. On them down. Joel (23:46.968) So, so I knew, I knew, when this broke, the head of communications was the first to like parachute out of the company and her name is Elizabeth Diana. And she was, when I was like all on the deal train, she reached out, sent me this shirt, which I have customized for the show. Hopefully you're watching that on, on YouTube, but she, she jumped ship and her background is Chad (23:55.972) she bounced. yeah. Yeah. Emi B (23:56.82) Run Chad (24:08.398) No deal. Joel (24:16.224) Instagram, Facebook, Google, like she's worked at some real serious companies. So I knew when she jumped ship and I bet she had a ton of equity, a ton of like incentives to stick around. She wanted no, she wanted no part of this clown show that that is unfolding right now. And it's looking a little bit to me, like a house of cards, because if you start digging into reviews online, Chad (24:18.669) Yeah. Emi B (24:30.289) No part of it. Chad (24:32.218) No way. No way. Joel (24:43.554) They're very, very telling. So here's just a quick glimpse of some of the glass door comments that I found quote, we were forced to email clients to tell us which companies they're using for HRI, HRI, S coms, et cetera, under the false pretense of setting up integration pathways. So even like the mate, like the frontline workers were in charge of like getting information. And another one that I saw was that they, apparently they ask you. Chad (24:48.237) Mm-hmm. Joel (25:11.406) at deal to give them a five star review on Glassdoor as soon as you join. And apparently the company really pays attention to their ratings to make sure that they're high. Cause so the company has like a 4.6 out of five and, and Bozo Bozo has a very high, uh, positive, uh, favorable rating as well. So I'm sure not only it was it give us a five star rating on Glassdoor, was give our CEO a very high rating as well. So this is starting to look at a little bit like house of cards. Chad (25:19.992) That's a trick. Yeah. Emi B (25:24.552) Fake reviews. Chad (25:33.038) Mm Emi B (25:33.342) Give this a go. Joel (25:39.832) They need to clean house ASAP, get the ship right. Cause they've taken too much money, have too much like a footprint in this business to like fall apart like this. Somebody needs to act quickly and fix this really, really quickly or else it's going to be a total, total sideshow, but I'm enjoying the clown show while it's still, while it's still going. Chad (25:45.801) dude. Yeah. Emi B (25:57.778) Me too. Chad (26:03.2) More please. Emi B (26:04.688) Hehehe Joel (26:05.086) Alright, indeed, from one clown show to another, if you will. Emi B (26:07.994) Hehehehehe Joel (26:11.724) Listeners might remember us torching Indeed for getting rid of their search boxes from the home page. Well, the boxes are back, everybody. But wait, there's more. According to our Reddit string on an accompanying screenshot, Indeed Premium, very creative name, premium is on its way. And for $9.99 a month, users can get a bunch of bullshit in return. Chad, your take on all the news out of Indeed this week. Chad (26:17.038) Hmm. Chad (26:37.922) Yeah, the boxes going away that more than likely was just kind of a pilot to tell them what we already knew. It was fucking stupid. Yeah, I mean, so that was easy. On the Reddit users, one of the Reddit users commented they had performed the search and it looked like it was Canadian only, right? So I'm like, first the tariffs and now this. I mean, can we stop pissing off the fucking Canucks for God's sakes? Please, please, let's stop. Joel (26:44.782) dumb. Chad (27:07.31) Let's go ahead. I'm going to go ahead and pop this up, but the Indeed Premium, I'm going to go ahead and share my screen so everybody can enjoy, think. there it is. Chad (27:23.47) You gotta be able to see it first. Joel (27:26.766) Thanks Riverside. Chad (27:28.11) There we go. Yeah, you guys suck. Indeed Premium, here you go guys. So if you're watching on video, let's go through these, all of us point by point, okay? Stand out to employers. So job seekers can mark their jobs that they're most interested in because that's a signal to employers that they mean business. What do you think about that, Emmy? You think that's bullshit or what? Emi B (27:30.493) Aha! Emi B (27:50.548) I think it's the most stupidest thing ever, honestly. It's like, what does that even mean? It's pointless. Who did they consult to see whether or this is actually necessary? It's like, yeah. Chad (27:56.46) Hahaha! Chad (28:05.246) Yeah. It's almost like Oliver, right? Can more, more, please, more, more. Joel (28:11.384) No, it's going to be like a dude on Tinder. He's going to swipe right on everything. Every job I see is the most interesting job in the world. Yeah. Everyone's going to mark jobs as interested. So yeah, keep, keep going on these, on these features. Emi B (28:15.22) Yeah, it's me. Love this job. I mean, yeah. Chad (28:19.182) crazy. Chad (28:23.604) Okay, so apply with confidence. You can see jobs where you might be a top applicant. You might be a top applicant. Yeah, I mean, can you imagine going into search and not being the fucking top applicant for anything? I mean, seriously, or being the top applicant for everything. Yeah, just, it's, again, this doesn't make any sense to me, other than it's literally signaling to the Joel (28:27.342) Because that doesn't happen now. You can't apply with confidence. Emi B (28:30.76) Might, yeah, not definitely might. Emi B (28:43.572) It'll be demoralising, yeah. Chad (28:52.598) Job seeker, you need to lie on your resume. Emi B (28:55.197) Yeah. Joel (28:56.654) You can be a top applicant if you pay us $9.99 a month. That's how you become the top applicant. No money, no top applicant. Chad (28:59.822) Hahaha! Okay. They stole, they stole this next one. mean, this whole thing is really stolen from LinkedIn. Let's just go ahead and let's, let's be real, but this one, see who has viewed your profile, much like on LinkedIn, anybody who gives a shit about who's looking at their profile. I don't. yeah, this is, this is going to be important to them. and then last but not least compare your skills. See how your experience compares to other applicants. Yeah. Emi B (29:08.884) 100%, yeah, yeah. Emi B (29:14.068) Ooh. Emi B (29:28.742) Just to make you feel shitty again. It's like. Chad (29:33.27) I don't see the relevance behind any and or most of this. And here's some comments from the Reddit thread. Here's a quote out here broke just browsing for jobs and now they're charging subscriptions for premium. Another user said, this is gross and greedy. We should get paid to apply for jobs on this site. I don't know. Do you think this is going to go the way of the Dodo like most of the other shit that they've been doing lately? Because indeed throwing a lot of shit. Emi B (29:52.926) Mm-hmm. Chad (30:03.262) at a lot of not spaghetti, but shit at the wall. And it's just not going anywhere. So thoughts. Emi B (30:08.998) No, they're running out of ideas. I mean, they're obviously trying to claw back money from somewhere. And it's like, I almost want to go into this. Okay, call it a day. Give up. Give up my day. You know, it's not it's not working. And yeah. Chad (30:13.454) You Joel (30:19.416) Yeah. I want to, I want to be in the customer service department when they start getting calls from people that aren't getting jobs, even though they are a top candidate on the, the indeed algorithm, and then have indeed explain why they're not getting a job because of that. look to Amy's point when, when, the money starts drying up on one end, job boards are like, have employers, we have job seekers when the, when the employer money starts drying up. Chad (30:31.214) $10 a month. Emi B (30:35.735) Because you're a bit shit. Sorry. Emi B (30:45.32) Mm-hmm. Joel (30:48.834) They get, there's desperation and how do we make money? How do we squeeze a little bit more out of this turnip? And that goes to job seekers. And I have no doubt that people will pay for this. They have a ton of users. If they just get one, one to 5 % of people use this, they're going to make a lot of money. But the question is how valuable is it? And it's a total move to be like, like, or be like LinkedIn. Unfortunately, LinkedIn has some actual good information about companies and people who work there. Chad (30:58.254) Mm. Chad (31:16.578) Yeah. Joel (31:18.318) I pay for LinkedIn premium and it's partly because I'm a podcaster and the information is beneficial for the listeners, but it's actually beneficial. I don't, I'm not sure indeed has the data to make this thing valuable. And it's, it's almost like you remember on when you, when you put something on eBay back in the day and you pay an extra $4 for it to be highlighted. So that would stand out. That's what this feels like. And the old, the old headhunter.net, which no one will remember it, but chat, but with us is like, you would pay. Emi B (31:37.78) Mm. Chad (31:40.763) yeah. Chad (31:44.728) Yes, yes. Joel (31:48.024) per whatever and it would move your resume up the list because you paid money for that. Chad (31:55.692) Not because it was relevant. Emi B (31:57.684) Yeah, see, yeah, yeah, I think it's awful because I'm thinking about that, you know, the comment that someone saying that, you know, indeed is greedy. I think they are. And I'm sure if you speak to indeed or whatever press release they'll, you know, they send out, they'll say, oh, yeah, it's there to help the people. But my challenge is that is it really because it's not built for the unemployed. This service is not for the unemployed. It's not for the underemployed. The only people who Joel (31:57.772) Because you paid, yeah, because you paid. Emi B (32:24.756) actually have the disposable income to pay for this are those who are already working, you know, they've got extra money to go, hey, okay, I can spend that 9.99 a month. But for everybody else, it's just making them feel shit. And it's just, I honestly, I think this is really bad. This one pisses me off. Yeah. Joel (32:40.382) And it's going to reveal things to job seekers that they don't even know is going on. For example, imagine the sourcing tools that automate looking through the database. Well, a job seeker is going to see that and think, they looked at my resume. No, they didn't. A bot went through the system and looked at it as a bot, not a human being. So then they're going to be like, well, Acme, looked at my resume. They must be interested. What's going on? So there are so many Emi B (32:52.276) Mm. Chad (32:52.546) Mm-hmm. Joel (33:10.904) consequences to this that they job seekers are going to like freak out and what is going on. This, the, the unintended consequences of this are going to be a disaster to their credit. They launched it in Canada only apparently. So Canuck, sorry, but yeah, get, get, get, get your, get your Tim Hortons, get a double double, and, stick it to indeed for, for doing this to you. they need to be held accountable. Chad (33:37.486) The performance was supposed to level the playing field with regard to high markets, low markets, because obviously, you know, in a market where there's a lot of clicks, the CPC is going to be lower. When it's not, they're going to be higher. I mean, you can like flow with it, right? For some reason, indeed, in their modeling is for shit. not to mention they haven't gone down funnel to the qualified applicant. If anybody should have this right, they have all the data. They're forcing the job seeker to actually get their information on the data. They could actually field that to make it easier to match on, to contextualize, do a lot of stuff, but they've got shit matching. It's shit matching. And it's just like, why are you focusing on things new? Emi B (34:21.95) They don't. Chad (34:29.622) things when you got shit that you need to fix where you could actually make more money. It doesn't make any sense. It really does. Joel (34:30.414) Mm-hmm. Joel (34:36.386) Yeah, they're trying to appeal to, I guess, a higher level job seeker. And, and this, don't, I don't see this offering being something that's appealing to the people that are willing to pull out their wallet and pay for it. In some ways they might be turning off the very audience that they're trying to appeal to. Chad (34:42.414) Good luck. Emi B (34:43.474) Not gonna work. Emi B (34:49.918) Yeah. Chad (34:55.851) Exactly. Joel (34:58.094) Let's take a quick break and talk about LinkedIn. Emi B (34:58.356) Bye indeed. Chad (34:59.822) You Joel (35:10.638) All right, guys, LinkedIn is coming in hot this week with the headlines. Here's a sampling. Number one, quote, come back for big tech. LinkedIn shells out $75 million for Silicon Valley office, end quote. Number two headline, LinkedIn study finds adding links boosts engagement by 13 % on posts. And number three, LinkedIn launches new mini site for posting tips. Chad, what are your thoughts on all things LinkedIn and the headlines we saw this week? Chad (35:44.364) I looked at a lot of these and they look like they were all pre COVID. Right? I mean, it was like, you know, we're buying, we're buying real estate and we're showing you how to do these, you know, tips on it's like, what this is, you, this is kind of old. It seems like back to the future kind of shit. So again, mean, LinkedIn and I appreciate they're trying to give tips to influencers because they want to get more people posting videos and those types of things. Joel (36:01.336) Yeah. Chad (36:12.052) But the landing page that they created, straight out of 2010, for goodness sakes. So just really weird. mean, it's odd. You see these high, high profile companies who are churning out a shit ton of cash, indeed, LinkedIn, and they put out just shit like this. just, to me, they're not at the level they should be. And it blows my mind. I don't know how it happens. Joel (36:21.71) Mm-hmm. Chad (36:42.306) other than leadership. Yeah. Emi B (36:42.354) rested on their laurels. I think so, yeah, maybe rest on laurels. I I won't comment on all of them. The one that kind of struck a chord with me really is the posting. Because I tell you what, I was looking at it and it's like, right, okay, this is how to boost your kind of, you know, your LinkedIn posts. I'm like, great, I need to know because sometimes I will post and everyone likes it. And then next week, it's like, no one likes it. You're like, fuck. It's like, what did I do wrong? Or did I just do the same thing? And... Chad (37:05.026) Yeah. Yeah. Emi B (37:10.236) This time around is telling me, links get 13 % more interactions. Carousels with almost like that PowerPoint slide, that gets about 45 % engagement. Polls, I mean, hardly anyone uses polls, that, okay. Maybe I need to try it. But apparently that smashes your reach. So you've got all these kinds of things and videos, know, it's a new thing, everyone's into it. The problem is when I looked at it, I on a second, a couple of years ago, didn't you just tell me something different? Joel (37:16.504) Mm-hmm. Chad (37:17.314) Mm-hmm. Chad (37:22.776) Joel loves a pole. Emi B (37:39.668) Didn't you say links, don't put links in your post because that actually decreases interactions and decreases views and engagement. So they're changing their minds in a couple of years. So which one is it? And they can't make up their minds as which, how are we going to know how to use the platform properly? Yeah. Chad (37:54.368) I think it changes day by day to be quite frank because I think it depends on the amount of content flow that's going in. And I know that there are specific days that I post that I know I will get better interaction, engagement, reaction off of than I do other days. So I mean, a lot of it I think has to do with what content is already in the flow and what you're competing with. Emi B (38:03.134) Yeah. Emi B (38:11.444) Okay. Emi B (38:19.251) Yeah. Chad (38:19.47) I think that's the hard part. You just got to try to make it sexy for the most part. It's marketing. It's trying to get information out there. Emi B (38:28.296) So get sexy as in videos, pictures, is that what you, no. Chad (38:31.968) Videos, pictures, I mean, even some of the, literally just some of the, we're going to be talking a little bit about Cato Institute information a little bit. I mean, that thing just blew up, but it was around manufacturing and I literally just put some statistics and people are drawn to statistics really, really quick and they engage with it. So yeah, I mean, even if it is something boring like Cato Institute research or something like that, if you can pull out some really good nuggets, people will engage. Emi B (38:39.796) Mm-hmm. Emi B (38:48.884) Mmm. Emi B (38:58.504) But it's resonating. Yeah. Joel (39:02.018) You just need a good poll, everybody. That's what you need. So since I'm a complete whore for LinkedIn, I'll sound off on this stuff. the first one's a little bit interesting for the fact that LinkedIn knows the trends on remote jobs. And they would not spend that kind of coin on real estate if they didn't feel really sure that the remote job thing is on the downside. And we've talked about it on the show quite a bit. Emi B (39:04.084) Man. Emi B (39:29.918) Mm-hmm. Joel (39:30.892) Back to work is in remote is out. So I think it's very telling that a company that's very, very knowledgeable about what kind of jobs are being posted and what kind of things are in demand would spend 75 million on a piece of commercial real estate. So that's, that's my first takeaway. Number two, you're right. Like for over a decade, the popular sentiment has been do not get people off of the platform. The minute you send someone off LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter or any of them. Chad (39:56.226) Mm-hmm. Joel (39:59.26) the algo is going to ding you because they want people to stay on LinkedIn. So I, I'm, I'm still a little bit, cynical about this. I, I still think it makes sense to keep people on, on the platform. maybe this one little test says differently, but everything I do on LinkedIn, I almost never post a link. I would even say that they even ding the ones are like Lincoln comments. And then you put a link in the comment to try to go try to get around it. So I'm, I'm. Emi B (40:00.692) Mm-hmm. Emi B (40:24.403) Yeah. Joel (40:26.998) I'm not as, as sold on that idea as, as I, as I, as others might be. And then the third one, I think, I think it's largely SEO driven. If you go to, if you go to Google or any search engine and look like how to on LinkedIn, there's a ton of stuff and they're losing, they're losing real estate to people on YouTube and Tik TOK and people like educating folks on how to use LinkedIn. So this was to me was an SEO play to try to get ahead of that traffic, get people actually into LinkedIn and doing the things that we want them to do as opposed to what, you know, Chad (40:37.774) Mm. Joel (40:56.738) the masses are telling people what to do. think this was an SEO play in a way to kind of control the narrative with their users. Chad (41:05.491) Amen. Joel (41:07.298) All right, going back to Britain. Adzuna, a job search engine that Brits know very well, has launched Apply IQ, some Americans do, an AI job search agent that automatically applies to relevant jobs. The company says, Apply IQ uses large language models to match users with jobs based on skills, experience, and career goals, ensuring only the most relevant applications reach recruiters. Chad, you have some insight on this. What's up? Chad (41:36.694) Yeah, I want to thank Doug for being so responsive, CEO of Adzuna for being so responsive to my questions earlier this week about ApplyIQ. I feel like this is Adzuna's glide path toward charging for qualified slates. They're not quite there yet. But, and I believe every job site, every vendor should be moving in that direction. It's around qualified slates as opposed to clicks and spamming with as many job securities as you possibly can. The big problem that I see that might happen here is Adzuna's adding auto-apply. And that could get sketchy around candidate intent coming with some employers. Because some employers are really big on candidate intent. If a machine does it, the candidate, actual human didn't intend to apply, the machine's just doing it for you, right? So I've actually heard stories from many employers in talking about this over the years that I've called candidates, this is a recruiter, I've called candidates and they had no clue they applied for a job, right? Which means the candidates hasn't researched it, they don't know about it, it's just one of those things where it's like, possibly we're going a little too far, although I do think we will be moving in this direction. I think it's just really early. So think Doug and team, I do like moving toward qualified slates. The auto apply might be a little soon. Emi B (43:04.252) Yeah, see, I just want to pick up on the comment that you said, Chad, because you said that, you know, candidates sometimes are called by recruiters and they don't know that they've applied for a job. But that might not just be the case of because of automation. That might be because it's a shitty market. They've just tried their luck. And yeah. And so, you know, it's a case of like, okay, who the fuck did I apply to? Who's calling me? Yeah. And then, so I, I'm, I'm not so kind of hung up from that point of view. Chad (43:20.096) applied for everything. Chad (43:24.942) Yeah. Emi B (43:30.48) My only thing about it is that, it sounds great. Yes, it's actually helping, apparently helping candidates because it just speeds up that process. People can get application fatigue if they're just constantly applying for jobs. So this one, while you're sleeping, while you're watching Netflix, cool, it applies for relevant jobs. But the key word is actually relevant. That's what I want to know over time. Are you actually producing relevant candidates? Because otherwise, recruiters are just going to get pissed off. It's like... Chad (43:42.381) Mm-hmm. Chad (43:51.426) Yes. Emi B (43:58.526) They're already inundated with CVs. They're already trying to find ways that you go through all the applications, still maintain a good candidate experience by getting back to other candidates, which is hard when you've got that many. But then if this tool is actually just going to increase the number of applicants, everyone's going to lose out. know, experience is not great. Candidates are going to get pissed off. Recruiters are going to get pissed off. So I hope it does what we know what they're trying to do. Chad (44:04.258) Right. Joel (44:24.558) Yeah, I think the intent is great. But I think whenever you build a technology, have to realize people are going to use this and people suck. And people are going to do things that you don't think they'll do with it. So if I'm unemployed, am I happy trusting your algorithm that you're only applying to relevant jobs? Am I willing to trust you that you are? Well, maybe not. I'm going to apply to everything. I'm going to lazy apply. Chad (44:37.09) Humans are stupid, okay? Humans are stupid. Joel (44:54.446) where they just shotgun the whole system. Um, and, and if I'm an employer, do you trust that you're only going to get relevant candidates? Like, are you willing to trust the algorithm that, that you're going to get good people when in my opinion, employers are moving toward, we're going to set up our own filters. We're going to set up our own sort of gatekeepers, whether it's pre-screening track, whatever it is, right. Uh, blockchain, I mean, all the stuff that's coming down the pike. So, so I applaud the, the intent. I just think when. Emi B (45:02.996) Mm. Chad (45:14.19) and are applicant tracking systems and CRMs. Joel (45:24.172) when you're dealing with people on both sides of the aisle on this one, like a lot of things can go wrong. So I would say, let's see how this plays out. But people are likely to take a, take a Louisville slugger and just beat this thing, beat this thing to hell. But we'll see what happens. See what happens. Emi B (45:29.94) Mm-hmm. Emi B (45:38.356) Let's see. Joel (45:42.624) Alright guys, a story entitled, Manufacturing Jobs Are Never Coming Back, Dylan Matthews of Vox argues that the decline in US manufacturing jobs stems from structural economic shifts and automation, not just trade policies. Tariffs have failed to revive these jobs, instead causing losses elsewhere. as a proud son of the Rust Belt, what are your thoughts on manufacturing jobs coming back? Chad (45:49.165) Ouch. Chad (46:09.656) Yeah, the structural economic shifts was, I think, the most important in this discussion, which is what people need to understand. And what that means is the decline in manufacturing jobs is attributed more to structural change in the economy rather than our trade policies. So as countries like the US become wealthier, there is a natural transition from agriculture, which we were a big farming country. still kind of art to some extent, but we were a huge farming company country, and then we went to manufacturing. And then we transitioned to a service based economy. This shift is driven by increased productivity and changing consumer demand. So we don't make cheap shit anymore, right? That's not what we do. We provide valuable services that are higher margin, which means the dollars made per hour in services positions drives more revenue. And we should actually drive more pro should drive more prosperity. But even if we did bring manufacturing back, what the hell would we do? because tighter immigration has driven immigrants out of the country. And last November, the Cato Institute commissioned a poll. Joel loves a poll, especially if it's paid for. anyways, this poll was commissioned, was commissioned to understand how the American people felt about bringing. Joel (47:20.174) I love a good pole. I do. I love it. Emi B (47:20.98) You Chad (47:31.022) manufacturing back to America. And the report found that 80%, very big number of Americans say boosting manufacturing jobs is great for the country. Yet only 25 % said that they would actually do the jobs. So here's something that's even more interesting than having 600,000 jobs open. Blue collar workers make up 27 % of America's workforce. And that's from the AFL-CIO, right? Here's a math breakdown. Emi B (47:45.117) Okay. Chad (48:01.262) If only 25 % of the US population want to work in manufacturing jobs, and currently 27 % of them are already in blue collar positions, what does that mean? It means 2 % of the people want to get the fuck out of blue collar jobs. Right? So we need more people and we're actually retracting. So this is, we're not training the next generation. People want to get out of manufacturing. And yet, and we don't have the supply chains that are actually set up here to make it more efficient and smarter and cheaper. We don't have any of that. So this is where we're at kids. Chad (48:47.17) I do. Emi B (48:48.146) Yes, I agree. There's lots of crazy pills taking place. OK, so this is my question to you. You both put put up really logical arguments and I 100 % agree with it. But I also think that in this kind of day and age, it's really important to see, try and understand the other side, you know, to because we can't you can't change someone's opinion until you actually almost step in their shoes. OK. And obviously, the Trump administration is saying this is going to work. This is going to work. I can't figure out why it's going to work, why they think it's going to work. So, I mean, can you help me out? Why do you think that they truly believe, even though you both put up very good arguments as to why it's not going to work, why do you think that they believe that it is going to work? Joel (49:33.452) They being. Emi B (49:35.272) the people who voted for Trump. Yeah, Trump himself, the Trump administration. Joel (49:37.275) okay. Joel (49:42.446) I mean, it sounds good. It sounds good. We're going to bring the jobs that China's taken and the rest of world's taken. We're going to bring them back home. it's, guess it sounds good. And when I go into a of voting booth, to certain number of people, it sounds great. And I do see the side of like, if we stop making stuff in this country, we put ourselves at a disadvantage. If there's ever a conflict, right? If we can't make boats, planes, bullets, like that's a bad, that's a bad thing. And more so like pharmaceuticals, if that's all outsourced somewhere. Chad (49:42.67) 80 % of people said they wanted. Emi B (50:03.72) Mm-hmm. Chad (50:10.69) We make those. Joel (50:11.886) Like that, that, but, we're talking about like 1940 style manufacturing. And part of me thinks like Donald Trump is still mentally in the fifties and the sixties and seventies. and to Chad's point, uh, I think it was a Frank Lutz poll that like 80 % of Americans want manufacturing jobs to come back, but only 25 % will actually do those jobs, uh, if they do come back. So imagine if we go through this whole process of tariffs and moving factories back and Nike says, okay, we'll make Chad (50:18.19) Mm-hmm. Emi B (50:22.268) in the dark ages. Yeah. Chad (50:23.939) Yes. Joel (50:41.87) We'll make Nikes and Albuquerque and these factories get put up and nobody wants these jobs. And we've shut the border down. So there are no immigrants that want to come over. Like we could go through this whole thing and shoot ourselves in the foot because we find out nobody wants these jobs. not, although they're called peasants, China over the last 30, 40 years, they've advanced like we did. Right. So they don't want these jobs either. And Chad (50:48.184) No. Yeah. Emi B (51:03.284) Mm-hmm. Joel (51:11.522) The studies I've seen are like 70 % of Chinese manufacturing is all automated. And it's in the high nineties in some of these, these places. So as China gets richer, these people don't want to do those jobs either. So they're outsourcing to like Vietnam and Cambodia and other countries. so it's really hard to wrap your head around what's going on. And I know that the narrative that Trump is playing 4D chess and we're all too dumb to figure out what's going on is popular, but Chad (51:16.835) dark. Emi B (51:17.427) Yeah. Chad (51:26.339) Mm-hmm. Emi B (51:26.356) Mm-hmm. Emi B (51:38.228) Yeah Joel (51:40.174) It's, really hard for me to understand. We're taking this risk and no one wants to do the jobs. Right. And, and in the meantime, we're going to pay more for everything, which is a regressive tax, which means poor people are going to pay more. Like none of this stuff makes sense. Which makes me goes back, makes, me go back to this whole geopolitical struggle and China and America. Like I'm still going with that. And you can look at the past episodes where I've talked about that, but it's hard to wrap your head around why this makes sense because it just doesn't. Emi B (51:43.38) it hard yeah Chad (51:49.422) Yes. Emi B (51:54.142) Mm-mm. Joel (52:09.441) It just does it. Emi B (52:09.564) No, but somehow they believe it. Yeah, it's really hard. I can't find anything that makes sense. Chad (52:11.751) I wish we could make some sense out of it, just some. And here's the thing, and we talked about this on past podcasts, usually when you fight a war, and this is an economic war, okay, you try to do it on as few fronts as you possibly can. Then you win those fronts, and then you start, open up new fronts, right? What these guys did was open up every fucking front available. They tariffed everybody. Everybody, and it was everybody on everything. Emi B (52:25.172) Mm-hmm. Emi B (52:46.782) Mm-hmm. Chad (52:46.796) Right now things are starting to get pulled back here and there, but this is the fucking penguins for God's sakes. Anyway, it's just when anybody says this is any 4D, somebody actually said 5D chess. like, what the fucking dimension is five? the fuck it, what are you talking about? Anyway, to me again, none of it makes sense. People want manufacturing back, but they don't want to do the job. Joel (52:49.071) Don't forget the penguins. The penguins were hit too. The penguins were hit. Yeah. Emi B (52:52.596) Go! Emi B (53:00.916) 5D chess? Of course! Yes! Joel (53:00.92) Why not? 5D, sure. Emi B (53:09.012) No. Emi B (53:14.408) that they don't want to do it themselves. Yeah, exactly. Just a little bit problem. Joel (53:20.462) All right, let's take a quick break. Guys, if you like what you're hearing, hit us up on your podcast platform of choice. Subscribe to YouTube, leave us a review, subscribe. Tell your friends and family we'd really, really appreciate it. Chad (53:32.354) yeah. Joel (53:38.274) What better way to end this show than OnlyFans? All right, guys, an OnlyFans creator, Ellen Hancock, I don't know if that's her real name or not, I doubt it is, claims that her client's spending habits indicate a potential recession is on the way. She notes a decrease in spending and concerns about the cost of living among her clients, suggesting a tightening of budgets. Hancock compares this to the economic impact Chad (53:41.279) Only fans. Chad (53:47.564) I doubt it is. Joel (54:08.0) of the COVID-19 pandemic indicating a similar trend. must be an economist. She's going back to COVID. Chad, who needs the federal government and Toby Dayton's numbers? We have only fans to tell us a recession is coming. Your thoughts. Emi B (54:20.532) 100%. Chad (54:25.198) Well, I mean, these are the people. Let's just say these are creators, these are entrepreneurs, right? And they are going to feel it first. There's no question because what happens is when prices go up and wages do not go up, you look at things that you don't need and you don't spend money on them, right? This is a need versus it's a must have versus a nice to have, right? Only fans for these people is a nice to have, right? not a must have. yeah, I mean, this is these, these are early indicators. And if you take a look at a lot of small businesses who are, are already getting hit by these Chinese tariffs, many small businesses are going to go under very quickly. And this, these guys don't have to worry about getting shipments from China, but what they do have to worry about is higher prices, right? Their people have less spending power. Emi B (55:13.716) Mm-hmm. Chad (55:17.238) and they don't spend with them because they're not a need to have. Emi B (55:21.308) No, 100%. I totally agree with you, but I do love these little kind of soundbites, honestly. They make me laugh. Yeah, I'm going to comment, I just want to say something first of all, because I'm assuming you both watch Sopranos. Yeah. Chad (55:25.134) Hahaha Joel (55:28.75) I do too. Chad (55:39.086) I have not. Go ahead. Joel (55:39.17) Yeah, Sopranos. Sopranos. Sopranos. Emi B (55:40.38) Okay, now, okay, so Chad, you're like me. So that, how do I say sopranos? Sopranos. Sopranos or sopranos? So I've been watching the sopranos and only in the last, to be honest, in the last couple of months or so. And there's a quote that Tony Soprano said, which actually stuck with me. And he actually said, there were only two businesses that are recession proof. Joel (55:45.752) Sopranos. The Queen's English. Sopranos. Sopranos. Chad (55:55.094) huh. Emi B (56:08.884) one of those businesses is the adult entertainment industry. And I think what this article or what Ellen Hancock is actually proving is that Tony Soprano is actually wrong. Even the adult entertainment industry isn't actually recession proof. So there was a reason why I brought up Sopranos. Chad (56:24.13) Yeah. Yeah. Emi B (56:30.958) I think like you said, like you said, Chad, she's got her pulse, if you like, on the consumer wallet. You know, this is someone who used to make between three to seven K a month, you know, just having a chat and I'm supposed to do a little bit more, but you know, people willing to pay three to seven K, but when times are hard, people are saying to her, I can't afford it now. You know, they, they've got to say no to the kind of the spicy videos and the, you know, the one-to-ones, they got paid for eggs, they got paid ring, they got paid gas, you know, those are actual necessities. So. Chad (56:36.056) Mm. Joel (56:39.427) Mm-hmm. Chad (56:44.814) Yeah. Chad (56:53.166) Mm-hmm. Chad (56:59.266) Yeah. Emi B (57:00.212) I agree with Ellen, do, and I agree with you, Joel. I think she is actually an economist and I know it's a tough market out there, but you know, if she does end up losing her job in OnlyFans, I think she should knock on JP Morgan's door. You know, she's got a transferable skillset. She is predicting the job market. She's predicting the economic market. So I think it's a good one. Yeah. Joel (57:22.072) Nostradamus. By the way, if more unemployment means more people on OnlyFans means there's more supply and if demand is going down, there's a bad squeeze in there somewhere. New trend that led me through this, at this, there's a new, influencers now teaching fans how not to spend money. That is apparently a new trend on social media, how to save your money, how not to spend, how to do. There's this whole thing about Emi B (57:32.468) Pay for it. Chad (57:35.724) Yes, we need a balance. It's balance. Chad (57:49.751) Uh-uh. Emi B (57:50.246) Is it? yeah. Chad (57:53.048) Don't go to Starbucks. Easy. Joel (57:54.434) buy directly from China. So your Hermes bag is 30 bucks instead of 3000. Like this is a trend that we're seeing, but that is a trend, not nearly as, as awesome as my trend of awesome dad jokes, which leads me to this week's joke and honor of deal spy and Irishman Keith O'Brien. Guys, what do you call an Irish lesbian? What do you call an Irish lesbian? Chad (58:07.778) Bad jokes. awesome. Emi B (58:25.204) Can we get a clue? I want a clue. Chad (58:25.368) I'm not even gonna try. Not even gonna try. yeah. Joel (58:29.26) No clues. Chad (58:32.706) Go. Joel (58:34.081) A Gaelic. Emi B (58:36.532) my lord. Joel (58:47.502) That's right. That's right. Emi B (58:55.796) That's hilarious. Joel (58:58.114) I'll take it. Guys, that's another one in the can. We out. Chad (59:01.9) We out. Emi B (59:02.036) God. yeah. I'm going to tell my friend that Yeah.

This week on The Chad & Cheese Podcast , it’s nostalgia, disruption, and a little Monster in the bathroom. We sit down with Jeff Taylor—yes, that  Jeff Taylor—the original founder of Monster.com , DJ of disruption, and proud towel-dryer. From breaking the help wanted section in the ’90s to building Boom Band in 2025, Jeff dishes on the dumpster fire that is the current job board scene (spoiler: he doesn’t pull punches). We get the real story behind Monster’s fall, how Indeed jacked the model, and why your résumé might as well be from 1907 (fox hunting, anyone?). We talk AI airbrushing the talent market, recruiters ghosted by robots, and why Jeff almost bought a billboard just to prove a point. Oh, and Ray Dalio? Let's just say it started with a one-hour monologue and ended with 25,000 data points. Buckle up. Jeff Taylor is back, bitches. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:33.016) This is the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Boys and girls, I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is in the house and do we have a treat for you. We welcome Jeff Taylor, serial entrepreneur, founder of Monster.com and current startup, boom band, and so many other things that I'm sure that we'll talk about. Jeff, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad (00:39.294) Sup. Jeff Taylor (00:45.186) Watch out! Jeff Taylor (00:55.086) Thanks Joel, thanks Chad. I've been kind of dreaming about this, I'll just be honest with you. As I was thinking about kind of re-entering and having some fun in the talent space, one of the first things I did was drop in and if I fast forward, getting out of the shower today and I said to my wife, I'm on with Chad and Cheese today, I don't know where we're going. And she said, why are you doing that? I said, because you have to like lean into the pain. Chad (00:56.062) Guess who's back. Joel (01:24.408) Question is, Jeff, are you an air dryer or are you a towel dryer? Jeff Taylor (01:28.75) I'm definitely a towel dryer. My shower is two minutes, like in and done. I don't spend, you know, I used to say you can change the world in a half an hour shower, but I don't take one, you know. Joel (01:45.016) All right, aside from aside from bathing techniques, Jeff, a lot of our listeners will know you very well. A lot will have no clue who you are. So give us sort of an elevator pitch encompassing all of that for everybody and we'll get we'll get down into business and the topics we want to discuss. Jeff Taylor (02:02.616) Holy shit. So I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an idea generator. It's kind of just the way my mind works. I'm a creative kind of brand marketer. So I'm all about naming and how do you amplify an idea? And I'm a CEO. So I'm not only like the idea generator, but I like to stick. and, you know, kind of helicopter through, do software development design. I'm not a developer. I'm an over the shoulder designer and developer. And I'm a, I'm a culture builder. I love team success. I like to build the careers of people around me. And I like the talent space. It's just kind of been my life and I believe in it. I believe in the idea that someone can be huge and I always try to figure out how to draw that out of people. Chad (03:05.976) And he's a DJ. He obviously always brings the energy. mean, that's one of the things that I mean, when you take a look at leaders, Jeff, we always talk about, I mean, startups on the show always. And the very number one thing for me is always the founder, because they have to be out there. They have to be bigger than life because you have to get because there's so much noise out there. is fucking crazy how much noise is out there right now. Now, when You started Monster back in the day, right? Monster board back in the day. It was almost crickets from the standpoint of getting online, right? Because you were one of the first, right? Today you were jumping into an entirely different, different landscape. Now that's gotta be exciting and scary as fuck. Talk about that a little bit. Jeff Taylor (03:45.058) That's right. Yeah. Joel (03:51.211) matured. Jeff Taylor (03:54.606) Well, you know, I think what's interesting is I don't think that the fundamentals really change and so I think if you go to a playbook where you have an idea you're able to describe your idea enough so that people want to work with you on that idea. I'm doing that right now. Chad (04:04.392) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:13.3) Mm-hmm. Jeff Taylor (04:19.798) And then you amplify that idea to include kind of customers. And so for me, the job seeker was always the customer. How do you catch that voice? Right. Half about a better job. It's half about a better life. I can go to, I have a monster bathroom. I want to just share that with you. Everything in my bathroom is monster. I didn't know where to put it. And so it's all in there. So you go in there and it's basically like the empowering message of monster.com. And I'm sharing that with you. I haven't shared that with anybody else. Come on. I'm doing it. know, like, so, yeah, what, what here? Here it is right here. I, I, I, I, I am not, I am not kidding. I've never shown it to anybody. And, it's, you know, yeah, it's, so I think the, Chad (04:47.856) in the bathroom. Joel (04:49.044) I have a monster in my toilet, but that's a whole different podcast episode. Joel (04:58.658) For the listeners, he's walking us through his office. Chad (05:01.003) yeah, this is definitely going to be a short. Joel (05:07.426) Do you sleep with Trumpasaurus? Do you sleep with Trumpasaurus? Be honest. Jeff Taylor (05:16.514) The interesting thing if we kind of dig in a little bit is there was a huge problem in the marketplace in the early 90s and the help wanted section wasn't working. And I had 300 clients in the Boston area and a couple of my clients were basically saying, I owned an ad agency. We specialize in placing help wanted ads. The poor younger sister or brother to, you know, the fancy ad agencies in Boston. And My clients were the biggest high tech companies that were emerging, big hospitals and big biotech companies. And they were all telling me the help wanted section is not working. And it's like, why? And it was like, it was getting too expensive. was very sectioned so that it wasn't, it was hard to get your employee brand out there. The shelf life was one day. There were so many problems with it. The main thing is they weren't finding talent. Chad (06:08.211) Mm-hmm. Jeff Taylor (06:13.748) And so if I just fast forward to today, there's a whole set of problems right now. And so I did like a post that was like, you know, rest in peace to the traditional help wanted section. And I listed out like all the things that went wrong that created the opportunity to start monster.com the same set. Joel (06:17.208) Sounds familiar. Jeff Taylor (06:37.218) But with different words are happening right now and I'm about to do a post. It's like rest in peace to the job boards. It's not working. And you could argue that it's not just the job boards, but the systems and process that we have right now is about to get kind of jumped the curve on, jumped the shark. And it's been happening like I was describing, kind of like a frog in the boiling water, you know, like it just. it would just kind of bounce in the road and it's getting hotter and hotter. I don't know why it hasn't changed and that was the beauty of dropping back in after taking little break. Chad (07:16.788) So it's interesting because what pretty much killed Monster and Crew Builder was Indeed. Indeed was the Google for jobs. It was a job search engine, right? And what we've noticed and what we actually talked about on this week's show is how they have actually walked back into a job board model. they're back in, literally, Jeff, they're in your fucking model. What you built back in the mid-90s. they are doing today. So it is, I mean, it's amazing how we take a look at these technologies. We've got this great technology. It's incredibly fluid. It's helping. It's getting job seekers to companies and to jobs faster. And then you start walking that back and you start to put barriers in front of the job seeker. Number one, why do you think that is? Obviously revenue, but why do you think that is? And why do you think CEOs think that's a good idea? And number two, Jeff Taylor (07:46.242) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chad (08:14.472) I mean, Monster and Cruebill are still around. They're one together, obviously, but they still exist. How long do you think it's gonna take for the job boards really to have to evolve into something entirely different? Jeff Taylor (08:29.164) Well, I think the first thing is it's it's really difficult to do. You know, when you when you rely on a system for your profits, actually really for your revenue, you know, the profits may be fleeting, but your revenue, which is kind of, you know, paying for your teams and all of your expenses. And and I think this is that frog in the boiling water thing that over the course of the last 20 years, this this monster buyer seller model, which was kind of a mirror from the newspaper with a post and pray model. There was no pray when we started, it was just post, right? And that model is so beautiful, whether you charge $10 or $200, whether you charge for a month or whether you charge for a day, that model's great. While I was running Monster, there's some stuff you don't know, but while I was running Monster, we never worked with Indeed. And because I always had this Indeed, we had like 10,000 jobs, 20,000 jobs. We had a million jobs. And the Indeed teams were coming to us and saying, look, we can extend the reach of your postings. And so there was like this groundswell inside Monster. I'm like, no. And so I had a, there was a little side conversation that happened between Reed and I with the idea that we'd put LinkedIn and Monster together. and I took it to my board and my board turned it down. So I resigned and that's why I left Monster, just so you guys are aware. And that was in 2003. I didn't have a temper tantrum. I gave him 18 months notice, but almost without fanfare, I left. And within a couple of months, they did the deal with Indeed. And so I don't have an exact press release path. Chad (10:07.892) Really? Jeff Taylor (10:24.856) But they started saying, the soon as they added the million Monster jobs and they had 30,000, they said, we're bigger than Monster. And that was the beginning of Indeed's ability to grow. They were already growing. The aggregator model was a fine model, but the Monster model was better. We actually had the direct line into thousands and thousands of daily jobs because we had direct relationship with the companies. Chad (10:31.956) Mm-hmm. Joel (10:35.746) Hmm. Jeff Taylor (10:54.484) Even today, if you have direct relationships, you know those are real jobs. When you're an aggregator, you're starting to pick up jobs from lots of different places. You can look at one of the posts on my LinkedIn where I say like, where did the job posting go? Like why are there so many ghost jobs? And the main thing is you lose control of the job. So the jobs gets posted. at a recruiter website, somebody scrapes the recruiter website and posts it at another website, and six months later, you're still getting a site that's posting a job as new, but it's six months old. And so what we're seeing is that process started and started to break down as soon as you basically had aggregators. And the thing that I understand that Indeed recently did is basically back off on that network, backed off on those free jobs. Chad (11:21.108) Mm-hmm. Joel (11:46.402) Mm-hmm. Jeff Taylor (11:46.606) And I think they're saying LinkedIn has a model, I don't know, $92, $94 a day. Let's go to a daily model. We can't really do a CPA model where you're counting applications because there's so many fucking applications that that that model basically and no, and that model basically got overwhelmed. So you got to go back. so, so I actually like indeed, I like what the way they've approached things. Chad (12:02.972) Yeah, and they're not qualified. Jeff Taylor (12:16.61) The site's tight and it's good and I like the way they're innovating around their delivery. But this move alone, Joe, you said it, it basically brought them right back into parallel with the other job boards. I think it's a terrible move in the middle of what a terrible moment. And I think it's bad. Joel (12:36.034) Jeff, I can't let, I can't let you get away with saying that the LinkedIn deal was what broke the camel's back, if you will. let it go like left to say a little bit more about that. And you guys ended up buying tickle. Were you a tickle fan or was a tick was the tickle move like, well, we lost it on LinkedIn. Let's try to make up for it. then, and why not build your own network at monster? Because you had the numbers and the traffic. Like, tell me, tell me more about that LinkedIn deal. Period. Chad (12:56.244) Well, they did. had Monster Networking was there. Jeff Taylor (12:58.19) So, so, so I, I don't know. So, so Reed and I met, it was very early. They were losing a lot of money. We, we had a napkin deal basically to say like, you know, let's, let's see if we can put something together. I took it to my board and my board said no. And that was my singular decision where I decided that if my board knew better how to run Monster than me, that then they should go and do it. And so I basically step back. I'll answer the question about Tickle. coming out of 9-11, we were profitable and a very strong company. so in 2001 and 2002, I don't know, if I go back a little further, there was an Amazon.bomb article that was in Barron's that basically kind of blew up most of what it wasn't even called HR Tech yet, but most of the companies that were kind of trying to fake it till you make it, were actually had no money, no revenue model, you we're just kind of flailing out there. All those companies started washing out and Monster was profitable and a really good quality company, like the number 11 or 12 or 13 website in any given month. And it was clear that we needed to press the accelerator. take advantage of what we were doing. We downsized a little bit because we had like six months of no business. It was after 9-11. And honestly, I was starting to lose my leadership control of the company because there was this perception that you needed a fixer to come in, lay off lots of people. And that wasn't my reflection of the way we should do it because we were healthy. And so, Chad (14:45.539) you wanted to build too. You were about building. Jeff Taylor (14:48.352) Yeah, and so I was building the talent market and Monster Networking and honestly, they weren't working. They weren't working well enough. And that's why I approached Reed. And, you know, I think that there's a bit of revisionist history here because... You know, I bring my wife into it. She's she's like, you know, you probably would have fucked it up. I think it's fine. And that might be true because I would have rebranded it because of the hubris that I had, you know, about the strength of a brand in the market. And but I think it was an interesting time. And the purchase of Tickle was we purchased military dot com. We purchased Tickle. And there were a handful of companies that had traffic or had engagement. had page views and coming out of 9-11, it was really important to have all of your metrics be strong and Tickle had an assessment that was like, what dog are you like? And I had a crazy amount of followers that were just doing this silly assessment. And we overpaid for the company because we were starting to build the asset base and the value base of. our offering and making sure coming out of the pandemic that people knew that we were strong. And so, you know, that we were filling in corners to continue to grow as quickly as we grew up from there. The other thing. Chad (16:16.446) So yeah, real quick, Jeff, I got to say that Monster Networking, Chief Monster, Blue Collar, I mean, there were so many great ideas that it felt like they were just early. They're just too early. And if they could have hung on a little bit longer and actually given more love and affection to, but everything went back to Core Monster. Everything went back to Core Monster. Jeff Taylor (16:36.077) Yeah, yeah. Jeff Taylor (16:44.014) So there's a theme here, right? It's like the same thing we were talking about about why the job boards aren't changing their models. It was also true at that point. We were public. We had a quarterly number to hit. You're kind of all of sudden you're beholden to the man to make sure you're advancing on the goal. so these explorations Chad (16:53.396) Mm-hmm. Joel (16:59.276) Mm-hmm. Jeff Taylor (17:12.534) I hesitate to say experience because they were way better than experiments. But this was all me trying to position to be a broader solution for recruiting. And what's classically hard for company is to have even a second offering for revenue. So we had our job posting revenue was about 65 percent. We had our resume database that was about 30 percent. We should talk about that, by the way. And then all of our other activities were like 8 % of revenue. And so it was my job as the leader of Monster to experiment to basically like push in and pull out, push in and pull out, trying to build what I would say is that portfolio, which Monster had the potential to be. And so me leaving, you know, I was a public CEO for 31 quarters and I At some point, Monster had 70 % market share and we were a hot brand. That is hard to sustain, right? And that was going to be hard for me to sustain. So I had a reflection that if I really care about my brand, I should be willing to let it go. And that was always my job. through all the years was as soon as I got something down to hire somebody into that and then move on to the next thing, give up the thing that I was loving. And, you know, you would always say hire into your weaknesses. And I did that and I did it so much that I actually developed this theory that you have to hire into your strengths because I was a good product developer and I was a good marketer. And so I never developed, I thought, really good strength in those areas of my strength. And then all of a sudden I'm 5,000 employees and I've kind of played a lot of my marketing stuff out and built the attitude of our brand, but I needed more people. so, you know, hiring Pete Blacklow and these other leaders in the marketing area and making sure that like, uh, D and the product team. Jeff Taylor (19:24.94) were felt like they could bring their ideas to the table. So was giving those jobs away. And even the leadership of the company, I was actually willing to give away if I felt that it would be good for the brand. And so that's that's kind of what happened. Joel (19:33.656) Mm-hmm. Joel (19:37.91) When you look at what Monsters become, mean, I'm sure seeing Career Builder plus Monster in some ways makes you want to throw up in your mouth a little bit. But when you look at that, how do you feel looking back? Is it a melancholy? it, I had fun while I was there. Like don't cry that it's over. Chad (19:46.246) A lot, a lot. Jeff Taylor (19:52.214) Yeah, it's, yeah. You know, I took you into my Monster bathroom. I'm proud of it. And it's defining for me. It's interesting how the brand and the creation of that brand is defining for me. when people, it is funny. I go in to get my haircut and someone will say like, he found a Monster.com and there's these confused looks around the room. No one knows the Monster.com. Chad (20:18.068) Yeah. What? Joel (20:18.872) The energy drink. Jeff Taylor (20:20.622) And so yeah, they'll save the energy drink or whatever. And that's okay. I think that's the beauty of a brand having a cycle and that's fine. I have to do it because it's, I say it on my fundraising calls. It's like, okay, you put Career Builder, which was the answer that the newspapers really tried to put together to fight against Monster. Chad (20:45.736) Mm-hmm. Jeff Taylor (20:46.926) while I was in my process of building Boom Band, the two of them decided to merge. And I'm like, that is glorious. Like, that's just so beautiful. And so I'm thinking about it, and somebody said it's like two dumpster fires make a bigger dumpster fire. And I'm sorry, like, I can't say that about the product that I found. So I said, two Lukewarm glasses of water, it's very difficult to make a hot glass of water. And I think that's classic. And then they spent a bunch of money Chad (21:02.132) That was us, Jeff Taylor (21:16.788) to brand this company and the new name is Monster Builder. I was like, thank God. Okay, this is so beautiful because I'm going to build a new company in this space. so I am connected to care about not just Monster Employees that worked with me, but Monster Employees that still work there. And I don't want to speak badly. I'm really just for a moment kind of saying like, this is what's happening with our industry right now is indeed is like reeling back into $32, $34 job postings daily, kind of following a LinkedIn model that seems so beautiful and makes $16.5 billion a year in revenue. Like, holy shit, that is the 800 pound gorilla. that's not what Indeed was good at. keep doing what you're good at is what I would say. For Monster and Career Builder, like, no, no, no, no. If you're gonna reinvent this thing and you're gonna spend money on branding, don't come out with Monster Builder. Like, I'm sorry, it's not good enough. It's not gonna work. Chad (22:23.86) They're just looking to sell it. It's Apollo, Jeff. They don't want to make anything. They literally just want to put a new shade of lipstick on this pig and they want to sell it off as parts. That's all they want to do, my friend. I'm sorry. Joel (22:36.524) Just wait till it's zip monster builder. Jeff Taylor (22:40.43) I had a dream a few weeks ago that I went to Apollo and said, whatever you're going to spend on that, put it in a boom band and let's actually go reinvent this thing. And so I had a moment and I reached out to everybody I knew and said, introduce me to Apollo. And it is like fucking crickets. And I like, I don't understand. Other than I'm from the Jurassic period. Of course, I don't know anything about this and you guys are better at this. But I'm coming to play. Joel (23:10.392) So speaking of Jurassic, Jeff, I'm about, let's talk about eons for a second. You come out of success, probably more success than you imagine with Monster. mentioned top 10 website of traffic, 70 % market share. You leave and then launch eons. This is sort of when MySpace was just a thing. Facebook wasn't, maybe had been a college site. And I think it's, yeah, I think it's fair to say it. Jeff Taylor (23:32.556) Yeah, actually Facebook was a thing. Facebook was in colleges. Yeah, go with your answer. Joel (23:39.264) Obviously it didn't work out the way that you wanted it to. I'm curious, having something really successful as an entrepreneur and then sort of, guess, failing, what did you take away from that? Did it affect what you did after Eons? What was the recipe that you missed? Jeff Taylor (23:41.55) I'm fed. Jeff Taylor (23:55.714) Yeah, so I could probably sum it up in saying I got my ass kicked by Facebook. So I built, right, when I was coming out of Monster, the average age of a user when I started Monster was like 34, 35, like it was an older group. And so that group basically grew up with me. And I decided that I would take a niche that I felt was Joel (24:03.778) You're not the only one. Jeff Taylor (24:24.458) underserved, AARP feels a little like our job board industry. And I was like, you know what, I think I could probably take obituaries out of the newspaper and migrate those the way I had done jobs. And let me anchor telling a story about your life to the idea of telling a story while you're alive. And that's where Eons was born. And Eons grew to a million monthly, was a pretty Chad (24:28.531) Yeah. Jeff Taylor (24:53.614) cool thing. have a story about a longevity calculator I'll share in a second, but the reality was I got to a million, Facebook went from college to high school, and then high schoolers taught their parents how to use Facebook and in a moment, like a flash, it was like one of those things that the police officers throw into a house, it was like we didn't grow anymore. Like all of a sudden it's like, you know, where is everybody? Everyone went to Facebook. And so I would sum up that era as I got my butt kicked by Facebook. And what was cool about it was, I was too early. I have it right in my LinkedIn profile. If you read my overview, I say like, I'm always early, but what other way is there? Like if you want to have ideas, in a space you're going to be early or else they're not, they're copycat ideas, right? And, and so I think I've hit it at different points. Monster, you, you said it's in terms of the success from Monster. mean, it's like, holy cow. I remember negotiating to, get a million dollars if we went public, right? Like I, like, I wasn't thinking. like billionaires of the internet. It was a different time. There weren't any internet millionaires at the beginning of the monster process. And I started, there were only 200 websites. So I could have bought the URLs, Coca-Cola and Nike. It was that early. And so to go from... early, early to the innovator, you know, crossing the chasm to, you know, kind of get those early adopters to get the massive middle, stay as the leader. It was amazing, right? Something I never could have expected. And I was just old enough, I think, to appreciate it and just, just not humble enough to realize I couldn't just automatically do it again. And so there's the story in a nutshell. Yeah. Joel (26:59.341) Yeah. Chad (26:59.512) Yeah. And if you would have turned it into a dating site, it would have blown up. That's the thing. Joel (27:06.966) I'm surprised Google wasn't nervous with your cranky search engine. That's what I remember. Rank was in all caps and had a little sea cranky. Jeff Taylor (27:13.528) So these are all fun. I had a dating part of Eons, which was called Meetcha, know, nice to meetcha. I had a reference point for Cranky. But the tributes piece of it went on and sold to Legacy. And the exit was like a bunt. Chad (27:24.296) just too much at once? Jeff Taylor (27:42.638) where Monster was a home run. so I think it makes, it builds my character. know, like I think these are important things. There's so many books about fail better and struggle well and all that stuff. And I think that I've always embraced that. And so I think it was good. And then, I don't know if you're gonna bridge this, but then I went to work for Ray Dalio. And... Chad (27:42.824) Yeah. Yeah. Joel (28:05.4) Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. Because your personality's mesh. Chad (28:06.61) way before we get to that, before we do that, before we do that, before we do that, we gotta do, we gotta do, we gotta do the TMP thing, right? Because obviously, you know, TMP had Monster and had, was, was obviously an advertising agency and then Monster flipped the script on them and became the, the, the over, I mean, I can see, because the ego, I can see the Jeff, we probably in Andy's office having this discussion, Hey, we should be, the big dog here because the internet is where it's at. It was interesting being in the industry, watch that happen first and foremost, and then watching TMP, because I have very close relationships with TMP people, how they just, they were enraged because this little baby monster came over and they took the headline. Talk about that. How did that actually happen? That's what I want to Jeff Taylor (29:04.91) It's probably, it's probably, it's probably its own podcast. Yeah. I had an ad agency, which was just like TMP, right. But smaller in Boston. It was, was called Adion and it was ads that we did and an ion was a particle of energy. I've never really changed by the way. Right. And we, Andy McKelvey was, ran TMP, which was telephone marketing programs. Chad (29:05.448) Come on, you do know you were there. Joel (29:05.783) He got really the hushed tones say so much, don't they? Chad (29:15.496) Yeah. Right. Jeff Taylor (29:32.61) And Andy decided, he rolled up the YellowPage agencies and then he said, I'm going to roll up the recruitment agencies. So long before Michelle Abbey would have been upset with me for renaming the company Monster, was, you know, all of a sudden YellowPage has got a little bit usurped by rolling up these recruitment advertising agencies. Andy came to me and I was like, no way, our agency's hot. And I got this idea and I didn't even tell him. And it's kind of like, can't tell you a lot about Boom Band today. And so he came back a year later, offered much more money, wanted Adion because we were a very good agency in Boston to be an anchor point for, I think he ended up buying some around 25 recruitment advertising agencies. And I could see that I had Monster in Boston. And I had jobs in New England, but I wasn't very well covered in Chicago or Phoenix or Austin or San Francisco. And I could see some ability to extend the value of Monster by basically piggybacking onto this set. So I basically said, the only way I'll sell my agency is if you buy Monster. And Andy was like, I don't want it. And I was like, you don't understand. And it's probably about the conversation. And I said, I need you to come spend a day with me. And I had a sun spark 20 monsters running, I don't know, 800 jobs a day. And the machine is creaking under pressure and we're starting to get articles written about us. And it was starting to take my investors in my ad agency are saying, you need to shut that down. because it's taking you away from the agency, which was sending them a check every year. They were angel investors. And so I had like this, let's call it one of the perfect storms in my life where I went to the Boston Globe and said, do you want to buy half of Monster? I had four or five meetings with them. I met with the tailors, the senior people, and there was a lot of discussion about it. And they got back to me and they said, our great grandfathers would roll over in their graves. Jeff Taylor (31:50.42) If we if we actually did an investment and partnered with our most important section of the newspaper with a company called Monster. So I was like, OK, Andy, Andy was talking to me. The Boston Globe was talking to me. The Boston Globe said, no, my my angel investors are noisy. And I said, OK, fine. And so Andy said, I'll buy it, but I'm not really going to give you any money for it. And and I said, OK, I'm fine with that as long as I get the plan. And so we created TMP interactive, Monster became the product. And it's been, you didn't go right to it, but one of the miss moments in my life is two years later, Mark Cuban, whatever, all became billionaires with things that were similar to mine. And I made my boss a billionaire, Andy McKelvey. I'm fine. Right? If you guys are worried about me, I'm fine. Right? Chad (32:50.164) Yeah. I've seen your bathroom. You're fine. Jeff Taylor (32:50.7) But what happened then over the next few years, so weird. It's like a bumper sticker. I've seen your bathroom. That's funny. It was like a bam bam moment where the tail like banged the body of the dog so hard that the tail became the dog. so what, probably even dating myself in that analogy, people are whoa. was Bam Bam. But the idea that we became Monster Worldwide was for me one of the pinnacles where I basically said, okay, I think I can walk away from this. I've accomplished the goals that I plan to accomplish. And what's interesting, what's it called? Radiance or radiancy? Sorry. I don't Joel (33:22.306) Yeah. Chad (33:38.578) Raidency, Raidency. Joel (33:39.958) Raiden C. Jeff Taylor (33:42.894) pay as much attention to the employer branding companies, which we should talk about, by the way. There's a interesting concept where the TMP business got stronger in the short term because they had Monster. unlike when Ron said buys Monster, now you have a staffing firm that owns Monster. In this case, it was a recruitment agency that had a distributed vehicle. So we became the back end of every job that won the newspaper also won a Monster. And that was the way we seeded the market. And in some ways, even though I gave up personal wealth in that moment, it actually was a pivotal moment in building the Monster brand. Joel (34:25.9) Ray Dalio discuss. So we go to eons, we're to get to boom band. You've done some like Ray Dalio is a very calculated sort of thoughtful low key guy. I can't imagine you guys wouldn't have more in common based on your, your demeanor. But so Ray Dalio, you kind of have a lost in the woods period. You're doing like Range Rover stuff you're doing. Yeah. Let's jump to boom band between eons and then. Jeff Taylor (34:41.794) Yeah, you know, you know it's funny. Jeff Taylor (34:49.47) No, let's get the order. So the order was, so Eons took a huge swing and did a little baby bunt. And then I was in a little period where I was there to support the person that bought Eons and Ray Dalio called. It was actually a recruiter that Ray had assigned. know, go find me five entrepreneurs that aren't finance people that could come in and bring a different kind of spice to the Bridgewater scenario. And at that point, I was like, I don't know who Ray Dalio is. And so I had to go do some research on Ray Dalio. was like, wow, isn't that a twist? And so I went and interviewed Greg and David and Eileen that were the three, really the three senior leaders other than Ray. Joel (35:20.216) Huh. That's you. Jeff Taylor (35:47.35) were, I had good interviews with all of them. And my interview with Ray was an hour and eight minutes long. He talked for an hour, I talked for eight minutes, it's on tape. he did not like, yeah. He did not like me. And so I think David or Eileen went to him and said, you gotta hire this guy. Joel (35:59.416) There's no way that you didn't get any words in. wow, okay. Jeff Taylor (36:14.606) And so he said, okay, do like a try buy for six months and let's check it out. And so I accepted the try buy. was a good, was a North of Fair offer. know, like it was fair, the biggest hedge fund in the world. And I moved to Westport, Connecticut. And I showed up at work and one of the first things Ray said was like, why did you move here? Joel (36:30.264) worth your time. Jeff Taylor (36:42.382) And I was like, because I'm gonna work for you. And he's like, you're not gonna last six months. And I said, I'll work for 10 years and we'll see. so for the first like three months, it was horrible. I really struggled there because nobody cared that I had founded one of the biggest brands in the world. It's like Bridgewater is you start with your head cut off and you walk around like a newbie no matter what. position you're in and you earn your way through the process. And just to fast forward, we have this thing called dots, which are basically feedback that you get in the moment on an iPad in every meeting. So I'd be saying like right now, Joel, it's like, you know, like go to the harder question. And I'd be like, like Chad, like we should probably have a separate conversation just about the monster experience. in So we'd be giving feedback to each other and you'd be saying, okay, I don't think he's listening that well. I'm not sure he's answering the right question. And we'd be giving each other dots. I have 25,000 of those dots in my experience working there. And I gave out 22,000 dots. So I basically was a feeder of, I believed in the system. I'm telling you, it made me sharp. Like if I look at my peers where I am right now, I think it gave me 10 years of ability to navigate levels and understand what's important and to be able to understand what people are like, which is a very important part of what I'm doing with Boom Band. And so that was like a 10 year MBA for me. And I did work there for almost exactly 10 years, incredible experience. The first three months, Ray beat the crap out of me. And, you he brought me into a room with 30 people and he had asked me to do this assignment. Go taste the soup in these six different areas. And tasting the soup is like go into areas and like see what you think it's like. And if you would make suggestions, whatever. He's basically testing me to see what I'm like. And I did a couple of reports, gave them to Greg, who was, you know, kind of number two at that point. Greg said, these are terrible. Jeff Taylor (39:01.654) And then I did some more. said, okay, they're better. And then Ray calls me into a room with 36 people and basically says, why are you so terrible at tasting the soup? I said, Greg just said I'm mediocre. Like, Greg fights me. And so I had to do a, I did a reflection, which we would write almost every day inside the company. And I said, I'm fighting for mediocrity, right? That was the beginning of my Bridgewater experience. But by the end, I think I didn't. Joel (39:27.672) Cheers. Jeff Taylor (39:30.938) sell my soul, I was me. It was an incredible experience. The people that work out at Bridgewater are lifelong, incredible people. And so for me, it was a great stop in a building career. Joel (39:46.378) And why'd you leave? Was it to start another company or you just had Jeff Taylor (39:49.73) So, well, actually, we carved off principles. At one point, Ray said, you know, like, what do you want to do? You're doing a great job in the company. it was like, your book is in the corner. You you're messing around with that. And I said, I'll help, you know, project manage the books, the book principles. Chad (39:50.557) You the itch? Jeff Taylor (40:10.886) I worked as the project lead on that team and with a couple other incredible people and kind of got Ray over the finish line of getting that book out there, producing those videos that are about how you fall down and get back up. If you haven't watched it, it's a really good watch. Joel (40:24.886) Is that the Empire stuff or are these different videos? Jeff Taylor (40:27.662) Oh, well, so there's this a little bit earlier. So this is is is principles you this is how the economic machine works and some of the early videos. And so the spirit of that, for me, we ended up carving that company off in 2019 as a separate company called principles. And we were going to see if we could sell these tools into places like Salesforce and zoom and some of our early meetings. And then the pandemic hit and Joel (40:30.904) Okay, so the Empire is the new stuff, yeah. Jeff Taylor (40:57.818) feedback in year one of the pandemic was, I didn't know you had kids and what's your dog's name and are you okay? See you next year. That was the transparency and the radical feedback for year one of the pandemic. And that was when we were trying to build a business. And so I finally said, it's probably time, you know, in a theme that's very similar that you'll start to hear from me, it was probably time. And I... I had built a couple of Land Rovers and I was like, you know what, this is so creative. I'm not a refiner and an advanced working for Ray. I'm completely envisioning these things. And so I created a little company called Rover Trophy during the pandemic, built about a hundred really cool Land Rovers. And then, I don't know, one of my buds called me and basically said, you gotta get back in the game. And I was like, I'm building these Rovers and I was thinking about it and I basically, it's always danced, like there's been a couple of points where it's like, I should go buy Monster. you know, Monster has been doing that steady march down and I think the brand was still good. But I think that's not typically what I do. I've typically gone and done different things. Joel (41:58.04) It must have been dancing in your head. It must have sort of been there, right? And he... Chad (42:09.96) Mm-hmm, yeah. Or they pay you to take it. Jeff Taylor (42:21.672) And so this is actually a real coming around for me to come back into the business. Chad (42:27.838) So do we know what boom band is gonna be? That's the question because it seems like there's an idea, there's a concept, but it's a little nebulous at this point. Give us an idea. Joel (42:31.106) Give it to us. Jeff Taylor (42:34.99) I do. I Yeah, and it is completely by design. Like I, you know, one of the things that I've been talking about, and I think we probably should spend some time and talk about this because there's a there's kind of a what I'm describing is like a meltdown in the industry right now. It's not working. It's literally not working. And I was I was describing it as like leaves up against the fence. And you have Chad (42:56.628) Mm-hmm. Jeff Taylor (43:05.006) guest after guest after guest that is tweaking and doing middleware and reinventing this and putting AI on top of that. And these are all micro adjustments to something that fundamentally, when I started Monster, the biggest problem was there was not a big enough talent pool to service the companies and they needed a new way to do it. And there was no tweaking of the help wanted section that was going to get that done. Some of the help wanted sections were 150 pages. Big, right? You know, like that just didn't work. Still one day publishing, whatever. Right. Now I think what's happening is cost of posting, has gone to like a day rate. If you add it up in a month, postings are as expensive as they've ever been. And you have every flavor of microsite and you have. the application process, is broken. The ATS system, I think at some point it's just the machine settings in the ATS is can't keep up. You know, my airbrushing thing I've been talking about. don't know how much you've, you track me, but I can do it. I can do it right here. And this, you mostly do podcast, right? So I have a tangerine company says, this is an exciting job posting. I'm going to put it through AI and they make this. Joel (44:24.78) Yep. Uh-huh. Jeff Taylor (44:30.67) this much more sexy looking orange. And then they put it out in the marketplace and here's your candidate is like this orange cup. And the candidate's like, wow, I'm gonna put that job posting in my favorite transformer, my favorite LLM. And so now it's in there, put my resume in there too. And what comes out the bottom is like, okay, now here's my resume. It looks so beautiful. And then it comes back over and answers the job. And the ATS system is like, Holy shit. I used to have five to 7 % of my applicants where I could identify the keywords and then I could help a recruiter who's not quite as good at human interactions anymore to move people forward in the system. And the reality now is you've got instead of two to 300 responses in three to four weeks, now you're getting 500 responses in three to five hours. And now I said conservatively 30 % look like an orange, but I just saw somebody say half look like an orange. Okay. So the, so the ATS system is like, yes, there are 400 people that match your job posting. then the recruiter. Joel (45:38.168) Cheers. Joel (45:44.524) Yeah, close the posting. We don't need any more, right? And then. Jeff Taylor (45:48.718) We are 400 people that are at 92%. It's like, wow, this is awesome. And then you go to the first person. I just heard a story, fourth interview, and it's for a recruiter. And the person says, tell me what kinds of positions you've recruited for. And the person said, I've ever not actually been a recruiter before. Right. I've been in marketing and sales, but I've never recruited somebody. It's like they're at the fourth interview. so interview one, you know, I don't know, interview one is Chad (46:17.332) Well that's not a technology problem, that's a company problem. Jeff Taylor (46:21.294) Right, but what's happening is phase one, phase two, we're getting a bunch of AI tools that are taking care of the administrative and setting up your meeting. And then your first meeting, I just talked to an applicant yesterday. So I'm so excited. I got my first interview in two months and it's a robot. And she like was almost crying while she's answering the questions. Joel (46:21.816) But they're funneling through with tech, yeah. Jeff Taylor (46:46.956) because she thought she was gonna talk to Alan or whatever and it's basically mechanical questions being asked to her that then she's answering. She has three tries at it and she has one minute for each answer. And she said, I'm so, so frustrated. Like I don't know what to do. So anyway, I think this thing's melting down. And so I think it's a macro issue. So Boom Band is going to deal with. Let's call it three of the macro problems. I think the resume, the definition of a resume, it's French, it means summary. That's an absolute disaster in using AI that can actually, it's both semantic and eugenic ways that it's going to find the neighborhood of the information in your resume. And if your resume is a summary, it doesn't work. And so you're only matching the same way an applicant tracking system is matching by some keywords and by years of experience. And you need to do much more. So my first thinking is the resume's got to be different. And if I had a nickel for every time I went to every HR tech conference, there was many of these, I was a keynote speaker at, and I would walk the floors. And if I had a nickel for every time somebody say, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, come over here, I'm reinventing the resume. I'd say, good luck. Right? Because I did a hundred million resumes with a form-based resume. So if you went to Amherst college, it was in the college line. It wasn't in the location line as Amherst or in your engineering experience as Amherst software. You knew where the stuff was in a form-based resume and all of the resume parsers. I did a big evaluation of all of those five years ago. I've always been in it a little Joel. and the best ones hit 83, 84%. That's not good enough for a resume parser because that means you still have mistakes. And so the experience that I had is the resume is broken and it does need to be reinvented. And so I have an idea and my idea is to say, I think your resume needs to be 80 % current, 5 % historical and 15 % future. What are your goals and dreams? Including what companies you'd like to work for. Jeff Taylor (49:13.87) what jobs you would like to have, why you'd like to have those jobs, and what are my five-year goals in terms of what I'd like to do with my career. And I want to ingest all that so I start to get a little bit of a spirit of like the culture of this person. The other thing is when you have a LinkedIn resume, let's talk about LinkedIn for a minute. 1 % creators, 9 % engagers, 90 % lurkers. That's the industry standard. Chad (49:39.636) . Jeff Taylor (49:40.942) I think if anything, it might be higher lurkers on LinkedIn. There's there's there's and then of the 1 % of content creators, 10 % of those produce real content on a regular basis. So it's a very small number of content creators. You guys you guys know this, you know, the one 990 rule. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm sorry. I'm just just trying to like set up a picture, right? So this means 90 plus percent of the people that are on LinkedIn are using it like Instagram. Chad (49:59.476) Kind of what we do kind of what we do Jeff Taylor (50:12.424) Or they have an old resume on LinkedIn. That's it. It's a commercial resume, 85 % historical, 15 % current. So for 90 % of the users, that's what they got. It's not good enough. And so what I want to do is fill up that experience, bring your whole self. And that's the first anchor point that I'm doing. The second thing is we have to get rid of job postings. There are 100 companies including Chris that was just on your show Who I'm amazed at he's he's amazing guy and he's built an amazing business and now he's gonna go make cheese which I think is funny and I think what's what's cool is he's been able to cycle so I can have a little fun with this is That all of these things are things to make the job posting better to make it more efficient, to find the efficiencies, to place on a hundred job posting sites, we have to get rid of the job posting. The job posting has been around since you had an anvil and you're banging the shit out of a piece of metal and you put on a tree that I need an apprentice. It's been the same. It's just like the resume. A resume has been around. The first ones I found were from 1907. That's when the telephone was invented and that's when the automobile was invented. A resume has been the same pretty much. I have a resume from 1907. I'm sorry, I'm excited. I'm really fucking excited right now. Like this is me. Chad (51:44.692) about a 1907 resume. I get some money out of that. Joel (51:45.576) So you're taking on LinkedIn, you're taking on Indeed, and any other 800-pound gorillas you want to take down? Jeff Taylor (51:52.826) No, I can't take on LinkedIn yet. But the idea is, you know, if I just take that resume, the only difference between a 1907 resume and one today is the person said they were happily married, which is typically not on resume today, and the person said they enjoy fox hunting. And you probably wouldn't say, you know, you could lose a vice presidential opportunity for killing an animal. Joel (51:57.196) Yet. Jeff Taylor (52:17.452) right? And so I think that there is a that resume has to change and the job posting needs to change. And my own view is that what you have is a requirement. You have signal. But what you don't want is a thousand people to apply. So what's happened from 1994 to now is there were no applicants and there was so much demand now, now because of the economy, because of Doge because of everything going on. There's way too many applicants. And so now the system is, I don't want to put an announcement out there. A third of positions right now are where someone's not working out in the role. The only way you can fill that position is with a recruiter because it needs to be a confidential search. can't put that out in the marketplace. And so what I'm saying is if we were going to get rid of a job posting, that means we got to be more predictive about what that company wants and. So I'm building that. Joel (53:18.392) these will be easy sales and the good news is Super Bowl 50 is 60 is really close. just produce another commercial, buy a blimp, get the blimp going, get the blimp back and you're on your way, right? Jeff Taylor (53:25.774) $8 million. Chad (53:26.58) So only like eight million. Jeff Taylor (53:35.348) So how do you do that again and not do a blimp? You know, one of the things I always had this idea of going up on a billboard and like a live person like me staying up on a billboard until I get, you know, 100,000 people to build their profiles on Boom Band. Like I never did that. I wanted to do that. I proposed that to the team. But I did crop circles. I did snow mazes. Joel (53:45.004) Now you're talkin'. Jeff Taylor (54:04.846) I did blimps in the sky. I set the world record water skiing behind a blimp. You can't buy a blimp ride, so it wasn't that much of a physical accomplishment, but it was fun. And so, yes, I've done those things. So what do I do with Boom Band? And so I'm excited about it. I think the industry is really ready for a change. My website's up. It's just a teaser site. just, it even... Joel (54:30.826) End quotes. Yeah. Jeff Taylor (54:32.11) It floats, it basically says, you know, come and get a backstage pass so can play together. Joel (54:38.917) When's the real launch date? Do you know yet? Jeff Taylor (54:42.092) I don't know yet, I'm building right now. My target is late fall. Joel (54:48.152) We will be watching, Jeff. Chad (54:48.158) Fair enough. You need some pilot, you need some pilot users and then some real data and then you know what the hell's going on. That's the thing. So you've got a great concept. Everybody thinks they have a great concept. And then there are like 27 pivots within those first six months, especially now, especially now with the market and how fast it's moving. So it'll be interesting to see how this actually comes out. Joel (55:07.99) And more importantly, Jeff Taylor is back, bitches. Jeff Taylor is back. Chad (55:10.846) There he is. Jeff Taylor (55:15.83) You know, I appreciate you guys. Like, I think you have a great role in the middle of this. you know, to tell the stories, I think this is a new kind of journalism in a way that I'm just, I'm proud of the work you're doing and thank you for having me on. Joel (55:15.874) Can't wait, Jeff. Joel (55:24.162) Say more. Joel (55:33.152) Does that mean you'll come back when Boom Band is rockin' and rollin'? Chad (55:33.3) Thanks for coming on, Jeff Taylor (55:35.662) Yeah, if you'll have me, I'll show you the boom band arena sometime late summer. Chad (55:38.035) Ready? Joel (55:41.272) Ugh. Joel (55:45.89) Sounds good, man. So for our listeners that want to connect with you or learn more about Boom Band, where do you send them? Chad (55:45.94) Okay, good stuff. Jeff Taylor (55:53.819) So, you know, this is crazy, but go to my LinkedIn just so we can start the conversation. And if you just put in Jeff Taylor and Boom Band, I think there's 17,000 Jeff Taylors on LinkedIn, which is great. And then go to boomband.com, sign up for Backstage Pass so we can play together over the next few months as, you know, be an early power user. Joel (56:14.744) Boom boom boom, Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Chad (56:16.02) Good stuff, baby. Way out.

Corporate espionage, political meltdowns, and matching t-shirts —what more could you want? This week on The Chad & Cheese Podcast (featuring the always-fashionable Mo Wiley Clough), the gang dives into the dumbest spy drama since Austin Powers . Yes, Deel paid a payroll guy to snoop on Rippling … (Spoiler alert: he wasn’t exactly 007) Meanwhile, Mo channels her inner Gryffindor, Chad is spiritually allergic to Cory Booker praise, and Joel just wants everyone to stream Real Genius  on their next flight. Oh, and they bid farewell to Val Kilmer—icon, legend, fashion inspiration. But wait, there’s more! We’ve got April Fool’s pranks, a filibuster fueled by desperation, Gavin Newsom talking to right-wing wackos, and a full-on economic apocalypse brought to you by tariffs, layoffs, and what experts are calling “a really stupid plan.” If you love chaos, cursing, and conspiracy-level incompetence, this is your episode. 👉 Buckle up. It's like Succession  meets The Office —if both were run by drunk toddlers. Want it even shorter/snappier for platforms like Instagram or TikTok? Just say the word! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:39.086) To run away high so we wouldn't come home low. kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Liberation Day Cheesman. Maureen Wiley Clough (00:48.366) And I'm, I'm Maureen AKA Mo. What the F is happening, Clough? Chad (00:48.768) I'm Chad. Oh, go ahead, go ahead. Chad (00:58.858) And this is Chad, I'm your Huckleberry Sowash. Joel (01:02.524) On this episode, Deal's spy comes clean, the countdown on TikTok keeps ticking, and just another day in Trump World everybody! Chad (01:06.175) Ooh. Chad (01:12.777) No. Joel (01:16.912) Let's do this. Chad (01:20.852) So Mo, before you got on, I had to go change shirts because for the second day in a row, Joel and I were wearing the exact same shirt. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:27.469) Oh, we can't have that. No, no. Joel (01:27.708) It's scary. It's scary. Chad (01:30.14) No, in the amount of t-shirts that we have, mean, just the, the likelihood of that happening. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:34.093) Yeah. I love it. I love it. I'll be your fashion advisor. Joel (01:39.394) It's scary. And it's usually a jersey, which in this case it was, he just altered another jersey. You should wear jerseys we don't have, like I don't have. I don't have the Portugal jerseys. But yesterday it was just like a plain grayish blue tee. that was totally random, totally random. Guaranteed I'll never have what Maureen's wearing because she's way more fashionable than I will ever, ever be. Chad (01:44.831) Yep. Chad (01:50.08) You Maureen Wiley Clough (01:51.918) Hahaha Chad (01:55.22) Yeah. It was random. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:01.422) Thanks, I definitely am. 100%. It's weird because it feels like we should be excited because we've been liberated from what's in our bank accounts and our pantries and stuff. Yeah, exactly. Chad (02:01.916) Easily, easily. Looks like she's a wizard at Gryffindor. Joel (02:07.462) You guys are both in black. It's almost like you're in mourning. Did someone, someone pass recently that. Chad (02:13.088) Hmm. Chad (02:19.072) I think. Joel (02:21.2) The only thing liberated is my money and my... Chad (02:23.653) I think Val Kilmer was liberated from all of this bullshit, okay? So he died on April Fool's Day, which, RIP Val Kilmer. Joel (02:29.092) Yeah. Joel (02:36.272) which he played Morrison who's still in doubt of whether or not he's actually dead. So I don't know. This would be really, really poetic if Val just, you know, disappeared Jim Morrison style. But yeah, apparently in the hospital pneumonia, with his, I think his family and close friends around him, a real icon for, for gen X. mean, there's, there are some actors that are really connected to our generation, tombstone, the doors, top gun. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:36.536) rough. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:42.594) Wow. Plot twist. Chad (02:46.728) Yeah, doubtful. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:53.678) Wow. 65 is young. Chad (03:01.149) yeah. Chad (03:05.011) yeah. Heat with Pacino and De Niro. Joel (03:06.266) Like Chad, know, I know you're a big fan. were. And he, yeah, he like what, what's your favorite? Well, like some of your, your favorite Val Kilmer moments. Chad (03:16.116) So one of my favorites, because it was in 85 and I was a kid, was Real Genius. Not a great movie, not a great movie, but I really, I mean, as a kid, I just fucking loved it. But what I love, I definitely love my favorite movie is True Romance. I know it's more of a Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette movie, but I just love that, love that movie. The Saint was awesome too. Joel (03:20.828) Ugh. It was a good movie. Joel (03:37.818) Elvis Ghost. Yeah, that was good. Joel (03:46.192) I don't know how you beat Tombstone for me. That was like, probably watched that every day for a year in college. just cause it's so great. The doors was fantastic. I Oliver Stone was at the top of his game. He like everything kind of clicked on that. I love real genius too, Chad. Like I was. Chad (03:49.0) It's hard. Yeah. Great movie. Chad (04:00.97) Yeah. Joel (04:06.714) The last scene where the, star Wars weapon in the popcorn in the house. And then they play tears for fears. Everybody wants to rule the world. That's like such an eighties moment that I guess, anytime that's on a movie flight, I watch it. Like I love that movie. It's a quick watch kids. If you haven't watched real genius, I, highly encourage you to do so. Chad (04:07.924) Great memories. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (04:20.744) Yeah, it's great. Chad (04:26.1) We're talking to you Moe, because we know you haven't seen it. Maureen Wiley Clough (04:28.014) I've got some homework. Yeah, was three when that movie came out that you were talking about. But I have seen Top Gun and Top Gun, Top Gun. Yeah, it's legit. Mm-hmm. Okay. Joel (04:28.848) Damn millennials. Chad (04:34.078) real genius, top gun, iconic, iconic Iceman. You definitely have to watch true romance. Walk-ins in that one. mean, they're just, that is star studded. Just awesome. But yeah. Yeah. Yep. He was, he was leading that. Joel (04:34.24) nice, just stick it in there dude. Joel (04:49.244) Don't forget the was it Island of Dr. Moreau that like there's some real gems in there. if you look that, that the mainstream ones, everyone knows, but there are some real, and, his, his, there's a documentary on, on Netflix about his life. And he did a Mark Twain, like road show kind of a Broadway thing that he played Mark Twain. That was really awesome. So the dude was, was, handsome. Maureen Wiley Clough (04:49.422) What's going on the list, man? Maureen Wiley Clough (04:56.59) haven't even heard of these. Chad (04:58.442) Yeah. All right. Chad (05:06.048) Mm-hmm. Joel (05:17.894) But he played roles that were very challenging and yeah, Val Kilmer, Gone way too soon, like so many. Chad (05:23.476) Yeah. Rest in peace. Rest in peace. It is. He had throat cancer and yeah, it was kind of like, I think a downward spiral from there. So anyway. Maureen Wiley Clough (05:24.984) Way too soon. 65 is young. It's rough. Sad. Joel (05:28.922) It is young. Throat cancer. Maureen Wiley Clough (05:36.142) Yeah. Joel (05:36.282) And the opposite of too soon is Cory Booker's filibuster. Did you guys see this? Maureen Wiley Clough (05:39.726) No kidding. I mean, you got to hand it to him. I don't care if you don't like what he had to say. Standing up there for over a day, the stamina that takes is just ludicrous. I'm tired just thinking about it. I need to go nap thinking about what he did and all the preparation he did for it. But just the beauty of him eclipsing Strom Thurmond, that is so awesome, so sweet. Chad (05:41.556) Yes. Chad (05:47.216) yeah. Chad (05:59.54) Yo, yeah. yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:05.934) But hats off to that guy. mean, he's 55 years old. That's what 55 looks like in 2025. So keep rolling, right? Chad (06:11.178) For, from the Strom Thurman standpoint, thank God, hopefully we can start to strike that piece of shit from the history books for God's sakes. but the thing that got to me though is like afterwards, you know, they talked to them and it was almost like they were, they were talking to an athlete about, the, the stamina and the, okay. So, and just take it from my vantage point. I have a military background. We did that shit all the time. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:16.142) Ugh. Yep, with you there. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:28.824) Totally. 100%. Chad (06:38.496) I mean, give me a fucking break. We didn't just stand and talk. We were all over the place. I mean, and we were up for days for God's sake. So when I start seeing that the guy is in a, a, temperature controlled area, he's got the only thing he didn't have to do with, he probably wore double depends good for him. But I mean, at the end of the day, it was like the stamina it takes. It's like, motherfucker, please. We got, we got, we got people on a daily basis who are guarding your asses who are doing more than that. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:38.766) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:43.64) Good point. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:00.686) That's fair. Chad (07:07.978) But yet we want to, okay. Love Cory Booker. Don't get me wrong, but come on people, give me a fucking break. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:10.104) That's totally fair. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:14.786) Yeah, maybe we're focused on the wrong stuff. Joel (07:15.206) Not, not, not so impressed as Chad. So wash. like that. I like that. He's a hard motherfucker. Now I want to know, at least one Democrat on the call that I know. think not just me saying it, but the Democrats are kind of lost in the wilderness. Bernie's back. Like is Corey setting himself up to be the voice, the leader of the party after this, after this episode or no. Chad (07:18.792) I'm not. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:22.157) Hahaha! Maureen Wiley Clough (07:42.54) I mean, I think that has to have been part of why he was doing it, right? And I think, God, like do something, Democrats. Like, please show us something different. Do something different. I mean, it gives him a shot, I would say, for sure. I mean, he deserves a shot for other reasons too, but yeah. I mean, to say the least. Joel (07:53.638) Yeah. Chad (07:56.5) I think what we're seeing, yeah, no question, but I think what we're seeing from Gavin Newsom right now is one of the smartest pivots where he's actually talking to Steve Bannon. He started a new podcast and he's starting to, he's talking to all these right wing fucking wackos. And I mean, we're not just talking about, you know, right conservative. We're talking about fucking wackos. He's talking to all these guys and what he's doing is he's trying to get the Manosphere Joel (08:03.868) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (08:04.116) Mm, yeah. Agreed. Chad (08:25.46) to understand who he is, right? So he's talking to all the fucking wackos. So he's trying to get the manosphere to understand who he is to try to slowly nudge them back into the same portion of what we call life, right? So I think what he's doing, which many, many Democrats and progressives do not like, I think is incredibly smart. And it's exactly what we need to be doing to be able to win over Maureen Wiley Clough (08:50.798) Brilliant. Chad (08:54.356) the actual narrative. I think what he's doing is incredibly smart, but they, the democratic bench is deep. It is deep. Now how they go after the different narratives. Like I was just talking about Gavin Newsom, maybe this is Corey's, you know, first foray into be able to, launch into something like that. don't know. Maureen Wiley Clough (08:56.664) Totally agree. Joel (09:13.596) Yeah. Most, most parties, uh, have someone that the world thinks of whether it's Obama, Clinton, but like they have the person. Um, and I've said they need another Clinton. need another Obama and maybe Booker Gavin. Um, is it, I do love how Gavin will go into the lion's den. I guess if for lack of a better word, like when he went on Fox and, debate it, debated DeSantis like that was a baller move. Um, know, he's, he's, and he's not. Maureen Wiley Clough (09:17.654) Mm-hmm. Chad (09:20.148) Mm-hmm. Chad (09:32.488) yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (09:33.091) Yeah. Chad (09:37.534) Yeah. yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (09:39.054) Totally. Joel (09:41.978) He's not prone to like canceling or you're wrong and get out of here. Like he he's open to conversations. And I think there needs to be more of that on both sides, but particularly on the Democrat. mean, when the Democrats sort of. Yeah. I mean, when the Democrats tried to embrace Liz Cheney, they caught him was like, Nope, Cheney done. like we, know, politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. And I think Gavin is following that, that playbook. And, I do, I do applaud that. Chad (09:50.057) Agreed. Maureen Wiley Clough (09:51.345) 100%. It's literally what we need. Chad (10:09.002) Big tent. Maureen Wiley Clough (10:09.016) I think it's brilliant. When I heard it first, I was like, great, another podcast? Are you kidding me? But then when I found out that what he was doing, I was like, this is literally exactly what we need because we are so completely polarized in this country. We need to have these conversations. I mean, we are in our own echo chambers constantly and that's why no one can kind of cut through the noise and see the other side. And you have to believe otherwise you go absolutely insane that the far right contingent is not everybody and that, you know, there are people that fall far. Chad (10:13.952) Yeah. Chad (10:20.608) Mm-hmm. Joel (10:31.91) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (10:37.614) closer to the center, to the more independent realm that have made the choice to go right or go left, right? But it's like, we have to imagine that there are more people in the center than anything. So getting those conversations to happen, it's just critically important for anything to change. Chad (10:53.608) We hope. Enough of this political stuff though. It's April Fool's Day. Shout out. Let's do this. Joel (10:57.134) It's like, it's like. We're doing shout outs without shout out shout outs are sponsored by our friends at Kiara up north. Shout out to them. Text recruiting made easy and inexpensive. Chad, you gotta shout out what you got. Chad (11:04.178) Yes, love those guys. Love those guys. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it was April Fool's Day and there were all of these April Fool's pranks. One that we got that was actually an article slash press release that was dropped by TalkPush. I'm just going to go ahead and drop this CEO Max Armbruster sent us a video. Here's what it is. Roll that beautiful beam footage. Chad (11:47.56) Chad (11:52.426) Huh? Maureen Wiley Clough (12:03.636) That's good. Maureen Wiley Clough (12:24.462) That's really hats off. Totally hats off. Joel (12:25.276) That was flogging great, wasn't it? Chad (12:29.138) love it we need some more flogging Joel (12:31.444) I did love the career crossroads getting acquired by Workday. That was also, that was pretty good. Chad (12:35.39) Yeah. It was good. It was just so over the top. I looked at it and I went, what the fuck? This doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Okay. I got it. I got it. Joel (12:45.036) April Fool's Day, okay, got it. I'm like, why didn't we think of that one? Shit, we should have thought of that one. Mo, what you got? Maureen Wiley Clough (12:50.146) Hahaha! Well, I mean, no jokes here. know Chad or Joel, you are excellent because you can always work in like a fast food reference. There's no show that goes by that you don't do that. And so for me, I guess my thing is kind of becoming like an ode to those who like make me laugh so I don't cry. And so I want to shout out corporate bro, AKA Ross Pomerantz and his team of actors and comedians that work with him like Ben Gould. They put together the sickest like lickety split right after it happened. Chad (13:02.592) Pretty much. Joel (13:03.855) try. Joel (13:09.926) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (13:23.106) deal versus rippling spy drama video that just killed me. It was so hilarious. So I think we got to roll it. Joel (13:29.178) Yeah, this is going to be the gift that keeps on giving this year. Maureen Wiley Clough (13:31.446) Mmm, so good, so good. Chad (13:38.144) . Maureen Wiley Clough (13:46.19) you Chad (14:00.493) looks like 007. Maureen Wiley Clough (14:32.002) Huh. Chad (14:48.776) And he runs. He's off. Maureen Wiley Clough (14:49.166) Just brilliant. mean, especially in the age of AI where everything is just like nonsense, like all this content is total crap. Like to see that beautiful skit like done so perfectly well, like just hats off. Just thank you. Thank you for making us laugh. And by the way, like whoever said that HR was boring, look at this. Are you kidding? Like James Bond, James Bond shit. Chad (14:52.992) It's funny. Joel (15:07.792) This is gold, baby. This is gold. Yeah, this is gold shit right here. But if it wasn't for all the crazy political shit going on right now, this would be it. This would be headlines. So thank you for mentioning my fast food stent. My mom would be so proud to know that I'm being known for fast food references, but brings me to my shout out to Wendy's, but sort of indirectly Wendy's shout out to sponsored snaps. Chad (15:08.864) Once in a lifetime. This is once in a lifetime shit guys. This is once in a lifetime. Chad (15:16.383) Yes. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:17.517) yeah. Chad (15:21.312) god. Here we go. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:21.814) anytime. If I don't do it, you will, that's for sure. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:32.398) So good. Joel (15:34.96) I know the kids love the Snapchat and Snapchat launched sponsored snaps in November, I think of last year. Basically these are, you got your text messages or your messages, and then we have little corporate messages within the messages from friends. Now these better be entertaining. They can't just be, you know, depends ads going back to the diapers. it has to be good stuff, but Wendy's did this ad and 52 million people, watched. this Wendy's ad. And when you think about what Wendy's normally would have done with television advertising or something general, like this is a huge deal. think this sort of ad within your experience in an app is akin to ads on keyword searches, right? It's kind of organic. It's similar to the feed. When the feed came out, I was like, ads are actually going to show up as you scroll through the internet. This I think is something very similar. So if you're a, if you're a company and you need to get in front of a lot of people, Chad (16:08.512) Mm-hmm. Joel (16:32.634) work with your agency or whoever, like create, look at some of these sponsors snaps because I think that's going to be a really interesting, unique way for you to get your message out as an advertiser. Chad (16:42.986) Very nice, very nice. Last shout out goes to Oroz Alcubasi who heard us talking about Indeed's traffic decline last week and noticed that Indeed did not experience the biggest drop from January to February 2025. No, the dumpster fire we know as Career Builder dropped 22%, but one quick question to Oroz. Oroz, did you factor in Simply Hired and Indeed Property? dropping 17 % into that narrative. Now I know that Indeed and SimplyHired are separate sites, but they're both owned by Indeed. And an honorable mention to the shitty traffic decline goes to any guest cheeseman who the number three pick was? Number three goes to ZipRecruiter who dropped 16 % Joel (17:22.374) Mm-hmm. Joel (17:28.316) Craigslist. Joel (17:32.391) no. Maureen Wiley Clough (17:32.974) Hahaha Chad (17:35.552) 16%. Once again, shout out to ORAS and all of the listeners who help us dig deeper into these topics. Joel, Mo and I, we love you listeners. So thanks. Keep it coming. Joel (17:47.369) We'd love to give you free stuff. We'd love to give you free stuff for all the love that we get from you. Maureen Wiley Clough (17:49.676) You Chad (17:50.428) What? What? What we do in it's... Well, you can actually do that at chadcheese.com slash free. T-shirts from our friends at AERNAP, those beautiful ched and cheese guns and roses looking t-shirts. We've got new designs coming out soon. Bourbon barrel-ade syrup from our kids up north at Kiura. Craft beer. Joel (18:03.226) Yeah. they're beautiful. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (18:05.998) Ooh. Chad (18:15.604) fucking Bob and Doug, craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen tech labs, whiskey, two bottles of whiskey from van hack. And if it is your birthday, it's time for rum with plum, but you can't win. If you don't play Chad, cheese.com slash free feeling all the way down. Joel (18:16.71) Canada loves us. Maureen Wiley Clough (18:34.318) you Joel (18:38.996) That's right. Another trip around the sun for Sean Godfrey, Steven Rothberg, Todd Burns, Amy English, Jason Casey, Arno Schaeffer, Rob McIntosh, Louis Nobrega, Nishay Argawal, Phil Rodriguez, aka P-Rod, Allie Roberts, and my man, Patrick York. Happy birthday, everybody. And I know we don't have travels, but word. Maureen Wiley Clough (18:56.846) You Chad (19:00.394) There it is. Joel (19:06.938) Broomer on the street is Euro Chad. Euro Chad is coming. Euro Chad. If you feel like the show's been a little salty lately, we're gonna sweeten it up. Getting the honey out, little maple syrup, the sweetness is coming back this summer. Don't worry everybody. Do not worry. Euro Chad is coming back. Chad (19:10.89) Please God, please, please allow JuroCad to come back soon. my God. Maureen Wiley Clough (19:12.362) Ugh, so jealous. Get me out. Chad (19:23.744) I need it. We all need it. Maureen Wiley Clough (19:31.032) That's awesome. See like a noticeable lift in his spirits. Chad (19:39.056) as we've been talking about this once in a lifetime thing, this corporate espionage, first and foremost, again, I can't thank our listeners enough. We receive relevant information all the time. And the following affidavit, yes, I said affidavit, was provided to me this very morning by a loyal listener. Again, I love you listeners. So are you ready? I don't think you are, but we're gonna... Joel (20:01.404) Mm-hmm. Go ahead, Chad, Chad Esquire, Chad Sawash Esquire. Maureen Wiley Clough (20:06.104) So ready. Chad (20:07.114) We're gonna do it anyway. We're gonna do it whether or not. So on April 1st, yes, just a couple of days ago, April Fool's Day, Keith O'Brien, formerly Rippling payroll employee, signed a sworn affidavit with his testimony of deals, corporate espionage through him. So let's go. We're gonna go through this chronologically and you guys just kick in wherever you feel like you wanna kick in. Maureen Wiley Clough (20:23.287) You Joel (20:25.254) Mm-hmm. Chad (20:31.808) July of 2023, O'Brien begins employment with Rippling in the Dublin office overseeing payroll issues in Europe. Early 2024, O'Brien interviews for a position at Deal, but has not offered the job. O'Brien reaches out to Deal CEO Alex Boiseis to ask why he wasn't hired and the connection of those two were connected. He was literally just looking for feedback. Hey, Joel (20:45.404) Hmm. Chad (20:58.88) Appreciate you guys having me in. I wasn't chosen. Why wasn't I chosen? Very, very innocent, but that connection. Yeah. Joel (21:00.284) Sure. Maureen Wiley Clough (21:01.23) Lots of people ask that. Yeah. They usually don't get an answer. Yeah. O'Brien. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Joel (21:04.966) Very Irish. Very Irish. Chad (21:07.472) Exactly. but Alex did, he did, and that was where the connection was made. So in mid-24, listen to this, O'Brien establishes a payroll consulting business and offers services to Deal. During discussions, he informs Deal CEO, Boazis, of his Joel (21:10.064) What the feck? Chad (21:32.732) intention to leave Rippling to focus on consulting. So he had a little side business going on there and he was one of Deal's providers. Late September 2024, that's right, only a few months back, Deal CEO proposes that O'Brien remains at Rippling to act as a spy for Deal, referencing James Bond. No shit, referencing. Maureen Wiley Clough (21:39.864) Smart. Maureen Wiley Clough (21:55.896) That's, can you even, I mean, that part is so good. My God. You were gonna tech company. Come on. Chad (21:59.904) I mean, come on, you can't make this up. Approximately 30 minutes later, because O'Brien went away, like, I'm not sure about this, let me think. He waited 30 minutes and then he called him back on WhatsApp. October 6th, 2024, O'Brien receives his first payment. Listen to this kids, first payment of 6,000 USD for espionage activities. Yes! Yes! Maureen Wiley Clough (22:08.909) Ha ha! Joel (22:25.788) That's it? That's all? What a fucking wanker. What else? Maureen Wiley Clough (22:27.192) Honestly, you're gonna have to pay me a hell of a lot more if you want me to do that. Right? What a fucking idiot. And the CEO. Chad (22:30.054) I know. That's it. Well, and he, he, they agreed to five hun- five thousand pounds per month moving forward. And I mean, this guy's working as a spy for five thousand pa- he had to be the cheapest spy. Maureen Wiley Clough (22:50.798) Cheapest spy of all time. Dude. Joel (22:52.22) What is that in USD? That's like 40, 4,400 something like that. mean. Chad (22:56.19) like no no no no it's like it's six thousand it's it's it's more the conversion rates the other way so Maureen Wiley Clough (23:01.89) The CEO must have been like, dude, I'm making out like a bandit. I'm getting a corporate spy for 5K a month. Joel (23:03.551) you're right, you're right. Chad (23:04.511) Yeah, yeah. So, but but then they were they were like, okay, we're gonna start paying you in crypto after this. So go figure as we talked about before, we should just ban crypto from fucking every everything. It's just it's it's it's it's Yeah, I know it's not gonna happen. But it's fucking shady shit. October 2024 to February of 2025. Joel (23:14.204) Perfect. Maureen Wiley Clough (23:15.362) this story. Maureen Wiley Clough (23:20.014) Cause shady shit goes down. Yeah. Joel (23:20.156) Good luck with that. Chad (23:31.26) O'Brien Supplies deal with confidential information from Rippling's internal systems. According to Keith O'Brien and accompanying reports, he provided a broad range of confidential and proprietary data from Rippling to Deal CEO. Here's a breakdown of some of those things he passed along. Customer lists and Salesforce data, product roadmaps and development plans, internal Slack communications, Google Drive documents. engineering and technical information, recruiting and hiring information, including employee contact info, financial and strategic documents, rippling strategic weak points. Now the way that he delivered these was through WhatsApp and Telegram. And then Boazis reportedly asked for specific information and O'Brien obliged regularly. So in the affidavit, O'Brien mentioned taking screen recordings and screenshots and sending texts of information to Boaziz up to six times a day. Boaziz was also contacting O'Brien if he hadn't heard from him in a couple of hours. I mean, imagine, and let's take a second here. Imagine the paranoia that the deal CEO had that, wait a minute, this guy might actually flip back. Maureen Wiley Clough (24:38.926) Stupid. Maureen Wiley Clough (24:43.566) Jesus. Chad (24:53.992) and start telling Rippling because he's getting, he's getting scared. Number one. Yeah. And then number two, so everybody who's out there, who's ever studied espionage whatsoever, you don't ask for the myriad of bullshit that he asked for and going into systems multiple times on, I mean, not just one system, multiple systems on a daily basis. I mean, if you're going to trip, if you're going to, if you're going to trip over some, Joel (24:56.986) He's double agent. Maureen Wiley Clough (24:57.623) my God. Yeah, seriously. I don't think he has it in him. Let's see. Maureen Wiley Clough (25:18.222) Play it cool, man. Like, this is bush league. Joel (25:22.588) Buy tips from Maureen. Maureen Wiley Clough (25:24.206) Yeah, seriously, when I have done this, I definitely, yeah. Chad (25:25.245) my god. Yeah. Chad (25:31.348) So, mean, so he's asking this dude to do all this stuff, all of it. And you know you're gonna hit a tripwire somewhere, right? So late February, 2025, Rippling discovers unauthorized information access and sets up a honeypot operation, creating a fake Slack channel named D-Defectors to monitor O'Brien's activities. When you have that much activity, go fucking figure, you're going to notice, especially guys who are in systems like Salesforce. Joel (25:36.006) Mm-hmm. Chad (25:59.548) multiple times a day like in sales slack conversations multiple times a day. mean Jesus Maureen Wiley Clough (25:59.681) Mm-hmm. Joel (26:00.764) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (26:07.022) Stuff is not private, man. Like what you do on your company computer is, come on! This is basic. Chad (26:09.76) No shit? So late February 2025, this is funny. So this tells you just how stupid the deal CEO is. Boaziz alerts O'Brien about the defectors, about the... We should do Bozo, yeah. About the slack channel, the decoy slack channel. Maureen Wiley Clough (26:20.302) Bozo. More like Bozo. Yeah, we gotta call him Bozo, sorry. Yeah. Joel (26:26.78) We have a nickname, folks. Chad (26:35.612) As soon as he gets the letter, he gets on and he tells O'Brien, hey, look, there's this Slack channel, right? And then realizes afterwards that it's a trap. He reaches out to O'Brien and says, wait a minute, don't do that. It's a trap. And O'Brien's like, shit, I've already done it. I mean, just to be able to take a second and breathe to understand what's going on. First and foremost, you've got this guy tripping wires all over systems, all of these systems, right? And then, because you're acting way too fast and acting like an idiot, you send him into a honeypot and then say, wait a minute, don't go there. I mean, it's fucking crazy. Maureen Wiley Clough (27:20.05) Man, how many of those do you have? Those are good. His don't start. Yeah, he's definitely bozo. Chad (27:22.192) Exactly. So, a bunch. We have more. March... We can get one. March 14th, a court-appointed solicitor confronts O'Brien at Ripley's office with a court order to search his devices. O'Brien panics, performs a factory reset on his phone while in the bathroom, and leaves the office despite solicitor warnings. On the 15th... Joel (27:24.921) don't even get me started, Mel. And now we need a bozo. Now we need a bozo soundbite for all the... Maureen Wiley Clough (27:50.136) So good. Chad (27:51.132) On the 15th, Deals counsel advises O'Brien to destroy his phone. Deals counsel advises him to destroy his phone and eliminate evidence. Following this advice, listen to this. O'Brien uses an axe to smash his phone and dispose of it down the drain of his mother-in-law's house. I think I just told you what it means. March 15th. Maureen Wiley Clough (28:11.15) It's so good. It's so, so good. Chad (28:17.546) through the 25th, this timeframe, Deal offers to relocate, listen to this, Deal offers to relocate O'Brien and his family to Dubai and cover his legal expenses to mitigate the fallout. March 19th, O'Brien files a report with the Central Bank of Ireland making false accusations of rippling. Maureen Wiley Clough (28:28.974) Totally normal. Maureen Wiley Clough (28:34.338) Nothing to see here. Chad (28:43.092) facilitating sanctioned Russian payments, a claim later that he admitted was fabricated under deals direction. Late March, we're almost in April guys, late March, experiencing guilt and pressure, O'Brien decides to cooperate with Ripley's investigation, acknowledging the harm caused to himself and his family by his actions. And on April 1st, the above, to the best of my ability, is a recap of his sworn statement. Thank you. Thank you very much. Maureen Wiley Clough (29:14.39) Hahaha. Maureen Wiley Clough (29:18.926) That was a doozy. Chad (29:18.952) So, so. So what do you think? Maureen Wiley Clough (29:25.902) that I didn't know that human stupidity could go this far? like, I can do anything. Like, being a CEO means nothing. Like, what on... Chad (29:29.536) You Chad (29:37.268) Dude. Joel (29:37.692) So here's what I know of spies. The mob and the CIA. The mob, from what I understand, goes through a very rigorous set of actions to make sure that you'll keep your mouth shut and you never rat on your friends. We've all seen Goodfellas, right? Well, maybe not Moe because she's too young, but another one for you to add to the roster, Moe. The other is the CIA where they have really detailed psych stuff. Chad (29:41.322) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (29:55.992) To the list! Chad (29:59.648) Yes, that's a good one. Joel (30:06.352) they really get into like, who's going to be a good spy. This, this guy did not go through some deal pre-screening obviously for, for this job. it's such, it's so boneheaded that it's, it's really beyond understanding. And apparently O'Brien gets O'Brien gets a text the day that he goes to talk to the, to the, whatever the, the feds or whatever the equivalent is. And he said that the text is the truth will set you free. Maureen Wiley Clough (30:12.31) you Maureen Wiley Clough (30:23.489) You Joel (30:33.66) So this guy finds a moment of clarity and a text message from a friend and decides to just like lay out his guts instead of taking a few shots of Jameson and keeping his mouth shut. He just like sings like a bird. This guy would not make the cut for the, uh, for the, the, Corleone family, uh, for sure. So that's what we're doing. So, this guy's going to go to jail. I think maybe not a long time, but he's going to go to jail for, I don't know how much total he got. Maureen Wiley Clough (30:40.888) Right? Maureen Wiley Clough (30:46.189) Well, yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (30:50.478) Hell no. But also it's like, there was something in there. yeah. Chad (30:58.816) Yeah. Joel (31:02.342) let's call it under 50 grand. He's gonna he's gonna he's gonna go the pokey and I don't know. I don't know what Irish prisons are like, but they do not sound like a place I want to go. Okay. And and his name is mud. Apparently the guy's employable because he had two people like potentially employing him. had a site like the dude had a future. It's not like they pulled him out of some homeless shelter and made him made him a spy. So his name is mud forever. He's going to be on every Fama, you know, Fama background check. Maureen Wiley Clough (31:03.918) Yeah. Chad (31:04.287) Yes. 20 at most. Maureen Wiley Clough (31:16.846) yeah, screwed. Chad (31:21.354) Yeah. Joel (31:32.038) from here, from here to eternity. He's probably gonna do some jealous time. He might get fined. So he's, he's fucked for not much lesson to the kids. Like don't do shit like this. The thing with deal. so historically espionage has progressively gotten worse in terms of punishment. Like, I know like the country's laws and things, but if you look at historically, Maureen Wiley Clough (31:41.622) You Joel (31:56.764) In 18 and 19, two Apple engineers were caught leaking autonomous car tech secrets to Chinese firms. They got jail time of three years, right? So three-year jail term for leaking this case, that probably had some bigger implications because we're talking about Apple and the Chinese government. But deal's going to pay a big fine because Ripley is going to prove how much business they lost, how many deals that they lost through this. Chad (32:01.738) Mm-hmm. Chad (32:23.178) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (32:23.918) Hmm. Joel (32:26.534) Chad, you think that some executives from Deal are going to the pokey. Which ones? Chad (32:32.096) If you take a look at the CEO who was he was in this from day one and his dad who is the CFO they had two separate telegram channels set up between them and O'Brien. One was to be able to get the intelligence to the CEO. The other one was for payment. Right. Those to me easily orange jumpsuits too easy. It's just too easy. And Maureen Wiley Clough (32:58.603) yeah. No question. Chad (33:02.344) If you think about it, it's funny because you talk about the pre-screen. Look at who was pre-screening this guy. We're talking about this Bozo, who's the CEO, who literally sends him out to all of these areas where he can hit numerous amounts of tripwires, and he does, right? O'Brien wanted to start up his own consulting firm. He wanted to leave Rippling, right? And he says this over and over and over, and it's more of an excuse than anything else because he still did what he did, but he wanted to get the fuck out of there. Maureen Wiley Clough (33:10.126) Hmm. Chad (33:31.93) And the deal CEO Boazis kept saying, no, just stay for a little bit longer. Stay for a little bit longer. And if you do stay, you will be on the premier list of our partners, which means more money, right? So at the end of the day, dude, this to me, literally, I asked ChatGPT to create a comedy out of this, like an SNL skit. Joel (33:58.33) Uh-huh. Yep. Chad (34:00.96) There's no way that this comes out as like an espionage trailer. This is literally the Keeks, Stone Cops, and the Three Stooges version where Mr. Bean plays Kevin O'Brien. Or Keith O'Brien, yeah. Yeah. Joel (34:09.242) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (34:09.602) Right, 100%. Joel (34:12.08) Mr. Bean and Benny Hill would have a good time with this story. The other issue, aside from the justice thing is trust. know, like growing up, you learned like you can spend a lifetime building trust that you can destroy in seconds. And if I'm deal, I'm on the cusp of IPO. I'm boats and hoes. I'm rocking on all cylinders and I do some stupid shit like this and get caught. Like if you're a deal, cause if you're a deal customer, Chad (34:20.912) dude. Chad (34:27.615) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (34:27.762) God, Maureen Wiley Clough (34:38.232) Just why? Joel (34:40.836) If you're a deal prospect, how do you feel about using deal now? If you're an employee at deal, how do you feel about this? Do you feel good about it? Probably not. The only people feeling good at this is like remote oyster factorial, like all the competition that's looking at us, like what a bunch of knuckleheads we're going to grab some business. So if I'm a shareholder, employee prospect customer of deal, like this is awful. The optics are horrible. Chad (34:44.692) Ouch. Maureen Wiley Clough (34:45.272) hate. Chad (34:49.632) That's why they have to clean out the C-suite. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (34:54.432) Right? Chad (34:57.589) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (34:57.836) Yep. Totally. Chad (35:06.014) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (35:06.04) That guy's going to the big house for sure. mean, this is just the whole thing is outrageously stupid. And it just makes me feel like there's just no one should have imposter syndrome. I mean, you look at people who have these titles of CEO and whatnot and you think like, man, they must be really killing it. They must be super, super sharp. Nope. Look at this guy. Are you kidding me? He's just like lighting his whole life on fire. And for what? Like what are they worth? Like 10 bill or something? I mean, it's like you said, they're going to IPO. What are you doing? Chad (35:12.202) Mm-hmm. Joel (35:12.219) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (35:35.17) Who comes up with this harebrained scheme? Joel (35:35.353) I'll tell you for what, Mo, I'll tell you for what. Chad (35:35.52) Yeah. Chad (35:42.816) I think the only thing Deal can do right now is clean out the C-suite and to be able to refresh the C-suite so that they can try to start gaining trust back. mean, it's all you can do. It's all you can do. Yeah, you better hope she's clean though. That's the thing. You might need to, this is so deep and this is so dark. I don't know and I don't care whether... Joel (35:46.204) Joel (35:51.716) Yeah, make the co-founder, make the other co-founder, make her CEO. Yep. Maureen Wiley Clough (35:54.2) They have to. Maureen Wiley Clough (35:58.99) People are gonna run. Joel (36:00.572) Clean the house. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:03.422) Yeah. God. Chad (36:12.134) Anybody in the C-suite or everybody in the C-suite was was actively helping or not they need to go from an optic standpoint We need to say we cleaned out the headshed We are putting new people in place that you can trust Period and whether they were a part of it or not It doesn't fucking matter at this point this tell me the last the last story that was this fucking big and juicy in our industry Joel (36:24.796) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:26.178) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:30.562) Yeah, unfortunately. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:38.094) I got nothing. Joel (36:40.678) Nope. Nope. Chad (36:41.802) This is once in a lifetime, dude. They got a clean house. Got a clean house. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:43.606) It really is. I agree with you. I feel really bad for the people who are working there who just had so much, you know, taken out from underneath them, just the rug pulled out completely. Like that sucks. Right? Like what a joke. my God. Yeah, no, he's, they're cooked. Yeah, that's a problem. Chad (36:48.234) Woof! Joel (36:54.054) How do you oversee a corporate meeting after that? How do you do an all hands meeting as a seat like, let's. Joel (37:05.98) Den of Thieves, Bozo, Bozo the Clown. All right, let's take a quick break. God, there's so much going on. All right, we'll be back. We'll be right back. Chad (37:07.827) Hahaha Maureen Wiley Clough (37:09.12) Ibozo, man, we gotta make that stick. He deserves it. So much. Chad (37:14.912) Alex Bozo. Chad (37:20.159) Ooh! Joel (37:20.772) All right, kids. what's going on in politics in the world today? Let's so, so lay off, lay lay off announcements surged in March, which, know, if you listen to the show driven by significant cuts in the federal government, particularly within the department of government efficiency, AKA doge, the DC area has been particularly hard hit with year to date layoffs totaling any guesses. Chad (37:25.352) Nothing. Thank God. Maureen Wiley Clough (37:26.166) Nothing's happening. It's very, very boring. Joel (37:46.748) 278,711. What's more Musk is gone. Apparently Trump told his inner circle, including the cabinet that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man. and did you hear about the tariffs, the tariffs that come, that came by the liberation day in America? Maureen Wiley Clough (38:11.158) Yeah, a couple of those. Liberation. Chad (38:11.498) What? Chad (38:14.848) Jesus. Joel (38:15.068) That's right. We got a 10, 10 % across the board increase. Uh, the congressional budget office predicts that it'll bring in $2.2 trillion in revenue by 2034. China was especially hit at 34 % our beloved European union, 20 % in India got a 34 % increase. Chad, your thoughts on all the news from layoffs to Elon to tariffs. Chad (38:42.1) This has been a hard week because just after the freaking deal shit and all the things that I had to go through from a research standpoint, let me lay this out. So we go from deals, stupidity and greed to a much larger landscape of you guessed it, stupidity and greed. As, as Joel so eloquently laid out what's happening in the headlines, I'm going to use my time to lay out some pretty much the economic battlefield that's happening right now. So on the jobs front, Maureen Wiley Clough (38:49.496) You Chad (39:11.068) Why are low jobs in abundance in the US? We'll go through that. On the immigration front, quickly, the US is losing hard working talent immigrants who pay nearly $100 billion in tax revenues every year. Those taxes go to local police and fire departments, less potholes in the roads, local schools that your kids attend, and many other areas. Then on the layoff front, which you talked about, yes, We just saw, you know, HHS layoff 10,000 people, but understand that in the first quarter of 2025, that's right, nearly 300,000 layoffs were announced, making the highest quarterly total since 2009. Nearly, I mean, we're approaching half a million for God's sakes. I like to cite several sources, Business Insider, Reuters, Bloomberg. I mean, they're all citing just huge numbers. Anyways, I'm always sure everyone understands those laid off government workers won't be taking the healthcare manufacturing and food service jobs that we just heard on the last jobs report. Yeah, I believe that shit. No. And then on the defense front, holy fuck, the EU member states have significantly increased their defense spending with the United States in recent years. Joel (40:23.44) No? You don't think so? Chad (40:38.496) with those total expenditures reaching approximately $326 billion alone in 2024. fuck the amount of jobs, the hundreds of billions of dollars that we are losing in revenue that we're losing in revenue. And then you take a look at the tariff front, every single country, even, even islands that don't have inhabitants are getting a 10 % tariff on, mean, treating all, treating all countries like enemy combatants, attacking them economically. Maureen Wiley Clough (40:54.402) That's so loud. Maureen Wiley Clough (41:07.746) Unreal. It's absurd. Enemies. Yeah, what the hell? Joel (41:08.826) Islands without inhabitants. That's good. Joel (41:15.74) Bora Bora is pissed off. Chad (41:17.536) Okay, so here's some tourism numbers. Europeans normally spend about 155 billion in US tourism. Since the Trump craziness, Bloomberg is reporting a 25 % drop in forward bookings from Europe to the US. 155 billion. Canada has over 20 million, Jesus Christ, 20 million visits to the US in 2024, generating 20.5 billion in spending. and supporting, this is the most important, in supporting 140,000 American jobs. Since Trump's tariffs were announced, border crossings have fallen by 45%. But no worry, the decline in European and Canadian visitors is expected to have substantial economic implications affecting airlines, hotels, national parks, and other. other tourism, right, which is where we have immigrants usually do those jobs and they've left. So it's all good, which means on the child labor front, we will need less 14 year olds in Florida, which is a very hospitality state to be able to do those jobs. And then we have the Doge front where they're canceling contracts. have thousands of people who are losing their jobs because the contracts are getting, I mean, dude, I'm sorry. Maureen Wiley Clough (42:26.111) my god. Chad (42:40.136) I had to go through all of this, but this is an assault internally on hardworking Americans and externally on our allies. none of this makes sense. We think the deal story is dumb as fuck. This is exponentially, exponentially more dumb. I'm done. I'm done. Maureen Wiley Clough (42:49.486) Mm-hmm. None. Maureen Wiley Clough (42:57.71) Taste the cake. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I have tried to stay away from the news as much as possible because it just makes me so deeply depressed and I don't want to fall into that deep, dark hole because that's just not good for me or anyone around me. Yeah, thanks a lot. But, you know, obviously coming to the show, I knew I had to talk about the news. So I guess my... Joel (42:59.836) Hmm. Well. Chad (43:07.646) It's impossible. Chad (43:15.196) Sorry. Sorry. Maureen Wiley Clough (43:26.446) Keep it on the high level. God. Okay, so I have a question and it is this. Here's part of the problem. We don't know that many people in our cities, coasts, et cetera, because they lean blue that voted for Trump. my question is, for those who did, is now the time when they're like, shit, maybe. Joel (43:29.788) Or deep, whichever. Maureen Wiley Clough (43:52.812) Maybe this wasn't the right call because this is like a freaking wrecking ball going through not only our country, but the rest of the world. And like you just pointed out Chad, like the ripple effects, they go on forever to infinity. Like this, this will leave no one unscathed. And so we only, we know of course that, that the billionaires are the only people that Trump actually really cares about. So the billionaires too are losing out on this right now. Like they're taking a hit. So Chad (44:05.578) Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (44:22.22) Will them getting pissed off at Trump change any of this or like what's going on? And you know, I just, I'm so frustrated watching this play out because it seems so completely fucking pointless and unnecessary on every level. And just the amount of pain and anxiety that the American people and frankly the world are gonna go through because of these self-inflicted wounds that we have been dealing ourselves. Like I just. It's so confounding to me as a semi-intelligent human. I just, holy fuck. Like it's, I have so many feelings. I have so many, thank you, thanks Joel. But I mean, it's just, it's, I never thought I would see something like this. Like he threw a bomb into our country and just like watched it detonate and was like, let's see, right? Like it's just, I really, I really struggle to comprehend it. Joel (44:57.628) Be nicer to yourself than that, Mo. Semi, semi. Maureen Wiley Clough (45:18.498) The one thing that I guess I'm happy to see is that Elon will be no longer gracing us as frequently. I guess there's only room for one malignant narcissist at the top of the country, so bye, Elon. But yeah, the rest of it is just like, my God, I just have like this deep. Joel (45:35.42) Only smart people use words like malignant narcissist, so don't worry about your cerebral capacity. You still got it. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (45:40.331) thank you. I still got it. But yeah, it's been rough. It's been rough to comprehend. I've been told my whole life that free markets were a good thing. What is going on? What the fuck? Chad (45:54.26) Yeah, that's what we were all taught. was, it was, I mean, to some extent they are, but it's, if you let them go crazy, it's fucking bullshit. I mean, you can't let them go crazy. There's gotta be guardrails. Joel? Maureen Wiley Clough (45:59.678) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Joel (46:04.476) America is the largest economy in the world. We are 5 % of the world's population roughly, and we are 25 % of the world's output. We have gotten there because of the world, the way that it is. So economically, this doesn't make a lot of sense. We've been very successful in the way that the world is. I have stopped looking at this from a economic point of view. And I look at it as a geopolitical struggle for power, if you will, of the world. And if you listen to Howard Lutnick, if you listen sort of into some things Donald Trump will say, it all points to they are afraid that there is going to be a conflict, probably with China and probably with Russia. When Trump goes in front of Congress and says, we need to build more boats, Maureen Wiley Clough (46:54.946) Hmm. Yeah. Joel (47:02.298) That's because China is building manufacturing boats, military ships at a rate that we cannot match. When Lutnick says we need to make steel in this country because if there's a conflict, we're screwed because we don't have the ability to make steel and then weapons of war with that steel. When he says that if China shuts off our pharmaceuticals, our people have a real problem. That's a geopolitical statement. So to me, if you look at this from an economical question, it doesn't make sense. America is not losing economically. Capitalism globally works for us economically. But when you look at it from a war could, war could come, then it, then it doesn't. I think all of it, ask yourself, how does this help us in a, in a worldwide conflict? To me, it starts to make more sense. We are. Maureen Wiley Clough (47:40.61) Right. Maureen Wiley Clough (47:44.024) Hmm. Chad (47:46.431) Meh. Joel (47:58.874) We are tightening the screws on China in hopes that we can suffocate them. Chad (48:02.848) We're tightening the screws on everybody, our allies who would actually protect us against the China or what have you. So this does not make sense. I love the one sided that you're trying to go with, but this makes no fucking sense, dude. Why would you piss off your allies when they would be there to and allow China to actually fill the vacuum that you're creating? None economically and from a defense standpoint, it makes no sense. Why are we so strong in Europe? Maureen Wiley Clough (48:09.961) Mm-hmm. Yeah, we're isolated. Maureen Wiley Clough (48:16.27) You Maureen Wiley Clough (48:21.431) We need them. Chad (48:32.382) right now because of our military installations because we actually have footprint there. Guess what happens when we get kicked the fuck out? This makes no fucking sense. Joel (48:34.32) Well, because Well, now that we're being hard on Europe means now they're spending money on defense. Is that not a geopolitical issue? Chad (48:44.964) And they're not spending money with us. So therefore we're losing the revenues. We're losing, no, and they're losing jobs. No, they should be doing that anyway, but they could be doing both. That's the thing. You're looking at it as a black or white thing. It's not. We can still play in the gray. There's still soft power that we need to focus on. USAID was the carrot. We took the carrot away. Now we're trying to beat everybody with a fucking stick and people do not react well to a stick. Joel (48:48.71) But if we know they have to fight Russia, does that not make sense? Joel (48:55.11) But they weren't. Maureen Wiley Clough (49:00.874) Nothing ever is. Maureen Wiley Clough (49:13.836) Nope, nowhere. Joel (49:16.72) I'm not saying they're going to act well. I'm just saying if I look at this from a geopolitical struggle question, it makes more sense to me because economically it doesn't make sense. I just explained to you how it makes sense geopolitically. Chad (49:21.864) It's stupid. It... Where does it make sense? Chad (49:30.408) And I just told you it's fucking stupid because if we piss off our allies, we're by ourselves. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. Joel (49:38.076) Trump and his administration have already said in public through whiskey leaks that they don't care about Europe all that much. Maureen Wiley Clough (49:45.866) my god, that whole text chain. Incredibly stupid. I mean... Chad (49:46.118) Again, stupid. Why do you think we have troops in... Joel (49:50.17) You could, I'm not saying it's not stupid. I'm saying it helps make, it helps this make sense to me when I look at the headlines, because if I look at it strictly from this is dumb economically, yes it is. And by the way, most companies. Maureen Wiley Clough (49:54.812) You make sense of it. Chad (49:57.78) that he's stupid? Chad (50:03.89) It's dumb defensively. It's dumb defensively. Joel (50:10.64) I don't think so. Maureen Wiley Clough (50:10.83) It's dumb all around. Chad (50:12.212) That's because you don't understand defense and military. Joel (50:13.71) If you say, don't make steel in this country, we don't make pharmaceuticals in this country, and we need to do that, that makes sense from a defense perspective. Chad (50:19.41) We can do that. We can continue to do that. We can do that though. We can do that while we have good relationships with Europe and our current allies. Joel (50:26.672) But this administration thinks the quickest way to do that is tariffs. Chad (50:30.4) because they're idiots. And if anybody has actually done any type of research whatsoever, and they take a look at Smoot-Hawley, which happened, tariffs that were supposed to help us, that it doesn't matter. You're talking about, they're all pieces. But they're doing both of them. They're contracting from a military standpoint, number one. Joel (50:33.402) That's fine. Joel (50:42.726) That's economic. That wasn't, that wasn't defensive. It does. That's my whole point. There's an economic question and there's a geopolitical question. But Smoot-Hawley was only economic. There was not a war. Chad (51:00.178) And number two, they're doing tariffs. Both of those are happening right now, correct? Joel (51:05.328) What was the first point? Chad (51:07.038) We're contracting from a military standpoint from Europe. And then we're in, yes, we're starting to pull. Joel (51:13.178) We are isolating. We are creating fortress, this is Fortress America. The strategy is Fortress America. And more than likely, think there's a multipolar world where China and Asia is a thing and Russia and Europe is a thing and the Americas are us. We've lived our whole life with America, Russia for a period. The world is changing. And I think they believe that and they... Maureen Wiley Clough (51:16.632) which is contracting. Chad (51:20.448) And that worked in World War II How? Joel (51:42.17) with the debt that we have, with stuff not being made in America, like they are hoping to change that. And they think that the tariff system. Chad (51:46.878) The debt we have is due to tax cuts for rich people. Yeah, I mean we could pretty much erase that pretty quickly. Joel (51:51.504) The debt is the free money that we had during COVID. If you look at the debt, you... Chad (51:55.752) Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? That is... Go ahead. Maureen Wiley Clough (51:56.27) Wait, Joel (51:59.142) Go look at the debt from 2020 to now and look what it's done. Chad (52:03.309) Look at the look at the tax cuts from Trump last time and then take a look at how because if you don't have revenues, if you don't have revenues, what does that actually do put you deeper in debt? Joel (52:07.45) We've had tax cuts. Joel (52:12.816) Well, we gave out a lot of money and that put us in deeper debt. Chad (52:15.42) If, yeah, so the problem was those poor people who needed to survive COVID. Joel (52:20.464) I mean, we can argue about how we're in debt, but the fact that we are in debt makes it harder to fight a war. Chad (52:24.8) Well, then we should start taxing people and we should maybe we I mean, maybe. Joel (52:29.306) Well, that's that's your opinion. And that's great. Their their idea is let's lay everybody off and let's cut costs. Chad (52:36.148) That's great for morale. can't wait to see poverty numbers go through the roof. How's that going to make us a stronger country? Joel (52:42.192) You're mistaking me defending this with me trying to make sense of it. It makes sense to me. Maureen Wiley Clough (52:42.377) boy. Chad (52:46.334) It doesn't make sense, that's what I'm saying. I have no fucking clue. Joel (52:51.588) It makes a lot more sense than anything else. Chad (52:53.503) Mo? Maureen Wiley Clough (52:55.79) Yeah, guys, I got nothing here. I think it's all just like a giant cluster, honestly. It's outrageous. And us being more isolated, I don't see how that helps us in any way, or form. I think it's outrageously stupid. I have never felt more uncertain about my future, our future, like at a meta level. It's just at a macro level. It's just not, nothing feels good. And I think, you know, a lot of this Chad (52:58.146) Ha ha ha! Maureen Wiley Clough (53:25.016) whole America first mentality, the concept of like bringing things back to America. mean, that doesn't happen overnight. Like that's a great concept of like, yeah, let's have American made goods. But, you know, small business owners who have tried that have seen problems with it and it's caused businesses to fold and people to have to switch to other suppliers. Like none of this happens overnight. Joel (53:46.384) If you're Nike, you're making shoes in China, you go, okay, China's bad, we're gonna go to Vietnam. And now Vietnam is bad. So if you're Nike, it's like, okay, they want us to come to America, that's gonna take three to five years to do. I think a lot of businesses are gonna say, hey, we're gonna take a flyer on this Trump thing being done in four years and hold our nose and hope that that's what happens. Because these are major decisions for a company. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:01.368) yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:09.56) Hopefully. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:14.808) They really are. And they're not seamless transitions. And we don't have the fucking skilled workers. We don't have the skilled workers to do that right now. So what does he think they're gonna come out with? A fucking ether? Joel (54:14.844) to move operations to America. And then if you do that, then someone else is in power. Well, another like with, with, Howard Lutnick, right? This is really interesting. The whole thing is like, we need jobs over here, but his statement is why, why can't Apple make iPhones with robotics here in America? So, which is a weird thing to say. If you're, if your pitch is we want more Americans to be employed in America. If your pitch is like, maybe it slipped out. said the quiet part out loud, but like, Chad (54:44.916) you Maureen Wiley Clough (54:45.774) So they don't give a shit about us. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:50.35) They always do. Joel (54:50.94) If their idea is like, we're going to bring manufacturing back to America and we're going to have robots do it, then the people aren't winning anyway. So there are a lot of, a lot of mixed messages and what this administration says. just, I to help, to help me because Scotch is now more expensive. need other ways to try to make sense of all this and weed is still not legal in, in Indiana. So. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:55.466) Robots doing it. Mm-hmm. No. Maureen Wiley Clough (55:03.403) No one is winning. Chad (55:08.649) You Maureen Wiley Clough (55:10.474) I mean, yeah. Chad (55:12.756) bourbon. bourbon Canada's not buying our bourbon anymore so we can go ahead and get more bourbon Maureen Wiley Clough (55:16.28) That's depressing. Joel (55:18.63) Free, free chicken cock for everybody, say. free chicken cock for everybody. Maureen Wiley Clough (55:23.234) That might be the only way through this. Chad (55:25.44) God. I do like hearing the military stance though, Joel. I haven't heard that one before. So I'm going to dig in even deeper on that one. Good one. Joel (55:37.798) Well, we'll take a quick break and you can dig into that one. And by the way, folks, if you like what you're hearing, please be sure to subscribe through a podcast platform that you enjoy or even YouTube. If you like seeing our lovely, lovely faces. When we come back, we'll talk about X and tick tock as if it couldn't get any crazier. Maureen Wiley Clough (55:49.678) You Chad (55:54.634) So much fun. Maureen Wiley Clough (55:55.106) You Joel (55:59.048) X X X owner, Elon Musk announced on the X platform late last week that X AI acquired X and an all stock transaction. This combination values X AI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion. He bought it for $44 billion. FYI, in case you missed it on the deal must said quote, today we officially take the step to combine the data models, compute distribution and. Maureen Wiley Clough (56:05.294) You Chad (56:18.815) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (56:19.534) Mm-hmm. A little laugh. Joel (56:27.804) talent in quote, easy peasy, right Chad? What are your thoughts on the X X AI Twitter deal? Chad (56:36.16) I'm gonna go with Alex Murphy's thought so friend of the show Alex Murphy one of the smartest guys in the game CEO over at jobs, and he writes here's the math Elon bought Twitter for 44 billion Elon drove the value of Twitter down to 1 billion by making it into a dumpster fire Elon contributed the domain x.com to Twitter Elon sold X to his own company. He's selling this to himself Maureen Wiley Clough (56:55.47) You Chad (57:05.236) for $33 billion on an inside deal that does not represent a proper valuation in any way whatsoever. Netnet X's sale marks that the x.com domain as worth $32 billion and this is the largest domain sale in history. Thanks Alex. Thanks Alex. I love that. I love that. Maureen Wiley Clough (57:25.454) Ooh, Jesus, so loud. my God, so loud. Apparently I need to, yeah, this is intense. This is intense. Joel (57:32.188) Can we get your mic set up correctly? Chad (57:34.538) You Joel (57:37.786) You got the Lounge Singer mic today that's going in and out for us. You got the AirPods. Geez, this is amateur hour. What are your thoughts, Mo? Maureen Wiley Clough (57:42.546) know, reporting live. Yeah. I know, it's really bad. I mean, I don't think about X because I hate it and I will never actually refer to it as anything other than Twitter because that feels just like the slightest transgression than I can do against Elon, my favorite guy. Listen. How many AI platforms are there now? just like, this is going to be, I wonder who's going to win because it's going to be a commodity at the end of the day. And I'm just exhausted. Do I have to go try another one out? Like, seriously. But yeah, I mean, whatever. Elon sucks. I'm so not a fan. He blows. Next story. That's how I feel. Joel (58:27.42) Wow. Chad (58:28.288) What if you're an XAI investor though? What if you're an XAI investor, you put your money into XAI and then he goes and spends that money or shares on a dumpster fire? Maureen Wiley Clough (58:33.389) Ahem. Joel (58:37.692) Dude, if you put your money in Elon, buyer beware, buyer beware. Like, yeah, I mean, I have no sympathy for the banks and the investors that put money in him. They get what they deserve. But even when he loses, he still wins big. Look, this, his, Maureen Wiley Clough (58:38.688) on Twitter, I'd probably be pretty bummed. Chad (58:42.922) Woo. Maureen Wiley Clough (58:42.926) You get what's coming. You get what's coming to you. Chad (58:47.569) Good point. Good point. Jesus. Chad (58:55.527) Eh. Maureen Wiley Clough (58:55.542) You reap what you sow. Maureen Wiley Clough (59:00.544) It's really annoying how that's true. Joel (59:05.104) His 300 or so million in the Trump campaign is going to go down as one of the best investments, probably ever. mean, what he has been able to gain, he will not be investigated for this deal. The feds aren't coming. It's clean. No one's, no one's, no one's talking about, you know, breaking the law, trade violate anything like that. All right. So, so he bought, he bought kind of a free, he bought kind of a free pass to do this. Tesla. Chad (59:08.032) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (59:12.718) gross. Maureen Wiley Clough (59:16.952) Yeah, you're totally right. Chad (59:18.132) no. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (59:20.974) All right, pay to play, baby. Chad (59:25.791) self-dealing. Maureen Wiley Clough (59:26.934) It's, how is this legal? It's... Chad (59:31.328) Mm-hmm. Joel (59:33.53) not that this was on purpose, but Tesla is the most American car on the market. So Tesla can win big. The tariff system could be a big win for Tesla. think similar to the deal question, think he needs to step down similar to how he did at Twitter. I mean, he's still in charge, but at least optically, he's not in charge. Somebody else needs to be in charge of Tesla. Chad (59:39.007) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (59:40.782) That's depressing. What does that say about America? Chad (59:58.932) Mm-hmm. Joel (01:00:01.648) He needs to go work on AI stuff or launch rockets. because I think, I think Tesla could be a big winner in this. Grok, you know, I agree like the AI thing who wins in that, who doesn't, is kind of a question, but I mean, this guy, this guy kind of, everyone thought he was done when he dropped 44 billion on Twitter and it looks like he might have the last laugh out of all this. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:00:16.64) I'm tired, man. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:00:24.64) Mm-mm. He is not done. Well, when you have however many billion dollars, 300 billion dollars, you can do whatever you want is the deal. Joel (01:00:33.135) Yeah, the dude. Chad (01:00:33.312) How do think he's gonna get the last laugh though? Because it's still a dumpster fire. There's no difference. Joel (01:00:37.338) Well, he's not going to, Twitter's not going to kill him. Tesla might come out of the ashes with the tariffs. mean, X is going to get big contracts from the government. And if we do go to war, guess who's going to make a lot of stuff that we used to fight the enemy, maybe Tesla and Elon's companies. I don't know. Chad (01:00:55.84) Nah, I don't see that. I do see, I think it's interesting though, because people who can't afford to buy a Tesla today, doesn't matter. The tariffs aren't going to make them able to buy Teslas tomorrow. And I remember growing up in a very depressed area in very industrial Ohio, manufacturing was leaving. I didn't know anybody who owned a new car. We had nothing but used cars. I mean, that's all it was. It's all it ever was. It's all I ever remembered. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:00:58.807) Damn it. Chad (01:01:26.028) so yeah, to think that Tesla is going to, to benefit from new car sales off of this. I don't see it. I don't see it. I mean, we will see, we do see that they're dropping huge in, in, Europe. Are they going to be able to make that up here? Again, unless they drop to about half the price so that normal working fucking people can buy their cars. Sorry. Have a nice day. Joel (01:01:48.422) Yeah. I mean, it looks like BYD is going to take over the rest of the world anyway. So if Tesla is like, we're going to lose anyway to BYD, at least we can nail down the American market. I don't know. I don't know. Like most of our disagreements, Chad, time will tell. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:01:49.39) I was like, none of us are gonna have any money. Chad (01:02:00.958) Maybe, Chad (01:02:07.808) And I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying just from my experience, I remember growing up when people couldn't afford new cars just because you throw tariffs on something. Joel (01:02:15.388) Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean people didn't buy cars. You just lived in the hood. Yeah. mean, know, Mo bought new cars. She's a new car kind of gal. She's a new car kind of mean, mine was a Ford Escort. Mine was a Ford Escort, but it was still kind of new. Chad (01:02:19.456) Use cars. Use cars. I mean, was use cars. But yeah, anyway. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:02:27.256) all the time since I was a child, yeah. My trust. Chad (01:02:30.521) Hahaha Chad (01:02:36.212) Yeah, not a Tesla. Anyway. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:02:37.812) Use cars all the way, Never. Joel (01:02:40.636) All right, let's go to tick. Let's go to tick tock. Shall we let's go to tick tock. This is, this is getting fun. All right. Tick tock faces a potential us ban. Stop me if you've heard this one before by April 5th, unless bite dance sells its us operations to a non Chinese buyer. Per a 2024 law upheld by the Supreme court this week, Amazon joined bidders like Oracle. And you're ready for this. Chad (01:02:43.06) Whoo! Maureen Wiley Clough (01:02:47.758) You Maureen Wiley Clough (01:02:54.766) Deja vu. Joel (01:03:09.02) Only fans. That's right. only fans in the game. Everybody only fans founder last minute push to acquire it. Get it. Push Trump who extended the deadline from January met with AIDS on April 2nd to review options, including a US based entity leasing leasing tick tocks algorithm, kind of like a home. No deal is confirmed and the app could shut down for 170 million users. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:03:11.554) We love talking about them. Joel (01:03:38.19) If the deadline passes though, Trump may just extend it again. What the hell? Chad, your thoughts on all the tech talk drama. Chad (01:03:46.048) Yeah, I don't think anybody's getting the algorithm by the way. I mean, I don't care if they say they want to lease it by it. That shit's not happening, but I'm, that's where I want to focus because I had a pretty intense discussion with a guy who is quote unquote in the know. Um, while we were at transform a couple of weeks ago, he said the tick tock algorithm just isn't that important. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:03:49.262) All Chad (01:04:06.014) Rather, it's the user base, the 170 million, because they won't leave the platform. And I contested, it was like, hey, look, if the algorithm is total shit, and it's not what the user is expecting, they will eject and find another platform, just like the Exodus from Twitter, right? So needless to say, we were in an impasse, he didn't agree, I didn't agree. So I asked both of you, does the algorithm have worth, or is it purely the amassed Maureen Wiley Clough (01:04:19.864) Mm. Chad (01:04:35.501) user base because they won't leave even if the algorithm is shit. What are your thoughts? Maureen Wiley Clough (01:04:41.358) I think both matter tremendously. mean, that algorithm is serving up gazillions of dollars, right? Like they're putting products in the hands of people who want it. They know what you need before you know you need it. It is crack. You're absolutely right. And it's something that, you know, they've obviously figured out how to fine tune really beautifully. I don't know what some of my For You page says about me. I don't think it's particularly good. like, why am I seeing this? This is terrifying. Chad (01:04:52.104) It's like crack too. Chad (01:05:07.188) You Maureen Wiley Clough (01:05:09.87) they figure out that you have ADHD before you know you have ADHD. I'm like, why am I getting served all these ADHD reels? Holy shit. my God, how do you know? So I mean, yeah, it's definitely a contributing factor. think it definitely exacerbates it to say the least. I do think, I mean, they have half of America on TikTok. Obviously, that's valuable in and of itself. But that algorithm is something special, like no question. Chad (01:05:19.712) Probably because they're creating it. Chad (01:05:34.336) Mm-hmm. Joel (01:05:39.004) Chad, I think it's time for a history lesson. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:05:41.613) Heh. Chad (01:05:41.856) Finally! Jesus! Joel (01:05:44.932) I can remember being on stage in the mid 2000s and someone telling the audience that my space had 90 % of the social media market, which at the time was true. There was a little startup called Facebook that eventually took that down. had Instagram, we have Tik TOK, Snapchat for a hot minute. Like if we know anything, the kids are fickle. They're going to jump to the next cool thing and Maureen Wiley Clough (01:06:01.902) The Facebook. Joel (01:06:14.05) and continue, right? I've, read a story today that Tumblr is back for the young kids. They're back on Tumblr. So I would say the exact opposite. Like the algorithm is the secret sauce. It's the dopamine. It's the hit that people can't get enough of and keep on the platform. like they're going to stay on Tik TOK because the algorithm and I've always said like, whoever buys this thing, good luck. because Maureen Wiley Clough (01:06:18.414) I saw that too. Chad (01:06:18.634) Jesus. Chad (01:06:27.572) That's what I Joel (01:06:39.856) Good luck with the algorithm. Good luck with like keeping it cool and what people like, because China isn't going to give up the algorithm. In fact, there's a good, there's a good chance that China just says, fuck you to the whole thing. And like pulls tech talk out of the U S just to stick it to us for the tariffs. Right. So, Amazon makes sense. Cause you can sell shit. That's that's, that does make sense to me. And the, the shopping experience on tech talk is pretty good. And if the, Amazon could just replace that shopping thing with their shit. Chad (01:06:46.464) Mm-mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:06:46.936) Mm-mm. Chad (01:06:49.898) Yeah. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:06:49.902) Absolutely true. Yeah, I think that's a very likely outcome. Chad (01:06:54.078) Yeah? Maureen Wiley Clough (01:07:00.046) Mm. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:07:06.094) true. Joel (01:07:08.912) That makes sense. The only fans guy, the Kevin O'Leary thing, like, Mark Cuban, none of that makes sense. Really. Lease China's not going to lease it to us because then we'll just steal it. Like they do our IP, right there. They know how the game works. They're not going to be like, live in the house for a month. And then we'll move you out. But in the whole time you've, you've gotten the whole blueprint for the house and everything. So yeah, I just, this is fun. I think the more, more likely thing is Trump just says like, Hey, let's just kick the. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:07:15.566) Yeah. Chad (01:07:22.654) Yeah, exactly. Yes. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:07:23.34) Yeah, that's true. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:07:31.672) Totally. Joel (01:07:38.054) kick the can down the road a little bit longer because I'm huge on Tik TOK. almost frankly, as huge as, my dad jokes have been recently Chad. Chad (01:07:47.023) good God. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:07:47.72) boy, here we go. All right. Joel (01:07:51.632) That's right. Well, Easter, Easter's right around the corner, kids. So I thought I'd have a little Easter, Easter influenced dad Joe today. What's the difference between Jesus and a hooker? What's the difference between Jesus and a hooker? Maureen Wiley Clough (01:08:02.99) boy. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:08:10.894) Got nothing. Joel (01:08:11.792) I love the thought processing. Give up, Chad. Jesus, Jesus and a hooker. The difference is the look they give while you're nailing them. That's right, the difference between Jesus and a hooker. It's the end of the world as we know it I feel fine, everybody. We out. Chad (01:08:14.216) Mmm. Yeah, things everything is going through my brain. I do not want to say on a mic go ahead Maureen Wiley Clough (01:08:14.702) Hahaha Maureen Wiley Clough (01:08:19.896) Mmm, yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:08:26.126) oof, oof, yee, yeah. Chad (01:08:29.79) hell for that one. That's a one. We out.

🎙️ In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast Does Europe … Buckle up, kids — it’s a Eurotrip of geopolitical drama, awkward shoutouts, Tesla trauma, and non-alcoholic beer slander. Lieven joins from the safety of his Belgian treehouse (fine, it’s his home office, but let’s pretend), while Joel parties with O'Douls and Chad tries to pronounce révolution  without pulling a muscle. They tackle the big questions: What happens if NATO invades itself? Is Salesforce slowly eating Adecco’s lunch... with a spork? Why are Teslas getting spit on in Belgium? And who let JD Vance’s wife handle Greenland diplomacy? Also: shoutouts to teenage chatbot prodigies, stern warnings from wine-drinking Europeans, and the existential dread of American isolationism... all delivered with the subtlety of a Jack Daniels tariff and the grace of a Ronaldo dive. Oh, and if you thought France demanding the Statue of Liberty back was peak satire — think again. Listen now, before someone sanctions your earbuds.🎧 We out! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:39.722) Yeah. Three guys who could single-handedly solve the demographic crisis in Europe. Hey boys and girls, you are listening to the Chad and cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your cohost Joel partying like "Le Pen" Cheesman. Chad (00:53.761) This is Chad. Viva rev, I can't even fucking say it. Revolution. So wash. Revolution. Joel (00:58.672) Have a nice day home. Lieven (01:02.924) And I'm leaving. My government warned me against your government. Joel (01:08.664) And on this episode, Europe gets trumped and Elond, Adecco feels the sales force and factorial says no espionage here. Let's do this. Chad (01:24.529) even I don't know how you I don't know how you put up coming on a podcast with two Americans with everything that's happening. Everything that's happening. Joel (01:29.52) He's in the bunker in the tree house. That's how he does it. He's in the tree house drinking Duval. That's how you cope in Belgium. Lieven (01:36.526) Actually, I'm just in my home office drinking beer without alcohol, which is kind of... Chad (01:43.477) That's a big thing now, especially with the kids. The kids, they like the alcohol-free beer, and that is something that a Gen Xer just cannot understand. I don't know. Joel (01:47.002) Kids like it. Lieven (01:53.71) No. Joel (01:53.922) I will admit that, we've come a long way from O duels. Remember the O duels Chad, like that was the only non-alcoholic and then I Heineken came out with one, they, they are, I do, I do partake occasionally at my age. I'll do the non-alcoholic and they, taste, they taste pretty good. Yeah. I go to soccer again. I go to, I go to the future ball with a non-alcoholic beer and I party and I party, baby. party, speaking of which isn't, isn't there some European football tournament going on? Chad (01:58.316) yes, yes, so bad, so bad, yes. Lieven (02:01.933) Chad (02:08.001) It's soccer games. Yeah, it's soccer games. Lieven (02:16.334) you Joel (02:23.716) Like a UEFA or something, right? okay. My bad. My bad. was wondering if Belgium was in or belt. Yeah. If they were in it or not, if he's getting ready for game time, short answer. No. Chad (02:25.723) There is, that's my shout out. me, you push up, push up. Short answer. No. but yes, there, there, there is, there is a giant green elephant in the room that I would, I would like to, I would like to talk about. So can you go ahead and roll that beautiful beam footage? Yes. Lieven (02:28.898) this month. Joel (02:44.496) Okay, the green elephant in the room. Enjoy everybody. Chad (03:48.587) Now he goes on and on and on of all these reasons why. JD Vance is like, Denmark's not treating you well, Greenland. And he didn't, we didn't even go to the, to the healthcare and education part. Right. So, as we talk about leaving, do you like skiing? Joel (03:50.778) Leaven's like, things are rough in Denmark. Geez, that's horrible. They got no benefits there compared to us. Joel (04:11.652) Not in Greenland. Lieven (04:11.886) Actually I'm leaving this Sunday again. Chad (04:14.785) The European lifestyle, as he'd said, your body's not broken down in your like mid sixties or seventies before you can actually enjoy retirement. You can enjoy it every single year, about six weeks out of the year. So that, that to me was fairly poignant. What, what do you think? Yeah. Joel (04:32.889) What's your take on the whole Greenland thing, Leaven? Lieven (04:36.11) This movie was rather enjoyable, but I also heard the comment of some people from Greenland and South saying, just like the Americans treated their Native Americans that good. And we don't think it would be an improvement to be part of America the way you treat minorities and one after the other. And they definitely do not want to be part of America. They want to be independent from Denmark to a certain extent, but they do not want to be part of America. Chad (05:02.721) Mm-hmm. Lieven (05:04.738) So I think if Trump is serious, serious and taking it, you have to take it by force. then I think some, mean, if he actually wants to land troops there, Denmark is going to react and Europe is going to react. is something I can't imagine. Joel (05:10.064) Mm-hmm. Joel (05:19.984) What are the NATO rules if a NATO country invades another NATO country? How does that work? What happens with Article 5? Lieven (05:25.388) I was thinking about the same thing, Chad (05:27.777) And you know, article five has only been used once and that was, yeah, 9-11. That was when all the European, all the other NATO countries came to help our asses. Right? It's never been used before. So, I mean, it just, yeah, it's, I think if they did use it, it would have to be for Greenland, that's for sure. Joel (05:31.952) 9-11. Joel (05:46.864) thought it was, wasn't it weird to send JD's wife? I didn't get that at all. I didn't understand. Was that just a charm offensive? It's, yeah, well, yeah, it's weird. It's all weird. Chad (05:55.625) No clue. No. Yeah. Yeah. was weird, weird, wild stuff. And we won't even get, we won't even get into the Canadian stuff. So let's, let's hit shout outs. Lieven (05:55.918) It didn't work. Joel (06:03.866) Weird, wild stuff. Alright. Chad (06:10.803) And Leaven has a special one. Leaven has a special shout out. Joel (06:13.646) He does a familial shout out. Lieven (06:14.592) Yeah, indeed. My shout out goes to my 14 year old son, Jan Julius van Ibenuizen, who created an AI chatbot. Jan Julius. Jan Julius, yes. It's two words with, so what's it called? A colon in between, a dash, hyphen, I don't know. Whatever. But they're twins actually. Joel (06:23.298) Say that again. What's his name? Jen Julius. Is that two words? Two words or one? Chad (06:26.529) Jan Julius. Sounds Roman like a Roman emperor. Jan Julius. Mm-hmm. Yep. Hyphen. Yep. Yep. Joel (06:37.05) Little hyphen. Lieven (06:44.128) They're twins. we have Ottojan and Jan Julius. And since I'm a marketeer, I needed to come up with some kind of an explanation. So they have one part, one part the same, which is the Jan part, Ottojan, Jan Julius. Because they used to be one and then they split up. And you know how it goes with twins. OK. Anyways, anyways, this is not why I give me shout outs. It's because one of those twins, Jan Julius. Joel (06:49.9) Orange Julius is next. Chad (06:50.16) huh. Chad (07:02.816) Mm-hmm. Lieven (07:10.476) He created a chat bot, which is actually so good that House of HR has used it to put it on their homepage. So if you go to www.houseofhr.com Joel (07:16.633) What? Lieven (07:21.792) And I'm going to repeat this www.houseofhr.com. On the bottom right, you can actually open the chat bot, which was created by a 14 year old. I know so many companies have chat bots and that's not rocket science, but he did something which I really liked. He scraped all the jobs from our companies, added them to the bots and had the bot study on them, them index them. And now you can use natural language to find a job. Like I've been working in construction for 20 years and all my back hurts. Do you have something which might suit me? Joel (07:24.752) haha Chad (07:27.381) huh. Lieven (07:51.842) but which is less fatiguing, something like that. And then the bot will actually know what you mean and give you the right jobs. Or you can ask something about legislation to Belgian labor law and it will know about it because it's an open AI base. So it knows everything. That's cool. It's actually a good bot. And I said, thank you so much, Jean-Julius. This will have a great impact on my bonus. That's why I gave him a shout out. He gets a shout out. I get a bonus. Chad (08:04.65) Nice. Joel (08:13.977) I love it. Chad (08:17.729) Uhhh... Joel (08:18.394) Well, don't tell zip, don't tell zip recruiter cause they'll want to like fire, Phil and make Julius the new, zip recruiter chat bot at that rate. Lieven (08:24.046) We sell it to all interested companies as long as you're not a competitor from House of HR. Joel (08:32.848) There you go. you're a vendor interested in a chatbot, hit up Leaven today for that family connection. Maybe some Chad and Cheese discount coupon. Who knows? Lieven (08:37.004) Yeah. Lieven (08:41.922) But of course, if you are an American company, you will have to charge some import taxes, but it will still be a bargain. It will still be a bargain. No worries. Joel (08:46.32) Ha Joel (08:50.842) Very nice, very nice. Chad (08:51.539) Alright... Go ahead, Cheeseman. Joel (08:55.28) All right. Speaking of failed job boards, let's talk about ad Zuna former, former sponsor of the Chad cheese podcast. Zip recruiter. Isn't the only one feeling the pain of a worsening economy ad Zuna, the UK based job aggregator also doing business in the U S I think that's their second biggest market experienced a ready for this 33 % drop in revenue for fiscal year of 2024. That's a lot of beer that could buy. they attributed it to a turbulent macro economic environment and reduced recruitment advertising activity. even blamed Ukraine and Russia for part of their lack of, of, of results. The good news is they did implement cost controls. That's Latin for firing people usually, but, they weren't, they weren't specific on that. And they increased some of their cash reserves in light of probably those. reduced, uh, head count, uh, cost controls that they did. Uh, in November, you'll remember adzuna required France based social media recruitment advertising company, CESA S E I Z A no, no, no word yet. If CESA is going to break them back from the Rubicon or not. That's a little Caesar joke. Everybody. don't know if anybody got it, but yeah, shout out to add Zuna. Hopefully, hopefully better times are ahead this year. Chad (10:09.824) Didn't have a Caesar Chad (10:21.505) I think it's interesting that they're blaming Ukraine and Russia when to be quite frank, I think the biggest impact that they've seen, this is a rumor kids, but I've heard on the waves from sources that the biggest impact has been no hiring from our government. And they have some government contracts that literally have just gone silent. So all that revenue, when you're cutting heads, we're not hiring, guess what? Joel (10:29.808) Mm-hmm. Joel (10:46.542) Mm-hmm. Chad (10:49.225) Organizations like Adzuna who actually service the, U S government are going to take a shot too. Joel (10:54.476) And we don't speak bad about the government, everybody. Don't speak ill of the government. Otherwise, those contracts will never come around. Chad (10:59.87) So hence, hence that not being said in that. So, go ahead and let's get to my shout out that, Cheeseman almost, almost ruined. shout out to the Iberian Peninsula who is representing during the UEFA Nations League. That's right. Portugal and Spain will be repping the Iberian Peninsula against Germany and France in the semi-finals. Next match is. The big Portuguese, next matches, next matches are scheduled for the June 5th with Germany facing my beloved Portuguese and June 4th, June 5th with the France facing Spain. I already got planned out where I'm going to be in my favorite bar in Portugal. Long live Euro Chad kids, long live Euro Chad. Joel (11:32.452) Lot of fans. Joel (11:46.128) Mm-hmm. Joel (11:53.872) Which brings me to events. I want to know when Eurochad is coming back. Because we've been dealing with American Chad for a while, and I'm a little bit over it, frankly. Chad (12:01.876) I've got to deal with it 24 seven. So Jesus man. Uh, and so does Julie. Uh, yeah. So we're going to be an unleash in early May. And then after that, we're going to be ejecting back to, uh, to Europe for probably three or four months. And while we're over there, we will enjoy some rec fest. you going to rec fest in, Nebworth? Joel (12:16.656) Mm-hmm. Lieven (12:23.766) I think I'm in holidays. That's the problem with Europe of course, we're constantly in holidays. Chad (12:25.663) good for you. You'll be skiing. You'll be in the app out somewhere. I'm sure. Lieven (12:33.856) I guess. What is it exactly? I know us on holidays, but I don't know which holiday. yeah, we're gone, we're gone. I won't be skiing then, but... Chad (12:37.138) early July. Yeah. Yeah. Joel (12:37.584) July 11th, something like that, July 10th, 11th. Chad (12:42.026) You Joel (12:43.376) Viva la Euro chat. Who's favored to win that thing at this point? Chad (12:48.833) Oh, right. mean, Spain, Spain is the, uh, the current champs. Uh, Portugal has won it before. I believe Germany's won it before. Um, but, uh, I mean, and it's a very, fairly young tournament. Uh, but yeah, I don't know who's favored right now, but, uh, France. Yeah. Yep. We're all just playing. Yep. France and Spain. mean, these are four pretty damn good, uh, pretty damn good teams. Germany's really shit the bed over the last. Joel (12:54.18) Yep. Joel (13:05.217) Is Ronaldo still? Is Ronaldo playing? Yeah. Joel (13:13.402) Yeah. Chad (13:17.678) a few years but seems like they're playing pretty strong in this tournament. Joel (13:23.126) And is Bruno on Portugal? Okay. My kid loves Bruno Fernandez, the captain of the Reds, captain of the Reds. That's that's man you for the Americans. I'm so I'm so cultured. I'm so cultured. All right, kids. Speaking of cultured, let's talk some Trump and Elon, shall we? here's a sampling of some of the headlines, from this week in America. ready? Tesla sales tank. Chad (13:26.027) yeah. Fernandes. for Dandesh. You Chad (13:38.337) I can tell. Joel (13:52.374) in Europe as rival offerings and Musk blowback hit demand. StopElon.EU was launched in protests of Elon's anti-EU propaganda. France is calling for Trump's America to return the Statue of Liberty. I'm not sure how that would work. US tells European companies to comply with Donald Trump's anti-diversity order. Chad (13:57.409) Hmm. Joel (14:16.964) Not sure how we can force that. There's not a tariff I can think of. Trump brings European wineries to their knees even before tariffs hit. Portugal issues travel warnings for US and that's really just the tip of the iceberg. Chad, what's your take on all the Trump Elon headlines from the past week? Chad (14:38.113) Yeah, I think pretty much half of Europe have actually had travel warnings out. Europe is about $155 billion per year for US tourism, kids. that's not a good look. That's not a good look on us. And also remember when we used talk about wineries and stuff like that, Trump doesn't drink. So he doesn't understand the actual impact. Right. And during the last Trump tariff from 2018 to 2021, Brown Foreman based in Louisville, Kentucky, an American based family controlled publicly traded company and one of the largest in the spirits and wines business. So back in 2018, they decided to absorb the cost of the tariffs. They're going to try to try to make it work. But they ended up with annual expenses of $80 million that they paid on those tariffs to be able to keep. The price is the same in Europe because they wanted to ensure that Europeans continued to get their spirits, especially the Jack Daniels and whatnot. Melissa Gordon, the CEO of MGX Beverage Company said today's distillers employ about 25,000 people. And that doesn't even include the individuals who work in the world of ingredients, packaging, sales, logistics, those types of things. So there are tens of thousands, if not more at risk. in the United States alone over these crazy fucking tariffs. And then at the end of the day, talked about idiot boy, frigging Tesla boy. Tesla quarterly sales were down 41.1 % in France, 55.3 % in Sweden, 12 % in Norway, 55.3 % in Denmark, and 49.7 % in the Netherlands. And all of this without tariffs. Joel (16:16.867) Elon. Chad (16:35.989) This is just, this is just bad optics. This is just shit that makes him look obviously bad where they don't want us to, to buy his car. So this is to me, it's all over the place. I, again, I don't want it to be crazy. I want it to be boring. Can we go back to boring? Can we go back to boring? Joel (16:39.268) Mm-hmm. Joel (16:54.797) Yep. Lieven (16:58.4) Yeah, boring was good. We like boring. Yeah, predictable. Yeah, like a stable growth of 7%. A stable growth of 7 % of my investments were perfect. And now suddenly it's tanking all because of... well. Chad (17:01.993) I like, I liked it better than this. I don't like inflation. Like stable. He was, he said he was a stable G. What's that? Joel (17:03.992) I like predictable. I like predictable. Yeah. Chad (17:16.607) Yes! Joel (17:21.424) Trump doesn't drink, but he does play golf, which is why maybe you're not hearing a lot of Scottish, tariff talk. God help, God help me if the Scotch tariff goes through. That's not good for me. good news though, LinkedIn, LinkedIn opened up an office in Dublin. So things are looking good. Kids, things are looking up. Don't get too, don't get too sad about all this. Lieven (17:25.528) Nah. Lieven (17:33.358) I could smuggle. Chad (17:42.293) killing me here. Joel (17:47.76) Emmanuel Macron recently gave a really good speech, leaving, it was probably big news there. Basically he said that Europe can no longer live on the quote dividends of peace, which basically means the dividend piece after World War II, where America kind of was this nice cover military spin, cetera. Macron saying that's over. He also said that, Europe was going to have to have a major rearmament. Chad (18:17.419) Mm-hmm. Joel (18:18.192) So go to your history books and go learn about Europe in around 1914. And you may be looking at what is coming to Europe. Globalization is under attack. You look at the Syria or a signal gate here in the U S where we're talking about military plans. I'm sure, leaving, you saw this story over in Europe. One of more, one of the more telling things about that whole conversation was the disdain for Europe. There were talks about. Chad (18:38.667) Yeah. Joel (18:45.9) I can't believe we're bailing out Europe again. Lieven (18:48.716) We were shocked really when I read that. Joel (18:52.014) That was the headline. I'm in Europe, if I'm in Europe, the headline for me is the administration of the United States hates us. And it was all there in black and white. So for better, for worse, like Europe's kind of on their own going forward. And I, I appreciate Macron and what's coming out of Germany, in terms of military spending, but we're, to me, we're headed to a place in Europe that is really unstable, really volatile. Lieven (18:59.822) It was a man. Joel (19:21.966) Russia, Ukraine, Putin's been talking about removing the West from Europe for 25 years. That's a huge threat. I still think China is a major threat. think Trump is like, we want out of the European business. We need to focus on Asia. We need to put everything to Asia, which leaves Europe alone in some respects. Now he hasn't said we're out of NATO. He hasn't totally gone out of the game. But if I'm Europe right now, I'm looking at these headlines. And I know it's fun to say like, statue of Liberty, want it, we want it back. And like, that's fun to say, but I think we're, I think we're headed for really dangerous times in Europe. I think the largest military in, in greater Europe is Turkey, which is kind of on the south side near Russia. Poland is spending a lot on, on defense. Germany will of course, their nuclear weapons, assume. So I, I'd love to hear from leaving on this cause he lives this every day. And I know that he's a. historical thinker like that. everything that I see points to a deglobalization, you're kind of on your own now. We're leaving this space. There's going to be a void. We have $34 trillion in debt we have to take care of. And that's just the reality. Whether Europe steps up, I guess we're going to find out if I'm right. Levi, I'd love to know your thoughts because you live in this on a regular basis and I know you have an appreciation for history. Lieven (20:51.146) Mm-hmm. And we still appreciate America saving our SS twice, but, I hoped for a chart time. Anyways, the way America let us down. Wasn't necessary. mean, it totally makes sense that you have, your hands full with China and that Europe needs to stand up for itself or whatever. But, the way Trump did is. It was necessary. mean, he could also just have told us, careful because within five years you'll be on your own. have to reschedule our troops and we have to refocus everything. But he just told Russia, now is the time because in the next four years, Europe doesn't have any supports to expect. Something like that. That's not a way to keep Europe safe. Actually, things are changing very fast now. Germany for the first time gave up on its anti-debt policy. They're actually going to borrow lots of money to invest in military. So there will be a new, what's it called in English? In Dutch we say wap en wetloop, when they all buy weapons against each other. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So this is going to cost tons of money, money which could have been spent on so much better ways. So the whole world is now going to... Chad (21:52.705) Mm-hmm. Joel (22:05.838) Rearmament? Chad (22:08.008) yeah, rearm, yeah. Lieven (22:16.782) re-enarm itself? Why? Because some stupid people thought this was necessary. It's not. mean, in Europe, if you would have asked us five years ago or three years ago, is Russia a threat? We would have said, of course not. Terrorism is a threat and maybe some fanatics are a threat and maybe the Middle East could be a threat. Iran and North Korea, but not Russia. But suddenly everything has changed. And now with the United States backing out, Joel (22:35.568) Mm-hmm. Joel (22:41.241) Mm-hmm. Lieven (22:47.306) There's actually, it's actually again a possibility that, that they want to take, go back to like the Soviet States, like, Eastern Europe should be part again of the ex Soviet Union of Russia. So we are actually starting to, not going to say be afraid, but it's actually becoming a possibility, which was out of the question a few years ago. Okay. So we don't like Trump. That's clear. Joel (22:56.356) Mm-hmm. Joel (23:13.168) Thank Chad (23:13.867) Yeah. Lieven (23:17.166) And I think now I hope they call it the coalition of the welling. think France, it's still a pretty big country. You have Germany, you have England and UK. And like you said, Turkey, I'm not sure if you can trust those, but it's a different mentality. Poland, definitely they're strong, probably the strongest in the whole of Europe because of their constant awareness of Russia being around. You have the Baltics, which are Chad (23:28.417) Mm-hmm. Joel (23:35.3) Mm-hmm. Chad (23:44.065) Mm-hmm. Joel (23:44.112) Mm-hmm. Lieven (23:45.814) very small but pretty brave I think, the Nordics also. I don't think Europe is an easy target even without the United States and they're going to invest a lot and they're going to do it very fast. But it wasn't necessary. This is such a waste of everything. Chad (24:03.233) Yeah. I think it's interesting real quick though, that's, mean, Russia's never been known for their, their technology. Let's just say that, right? They've never been known to have the best weapons in the world. They just had a lot of them, right? They just produced a lot. It was always about the numbers. They could overwhelm you with the numbers. It wasn't just about throwing a million soldiers at you. was all these, all these T, know, 74 tanks or Joel (24:03.3) Yeah. What are your, what are you? Joel (24:20.538) Just the most, Chad (24:32.768) 47 tanks. That's the thing is that France, Sweden, the UK, Germany, they're actually some damn good weapons systems that they've created tanks, airplanes, the Eurofighter over the years. So I don't think again, remember Russia is still three years into the fight with Ukraine. Do we think that they're going to try to spread throughout the rest of Europe? No, but I would love to see boots on the ground from European countries in Ukraine to just snuff this out really quick. I do think though, and this is a rebalancing to some effect, where there was an over reliance on the US, period. There just was an over military reliance on the US. There were no contingencies in place, obviously. Lieven (25:22.574) Sure. Chad (25:29.045) Those contingencies need to be put in place and there needs to be a rebalancing. We over here in the US need to have better healthcare and better education, which is what you guys have had for years. So hopefully we can get some rebalancing. I just don't think that this was the way to go at it. Isolationism is a great way to lose intelligence, lose allies and lose wars. Lieven (25:40.27) Hmm. Lieven (25:53.154) And China is going to be the big winner because they are being so nice to Europe right now. And Europe is easily charmed today. look at the sales of Tesla. They tanked 50%. And it's not because of the electric vehicles sales is down. BYD is going up extremely. My wife has a Tesla. We want to sell it, but nobody wants to buy it. Chad (25:55.401) They are. There's a vacuum. Chad (26:04.33) Yeah. Lieven (26:18.24) If you drive a Tesla in Western Europe, and maybe I can only speak for Belgium and the Netherlands where I'm often, people spit on it. The cars are getting vandalized, which is totally not okay because my wife, for example, we bought a Tesla when Elon was still a very innovative, in my opinion, even nice guy. liked him. Yeah. But suddenly he became the arm stretching fascist, but he's weird. Chad (26:29.814) Right. Joel (26:30.096) Yeah. Joel (26:36.078) Normal dude. Chad (26:37.185) Not a kook, yeah. Chad (26:46.175) I think that's the best example though. really do. You take a look at Tesla, it had a great trajectory. And now everything that's happening, mean, China's getting, I mean, they're filling the vacuum. Lieven (26:59.15) And they're not just copying anymore. China used to be copying everything and now they're running ahead. Their cars are actually better today. Their electric vehicles are better than Tesla. They will be self-driving before Tesla is, I mean, on a global scale. Okay. So, and of course, and this is maybe getting back to our own business in Western Europe, companies are refusing Teslas as a company car. Chad (27:03.115) No. Lieven (27:28.45) So they are now saying this is not an ethical choice. we take it away from our company cars list. I know in the United States it's different, but definitely in Belgium, a company car is part of your salary. It's something because it's less taxed than the labor. So it's an easy way to give your employees a nice gift. You can get a company car. More than, I think, two-thirds of the white-collar people have a company car. So it used to be a lot of Tesla. Chad (27:40.427) Mm-hmm. Lieven (27:56.994) And now companies are selling hundreds of Tesla at once because they don't want to be associated with that company anymore. No, of course. Yeah, but it's actually happening. So I don't care. It's not like we'll have a problem with that, but we want a different car. We don't want to drive that Tesla anymore. Chad (28:01.277) is why you can't sell yours because they're flooding the market. Joel (28:14.128) Livan, there a sense of, I mean, you guys have enjoyed benefits, whether it's retirement age and sort of, is there a fear that if you're spending all on defense, there won't be money? Economically, is the continent worried? Can we afford the benefits and the luxuries that we've had previously if we're spending more money on tanks or not so much? Lieven (28:37.076) The biggest losers will be companies like, sorry, countries in Africa, because the money we used to give to, I'm not sure if I should be calling it charity, but you know, development of foreign countries, this is going where they'll be getting the money. You can't sell it to our people that we're going to make healthcare more expensive. We can't cut down on education even more than we already did, in our opinion. But This culture and development of foreign countries is where we'll get some money. It won't be enough. So definitely pensions are being looked at right now because people are getting older and they live longer and they get far too much. So there was a big strike in Belgium yesterday because the government wants to put a break on the pensions for the government workers. So, and they get a lot really. So... Joel (29:36.218) I expect more of that. Lieven (29:37.738) Yeah, and we'll have some difficult times for sure. Chad (29:40.895) We take a look at a lot of the European countries are their nixing contracts with us countries for buying military, military armaments or vehicles or what have you. That's going to go back to France and Germany and all the countries that are doing that, which I mean, again, the money is going to be spent in Europe as opposed to going across the pond. It's going to create jobs. it's going to do some, some, some really good things, I think for Europe. Lieven (29:56.29) Definitely. Joel (30:01.306) Mm-hmm. Chad (30:10.209) in, in the, in the next few years, I mean, just, just in quick, quick response to what's happening again, still on your borders there in Ukraine. Lieven (30:17.294) And it's not only. Joel (30:18.788) Yeah. The guy making the Volkswagen can now make tanks and artillery. Yeah. Chad (30:22.57) Yeah. Lieven (30:22.636) Yeah, it's going to happen, but it's not only on military, a very stupid example. I got, I got five calls a day from mostly American companies trying to sell house of HR some technical shit. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. And, I always, refuse and always nice. And now I actually can say, I'm sorry, given the way your government is treating us, we cannot be sure that's the. Joel (30:36.57) software. Lieven (30:51.516) that we have a relationship on the long-term. will not invest in software. are from an American company. You must understand that. And they all react very shocked. But for me, it's kind of a joke. was going to, wasn't going to buy it anyway, but people start to react like that. Why would we trust American companies? What if Trump comes up with something else after the import taxes? What if he wants to, to text some digital solutions, whatever. So people are getting anxious. So. Chad (30:55.009) Mm-hmm. Joel (31:17.402) Yeah. Lieven (31:19.636) looking local and buying european will become a thing again Joel (31:24.004) I get it. I get it. Lieven (31:26.798) And if we can flip them the bird we will. Chad (31:27.073) Big breath big breath Lieven (31:35.262) Nasty, nasty. well. And by the way, I know something about recruitment. I've been in the business for over 20 years, but my father was a wine merchant. So I've been drinking wines for over 35 years. When I was 12, I went to Bordeaux with my father to taste wine and to select, yes. So I grew up with wine and the whole wine taxing thing. Chad (31:39.179) waiting for a. Chad (31:50.507) Okay. Chad (31:56.371) nice. Lieven (32:04.632) We don't like it either, because we used to send our very expensive wine to the United States, or the really inferior wine. What does he expect from us to drink it ourselves? No way. I will just, yeah. No, no, but it's a problem. If you touch Frenchman's wine. Chad (32:16.797) yeah, no, no. Joel (32:22.658) Okay, I'm gonna take us to the break and then we'll come out. Chad (32:26.337) Okay. Lieven (32:26.914) Okay. Joel (32:29.646) All right. So much going on. let's take a quick break guys. If you haven't, subscribed to our podcast, please do so and leave us a review while you're there on your favorite podcast platform of choice. Joel (32:45.626) All right, Chad, have you seen the new Salesforce ads with Matthew McConaughey? Chad (32:54.177) I don't think I have. I don't think I have. No, I have not. That's for sure, yeah. Joel (32:55.504) about AI anyway with Woody Harrelson. No, when he tries on the outfit. Well, you need to watch more TV, my friend, get off the tick tock and watch some, watch some old school TV. Anyway, stop, stop, stop the sex Chad for God's sakes. anyway, Salesforce is in the news in our space, this week in, in Europe, the Deco group and Salesforce are launching a new company. Chad (33:05.953) Stop taking those walks and enjoying the nice fresh air. Joel (33:24.57) To help businesses integrate human and digital talent, the company will leverage data workforce insights and Salesforce's agent force to enable strategic workforce planning and management. The goal is to create a comprehensive suite of capabilities for data-driven decision-making, simulation, recommendation, and oversight of integrated human and digital labor workforces. Chad, your thoughts on this new company that has yet to be named, I might add. Chad (33:56.193) Feels like a Trojan horse. mean, is there, is there a threat that Salesforce will learn what's necessary and then either just acquire a Deco or kick them out or kick them to the curb? I mean, I understand this is a new company, but why hold onto the old baggage of a Deco and traditional staffing when they are not going to make the pivot that they need to make. And if they learn from they, Salesforce learned from a Deco. Joel (34:16.24) Mm-hmm. Chad (34:26.017) Much like we've seen the Chinese learn from VW on how to make cars and now they're killing it in the car industry. Why wouldn't you just turn that around? I mean, not to mention you've got that, but then you also have, you know, the, the direct hiring companies building their own agents on platforms like paradox fountain, gems, smart recruiters, and many others. Then you have the other threat. of EOR companies like Rippling and Deal who are poised to transition into staffing and employee lifecycle platforms. This seems to be a vital thing that a Deco needs to do, but they feel like that the Titanic. There's no way that they can turn away from the iceberg. I don't see them turning into a digital company and I don't know why Salesforce would carry their baggage for them. just doesn't, other than the data. But then after they have that, what the hell do need them for? Joel (35:20.132) Yeah. Yeah. Joel (35:28.89) So Deco is the second largest global staffing firm. So this is kind of a big deal. This isn't a little bitty company, you know, taking a new initiative and Salesforce of course is a, a very large software company, that's global. Levin is particularly interested in, in this move and, and, interested to hear what he has to say, but these are two really big companies getting together and creating a new company, a new organization. think that's really, really interesting. Salesforce is also partnered with Deloitte. Chad (35:32.481) No, it is big. Joel (35:58.62) for, so I assume sort of a similar initiative. So Salesforce has figured out like this whole digital workforce thing is going to be a reality and we want to be on the forefront of that. So we're going to go partner with as many staffing companies as possible. It sounds weird to say, could I hire an, a Deco to, provide me with digital employees? It's not that nuts. Like, Hey, Chad (36:26.453) No. Joel (36:27.266) I need a team of digital marketers. need to post shit on social. Like to me, this is a move to the future. It's a bet on the future to say like, there will be companies that need workers, but they don't want human workers. They want a digital workforce. And we want to be a solution that they can go to and say like, well, we have these people you can hire. But if you don't like that, we have this digital workforce that you can hire. And if it's not going to be us that disrupts us, it's going to be somebody else. So I like the move. I agree with you, Chad. There's no record of a Deco killing it with acquisitions and innovation and digital shit. So the, you know, the jury's still out on whether or not this works. But in theory, for the second largest staffing company to partner with Salesforce, to create a solution where companies can have digital workers like Sign me up for that. That sounds like something that a lot of companies are going to be interested in. Chad (37:25.035) But Salesforce doesn't need them though. That's the thing that I don't get because they've got agentic already built into their system and how many hundreds of thousands of companies do they already have in their platform? So I mean, that's the thing is I don't know why they understand. That's why I need leaving to weigh in. Why does Salesforce need a Deco right now? Or will they be shedding them along the way? Lieven (37:47.34) Well, maybe, and I think probably because Adecco is paying the biggest part of it. But I think HR has a very specific domain and HR has their own suppliers and people and employees are part of HR's responsibility. So I think it does make sense for Salesforce. They have IT as a client mostly, and maybe some marketing, but they don't get in touch with HR. They don't know human resources that good, Adecco does. Chad (38:10.059) Mm-hmm. Lieven (38:16.608) If they team up, Salesforce has the technical knowledge and Adecco has the clients and they can come up with a proposition. Makes sense. But problem is. Chad (38:22.112) Mm-hmm. Lieven (38:29.174) Stuffing is a complex business. If you hire human beings and you have to sell those humans to other human beings, it's complex. It doesn't have to be that way with technology. You can't copy humans. You have to find them. You have to hire the right person. You have to sell the right person to your client. It's difficult, but you can very easily copy software. So if you get one perfect digital marketeer, and with digital, mean really a robots marketeer, you can copy that robots. Chad (38:40.779) Right. Chad (38:47.509) Mm-hmm. Joel (38:57.232) Mm-hmm. Lieven (38:58.734) in 10 minutes, 100 times. So why would you have to use a staffing company which is specialized in mass? Because Adaco is offering massive solutions of massive employees. They put 300 people at work in one company. This isn't Adaco's way of thinking. But I think they were doing an exercise, which we at House of HR used to do a few years ago. We had an exercise, how can we kill accent jobs? Chad (39:05.601) huh. Lieven (39:25.9) I became up with now jobs at a platform, the digital platform, hiring and matching people totally without human interference. And I think they did the same thing, something like that, a strategic exercise. How is AI going to impact the world of work and how can we react? Okay, we are into staffing. We're into putting the best person at the best place. We're into talent and maybe they say, maybe talent doesn't have necessarily has to be human. Talent can be technology as well. Chad (39:32.799) Mm-hmm. Chad (39:48.971) Mm-hmm. Lieven (39:55.426) So we're going to provide both hybrid teams consisting of both humans and technology robots. And that's a good way of thinking. But I think if people can get rid of clients, can get rid of article, they will get rid of article because they always think it's too expensive. Why do they have to make money on the people we put at work? And okay, they have some trouble finding them and make sense, but they won't accept it with those technical. Joel (40:00.333) Mm-hmm. Joel (40:17.732) Mm-hmm. Lieven (40:24.718) profiles, I think. So I think this is not going to last very long, even though I love the idea. And I definitely believe that hybrid teams are the future. And if we deliver humans, why couldn't we be delivering digital employees? Problem is the clients will be able to develop them themselves. If my 14-year-old can develop a chatbot and some basic agentics, he will be able to do the same when he's 21, but to a much better scale. So this is only going to get easier to copy and to develop. Joel (40:54.02) Yeah. I mean, the other, the other angle of that is, you know, Salesforce owns Slack and we know that, we know that people hate having multiple tabs open with multiple solutions. if they can, if they can integrate this thing into Slack where your digital workers are within Slack and you manage them in Slack, like everything else at your company, like that would be, that would be kind of a killer to the idea of like, well, anyone can do it. Cause not anyone has Slack. Like there's, aren't many. Chad (41:13.057) That should be too easy. Yeah. Chad (41:22.113) That's good for you. Joel (41:22.608) platforms like that. I think there are some unique qualities to this that aren't easy to replicate. Lieven (41:26.531) Thanks. Chad (41:28.455) Here's the thing that gets me though, is that HR is always slow to adopt, right? Salesforce already has connections with the CRO, the CFO, the CMO, and the CTO. So if I can start to talk to my CRO about, look, why don't we put these agents in place to be able to make your Salesforce faster, more productive, more efficient. As matter of fact, you'll probably need less salespeople. That's where you're going to sell it. Lieven (41:38.029) Hmm. Chad (41:56.533) You're not going to sell it to the HR person. They've got those contacts already. So to me, again, this, this, marriage just doesn't make much sense unless it's a data play upfront. It's a Trojan horse. They kick a Deco to the curb. And the next thing you know, they're selling this shit direct to departments. Joel (42:11.397) Yeah. Joel (42:16.43) I do agree with that Salesforce is a potential wolf and sheep's clothing on this one for sure. But love the commercials Salesforce love, love the commercials. All right. Keeping, keeping within Spain. That is a Spain Jersey, right? Portugal, Portugal. It's a Spain colors. All right. The golden, the golden red. There's no green. I Of course, Chad gets the custom, the custom fucha ball Jersey. Chad (42:19.391) Yeah. Fuck yeah. Chad (42:25.825) I'm gonna go look it up. I'm gonna go look it up. Shit. Chad (42:35.051) This is Portugal. Ronaldo. This is a custom, so it's, it's off. It's off. Joel (42:46.672) Well, anyway, Barcelona based factorial has secured $120 million in non diluted funding, sorry, diluted funding to boost sales and marketing, to be repaid for, from new customer profits. That's usually Latin for we're coming to America, everybody, amid HR industry drama. Hello deal. Hello. Rippling lawsuit, factorial aims to grow. Chad (42:49.557) Ahem. Chad (43:10.07) Mm-hmm. Joel (43:14.298) Drama free. We'll see how that goes in case you missed it. Factorial raised 120 million back in 2022 at a $1 billion valuation, which means we get to play the unicorn sound bite. We don't get to do it often anymore. Chad, your thoughts on the factorial news this week out of Barcelona. Lieven (43:26.498) That's been a long time. Chad (43:30.113) We don't get to do this often. We used to. Lieven (43:31.777) No. Chad (43:40.897) Yes, 419 million in total funding from Crunchbase. So backstory to the listeners, just in case you don't know, Rippling is suing competitor Deal for corporate espionage. Yes, we're talking about toilets, cell phones. can't, you can't, all of this happening in Ireland. Anyway, it's, it's, it's not a great look for either brand, especially when you have an ass clown like Parker Conrad running one of them. Anyways, is Joel (43:58.266) Banana in the tailpipe, everything. Chad (44:09.535) the rippling deal drama too much for the market. I mean, we actually heard when we were at transform, some companies were saying, wait, you know, we have them both. talking to them, but we're kind of, we're going to put them at arm's length right now. Is this the perfect opportunity for a company like Factorio to rock up some of that market share from these two of the fastest growing unicorns in the market rippling and deal? Is this factorials chance? To actually get there and crunch base is predicting that factorial gets acquired, not IPO. So all of that makes for a wonderful story. Now it'd have to be one of the, one of the bigger, one of the bigger acronym companies, ADP, SAP, Salesforce. Anyways. Joel (44:46.554) Hello. Did their crystal ball say who was going to buy factorial? Joel (44:56.272) Salesforce. Salesforce. So this, it's an interesting story. these guys came out of COVID. They had a free version, which would apparently went bonkers. they, went to a pay. Yeah. Cause there was like, need to like hire remotely and manage these people remotely. So they had this free service. So all these SMBs signed up. now they have a paid version, obviously 13,000 businesses. They've grown six fold, in the last year. And I agree that, that the deal. Chad (45:07.915) Mm-hmm. Chad (45:13.249) 60,000 users. Chad (45:18.047) Yeah. Joel (45:33.336) rippling drama creates an opportunity for them, but I'm not sure they even need it. I, I think this, I think this market is shuffling pretty nicely. I mean, if you're looking at job sites, you could almost sort of say rippling and dealer or monster and career builder of old and, and factorial is like Craigslist and all the small guys, all the SMBs there, they're all Craigslist made a lot of money, dude. Don't, don't, Chad (45:51.435) Mm-hmm. Chad (45:57.864) it's so good. Joel (46:02.788) Don't punk on indeed or punk on Craigslist. But if they can crack the global SMB market, they don't need to be the enterprise level deal rippling solutions provider. They can have a really nice lane in that space. I generally hate SMBs, but when you talk about a global opportunity, I hate SMBs a lot less than I do now. So I think that factorial is in a really great spot. Chad (46:02.881) No, I I know. I know, I don't know. Yeah, no, no, yeah. Lieven (46:06.392) Mm-hmm. Joel (46:31.95) I mean, dealer rippling could be like, if rippling goes public, get some cash, they could come in and get factorial and provide SMB services and integrate that with rippling deal could probably do the same thing. So I think this is a really exciting space to watch. Aside from Trumpism and tariffs and global conflict, the global marketplace for work is really interesting. It'll be fun to watch over the coming years. Leave on your thoughts. Lieven (47:01.614) I disagree with you on the SME, like or not liking. I love SMEs. I think each it's for an SME, it's much easier to grow than for a huge company. So, it's a fact. mean, it's just you, you don't lose time with those. I see that at Hours of HR, we used to be very small company. Now we're medium sized and we are 3.8 billion, something like that. Yes, I know. know. Joel (47:04.581) Yes. Chad (47:12.693) Tell me about that, tell me about that. Joel (47:28.556) stop. stop. We're just a mom and pop organization in Brussels. Lieven (47:31.214) When I started, it was only 400 million. Anyways, but, um, but it's, we are still a collection. can't say it like that, but of 52 very well organized small companies. And it's much more fun being part of a small company than of a huge enterprise in my opinion. And they are going much faster and they can change direction much faster. And for me. Chad (47:47.265) Mm-hmm. Lieven (47:58.476) It's easier to make a small company big than to keep a big company big because communication lines are getting longer and more difficult and to be innovative in a big company is very frustrating. You have to sell your great idea to your boss and the boss probably will steal it if it's actually great and try to sell it to his boss, cetera. It's frustrating. So, Amis don't have these problems, they have other problems by the way, but in these troubled times, it's very good to have 13,000 as Amis as a client. I think it's much better than having 1000 large companies because if you lose a few, it's less troublesome. So I think they're doing the right thing and 13,000 companies plan starting at $8 per user per month. You might make some revenue and you can only grow because those small companies probably will grow faster, will add more users and they won't like changing software because it's just too big of a hassle. So I think if this was a buyer-sell, I would probably buy them. Joel (49:00.122) Levin likes it small. Lieven (49:02.326) Yeah, if it can grow Joel, if it can grow. Joel (49:04.048) But, but, oh, it, yeah, it can grow. Uh, loves the small businesses, but he loves the big dad jokes, which brings us to this episode's dad joke with a European vibe. What do you get when you cross a Spaniard and an Iranian? What do you get when you cross a Spaniard and an Iranian? Chad (49:08.799) He's a grower, not a shower. The dad joke. Joel (49:34.411) Oil of Olay. Lieven (49:36.718) Yes Joel, thank you so much. We out. Joel (49:39.264) We out! Chad (49:40.395) We out.

Is the return-to-office push a brilliant comeback or just corporate slapstick? In this no-holds-barred episode, Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Culture Partners’ Chief Strategy Officer, joins Chad & Cheese to clown on outdated work policies, Gen Z’s “work-from-bed” ethos, and why mandating face time might just be a diversity disaster. From C-suite vs. HR showdowns to CEOs bailing faster than bad stand-up acts, Dr. Kriegel breaks down why clinging to pre-pandemic work culture is like dancing with a mop. Plus, we’re serving hot takes on remote work tech, corporate silos, and why upskilling is the only way to avoid being the layoff punchline. 💥 Tune in now—before your boss drags you back to 2019! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:30.963) Yeah, this is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is in the house as we welcome Dr. Jessica Kriegel. She's the chief strategy officer at Culture Partners. Dr. Jessica Kriegel, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad (00:37.671) Hello. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (00:48.696) Thanks for having me. I'm so excited. It's dangerous. Joel (00:53.011) Yes, you've never heard our show, so I pray for you that you'll be able to make it through the end. But aside from never having heard our show before, what else should our listeners know about Dr. Jessica? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (00:58.446) Yeah. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (01:06.094) cold intro. You've never heard our show. What else should they know? Well, thank you. Thank you. The danger has begun. I am, you guys fed me some lines about my intro. You were like, just tell them that you love jazz music and long walks on the beach. I love neither jazz music nor long walks on the beach. Chad (01:09.373) Hahaha Joel (01:11.377) We come to play, baby. We come to play. know you do too. So let's rock. Chad (01:32.617) Dr. Jessica Kriegel (01:33.45) I'm a keynote speaker. That's my thing. So I have a podcast of my own. It's a five minute daily podcast for CEOs kind of get their brief on what it is that they need to know. And I'm the chief strategy officer at Culture Partners. And we create clarity, alignment, and accountability around your purpose, strategy, and culture to get results. And Only Culture Partners does that. So there's my spiel. Joel (01:53.453) And I've never heard your podcast. So we are on equal footing. We're on equal footing. That's right. That's right. That's how I did. I I did my homework on this one. Let's, let's go right to the elephant in the room. we're here to talk about returned office. Jamie diamond CEO at JP Morgan, is in the news big time this week. Let's check out a clip of what he thinks about. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (01:57.07) How dare you? How dare you? And mine's only five minutes long, so it really doesn't hurt. Chad (01:58.281) I know, I know. See, we really had no excuse, Joel (02:20.452) returned office or work from home, means to his business. And we'll get your opinion on the other side. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (04:05.198) You Joel (04:36.509) Get off my lawn. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (04:40.366) So bitter. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (04:48.184) Wow, Jamie needs a nap, I think. Joel (04:49.415) All right. He needs a peri and a foot massage for sure. all right. All right, doctor. What do you think about Jamie's comments? Chad (04:54.025) needs more than that Dr. Jessica Kriegel (05:00.526) Well, there was two halves to that audio clip, right? I think the first half is total nonsense. In the second half, I agree with most of it actually. So I thought the ironic moment was when he said, that creates fucking rudeness. okay, like you right now, dude, is rudeness on top of your priority list. I mean, because he is just generally rude, right? Return to office. I mean, if that's really where we're focusing here is think of the language that's being used, return to office. back to work. It's regressive in nature. People are trying to go backwards to the way that it was pre-COVID as if COVID was just some pause. And now we can unpause and go back to the way that it was. Well, COVID transformed everyone and every business forever in an undeniable way. We've learned something and we have transformed and we can't go back to pre-COVID because we had COVID. And so what needs to happen is companies need to adapt. I mean, that is literally the biggest challenge that every company has right now is how do we adapt? This is one of the things we need to adapt to. And Jamie Diamond sounds like another boomer who is frustrated with Gen Z for not doing it the way that we did things around here, which is totally antiquated. Chad (06:17.137) Old work versus new work. mean, really, and it's interesting because as you listen to, to me, this is an entire leadership, kind of like 101, listening to a guy who obviously is incredibly successful, but he's been successful one way. And then you change the entire landscape on him. He's pissed off. He's pissed off because that's not how he learned how to do the job. He can't manage apparently remotely. Right? So he's used to Henry Ford, 40 to 40 hours a week, punching a clock. Hell, he said seven days a week for God's sakes. So how do we, how do we get, do we, do we just wait till all these boomers die before we can actually progress, progress into working more efficiently and actually working more humanly, being able to get off this call, go take my stuff out of the washer and put it in the dryer and then get back to work. Or I mean, I don't understand. What do we have to wait for till we actually move forward as opposed to, like you said, backwards? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (07:24.386) to wait. The second half of what he said, I agree with him, which is this is the way that JP Morgan does it. If you don't like it, then don't work here. And so that's their style. And that's their approach. There are a thousand young people, a thousand, mean, tens of thousands of young people who will gladly take a role and work 90 hours a week at JP Morgan so they can have it on their resume, knowing they're going to be totally burned out after two years and then they'll move on. But they've got JP Morgan on their resume. And that was worth the effort. Right. That is a That's a trade-off that, you know, free market capitalism works both ways, right? Employees get to opt in to the deal that they know that they're going to get there. But you look at Spotify with that famous billboard, we treat our employees like adults or whatever they said. They are already doing it the new way of working and the people who want to work there, work there. So everyone will find where they belong and whether it works in the long term. mean, Joel (08:06.279) Mm-hmm. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (08:17.772) I don't think you have to have a great culture to be profitable. think crappy cultures can be profitable too. And JP Morgan is evidence of that. But I think if you want to have kind of explosive transformative growth that navigates through these changing times, everything that's happening with the Trump administration is going to require adaptability. And if you demonstrate a lack of adaptability on a basic thing like RTO, where else are you lacking adaptability in other areas where maybe it's more critical? Chad (08:43.497) So real quick, you mentioned culture and having to be in the office, that's part of the culture, that's what you're gonna get with JP Morgan Chase. The thing is for me, from a leadership standpoint, I'm always thinking about how do I get the best talent? And you can't just get the best talent in where your headquarters is or where you are set up physically, right? So how do companies like JP Morgan Chase, how do they compete? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (08:48.91) you Chad (09:12.177) in the future when they, prospectively, are not going to get the best talent. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (09:17.09) JP Morgan has a name that they don't have to compete. They're going to get plenty of top talent, I think. I look at a different company like Shurm. Let's talk about Shurm. Probably a lot of... So I interviewed... Sorry. I interviewed Johnny C. Taylor right after they announced that they were going to do the IND. That interview is on YouTube if you want to check it out. And that day I was asking them how the company is doing, what they're doing just for their own hiring. This is not even about the EI, right? They said, we've got 26 open positions. Chad (09:22.387) Okay. Joel (09:26.809) That escalated quickly. Chad (09:41.779) Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (09:47.288) for content writers. I was like, wow, that is a lot of open positions for a company the size of Shurm for content writers. And they had to be based in DC. I was like, where are they going to find 26 people? That company will struggle more than JP Morgan, which everyone wants JP Morgan on their resume. Does everyone want Shurm on their resume? Maybe less so. Chad (09:54.313) Mm-hmm. Chad (10:10.759) Yeah, yeah, good point. Joel (10:10.963) I do, I do think from a branding branding perspective, brand means something more than it did 10 years ago. And it means whether it's Spotify or JP Morgan, and where we work is sort of based on, I want a remote experience? Do I want a hybrid or do I want the full at work and brand is something that's going get me there. One of things I do think that is debatable and I want your thoughts are that young people are hurt by work from home. You know, they can't, they can't. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (10:36.888) Yeah. Joel (10:38.503) meant there's no mentorship, there's no serendipity, there's no hanging out after work. And I was young once and I can tell you that if I was 25 working from home, I would not have sort of been as good as I am today because I wouldn't have been able to have those experiences. What are your thoughts? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (10:57.048) Well, I may be a bad example, but I've always worked from home. I've literally never had an in-office job. I was working at Oracle. Well, first I was working at Taleo right out of my MBA, and then that got acquired by Oracle. And I was always at home. But we had a work from home culture. So I did have many mentors, and I had lots of interactions. And I was fine. However, When I was CHRO at a technology company that was hybrid, we got a lot of complaints from young people saying they were feeling left behind and reflecting exactly the thoughts that you had. So I think it depends on how well the company is at supporting your employees. Some are doing it well and some aren't, right? Chad (11:42.727) I think that comes down to the selection process. Not to mention, what it feels like is that we're working more toward time as opposed to the objectives in the outcomes. So if it only takes me 20 hours to do something that it takes somebody else 40 hours to do. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (12:00.354) Yeah. Chad (12:07.591) Why am I going to have to come in and stand at the water cooler and go have conversations with my buddies instead of doing work? Because I'm already done. I remember actually having salespeople who already hit their goal and I sent them home because they wouldn't leave everybody else alone because they were like, well, I'm already 120 % of goal and I still got 10 days left. Okay, go home. Right? So I don't understand. It just feels like Joel (12:25.811) Mm-hmm. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (12:26.062) You Chad (12:34.651) The objective and the outcome is what we should be caring about, but we're not. We're caring about having butts in seats and working 40 hours. Why is that? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (12:44.078) because we're bad leaders. 85 % of leaders are bad at leadership. And that's the problem. So when you're in person and the way that it used to be back in the old days, we were in the action trap. The action trap is results come from actions. So let's focus on what actions we need to do to get results. And that is really easy to manage in person because you're just looking at activities and managing activities. And now in order to do this when people are home and you can't manage their activity, Chad (12:53.095) Mm-hmm. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (13:13.154) because you're not looking at them, you have to manage to the objective and you have to manage to the mindset. So instead of just focusing on action, you have to look deeper. What gets people to act in the way we need them to act consistently in a sustained way over time? Well, that's what beliefs they hold about the nature of work and what they're doing. And so how do we drive the right beliefs? And I mean, that's hard work. That's really advanced leadership and requires a certain amount of self-actualization to be able to even ask that question. Joel (13:37.596) you Dr. Jessica Kriegel (13:42.766) let alone influence the answer to that question for the people that you work with that aren't even in front of you. So we didn't even master 101 management and now we're trying to do 201 and everyone's like, this is way overwhelming. Let's go back to 101 because at least we had a shot at that. Joel (13:55.559) you Joel (13:58.835) Well, it's funny that you, mentioned leadership, because our, new president, has been in the news because he has a few thoughts on return, to work and, by chance, he'll be able to probably lay off a lot of people who don't want to come back to work, but he had something he had to this to say, and I want to play it and also get your opinion on this. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (14:57.55) Yeah. Chad (14:58.557) Sounds like what he does. Joel (15:05.619) thoughts. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (15:05.838) Oh, Donald Trump. mean, the 10 or 20 % thing has already been proven not to be true. We know that people work, they're actually more productive from home. mean, a thousand studies will tell you that. They may not be working 100 % of the time between the hours of eight and 5 PM, but that doesn't mean that their productivity has gone down. On the buyout front, the state of California was the client of my one. So this is not the federal government, but it is. government. And I remember they brought me in to talk about generational dynamics and how to manage people. And one of the managers raised their hand and said, what do I do when my employee consistently shows up 45 minutes late to work? And I said, what do mean? What do you do? You tell them not to, or they get fired. And he goes, I can't fire my employees. And there's just nothing that these managers had. their disposal to shift behavior like that in the government because of all of the regulations to protected employees. So I think a lot of Democrats are secretly really excited about what Trump is doing in terms of laying off all these federal workers, because everyone knows there's been a massive amount of waste. The problem is the haste. The problem is how quickly and haphazardly and chaotically this is getting rolled out. And I do think the buyout was fair. I really hope that people who get the buyout get the buyout. Chad (16:28.541) Yes. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (16:28.854) because will they actually get paid out? I don't know if they do. That was a win-win for a lot of people. 75,000 people accepted that offer. Some of those people then got fired afterwards because of how messy the communication is and the organizational whole thing is obviously a dumpster fire. So, I mean, I don't actually disagree with a lot of what Trump said there, except that I do believe that you want to, you know, what's the number one rule of HR is assume good intent. Joel (16:39.197) Mm-hmm. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (16:55.726) So if you assume good intent of your employees working from home, you assume that they're 80, 90 % of the time. And if they're achieving your results, is it really a problem that they're taking 10 or 20 % of the time off? And he's even flipped the numbers, which I think is grossly overstated. Chad (17:10.003) Yeah, well, and then. Joel (17:10.547) How much of RTO is a layoff strategy versus a real change? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (17:14.806) They said it was in that remember the op-ed that Elon Musk wrote with Vivek Ramaswani. They said we're hoping that by forcing people back into the office, people will quit. I appreciated the straightforward nature of that because you know that Meta did that. You know that Amazon did that. You know that all these companies wanted people to quit. And in fact, I just read an article like I couldn't figure out which company it was. It was on Reddit. Chad (17:17.885) Yeah. Yeah. Chad (17:23.465) 40 %? Yeah. Joel (17:32.743) Asla. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (17:40.896) about there was this company that forced everyone back in the office, all these companies, all these families relocated, and then they got laid off after they relocated. I mean, that's just wild, know, there's lack of integrity. You're messing with people's lives. Chad (17:54.205) Yeah. Yeah. So when we, we talk about RTO and how it's actually hurting women in the workforce, which we, we, we started getting great participation rates. got the best participation rates we've ever had with individuals with disabilities because they could work from home and that was their accommodation and they could get shit done from home. But this whole RTO things fucking that all up. So I guess at the end of the day from a, Dr. Jessica Kriegel (18:10.306) Yeah. Chad (18:22.121) And maybe it doesn't matter anymore because nobody gives a shit about DEI or at least, you know, 10 companies do nowadays. I don't know what, what's this going to shake out to look like? Is it, is it going to be a Jamie diamond? Maybe not them, but that kind of a company that says RTO is the only way to go. And they suffer because they can't get the talent. They can't get productivity up because they don't have the people. They're stretching their people too thin. There's way too much attrition. I mean, is it gonna have to come to that cluster fuck before it actually changes? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (18:56.878) Well, let's think about, look into history for our answers. What happens in sustained periods of wealth equity gaps, widening and being grossly unfair, right? There will be a time, something's gonna blow up, right? At some point, if this doesn't adjust. Now there are some real solutions that don't involve blowing up capitalism or blowing up the government. Joel (19:08.529) pitchforks. Chad (19:09.895) Revolution. Call the French. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (19:23.072) like Pete Stavros at KKR, he's heading up this movement around ESOPs, Employee Stock Ownership Programs. If you share equity with employees all the way down to the front line, then you have people who are going to have an ownership mindset. They're going to want to be hungry to drive results because they too will win from that. The wealth gap gets, what's the opposite of wide? Thinner, narrower, right? Narrower. And so everybody wins. Companies will thrive. People come along for the ride. Chad (19:44.893) Yeah, we're an arrow, yeah. Joel (19:45.159) Narrow, narrow. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (19:51.788) That's a no-brainer in my mind. But a lot of people look at that solution. CEOs say, well, I don't want to dilute my equity. I'm not interested in that. you know, which will come first, the chicken or the egg? Chad (20:03.269) wages too. mean, wages, we haven't seen wages rise on the, on the bottom end, but CEOs are about 1500 % up since 1978. We take a look at the, the, the people who are actually doing the work every single day, the hard work, and they see a 14%. I mean, there's gotta be something getting equity in a company. That's great. Long-term wealth. That's wonderful. But we've got people right now that are hurting. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (20:21.998) Yeah. Chad (20:30.909) and they're hurting from paycheck to paycheck if they can even make it that far without getting a second job. I mean, it just to me, the whole workforce right now seems like a total clusterfuck. We're gonna get ready to push a bunch, maybe millions of immigrants out, which means there going to be a lot of jobs that Americans don't wanna do. It just seems like there's just chaos that's gonna be happening all over the place. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (20:57.472) The problem, and this is why I think HR has gotten more and more marginalized over the last decade, is because people in HR think and say what you just said, but this isn't right. We got to fix this for the people, right? But then they come to the executive boardroom and they say, we got to fix this for the people. And everyone else is looking at the balance sheet and saying, yeah, but that's bad for the balance sheet. And so therefore that's a bad idea. Go back to your hole. Well, but it's Chad (21:21.459) But it's not. Yeah. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (21:24.654) In the short term, it is a bad idea for the balance sheet, right? In the short term, paying people who will accept $7 an hour, $9 an hour hurts our bottom line. Show me the incentive to do that if for the time being it's still working. Now something changes later. Like I remember working at a big tech company and we had a bunch of managers complaining to HR about the fact that there was a six year freeze on increases and they wanted... to be able to compensate their team. And they said, we're going to lose top performers. We're going to lose top performance. You better give us budget. And the compensation committee, which was the six person team that worked with the CEO, came into HR and said, listen, we're looking at our attrition numbers. We're at 10%, 12%. We're fine with that. We're not worried about losing top performers right now. If it gets to 15%, 20%, maybe we'll talk about it. But we don't care if people quit. In fact, let's get them to quit and bring on some new people from Amazon and see if they can shake things up over here. So that's the mentality that CFOs, CEOs, board members, investors have that HR says, but wait, it's not good for people. And everyone looks at them like, you don't get this. We're running a business here. And even if those CEOs feel differently in their hearts, they think, I really wish I could do better. They're in a spot where they can't because their job is to provide shareholder value. And if they don't, they'll get replaced. Turnover for CEOs right now is at an all time high. Joel (22:44.883) Thank Dr. Jessica Kriegel (22:48.066) People are getting replaced like that if they're not driving results and doing it quickly. So the short-term thinking is encouraged and it's incentivized. So until that gets disincentivized, people are going to keep making the same decisions they've been making, which is getting further and further away from helping the common man. Joel (22:50.515) Hmm. Joel (22:56.003) Mm-hmm. Chad (23:04.648) Well, that's where we've been talking about narrative on the show for a very long time. We've got to stop talking about metrics that we feel are important, like time to hire, cost per hire, those types of things. C-suite didn't give a shit about that. Tell them about how it actually impacts the bottom line, how it impacts EBITDA. How can you actually make that happen? If we have positions that are open or we're stretching people too thin, or as you had said, like Amazon, think that, Joel (23:16.883) Thank Dr. Jessica Kriegel (23:20.301) Right. Chad (23:34.161) letter that was leaked where they had like eight billion in attrition that impacted the bottom line at eight billion dollars. Now that means something. Why aren't we having those discussions more on? Joel (23:35.259) Jassy. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (23:48.936) HR leaders not having those discussions more often? I think because they are on the front line of the pain and the hurt that they see that the American people are experiencing. Did you see that State of the Nation report that came out a couple of weeks ago? It was put together by some professor at Tulane University. You got a bipartisan group of experts to look at the most important data points about how we're doing as a nation. Chad (23:50.397) Yeah, yeah. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (24:13.526) On economic prosperity, we were number one compared to every other country in the world. On productivity, we're number one compared to every other company, country in the world. We were the bottom of the list when it came to depression for young people, anxiety, opioid abuse, suicide rates, all of that. are the bottom of the barrel, right? So who gets notified about absenteeism because of mental illness at work? Who gets notified about suicides within the organization, who deals with all of the fallout of how we are all falling apart. It's the HR team. And that's why they're saying, we got a problem here. But the CEO is further away from it. And they're talking to the investors every day. And they're saying, yeah, we do have a problem here right now. The competitive landscape is shifting. Tariffs is coming down the pike. We got to adjust and strategize. And we'll talk about mental health another day. That's a DEI thing. And they just got permission not to care about DEI because of what Trump did. Chad (24:49.553) Mm-hmm. Joel (24:55.507) Mm-hmm. Chad (25:10.173) Yeah, yeah. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (25:11.116) Now, if they didn't care about it, they won't care about it. If DEI can get ripped out of your company that quickly, you never really had it in the first place, in my opinion. Joel (25:19.047) Hmm. I mean, they really just need to rub some dirt on it. Dr. Kregel. I don't know if you've heard that remedy or not. the human side of it once, on one, I want to talk about the COVID COVID hits, the world goes work from home. A lot of companies came to market with a lot of money raised deal, remote oyster, velocity global. You've, probably know most or all of them is the technology failing. Chad (25:19.283) Yes, yes, yes. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (25:23.842) Hahaha! Chad (25:24.484) Ahahahahah Joel (25:48.627) companies to where they can't manage the way that they were promised when all these companies came to market or is there a different disconnect? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (25:56.686) Tell me what you mean is the technology failing them. Joel (25:59.175) The technology promise to enable you to manage pay, on board, do everything that you do around the globe with technology. And we were not supposed to have a lot of these issues because this tech was going to solve all these issues, which leads me to think that maybe the tech is failing. But I was curious what, what your thoughts, can technology solve this problem and everyone can work from home, or is it just sort of a dead, a dead issue? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (26:29.13) It's not for lack of technology. think the issue is the lack of integration in the technology. So you have all of these different tools that don't talk to each other that we're using to try and simplify our life. And what I noticed when COVID happened, I was already working from home, but then a couple other departments started working from home. Suddenly it was like, wait, now I've got text messages blowing up and Slack message blowing up and Teams and Zoom calls and all of these, you know, monday.com and the smart sheet and a thousand different places to get notified and to get information and it just became fragmented. What's happening now with technology is AI is disrupting things way faster than previous technology has. And now you're going to get a thousand, a hundred thousand AI startups and those AI startups are going to be able to do what 200,000 person companies could do, but they're gonna do it with 200 people, right? I mean, the scale, the competitive market is gonna be much harder for every company to cope with because they're gonna be getting these arrows and these bullets coming from places they never saw coming. And that's gonna make us have to figure it out even faster. I mean, right now, what I'm hearing the most of from CEOs, is we have to figure out how to break down these silos or we're going to die. Silo's have always been a problem. But now if we don't break down the silos, it's like, for example, tariffs. Who owns tariffs at your company? You got a tariffs are, you know, no tariffs affects everyone. There's not like one person accountable for the tariff strategy. It's going to finance, manufacturing, your pricing model, public affairs, legal. Everyone is affected and yet no one owns that. And so we have to figure out a way to communicate effectively. you know, Joel (27:51.667) Mm-hmm. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (28:17.506) going into the office, I don't think is the answer. I think it's about a mindset of sharing information, which we're disincentivized to do in a capitalist system because the more information I have compared to my peer, the more valuable I am, the more likely I am to get promoted. So we're in a system that incentivize information hoarding, but the only way to win is to information share. And so no wonder everyone struggles with it. This is an ego thing, but it's also a survival of the fittest thing. Chad (28:43.741) Well, talk about that a little bit because we have the discussion on the podcast a lot. I was in the military for 20 years and you have to be a team because if you're, if you're on the battlefield and you're not working as a team, I mean, there are bullets flying there. There are mortars flying, right? So you have to be a team. Promotion is something entirely different. You work your ass off and you get promoted if the system says you get promoted, right? So at the end of the day though, you are a team. You have to be a team. When I got into corporate America, Dr. Jessica Kriegel (28:51.842) Yeah. Joel (28:57.286) You could die. Chad (29:13.469) They were talking about team, but nobody acts like a team. It is incredibly individualistic. And it seems like, I mean, ever since, you know, we've really put our arms around trickle down economics, that rugged individualism is the way that companies work. And that sounds kind of like the Jamie Dimon, the boomer way of doing things. It seems, how do we get out of, I mean, these are things that you do on a daily basis. This is culture. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (29:16.898) Great. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (29:36.483) Yeah. Chad (29:42.483) How can you move a very, very self-centered individualistic culture into a real team culture? Because we all know the teams that are out there in corporate America is just total bullshit. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (29:42.84) Yeah. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (29:56.962) Yeah, it really is. I think of the structure of a corporation. It's a pyramid structure. There's more money at the top, but less people, more people at the bottom, but less money. And you want to move up that pyramid. And the only way is to beat out the people at your level. So I want you to go down so I can go up. That's the only way for my job security to be safe, for my pay to go up, for my career progression, right? So that's what you're up against. That system isn't going to change. We can't turn corporations upside down. We can't change incentive structures. mean, that is what it is. really, it's a, frankly, it's a spiritual problem, number one, because you have to get people to focus on leaders, to focus on effort instead of outcome necessarily. So you say, this is the belief we need to hold. This is how we want you to operate. Those beliefs will lead you to take action as opposed to that kind of action. And by holding those beliefs, you're going to help us drive success. And we have to just count on that working. And it's counterintuitive to how we are built to act. And it's counterintuitive to the American dream. We are an independent culture. That is what we're about. The less I need you, the better I'm doing. If I don't need you for financial support, if I don't need you for emotional support, if I don't need you for physical support, I'm doing great. We all want to be independently wealthy, right? And we all want to be so fabulously well that I don't need a therapist and I don't need, you I'm good. I'm good. I got it. That's the culture. So we have to flip that. And that really is a spiritual issue. I don't think there's an answer to that necessarily. mean, just pocket the people who are doing this great. You know, one of the things I read the other day is that a lot of CEOs are moving from public companies to private companies because the public markets make this spotlight on results so incredibly bright that it just allows you from doing interesting things that maybe take more time. And so CEOs are saying, forget it. I don't want the spotlight on me. It'll allow me to lead the way that I want to lead. And you know who else might be a savior in this is private equity. Surprisingly, mean, private equity is always given such a bad rap because they come in and they slash and burn and you hear the red lobster story and it's just chaos and horror. But Joel (31:53.053) Mm-hmm. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (32:16.064) Ultimately, when private equity buys a company, that's a five-year investment that they've got. You've got a lot of money that you can invest in a company to turn it around. And so that's a longer horizon, time horizon, to be thinking about than a public company, which is on these quarterly stock price reporting investor calls. Joel (32:34.131) And on that note, I want to talk about the all you can eat shrimp deal now running at red lobster. Just kidding. You're, you're it's this guy. So you're talking support. Chad's talking teams. And I want to talk about, one of the ultimate teams in the corporate world, which are the unions. The unions really had a moment in 2024. The UAW had a big win. Others did. know that you're laughing. bye bye. Okay. So Dr. Jessica Kriegel (32:37.608) hahahahah Chad (32:38.473) If anybody knows about all you can eat, it's that man. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (32:50.018) Mmm. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (32:53.678) Yeah. Bye bye now. It was nice knowing you, unions. Joel (33:00.263) So I was going to ask your opinion on the union's impact on work from home, return to office, any kind of power they have there. You're basically saying they're neutered at this point and have little to no power. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (33:11.704) think the unions are shocked at what Trump is doing and how they are being neutered at this point. And unions are like companies. They're good unions and they're bad unions, right? And some unions are good for business and people, and some unions are bad for everyone. Like the Longshoremen strike showed just what, those are like mafiosos, you know, that are holding the American public hostage with their strike, anti-automation. Like that's crazy. Those are actual criminals, right? And then you've got other unions that are making sure that people are safe. They're getting paid well. They're making leaders who don't listen, listen, which they need to do. Leaders need to listen. And so they're not listening. Unions that make that happen, that's all positive. Do unions have a say? I guess it depends. I don't think that they're going to have a lot of power moving forward. They were gaining power, and that was looking like they were moving towards the general strike that may still happen. I think it's going to have a lot less ump than 2026. Chad (34:03.081) Mm-hmm. Chad (34:07.945) So it sounds like, again, we've got the Jamie Diamonds of the world who are micromanagers. And I mean, literally, one of the reasons why he went into that tirade was one of his managers said, look, I have a distributed team and we worked best during COVID. We actually got more productivity. We got more done. Can the managers, can I? actually have control over how my team works because I know them better and I know how to get more out of them. And that's where he went into that tirade. So are we getting to the point where at the very top, we have the micromanagement that's happening. And again, this is not, not every company, but micromanagement is happening. And we have immigration that's pushing people out. We've got a government who's pushing people out. We've got this huge mismatch from the individuals who are going to be available. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (34:42.604) Yeah. Chad (35:03.931) and the jobs that are going to be available, because you know a lot of those white collar people are not going to be picking tomatoes or working the docks. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel? Is there one? Because right now it all seems like just a total implosion of the talent market. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (35:13.902) Yeah. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (35:25.592) I think anyone who tells you what the future is going to look like is selling something. And so I can't tell you where, where the, what's going to happen. Are we going to implode or not? I mean, it's not looking great right now. In my opinion. I'm not overly optimistic. think something may surprise. There's always something that surprises us, right? COVID surprised us, the Trump administration, Doge is surprising us. I there's going to be some big thing that surprises us. Maybe we're gonna get, you know, we're all gonna get bird flu and no one's gonna wear their masks this time, so we're all gonna die. So maybe that'll be all we have to worry about next year. Chad (35:59.881) That's not a line. A line at the end of the tunnel, Doc. I need a light. Joel (36:09.415) Well, Dr. Jessica Kriegel (36:10.318) Well, I think ESOPs are a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm definitely fascinated and passionate about that. think leaders, AI is not a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm sorry, I saw JD Vance's speech in Paris about, AI will never replace human beings. It was like, dude, it already has. mean, literally that week there was a massive layoff at Workday because they want to invest in AI. I mean, it's just shocking how much BS we're being fed. So I don't know, but right at the end of that tunnel is like, let's all just buy some land in the country and live off the earth. Can we like learn how to do that? Chad (36:50.665) Okay, and I'm going to say the American dream, Doc, is alive and well, but it's in Europe. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (36:56.258) Yeah, I don't know. The American dream is not necessarily dreamy anymore. know, I mean, this independent culture, the free thinking thing, everything's shifting right now. I don't even really know what I'm looking at. I will say, here's one thing that we can all learn from. Jamie Dimon, so 2500 years ago, Socrates was complaining about young people today. Joel (36:59.387) Until the Russians move in. Chad (37:17.449) Hmm? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (37:26.03) And he said, young people today, they value chatter and the place of hard work and they're too focused on luxuries. It's like the complaints haven't even changed in 2,500 years. It is naturally ingrained in us to look down upon the younger generation and say they're not doing it right. We need to graduate from that. So we need to grow up and realize that every generation brings with it Chad (37:43.785) Mm-hmm. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (37:52.33) new dynamics, not because these people are different, but because the world is different. It's changing so quickly. Here's what I'm doing. I'm focusing on upskilling. I'm learning everything that I can about AI. I'm reading voraciously. I'm networking like crazy. There is no job security anymore anywhere, right? It used to be people had to choose between industry and government. And if you go into industry, you maybe have more earning potential, but less job security. In government, you have more job security, less earning potential. Well, Nobody's got job security anymore. The only job security you can get is if you're a top performer. So do whatever you can to be a top performer and that is your job security. That's what I'm doing. Joel (38:29.843) And that's all we have for the Feel Good podcast of the year, everybody. By the way, if you have Socrates on your bingo card, please make sure that you stamp that. Or Socrates for our audience. Doc, settle an argument for us on the show, and we'll let you go. I know your time is precious. If the iPhone were invented today, could it have been? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (38:32.077) Hahaha! Chad (38:32.093) Hahaha! Chad (38:40.425) Nobody listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast was... Dr. Jessica Kriegel (38:41.23) Yeah. Joel (38:57.563) What could it have been created and produced in a work from home environment? Dr. Jessica Kriegel (39:05.74) Hmm. If the iPhone didn't exist until now and someone had the idea at Apple. Yeah. I mean, when I was working from home in 2008, I worked for Oracle, which is one of the biggest tech companies in the world and has had the best year it ever had last year. It has grown at an outrageous pace and beat its competitors and dominated the stock market. every year and they were entirely work from home culture. Larry works from his island in Hawaii and everyone works from home except for a few people at HQ and they are they invented the cloud. mean yes they you can do you can be innovative and creative working from home absolutely if you know how Oracle knows how. Jamie Dimon doesn't know how so maybe Jamie should call Larry. Joel (39:57.021) All right, everyone, come off the ledge and give a round of applause to Dr. Jessica Kriegel. Dr. Kriegel, for our audience that wants to connect with you, learn more, maybe listen to your podcast, which I'm obviously going to go to do right now, where would you send them? Chad (40:03.785) Thanks for coming on, Doc. Dr. Jessica Kriegel (40:16.684) Well, my podcast is called Culture Leaders and I have a newsletter that's on LinkedIn called This Week in Culture. comes out every Wednesday where I give you my thoughts of the week. So if you're feeling a little bit depressed, stay tuned to my newsletter because it will make you more depressed every week. Just kidding, sometimes I say good things. Joel (40:34.097) Which is why I'm thankful for the All You Can Eat Shrimp Special at Red Lobster down the street from my neighborhood. Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Chad (40:36.238) UGH Chad (40:39.803) Hehehehe Dr. Jessica Kriegel (40:41.001) Hahaha! Chad (40:44.701) We out!

Strap in, folks—this week, Chad and Cheese are officially "off the rails on a crazy train!" Ever wondered what happens when Indeed's traffic tanks faster than your crypto investments? Or what happens when Florida tries to fix labor shortages by turning middle-schoolers into overnight dock workers? (Hint: It's exactly as sane as it sounds.) Plus, get ready for some emotional whiplash as they mourn George Foreman—yes, the grill guy—and attempt to wrap their heads around "forced joy" at Starbucks (because nothing screams genuine happiness like a corporate-mandated smile). Oh, and they kick things off with a very Scottish morning routine involving potatoes, kilts, and whisky—trust us, it makes as little sense as it sounds. So tune in for the podcast that brings you questionable job strategies, suspect parenting advice from Florida, and a Snickers coffin—yes, a Snickers coffin. Because if you're gonna go, you might as well be nuts. It's Chad and Cheese, the podcast your HR director warned you about! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:38.35) Yeah, we're going off the rails on a crazy train. What's up kids? This is the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel governor hot wheels Cheesman. Chad (00:49.09) This is Chad "smack dat" Sowash. Joel (00:52.632) On this episode, Indeed dives Florida's gunna Florida and who'd you rather? Let's do this. Chad (01:00.45) Yes. All right, we don't have any girls on the show this week. I don't know who's gonna Joel (01:07.746) No girls. Anyone else we can highlight on the show that we don't do enough of that may be in the shower or eating breakfast in bed? What? Chad (01:17.429) wait a minute. wait a minute. I think we've got we have video right out of the gate Joel (01:23.116) All right. Listeners will know Stephen McGrath. If you're listening, sorry, you got to go to YouTube to catch this. Or if you're following him on, on, on LinkedIn, but this is our friend, Stephen McGrath and a typical morning in the life of our favorite Scott. Chad (01:44.908) brushing his teeth. A potato? I didn't know potatoes. I didn't know potatoes. No, I think it's a potato. Yeah, he's using it on his face. Highland Park. Joel (01:46.766) love the haggis canna haggis. I that was a lemon. That's a potato. Chad (01:58.466) Bert or I'm sorry, Scotch. Joel (01:58.85) All right, all right, Stephen, that had better be iced tea or apple juice, because if you're wasting that, it's a crime. Chad (02:04.322) Probably, probably apple juice, probably apple juice. But what thing that he is doing though is he's putting ice in it, which is one of my favorite things to do. He's ducking his face. Joel (02:14.03) He's putting his face. Chad (02:18.976) It's a cold plunge, a cold. there we are in the background. Imagine that. Joel (02:20.28) Fighting, fighting aging. there's our, there's our favorite show. Little scented candle. yeah, the shower scene. Chad (02:26.658) Imagine. Nothing like in a shower time. Joel (02:31.911) I didn't see underwear in the kilt, the kilt, check and cock. Chad (02:34.483) chicken cock, always. Joel (02:39.566) god. that fucking. Chad (02:41.698) A normal morning from Steve McGrath. Steve McGrath. I love it. Yeah, and for everybody who has been listening, and if you don't know, you'll hear Steven throughout the show because he does a lot of sound effects for us. Joel (02:56.011) One that he doesn't do, but could. Chad (02:57.728) Yeah. Mmm. That one's really good. It's Canadian, but it's good. I like it. Joel (03:04.191) It is good. Yeah. Mike Myers. Yeah. The Canadians are still really, really mad at us. I understand. I understand. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. Let's. Chad (03:10.018) They should be why why are gonna fuck with them everybody loves Canada? you asked fucking Chad (03:21.078) Hit it. Do it. I know. Joel (03:21.422) Do some shout outs. This is just you and me this week. The old timers will enjoy this episode. My shout out goes to, to Matt Lavery. I know some of our listeners will know him. He's been at, he's been at UPS since the Clinton administration. And he's probably going to get 50 like hit ups for sales demos because of the shout out. I apologize ahead of time, Matt, but you know, at our age, Chad, Chad (03:31.584) Love that guy. Chad (03:46.079) yeah. Sorry, sorry Matt. Joel (03:52.514) This business is so much about the people. 20 years ago, would have been like the companies are cool and web 2.0 and like that was the thing. But now like I can only look at so many startups and get excited. So many business trends, but like the people in and out, like they are rock solid. Matt Lavery, we were in Chicago this week. Matt is a South side Catholic Irish, like to the bone Chicago guy. Chad (03:55.339) It is, Joel (04:22.264) Took us out, took us a couple of the hack a job guys out to a pizza place. So apparently pizza in Chicago is not the deep dish stuff. That's more of like a, I don't know, a hook to get people to come to Chicago and try it. But the real pizza is pub pizza, which is a really thin, almost cracker like pizza. Yep. So we go to this place. That's authentic on the South side. we have three large pizzas, old style PBR on tap. So we're enjoying all that. And there's a shot. Chad (04:26.786) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:39.17) Always my favorite, yeah. Chad (04:46.335) Eh? Joel (04:50.978) There's a drink called the handshake in Chicago and this place was legit Chicago. The table next to us clearly was hearing the hack a job English accents and realized we weren't from there and said, I'd like to give you guys a handshake. And I'm thinking, okay, I'll shake your hand. And Matt goes, okay. Here we go. And it's a drink. It's a shot of this thing called Malort liqueur. It's not as it's not surstromming. I'll tell you that it makes surstromming look like a filet and you Chad (05:01.363) huh. Yeah. Chad (05:13.174) which is fucking horrible. Chad (05:18.176) Yes. That's a good call. Yeah. Good call. Yeah. Joel (05:20.694) steak and freets, but, and there's an old style chaser to it. So we did the handshake, did the whole Chicago thing, had a great time, had some great Italian beef, owls, which, which Matt recommends. anyway, Matt is one those people. Like I love to see every time that we're on the road. love to talk to, nine out of 10 times. He's the smartest guy in any room that you're in. and he's just a nice guy, just a salt of the earth Midwestern dude. Chad (05:25.186) That helps. Chad (05:34.188) Mm-hmm. Chad (05:42.821) god, Joel (05:48.662) So Matt Lavery, a shout out to you, my friend. I look forward to seeing you again, hopefully soon. Minus the handshake. I don't need any more. Chad (05:54.166) The people. minus the handshake. Bring it down a little bit, but, also up with good memories and RIP to George Foreman, the boxer, two careers in boxing. He had his early career, then he retired and he came back in his forties. go ahead and play that beautiful beam footage real quick. Joel (06:02.178) Mm-hmm. Joel (06:11.318) Yep. Yep. Yep, some George highlights. Chad (06:22.892) Damn. That's those younger years. Not gonna fuck out of guys. Damn. Joel (06:31.118) 40 George. Chad (06:32.834) in his 40s. Look at him. Jerry Clooney. He came out of retirement for that shit. Joel (06:36.974) Cloney, yeah. Chad (06:40.162) mouth guard. Joel (06:40.29) Ha, mouthpiece. Joel (06:44.792) hahahaha Chad (06:46.528) Just done, dude. So RIP George Foreman. my favorite, my favorite, favorite fight was, it's November 25th, 1994 in the MGM grand in Vegas when he was 45 year old years old, George Foreman knocked out Michael Moore, guy who's like 20 years younger than him at two minutes and three seconds in round number 10. I mean, if you ever watch boxing, Going 10 rounds, especially being 45 years old. He did that knocked out Michael Moore 10th round to win the heavyweight belt. It was amazing. I remember again, 1994, we were still, still very young, in watching boxing my entire life. The sweet science. My dad was a huge boxing fan and watching Foreman come back. That to me was just amazing. I love those memories. How about you? Joel (07:30.99) Mm-hmm. Joel (07:36.654) Yeah. Joel (07:44.226) Yeah. So I, so I from the boxing, don't forget one of the greatest pitchman of our lifetime. the George Foreman grill. I mean, when he came up, he was a salty, mean son of a bitch. And in a world where like sugar Ray Leonard and Ali were really, you know, flashy taking camera time. George was just this bad-ass MF, that would fuck you up. Chad (07:48.278) grill. That smile, the smile. Yeah. Chad (07:58.346) yes he was. Chad (08:12.758) He would walk through motherfuckers. Yeah. Joel (08:13.166) And, and, and, and when the George came out, it's like, he's everybody's uncle. Now he's like, Mr. Mr. Personality. And, uh, that thing was a huge success, even more so than his boxing career. I mean, I don't as a single guy in my twenties, like. Thanks to the George, I had a decent meal, a healthy meal from time and time again, between the, between the burritos and the tacos and the burgers, man. So I mean, Chad (08:19.404) grill. Yeah. Joel (08:40.492) George the boxer. Yes. But George, second act, a boxer slash entertainer slash pitchman, was, was just as, just as interesting, to me. did not, however, pitch chicken cock, which, which I'm sure our friends at chicken cock would love to have him as a spokesperson, but, you, can have your own bottle, Chad. What, what's, what's going on with free stuff from us? Chad (08:53.782) He did not. He did not. Chad (08:59.043) Anybody Chad (09:03.618) Well, you know, Joel, that's a very good question. Kids, remember, there's always free stuff from the Chad and Cheese, chadcheese.com slash free. Just register. We could, I don't know, maybe send you a Chad and Cheese t-shirt from Aaron App, big Aaron App sloth on the back. Bourbon barrel aged syrup from our kids over at Kiora, the kids up north. They're also sponsors of shout outs. Craft beer. Chad (09:33.548) Craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. you need, if you're into data, especially jobs data, go see those guys, Aspen Tech Labs. Whiskey from Van Hack, another Canadian company. And another Canadian company, if it's your birthday, you're going to want to get rum with plum, but you can't do any of those. You can't get any of those for free unless you go to chadcheese.com slash free and register to win. You you can. Joel (10:04.654) Canada loves us. Like if you just, I just can't believe it. They love us. All right. Uh, celebrating another, another trip around the sun, uh, this week goes to Megan Sharp, Dan Cheeseman, no relation. Uh, are one of our favorite Swedes, Elan Mart Martin, Martin's on, uh, James Holliman, Paul Beriga, uh, Thomas O'Hara, Simon Evans, Robert Murrah, Todd Hanford, Derek Christiansen, Nate Menard, Doug Reese, Judd Whistler, John Ride. Chad (10:09.23) You Good. Joel (10:33.678) Rob Locker, Jeremiah Anderson, Lori Golden, and Jessica Rush. And last but not least, my sister Holly celebrates a birthday this week, this week. By the way, Chad, it almost made the show, it was in the shred. Grayscale, Tech's recruiting, just got some more money. And just quick shout out to our friends at Keora, have not taken any money, have bootstrapped the whole thing. Chad (10:39.543) Ooh. nice! Happy birthday! Yes. Yeah. Ty Abernathy. yeah. Joel (11:00.654) If you're looking for an alternative, maybe acquisition or whatever, check out our friends at Kiora. I'm an advisor, by the way, full disclosure, but yeah, I was, I was happy to see more money go into the tech recruiting space. Like that's, it's going to be going to be good for them. Chad (11:12.258) Oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Well, real quick, I want to talk a little bit about, oh, know, Shaker recruitment marketing, who, you know, they are our travel sponsor. We did just this week have 35 high level recruiting leaders in a room sharing ideas, focusing on talent problems and solutions. And the Chad and Cheese closed out the show. That's right. With the Big Bang with... Joel (11:21.462) the road again. Joel (11:38.734) you Chad (11:39.71) Super fan Jane Curran, who's global head of HR operations at JLL, Matt Lavery, our friend Matt Lavery, global director of sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding all at the RL100 in Chicago at the the Pendry. So Jamie, Bobby, and the team, they pulled together a great session, great sessions, events, and there were no recordings. So you got to remember kids, if you're a practitioner in our space, Joel (11:44.664) money. Joel (11:54.638) Chicago. Chad (12:07.136) and you want to get into these closed door sessions, go to RL100. They're in Boston today. They're going to be in New York in a couple of days, but they're going to come back and there's going to be more of these. So check out RL100. These guys do a great job. Joel (12:13.102) Mm-hmm. Joel (12:21.174) Yeah, no doubt. favorite part of talking to, Jane and Matt was, Jane's they're both super fans of the show. Shout out to them while they're listening, both of them. she's like, I really missed the soundboard. I wish that we could have the sounds while we're on stage talking. and I said, yeah, I need, I need like a Jim Kramer style, big red buttons pushing. I don't want to, I don't want to carry that shit around, traveling, but it'd be nice. Chad (12:27.99) Yeah. Love them. Hahaha Chad (12:41.09) Yeah. Chad (12:45.338) You Joel (12:46.848) If we had a something like that, maybe someday somebody sponsor that and ship it around the country and we'll, we'll do it. Chad (12:47.66) That's what coal's for. That's what coal's for. You Joel (12:58.03) All right, Chad, honey, I shrunk the job board. of March of this year, Indeed's traffic has been declining based on recent data from our friends at Statista. In February of 24, unique global visitors were 641 million. Wow. But by February of this year, total visits fell to 372.9 million. You did the math on this and it's a 41 % drop. Chad (13:13.89) Hmm. Chad (13:26.657) One of our listeners did that. Joel (13:28.066) Yeah, or listeners. Never fear though, because Indeed is apparently blasting its user base with offers from online courses by Udacity. Chad, this is the kind of shrinkage that would make George Costanza blush. Your thoughts? Chad (13:43.17) Yes. Okay, well, I'm to break this down into two things. First, we're going to talk traffic and then we're going to talk focus. So first traffic because it's the cornerstone of indeed's power. Let's just go ahead and put that out there. Indeed is so fucking strong because of the traffic that they get. So when you see these similar web numbers and the geographic breakdown, you've got to ask yourself why indeed's top 20 most traffic countries are all down. We're talking 12.5 % down in the U.S., which is big because it's indeed the largest market. And according to similar web is 41%. They have 41 % penetration in the U S although we're seeing double digit drop and over half of those 20 traffic countries. it's, it's big stuff, right? So did the U S traffic drop have anything to do with them closing off search? Joel (14:30.872) Mm-hmm. Chad (14:37.696) Right? Remember kids, because they put search behind the wall and now you get a register before you can actually do any type of job search whatsoever. Not, not sure. What do you, what do you think about the traffic side? Joel (14:52.632) So there are a reasons that I see. I will withhold my four horsemen commentary this week in light of three, three reasons that I sort of have outlined for indeed traffic drop. Number one, it's pretty easy. There are fewer jobs, not only economically, but what the most, most glaring number that we heard in Chicago, it is, it is Chatham house rules. So no names will be mentioned, but let's just say a big employer. Chad (14:58.402) You Chad (15:05.799) huh. Joel (15:22.35) uh, told the crowd that they had decreased their indeed spend by 44%. They're obviously not the only big employer that's making some of those decisions. And if you have fewer jobs, there's going to be a few, there's less traffic. Um, that's pretty obvious. Number two, think that solutions like LinkedIn, Google search and social media just offer things that indeed doesn't. Uh, Chad (15:48.642) They're sticky. Joel (15:49.538) Yeah. LinkedIn, it's a network. It's games. It's it's, it's video. It's like, it's, it's, it's a professional social media site. And then you have search and they may not want to admit it, but Google for jobs and people go into Google and seeing jobs directly in Google and then clicking on LinkedIn. If, if they already have a profile, that's kind of probably where a lot of people are going. So, and then in tech talk, our friend, JT, who I think will be on, this week or next week or the one afters. Chad (16:09.41) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:14.729) Next week, Joel (16:16.962) I mean, she loves Tik Tok as a job search site, and apparently replacing the resume and just being a part of how people are looking for jobs and opportunities and learning more about companies. So indeed has a decision like, okay, of those three, which can we be more like at it's LinkedIn? So we see indeed super focused on how do get more profiles? How do we get more data? How, how do we get more of a LinkedIn type presence? I say good luck to them. and then number three, I think from a macro. Chad (16:41.25) Mm-hmm. Joel (16:46.434) perspective, remember the great resignation. That's over. mean, you had tens of millions of people change jobs saying I'm leaving, I'm out of here. You had the world, you know, sort of re realign itself. That's over. The employers have the power. People are staying put in their jobs. They're concerned about, well, I have a job. What's, what's the economic and the political environment. So people aren't moving. They're sort of in pause. And if when they're in pause, they're not looking for jobs. So those three things. Chad (16:50.786) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. Chad (17:12.961) The Great Stay. Joel (17:14.604) Those three things, mean, less jobs, less movement and more competition. think it's been a really, really bad thing for Indeed. we're seeing in the traffic numbers. Chad (17:23.19) Yeah, and also in Chatham House Rules, we talked about how chat GPT and lot of the LLMs could start because we're looking at Gen Z actually using these large language models instead of going to Google, right? And now it's funny because last night Google actually pushed out that their newest Gemini rendition is like kicking the shit out of everybody else. And I mean, this is going to be a race back and forth all over the place. So... Joel (17:44.334) Mm-hmm. Chad (17:51.778) What can Indeed do to fight back on that? I don't know. Because if, if these large language models actually start looking at real time data just for segments, like jobs, right, just segments, you don't have to look at the whole fucking internet for that shit, kids, just segments, they could be powerful and they could crumble Indeed in a heartbeat. Now, let's talk about the focus piece real quick. Indeed is trying their best to attack the market segments like healthcare and technology. They've even started a course Joel (18:06.382) Mm-hmm. Chad (18:20.908) discount program with Udemy. Now as someone in tech, would you think that they would be sharpening their skills on Indeed? Yeah, I doubt it. They're going to be on Hackerank, Hackerjob, Tescarilla, GitHub. mean, they're just all the... They're not going to be on Indeed. Indeed's focus is... I don't know where it's at, dude, because they've got performance-based jobs, ATS, interview platform, forced registration for job seekers now, trying to target tech candidates. Joel (18:35.33) Mm-hmm, linked in. Chad (18:50.7) trying to offer courses through Udemy to tech candidates, targeting healthcare professionals, trying to become a staffing company, and the list goes on. I mean, these guys are throwing every bit of spaghetti at the wall, and it just doesn't seem like there's any focus. Now, I understand Recruit is probably lighting a fire under Indeed's ass to find new revenue streams, but this is fucking ridiculous. And one of the companies spread themselves too thin. Joel (18:52.962) Mm-hmm. Chad (19:19.574) They didn't guard their flanks and a smaller player took them out. Well, those companies are monster and career builder. We've seen this before. It's almost like Chris Himes forgot the history of this fucking industry or he's literally just lost control. I don't know. I don't know. So dude, I have no clue, but this is incredibly erratic behavior from indeed. Joel (19:42.446) or he doesn't listen to our show because we always have. Chad (19:50.102) Right. Joel (19:51.224) You've given years. I'll give mine. there was a time when simply hired and indeed we're sort of one and two or one a and one B of where sort of the future of search would go indeed was incredibly focused. Here's what we were Google for jobs. We're not trying to be NASCAR or anything else. And simply hired had a program where they would, they would blast your resume. I forget this. was like resume zapper maybe. So they partnered with a resume. Chad (19:55.575) Mm-hmm. Chad (19:59.318) Yeah. Yep. Chad (20:06.56) Yeah. Yes. Yes. Joel (20:19.756) like distributor for a fee, you could get your resume everywhere. And they sort of took their off the ball, started offering these partnership services. And it was kind of confusing is what the hell did these guys do? What's their business model? And you see indeed now going down the same path of not being focused. How do we get revenue? How do we, you know, how do we get blood out of a turnip? Chad (20:40.866) huh. Joel (20:44.322) you know, because we need to make more on the bottom line and we're not making it on jobs and clicks and whatever it's like, let's, let's ship out learning. Let's do some resume writing stuff. And that's what we're seeing from indeed. It's historically not a good idea to get unfocused from what you do for a living. Chad (20:57.356) Yeah. So it was interesting because when Indeed first started and Simply Hired first started, we partnered with them at Direct Employers to give them jobs from corporate career sites because we had the feeds and they wanted those feeds. It was just work that they didn't have to do. It was good. It was actually a great partnership. Totally fucked us. Not Simply Hired, but Indeed. But when you went to Indeed, they had an incredibly small staff and they were focused on one thing. That was job search and that was being able to monetize job search. That was it. That was it. Joel (21:15.757) Mm-hmm. Chad (21:28.192) Then you went to Silicon Valley across the street from Google was simply hired and Gotham and their team had like 50 fucking people right out of the gate and they were doing all of these things. They had these labs and they had this and they had that. And I'm like, you could not just to your point, you could not plan to have two incredibly different cultures, incredibly focused indeed, not so focused simply hired. And it seems like Joel (21:37.208) Yeah. Joel (21:52.366) Mm-hmm. Chad (21:56.916) as you are pointing at indeed is turning into simply art. Joel (22:01.292) Yeah, I'm really intrigued by the whole, generative AI business and how that, how job search plays into it. And I got to think if the New York times can do a deal with open AI to be like a new source for their, for their searches and whatnot. I mean, if indeed isn't on the phone to some of these services perplexity and open AI and grok and whatever, to get some, like be a, be a funnel for job. search or listing somehow. They should be, shouldn't they? Chad (22:34.206) No, because these LLMs are actually going out to all of the actual source of truth. Indeed is not the source of truth for corporate for corporate jobs, right? So they can work directly with the companies and give them direct traffic, not going through a registration bullshit site, going through all these hoops like indeed. it's so funny because indeed it's like we're all about the job seeker. We're all about job seeker experience. Really? You're to make me fucking register before I can even do a job search. So I think there's no way in hell that a company Joel (22:35.319) No? Joel (22:41.005) Yeah. Joel (22:51.287) Yeah. Chad (23:04.148) like OpenAI or Google or anything, are going to actually partner incredibly closely with Indeed. And I think Google, they see the error of their ways in actually providing the weighting to Indeed with SEO early. Obviously, they took it away to some extent, but they still have some pretty powerful SEO. Joel (23:25.314) Yeah, I think it would benefit the solutions to have like real time data on jobs and not send people to dead jobs maybe. And I don't know if they're doing that now or not, but there might be an opportunity. Who knows, but more or less indeed, man. Come on. Come on. Come on. All right. Let's, let's play a little, who would you rather Chad, one of my favorite games that we play in light of, Chad (23:41.871) all over the place. Chad (23:47.735) Yes. Joel (23:51.864) George Foreman, here we go. We've got Jolly versus Lumber. Are you ready? Here we go. Jolly, a New York City based workforce optimization platform raised 16.5 million in a Series A funding round led by former Tesla CFO, Zach Kirkhorn, who will also join its board. Jolly lets employees earn customizable points for value adding actions like taking extra shifts, redeemable for gift cards or high value items. The platform claims over 100- Chad (23:53.558) You Joel (24:21.774) frontline employees, employers, sorry, with 30,000 essential workers across the United States. That is jolly. And in this corner, have lumber. They've raised $15.5 million, just about the same amount in the series A round building on a $5.5 million seed round. The San Jose headquartered startup claims over 100 U S clients providing time tracking, payroll, and other HR. Chad (24:37.494) Mm-hmm. Joel (24:49.496) features. Lumber plans to triple its current team of 40, but no timeline was reported. Jolly and Lumber together sounds like a pretty fun weekend, but you can only choose one for who'd you rather, who you got. Chad (25:06.988) So Jolly, okay, so you know, I'm a stickler for leadership and the CEO has no experience in our space. Looking at their solutions, they all feel like nice to have solutions instead of must have solutions. And when you check out their About Us page, they have some very high powered men. And I emphasize men because they have 12 or 11 men, 11 people or 12 people, my bad, and one single woman. So was like, what the hell? Lumber. In the case of Lumber, it's focusing on a niche being construction, which needs better workforce automation, no question. Hiring platforms, including scheduling, time tracking, job costing, payroll. mean, the actual solutions it seems like they're putting together actually makes sense for the construction industry. These are all tier one needs of the construction industry. And I like the CEO's focus, FinTech background. And everybody knows blue collar operations need to catch up to 2025. One thing I didn't like about either one of them. They've number one, Jolly has jobs listed on their site. You click on it and it opens your email client up. Like it's 1999. And then lumber says, Oh, would you like to work? Would you like to work for us? Joel (26:11.918) Yeah? Chad (26:27.904) Here, send an email to this email address. It's like, guys, you're in this fucking space. You gotta get at least those basics right, but at the end of the day, it's 2 a.m. in the bar. They're both dressed like 1980s Valley girls, but I feel lucky to see Lumber still available. I'm going to go with Lumber. Joel (26:30.615) God. Joel (26:36.835) Yeah. Joel (26:41.23) Ooh, hello. lumber. Joel (26:49.45) All right. This one was interesting. I do like both of them. They're targeting groups that I think are in high demand, high growth. You I love me a good wave for that surf and that I do on a regular basis. Historically, companies have struggled to align the motivation of frontline employees with sort of the interest of the business and financial expectations. The deskless worker, their satisfaction on the job is at an all time low. So anything, any company that comes along and says we can help people be happier is a good thing. with a name like Jolly, it's gotta be fun, right? And by the way, props to them for owning Jolly.com. Geez, if this were a firing squad, they'd be awesome. So I think there's a need, and we have a story later about force joy. like these, hopefully services will help do that. I think lump, the lumber is great. lumber fi.com is not as good of a domain in my book. There are quite a few competitors. This was kind of the thing for me that I didn't realize I did some searches. So in lumber, you have a company called rivet, work yard, our Coro Bridget. you have quite a few comp competitors in a pretty niche space. from what I can tell, Um, it's not like there are two companies that doing all the construction on in the U S yeah. So it sounds like a big way, but if you go to go to what Jolly's doing, sort of the frontline worker management system, mean, obviously Chad and she sponsors fountain Harry all do that, but you, and you have beekeeper. But after that, there's not a whole lot of options around this space and frontline, uh, satisfaction. So for me, I think there's a bigger Tam. Chad (28:20.012) Sounds like a wave. Joel (28:46.254) for all frontline workers as opposed to just people doing construction. There's not a lot of competition. We've seen results like with Fountain, with UPS, really making a difference in their business. So I think this is going to carry over with Jolly. So for me, Jolly gets my vote for who I would rather. That's right. Splitting it down the line, baby. Okay, let's take a quick break. Come back and we'll talk about Florida. Chad (29:05.666) Splitting it, splitting it. Joel (29:19.054) Florida is gonna Florida Chad. Have you done the search of your birthday and then Florida man to see what new stories come? Okay. That was a fun game. It's a yeah. Search your search, search your birthday and then Florida man and see what comes up. Don't put the date of your birthday because just the date that actually. Okay. So Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, your boy, legislature. Chad (29:20.94) Jesus. Chad (29:25.8) No. No, no, no. Chad (29:36.641) Yeah. Chad (29:41.334) Mm-hmm. Joel (29:44.332) are advancing a bill to loosen child labor laws, allowing 14 year olds to work overnight shifts on school days. What to offset labor shortages from you guessed it, immigration crackdowns. The bill, which passed a committee five to four awaits full Senate approval elections have consequences people. Chad, your thoughts. Chad (30:06.506) Yeah. So wait a minute. thought the immigrants were taking our jobs. I mean, you mean DeSantis and all those other fear mongering Republican ass clowns were actually lying to us? Is that what I'm hearing? So I guess if immigrants are kicked out, who will do the work? Not the white collar government employees that this administration is cutting by the thousands. The answer is kids. Kids. Florida is trying to rectify a stupid immigration policy coupled with ice shock troops by having kids pick tomatoes in the fields, work the docks, and who knows what the fuck else, right? So why were federal child labor law provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act enacted in 1938? Why, you might ask? Well, number one, kids were dying. Not a good thing. Number two, we need an educated population. United States of America is ranked the 29th smartest country in the world. 29th smartest country in the world. US isn't even ranked in the top 10 of reading, writing, and math and science, right? So, but, but hell no. Florida wants a whole state full of Florida men. I mean, this, this to me is just fucking ridiculous. And you're right. We, they knew this shit was going to happen. They knew that these individuals, these immigrants, because this actually happened during COVID. when we had when we had supply chain shocks, right? But yet they still did it. And they want to put 14 year old kids not just not not Ron DeSantis kid, 14 year old kids, poor kids to fucking work. I mean, this is a fucking this is a class system, dude. Joel (31:33.688) Mm-hmm. Joel (31:43.694) Mm-hmm. Joel (31:55.256) So there's some line of thinking around this of, you okay with a 14 year old making your Big Mac? And for a lot of people, that's fine. The problem is you can't have 14 year old Big Mac workers because there are no immigrants, but then have the farm not being farmed or agriculture and frankly dangerous jobs being done because immigrants aren't doing them. So you might be okay with a 14 year old making your Big Mac. Are you okay with them, uh, chopping lettuce or whatever, right? With sharp knives and things like that. Most people would say no 14 year old slaughterhouse would be fucked up. Uh, that's like, yeah, that's a world no one wants to live in. Uh, for sure. I mean, you talk about, yeah, you talk about. Chad (32:34.69) slaughterhouses. Chad (32:43.294) I am a dock workers, slaughterhouses. mean, where do you think the immigrants did the work? I mean, they did the hard fucking work, man, and it was on these hard, really shitty jobs. So why do you think they're doing this? And I it just blows my fucking brain, dude. Joel (32:52.151) for sure. Joel (32:58.048) Why do I think, why do I think the Republicans are doing it? Because it gets people elected when you scare people and thinking that all the immigrants are going to rape your daughter and kill your like it's fear mongering at its best. And I mean, there probably was a little bit of looseness in the, in the border that was, taken advantage of, but it wins elections, scaring people wins elections. So now we're dealing with the consequences. Chad (33:01.569) Yeah! Chad (33:12.918) Yeah, it is. Joel (33:25.966) We don't have enough immigrants are scared to get a job. getting the hell out of the country. Uh, so now we're in a situation where, well, shit, we don't have enough people to do the job. Okay. What do we do? Well, 14 year olds. That sounds like a good idea. And, and the part about like the part about like letting them work overnight on school nights and stuff like that, that's ridiculous. Like that is not a recipe for a successful country. I mean, I'm a firm believer that in. Chad (33:47.927) Yes. Joel (33:55.63) the next election, like we're going to be begging for immigrants to come to America. We're going to taste higher prices. We're going to taste less options. We're going to have lower growth. And those immigrants are going to start looking pretty good. And I didn't even throw in the story about a 14 year old whose hand got cut off or who maybe died, right? Those are going to start coming. Chad (34:16.694) Yeah? Yeah? Joel (34:20.154) and in addition to just like closing the border and deporting everybody, like the Trump administration this week, decided to rescind the legal status of over half a million immigrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti. So the U S already is facing a labor crunch and the problem will only be exacerbated as we shift away from manufacturing in China. yeah. We're going to make more stuff in America with your immigrants. Tell me what, how that makes sense. It just doesn't. So at some point. Chad (34:39.926) Yeah. Yeah. With who? With who? Yeah. Joel (34:48.78) We're going to be begging for immigrants to come back. We're going to say, sorry, we didn't mean it. Trump is gone. Come back. We need you to make our shit and serve our shit and whatever. So Mark, my words, if the dim, the Democrats should be like setting this up as a, as a major part of their platform going into the next election, because I think people are going to be like, Whoa, wait a minute. We, we wanted certain immigrants to leave, but not all of them. This is really bad for us. So, yeah, Florida. Whatever what's happening in Florida is going to happen everywhere. I've hearing stories about like Wyoming, Nebraska, like these are people that count on immigrants to do the work. There's no one to do the work. So more than just higher prices, you may not have shit. They're just not there. Shit ain't going to go to market because there's nobody to fucking do the fields and do the hard work. Chad (35:24.108) Yeah. Chad (35:28.898) Yeah, Iowa, yeah, no. Chad (35:37.258) And you think inflation was bad before kids. Fuck. And again, it's the basic math and we've been talking about this on the show for months now. The workforce imbalance, we're gonna have the biggest workforce imbalance we've ever had in American history period. Fucking period. We are letting all these white collar individuals go, right? You see all the tech people, you see all the government people, see all, they're going out. Joel (36:00.728) Yep. Government. Chad (36:05.546) And then we're pushing all the lower wage and skilled jobs that the immigrants are doing, we're pushing them out. Those white collar workers are not gonna do those fucking jobs. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna put kids to work. Exactly, none of this fucking computes. None of it. Ask ChatGPT, I bet it says it's fucking stupid. Joel (36:18.594) while saying we're gonna make everything in America. Joel (36:23.842) Yeah. Yeah. Joel (36:28.686) It only computes if Tesla can crank out robots to take all these jobs and make Elon richer than he already is. It's pretty crazy, my friend. Joel (36:44.206) Well, no wonder we need forced joy, Chad. Forced joy is a thing, apparently. Yeah. Yeah, you will be happy. Companies like Starbucks and Tiffany, where I get all my jewelry, by the way, are requiring employees to project positivity and passion due to low employee engagement. This trend, driven by a disengaged workforce and a stalled labor market, is a form of, quote, emotional labor, end quote, that has become increasingly prevalent Chad (36:46.754) You will be happy. You will be happy. Joel (37:14.496) as hard skills are automated. Chad, what are your thoughts and be joyful about it. Chad (37:20.78) I'll try. I'll try. So remember office space and Jennifer Anderson when they kept telling her she didn't have enough pieces of flair and how that just pissed her off. Remember? Yes. Okay. Okay. Well hit it. Joel (37:30.254) wait, I'm gonna give some visual to that. Here we go. Chad (37:58.105) wow. Joel (38:03.758) Jennifer Aniston's so hot. Can I just say that? Chad (38:32.258) Okay, okay, okay. Chad (38:41.25) So, okay kids, let's break this down. Let's break this down. The average wage for a barista in New York City is $17.74 an hour, while the living wage is $2,804. Baristas are getting paid... Joel (38:41.87) 99 classic, the 1999 classic, Chad (38:58.53) $10 less per hour under the living wage, right? So how the fuck are they supposed to be happy? Especially when Brian Nicol has been at Starbucks for around a year and he's already pocketed $100 million in bonus compensation. So we act like we don't understand why Gallup's poll shows employees are disengaged. Well, fuck man, without those baristas, Starbucks can't generate revenue. While Nicol's dumb ass is saying, Joel (39:02.552) Mm-hmm. Joel (39:19.0) Mm-hmm. Chad (39:26.75) I'm paying you incredibly low wage. Just be happy that you have a job and smile. Right? So we wonder what will bring out the pitchforks. It's shit like this. People aren't getting paid enough and then we're telling them to put on more fucking flair. People are working 40 hours a week, not being able to make ends meet and they're told to smile. It's fucking ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Joel (39:46.102) Mm-hmm. Chad (39:55.05) Living Wage. Joel (39:55.352) You know, the old man screaming at the clouds in me wants to like, this was a thing when I worked these jobs, like smile, be nice to the customer, be engaged, ask how their day is. Like it was just sort of training. And if you didn't do it, you were in trouble. I was so young and vibrant at the time and a great smile. Chad (40:00.162) Hahaha Chad (40:16.62) You were a kid at that time. Chad (40:21.431) Yeah, yeah. Joel (40:25.388) It's sort of odd to me to think as a 53 year old man, like we have to tell people to be, to be, to be happy at work, to smile at customers. But apparently we are. And probably part of that is like, people have options. I can go deliver door dash. I can do only fans. Like, you know, I'm doing this because I want to be like, do I have to be happy about it? Can I just serve the latte and sort of get on with my day? The fact that that Starbucks now has to write stuff on the cup that sort of custom to the person or, know, Carpe Diem, Tony, or what like that's a little bit over the top. But an employer has a right to tell you to do it. If you don't want to do it, go do something else. I wonder to your point of living wage. I feel like there's a sort. I feel like customers are mad at everything they do now says, do you want a tip? Chad (41:22.124) Yeah, because these people aren't getting paid. Joel (41:22.946) And it's not, I want to tip because they were nice to me. They did the extra thing. Like consumers are mad because they're just required to tip where the whole tip, the whole tip system should be, I'm to be nice to you and write Carpe Diem on your cup because you might put a little fiber in the, in the tip jar after I do it. consumers are mad about tipping. No one's tipping or they feel bad about it. now employees are mad because, everyone's asked to tip 20 % automatically. If you don't do it like no one's doing like fuck them. So I'm not going to be nice and put carpeting them on the, on the thing. Let's just go to Europe, pay a living wage, tap and go. Customers are happy because I don't have to wait around. I don't feel pressured to leave a tip. Boom, done. You know, here's like our system is fucked up and everyone's mad about it. And this is the disengagement is part of that. So I let's embrace Europe and tap and go. Chad (41:54.124) Yeah, right. Chad (42:04.171) Yes. I know. Chad (42:11.414) Yes. Yeah. It is. Well, you've got the grown ass adult who's Ethel, right? And she's in her 40s, let's say, and she's just not doing OnlyFans or DoorDash. Maybe she doesn't have a car, right? So the options are very limited for a lot of these people. To be able to think that there are options out there. I live in Columbus, Indiana, right? It's a vibrant little town, but there aren't a shit ton of options, especially for people who have low skills, right? Joel (42:24.161) Ethel, okay, yeah. Joel (42:36.664) Uh-huh. Joel (42:40.238) Sure. Chad (42:45.898) If you're not paying a living wage and you're working at Starbucks, I just can't be happy about that, right? I have to do the job because I have to get some kind of money and then maybe go have a side hustle somewhere else. it's just back when you and I were kids and we were flipping burgers, right? That's just not the way it is today. And you're right with the tip system. I love Europe, man. I go, I tap, they look at me, they smile and they walk the fuck off. They don't ask me for a tip. Joel (42:53.357) Yeah. Joel (43:13.464) Yeah, you're making money, I'm getting my shit and getting out of here. Chad (43:13.794) They don't ask me for any of that shit. And I can stay for three hours. I can stay for three hours instead of them trying to push me out because they need to turn the table to get more tips, right? We are in a system that needs overhauled completely. And this administration is taking this deeper down, just a hole that's already bad. Joel (43:35.95) Mm-hmm. Well, I hope for Ethel's sake, if she's on OnlyFans, that she's not Ethel on OnlyFans because nobody is subscribing to a chick named Ethel who's 40. Like, she better spice that shit up if she's gonna be on OnlyFans, Ethel. Let's take a quick break. Guys, if you like the show, leave us a review. Go to wherever you listen or YouTube, like, give us, give us, we gotta outpace ZipRecruiter. Chad (43:43.745) OOF Chad (43:58.065) yeah. Subscribe. Joel (44:03.477) and their shitty podcast. So go out and help us keep ahead of zip recruiter, leave a review. And when we come back, we'll talk about death. Chad (44:03.702) Ha! Chad (44:16.084) That was ominous. Okay, good. Joel (44:17.41) That was ominous. Sorry about that. We're going to lighten it up at the end here, folks. Don't worry about it. so Paul Broome, a British care assistant known for his humor. That's humor spelled O U R, made an unusual request in his will to be buried in a Snickers, the candy bar Snickers Snickers themed coffin after his death, his loved ones discovered he was serious and honored his wish, creating a coffin resembling a half unwrapped Snickers bar with quote, I'm nuts and quote written on it. is nuts reflecting on his playful personality. The coffin brought light to his funeral, earning praise from attendees as a fitting tribute. His funeral arranger, Ali Lego noted it celebrated his unique character and helped his family cope with loss through humor. Chad, your take on this chocolatey goodness of a story and what would your themed coffin look like? Chad (44:54.626) Hmm Chad (45:14.188) So it's funny because this is not an American story, but we can productize and monetize the shit out of everything, right? And this just goes to the example that the UK is turning into a little America. I mean, they're selling shit all over the place. I think that is crazy. Did it say how much the casket was? Because it was custom. Okay. I guarantee it was not cheap. You're on your way out. Yeah, you're on your way out. Joel (45:22.414) Mm-hmm. Joel (45:35.298) there were no pricing in the store. But it's priceless, come on. Chad (45:42.698) So for me, and same question to you, but for me, I'm getting cremated. I just want my ashes on the beach on the southern coast of Portugal and have a nice day, right? Now, what does the urn look like? That's a good question. I never thought about that. I never thought about that. Joel (46:02.062) I was thinking cremation too, but this story has me thinking again. And if I were to have a custom casket, Chad. Joel (46:17.134) maybe I could be cremated and put in a bowl, like put my ashes in a burrito bowl and then like top it, top it off and then like just put me, yeah, put me out. in researching this story, I was like, come on, are there custom coffins? You bet your ass there are custom coffins. if you, there's a site called we wrap caskets, whatever the hell you want, man. Spider-Man. Chad (46:20.354) yeah. Chipotle brown sack. Yeah. Chad (46:33.025) yeah, yes sir. Joel (46:42.222) movie themes, whatever. if you're a hunter, you can have a camo casket. If you like chicks, there's one with tits and ass all over it. Like anything you want. they got it. So yeah. and no word if they had to get Snickers to sort of underwrite it. we should get with our friends at chicken cock to see if they'll do a casket maybe for, for a lucky, lucky listener. Chad (46:59.062) doubtful. Chad (47:03.842) I'd rather not talk about that. Joel (47:08.27) rather than to talk about about death. But how about a dad joke to even lighten things up a little more. This was told to me no joke by the desk, the front desk person in Chicago when I checked in. He had said something about my credit card and I made a joke about like you sound like my wife and he felt like comfortable enough to tell me a dirty dad joke. So here we go. What's the difference between a bonus and a boner? Chad (47:12.153) Okay. Chad (47:22.146) Pantry? Okay. Joel (47:36.716) the difference between a bonus and a boner. Chad (47:40.258) Your wife only wants the former. Joel (47:44.184) Close, your wife will happily blow your bonus. Thanks Chicago, we love ya, our kind of town. We out! Chad (47:50.89) That is misogynist. We out!

This week, Chad, Joel, and Emi dive into a juicy HR tech scandal—Rippling’s suing Deel over an alleged espionage plot, complete with a spy, Slack secrets, and a smashed phone. Meanwhile, ZipRecruiter lands a Fast Company nod but flops with job seekers as confidence plunges. Klarna’s IPO filing flexes big numbers, but its AI-driven layoffs raise eyebrows. And at Nvidia’s GTC, AI takes center stage—from GM’s self-driving push to Yum Brands’ futuristic drive-thrus. Is Nvidia still the gold standard? Buckle up for a wild ride on Chad & Cheese ! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:35.534) Yeah, come for the chicken cock. Stay for the espionage. Hi kids. It's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel, everything's computer cheeseman. Chad (00:46.434) This is Chad. What the actual fuck is Iron Brew? So wash. Emi B (00:50.281) And this is Emi. I'm going to really try not to swear. Beredigo. Joel (00:55.118) Good luck with that. On this episode, ZipRecruiter innovates, that's an air quotes, clarinophiles and the deal rippling rivalry goes to a whole other level. Let's do this. Chad (00:57.208) Sorry, Mom. Chad (01:06.808) Yeah. Chad (01:13.304) Okay, dude, no American listening to this show knows what the fucking iron brew is. can you, you've had one before, right Joel? Joel (01:20.942) Yeah, I have a story. So we went to Scotland, we ended up on at some, I don't know, carnival, some bizarre pike, pica carnival somewhere in Scotland. And I got like the haggis nachos, which are like haggis and cheese fries, and it's great. And I wanted to try a soda that wasn't Coke or Pepsi. And there was this thing called iron brew. And I go to the counter, go Chad (01:23.392) Okay, tell it. Tell it. Emi B (01:28.841) You Emi B (01:36.361) Cool. Chad (01:36.561) yeah. Chad (01:45.643) Blue Joel (01:48.654) iron brew. What's that taste like? And the guy goes, I won't do it in a Scottish accent because I'll butcher it. But he goes, it tastes like iron brew. What do you think? Like, okay, it tastes like iron brew. How bad could it be? So I get an iron brew. It's kind like an orangey Fanta flavor drink. It's fine. It's perfectly fine and harmless. So does go but that's my iron brew story. I don't know how would you explain the taste? Chad (01:55.768) You Emi B (01:56.723) Great, thanks. Chad (02:12.056) I've never had one. Joel (02:13.236) Amy, have you had an iron brew? Emi B (02:13.961) Yeah, I think it tastes horrendous. Yeah! Joel (02:17.174) It's gotta be the most shit, like Scottish shit ever for like a drink. Yeah. Chad (02:19.768) That's what I've heard and I don't drink soda anyway. I don't drink pop anyway. So was like, yeah, no, I'll pass on that. I know Joel will try it. So at least we'll get a story out of him. Emi B (02:30.409) Why don't you drink soda Chad? Joel (02:30.594) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chad (02:33.516) He's our taste tester because it's bad for you. Emi B (02:37.345) It's like, my body is a temple, is that what it is? Not all. Chad (02:40.46) No, it's just shit. It's total shit for your body. Especially here in the US. mean, the high corn fructose. No, I'm just, no thanks. No thanks. Dude, I am a guy of a certain age, okay? I'm trying to keep the weight off. I'm working out. I'm trying to eat well. Last thing I'm going to do is slam a fucking iron brew, okay? That's all there is to it. I let Joel do those things. Emi B (02:49.065) Okay, that's true, I'll give you that. Emi B (02:59.657) Sounds good. I'll go with that. Joel (03:01.804) I'll take all the iron brew, Stephen. Stephen, bring it to me. I can't get it over here. My favorite places don't have it. bring it. Bring it to me. Chad (03:07.459) Emi B (03:10.661) Yeah. Chad (03:10.946) So that being said, just might've, we might've been able to find Iron Brew in Vegas because they have just about everything. But just wanted thanks to Samara, Cal and the team over at Transform for having us out there. Thanks to Omar for hosting our party at about 30 of our closest friends or people that we actually probably just met. Then we went to Stack One, Fountain, and I had to turn down a lot of invites because... Unfortunately, my wife was sick. Now that's because everybody gets a shit ton of invites. My wife was sick. As soon as we landed, as soon as we got into the hotel room, she didn't leave the hotel room the entire time. There's nothing contagious. Don't worry. Don't worry kids. But yeah, that's why I was walking around like a lost puppy because I'm used to being with my wife the entire time. Joel (03:37.442) He's so popular, that's why. He's so popular. Emi B (03:49.95) god. Joel (03:58.232) That's a bummer, Especially if you're just leaving and the sickness hits you, it sucks. It's usually at the end when you're all fucking... You know how it is in Vegas. You know how it is. Usually at the end is when the virus hits. Chad (04:05.111) Yeah. Emi B (04:06.983) Yeah, ready to come back home. Chad (04:11.436) yeah. I was, I was in bed by 10 every night. If that tells you, I mean, yeah. And that just, that shit never happened. anyway, thanks to Transform. Also, Samara, Julie says she sends her apologies because she couldn't use her ticket because she was in bed the entire time. So anyway, great show. no, that was. Emi B (04:16.958) wow. Joel (04:30.872) She missed a rager of a party, Chad. The Chad and Cheesh, it was shut down by the cops. There was a waiting list. No one got in. It was cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria. If you weren't at the party, where were you? Chad (04:38.232) Yeah, it was. There was a, from my understanding, my understanding Omar had to go down because he was letting people up and down the, uh, the, uh, elevator and he, there was, he said, there was like a group of 30 people. was like, sorry, we're closed down. You guys have to go. Emi B (04:54.796) wow. Chad (04:58.648) I was like, that's unfortunate. Emi B (05:00.061) Love that, transform goes wild. Joel (05:01.568) It was a rager man. It was a rager in Vegas. Chad and cheese rager. Chad (05:04.207) It's a time. That's a good time. No it is, you know it is. Emi B (05:11.273) I think so. Joel (05:12.618) Emi's got a special video. Shout out what you got, Emi. Emi B (05:16.171) my God, this is, this person is one of my favorite people. So he's called Randy Rainbow. So if you haven't heard of him, get onto Instagram, YouTube, any kind of social media platform, even LinkedIn, he's on there. so for people who don't know, he's an American actor, singer, comedian, so triple threat. think that's what you call it. Isn't it? Triple threat. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Chad (05:19.489) He's awesome. Chad (05:35.616) yeah, eh, Not to mention he's gay, so it's a quad threat there, so there we go. yeah, yeah. Randy Rainbow, I love it, I love it. Emi B (05:40.201) Oh, he's ticking all the boxes. Yeah, honestly. So, you know, back in the day, he used to do loads of comedy, but now he's known for political satire. So he just constantly takes a piss out of Donald Trump and he does it in the best way, best way. Joel (05:55.01) was going say, too bad there's no content for him as a political satirist. Chad (06:00.264) Yeah, no kidding, right? He's, he's overflowing. Emi B (06:00.763) Wow. he's wonderful. So there's one that I saw recently and it's to do for like, I'm a wicked fan. just watched it recently. So you know that obviously the amazing song defying gravity. Yeah. I sound like just like Cynthia. Absolutely. 100%. But yeah, he does a take on that. So I think you got video, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (06:14.85) Mm-hmm. Awesome. Joel (06:24.078) Should we watch that? Yeah, we do. And I have not seen Wicked, so for those of you that don't or haven't seen it, like don't feel left out, because I haven't either, but let's see. Let's see what this is about here. Chad (06:24.696) Play it. Play it. Emi B (06:30.025) Yeah. Emi B (06:50.249) What she is. Chad (07:11.272) I love how he fucks with him on the concealer, the concealer and his shading and all. Joel (07:12.322) Where am I? Where am I? What just happened? Emi B (07:16.713) absolutely brilliant. And he's got a whole back catalogue, not just from this term, but from the last four years before as well. Brilliant. Check it out. Check. Absolutely. Randy Rainbow. Yeah. Joel (07:26.786) Randy Rainbow, okay. Chad (07:28.086) Rainbow dude is fucking hilarious fucking hilarious. Well, I mean and staying kind of like in the political spectrum I want to shout out to Canada Joel, Emi, and I don't know if you've heard but Canada Joel (07:31.608) Chad, what do you got? Emi B (07:32.681) you Joel (07:40.184) Canada? Chad (07:44.236) Canada is in a trade war with the U S and you heard that, right? You heard that. yeah. So Canada just might actually be able to press the nuclear option. And what that means to us here in the U S is porn hub is a Canadian company and they might shut it down in the U S and that might just send terrorists into a death spiral. Not, not that they're doing well in the first place, but yes, Canada might shut down porn hub. Emi B (07:47.057) Hmm Yeah. Emi B (08:05.074) I think that's it. Chad (08:13.752) so all of you American, all you, all you American porn sites that are out there, get ready for the huge traffic. You better have great SEO. That's all I gotta say. Emi B (08:22.961) I love that. Joel (08:27.086) So, so Chad, I have, I have a friend that watches internet porn. I don't know. I don't know anything about it, but, according, according to my friend, there, there are a lot of alternatives to porn hub. So Canada can do what Canada is going to do, but there are other options. People just saying, just going to say, just going to say. Emi B (08:31.409) Okay. Chad (08:32.812) Have a friend. Emi B (08:35.961) Yeah. Right. Chad (08:40.073) Okay Chad (08:44.01) that's hilarious. Emi B (08:44.489) America is going to be safe. Just reach out to Joel and his friends. Chad (08:48.632) Yeah, because his friend has alternatives. Emi B (08:53.065) yeah. Joel (08:55.906) My friend, my friend, which gets me to my shout out. This is not my friend, but my shout out goes out to Armando Davis. He's a Michigan State fan and he's the host at the unfiltered sports podcast. Apparently anyway, he, bet his friend that was a Michigan fan that Michigan would not win the big 10 championship. And they did. Emi may not know that because she's probably not. keeping track of college basketball in the States, but those who are too anyway, the student lost a bet. His penance was to spend 24 hours and a McDonald's, which I don't know why that's a punishment. But anyway, but anyway, 24 hours on McDonald's and he could take away an hour of his of his punishment if for every McChicken that he ate and his his goal apparently that he achieved was he did two McChickens every hour. Chad (09:32.151) Mm-hmm. Joel (09:51.182) So he cut down his time in McDonald's by half. Yeah. So that's my shout out. Armando, it's good to be you, man. McChickens all around. McChickens all around. Chad (09:53.304) 12. Emi B (10:02.281) You Chad (10:05.396) NCAA basketball. NCAA basketball is to Emi what Wicked is to Joel. Joel (10:13.24) Did you fill out your bracket, Chad? Do you got a bracket? Did you fill it out? you? Emi B (10:13.807) Okay, I get it. Chad (10:16.792) No, I've been too busy doing sh- I work around here, Cheeseman. I don't- Jesus. Joel (10:20.846) All right, all right. The answer in my crystal ball is Florida versus Duke, Florida winning 69 to 66. You heard it here first. Yeah. Emi B (10:23.475) Eh? Chad (10:32.504) 69 to 66, okay. I don't think Duke's gonna make it that far, but. Emi B (10:33.481) feel like I need to get onto this college basketball. Joel (10:36.47) OK, we'll see. Chad (10:38.486) Yeah. So I know one thing though, when I did come home, I came, I came, I came home to a bunch of cock. Yes. Look at that chicken cock baby. yes. That's beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. yeah. So coming home to, a delivery of cock is always amazing, especially when it's a bottles of chicken cock. stay tuned though. We've got some. Joel (10:42.22) From McChickens to chicken cock. Let's talk about free shit. Emi B (10:44.585) Chad (11:04.132) I think we might have something going with chicken cocks. So all of our listeners might actually get a taste of the cocks sometime soon. But until then, until then, the Chad and cheese giving away, giving away free stuff. We give away t-shirts from Aaron app. That's right. Our, our, our slothy slothy friends over at Aaron app, giving away t-shirts. They're beautiful, lovely t-shirts. Emi B (11:12.649) HOTAS! Joel (11:14.446) You Emi B (11:24.317) Yeah. Chad (11:28.94) bourbon barrel AIDS syrup by Kiora. And by the way, shout outs are sponsored by the kids up North at Kiora craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen tech labs, whiskey. That's right. Two bottles of whiskey from our friends again up North van hack. And if it is your birthday, you could win rum high value rum from plum, but you can't win. If you don't play good. Joel (11:32.142) Hmm. Emi B (11:45.073) Ooh. Chad (11:57.612) Chadcheese.com slash free. Emi B (12:01.635) Sounds good. Can I just ask? Joel (12:02.782) Can I still be a little drunk from Vegas? I'm feeling a little, maybe it's lack of sleep. All right, anyway, no, not drunk. but Mo thought you were required to drink on this show, shockingly not. Emi B (12:05.917) Are you still drunk? Do you want some cock? Is that what it is? Do want to have some of his cock? Yeah. Chad (12:06.01) dude, dude I'm, yeah. Well, he's always, you know, he's got his own pocket. He doesn't need mine. Emi B (12:16.731) Yeah but the thing is I feel left out, I don't have any cock. Can I taste some cock please? Chad (12:22.594) Yeah. We will make sure the fine distillery of chicken cock gets somehow. I mean, we're getting cockier way. Yes. No, it's happening. Emi B (12:30.313) Please, yeah, because I feel really left out of the chicken cock over here and I really like it. Yes. Can I have two cocks? Joel (12:34.286) Cock is coming to England. Lots of cock coming to England. All right, got, let's get to the birthdays before we, this thing goes totally off the rails. All right, celebrating a birthday. We got Betsy Norris, Robert Saint-Jacques, Sean Luchens, Valerie Doyle, Ryan McGrath, Audra Knight, Jamie Leonard, fine Englishman, Jamie Leonard, is, Steve Levy, Mike Temkin. Chad (12:45.314) Too late. Emi B (12:49.321) You Emi B (12:56.445) Ooh! Joel (13:04.8) And George Dobbin, who hails from the wonderful country of Scotland. Chad (13:09.112) My man, Scotland. yeah, let me some Scott. Let me some Scotland and some George Dobbin. Joel (13:15.414) That's right. Happy birthday, everybody. Chad (13:19.648) And then now that we've gotten back from Vegas next week, we're driving up to Chicago for RL 100. That's right. Jamie Leonard's birthday. Was he going to get for his birthday present? A little Chad and fucking cheese in Chicago. That's what he's getting out. It could be. We that. Okay. All I got to say now is you have to bring one of those bottles of cock with you because Jamie's going to want that. so we're going to be leading a talk with a change. He's super fan. Joel (13:22.606) Where's our next trip? Joel (13:34.21) Maybe some cock. Can we take cock to Chicago? Emi B (13:35.529) That's what I thought he was going to say. Emi B (13:43.652) Yeah Chad (13:49.208) Jane Curran, who's the head of HR ops over at JLL and our buddy, Matt Lavery, who literally was just on the stage with us a couple of days ago in Vegas. We're to be talking about good shit around AI, agentic, what they're doing, what they're using, all that other fun stuff. The thing is though, kids, we're not recording it. So you got to be in the room where it happens and it happens in Chicago at the Pendry. If you are a TA leader, Joel (14:11.49) Mmm. Chad (14:18.39) And you're even close to Chicago. Google RL 100, register, get your ass there. We'll see you there next week. Joel (14:22.606) Do it. Do it. Do it. Joel (14:32.328) All right, this one's going to be sweet, Chad. We've waited eight years for an espionage story that's featured in the New York Times and our space. All right, here we go. Bitter rivals Deal and Rippling are embroiled in a legal spat. Rippling sued Deal on March 17th, also St. Patrick's Day. Alleging Deal planted a spy, Keith O'Brien, who's from Ireland. I don't know if there's any connection on that or not, but anyway, Rippling's Chad (14:34.36) I know Joel (14:58.68) Dublin office trade secrets were being stolen, allegedly. Rippling claims O'Brien conducted over 6,000 Slack searches targeting sales data and was caught via a fake hashtag D defectors channel on Slack. Two days later, O'Brien allegedly destroyed his phone during a court ordered seizure in Ireland, locked himself in the bathroom, I believe, which is great. Chad (15:15.852) Yeah. Joel (15:25.87) Deal denies the claims, hinting at counterclaims and pointing to Rippling's own issues like alleged Russian sanctions violations, which Rippling shockingly disputes. It's a messy ongoing showdown and we're going to love talking about it. Chad, what are your initial thoughts on round one of Deal versus Rippling? Chad (15:48.29) So we got to rip this apart piece by piece. First and foremost, case number on this kids is 325-CV-2576. That is People Center Inc. doing business as Rippling, a Delaware corporation, is the plaintiff in Deal Inc., a Delaware corporation, go figure, and does one, Okay. those are the, they are the defendants. Get through that. The complaint outlines number one, violation of racketeer, influenced and corrupt. organization. This is a Rico case. Now, if anybody has watched any movies in the United States, Rico always comes up with mobster and gang filps. Rico. Okay. So number one's Rico. Number two, conspiracy to violate Rico. Number three, misappropriation of trade secrets under defined trade secrets acts. Number four, misappropriation of trade secrets under California uniform trade secrets act. Number five, tortious. Emi B (16:30.473) you Chad (16:46.986) Inference with contract number six aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty and last but not least seven unfair competition from the California business and professional code. So as you'd said, Joel, the spy was named and was not named in the document, but the Irish independent ran a story entitled Irish employee accused of spying and corporate espionage by software giant admits destroying his phone. Emi B (17:08.073) Mm. Chad (17:16.457) at center of claim and title. That's a long fucking title. and in the story, the publication made the name Keith O'Brien as the, the rippling employee that turned spy. So the first thing I want to talk about is how they caught them. Okay. And the evidence, cause I think that's the biggest key is let's talk about the evidence real quick. So number one, and we'll chunk this out. Digital forensic evidence from the Slack logs. Joel (17:29.688) Yep. Joel (17:35.405) Mm-hmm. Chad (17:45.816) quotes, and this is directly from the case, rippling Slack log show that O'Brien became, began searching and accessing rippling Slack channels at an unprecedented rate beginning in or around early November, 2024. Notably O'Brien searched the term quote unquote deal approximately 23 times a day. And that was on page 17 for anybody who was looking. so yeah. Um, Joel (18:11.97) Nothing fishy about that at all. Chad (18:15.832) To me, this is crazy because we've been hearing how companies are already monitoring Slack and all these different channels just to be able to see who actually has activity going on. You would think basically that anything that you were doing to search history, monitoring or anything like that would be seen within the system. Joel (18:23.662) Mm-hmm. Joel (18:32.142) Mm-hmm. Joel (18:39.854) Yeah, we don't know if they were monitoring it or not. As far as I understand it, it was, it was kind of fishy. He was he was kind of, they were a little bit suspicious of him, for whatever reason, and then started looking at his shit and seeing stuff like deal searches and 6000 searches over. So then they they made up this hashtag. It was a honeypot. They honey potted his ass. Chad (18:46.008) Well, they had to be. Yeah. Chad (19:00.802) Honey Pot. Yeah. Yeah. Emi B (19:02.085) Love it. Joel (19:05.784) The virtual, the virtual equivalent of like a bottle of Guinness, I don't know for an Irishman, but he caught on and things they were putting in this feed started like showing up in real life. So they knew that he had to be the one that was doing it and, got himself pinched, but he was basically on the sales process. They were saying everything that they were like, it's very, very tracked. What's goes, what goes on in the sales process. And this is kind of a negative around all this. Emi B (19:09.576) Ha! Joel (19:35.232) intelligence that we're collecting, recording phone calls, recording everything like it's very easy to find out who's in the funnel, who's close to being sold, like what's going on. And he was telling deal sales team, Hey, we're really close to this, like getting this company close, you should focus on them. And they don't like, like, so he was feeding us all back to sales. And I'm sure the salespeople were like, man, this is a weird trend where everyone were selling. Chad (19:39.436) and access. Yeah. Emi B (19:40.539) Everything's there. Yeah. Joel (20:01.56) gets a call from deal like that same week that they're about to sign with us. and then, and then, got himself trapped and caught. Emi B (20:01.971) Keeps dropping out. Yeah. Chad (20:08.47) Yeah. Well, in it being in sales, you've pretty much always had access to this kind of data in the CRMs. You can go into Salesforce or something like that and actually just look up history. In this case, I think it just made a stream of information. And when you're talking about the honeypot itself, this is the funny part. So Rippling's general counsel sent a letter to Deal's senior leadership. And this is how they know Deal's senior leadership is involved. Identifying recently established a Slack channel called Defectors. Right? So as soon as that hit deal senior leadership, then O'Brien went to go find the Slack channel. So that was the whole honeypot. just hours after Rippling sent the letter, hours to executives and counsel, that's when O'Brien went after it. And that's when they suppose allegedly caught him in the honeypot. Emi B (21:07.005) running. Joel (21:08.61) And then does the complaint talk about the bathroom, locking himself in the bathroom, deleting files from the phone, destroying, yeah. Chad (21:15.992) destroying, destroying, yeah, destroying evidence. Emi B (21:18.665) Did he actually destroy it though, was that allegedly destroyed? He did, yeah? Okay. Chad (21:21.816) No, he did. And he's even said that he did. The interesting thing is though, is he has been, mean, okay, so this has been a poaching scheme, apparently or allegedly from Deal, where they've been calling many, many rippling employees. And how did they get the information to be able to WhatsApp individuals directly? Joel (21:44.76) Yeah. Chad (21:51.884) Well, between January 29th and February 17th of 2025, at least 17 members of Rippling's global payroll operations team was contacted about similar jobs at Deal and at least 10 reported receiving offers from Deal. So somebody had to have internal information around employees, personal phone numbers, and those types of things to be able to have Deal contact those individuals via WhatsApp. And again, Emi B (22:03.401) Mmm, yeah. Joel (22:07.384) Mm-hmm. Chad (22:21.312) All alleged. All alleged. Emi B (22:24.457) can't wait to see this fold out. I think it's fascinating, you know, because when I first heard about it, kind of, do you know, I when you're watching like a Netflix movie, yeah? This is what this is. This is like, and I really feel like, give it like five years, this is going to be a Netflix documentary or a movie. And I was thinking about earlier today, I was thinking like, what would it be called? You know, maybe the spy that searched too much, you know? And then you can manage. You see, I've been thinking about this for quite a while. You get that. Chad (22:28.44) Mm-hmm. Chad (22:42.744) It would be good. Chad (22:52.16) Espionage in the toilet. Yeah. Emi B (22:53.693) yeah, exactly. You that you get a voiceover trailer. There's nothing bog standard about this bombshell loose suit. You know, see, I think I'm hilarious. I like, I obviously had too much time on my hands today, but I think it's fascinating. And like you said, there's so many questions out there. There's like how, about how this happened, you know, how secure is this organization? Like you said, the CRM has so much data on there and it did take a while. I they did this kind of honey trap, but you know, How did it take so long? Why didn't Ripley notice earlier that there was a mole accessing their sales data? Because he said that's 23 times a day. They wait, it was long time. Joel (23:33.582) Do we know how long? Yeah, we don't know if they know how long it was. mean, I got a question. I got a question. I mean, so a year. Chad (23:34.392) Well, in that specific term. Chad (23:39.65) From November, from November last year to February. That's what they, that's where they have, that's when they have tracked back to all of the search data that actually again is, is, is in the complaint. So was, I mean, it actually happened pretty quick. I mean, we're talking about November of last year, not even six months and they, yeah, but to be able to collect enough evidence to go, to go to court. Huh? Emi B (23:44.477) Yeah. Joel (23:52.044) Okay. Emi B (23:54.429) Yeah. Emi B (24:00.243) Still quite a, yeah. Joel (24:01.454) I mean, I have to question deals taste in spies. Like deal deal doesn't have very good taste in spies. This guy was not. This was not James Bond in the the halls of rippling by any means. Emi B (24:04.265) Mm, yeah. Chad (24:08.598) Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Well, it. Emi B (24:13.469) Well, you never know. And is this guy, is he working for Deal directly? Like, he working for both, like, actively hired by Deal or is he just rogue? Joel (24:19.97) We don't, we don't know. And well, it gets, it gets interesting. It gets because deal. You remember we talked about making payments to companies that were, let's say not on the up and up with their business models. And so does deal have like an under the radar way to pay people that this guy was getting checks from deal, but aren't trackable to deal. mean, we don't. Chad (24:20.01) No, we don't wait. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think he's on the payroll. Let's just say that. Emi B (24:24.649) Well, yeah. Chad (24:36.472) Mm. Emi B (24:36.561) Mm-hmm. Emi B (24:45.831) Yeah. Chad (24:48.568) crypto. Joel (24:49.41) We don't know. I did hear that I did read that I think that he there is some correspondence with one of the co-founders of deal and this guy. I think it's it's really close to a smoking gun like this guy. Without going to court, this shit happened like this. This definitely happened and if anyone knows about if anyone knows about like deceit. It's our man. You know it's our man Parker. Emi B (24:50.439) Yeah, maybe. Chad (25:09.534) At least the other searches. Joel (25:18.102) You probably remember Zenefits, Parker Conrad, CEO. He had an ADP defamation suit back in 2015 during my homework, was, which was dismissed apparently. like this guy note, like if anyone's going to see that something's going wrong or somebody's maybe doing spine on us, it's Parker Conrad. Cause this guy probably does it himself. Allegedly. Chad (25:19.629) Mm-hmm. Joel (25:45.782) Allegedly, I don't need him to come out at me with any anything but like this is incredible. I mean, I would say if this were like Uber and Lyft or Coke and Pepsi, it would be a Netflix special but rippling and deal. don't know HR tech is I gonna get its own show. Chad (25:46.456) Allegedly. Emi B (25:47.305) You Emi B (25:54.867) Yeah. Emi B (25:59.162) You say that HR tech is obviously getting exciting now, you know? Yeah. Chad (26:02.84) Well, yeah, and they're bringing Russia into the conversation, right? in Rippling saying this is a misdirection, O'Brien first searched the term Russia on February 12th, 2025. And from February 27th, he had searched it. So the 12th to the 27th, he searched the term Russia 157 times on average. So about nine times a day, that's page 27 of the complaint. O'Brien first searched the term OFAC, which is the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a regulator responsible for sanctions controls. On February 17th through the 27th, he searched OFAC 42 times. So he was looking for things to dig up to be able to see if there was any trail that he could gain access to around companies who were Russian companies who were sanctioned and they were getting paid. through deal through deal operate, I'm sorry, through my bad, rippling conversations and, and rippling is just saying, this is a misdirection. They want you to think Russia, Russia, Russia. and there's nothing to see here. So there, there, there are going to be two, sides of this. It's going to be incredibly, not to say they're not both right or wrong, but we'll, we'll sit back and we'll enjoy. Emi B (27:06.195) Mm-hmm. Emi B (27:16.594) Yeah. Joel (27:24.302) Any guesses on how this ends? was talking to somebody in Vegas that says this could be the end of deals business. I think that's a little dramatic. They've raised a lot of money. But any guesses on how this thing ends? Emi B (27:37.129) Well, that guy's going to jail for a start. I know that he said, what was it he said? Yeah, think someone ordered him not to delete, the solicitor ordered him not to delete anything from his phone. And he said, I'm willing to take that risk. He's like, you take that risk when you're going to jail. It's like, you're going to be the fall guy. So that's, I'm a hundred percent sure that that's going to happen. Yeah. Chad (27:47.192) Yeah. Yeah. Joel (27:55.882) And that's in real spy world. Like if you get caught, sort of you're on your own. Like we're not culpable for this. best case is Deal has no connection to this guy at all. There's no nothing in the records and he just hit this guy's fucked and Deal walks away unscathed. Emi B (28:01.148) Yeah. My hands, yeah. Emi B (28:08.605) Yeah. Emi B (28:12.041) You're thinking it, yeah! Chad (28:14.584) And they can find pay if they can find somewhere in the Bahamas or something like that, that there were payments. Yeah, there were payments. Just another reason why I fucking hate Bitcoin and crypto, because it is, it's, mean, this is what this is for, right? That's what cryptocurrency literally will help you launder money. It will help you pay people. I mean, we're even seeing it, you know, in the US government for God's sakes with all these fucking meme coins and shit. It's ridiculous. Emi B (28:20.701) Some kind of money trail. Yeah. Emi B (28:28.445) Yeah. Joel (28:44.44) Yeah. I mean, this kind of thing happens all the time in history, like the KFC recipe. I know they tried to steal that Coke recipe is under lock and key. And so this does happen to varying degrees of punishment, but I'd say worst case if they can prove that sales were lost from deal and say like the average customer is seven years old. So we lost this much per customer and you guys owe us this. Chad (28:49.72) huh. Emi B (29:11.017) Who do you think is going to win? Joel (29:11.074) Let me give you the numbers real quick because I was curious if you go head to head with these guys. So by the numbers, Deal is at $800 million ARR versus $570 million for Rippling. Valuations are really, really close. $13.5 billion at Rippling, $12 billion billion at Deal. Head count, you've got 5,000 employees at Deal, 3,000 at Rippling. And currently, Deal is profitable with 21 Emi B (29:38.473) Mm-hmm. Joel (29:39.394) million in profits and rippling is still burning cash. So that's a little bit by the numbers. Does this make you feel less positive about deal as a consumer? Do you think that's going to impact their brand or do you think this will go sort of? Chad (29:56.056) Here's the hard part. And I actually talked to a couple of HR practitioners this week about this. I'm like, this is crazy, right? And it always came down to, again, this is very anecdotal. had a handful of people that I really had deep conversations with about this. And they said, this looks worse for rippling. And I was like, why? And they said, Parker Conrad. He's known. as a guy who, you know, over the years, Xenefits, ADP, I mean, there's just this optics piece that he is shady, whether he is or whether he isn't. From an optics standpoint, you can't deny what people are saying. And I was actually talking to one of those practitioners and they said, yeah, they're currently actually talking with Rippling and they're going to break talks because they just can't trust what's going on. Now, Rippling again, Joel (30:27.342) Sure. Shady. Chad (30:51.03) They're the ones who are saying that deals in the wrong, right? But yet, Rippling in this, and again, literally half dozen conversations at the most. So not a huge sample size, right? Not a huge sample size. But when you start talking about this and it's just, it's weird. It really is. It's like from an optic standpoint, okay, yeah, we're just going go ahead and shut down talks with Rippling, wait till this happens or go in another direction. Joel (30:53.516) Right. Joel (31:01.132) Not scientific, yeah. Emi B (31:02.204) Yeah. Joel (31:18.338) when I saw the headline, I immediately went to what did Parker fucking do this time? Like what did that shady motherfucker do now? And then I was like, wait, deal is the one that fucked up? Like, holy shit. if you just read the headline, you could totally just say like, shit, the dude's at it again, Rippling is doing some shady shit and they're the ones that get hurt in this. That's really interesting. Emi B (31:19.4) Okay. Emi B (31:27.228) Yeah He's the one. Chad (31:31.35) Yeah? Chad (31:39.992) Here we go. Zenithits2. Joel (31:46.2) Well, sure to be a topic that we'll talk about hopefully for the whole year, because it should be the gift that keeps on giving. Let's take a quick break. speaking of the gift that keeps on giving, I think we have a little zip recruiter news, everybody. Emi B (31:47.591) Yeah. Chad (31:50.082) Whoo! Emi B (31:52.595) Gonna bring my popcorn next time. Chad (32:00.376) There we go. Joel (32:04.512) All right, some zip recruiter news this week. Number one, they were recognized as one of the world's most innovative companies at fast company. Well, we'll get into that in the comment section of this news alert. Number two, they introduced a new scheduling feature that aims to simplify the interview process. The feature allows employers to chat with candidates, schedule interviews and send automated reminders. Chad (32:18.328) yes we will. Joel (32:31.338) all within the platform and they have a new commercial promoting this feature. Check it out kids. Joel (33:07.192) Yes, that is a new commercial, not for features launched in 2017, like so many other companies have. All right. So number three, they did a little survey. ZipRecruiter's job seeker confidence index has fallen to near record lows with a significant decline in job seekers assessments of current labor market conditions. 41 % expressed pessimism about job availability. Chad, what are your thoughts on all things ZipRecruiter this week? Emi B (33:12.265) you Chad (33:37.558) Yeah. So I think it's, it's funny, this whole innovation award thing we're talking about again, features that some of those features they've had for forever. Anyway, it's like they're repackaging them and saying, look at, look at what's new. so that's, that's just weird to me, but imagine getting a message from fast company, informing you that your company had made the most innovative companies of 2025 list in the human resource cat. category, then you open up the article to see your name next to ZipRecruiter. I mean, it obviously discredits Fast Company for not even knowing what the fuck innovation is in our space. But now your company's name is on the same list as a flailing ZipRecruiter. So who wants to share that with the world? I mean, usually you want to win awards, you want to push them out there. The funniest part though is Zip is so thirsty for positive attention that they dropped this as a press release that says quote, Zip Recruiter has been recognized for its product innovations that are transforming how job seekers and employers connect. For the introduction of Zip Intro to its next generation resume database and AI powered job seeker tools, AKA Phil, Zip Recruiter is simplifying and speeding up the hiring process, end quote. Stay thirsty, Zephyr Cooner. Stay thirsty. It's re-fucking-diculous. That's all I gotta say. Joel (35:12.662) Yeah, also also this week, LinkedIn's new game is called zip. I don't think it's a troll, but it's it could be construed as as such. Also, in case you missed it, their their shitty podcast called talent all stars, a shitty podcast with the worst name has yet to get 2020 ratings. 20 people chime in on on on Apple podcasts. Talent all stars. Chad (35:18.189) Ha Emi B (35:18.409) You Chad (35:21.24) I think it could be, yeah. Chad (35:29.045) yeah. Emi B (35:36.797) no. Talent all-stars. Chad (35:37.826) What's it called again? Talent All-Stars? Are they still putting out content? Okay. Joel (35:42.35) talent. Yeah, talent all stars. Yes, they're present. The president is still busy making content while the company burns. Yeah. Emi B (35:43.591) I never even heard of that podcast. Chad (35:48.15) Yeah, the president of the company is doing this podcast. And I mean, have you seen their stock price? Jesus fucking Christ. Joel (35:54.222) That was my next news item. The stock the stock is down 20 % so far this month, roughly. The the fast company is a total like PR it like the headline is great. Holy shit of the maybe 25 companies, zip recruiters, one of them. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, go, go to go to the main list. And it's all the names you expect. And then you have to dig in to like HR. Emi B (36:00.007) Listen, they gotta try everything. You have a night. Emi B (36:13.897) Hmm. Chad (36:22.892) The human resource. Yeah. Joel (36:23.238) And in HR, yeah, they're in there with like Upwork names. Neither one of us, none of us would know even though we live. Yeah. Even though we live this stuff, maybe half of them, we don't know. So don't get too excited. The PR was great. The headline looked good, but if you dig into it, it's not, it's not so impressive. And I'd love to know how much ZipRecruiter spends on fast company advertising. may, there may have been, I'm not, I don't know. Emi B (36:24.018) Okay. Chad (36:30.486) Gotta know... shit's happening. We don't know, yeah. It's just credibility wise. Emi B (36:48.818) you know it would be a huge amount. Yeah. Joel (36:52.714) I don't know, but if you spend money on these publications, they tend to look at your submission for most innovative, most innovative companies. Yeah. And we do know. Emi B (36:59.549) There might be some untraceable money, cryptocurrency kind of thing. Chad (37:03.416) Or traceable, or traceable, it's kind of funny, it's kind of like Chris Forman coming on the show and saying that he loves Indeed. How many millions of dollars do you get from Indeed each month? mean, didn't answer that question, did he? But I mean, it's like, again, your credibility is fucking shot when you do this kind of shit. Joel (37:10.774) Yeah. Emi B (37:13.617) Yeah! Joel (37:24.162) Yeah. And Fast Company would say it has no bearing on our decision. That's what they're going to say. But I wouldn't be surprised if Zip writes a little check for advertising on Fast Company on a regular basis. Emi B (37:29.737) But did you know what? Emi B (37:36.265) But you know, think ZipRecruiter's banging on the fact, banging on the, you know, kind of, well, hoping that people are not going to be as analytical as we are on this show. You know, that's why they put out all that press. It's like, yeah, we're innovative. People who are new to the market or new to the industry, or just haven't done their background research are just going to read that and go, ZipRecruiter's really good. They may not do their research. So they've got to do stuff like this, you know, to kind of counter all the bad shit that's actually happening within the organization and the falling share prices. Chad (37:45.739) Of course. Chad (38:06.252) Well, Emi, we are in the ears of HR recruiting decision makers. And that's one of reasons why they listen to this show. Not just for your beautiful accent, not for, not just for your beautiful accent. Emi B (38:09.639) Yeah. Emi B (38:15.055) Absolutely. Listen to what you know what's going on. Absolutely. Joel (38:15.598) That's the only place they want us to go is the ears, by the way. No, else are we going to get to go. You know, I, I thought Chad, like we talked about ISIMS, I don't know if it was last week or recently and then all the, all the updates that they've done, uh, text recruiting and all these things. And it's like, I didn't think it'd get any worse. And then Zip Recruiter said, hold my beer. Cause we got scheduling baby. We got scheduling, you know, like how long is good time? Chad (38:26.252) Yeah. Emi B (38:36.937) Wait! Joel (38:44.45) Good time has been around for like eight years. They've been around as long as us and have been doing scheduling paradox have been around since 2006. Like, it's just funny how these companies that have money resources, departments, brain power are doing this shit. And it's not innovation. I don't know how you're wrapping this up as innovation because it's because it's not because it's not. All right. What else? What else is in the news? What else is in the news? Let's see here. yeah, Clarna. Emi B (39:02.739) Smoke a mirror, that's all it is, yeah. Emi B (39:13.381) Ooooo Joel (39:14.638) The Swedish, the Swedish fintech unicorn that has made waves touting the lack of headcount at the company last week filed to go IPO under the ticker K L A R. The company reported 2024 revenue of $2.8 billion. That's up from 2.3 plus 2024 net profits of $21 million. Chad Klarna's IPO. Are you buying, selling or holding? Chad (39:42.348) Yeah, their peak valuation was in 2021 at 45.6 billion and then that tumbled down to 6.7 billion in 2022. Response to a lot of different things obviously happening in the market. You know, this whole COVID thing was a bitch. But they're back up to 15 billion. So they're feeling their oats again, right? The problem I have is the alleged lies first and foremost. So remember our friend Alexander Chakowsky wrote about Reddit reports suggesting that customer support teams were not being dismantled through the use of AI, rather they were outsourcing to another agency. Right. So the, the, the claims of heavy usage of AI is overblown, right? That's all optics and claims that Clarna was phasing out workday in Salesforce for using AI. when literally they were just switching to deal and, and, and team Taylor. so this, what Emi B (40:19.24) Mm-hmm Chad (40:39.544) Neither one of those were AI plays in total. Like they were making it sound like they were going to cut 400 heads at least. The only thing I like about what I'm seeing here is the new Walmart deal. I'm not a fan of the alleged deception. This kind of business to me feels like legal loan sharking payday loans. I don't, I don't like that. And it feels like if Karna fucks up business with Walmart, they're dead in the water. So I'm not advising anyone to buy or sell anything. Joel (40:59.916) Mm-hmm. It's credit. Chad (41:09.644) But personally, I wouldn't touch this stock with a 10 foot fucking pole. Emi B (41:14.577) No. Chad (41:16.216) Not gonna do it. Emi B (41:18.749) No. So what do you think though? Because obviously people have been waiting to hear about this Kalanadil, know, it's kind of been on the news and everywhere. Do you think that other FinTech companies are looking at this and going, okay, now's the time for, you know, for our organization to go down the same route? Joel (41:36.258) same route of what IPO or yeah you have there's another one Chad (41:37.664) IPO. Emi B (41:38.055) Yeah. Emi B (41:43.537) It's like air wall-ex and yeah. Joel (41:44.792) that's public. Chad (41:46.944) I kind of feel like it's desperate because this is not a good time to IPO. Let's just look at the markets, right? And they're going from Sweden to the US markets. I don't know that it's, to me, this does not feel like a great time to IPO. So it feels more desperate than it does anything else. Emi B (41:53.458) Yeah. Joel (42:02.764) It's for sure a litmus test. If they go IPO and it's a big stinker, like we're not going to see an IPO for a while. But if, if, if there's, if there's money pent up and ready to go, like if they hit it, we could see a little parade of IPOs, which, should be interesting. Emi B (42:02.877) When is a good time though? Yeah. Yeah. Chad (42:06.891) dude. Emi B (42:17.0) Yeah. Chad (42:17.938) One word though, Walmart. think Walmart carries this and if it doesn't carry this, that new business of Walmart, if it doesn't carry it, then I think you're a hundred percent right. But I think without the Walmart deal, there's no way in hell to go IPO. Emi B (42:24.681) Mm-hmm. Joel (42:26.19) Mm-hmm. Emi B (42:31.719) Yeah, no. Joel (42:31.97) Yeah. So team Taylor was at, at transform in Vegas. You've already mentioned a couple other examples, but they, we started talking about Klarna cause I knew they were there at S and he's like, just don't tell anyone. told you about, if you look at their thing, they've got 17 job openings, right now. So they are also hiring, in terms of what they're doing. if you look at their, it's an S one. Chad (42:37.133) Mm. Joel (42:59.292) in Sweden, it's not called an S one, but basically the same thing. the, the word employee is mentioned 76 times, in the, in the document, mostly favorably not we're cutting them out of the equation. there, they have a, they have one section that, that is titled our business depends on our ability to attract and retain highly skilled employees, which goes on to talk about how important employees are to the business. Chad (43:02.785) F1, I think. Emi B (43:03.716) Mm, yeah. Joel (43:28.91) so a lot of things here are, are sort of headlines and click bait to say we're cutting everyone out of our equation, but it's really not the case. If you go, and look through it in February for December of last year, fortune had a story with the headline. Klarna stopped all hiring a year ago to replace human workers. And that's kind of been their brand. And I think if they go public, that's what they're looking to do. But this is kind of the breakdown of what they've done on employees. in December of 2022. They had about 5,500 employees a year later, about 4,300. A year later after that, about 3,400. So they are eliminating roughly a thousand people per year. Chad (44:10.594) How many were outsourced? Yeah. Joel (44:12.578) We don't know that based on their documentation. Yeah. But that's, that's their employees that they're, that they're touting. So they are decreasing. but they're not head countless. mean, they still have a lot of people and according to their documents, they still need, a lot of people. This one will be interesting to watch. Emi B (44:14.322) Okay, so that's yeah. Chad (44:25.368) Mm-hmm. Emi B (44:29.321) So yeah, it's interesting that they obviously they're trying to cut what sounds like they're trying to cut costs by, you know, reducing their workforce. And I also saw that they were closing a couple of offices around the world as well. So that's obviously another way that they're trying to cut costs. But did you, did you hear about how much of a pay rise Sebastian, the CEO gave himself? Yeah, it was like 862 % pay rise. So this is just ahead of the payroll. Chad (44:49.8) Jesus. Joel (44:50.21) No, I missed this. Emi B (44:58.683) Most of it was in equity, but still just ahead of the payroll. Eheh! Chad (45:04.152) I have you, have you been listening to bill Burr talk about CEOs here, here lately? He's his, his mantra right now is free Luigi. Uh, if that's, if that tells you anything, if that tells you anything. yeah, yeah. 800 % fuck you, man. That's bullshit. Emi B (45:07.665) No, I haven't. Joel (45:08.812) A little bit, yeah. Emi B (45:13.327) Okay, yeah. Yeah, honestly. Joel (45:20.928) It's speaking of CEOs with a lot of money. Let's take a break and talk about Nvidia. Emi B (45:25.545) Yeah. Joel (45:32.236) All right, guys, Nvidia had its annual conference this week. Some highlights. General Motors has tapped Nvidia for AI powered self-driving technology. Yum Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, also known as the Holy Trinity, is partnering with Nvidia to expand AI ordering and drive-throughs. They plan to roll out AI ordering to about 500 restaurants across four Yum brands starting in the second. quarter. And lastly, they've dropped Isaac Groot in one humanoid robot. Yes, there's a worse brand than chat GPT. It's Isaac Groot and one humanoid robot. Let's take a quick look at Isaac, I'll just shorten it a little bit. And what what he can do as a robot. Chad (46:28.248) I'm already creeped out. Joel (46:30.008) So if you're listening, he's, bringing coffee to a table. You got to go to YouTube to see all this. He's, he's a straining a photo. He's doing laundry. He's, he's, he's vacuuming. My favorite part is at the end. You have to wait for it. he's getting groceries. That's good. Yeah. I like that. porn. Some bubbly porn to porn or drink. he's cleaning up putting, I don't know why he has the keys as he driving a car and then Emi B (46:34.685) Yeah. Chad (46:38.764) Very George, George Jetson. Emi B (46:40.809) Thank Chad (46:48.28) Well, helping with the groceries. Chad (46:57.816) because that's not where they should be. Joel (46:59.2) And then he just sits down. He just sits down. Emi B (47:00.817) Yeah, my day is done. Joel (47:04.366) How creepy is it to think the robot just sits down? I don't know what I expected. Do they go to the garage? Do they go to a closet? Like a vacuum cleaner? No, he just sits down. He just hangs out. He just hangs out. All right, Chad. Chad, know you love you some Nvidia. What are your thoughts on the news out of the company this week? Chad (47:15.022) that's, I'm sure. Charging in the corner or some shit like that. Emi B (47:16.007) outside. Emi B (47:20.969) Just going to watch some TV. Chad (47:25.878) Yes. Yes. And I own shares, so I'm biased. So we've already talked about several companies. I mean, talk a little bit about the KFC connection, number one, where they're starting to use it in their drive-throughs. And we've been talking about companies embracing AI for a while, not just in recruiting. So Rallies and Checkers VP of Franchise, Brad Williams stunned Mr. Joel Cheeseman with the mention of baconzilla during the recording of season two of the AI session. So go ahead and roll that beautiful beam footage there. Joel (48:03.32) You always have to do this around lunch when we record this show. Damn it. Emi B (48:04.841) Thanks. Chad (48:40.578) So what we're seeing is we're seeing insights from companies that are using AI outside of recruiting and sales and business and drive-throughs and those types of things, which is making it so much easier as we talked to Brad about being able to pull AI or automations into recruiting. So all those companies that are out there today saying, look, my company is using AI here, here, and here. Well, that's a great opportunity for HR and for recruiting. just the talent function overall to say, Hey, we are doing it over here and it is successful. Let's go ahead and pull that into hiring. the is that we've talked to and we're getting ready to launch, AI sessions season two. is practitioner heavy, big logos. And I don't know about you Joel, but I was surprised as hell at how many companies were talking about the outcomes. Time saved, money saved. That to me was fucking huge. Emi B (49:17.533) Mm-hmm. Joel (49:39.436) And companies you wouldn't necessarily expect like like ACE hardware making some crazy shit happen. Yeah. It's it's it's it's filtering down to the companies that you don't expect. You expect you expect tech companies to do this stuff. You expect, you know, big companies. But when hardware stores that you grew up with mom and pop type place does it, it's it's it's obviously cool. I think the ordering thing to me is fascinating. I think that's becoming Chad (49:41.932) Yeah. huh, yeah. Yeah. Good shit. Yeah, essential healthcare. Emi B (49:53.735) Yeah, okay, definitely. Chad (50:01.837) Yeah. Joel (50:09.036) much more ubiquitous than it had been before. We talked about Wendy's doing AI enabled order taking in the drive through. They're up to about 600 restaurants across the U S. yum has like 61,000 locations around the globe. Now they're, it's a very small, it's a very small number that they're starting out with, but if they can get this thing in 61,000 restaurants globally, like it's going to filter to every single fast food place out there. And I think the second thing is Chad (50:10.626) Mm-hmm. Emi B (50:10.739) Mm-hmm. Chad (50:36.855) Yeah. Joel (50:39.224) You know, the old adage of like, no one ever bought IBM, you know, whoever bought IBM never got fired or whoever like monster used to be. No one ever got fired for posting jobs on monster. They probably would today, but like no one's going to get fired using Nvidia technology. And I think Nvidia has done a great job of building a brand. And if, if making the decision is easier because it's Nvidia, you're going to see this thing take off quicker than if it was. Chad (50:50.038) Nvidia. Chad (50:57.378) Mm-hmm. Joel (51:05.94) some company I've never heard of. So Nvidia getting behind AI generated drive-through ordering, I think is going to be huge for that space. We're going to see a lot more of it in the future. Chad (51:17.132) KFC is very big in Europe, definitely in the UK. think one of the fast food restaurants that actually went to the UK first. Emi, you a big KFC fan? Do you like the whole AI introduction? Emi B (51:20.285) Yeah. Joel (51:21.656) Mm-hmm. Emi B (51:29.363) You know what, I love that secret recipe chicken, honestly. It's one of my guilty pleasures. And I'm really trying to be healthy like you, but I'm like every once in a while, it's like, it's Friday. Get me some chicken. Get me some. absolutely. Chad (51:42.2) You Joel (51:43.022) Get us some chicken and some chicken cock, would you? For God's sakes. Joel (51:52.352) And speaking of robots, here's today's or this week's dad joke. Are we ready? By the way, we talked about chicken cock. Here's my take at trying to get the blue chew sponsorship. Here we go. Chad ready? Why did why did the robot take blue chew? Why did the robot take blue chew? Chad (51:57.715) Mm. Now. Chad (52:03.286) Jesus. Chad (52:13.944) I'm afraid to ask. I mean, go ahead. Joel (52:16.226) hit his disc was floppy. His disc was floppy. All right. You don't like that one. Here's another one. Here's another one. What does a potty training robot say? What does a potty training robot say? Chad (52:19.448) He needed a hard drive. get it. Okay. Emi B (52:22.825) Yeah, I need to go. Okay, come. Chad (52:27.874) No, Jesus. Chad (52:35.085) Mm. Joel (52:37.336) pee poop pee poop Emi B (52:39.153) Now, my god. Joel (52:42.56) We out! Chad (52:43.488) We out. Poor Emi, poor Emi. Emi B (52:43.651) God, yeah.

Live from RecFest USA, Orlando Haynes, North American talent acquisition lead at Mosaic, joins The Chad & Cheese Podcast  to share how recruiters can leverage personal branding in a volatile job market. Orlando reveals why LinkedIn is a powerful tool for building revenue channels and visibility, offers strategic advice for job seekers post-layoffs, and explains how a strong personal brand can turn employees into authentic company ambassadors. Don't miss this insightful episode—tune in now! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Podcast Intro: Hide your kids, lock the doors. You're listening to HR's Most Dangerous podcast. Chad Sowosh and Joel Cheesman 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 & Cheese Podcast. Joel: So thanks for hanging out. Who are you and why are you here today? Orlando Haynes: Yeah, so my name's Orlando Haynes. I'm here to present. It's my first time here at the event here at RecFest, so super excited for that. But I'm here to talk a little bit about personal branding for recruiters and how to support them in really leveraging their own voice, both inside and outside the corporate walls. Joel: Are you employed? Are you a self-employed consultant? Orlando Haynes: Nope. Yeah, so I'm a North American talent acquisition lead for a company called Mosaic based out of Florida. Joel: Okay. Chad: Orlando Haynes. Orlando Haynes: Yes, sir. Chad: That sounds like a football player. Joel: In Florida. Chad: That sounds like a football... Yeah. From Florida, that sounds like a football player. So Orlando, when you get a chance to actually provide somebody one nugget of advice, our listeners, people viewing this, what would that nugget be, moving forward into 2025? Orlando Haynes: Yeah, I would probably tell you it's about personal branding. And you probably hear this a lot, but because of the market and how, you know, volatile it is, I think most employees can't just rely on the employer to generate their income, support their lifestyle. So holistically, that's how I look at it. You have this great platform, LinkedIn. So how do you leverage that to multiple opportunities for you? Simply put, you know, leverage those revenues, those revenue channels, the marketing channels, it's free platform, it's a global platform. Why not leverage it? And so my goal is to maximize my potential, thus creating opportunities internally in the company for me, and then also externally. So that's the goal, that's the vision. I would tell people to maximize on that. Joel: Orlando, as you can tell by looking at us, we're very, very popular with the kids. Orlando Haynes: Yeah. [chuckle] Joel: And a lot of young people look at LinkedIn, it's sort of intimidating, I don't have a network, I wasn't there at the beginning when everyone was just connecting to each other. What advice would you give that recent graduate in building that brand on LinkedIn? Or should it be in other places in addition to LinkedIn? Orlando Haynes: So I would say, have intent. Understand the platform first. Don't just jump on it because you hear so called, "gurus", say, "Get on it." But understand the platform and its original use, but then knowing that it's expanded beyond that. And so, don't be fearful of technology. If we go back in the years before we had a phone, phone was created, then the cellphone, we went to microwave. So technology is always evolving and so the youth, probably, are more on the different channels. But if you think about the global reach, there's no other platform like it, where you can talk to someone that's in China, Peru, Paraguay, wherever, globally, London, in a matter of seconds. And so I would say, understand the platform, put yourself out there, but do it with intent. Don't just randomly go on there just to go on there. And some folks may not need it. There are folks who just don't need it. But it's free. Why not? Yeah. Chad: So now in 2024, what has surprised you the most about... What's anything that's happened thus far this year? Orlando Haynes: So I would say, recruiting has not changed a bit. Chad: Yeah? Orlando Haynes: And so... Chad: And that's surprising. Orlando Haynes: And that's surprising. You would think it has. Even from the agency side... My background, for 20 years, is both, agency and in the corporate side. And so we're still in that midst of antiquated thinking theology, especially also from the corporate space, in how we attack recruiting overall. So the goal is, what we can do to leverage that. And there's a lot of talk about technology, and so we're getting away from still how do we capture the people. And so if we can bridge that gap between employers and tech, and how to really service the people, then we're shaking and moving at that point. So those are the biggest changes I would hope we see. But right now, it's not turning as fast as I would like. Chad: Did you get that, shaking? Joel: I got that, that was good. He's good. He's good. He must be a branding expert. Layoffs are in the headlines every day. A lot of people are facing the employment market for the first time in a long time. They're looking at LinkedIn, they know they should use it, but not really sure exactly what I should be doing. What do you tell them? Orlando Haynes: So you have to approach anything like that with the strategy. And I think that's where a lot of job seekers don't know, especially if you've been working for 10 plus years, you never had to go back in the market. And so things have changed. And so you need a strategy to approach any job search. And sometimes in this market, job search becomes the job itself. And so if you get hyper focused, and you folks probably hear it as well, there's nothing worse than the job seeker saying, "Hey, I'll take anything." That's... They're talking from desperation, at that point, versus reassessing what happened, reclaiming their intellectual intelligence from previous companies that they worked for, and really hyper focus. I know there's a lot of coaches like myself that are out there as well, and so they're a little leery too. Because you never know. But I would say, if they can invest in a coach, again, so they can get the proper tools and strategies to be specific in their search. And this way... It's going to take time too. Orlando Haynes: You have to map that out and understand this may not be the last cycle we see like this. So now, you know, prepare for future, but have a really hyper focused plan that'll support your journey. Chad: 2025 is coming up on us fast. What's your number one priority? Orlando Haynes: You know what? I'm gonna double down on personal branding. It's the reason why I'm sitting in the seat with you guys here. First time here, submitted my request to be a speaker. And I'm here, I speak tomorrow. But that only would have happened... It wouldn't have happened if I didn't have a personal brand. So they looked at me, see what I was talking about, see my reach, and say, "Okay. Hey, you have a voice and what you're saying makes sense", so again, I don't position myself to only depend on the employer. Because we're talking about layoffs and you've seen it happen in the tech space. It happened in the recruitment space. And so how do I position myself to avoid the onslaught? So it's multiple streams. I'm secure either way. But the goal is that's... I think that's the hyper focus, I think, we need to look at. But it's not for everybody. But I would urge someone to tap into multiple talents that they have. They're not a one-talent or one-pony trick, we have multiple talents; leverage those anyway you can. Joel: A lot of companies have the tendency, or employers have the tendency of, sort of, bottling up their employees. Orlando Haynes: Yep. Joel: Like, "Don't be on LinkedIn. I don't want you to get poached by someone. I don't want you to talk about your job on Instagram." I feel like that's loosening up. But what do you tell the company that has employees that are great brand ambassadors, that are out there on social media? What do you tell that company that is genetically fearful of that world? Why should they embrace it? Orlando Haynes: So that's the toughest question. But there was an article put out by LinkedIn by, I think, Dan Roth or Danny Roth, it said, Rise of the creator employee, which spoke directly to that. And the benefit of if you have multiple employees with multiple brand, you know, good personal brand, inadvertently people are going to see where they work, land on their page and see opportunities. Because I want to work with a company that I can see the ins and outs. Great that you have this great new widget, new software, new tech, that's fine. But what's a day in the life? What is it like behind the walls? Orlando Haynes: And I think, through personal branding, you can share, "Hey, we're not perfect. But this is what the culture really looks like." And again, by that saying, "Okay, the company's allowing employees to do this", like, "Wow, they're allowing, they're tapping into my creativity? Like, that's a company I want to partner with." And so I would say it's such an antiquated thought process right from the higher ups. And so they really need to look at the value proposition that this is creating. And so if companies can create little media teams to advocate for, and better their marketing strategies, it's not going to hurt. It's not going to hurt. As long as it's on brand etc., I don't see any negative behind it. As long as you got the right people. Yeah. Chad: Orlando says it's good for your brand. Orlando, somebody wants to connect with you, where would you send them? Orlando Haynes: Yep. They can come straight to LinkedIn, Orlando Haynes. Or connect with me on my website, careertalkspodcast.com. Chad: Excellent. Joel: Thanks for hanging out. Enjoy the rest of your time in Nashville. Chad: Orlando Haynes. Orlando Haynes: Appreciate it, gentlemen. Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch Big Booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

The Chad & Cheese Podcast Does Europe takes a wild ride through the continent’s hiring jungle—dodging legal landmines, outdated staffing giants, and AI-powered upstarts along the way. Chad, fresh from a Champions League pilgrimage, joins Joel and Lieven to break down JobIndex’s showdown with Google, Randstad’s midlife crisis, and why GDPR is like a 19th-century train system (yes, really). With spicy debates, bold predictions, and a dash of humor, this episode asks: Can Europe innovate without regulation holding it back? And will Randstad sink or finally swipe right on the future? Tune in to find out! PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Joel (00:34.862) Three guys still figuring out which Spice Girls we want to impregnate. You were listening to the Chad and Cheese Podcast Does Europe. I'm your cohost, Joel Parting, like it's 19, sorry, 1899 Cheeseman. Chad (00:49.933) This is Chad, what the actual fuck is happening around this place? So watch. Lieven (00:54.926) And I'm Lieven "Boycotting all that's American except Cheddar and Cheese" Van Nieuwenhuyze. Joel (00:59.778) we're tear free leaving so it's all good on this episode job index settles Ron Stott stalls and who'd you rather let's do this Chad (01:14.099) so European, I'm dressed exactly like Levin. Lieven (01:17.987) You Joel (01:19.426) I missed the memo on the sprockets outfit today. You guys need turtlenecks, maybe a mock turtle, something. Yeah, make it really totally your... there's the football scarf. The football scarf. Chad (01:22.477) Sprockets. Joel (01:36.824) That hasn't quite caught on in America, the sports scarf. Chad (01:36.947) sexy that's I don't think it will I don't think it will Lieven (01:41.028) No? If you go to let's say the American football or to baseball you don't have scarves? Okay... Chad (01:46.283) No hats, jerseys. Yeah. Yeah. Or more or more jerseys. Joel (01:46.294) No, we have hats, jerseys. Yeah, no scarves. I like it. I like it. And no big flags and fireworks in the stands usually. Just beer tossing and mosh pitting or something. I don't know. So what's going on in Europe? I haven't been watching the news. Is there any headlines out of Europe? I've missed it. Chad's had a great time in Europe last week or so. Lieven (01:51.28) Okay, it could be big business selling scarves. Everyone needs one. No? No fighting either. Okay. Chad (02:08.023) Wish I was still there. I did. Yeah, I did. Well, leaving, talk to us. What's happened over? What's the sentiment? What's the sentiment? Joel (02:19.022) Should we just go right to the jugular hair? Chad (02:24.653) you Lieven (02:25.442) The only the only headlines we have are American headlines. We don't like him Joel, we don't like him. No. So I'm going to give Donald Trump some advice on diplomatic advice. I think he should make Ukraine the 51st state and leave Canada alone and then Ukraine would be part of NATO all at once and you have access to the minerals and Russia would be happy because their biggest assets will become the president of Ukraine. And Europe will keep its free healthcare and we can go back to sleep and everything will be normal again. So. Joel (03:01.346) Governor, Governor, Zalinski, Governor, Luzinski. Lieven (03:04.218) Governor Zelensky Joel (03:07.734) huh. Is this a real movement or is this a leave an original announced here on the show? Lieven (03:12.869) I think we should start lobbying. It's not a real movement yet. Joel (03:17.61) Okay. It's the Levin. You heard it here first. NX Ukraine is the 51st state. All Levin's idea. Lieven (03:22.498) Yeah, it was all my idea. Yeah, Tuesday 11th. Chad (03:27.021) Things are shifting, Things are shifting. mean, we're looking at Tesla tanking in Europe, Norwegian companies refusing to refuel American ships, Dutch pension funds sold $575 million in Tesla shares. mean, there's this, I mean, we're rethinking alliances and I don't like the way that the US is rethinking them. I'm not a fan, guys. Joel (03:30.701) you Lieven (03:42.852) Yep. Joel (03:52.994) Man, if I can't get served in Paris, there's a problem. Can I go to Europe as an American now leaving, or am going to be Kung Fu fighting in the streets of Berlin? Lieven (04:03.984) First you'll have to tell how thankful you are that they want to serve you and please please wear a suit and then you might be served. Joel (04:06.99) Okay. Joel (04:11.97) But can it be the Trump black suit with the red tie? Can I do like, can I look like Trump in a suit or do I have to go European with a nice, a nice, a nice Hugo boss or a nice Italian suit? Okay. Chad (04:18.925) I wouldn't go there. Yeah, I wouldn't go Lieven (04:20.514) I think to try, yeah, maybe the Italian approach, yeah, but more elegant, not the very big broad American suit thing. Joel (04:32.174) Those Italian suits fit a little tight on me, Leaven. I don't know. I need that JCPenney Joseph A. Bank suit. That's the one that fits me. Especially has a little flex in it. You've seen these flex suits for the elbows. Yeah, I need a little room to get in my suit. Jeez. Lieven (04:35.106) I imagine. I prefer swim fit, but... Yeah. Chad (04:45.501) Mm-hmm. Little flex. Lieven (04:47.576) I'm sure as long as it's tailor-made, it will be all fine. Joel (04:50.958) I fear that this is going to be a trend on the show for a while. I'll even the, the Trump shout out. Sadly, Yep. Chad (04:57.665) I don't, I don't like it. I don't like it, especially when I'm over there, right? I hate even more when I come back over here. So yeah, I'm just not a fan. Let's just, let's, let's have leaving diplomacy. Let's, let's do leaving diplomacy. All right. All right. All right. Lieven (05:09.4) Mm-hmm. Joel (05:13.614) All right, Chad, drag us out of this misery. Okay. Chad (05:16.929) I don't know that I can't. yeah. So last week, last couple of weeks, I was in the Netherlands right next door to, to leave, leave in and, got to give a shout out. did a ton of stuff, but I definitely got to give a shout out to our friends here. John over at the intelligence group. That's right. for, taking me and my friends to champions league match in fine Nord, it's right there in, in Rotterdam for you kids looking, looking for Fiannard at the cube. cushy leather seats, beer, food, the works, man. So play that beautiful bean footage. You can see all the fun. Yeah. Joel (05:51.387) Real question real quick on the scarf thing. So it's sponsored by them, but are they the sponsor of the team or do they just randomly make scarves? Chad (05:56.556) Yes. Chad (06:00.839) no, they are actually intelligence group is a sponsor of the team. Yes. has his business seats, the entire time he's at every match. And yeah. So yeah, I got the cool fine word scarf with the intelligence group on the other side and play, play the coolness. Joel (06:15.534) Cool, cool, live show at one of the future game, which looks like a good time if you're not. Chad (06:24.459) Remember, this is Champions League. This is big stuff against Inter Milan, right? So Italy is coming to the Netherlands for a fight. Joel (06:35.294) I get knocked down. So what's with the, there's a dude like ready to fight. that the mascot? So instead of like a fuzzy frog or something, it's a guy that's looking to fight. Lieven (06:37.466) Thank Chad (06:47.021) So the dude, so the dude with the black eye and he was all beat up and whatnot. Apparently he's a famous Dutch guy who was a street fighter. So they are again, they're fighters. not, they're not putting up with the bullshit. You can't bring that red tie over there, Joel. Can't do it. Now unless it says, unless it says fine or. Joel (06:48.75) Uh-huh. Lieven (07:04.794) you Joel (07:06.048) I won't do it. I'm bringing. I'm wearing all Canadian all the time when I'm in Europe now. All Canadian all the time. Chad (07:13.197) Yeah. Just say sorry a lot. Say sorry a lot. Joel (07:20.526) All right. My shout out, my shout out goes out to, well, you may not remember, you may not know it because Google deleted it from their calendar. it was international women's day, recently. of course Europe, nobody does, does, protesting and marching like Europeans do. So, in Paris, apparently a staggering 120,000 people, joined in, over 150 demonstrations across France. Organizers estimated that a quarter of a million people. took part and of course in pure French fashion, a lot of topless women were roaming the streets with flags painted on their chest with swastikas. Nobody protests quite like the French and I'm here for it and they get my shout out for the week. Shout out to the French protesters. Chad (08:12.141) French do wine well and rebellion. Joel (08:15.662) And not necessarily in that order Lieven (08:17.188) What? Alright. Chad (08:24.222) areas. Joel (08:26.446) All right, let's talk law here. Job Index and Dansky Mediae have settled their case against Google, withdrawing their appeal against Google for jobs. The settlement terms were not disclosed, but both parties expressed satisfaction with the resolution. In case you missed it, Job Index filed a formal complaint with the EU Commission back in 2022 requesting that it initiate a case against Google for abusing its dominant market. position, Chad, big deal, little deal or no deal, your thoughts. Chad (08:59.117) I mean, we talked about how the case was severely flawed in the first place and I would speculate that the price of the settlement had to go down dramatically since job index was appealing their loss in the first place. So Google probably threw them a bone and said, now just shut the fuck up. I don't think this is a big deal. I think this might be an opportunity for Google to pretty much, you know, put job index in the rear view mirror. Joel (09:26.36) Mm-hmm. Chad (09:26.837) And then also prospectively quell, some others who might come up and, and, and try to throw the same kind of flawed bullshit at them. but I think the funniest thing that I heard after the news came out, it's total rumor, was that the job index was hurrying and starting to, to actually check out how they could get in the Google for jobs schema. It could be a total rumor, but I think, but I think with the revenue issues that job index has been having, it, it could be a thing. It could be a thing. They might be on Google for jobs before you know it. Joel (09:46.955) huh. Joel (09:54.126) Could be a thing. Yep, yep. So in case you missed it, job index also reported a 5.3 % decrease in revenue for the second half of 2022. Could it be that the decrease in money had some connection to the decrease in traffic? Traffic that they could have gotten from Google for jobs? I don't know. I don't know. me, call me a conspiracy theorist, but that may have had something to do with it. Yeah. When this thing broke, we were like, you don't have to be in Google, bro. Like you can just tell them we don't want to be in the index. So to, to, Chad (10:06.093) Mm-hmm. Joel (10:28.888) to have this lawsuit against some sort of competition, felt really European as an American. really felt like let's stick it to the American company. Let's make some money, which probably let's, let's, I think that's probably what happened. Google went to the couch cushions. got a few million duckets to throw at this company. and then it was, then it was finished. I think the big question going forward, With the changes, if you've been watching the news, you've seen some changes about America sort of leaving Europe in a big way, which has caused Europe to sort of get on its feet, figure out what we're going to do. And part of that of what I've heard is leaving is squinching his eyes, which means maybe I'm wrong here, but I'll let him chime in afterwards is that regulation stifles innovation. Lieven (11:11.909) No, no. Joel (11:17.588) And I'm hearing a lot of things out of Europe that says we need to be innovators again. We need to be creating companies, not regulating the companies that are already successful. So I want to know if this case is a really small example of Europe stepping away from regulation, less encouragement of that and really focusing on how do we innovate? How do we grow companies? How do we keep money here? and do that. So I think Europe needs innovation. And my hope is that this case is sort of indicative of companies less let's sue Google and Facebook and everybody else and more let's innovate and make great companies here in Europe. Leave in your thoughts. Lieven (12:03.194) I wonder why there is a settlement. mean, Google won and I don't think Job Index was going to appeal anyway. Okay, and then Google came to a settlement, they didn't say it was a financial settlement. It could also be a settlement like, okay, now stop it and we'll leave you alone as well. That's a settlement too. But I wonder if it is a financial settlement, I guess it will be in the financial statements next year. So we should put it in our agenda and check if there are... Chad (12:10.827) They did. They peeled. Lieven (12:32.171) are some numbers showing up. I'm really curious about the amount because they live in a different world and job in Google. So maybe they got their 5 % back after all. I'm not sure. Probably not. I don't think Google is going to throw money away, especially now with ChachiPT taking, I think going to be taking a big part of the income from Google in the coming years. Joel (12:59.662) What are your thoughts on Europe becoming a more innovative government, encouraging innovation, stripping away some regulations and red tape? Is it your opinion that that is where Europe is going or is it less so from your perspective? Lieven (13:01.176) So I wonder, I wonder. Lieven (13:16.012) Yeah, maybe, maybe that's the good thing about America bullying us all right now, that we're going to stop being extremely woke and just try to be a bit more pragmatic. And okay, this looks like a nice law, but do we really need it because we have plenty of laws. So maybe stop adding laws and work a bit harder. So this might be a good outcome, but still we prefer to way we have free healthcare, you have military, everyone was happy. I think we should go back to. Joel (13:36.067) Mm-hmm. Lieven (13:46.192) to that moment. Joel (13:47.264) everyone or every european was happy Chad (13:47.457) at better. Lieven (13:50.606) Boy, you liked having the military? Joel (13:51.885) you Chad (13:54.485) I think the narrative around if there's regulation, there's no innovation. It was just total bullshit. I think that is set up by capitalists because they want, they don't want government to tell them what to do. But if you take a look at, and I had a great example this week, I was watching AI and safety, right? And they were talking about railroads and how railroads in the United States, only about 30 % of them at one time actually made it to their destinations. Lieven (13:59.841) Mm-hmm. That's true. Chad (14:23.181) because it was so bad from a safety standpoint. Then the United States came in and they started to regulate. had air brakes. They had all these different things from a safety standpoint that they had to use. And it wasn't just about getting freight from one point to the next. So railroads became much safer and the innovation that we got out of those railroads because of that actually was better for the country. It was better for the companies. So I think trying to put those two together, regulation stifles innovation. I think that's just a bullshit way of saying that we don't want you in our backyard auditing us. Lieven (15:06.328) Yeah, I agree. But sometimes regulation just isn't, it isn't helping. Like European AI acts will probably give us a big disadvantage compared to people who don't have it. GDPR is just cumbersome. So the companies who are correct, they use GDPR in correct way and the companies who are not, they still don't. So, I mean, sometimes legislation is just a law and it's It's kind of creating barriers which we don't want. Joel (15:35.468) Yeah. And I think sometimes optics comes to play as well. If investors have the opinion that Europe is not a good place to spend money because of regulations and red tape, then you're losing out on money that's going, that's staying in America or going to Asia and other places. So optics matters sometimes too. Lieven (15:46.521) Hmm. Chad (15:51.917) think it's harder to spend money in Europe because you're looking at a bunch of different countries, right? In one big mass, we're in the US, you're looking at, you take a look at a comparison, it's pretty much the same, a bunch of different countries, but they're just all united under the same English, right, culture to some extent. So I mean, it's harder to spend money in Europe. I don't think it's less innovative in Europe. As we take a look at a lot of the startups that are coming out of Europe, they're pretty fucking innovative. Lieven (16:00.56) Mm-hmm. Joel (16:09.774) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:22.245) and with regard to, to GDPR, mean, yeah, some of it's kind of a pain in the ass, but at the end of the day, will it also start to change the thought process on who owns what data and will that have long-term effects, good effects or bad effects on, on, on technology companies. Lieven (16:42.797) I totally agree and I feel privacy is extremely important. Problems of course, these laws should be on a global scale, which today is impossible. Chad (16:46.029) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:52.107) No, yeah. Joel (16:54.114) Follow the money kids. Joel (16:59.022) All right, let's take, bring it to your, let's say, take a quick break. Take a breath of all this Trump nonsense and talk a little bit more business. Lieven (16:59.13) Follow the money and bring it to Europe. Chad (17:01.965) I'm coming. I'm coming. Lieven (17:03.824) You're welcome, Chet. Lieven (17:10.707) Hmm. Chad (17:12.247) Joel (17:17.486) All right, Chad used to work there as it Ronstadt, Randstad, like what is the exact pronunciation? Chad (17:24.587) mean, if you're saying it from the Midwestern accent, it's Ronstadt or Randstad, right? But it's, mean, as you start to deal with the Dutch, it's more of the Ronstadt. Yeah. Joel (17:29.794) wrong stuff. Lieven (17:32.75) Rammstadt. Joel (17:36.792) Ron Ron stock. Well, I can't roll my R so I'm screwed there. I'll do the best I can here guys. All right. In an opinion piece from our friend, GJ Vostor. he outlines how Ron start is facing challenges despite a thriving labor market. While the company's market share is shrinking, competitors are thriving by focusing on specialized niches, leveraging technology and maintaining strong local presences. Ron Stott's attempts to adapt such as acquisitions and leadership changes have yet to reverse its decline. Lieven (17:37.252) and stats. Joel (18:06.986) See monster highlighting the need for a strategic shift. We already mentioned that you used to work there, Chad. So I assume you have some thoughts on GJ's opinion of Ronstadt. Chad (18:19.341) Yeah, I personally think Ronstadt is going through an identity crisis. Are they a staffing company or are they a tech company? The answer to me is yes. This is a problem they are trying to choose. And the answer is Ronstadt needs. And when I say need, I mean it's vital for leadership to understand that the aspects of staffing will be an app. They need to be creating global partnerships with platforms they can leverage and then, prospectively, buy, maybe. But platforms like Remote Deal, Velocity Global, Oyster, Atlas, and other EOR companies will become tomorrow's version of staffing. So Ronstadt is taking kind of like today's version of BlackBerry, you know, where they denied smartphones for the future. They've got to understand they've got to move forward. So yes. Ronsod has an innovation fund to keep an eye on the market, but where did that help them in the failed acquisition of Monster? Seriously, you have a leadership team that understands traditional staffing in a non-traditional world. You can't adapt technology to your business. You need to transform your business into a platform. And I think the hardest example of this is job.com, where they've demonstrated over the years that they haven't been able to make it work. Job.com 's vision was to consolidate staffing agencies and pull them into the job.com platform and then change the model where the commissions were anywhere from 15 to 20 % per transaction down to 2 % per transaction. So if you slim down headcount become a cheaper option and squeeze out the competition, you can pretty much at that point start to raise that 2 % to 5%, maybe get it back to 15%, but it's so damn hard. Joel (20:08.651) Mm-hmm. Chad (20:11.117) to stand by and watch 15 or 20 % contracts go to 2%. So this is a hard transition to pull off as demonstrated by the real life canary in the AI mind, know, job.com. It's going to be hard for Ron style. They've got a shit ton of cash. Um, will that be enough? No fucking clue. I think leaving knows a hell of a lot better than I do. Joel (20:37.292) Leaving what you got on Ron Stott. And say it correctly for us, because I know you can. OK, love it. Lieven (20:41.136) I'm not sure if I know. Randstad. Randstad, yeah. I really like the article because I work for a competitor of Randstad, but how's of HR? I know, I know, and we were mentioned in a good way. we are the mid-sized companies taking market share from the leader. But I think it's largely accurate, the article, but it's sometimes a bit opinionated. And I'm not going to say I'm objective, but just my few thoughts. Joel (20:53.198) and you were mentioned in the article. Lieven (21:14.032) So they're losing ground to smaller agile competitors. That's true. Rundstats isn't small and they're not agile. And in this business, that's a problem. that's a fact. But a bigger problem to me is that they are afraid of technology. You might remember in 2016, they launched Ploy. And Ploy was, when I looked at it, I thought, damn, that's a good idea. They made a marketplace. It's actually an app for the the catering business mostly to hire people immediately. You had a pool of people, had a pool of restaurants and I need someone to wash my dishes because the dishwasher is sick and you could hire someone to... And totally automated. And I looked at Ploy and I thought, okay, it could be better, but it's not a bad tool. It's actually pretty innovative. And one year later, and I wasn't even working at Haasevichard then in 2017, Accent, one of our companies, launched a competition inside the of HR. And they asked, what could kill Accent? Come up with an idea that is so brilliant that it could kill Accent. And Accent then had 300 million euros of revenue. So not that big, but not small either. And they came up with something which really resembled Ploy, but better. It was like Ploy 2.0. They based their ideas probably on Ploy, and they improved it. And they launched it. But Chad (22:32.204) Mm. Lieven (22:36.88) Ploy had a first mover advantage. They already existed for one year, but they never grow. Why didn't they grow? They were afraid. The people in their offices, they didn't want it. They say, I'm a digital platform. They're going to take away our jobs. going to, we don't like it. And you better stop using this. And they didn't dare to promote it. And House of HR just thought, great, we have a new tool which could finish Accent. Let's launch it before the competition does. And now Ploy has 100 million revenue. Sorry, not Ploy, Ploy is dead. Now Jobs has 100 million euros revenue a few years later and totally automated. So that's great. And then there's Monster, Randstad bought Monster. It was like a safe bet. And I think it was 2015, 2016 also, something like that. 327 million euros. And back then I thought what does Randstad know that I don't know? Buying Monster, outdated technology, and it was going down already. Apparently they didn't know. Chad (23:29.005) You Lieven (23:35.34) So they've been losing money on it. The moment they started losing money at the moment they bought it. And Rundstadt and technology hasn't been the best match, I think. And they've been afraid of it. So in this business, you have a problem now. But I think something that should be more nuanced is they faced a total of 260 million in impairments and adjustments, meaning it's mostly a one-time expense. Joel (23:46.05) Mm-hmm. Lieven (24:04.048) Had a problem with the value of Goodwill in Sweden and the United Kingdom. They had 139 million of reassessing and adjusting from Carrierebilder and Monster. So these are one shots and they lost a bit of money, but now it's gone. It's out of the box. I think they should be more worried about the decline in revenue. If you lose 5 % revenue in this market, then you have a problem. And this is something which will only get bigger, I think. The one shots aren't that problematic. But who am I? Joel (24:37.09) Mm-hmm. You're leaving. And that means, that means a lot to us. Lieven (24:41.36) I'm You're too kind. You're just trying to make it up to us Europeans. You American. Joel (24:47.51) Yeah. And continue to do that. I, I was, I was doing, doing my research on raunch dot, which I've never really done. And I gotta say like, whoo, it was, it was rough. look, this, this is an old, big, profitable investors love it. They churn out dividends. Lieven (24:59.022) You Chad (25:09.805) legacy. Joel (25:13.134) The stock is basically fluctuated between 20 and $40 forever. Uh, stockholders are happy. They're getting dividends. Uh, they're hiring people organically. mean, the head count is going up, uh, $8 billion market cap, like nice size. have three or four competitors like manpower, Deco, and recruit holdings. think monster was an attempt to be recruit holdings and say, Hey, we can get in this internet job thing game. And they failed and they. To their credit, they cut bait and they were out. Like we, we do what we do. Our shareholders love it. I like, we like, this is who we are. I, I think they look at deal and remote and like, okay, whatever. were here, we were here in the nineties with, with monster and all the other up and coming sites. And we were there in the nineties and the eighties when all these disruptions have these guys are, these guys are just this big. enterprise that goes through space. It doesn't really care. And that's just what it is, man. I, yes, do they innovate? No. Do they suck? Probably. but they are what they are, man. It's like, they're like Philip Morris. They've been making cigarettes forever. They churn out dividends. You know, they, they don't innovate, but people keep, you know, buying it. I'm not comparing cigarettes to staffing. Maybe there are different kinds of drugs there. There's not the nicotine hit that you get with staffing, but I just, Lieven (26:21.954) No. Chad (26:34.017) Hahaha Joel (26:39.53) They're not going to get disrupted anytime soon. They're just going to plod along like a big elephant in the jungle and just be happy with what they are from what I can see. Lieven (26:50.53) In the article, it also mentioned something about their CEO being not connected to the staffing industry. came from somewhere else. But that doesn't necessarily have to be a problem. mean, the best CEO in the business, of course, is Rika Koppens, our CEO. Friends and foes all agree on it. But she didn't come from the business as well. She was part, of course, of the board. So she knew about House of HR. But she came from the oil business. and the new CEO of AccentJobs, Stan van der Voorst. He came from Adidas. Do I pronounce it right? The shoes? Adidas. He was managing director from Adidas Japan and he had a big experience in e-business selling shoes online. So this was something we wanted to be know about recruitment, but we wanted a CEO who had a different way of looking at things and it works. So with the new CEO of Randstad being Chad (27:27.713) Yep. Adidas. Joel (27:29.132) data. Chad (27:42.359) Mm-hmm. Lieven (27:48.592) from a different business, I don't see a problem, not necessarily, but he of course has to adapt and maybe that's something which isn't happening. Joel (27:55.82) I feel like he's going to get bored really, really fast if he was at Adidas. Lieven (28:00.804) Yeah. Chad (28:00.941) I gotta say though, for leaving, mean, you guys, again, you're trying to out-innovate yourself in the market and you're trying to pretty much out-Netflix yourself, right? You were sending DVDs in the mail, what's next? Streaming, shit, we better get streaming right, right? Where Ronstadt feels like Blockbuster. And as Joel had said, it's legacy, it's worked, it's worked forever. Question is, how long will that? And if they're not continuing to do like you guys are and building the now jobs of tomorrow, I mean, that's something that you guys can actually fall back on. There's tech there. You've got tech that you've built that obviously, a hundred million dollars, not too bad, is actually working. Right? So being able to build those contingencies and if those contingencies actually create their own business models, you've got something to fall back on. I just don't see Ronstadt having anything to fall back on. Um, they're a big fucking company. Maybe they don't need anything to fall back on. Oh yeah. It is. It is. They're everywhere. Lieven (29:01.366) They have a big brand. That's still important that they have global presence. That's also important. Joel (29:03.33) Yeah, huge brand. That means something. Look, if they're the elephant, Rika is the lioness fucking shit up in the jungle. And I'd much rather talk about the lioness fucking shit up instead of the old salty crusty. Chad (29:13.6) You Lieven (29:18.128) You know, think Rannstadt should hire Elon Musk. And he just let him dog around Rannstadt and then we'd be rid of two nuisance at once. Elon would be gone and Rannstadt would be gone afterwards too. So Rannstadt do something makes make herself useful hire Elon. Joel (29:24.32) No. Chad (29:32.755) He's come in with a kitchen sink and yeah. Joel (29:39.214) Let's play some who'd you rather, shall we? All right, if you're new to the show, here's how it works gang. And we talk about two startups that have recently gotten money. We read a summary and of the two companies, everyone in this podcast will say who they'd rather. Guys, you ready for a little bit of who'd you rather? In this corner, we have Alpha, ALFA, a UK based AI recruitment startup who has secured Chad (29:41.389) Yeah. Chad (29:59.223) Ring it. Joel (30:08.474) £495,000 in funding, valuing the company at 6 million USD. The funding will help Alpha automate recruitment tasks and enable hiring managers to focus on candidate interactions. Alpha CEO Alfie, yes, Alpha's CEO is a guy named Alfie. Yeah, said quote, our AI agent is capable of a million software calls simultaneously in any language at 97 % lower cost. Lieven (30:26.638) That's great. Joel (30:37.598) than a human. that is alpha. And in this corner, the opposing one, Avery. Rotterdam-based Avery has raised 300,000 euros to address costly mis-hires, which studies show can waste up to 50,000 euros per bad hire. Avery's AI-powered platform promises to predict candidate success and validate roles, offering what it calls a more efficient and market aligned approach. Backed by Builder Startup Studio, Avery says they serve 25 customers across Europe. That is Avery versus Alpha Chad. Who'd you rather? Chad (31:19.329) Since I've got my Rotterdam scarf on, fan or Rotterdam, I'm start with them. So Avery, it's kind of funny because in the press release, Avery talks about speed, right? And how speed isn't important. Fit is important. And then you watch the video on their homepage and speed is mentioned over and over and over. Lieven (31:25.68) Cool. Chad (31:42.853) It's interesting because marketing is just not clicking somewhere. Either speed counts or it doesn't count. Make up your mind, right? So let's focus on the TechEU article real quick. Founder and CEO was quoted several times in one of the quotes, using intelligence to validate roles before a single resume is screened, predicting candidate success before interviews begin and ensuring market alignment before offers go out, end quote. So... That's called fairy dust kids. Avery apparently either has the market cornered on fairy dust, bullshit or fate or vaporware. Wait a minute. Those last two are the same. Avery does not have historical candidate performance data. So there's no way in hell they can predict shit. Now alpha. from the website, 97 % lower cost than a human, 24-7, never stops working, that's what AI does for you, that's technology, and 10 ex-candidates interviewed. All great numbers, but even better than those numbers is Alfie. Yes, I said it, it's fucking Alfie, the wunderkind, co-founder and CEO of Alfa. The kid knows how to promote himself and the company. While Ed, the CTO, is actually out there doing the hard work, the development stuff. So if I'm in a bar at 3 a.m. and I only have two choices and it's Avery and Alpha, Alpha looks much more sexy tonight. And I'm going home without one. Joel (33:15.214) All right, all right. All right. That is, that is one of the books. All right. Chad, you know, I, you know, I love a good wave. I love a good wave. I'd rather have a bad surfer on a good wave than a good surfer on a bad wave. And the ultimate wave right now is Europe is Europe. Let's count the ways. number one, the Eurozone is outperforming growth expectations right now. Chad (33:28.929) He's never served. He's never served. Chad (33:40.744) yeah. Chad (33:45.261) Mm-hmm. Joel (33:45.586) everyone unemployed at Volkswagen can now build tanks apparently because, the defense departments are going to be in it. And yeah, that's good. sure. Sure. Lieven (33:49.998) Yep. Chad (33:51.757) Thanks, you're welcome. Lieven (33:52.706) And can I add something Joel? Because I like it. In Belgium, there was a really, really, really big Audi factory. And they closed it down and it's a huge, site. It's half a city. And they're going to launch a military factory there now. So they're going to use the factory in which they built Audi Q8, et cetera. And they're going to make military vehicles. Joel (34:11.15) Mm-hmm. Joel (34:18.136) Yep. Yep. Lieven (34:19.067) it's, it's becoming big business because we can't trust our American partners anymore. So we won't be buying your shit. Joel (34:26.83) So expectations are optimistic. Number two, European stocks have been beat down for many, many years, losing to the S &P 500. As of now, the S &P 500 is underperforming the Euro stocks that are there. So stockwise, money is flowing into public companies in Europe. Number three, the European Central Bank is expected to cut rates Lieven (34:28.971) Bye. Joel (34:53.122) multiple times in 2025, which means money's free. Give it to companies. Let's grow, baby. Let's grow. Let's grow. Let's grow. And number four is we've already talked about the uncertainty in the U S in other words, what the fuck are we doing is driving hedge funds and institutional investors into Europe where there's a much more stable environment. if we can say that. So for those four reasons, in short, Chad (35:07.885) the story. Joel (35:21.514) Europeans under evaluation improving fundamentals and uncertainties in America means that I am calling for a menage a trois. I'm going to do both of them. I'm doing both. I'd rather both these companies because I love a good wave, Chad. I love a good wave. That's right. Leaving. Lieven (35:34.628) I Lieven (35:41.274) Thank you. Chad (35:42.763) the wave of Europe. I do. Lieven (35:45.936) In that case Joel, you can have mine because I don't want any of them. No, I'm sure, I'm serious. I think Alpha is interesting and I like the name Alfie, but it reminds me of a television series when I was really young, in the 90s, end of the 80s. Alf, the extraterrestrial, whatever. Okay, the problem with Alpha is it's extremely easy to copy. Joel (35:52.462) Yeah Chad (36:00.109) healthy health. Joel (36:06.062) as a movie too, Chad (36:07.685) yeah, Alf. Joel (36:09.816) Well, Alfie and Alf different, but go ahead. Lieven (36:15.95) And I would never invest in something which is that easy to copy. And the problem with Avery is it's not sexy and we like things being sexy, but I think you don't need Avery to avoid bad hires. mean, AI is automating everything, which gives us time to do our due diligence when hiring people and just do your fucking job. I was the right person. That's what we do. It's we are in the staffing business. We don't need a specific company to do that for us. It's our job. We've been doing it for tens of years. decades, decades since the, for example, since the 1960s even. So I'm okay. Now they're going down, but that's a different story. But, I don't know. I don't want alpha to use the copy. I don't want Avery because I just don't need them. Joel (36:51.074) decades. Lieven (37:08.644) the time we save by using AI. You can have them Joel, them. Bring them to America. Chad (37:09.889) Joel's gonna take them both, yeah. Joel (37:13.422) Alright, alright. Give me all the Europe. Give me all the Europe. Chad (37:17.421) Apparently, Levin hasn't had enough to drink to be able to pick one of the other. Joel (37:20.014) Yeah, it was a happy hour and Belgians make the best beer. Jeez, what the hell is going on? We need a dad joke to pull us out of this one, everybody. All right, did you hear about the Italian chef who died? Did you hear about the Italian chef who died? He passed away. Lieven (37:22.064) Thanks. Lieven (37:25.438) It's alcohol free, that's the problem. Chad (37:26.541) That's a great beer. I had great beer last week. That's for damn sure. God. Chad (37:46.253) So bad. So bad. Clemen. We out. Lieven (37:46.572) Yes Joel. Thank you Joel. We out. Joel (37:47.886) We out!EUROPE: Regulation, Randstad and a Tech Rumble

In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast , recorded live at RecFest USA, Paige Elliott, Global Employer Brand Manager at Veeam Software, shares why authentic diversity stories are key to attracting talent. She discusses how to align internal culture with external messaging, leverage diverse storytelling formats, and collaborate with ERGs and DE&I teams for genuine narratives. The conversation also covers candidates' increasing scrutiny of DE&I commitments, strategic recruitment partnerships, and the importance of transparency in pay and culture. Don’t miss Paige’s expert insights on building a brand where values and actions align! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Podcast Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman 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. [music] Joel: Thanks for hanging out with us today. Let's start with who are you and why are you here? Paige Elliott: My name is Paige Elliott. I am the global employer brand manager at Veeam Software. And I'm here today to talk about the power of diversity stories within organizations, why it's important. That is my session for tomorrow. And just really help the talent acquisition and HR know the importance of diverse perspectives and just how important it is today. Chad: Yeah, yeah. So, with that in mind, looking forward, right? What advice would you give to your peers in talent acquisition and recruiting? What nugget would you give them moving forward? Paige Elliott: I would say employer branding is not just the websites anymore and just the nice slogans and nice-to-haves. It's really about also the employee experience as well. You want your employer brand to match what's actually happening internally inside your organization. Because the last thing you want is to talk about your company and all the amazing things about your company, your values, and then they get into the organization, and their experience does not match that. And so just the importance of making sure that your culture and your values internally match your employer brand, and it's carried the whole way through that process. And that includes activating your diverse employees stories, letting their voices be heard, and really incorporating that into your employer brand and your messaging. Joel: Let's dig into... You talk about storytelling a lot. What does that look like? Is it video? Is it the written word? Is it audio? Is it all of the above? And how do you deliver that to your audience? Paige Elliott: It's all of it. When it comes to recruiting, whether they're on your careers website, your social media; whether it's your employees posting on their own; it's all content. I think when it comes to getting any feedback from employees, you can leverage it and repurpose it on every platform. And it comes in the sense of using it to recruit, using it for, like I said, your careers website or your blogs or anything. But being able to just capture their voices in all avenues internally so that they feel that sense of belonging. And yeah, so it's all types of content avenues. Chad: So, it's hard because you have so many employees, and you want to capture all these stories. How do you capture them? What's the easiest way? How do you capture those stories? Because manually, it's hard for you to scale as a person or a team, right? How do you do it? Paige Elliott: I think it's really about partnership and being able to collaborate internally. I always use employee resource groups as a starting point because those groups are for minorities and underrepresented groups, right? So, starting with them, networking with your HRBPs, they know their organizations best; talking to recruiters, they know who they're looking for to hire; DE&I and talent management, they know the different employees that are coming through the pipeline and the internal mobility. Talk to them, leverage them. I think it's really just not working in silos, but finding out the people in your organization who have a story. Because we all have a story, right? And that's what makes your company unique. It's your people and their experiences. And so we can really amplify those messages and those stories. People connect with that. People like real people with real stories, at the end of the day. So, it's just finding those things and diversifying it. Joel: Yep. So DE&I has been on quite a wild ride the last few years. Something that went from "This is a good idea everyone should embrace" to "This is political," "This is weaponized," to companies taking sides. Wondering from your perspective on the candidate side, what kind of conversations and questions are you getting from the candidates in regards to inclusivity and diversity? Paige Elliott: That's a good question. Candidates that are currently within a company or candidates that are like external looking to work for you? Joel: All the candidates, yes. [overlapping conversation] Paige Elliott: All the candidates. People just want to know if it's real or not, at the end of the day. Are you just trying to check a box, or are you authentically moving forward and committed to diversity and inclusion? And so I think that's what I'm saying with the messaging. People can feel that. Are you just putting it out there? And then I come work at your company and there's no processes in place, there's no systems in place to support what you're saying? So, that's the conversation. How serious is this company? Candidates are doing their research now. Once they're going through the interview process, they're going to look you up, right? They're going to look on LinkedIn, social media, see what people are saying, and they want to be able to see what's on your career website. You know what I mean? So, I think it goes beyond the corporate message, but it goes to, what are the people saying about the organization? And people inside are talking about it. And people externally that you're looking to hire, they're talking about it as well. Chad: So, were you surprised earlier this year when companies like TSE and Harley and some of those organizations literally said, "We're just pulling out of DEI entirely?" Did that surprise you? Paige Elliott: I would say it didn't surprise me. It's sad a little bit, because it became the good thing to do. You know what I mean? But it shouldn't even be a conversation. It's a necessity. The fact that we're still having to make it important, or talk about it, "Is it good? Is it not good?" it should be embedded in your principles. And so I was surprised by it taking place, but people have been... It just hasn't felt as authentic, is where I'm... You know what I mean? People have used it and weaponized it in different ways, so I'm not surprised that they've held back. But at the same time, there's a lot of companies that are still pressing forward with it. So, there's still value when it comes to spending money, and really being able to push the DE&I agenda forward. It's important, but unfortunately, some people have, or companies have misused it. Joel: Yep. What are you doing from a marketing perspective or job distribution perspective, or just marketing in general to make sure that you're getting in front of as many people and diverse candidates as possible? Paige Elliott: Yeah, that's a good question. You really have to, well, one, diversify the content that you are getting, right? A lot of it comes to recruitment campaigns. We work with, say, our sales team is looking to diversify their talent, so then I have to get really intentional with my targeting. What area are we looking at? Do we need to target certain universities, if it's early careers? Minority groups, the partnerships are important. We've recently partnered with Out & Equal organization for the LGBTQ+ community or Women in Tech, to really leverage that network. Partnerships are important. I just think it's about being intentional, really being intentional. Joel: Are partnerships different than sponsorships? Paige Elliott: So, they can do both. Joel: Okay. Paige Elliott: So, we are a partner of Women in Tech, but we also sponsor some events that they have. So, they both show your commitment to diversity and inclusion, but you can leverage partnerships in different ways. Chad: Right. You can spend money but still hire. Paige Elliott: Spend money but still hire... Chad: Right. [overlapping conversation] Paige Elliott: Because the partnerships come with a lot of benefits. They show that you are committed to the agenda of equality, right? But then they also provide resources for you to use internally to improve your processes. They have job boards that you can hire to their diverse... The diverse boards and slates. So, there's a lot of opportunity with partnerships. So, yeah. Chad: So, in 2025, what is your main priority? What's Paige's focus can be in 2025? Paige Elliott: "Paige's focus." Well, I wear many hats, so I feel like my focus is in a lot of places. But I would say really amplifying that employee experience that I was talking about in the beginning. Our company has been working on our careers website, our EVP, and our culture and values, all at the same time. So, really being able to make sure that's embedded in the employer brand, but again, that it's felt consistently throughout the employee experience, and then really bringing that to life so that the employees come on that journey with us. We want to show them where we're going, but without not being authentic, right? We want to just bring them along with the journey. And again, that employee experience is really what my focus will be. Joel: Are there any groups that you feel like you need to be in front of more, or be more aggressive in getting your opportunities in front of? I know we focus a lot on a few, but are there some that we're falling down on? Paige Elliott: I think I just sat in a session about diversity in tech roles. So, definitely want to be able to diversify women in tech roles and software engineer roles and different things like that. I think it's different for every company, what they're focused on. I know for us, it's really looking at the different markets. Diversity looks different in every market, every country. Right? You have to look at what is the need there when it comes to diversity. And then now you know how to be intentional with your targeting and everything. I don't have a "one size fits all" answer for that, but I would say, women in technology would be one area for women. Joel: Where do you start as an organization on pay transparency? Paige Elliott: We don't post the pay and everything externally currently, like on our website or Glassdoor. We currently don't have that exposed. Once they go through the process, we will answer those questions. I'm not truly involved in that process. I'm not with NTA, but I know the recruiters, they will have that candid conversation. Chad: Excellent. Paige, thank you so much for coming and having conversation. If somebody wants to connect with you, where would they do that? Paige Elliott: You can connect with me on LinkedIn, Paige Elliot. I'm happy to connect. And yes, I see people around here actually coming up to me saying they follow me on LinkedIn. Chad: Nice. Paige Elliott: Let them connect. Yeah. Chad: Paige Elliott, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Paige Elliott: Thank you for having me. Thank you. Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back like an awful train wreck you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Eight years. 1,428 episodes. Countless bad takes (but never in doubt). The Chad & Cheese Podcast is still standing—somehow. In this episode: ✅ AI in hiring?  iCIMS just discovered chatbots—welcome to 2015, guys. Meanwhile, Remote and Deal are in a cage match over who can cram more features into their already bloated platforms. ✅ Ghosting is so 2023.  Gen Z is taking job-hopping up a notch with career catfishing—yep, accepting jobs and then… never showing up. Who needs confrontation when you have anxiety? ✅ Amazon’s AI is back.  Will Alexa finally get you a job? Or will she just ghost you like recruiters have for decades? ✅ Plus, the guys take a booze-fueled trip down memory lane, reflect on their first-ever sponsors and unbox a surprise shipment of Chicken Cock whiskey. 🥃 Because nothing fuels corporate snark like free booze. 🎧 Buckle up, kids. It’s unfiltered. It’s unapologetic. It’s The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Hit play—if you can handle it. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:33.288) Frequently wrong, but never in doubt. Hi boys and girls. It's the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel to legit to quit cheeseman Chad (00:42.36) This is Chad. Wow, it's been eight fucking years. So wash. J.T. O'Donnell (00:46.971) And I'm JT. I'm not really Irish, O'Donnell. Joel (00:51.528) Happy St. Patrick's Day and on this episode, deal goes shopping again, iCIMS goes chatboting and job seekers are going catfishing. Let's do this. Chad (01:06.814) Hey, here's dude. And okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. We got it. We got it. We got it. We got to do this. Play, play the intro to our very first show. This is, this is number one kids go. Joel (01:08.52) It only feels like 80. Joel (01:18.63) All right, all right, taking you back to 2017 everybody. Chad (01:21.41) You Chad (01:44.014) And those sponsors, again kids, that was eight years ago. We are today on episode 1,428. Yes. Oh, approaching 1,500. But those sponsors were America's Job Bank, Acquired, Webclip Drop, which I believe became Zap Info. Yeah, yeah. Acquired. And then Beyond.com, which still out there today. Next. With two X's, not the triple X. Joel (01:47.229) Yep. Joel (01:54.876) Mm-hmm. Joel (01:59.559) Wow, yeah. Zap, Zap info. Yeah, doggy. Joel (02:13.832) and this is when they were beyond. Yeah, which I don't know if Bed Bath Beyond are even doing anything with that domain anymore. Chad (02:15.692) Yeah, yeah. Chad (02:19.502) They are not. I think they're dying. J.T. O'Donnell (02:21.033) Right? Joel (02:22.79) What do you remember from that day, Chad? Do you remember anything? Chad (02:26.838) I remember not knowing a fucking thing. I mean, when you go into things like not, well, that's a very good question. That's a very good question. With the, the amount of research I think that we do, and I'm sure you do too, for a weekly show is hours and hours of research. I read these things and then I just after reading them came to, to, to the show, just ready to talk about them. Right now it's more. J.T. O'Donnell (02:30.921) How's that changed? Joel (02:32.656) shit Joel (02:43.549) Mm-hmm. Chad (02:54.782) in-depth research for these things. yeah, instead of taking 15 minutes to read three or four articles, I'm taking hours to read the articles, research the articles, dig deeper into those. just, yeah, it's different. Joel (02:56.87) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (03:08.435) For all your new followers though, what made you two decide to do this? Joel (03:14.82) Wife pressure slash get off the couch and do something slash what the hell slash reason to drink slash. Chad (03:21.91) So he just started, he just started, he just had a startup and that he was starting that up. I had just gotten out of Ronstadt where I'd had my head down for two years, hadn't really been on stage at all. was like, we need to get our fucking voices back out there. This is a great branding exercise, but we treated it as a business on day one, hence having three, three, three sponsors. And then about six months in, because nobody was doing what we were doing in the podcast arena. We exploded and then we. created that obviously it's eight years ago so. Joel (03:52.644) Exploded is generous, but yeah, it took, it took off in a way that I don't think that we, it took a while to get there. took a little while. Yeah. Sorry. My my Midwest humility is kicking in on this one. I remember being so scared and then thinking, no one's going to listen to this. And which is what I thought. I thought maybe 50 of our closest industry people. Chad (03:56.536) Dude, it's your full time fucking job. It has exploded. We have been all over the world on stages, all over the world. It has exploded. J.T. O'Donnell (04:05.865) Exactly. Exactly. I love it. Chad (04:13.281) Yeah? Joel (04:20.796) friends would listen and like that would be it. It's amazing that we're where we are now. But yeah, I'm in for another eight. How about you? Chad (04:21.966) Which is why it took me a year to get him to fucking do it in the first place. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (04:29.575) All kidding aside, congratulations. It is. Chad (04:31.906) Why not? Why not? I'll be on the beach in fucking Portugal. That's right, baby. Joel (04:34.728) Yeah, yeah. It may be one week a month or one episode a month by then, but who knows? We'll still be talking, talking in the microphone. Chad (04:39.886) You J.T. O'Donnell (04:42.641) No, I think I speak for everybody out there, boys, that it's really great what you've done. you know, we're very proud of you. And it's great to see at eight, you're acting your age. It's awesome. Chad (04:52.202) I'm not crying, you're crying. Joel (04:53.32) You sound like a paid consultant, JT. You sound like a paid contractor. Chad, you weren't here last week. Where were you? What's going on? J.T. O'Donnell (04:55.75) I am. You're welcome. Chad (05:00.468) It is. All right. I know, I know, I know. Well, first off, I had to jump over to DC, which I want to talk about. then, we talked about on the Europe show that's coming. but then I had a chance to go to that's right. the Netherlands for a week and a half. Yep. I was lucky enough, Keith Sonderling invited us to come to DC for his congressional hearing, right? Joel (05:10.056) Mm-hmm. Joel (05:17.522) football J.T. O'Donnell (05:18.953) I Chad (05:29.022) and, I was lucky enough to go. So was, was pretty awesome. We did a, we did a day trip. Congrats to Keith. It was really hard to watch what he was signing up for in that congressional hearing. mean, it was. And let me qualify real quick kids. I've actually testified in Congress. I used to travel back and forth to DC for years. started. when we were starting to build out the National Labor Exchange and I was working directly with the National Association of State Workforce Agencies who were in DC and also the federal government. So I was in DC every other week for years. So I understand how the sausage is made, but after this visit, I was literally sick to my stomach. It was like watching kids fucking food fighting, grown ass adults. grown ass adults acting like fucking kids. I mean, we're talking 70, 80 year old fucking dudes. Congrats to Keith. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, Congrats to Keith, but for what he signed up for, dude, you couldn't get me to do that for any amount of money. Done. Joel (06:21.83) Yeah, very adult. Yeah, got confirmed this week. J.T. O'Donnell (06:28.787) Yeah. Joel (06:32.633) It sounds like you think DC hasn't changed much, Chad, but I'm here to tell you things have changed, Chad. I don't know if you saw it this week on the, the white house lawn. There was, there was a show, a showcase of Tesla's let's, let's look at the daily shows. Take, yeah. Take on what happened this week at the white house. Here we go. Chad (06:35.783) dude, change so much. yeah? Tell me. Chad (06:47.15) Is this a used car show? Yeah. Chad (07:11.948) Here's the prices! Joel (07:13.382) Right, Chad (07:19.53) Everything's computer! Joel (07:20.391) You Chad (07:35.477) my god. Chad (07:39.798) So it was funny in the green room. We played it in, in JT was like, that's not real. We're like, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that actually happened kids. Tesla's in front of the white house for sale. Donald Trump talking about the pricing. even had the payment methods. I mean, it's fucking crazy. J.T. O'Donnell (07:41.993) Here comes. I knew you were going to say it. like, that AI? It's like, where'd you get that? Joel (07:45.96) Is that AI? J.T. O'Donnell (07:53.213) Thank Joel (07:53.576) Mm-hmm. Yep, that actually. Joel (08:05.608) What's up with Elon's kid? He's got like 80 kids. Why is this the one that he brings around? Maybe. Yeah. Chad (08:11.534) He's probably the one that's most mobile, he's probably the most quiet, and I mean he makes a perfect little baby human shield. yeah. Yeah, it kind of distracts from Elon's quirks and glitches and stuff. Joel (08:18.012) He does. He's very cute. He's very cute kid. Yeah, picks his nose occasionally. That's always fun. That's always fun. JT, how about you? Do you have an uplifting funny shout out to drop on the listeners? boy. J.T. O'Donnell (08:33.097) Absolutely not, absolutely not. No, I am the downer. I am the downer. Okay, so you remember the great quit? Chad (08:34.286) Absolutely not. J.T. O'Donnell (08:42.407) In the great quit, my TikTok feed blows up with everyone recording quitting on their social, right? So let me show you getting quit, right? This week I got on the side of TikTok with everybody recording getting laid off and subsequently, know, bawling their eyes out. The thing that scares me the most is how quickly you get desensitized when you just see person after person doing it. But there's a guy right now who's going viral because all he does is get in his car and scream about it. It's like the same video every day. He's just like in this car screaming about it. Why is this already live? You know, just in like full on screen and it's unbelievable that this is my feed. So yeah, there's probably something going on out there right now, but the tears man, the water works. It's intense. It's intense. Joel (09:25.404) And, and you. Chad (09:28.866) Wow. Joel (09:28.988) You've been doing this for a long time. Is this unprecedented? This kind of meltdown and... J.T. O'Donnell (09:32.457) But I mean, I don't think we have social media to document the way we do. Just it's unbelievable to me how much people want to document everything. You know, everything. And, you know, really quick sidebar, people can be all the time and say, Hey, should I do that diatribe on LinkedIn where, I got laid off today and here's my whole story and hey, I'm looking for help. I'm like, actually, no. And let me tell you why. Because when it goes viral and 50,000 people see it, all your friends go, well, I'm sure they're all set because it got 50,000 views. So someone else is going to help them. So nobody helps you. Chad (09:59.502) Yeah. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (10:01.735) So you go back and watch those people, 90 days later, they're still not employed. So I don't see the power, and think cathartically people want to do it, but yeah, it's pretty bad right now. Chad (10:12.92) Woo. Joel (10:13.958) Is it a positive that they can go online and do this and get feedback from people, get the support or no? J.T. O'Donnell (10:14.141) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (10:19.913) Is it, I mean, does it feel good to let it out? I think, I think of course you would, you know, first thing I tell my clients is feel it, feel your feelings, sit in it for 24 hours, 48 hours. And then guess what? We got to move forward. We've got to work it daily. We've got to move forward. And so if they're doing that great, I just don't know why we necessarily need to do it on video. Chad (10:20.476) cathartic to some extent, right? Yeah. Chad (10:28.654) Mm-hmm. Joel (10:40.099) Well, JT, that's good advice, but I have some advice of my own. If you will humor me. J.T. O'Donnell (10:44.403) That's good. Joel (10:49.498) All right. Everyone knows, chicken cock are recent one favorite bourbons. go try it. If you haven't, we talked about chicken cock, I think last week on the show when you weren't there, Chad, and I, I went, I checked LinkedIn on, Sunday and I had a note from the VP of marketing at chicken cock saying, I heard the episode. We'd love to send, send y'all something like even the y'all was in there. And I said, I said, there is a God, can't like this, this only happens to big time podcasts. And I, so I gave him my, gave him my address. like, here's my size, Chad size, whatever. I get the FedEx alert and it's like two boxes are coming to your house. And I'm thinking one box full of cock is, is good, but two boxes full of cock could be even better. So this stuff shows up last night, Chad, got six bottles. Here we go. Chad (11:20.555) Yes! Chad (11:44.558) Steven McGrath, what, what, Good one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. While you're showing, I told Steven McGrath, I'm like, Joel got six bottles of chicken cock and Steven said, I can only handle two cocks at once. I'm like, you're not Joel Cheeseman. J.T. O'Donnell (11:45.161) Joel (11:47.25) We got the double, we got, go ahead, double oak. I'll bring these out and you talk. Joel (12:01.244) Ha ha ha ha! J.T. O'Donnell (12:02.761) Wait, that one looks strange. Wait, wait, wait, wait, that one's got some missing. Joel, well we are, okay, see, keep an eyeball on Joel. No cherries, he's not Joel. Joel (12:06.342) Yeah, I did open this one last night. Yeah. That's all me. Yeah, here's an average night for me. There we go. That's the standard. Here we got the rye. Chad's a fan of the rye. He likes the rye stuff. And then back here, I think we have the private cask. This is for my romantic nights that I got here on the shelf. Chad (12:13.025) No, no. Chad (12:20.133) look at that. Wow. Yep. Chad (12:27.938) Nice. With himself. J.T. O'Donnell (12:29.801) So I feel like we're gonna make, think about this, we're gonna make the triple cock because it's gonna be the chicken cock cocktail for chow and cheese, right? I think there's like, we've got to make a cocktail with one of these. I know you can drink them straight, but there's gotta be something there. Chad (12:45.486) I think we're gonna work directly with Chicken Cock to make that happen. Joel (12:46.876) Got, we got the T shirts. Here we go. And we got, here we got the hat, which I'll be sporting. yeah, I'm going to have the cock out, for a long time. Everybody. hope, I hope you're okay with that. J.T. O'Donnell (12:50.185) Mmm Chad (12:53.912) And while Joel is showing all that free stuff, I just like you to know. J.T. O'Donnell (12:54.27) I love the hat. Love the hat. Chad (13:00.526) And the thing is nobody's going to notice. Anyway, you can go to Chadcheese.com slash free and you can get free stuff too, but you can get Chad and cheese free t-shirts from Aaron app. friends over at Aaron app, bourbon barrel age syrup from key. Yorra. The, the, kids up North craft beer. craft beer. love craft beer. that's from the data geeks over at. J.T. O'Donnell (13:01.287) If they're listening, we're... Joel (13:20.808) Good stuff from the Canadian. J.T. O'Donnell (13:25.628) too. Chad (13:27.806) Aspen Tech Labs and then whiskey from our friends at Van Hack. Great interview with Ilya and Professor Zeke which actually came out this week talking about immigration. And last but not least we have if it is your birthday you got to sign up because you want to win rum with plum. To do that get a ChadCheese.com slash free. Uh-huh. Joel (13:33.64) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (13:34.057) Amazing. Joel (13:36.335) Illya. Joel (13:56.498) We didn't mention that our shout outs are sponsored by Kiara. Text recruiting made easy. yeah. Celebrating another, another trip around the sun this week, got iron Mike Schaefer, our buddy at factory fix. I know he's enjoying some, some bourbon. sent him over a Brown's bears bet. I think we were both losers. We were both losers last season, but he got, he got a bottle. Ashley Collins, Barb, Francilo, Hayden Hughes, Jeffrey Wagner, Isaac Picard, Greg Fiorentino. Chad (13:59.639) there you go. Chad (14:13.004) over a big loss. Yeah. Joel (14:24.848) James Beaver Cleaver, Remington Hampton, Deb Andruchuk, Craig Bloomin' Onion Watson, Bill Fanning, and Jasper, why did I buy an Aaron Rodgers Jets jersey, Spongebob. That's happy birthdays for this week, everybody. Chad (14:26.658) There you go. Chad (14:35.576) There he is. J.T. O'Donnell (14:39.783) Happy birthday, everybody. Chad (14:41.23) She just had beers with Jasper in Einhoven last week and he's doing good. He's doing good. He's, not crying about Aaron being gone. Got Justin Fields there. Who's going to be thrown to Garrett Wilson. So we've got the Ohio state tandem baby. And since I'm talking about being on the road, we're on the road again with Shaker recruitment marketing. Next week we'll be at Transform at the Wynn 17th through the 19th. Joel (14:51.368) He's all right. Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Chad (15:09.398) Monday night, we're going to be in the job pixel honeymoon suite for a relax and kind of chill party. Hope to see you there. then on Tuesday, right, right at beer 30, we're going to be on stage with Udemy's Rebecca Stern UPS is Matt Lavery and ThreadUp's Natalie Brees talking about agentic tech. Then next week after that, yeah, we're, going to be on the road again. Shit. We drive up to Chicago. Love that. Joel (15:21.106) Mm-hmm. Joel (15:37.852) Yes. Chad (15:38.67) for the RL 100 on March 25th at Pendry. We're gonna be leading a talk with the super fan, Jane Curran, head of HR Ops at JLL and our buddy, Matt Lavery. Again, can't get rid of him, man, can't, can't. Global director over at UPS. No recordings, nope. You gotta be in the room where it happens. The room where it happens is in Chicago, RL 100. If you're not there and you're a TA leader in your Chicago, Joel (15:54.194) Nope. J.T. O'Donnell (15:54.215) Nice. Chad (16:08.056) Google RL100, go ahead and register, get your ass in that room. Joel (16:09.724) Yep. Yep. By the way, Portillo's gift cards for everyone that's wearing a Chad and Cheese t-shirt at the Chicago event, everybody. Joel (16:23.28) so many headlines, this week. do, let's do kind of a rapid fire, quick, quick summary and we'll discuss number one deal. That's what two is acquired. Safeguard global's payroll division, combining, combining deals, tech and infrastructure with safeguards global payroll expertise. This acquisition will enhance deals ability to execute large global payroll projects. Chad, your thoughts on deal. Chad (16:24.927) shit dude Chad (16:49.838) So I mean, continuing to boost down funnel portfolio, global footprint, most of all, Workday integrations is fucking brilliant. If you can become Workday's exclusive EOR partner, Workday's 2024 annual revenue was over $7.5 billion. And if Deal can push out competitors like Rippling, game fucking over, kids. Love it. Joel (17:12.744) Mm-hmm. So deal has made 11 acquisitions since its founding. That's a few deals, everybody, whoever's their deal maker is pretty busy. Three of those were pay related or four of those actually with the new one. You had pay group, which was targeting Asia. You had pay space, which was Africa and the Middle East. And you had Atlantic money focused on Europe, surprisingly. And now you have safeguard global. I'm not a payroll expert, but why do you need that mini? Chad (17:19.074) Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (17:21.266) Ahem. Joel (17:44.68) I don't know if it's chat. It's that challenging payment systems across the world. Yeah. I don't want to think that the other, the other three have failed as payroll solutions and they had to buy another one. I'm going to go with, it's just a really hard problem to solve. And they've sort of wrapped their head around it and made acquisitions to do so that, so that was my only take. Like they've done a lot of payroll acquisitions. And that made me question that. The other thing you mentioned work day. Is there an acquisition in the works? I don't know. The workday was part of the part of the press release. They'd never done that. I don't think talked about a partnership. Workdays, Workdays market work Workdays market cap is 68 billion deals is 12 billion. I mean, it's not out of the realm of possibility. This is kind of like a LinkedIn. This is a LinkedIn level 25, $30 billion acquisition. I don't know. I don't know. That's, that's, that's kind of my takeaways from this, from this acquisition, JT, you got any thoughts? Chad (18:18.658) Yeah, that's a lot of money though. Chad (18:25.39) Yeah? Yeah? Chad (18:31.438) Could be, could be. Chad (18:36.782) Oof. J.T. O'Donnell (18:43.943) You know, I appreciate listening to the journey of deal through you. That's been one of the things that I've paid attention to. And, know, just talking about, that's a lot of acquisitions, like you said, and I'm always curious, like, how is that? Are you just tucking them in there? Is it Aqua hire? Is it you're grabbing client, you know, market share? What are you doing? right. Yeah, obviously. but I, what Chad said earlier makes sense. They have been quite strategic. Sometimes you see things and you're like, it makes no sense. What was that? Joel (18:58.32) Yes. Yes. Chad (18:58.702) All the above. J.T. O'Donnell (19:09.981) But I think the way they've been choosing it has been very calculated. It's been fun to watch. They're impressive. Joel (19:15.698) Yeah, they don't buy the TJ Maxx clearance rack companies typically, which is usually a good move. J.T. O'Donnell (19:18.289) Exactly. Joel (19:26.32) All right, Remote Deal Competitor is also making moves. They've launched Recruit. The global employment platform has a breakthrough in hiring, according to them, that simplifies and accelerates every step of sourcing and securing top talent. Instead of me talking more about it, let's watch their promo video on what the hell this thing actually is. Chad (20:33.368) Jesus. Chad (20:36.954) Uhhh... Chad (20:42.83) free seven day trial. Joel (20:43.25) Chad, are you ready to start your seven day trial now? What are your thoughts on this move? Chad (20:47.736) So, mean, remote is a competitor to deal. And as we've said, see the ER EOR systems, the employee of record systems created creating solid foundations. Like I just talked about with deal and then turning up funnel toward recruitment. Why? Well, with a projected growth of 5 % in 2025, the staffing industry is expected to reach an impressive 650 billion markets according to QX global. The lion's share being temp staffing at 550 billion global. So remote is trying to beat deal up funnel. The problem I see is they're building it themselves. The way that deal is actually growing, deal is acquiring, right? It already established companies already established tech. They plug and play. They've got the experts already on staff, right? Not to mention they talk about outdated software in that video, that's exactly what this is going to become because they're building the shit themselves. They're not going to be able to focus on it themselves. So I love that they're moving up funnel trying to beat deal. The thing I don't like is I don't like how they're doing it. Joel (21:44.786) Mm-hmm. Joel (22:00.252) Yeah, traditionally you would have a marketplace and then the marketplace would have companies like hire easy and seek out and they would like, that's what they do and you'll have an integration. yeah, remote has said, Hey, we can do that. And they probably can. The problem with like what Chad said is like, nobody, you got to manage this shit. You build it, you bought it. Right. So you got to keep it up to date. You got to make it as cool as what you bought, you know, what you made six months ago. It's a real pain, in the ass. Chad (22:05.09) Dictate to some extent, yeah. Joel (22:28.966) My fascination is how all of these companies are all just becoming the same company. It's going to be like, everyone's going to do from like first contact to like, thanks for, thanks for playing. And who's going to have the best mousetrap for that. Who's going to have the best brand, the most trusted brand, the best pricing, like you like paradox is going to ATS, ATS is coming down to everybody else and everyone's just trying to be everything to everybody. I fear that's a, that's a, that's a bad recipe and a lot of companies are going to get. Chad (22:42.894) Yeah. Yeah. Chad (22:51.938) Mm-hmm. Joel (22:56.584) over it and remote might be one of them. JT? Chad (22:59.63) Well, JT has some insights because she was an advisor for remote. So give us insights. She was, she was. J.T. O'Donnell (23:02.057) Yeah. Joel (23:02.278) Yeah. Can we say that? She got a lot of money. they say keep your mouth shut? Did they say zip it? J.T. O'Donnell (23:08.265) Yeah, no. So no, I mean, if you think about when it was really originally built and then the first person that was building it came to me and asked me to be an advisor. He ended up not staying with the company and it got changed hands. And when it did, my advisory deal was such that they just sent me a check. Right. So and so what happened when I was like, oh, great, I got a check. And then all of a sudden out of the blue, people just randos were messaging me on LinkedIn like, do you still have your stock? Do you still have your stock? I I was like, what is going on? And then very quickly, I started to see remote had. Chad (23:26.541) Not bad. J.T. O'Donnell (23:37.961) pivoted and was doing all of this stuff. So I love to see that it's there. Here's what I do remember Chad. I don't know if you and I were on start at the same time, but I was there when Eric Vonk was running, you know, here. And I remember being in a room, a bunch of us, and he said, Hey, look, it's like 1997. And then he goes by 2030, half the world is going to be freelancers, independent, temporary. What do we want to call it? Like everything is going to have to move in that direction. And I remember everybody kind of laughing around the room. I'm like, I don't think he's wrong. You know, and then you think what's happened now over all those years. So it doesn't surprise us that everyone you just said it, Joel Edmonds moving in that direction because it is where we're ending up now. It'll be fascinating to see which business model survives. I mean, I love watching this stuff. You don't know. You don't know who's going to make a move that just hits timing, right? And boom, you know, but yeah. Chad (24:23.386) yeah, it's cool. Chad (24:27.918) Well, it's the go-to-market too, right? I mean, there are two entirely different go-to-markets. Right now, you're obviously seeing remote go up funnel and dealers trying to fortify down funnel. And then how they're actually fortifying down funnel is they are acquiring. And then how remote is going up funnel is that they're building. So, I mean, the go-to-markets are entirely different. J.T. O'Donnell (24:32.424) completely. J.T. O'Donnell (24:48.189) very. Joel (24:48.2) The best thing about watching all this is it's not any of my money. All right. Let's talk. Let's talk about ice. Holy shit. I Sam's winter winter release is in the book. So they have a seasonal release. I don't know about, spring is coming anyway. we're talking gen AI powered candidate chat bots, expanded integrations with indeed and LinkedIn. What was monster not taking their calls and enhanced nurture channels. Chad (24:55.31) You Chad (24:59.489) Jesus, Jesus. Joel (25:17.67) With SMS, but wait, there's more Chad. I Sims, I Sims is laying off some people according to some rumors. The details are sparse. I don't know if you know anything, but some things are happening at I Sims your thoughts. Chad (25:22.424) Huh? Huh? Jesus. Chad (25:30.786) Yeah, there's a lot of layoffs going on right now that people aren't reporting, or at least they're not coming out and doing press releases. But I think we both believe that they're just trying to lean out for acquisition because there's no way in hell they're going to IPO. So they're going through the aligning process on the J, the gen AI side of the house. Def Leppard said it best. It's too late. It's too late. It's too late for love. It's seriously at this point, competitors are running circles around legacy platforms like iCIMS. Even smart recruiters and gem were smart enough to say, Hey, we're pivoting to a full meal deal AI and agentic solution. Right. And then iCIMS follows that with guess what? We've integrated. That's right. That's air quotes kids integrated. Jen AI. mean, that's fucking 18 months ago, kids into our Joel (26:11.784) Mm-hmm. Chad (26:25.582) crumbling platform. Now, we both love iCIMS. We've known them. We knew Colin back in the day when they started this shit up. But come on people, you have to know when to pivot. You have to know when to rebuild. And you have to know when to change the fucking narrative. Paradox, Fountain, Smart Recruiters, Gem, and many others are coming for you. And you've turned into, I hate to say it, to Leo. Congratulations. Joel (26:28.719) Mm-hmm, we do. Mm-hmm. Joel (26:53.928) Nice to see iCIMS come into 2025. That's nice. Yeah. Paradox was, paradox was founded almost 10 years ago and we're, and iCIMS drops a chat bot press release. Look, we do love iCIMS, the people who are still there that we know pretty well. There was just an iconic company in our industry and the wheels, the wheels have fallen off. CEO changes, layoffs, leadership. Chad (26:56.984) Jesus. Chad (27:02.872) Yeah. A weak one at that. Chad (27:18.158) hate to see it. Joel (27:23.688) Uh, exits, et cetera. So it's, it's a mess. Now the, the only, the only give I'm going to get, get them on this is that they have a new CEO. He's a little over a year in the job and they have a new chief product officer, a guy named Eric Connors who has been there about the same amount of time. So I'll give them credit. Like at least in a year, they sat down and said, what don't we have that we need that everyone else is five to seven plus years ahead of us. Chad (27:42.914) Mm-hmm. Joel (27:53.896) And in that year, they've at least looked, it looks like they've at least sort of caught up a little bit on that. Now, my question is, what does the next 12 months look like? Cause in their, in their winter 26 release, they better drop some cool ass shit. Other else I'm going to take back the nice things that I'm saying about them. But yeah, welcome to 2025. Sims. hope your, your 2026 looks a lot cooler than what this was. JT. J.T. O'Donnell (28:21.109) You you guys followed this much, much tighter than me. They did a lot of acquisition, didn't they? am I, all right, there was, yeah. They did a lot of acquisition. And I remember at one point talking to somebody there and asking like, can you walk me through the choices? You know, how, was this all coming together? Are these all integrated together? And I didn't get a clear answer, but I see, I see where they were trying to do, I guess, is that a cautionary tale? Chad (28:27.574) Yeah, no, they had a good amount of acquisition. They did. Joel (28:27.591) Early on. J.T. O'Donnell (28:48.713) you know, to other organizations that go that route. And then all of a sudden is it integrating all the different texts, trying to get it to be rolling in the same direction, dealing with all the different personalities. Like, I don't know. We'll, I mean, we'll never know for sure, but it just sort of that runs through my head when I think about where they are right now. Were you so busy trying to fix everything you bought that, you know, everybody passed you by? I don't know. I think you were better equipped to share that or not, but it's certainly interesting because they were, they were it, you know, they were it. Everyone was talking about them. Joel (29:14.472) Well, text, text recruit they bought when? 18, 17, 16. Yeah. Forever going. And they're still releasing SMS stuff. It's, yeah. Kind of weird. It's kind of weird. Chad (29:17.88) That was for fucking ever ago, yeah. That was, J.T. O'Donnell (29:18.919) Mm-hmm. Chad (29:25.426) The thing that drives me crazy, Al, who used to be the CTO, guy's brilliant. They were doing some amazing stuff internally. The biggest problem that they were having with all those pieces, JT, was onboarding new clients and taking, you know, far too long to be able to plug new clients into different quote unquote modules, which were other companies at one time, into their system. So again, then you talk about today and how Joel (29:29.98) Love out. J.T. O'Donnell (29:35.497) Interesting. There you go. Chad (29:54.722) different that is from yesteryear, which is more of a legacy platform like iCIMS. The new tech makes it much easier. And we're going to talk about this here very soon. makes it much easier to be nimble and flex. That's the problem. This is a timing issue. This is the reason why gem and smart recruiters and all these companies are, are pivoting their tech to something that's more flexible and nimble because they don't want to become a legacy to Leo, which is exactly what iCIMS is becoming. J.T. O'Donnell (30:03.625) you Joel (30:23.474) Yeah. I sometimes had some, big swings as well that were misses. remember they had passport, which is they were like the consumer product that you could take your resume everywhere. And that didn't quite go anywhere, but like every new tech. Chad (30:26.637) They did. Chad (30:30.798) We're talking about, yeah. Yeah. Chad (30:37.038) Hahaha Joel (30:39.624) All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk to some big players or talk about some big players in AI. Chad (30:45.058) Sorry, ISEMS. It hurts. Joel (30:48.658) Who's ready for some Amazon conversation? of this recruitment, none of this recruit tech stuff. Amazon is boosting its AI investment, focusing on agentic AI that decides and learns led by a new Amazon web services group. This aims to enhance consumer apps and enterprise automation competing with Microsoft and Salesforce, potentially revolutionizing tech interaction and productivity. Chad (30:50.465) Ooh! J.T. O'Donnell (30:51.261) What? Who? What? Is that a company? What? Joel (31:16.806) Let the arms race begin. Chad, your thoughts on the news out of Amazon. Chad (31:21.954) So short but sweet, we're talking about agentic. And as I said earlier this year is one of my projects, my predictions. This is the year of agents, right? Now what Amazon is doing is they're starting to put their NLP along with agents, right? They're, they're natural language processing. And now you can tell an agent to go do something for you. I mean, to, to me using an Alexa device in your home, That is literally the bridge, the consumer bridge where you get a ton of individuals that are using it and you can get a really good base data set, big base data set, and then start to do really cool shit in other areas. So I think this is incredibly smart. Joel (32:04.846) Amazon is getting a bigger boat everybody Chad (32:07.31) Like they need one fucking super yacht. Joel (32:11.698) So the CEO says this is their next billion dollar opportunity. I say this is the rebirth of McHire. Remember Chad, we talked about McHire. You could talk to Alexa, get me a job at McDonald's. Before this was very transactional, like what's the weather? Here's the weather. This is more like, this is like a person helping you out. This is an agent, like Chad said. Chad (32:16.888) Yeah. Chad (32:21.07) It might work now. It might work now. Chad (32:37.742) Mm. Joel (32:40.752) So it's a lot more feasible to say like, Hey, I'm, I'm interested in jobs around my neighborhood. well, McDonald's is hiring. well really what kind of jobs we'll hear. Like you can have a conversation. this sort of, to me, gives some hope to the whole audio job search application thing. Like McHire's not dead. Everybody it's back from the like, like, grimacy on St. Patrick's day. McDonald's is back. Chad (32:58.128) yeah, yeah. Chad (33:10.412) The Shamak Shake is back. Joel (33:10.76) no, the shamrock shake is back and make hire is back. Everybody, Alexa plus this is cool. I think most of you probably seen the Gemini commercial on Google where they're like, yeah, I just, I just talked to it and they're like, yeah, but normal. you have conversations. This is kind of what, what Alexa and Amazon are doing. They were pioneering this. A lot of people have their Alexa still. They upgrade this shit. I think a whole new, a whole new generation of people are going to get into Alexa and start using this thing. So a good for Amazon. We're all kind of winners in this with all the spending and AI. So I'm here for it. I'm excited. I'm excited. Chad (33:45.624) The coolest part, the coolest part though, we talked about multimodal probably two or three years ago, and now we're starting to see it actually happen. Text, audio, video, I mean, just all of it is starting to come together. So that's, again, it's fucking cool. Joel (33:54.952) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (34:03.111) And it's cool. I just, have nothing to add because I agree with everything you're saying except the word agentic just bothers me for some reason. I just don't like the word. I don't know. hear it I'm like, yeah, I don't, I don't know. Just not that. I'm such a, I will. I'll think of something. In fact, audience, somebody throw, send, send the guys an alternative to the term agentic. probably be the highest performing one. Joel (34:09.106) You're like, what do you prefer? Chad (34:10.84) We need something more sexy. JT, it's up to you. It's up to you to come up with something more sexy. Chad (34:20.664) good call. Good call. Joel will do a LinkedIn poll. He loves his polls. J.T. O'Donnell (34:30.493) Those polls rank, hey, they polled those polls. Joel (34:34.088) By the way, talk about some, some advancements in technology guys. Somebody, some of these chicken cock bottles actually have the shot glass built into it. Yeah. So take it, take it to a game, take it to a wedding, take it to the family reunion. Chicken cock can get you through anything. Chad (34:42.734) that is, that's beautiful. That's, that's beautiful. J.T. O'Donnell (34:47.155) So pretty. J.T. O'Donnell (34:51.593) My goodness. Chad (34:52.814) Jesus, he's on the fucking payroll. Okay, what's next? Joel (34:53.992) Sorry, just, got cock, I got cock on the brain everybody. I'm sorry. I got, I got issues. All right. Let's, let's talk about mannus. Thank God. Thank God there's an on that man. Chad (35:00.486) Get that cock out of your hands. J.T. O'Donnell (35:07.068) this is going to be good. Hahaha Chad (35:13.672) Is it manis? Is it manis or manis? I don't know. Joel (35:17.16) I've got a burning sensation in my main us, man, man, us. And here you get ready for JT, an agentic AI from a company called butterfly effect, launched with huge hype this week, gaining 138,000 plus discord users and high praise from the critics built on models like Claude. promises autonomous task solving. Does the hype match the reality? J.T. O'Donnell (35:20.745) You Chad (35:27.948) Jesus. J.T. O'Donnell (35:28.715) See what I mean? Nails on Chad (35:31.239) my god. Joel (35:44.796) Some tell you yes and some say no. Let's check out a video on what this thing can do. Chad (36:03.224) Jesus Christ. Chad (36:14.546) It's a program. J.T. O'Donnell (36:28.905) Okay, really quick, did you see that in the little explanation that they type in, it says, my wife and I have a combined income of $50,000, but it's suggesting apartments at 1.8 to 2.2 million. Chad (36:38.798) I didn't say that. didn't see that. Was that, was that the budget or was that the salary? Okay. I have to, okay. J.T. O'Donnell (36:45.031) I don't know. There was no explanation of what they could afford. was just... Joel (36:48.296) I want to know if that guy talks that fast in real life. Like what, kind of cocaine are they giving their developers that this guy is talking that fast? Geez, they're, they're turning this shit out, man. They are, they are on good stuff. Chad, what are your thoughts on Manus? Chad (36:53.774) Maybe that's why they're doing so well. J.T. O'Donnell (36:56.733) I spent that. Chad (37:01.784) So it's basically stitching together Anthropix, Claude, and Alibaba's Quinn to perform these tasks. So the future of these bigger systems, these agentic systems, is using what's already available to create a Franken AI. And it's pretty fucking cool. Now on the recruitment side, this week, Sonic Jobs, who actually started creating agents back in 2019, it's one of the reasons why I actually started advising them a couple of years ago. Joel (37:11.976) Mm-hmm. Chad (37:31.742) everyone's talking AI and Sonic jobs was actually creating agents back then. Sonic jobs built the tech and now like Manus, not Manus, Manus, they're taking six years of knowledge of leveraging other platforms. And in this case, it's with open AI. So it's, this is actually what we should all be looking for. There are these great. organizations like Manus. Their first demo was pretty much just going through resumes, to source and screen resumes, right? It wasn't really that impressive. Totally get it, not easy, but it wasn't that impressive. There are many better platforms in our space. But then being able to take a look at a company like Sonicjobs, and there will be other companies that will start to do this, who are actually doing candidate verification. screening across multiple job sites, this is literally the answer to your lazy apply or your easy apply. This is more of like an easy apply with a brain, right? So it knows what you're qualified for. It will apply for what you're qualified for. And it can be used both ways from a company standpoint to be able to ensure verification happens, screening happens, and also from a job seeker standpoint. I can just say, go find me jobs that I'm qualified for and apply to those jobs. This is like the antithesis of the easy apply and lazy apply. So it's pretty exciting stuff. Joel (38:59.932) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, Chad, you know, I'm a, I'm an advisor with Kerplunk and they have a similar sort of like, just go do it. you create a script, what are you looking for? And it just goes and does it. so yeah, to me, this is like the future of probably everything that we do, but, but job search in particular, finding candidates, like just basically like, tell it what to do. Go get some coffee. a little chicken cock in that with the, with the shot glass and, you're well on your way to finding that next, that next, candidate. I, I really want to know what happens to Google in all of this. Like part of me says Google can come back and, Jim and I, and like, they're going to be fine. Don't worry about Google. but there was a Vox media survey this week. this is one for the kids. And I know you're talking to the kids on a regular basis, JT, but They found that 42 % of their respondents perceive Google search as a less useful tool than what else is out there. 55 prefer a community-based resource like Reddit. Among younger demographics, 61 % of Gen Z and 53 % of millennials favor AI tools. Citing concerns, which I think are valid, of search quality, increased advertising, and shifting trust. Chad (39:59.053) It is. Joel (40:21.724) We just trust the AI bots more, at least for now. the perception is there. Some people, the old people like me don't trust it all the time, but the young people really do. This is all bad for Google. Like if your business is all about Google traffic and referrals and like, you need to start thinking about some other, diversification in that. But I'm just curious about what goes going to happen. We see organic and paid, click through rates are hitting new lows. Like this is, these aren't good signs for Google. JT. J.T. O'Donnell (40:51.931) Yeah, I mean, I never count Google because they own YouTube. When I think about everything going towards video and just the stats are there, there's some play they'll figure out. What's fascinating to me about the tech that you're showing is that it's still missing one component that I think is going to come very quickly. And I think whoever gets this component will win the game. And that is, I would love to be able to go in there and say, hey, here's what I'm looking for. Okay. But at some point that machine needs to come back and say to you, here's why you can't have it. Here's what you need to, seriously, as a job seeker, here's why that doesn't exist for you. Here are your options. What are you willing to pivot on? Here's what it would take to get where you want to be. It has to actually coach. It has to be a co-pilot. And so I love that we're very quickly throwing together all of this and we're going to continue to see it because you can do it. Great. But until you can actually have a conversation and push back and get them to think differently, Chad (41:23.246) Yeah. Yeah. Joel (41:23.368) Yeah. Chad (41:26.862) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (41:50.067) based on the data, that's going to blow their minds. That's where you're really going to see the impact. Because I believe that's why they enjoy it. They already like conversing with AI because it's more humanistic. Awesome. Then be more humanistic and coach me. Tell me what I need to know. Don't just present the data. Once that happens, that's when it gets really interesting to me, I think. Chad (42:00.248) Mm-hmm. Chad (42:13.132) Yeah, it's not a black hole either. And one of the things that I thought was interesting was that mainness, that mainness, they would go out and they would read, the system would read articles, right? There's so much shit that's out there. So you've got to be careful on your datasets. And when you're releasing large language models into the wild like that, much like you said, JT, you're going to give me recommendations. Joel (42:18.664) you talking about manus again? Black hole, what? Chad (42:43.054) And that could be totally founded on bullshit just because somebody can write a blog talking up certain areas or certain apartments or what have you doesn't mean that that's true. Right? So you need to have a trusted as Joel said, trusted and verified source. You have to have better data sets. And I think we'll get there. There's no question. These guys are literally just trying to knock the knock the cover off the ball and hopefully get acquired. I'm sure. But at the end of the day, data is what matters the most. Joel (43:12.828) They just need to wipe that data. Solving the black hole issue at Manus. Let's take a quick break, maybe a shot or two of chicken cock and talk a little catfishing. Chad (43:15.406) You Chad (43:19.074) Ha Chad (43:24.27) Hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (43:24.914) you Joel (43:27.41) This show just writes itself. you know, people think we're smart. No, just, it just writes itself. Do you guys remember the catfish show on MTV? Is that still around? it's a movie too. Geez. I'm, so uncool. Well, anyway, a new survey highlights career catfishing among Gen Z. All the kids are doing it. Who except jobs, but don't show up, driven by confrontation fears and workplace discontent. No surprise. Chad (43:27.544) Whoo, it does, it's too easy. J.T. O'Donnell (43:35.689) Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah the movie. Oh, yeah, it was great. It was a whole story of it. Yeah Joel (43:55.164) This worries employers about Gen Z's loyalty, though experts urge avoiding stereotypes and adapting to new trends. JT, I thought this was ghosting. I guess it's a new label. It's catfishing now. I got to be hip to this. What's going on? J.T. O'Donnell (44:09.161) I remember, well, so first of all, millennials started the trend where they would quit by texting. And I just remember hiring managers coming to me and going, look at this. They just quit that job. They're 25 years old. So that makes, now you wish you got a text that I wasn't coming to the job because now the next generation just doesn't show up. And it's that lack of, they don't want to have confrontation. And so I also just think that there's, Chad (44:19.713) Ha J.T. O'Donnell (44:39.003) really know they're not thinking about, this is going to affect my reputation, that this is going to come along with me. I'm so early in my career. There's so many more steps ahead of me, you know, no big deal. And so seeing a lot of that, also seeing a lot of, hey, it's my anxiety, it's this or that. And I decided that I can't go and do it. We've seen a big surge in that with this generation as well. And so it's an avoidance thing. I don't think it's going to go away. I don't think you're going to solve for it. I think what's all over time is they get older. jobs get more important to them in a way and they've just realized, hey, that's probably not a good call. And down the line, I just think the low wealth, but I don't think this is going to change at all. Aren't you lucky? Joel (45:12.882) So you think they'll be more responsible as they age? They will, okay, all right. Always the optimists. Chad? Chad (45:22.174) I say leave it to the 24 hour news cycle to rename something that already exists. it's ghosting. It's been around forever. Employees created it. Dad, I learned it from you. You know, it's, it's candidate learned. They learned it from employers. remember in 2016 when Adam Gonson, who's now the CEO of a paradox, he was, he was the product dude at Cielo and they were building systems for their clients because this was an issue 2016. J.T. O'Donnell (45:32.777) Mm-hmm. Chad (45:51.993) They were building systems that actually first they were testing. And this is really fucking cool. They were testing, having actually a phone bank to call people, to make sure that they were good to show up their first day. They were also doing a parallel program where they were texting people, right? And this was, this was an automated text versus actually having somebody picking up the phone. The automated text worked better. Right? So it's like, we need to put systems in place first and foremost. Joel (46:16.84) Mm-hmm. Chad (46:20.886) that ensure that we keep these people nice and warm, to make sure that they show up on day one, this is not a new problem. We just have to have the right tech in place. We have to have also the right people, the right humans making the connections. And again, you know, I learned it from you, Dad. Joel (46:40.7) I think we need a Stephen McGrath I'm Not Coming app. Chad (46:43.97) Ha ha ha ha ha ha Joel (46:49.64) Um, it could be a prerecorded message, you know, uh, I appreciate your time. I've decided to go elsewhere. He could be a little agent in your pot, a little agentic Steven. Um, I think that'd be great. Um, I didn't understand how this, this is one in four millennials have admitted to doing this. Uh, a third of Gen Z has done this compared to 11 % of Xers and 7 % of baby boomers. Um, Chad (47:00.672) in your pocket. J.T. O'Donnell (47:08.947) Mm-hmm. Joel (47:18.248) I thought it was going to be a story about the person you thought was coming to the interview was not the person that you thought it was. Cause I thought that's what cat fishing was. Like you say that you're something that you're not. And then when you, when you finally meet the person, when you, when you, when you drive to West Virginia from Chicago, you find out that it's not the same person. Chad (47:26.306) Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (47:27.997) That's true. Chad (47:34.798) You get a picture of JT and Joel shows up. Joel (47:38.76) Awwww. Chad (47:44.43) That was a better example, Joel. Joel (47:46.088) That's rough. That's rough. If you're expecting JT and you get me and everybody's upset, nobody's, nobody's good about that. Yeah. Look, I mean, send a text, send an email, uh, call them at 3 a.m. and say, like, leave a voicemail. Thanks for your time. I'm like, you don't, you don't have to do this kids. You don't have to do this. And I don't have to do. J.T. O'Donnell (47:52.04) You Chad (47:53.42) Her name's Mante Titeo. Chad (48:06.382) There's no loyalty. They don't care. Joel (48:09.541) No loyalty. They, they, but they don't have to do this. There are options. That's why we need a Steve McGrath, quitting app, but they don't have to do this. And, and Chad, I don't have to do a dad joke, but God damn it. I am, I am going to do a dad joke. Why, why did the sperm cross the road? Why did the sperm cross the road? J.T. O'Donnell (48:15.145) I like that. Chad (48:20.706) But you are. Here we go. J.T. O'Donnell (48:24.337) I'm to brace myself. Chad (48:34.862) I have Joel (48:36.636) because I put on the wrong socks this morning. Joel (48:42.834) JT's confused. We out! Chad (48:45.602) We out! J.T. O'Donnell (48:46.149) Hahaha

This week, the boys discuss the problem with LinkedIn’s lazy users, 84 Lumber’s Super Bowl advertising campaign, Snap’s IPO and its potential impact on recruiting, and Facebook job postings. Please remember to visit out sponsors: America’s Job Exchange (www.americasjobexchange.com), WebClipDrop (http://www.webclipdrop.io keyword HireDaily2017) and Beyond (http://www.beyond.com/cheddar). #LinkedIn #84Lumber #SnapChat #Facebook #SuperBowl

Hold onto your hats, folks—The Chad & Cheese Podcast is diving headfirst into the immigration debate now that Trump’s back in the Oval Office. Joining the chaos are Wharton’s Dr. Zeke Hernandez  and VanHack ’s Ilya Brodsky , serving up insights on a global immigration system that’s as tangled as a plate of spaghetti. Expect a rib-tickling roast of U.S. and Canadian immigration laws, a flamethrower of facts against tired stereotypes, and an unfiltered look at how kicking out immigrant labor could send the economy into a tailspin. It’s a ride through red tape, housing crises, and the talent black market, with the gang calling for reform faster than you can say “fix the system, change the laws.” With cultural vibes, economic chaos, and political curveballs, this episode promises to be as spicy as a jalapeño in a microwave. Tune in, laugh, and maybe learn a thing or two—because nothing says comedy like lawmakers bickering over who gets the last donut while the country runs on immigrant grit. 🍩😂 PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:30.202) Yeah, what's up kids? This is the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheesman joined as always. Chad Sowash is in the house and we're calling this I guess immigration game or maybe the immigrant song. I don't know, but let's let's welcome quickly back to the show. Dr. Zeke Hernandez. He's a he's a tenured. He's he's a tenured professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Maybe you've heard of it and Ilya Brodsky. Chad (00:48.979) Profz, that's profz to you. Joel (00:59.428) Brodsk Beat, he's the CEO at VanHack, headquartered in beautiful Vancouver, Canada. Guys, welcome back and welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Zeke (01:11.834) Thank you. Ilya (01:12.942) Great to be here. Joel (01:14.672) All right, let's get this going. Ilja Ilja is a super fan and no one can see him with their listing, but he had such a big smile on his face when we had the intro music. He's, he's excited to be on the show. Ilja, for those that don't know you or Van Hack, give us the elevator pitch. Ilya (01:30.478) For sure. So Vanhec is a tech recruiting and immigration company that helps software engineers get jobs abroad and helps companies find global tech talent and relocate them to their cities. We've done over 2,000 hires, most of which have been immigrated to Canada, many as well over to Europe. And we also help US companies hire engineers remotely. Most recently, we've launched a new product that helps American companies relocate their tech talent to Canada as a way to bring people over to North America. So we've been doing that as well. And yeah, just a... trying to change lives one higher at a time. Joel (02:01.072) There you go. And I would be remiss if I didn't say that Ilya is now our whiskey giveaway sponsor. So he's helping destroy America and the world one liver at a time. Thank you, Ilya. And welcome back, Dr. Zeke. Zeke, for those that didn't hear our first episode, tell us about you. Ilya (02:09.067) Okay. Chad (02:10.651) livers, livers. Zeke (02:21.496) Yeah, I'm a professor at Wharton, you said, also known for writing that book that's kind of there for those that are watching, The Truth About Immigration, Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers. And I study how immigrants affect the economy and firms specifically, I think, which is why I'm here. Chad (02:28.946) artist. Chad (02:40.573) was just looking for my copy and I think I left it in Portugal. So when we record again, it's not easy. Yes, it's not easy. Joel (02:45.668) You're actually here to make the show sound smart, which is a real struggle for us. So thanks to both of you for coming on the show and coming out. So I'll start us off with this real quick. Give us the current state of immigration. Zeke, for sure, your perspective in the US and Ilya, maybe your perspective on the global front. Zeke (02:50.906) Hahaha Zeke (03:07.45) Do want me to start in the US? Well, in some ways, the immigration system hasn't changed at all. So I think that's something really important for people to understand. There have been no legislative changes. We are still under the same system that we had on January 19th in the United States. Obviously, what has changed is the rhetoric. What has changed is greater threats of deportation that are going to affect undocumented immigrants. But those immigrants were already outside of the formal system. So none of that has changed. I think that legally speaking, the first thing that is likely to change is that the administration has threatened to end temporary protected status and other temporary programs that the Biden administration put in place to allow. Um, people who were claiming asylum or refugee status or like, you know, Venezuelans are a good example, right? About five to 600,000 Venezuelans who were here with, uh, sort of temporary permission to stay and not be deported. Uh, but I think that what we're hearing nothing about nothing about is any changes in the system of number and types of visas that was established all the way back in 1990, 35 years ago. So the state is the same and the state is very different in other ways. Joel (04:28.944) Now I'll challenge you on that a little bit. We are hearing in the news that anywhere between 600 to 1,100 or so deportations are happening every day. Whereas under Biden, they're around the 3, 350 per day. Are you saying that that's not correct? Are there really not more deportations from where you're sitting? Zeke (04:48.448) No, no, no, there are definitely more deportations. But that's not a change in the system, right? That's just a change in the government's permissiveness toward undocumented immigrants. I think it's also useful to know that Obama deported more people than Trump did during his first administration. So the numbers right now are comparable to the Obama years, especially the first term. That could ramp up significantly, but Chad (04:56.397) policy. Joel (04:58.904) Action. Zeke (05:17.624) but we will see. I expect that it will ramp up significantly. But I don't expect, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I just said, don't expect that realistically the administration can deport 13.7 million people, which is the latest estimate of the undocumented population. We can talk more about that, but there will be more. I agree, there will be more. Chad (05:21.689) we're not seeing. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Chad (05:37.799) So we're not seeing change in policy. What we're seeing is really an addition of brute force is what we're saying. Joel (05:44.698) or PR. Chad (05:46.523) No, it's it's a lot of it. I guess it could be both. Right. Because you've got individuals who are going through the prospect of self deportation and you also have ICE raids, which is brute force. So I guess you could be seeing both. Any any comments around that and how it actually impacts the workforce? I mean, because from our standpoint being, you know, workforce podcast, HR, human resources, how how have we seen that impact? thus far less than 30 days in and how do you think it's going to impact long term? Zeke (06:22.232) Yeah, so thus far in the last 30 days or so or whatever, it's hard to know exactly, right? There is a lot of chaos and there's also a lot of rhetoric that hasn't resulted in action yet. And I think that's intentional, sort of to flood the zone with threats and stuff, right? And so I think we don't know. I don't think that the administration is yet ready to share data. And so the truth is we don't know. Now there are some things that, let's say there's very strong anecdotal evidence, right? A lot of stories coming out that labor supply is probably smaller in at least two or three ways. One is people who are undocumented, who were working are not showing up to their jobs or they are restricting their hours, right? So an anecdote might be, a woman who say was doing household cleaning work, she might not be cleaning every week, right? She might be cleaning only a few weeks a month. The other thing, and we do know this from research, is that when that happens, actually it affects the labor output and labor participation of women, of older women, right? Of people who kind of are on the edge of working, but say if they don't have childcare, they don't go to work. right, or they restrict their hours. And so all of these things are going to show up in GDP and other, you know, other statistics. It could show up in a construction company bidding on fewer jobs because it doesn't have enough people to bid on a job. It could show up in higher food prices because farmers aren't showing up to pick fruit. So again, those are all things that we have yet to see, but we have seen them. in past instances of mass deportation, including during the Obama years, right? There's evidence showing that native workers restricted their labor output, that native workers lost jobs, those kinds of things because of mass deportations. So I think you can be pretty confident that those things are going to. Chad (08:33.171) So it. Joel (08:33.346) Ilja, let's go to you. What are you saying on the global front? Ilya (08:37.516) Yeah. So our focus is just really squarely on the software engineer tech talent market or kind of steel sets. I just want to put some context there. And we're seeing a little bit of pushback as well or pullback. So here in Canada recently, there have been some small changes that have made a little bit harder for tech talent to come here. Specifically, the companies are now required to have a little bit more robust financial proof. before it was a little bit easier. So that's been not a huge change, but a little bit of a interesting shift in the different direction. Another change has been not in the tech talent, but against our students. So there's a bit of big pushback against international students here that has made it. I think there'll probably be a third of how many international students there were before. I actually am of the opinion that that's a good thing because a lot of universities here in Canada were kind of exploiting international students, promising them a path to citizenship or permanent residency, charging huge fees and then actually not bringing the most skilled workers here. So that's actually been positive, I believe. But in generally, from other parts of the world, we're seeing there's still a huge demand for tech talent and countries are open and excited to bring software engineers. skilled professionals to their cities or to their countries, I should say, as a way to... Joel (10:07.824) Are you seeing a greater interest in coming to Canada since Trump is in office or has it stayed stable? Ilya (10:14.51) Um, uh, pretty stable. We've seen a few kind of here and there, but our kind of most common pathways have been, I would say more emerging markets like South America, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe. Um, not so much, uh, people who are in the U S just cause salaries, you know, you look at a salary for a software engineer in the U S it's probably two or three times more than, that in Canada. So it's a, uh, a big challenge. The, kind of best case scenario of what people are trying to do is make us dollars and live in Canada. that's, that's really what the dream is right now. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (10:47.699) Remote work, baby. Remote work. Chad (10:56.537) that is awesome. going back to the not so awesome, let's talk about the knock on effects. We're talking about GDP, but it hits more than that. mean, we have, like you'd said, the lady who is only cleaning the house, your house once every three weeks, as opposed to every week. She has less money in her pocket, which means she can spend less. Not to mention if we're pushing a lot of these individuals out, immigrants, Paid, know close to was a hundred billion in taxes last year How how do we fund police? Fire departments education in our local in our local little towns. How do we get our? Bumpy ass roads paved. I mean, how do we how do we do these things? It's it's almost like it's very short-sighted I just I'm at a loss to be quite frank because What I see is money leaving the country when other people are saying that, you know, it's murderers and, you know, axe murderers and whatnot. What can we expect? Short term, long term. Zeke (12:04.442) Yeah, I mean, I think you just you just hit it on the nail for those who listened to me the last time I was on the show. I'll apologize for being repetitive, but I always use the five fingers of my hand to summarize what immigrants bring to an economy. And this is true whether they're documented or not. Right. And that's they bring their talent or labor, if you want to use that word. They bring investment. They bring innovation, they bring consumption, and they bring taxes. And so the question really isn't, we want the I word? The question is, do we want those five things? And if you do, then you need immigrants. Because if we were in a situation where our population is massively growing because people are having babies left and right, and we have a really young population, perhaps you don't lose that much of those five things. But in the current demographic environment, you're definitely losing those five things because you're not replacing the woman who doesn't show up to work. You're not replacing the farm worker who leaves. You're not replacing the person with a PhD and AI who isn't allowed to come because of H1B restrictions, right? You are not replacing those, right? We have ample evidence that it's not that all of a sudden, know, invisible U.S. workers show up from under rocks, right? They just don't exist even under a rock. And so it really comes down to something that simple. Now you can make up some of it, you you can probably make up for some of it with remote workers, maybe a little bit with automation and technology. But, know, Japan is a good example of a country that really, really tried very hard to do all that. And it just didn't quite pan out as planned. So that's really it to me. It's, know, think of those five things and you lose them both in the short run and in the long run. Yeah, that's it to me. Chad (13:56.307) Well, even more on that side, you take a look at the actual types of skilled workers that generally immigrants are coming in. Let's take a look at plumbers or machinists or welders or what have you. In many cases, you're not going to see a robot plumber come to your house or a robot. Yeah, no kidding, right? Zeke (13:56.956) That's the simplest way to put it. Joel (14:17.37) That'd be so cool though. Zeke (14:21.028) Sometimes I would prefer that, but yeah. Chad (14:25.853) deal with less plumber's crack. Joel (14:26.928) Especially if it's Sydney Sweeney coming to fix my pipes, you know what I'm saying? Sorry. Chad (14:32.039) your pipe, construction workers, that kind of stuff. mean, we're, not going to, the things that we say that we need more of, it's just not helping us where, know, we're talking about on the, on the high level side of the house, or let's say for instance, like Ilya on the tech side, we can get remote workers for that. Hell, I mean, we can go ahead and offshore for that, but they, they, they can't do what we need to get done here at home. Ilya (14:34.606) Okay. Joel (14:35.6) you Ilya (14:50.701) Hmm. Chad (15:00.167) Not to mention taxes, not to mention buy stuff. mean, it just, to me, it seems like a really weird recipe for implosion. Ilya (15:04.354) Yeah. Ilya (15:10.326) Yeah, just on that point, that's always been my biggest wonder or confusion as to why there hasn't been tech immigration reform in the U S because you're, I don't know, maybe Zeke, you, you, know, numbers, there's probably billion dollars or more paid out of the United States every year into foreign economies to hire remote workers offshore. I'm guessing it's much more than that. There's so many tech companies. Chad (15:19.603) Mm-hmm. Chad (15:37.757) That's a great point. Ilya (15:39.458) Yeah, like especially Latin America right now has become a huge hotbed because of the time zone. So a lot of software engineers in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia are working for American tech companies. And that's a job that's being shipped overseas with a click of a few buttons. It's really easy to do that these days, especially post COVID. So why not make an easy way for tech talent to just keep doing that job, just doing it from... someone in the United States, cause you know, that's a lot of money that could be fueling your economy. so yeah, and even here in Canada, like the biggest employers in Canada techie scene are Amazon and Microsoft. they have huge tech posts outposts, both in Toronto and Vancouver. a lot of that is just, you know, helping folks move from around the world to Canada and then bringing them down to the United States, to Seattle or wherever they would be moving to, or just keeping them here. Chad (16:29.875) Mm-hmm. Ilya (16:36.078) Again, probably billions of dollars of salaries that are being spent elsewhere. So yeah, I think there's a really clear and simple case for tech immigration reform. Hopefully one day it happens, but until then, there's just so many jobs that are being exported right out of the country. Zeke (16:53.838) Yeah, let me add something to that. that's really so one of the things too is that we also and any business owner, any manager knows this very well. When you outsource or offshore a job, it's not a one for one trade, right? You lose something along the way, right? So my colleague here at Wharton-Brita Glennon did this really fascinating study where she showed that companies that miss out on hiring H1B workers because they miss out on the lottery. So it's literally luck of the draw. They do offshore more jobs to China, India and Canada, but they don't hire one for one, right? So for every one worker on the H1B program, they can't hire here. They hire less than one worker overseas. So something is lost, right? Why is that lost? Because you can't assume Joel (17:23.855) Mm-hmm. Zeke (17:42.97) that what a company can do with a team that say all located in Austin, Texas or New York City or Indianapolis or whatever, you can't assume that they can do exactly the same thing. You're also assuming away the synergies or the win-win that come from interactions between foreign and native born workers. There's a really cool study that shows that immigrants in the US, they're only 16 % of inventors that patent, but they're responsible for 36 % of all patents. Joel (17:53.36) Mm-hmm. Zeke (18:12.154) Okay, but that but that number you can break down in two quantities that are really really interesting It's you know immigrants are inventors in 23 % of patents Okay, so more than their 16 % but the other 13 % that gets us from 23 to 36 percent is us born inventors That are more innovative and patent more because they collaborate with foreign-born inventors Why because they're exposed to new ideas to new scientific methods to new? Joel (18:12.687) Wow. Zeke (18:39.204) to new scientific networks in foreign countries that give them new ideas or allow them to patent new products. And so it's those win-wins that come from interactions of people with different backgrounds that are happening inside companies every day. And so it's not just, think this one body is identical to another body and it doesn't matter where they work, it is a huge fallacy. And there's something lost there. And I think that this is something that HR managers really need to get because when they tell me, well, I don't want to go through the hassle of dealing with our visa system. And I agree, it's a hassle. And therefore, I'm going to put this person in London. Fine. If that's the only thing you can do, do it. But know that there's something lost when you do it. Joel (19:26.66) Yeah. Zeke, I want to go back on something you said in regards to, there's really no difference in legislation. A lot of it is optics. A lot of it is maybe more enforcement than it previous. And to me, what I'm hearing you say is there's a lot of FUD, a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that the administration is putting out there. And there's a new ad that went live recently from Department of Homeland Security. I want to play it for you and then just get your opinion on the other side. Zeke (19:43.566) Yeah. Chad (20:57.307) And I was wondering when we're going to get a good commercial from Trashy Barbie. Joel (21:01.572) Aside from the tongue bath that Trump got from that, are your thoughts? Any fire to that smoke or just a lot of hot air? Zeke (21:11.576) Yeah, mean, you know, it makes you feel so good and so safe inside, right? And who's going to disagree with the imagery and the flag and, know, but behind that, honestly, there's just a ton of falsehoods, right? You could go second by second and debunk every single one of them, right? For example, the idea that undocumented immigrants are committing crimes or bringing fentanyl in, the data is really clear. You can do this nationally or state by state. Joel (21:16.706) huh. Zeke (21:36.952) and the group that has the lowest rate of any kind of crime, drug, property, violent, crimes against animals, are undocumented immigrants, right? Of course, it's very simple, right? And the next is legal immigrants and natives have the highest rate of criminality in the United States. in fact, when immigrants arrive, crime rates go down. So actually what you're doing by deporting these people, you're actually raising the crime rate, right? And so anyway, that's a... Chad (21:45.427) because they don't want to get thrown out. It's easy. Zeke (22:06.65) So that's not the issue. Now, of course, the other assumption is that the laws that we have in place, that is you want to obey the law, right? And so if you follow the law, you'll be able to get in. That is perhaps even a bigger fallacy or a bigger lie than the crime one, right? Because right now, again, remember, what do our current laws stipulate, right? If you are a farm worker and you want a green card to work year round legally, guess how many quotas, guess how many there are for you? Joel (22:22.202) Mm-hmm. Chad (22:35.443) 5,000. Really? Zero. Zeke (22:35.97) zero. No, zero. Right? Yeah, zero. have zero. That's right. We have we have H2A visas for temporary farm workers. But if a farmer in the middle of Iowa needs a year round worker because their son has left for New York City and won't return, which is the story of every farming family in America, there are zero visas. Right? And the same as plumbers, zero visas, carpenters, zero visas, right? The line for an engineer on an EB2. who is from India is 195 years long, right? And so you can enforce that system all you want, right? But you're either gonna kill a lot of small and medium and large businesses, or you're gonna get a black market for talent, which is what our illegal immigration is dysfunctionally doing. my point isn't, know, Mrs. Noem, you know, we should have a lot of illegal immigration. My point is if you wanna solve the problem, fix the system, change the laws, and then enforce laws that make sense. You want to enforce laws that make no sense? Go ahead and be my guest, but you're going to still have as much chaos in the border as you did over the last four years. Joel (23:42.32) But it isn't the goal here, just like with the federal workers to say, you might have a job when we get back, or you can take this severance package and leave your, they're basically taking that strategy to the immigrants and saying, Hey, we can get rid of 5 % of the immigrants. If we just say, if we catch you, you're never going to be able to come back. But if you leave, you might be able to come back. Isn't that the strategy? Chad (23:54.117) showing them the door. Zeke (24:04.666) Yeah, but that might is really kind of a bait and switch, right? Because literally there is no line, especially for what we need the most. There is no line, right? So when you say get in line, what line, right? When there's no line for plumbers, carpenters, Indians, farmers, when there's only 5,000 visas for unskilled workers that are permanent visas, right? Ilya (24:17.954) Mm-hmm. Zeke (24:30.682) You know when we only have 85,000 H1Bs and we haven't changed those numbers since 1990 and the government is making no proposal to change those things I don't believe it right now if if if you tell me first how you're gonna change the system and you say look We're gonna we're gonna all of a sudden have a healthy number of visas for all these categories Then I'll believe you but I'm still waiting right and I've been waiting for 35 years Chad (24:57.787) Ilja, so in Canada, there have been some changes on, was it goals? mean, what changes did Canada make? Because you guys were sucking a lot of great tech talent up, but we've seen a lot of countries take too much in, prices go up, not enough housing, so on and so forth. So there were some changes recently. What changes did they make and do you know why they made the changes? Ilya (24:58.765) Yeah. Ilya (25:09.187) Yeah. Ilya (25:19.479) Thank Ilya (25:25.75) I think exactly for what you just mentioned, Chad, we did bring in too many people, too many unskilled workers, students, et cetera. And that has caused a housing issue. I always wonder how the second largest landmass in the world with only 40 million people has a housing crisis. It's kind of crazy up here with that. But we did have, you know. Chad (25:47.409) Not enough immigrants to build houses, that's why. Ilya (25:50.798) Yeah, yeah, well, exactly. It's a double-ledged, it's a catch-22, I guess that's the term, right? So you have a lot of people who came in that frankly should not have been led in, I mean, in my opinion, guess. And there was a huge rush of people immigrating. I'm all for immigration. I'm an immigrant, I moved here when I was a kid, obviously worked in immigration. I want there to be... great skilled talent and similar to what Zeke said, like I think there's a huge opportunity for reform and new laws. But we, think, went maybe a little bit too far in terms of allowing people who just don't have the exact skills that are needed for the workforce. And so, yeah, I don't remember exactly all the stats of what changed, but there was a huge change for lower skilled workers. So if you're in a salary that's below the median wage. in Canada, then the chances are getting what's known as an LMIA, a labor market impact assessment, which is kind of the employer part of the work permit process. You basically won't be able to get those. So they've restricted that quite a bit. They also made a huge restriction, as I mentioned, to students. So I think they capped the amount of students that can come to Canada to about half a million, whereas before it was much higher than that. And those are all good changes. just, I feel like we'll see right now the challenge is that there's there's about two and a half million people here in Canada, which is a significant part of our population from percentage point of view that are here at temporary residence. And they're expecting about a million of those to leave before the end of this year because their status is going to expire. So they are trying to, you know, encourage people to leave because the work permit is going to be expired and they haven't made it an easy path for permanent residency. So A lot of our engineers that we brought here, they're kind of at either close to the end of their work permit expiration, looking for a way to renew it, or they're worried about where they're going to stay. So it's challenging, but I also feel like it's such a huge balancing act, right? That you want to bring in enough people, but what if you bring in too much and how do you change that and fix it? yeah, huge challenges, but I think overall there's been a... Ilya (28:10.054) In the last year, a large anti-immigrant shift here. And I think generally the country has just shifted to the right in terms of that because there's whole bunch of reasons we can go into. Yeah. Well, no, Trudeau hasn't been the best prime minister. Yeah. Chad (28:23.697) Yeah, they're called down south is what they're called. Yeah. Joel (28:28.4) Right. mean, to use a, to use a hockey ism, go where, go where the puck is going, not where it is. And I know part of your job as, CEO at Van Hack is to sort of expect what's coming down the pike. And Trudeau is on his way out. I think everyone in Canada is aware of that. And, and Pierre, Pierre is, Pierre is on his way in more than likely. I don't know if you agree or disagree with that, but he's much more Trumpian. So you as CEO of your company, how do you expect immigration to change in the future? And does it impact. Ilya (28:42.562) Yeah, he's responding. Ilya (28:46.912) I am. Joel (28:57.252) the high tech, high skilled labor force that you work with on a regular basis. Ilya (29:02.126) Um, I hope not. Uh, we haven't heard any indication either way. Um, I would say like the right wing are more pro business and this is a very business visa. know, uh, every engineer who comes to Canada creates jobs, um, about three jobs, um, so, or to any country, right? So, uh, I w would hope it wouldn't change. We will see. But, um, I think that. Yeah. For this type of immigration, the biggest thing is you just got to decouple kind of. Skilled, unskilled, legal versus illegal, right? Because immigration, feel like, gets painted with this big brush, right? Everyone's just like, immigration is either great or bad, and there's no real nuance. In my opinion, obviously, you don't want to bring in, like, you're recruiting. It's like, immigration should be like recruiting, right? You're looking for the best and brightest and the people who are going to fit your team. And if someone's not a fit, then that person shouldn't be on the team kind of thing. So yeah. We'll see, though, to answer your question. I'm hopeful that they won't change it, but it's one of those things that, yeah, yeah, exactly. Joel (30:02.468) Hope for the best, expect the worst. Zeke, what do you expect in the US? You said a lot of laws haven't changed. Do you think some things will change in the next six months or so? Zeke (30:15.226) You know, it's a good question. I was expecting that very quickly the Trump administration would introduce some kind of reform on the high skilled side, the so-called high skilled side, right? Yeah, so you know... Chad (30:26.963) They were talking about it. Well, at least Vivek Ramaswamy was and it, yeah, yeah, and Elon and then apparently Vivek got too loud and he got kicked in the curb. Joel (30:31.938) Elon. Zeke (30:38.138) Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, given that it seems that Elon can act with impunity for now, and he's so in favor of more H1B visas, and generally, you know, there's been a signal that, we want the quote right kind of immigrants, I would have expected by now some legislative proposal, whether it's to increase H1B visas or expand the number of employment sponsored green cards, right? We only have 140,000 of those per year in the US, which is crazy, right? But no, right? It's surprising that that hasn't happened, especially because this is kind of the honeymoon phase. It's also in some ways telling that everything the administration is doing is through executive order rather than through Congress. But, you know, that's what I was expecting, right? I am not expecting this administration will expand family-based or low skilled immigration. Chad (31:08.499) Mm-hmm. Zeke (31:36.494) So yeah, that would be it. certainly there will be more and more systematic enforcement, right? That's gonna be, I think, hallmark of the next four years. But I will say perhaps to react a little bit to what Ilya is saying, I think I agree with this idea of you wanna think of immigration as recruitment, where perhaps I, not that it's a difference of opinion, but perhaps where I would make it a little more nuanced is at what level is that decision made, right? I'm not a big fan of the federal or national government making that decision. I think that the right level is firms. I think the right number of employment visas are what firms demand. I think that's one thing that does work very well in the US system. We just don't have enough of them. So what doesn't work well is the quantity. but the idea that a firm would tell me, these are the workers I want, because then they arrived and they have a job as opposed to the proverbial Iranian engineer driving a taxi, right? Because they were recruited with a point system, but it turns out that no employer really wanted them. The other thing is that I think, and this is also the reason why I would have firms drive the process is that there's sometimes a false separability between skilled and unskilled, right? Take a company like Amazon, right? They need a ton of engineers. you know, you know, design their algorithm and all of these things. But, you know, who's driving the trucks and filling, you know, fulfilling, you know, filling packages in warehouses, it's also immigrants, right? And that's true of many, many firms. That's also true in many industries where one firm hires a skilled immigrant, but it can't function without its upstream supplier, its downstream distributor, which depends on unskilled labor. And so I think that Chad (33:05.619) warehouse. Chad (33:23.474) Mm-hmm. Zeke (33:26.554) We want to be a little bit careful. The final thing I'd say is also skilled immigrants often are married to unskilled immigrants, right? Or they have unskilled parents and they might not want to come if you don't make a visa available for that person that they love. so, again, not to say that we should just say have an anything go system, but we have to be very careful about selecting for just one type of immigrant without considering the unintended consequences. Chad (33:53.191) Let's take a look at the, the, the U S ecosystem just in itself. And we're looking at more of a microcosm in the talent movement. We've seen cities like Tulsa actually offer digital nomad. You could call them visas to some extent, right? Money to actually come and work in Tulsa. And that is reviving that city. Why? Because those are individuals who are coming in, they're making money, they're buying stuff. Zeke (34:06.458) Yeah. Chad (34:21.479) They're paying taxes. They're doing all these things that Tulsa needed to happen to be able to be revived. Now that's on a much smaller scale on digital nomad scale versus a much larger scale with every single occupation you can think of, not just remote, but also the individuals who are actually working in that community. For me, this all seems incredibly counterintuitive because we want to sell goods and services. We want to make stuff. We want to be America. And this seems incredibly counterintuitive to all of that because we're not going to make more stuff. not going to, prices are going to rise. Issues are going to come of this because taxes aren't going to be paid. Stuff's not going to be bought. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, I just don't understand it. So how do we, how do we take a look at the actual talent market in itself? and try to equate that to what's going to happen in the economy, not just for business leaders, but for politicians. How do we, because it doesn't seem like any of this is adding up for them. Zeke (35:32.098) No, it doesn't. I'm curious. I really do want to hear Ilya's answer as this pertains to Canada and other places that he knows. But in the US, you're right. all of that is right. One of the most telling moments of the presidential election for me was a whole Springfield, Ohio thing, right? The eating dogs and cats and all that. Right. And I think it was very telling. It was very, very telling that the Republican mayor of Springfield, the Republican governor of Ohio, at great risk to their political career came out and spoke up against that and said, we need these Haitians desperately, right? Our factories in Springfield would have closed, property values are going up for the first time in decades because guess what these Haitians are doing? They're buying dilapidated properties, remodeling them, putting them on the market, right? Our schools are populated with children, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that there is, even though Chad (36:18.493) Yes. Zeke (36:28.568) what's happening at the federal level in the U S doesn't jive in the state in the way that Chad said, when you go to, when you talk to mayors, governors, chambers of commerce, business owners, especially small and medium business owners, they get it. And if there's very strong bipartisan support, I've spent the last seven, eight months doing this actually. and, and, and when I get below federal level and I talk to Republicans and Democrats, this is a conversation they're having. And it isn't a, let's kick these people out. It's how do we welcome them? We need them desperately for all these reasons. And yes, of course, there's a conversation of how do we have a system that is less chaotic. But the default is we want these people, not we want to keep them out. And so I think that also the point of this is like what you're hearing at the federal level is really disconnected from what's happening on the ground. So one possibility, I don't know if this will happen, but one possibility in the next four years is that you'll see more complaints from the bottom reaching the administration saying, wait a minute, right? Our constituents are suffering, right? For all these reasons, they might not do it publicly, they might do it through quieter channels, but I expect some of that to happen. Yeah. Joel (37:40.88) In Canada, it's the same thing, but it's eating the moose and it's eating the beaver. Did I just say eating the beaver? my God, that's bad. Ilja, what are you hearing from a Canadian? What's the culture think about immigration? Ilya (37:46.327) Hahaha. Chad (37:46.451) you Chad (37:50.417) Not again. Ilya (37:55.799) We do have a very famous chocolate pastry treat called the Beaver Tail. So yeah, we're enjoying those. Joel (38:01.88) Yeah you do. Yeah you do. Ilya (38:08.334) All right. Well, just to quickly go back to what Zeke said about employer driven, I totally actually agree with that. think that's the way that our tech visa works is if the company gives you a job, they're the ones who then sponsor your visa. And we don't have a cap on that. And I do feel like that's the model that the US should copy. Yeah, we have, I would say over in both countries, Canada and US, know, land of opportunity, country of immigrants. So it's been a big part of the driver of our economy. for decades and quite a long time. I do feel like our points-based system is fairly strong. The challenge with things like doctors or engineers, my wife's actually a dentist from Brazil, so she couldn't practice here because it was very difficult. The challenge becomes in the accreditation system, not actually the fact that the person can move here, but once they do arrive here, there's a lot of unnecessary red tape and hoops they have to jump through to actually work in their profession. I think that's more something that needs to be solved rather than... allowing specific certain people. Here in Canada, it's kind of an algorithm or formula of your age, education level, if you speak English or French, how well, because we have, the two official languages, a few other factors that I'm forgetting right now, but essentially this, and that determines whether you can get selected for your permanent residency and come to Canada as a great Canadian green card holder, or we call it a PR. I think that And I just think that it's been what you like you said 35 years since there's been any immigration reform in the US. So I think like doesn't matter which side of the aisle does it. It's like someone just needs to do it. There just needs to be immigration reform in the United States. Like hopefully the next four years or four years after that or some time that just needs to happen. Cause yeah, there's this such a huge economic unlock that could be provided by creating that. And I would do some copy of the Canadian system, maybe look at places like Germany in terms of their skilled workers have been pretty good, the UK, et cetera. And yeah, tying immigration much more to a specific job, whether that's to a quote unquote, low skilled or high skilled or whatever wage, as long as there's demand from the employer, I think that's probably the best way as well as a certain amount of people just kind of thrown in who are meeting the criteria that the company's looking or the country's looking for. Yeah. Joel (40:29.232) That French thing is rough. That French thing, especially in Quebec, you got to speak French. that's rough. Zeke and Ilya, everybody. Let's start with Zeke. For our listeners that want to know more about you, maybe get their hands on your book. Where would you send them? Chad (40:37.011) for a song. Zeke (40:46.986) It everywhere you buy books, know, Amazon's the obvious, but I, you know, I'm a big fan of smaller booksellers who really appreciate it. So, you know, whatever your neighborhood bookstore is, don't get it at the library because then I don't make money. No, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. If you can't afford it, go to the library and I, you know, Joel (41:03.792) Such a capitalist pig. Chad (41:05.779) Who has a library card anymore? Zeke (41:13.548) Writing a book is the dumbest money making strategy that I could think of. So I didn't write this for the money. But yeah, anywhere books are sold. Anywhere books are sold. Joel (41:24.878) Give them the website. I know you love giving the website. Zeke (41:27.636) yeah, so if you want to go to my website, zkernandes.net, zkernandes.net, all one word, you can learn about the book. But also what you'll find there is a lot of other resources. So if you have, look, any hot button question, you can find it there. You can find resources. I'll show, I'll take you through the original research so you don't have to believe me. You can go to the data, you can go to the research. I think you'll find it to be very useful and refreshingly positive, right? Because immigration, Joel (41:41.04) Mm-hmm. Zeke (41:56.678) There's research showing that when you mention the word immigration, people already tense up and have negative connotations. And so lot of what I'm trying to do is to say, look, this isn't a fear issue. There's a lot of optimism once you know the facts. yeah. Joel (42:09.432) And speaking of optimism, let's go to the Canadian who are all known to be super optimistic. Ilya, where do you send people that want to know more about you and Van Hac? Chad (42:12.616) Yeah. Chad (42:16.999) And everybody who can't watch, this is audio, Ilya literally was just drinking a whole bottle of maple syrup. Go ahead, Ilya. Ilya (42:26.83) Super trooper style. Well, first of all, I'm going say I'm optimistic we're going to beat you guys in the Four Nations faceoff game on Thursday. I'm not sure if anyone hears a hockey. Yeah, we'll see. It'll be a good game. Yeah, VanHack, very simple, vanhack.com, vanhack.com is our website. Just go there and sign up either as an employer for looking to hire some great tech talent or if you're looking for an opportunity, check out the candidate side. And then I'm the only person in world with my name. So if you Google me, I'll come up. LinkedIn is probably the best way to reach out. Joel (42:59.952) There you go. Chad! That is another one in the can. We out! Ilya (43:04.898) I'm turning. Chad (43:06.951) Way out.

From the Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Chad & Cheese sit down with Ashten Fizer, a powerhouse in talent branding, to uncover the secrets of authentic employer branding. 🌟 Ashten breaks down: Why authenticity trumps polished videos in employer branding The surprising geographical differences in recruitment platforms (Spoiler: LinkedIn isn’t always king!) How collaboration across departments fuels effective branding The critical role of DEI in expanding talent pools and enhancing product innovation Whether you’re a talent acquisition pro or an employer brand enthusiast, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss! 👉 Listen now and learn more at www.HeyAshten.com ! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Podcast Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman 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. [music] Joel: Who are you and why are you here? Ashten Fizer: Well, I am Ashten Fizer. I am a talent brand creative. Didn't even know that was a job until I got it. But I am here because I found out about RecFest UK about three years ago, and I have been the biggest fan ever since. As talent acquisition professionals, employer brand professionals, we're constantly going to conferences for everybody else... Joel: Yep. Ashten Fizer: Watching them have a great time learning about their industry... Joel: Why should they have all the fun, right? Ashten Fizer: Why should they? So, I love that RecFest has given us this space so that we can learn from our own peers... Joel: Yeah. Ashten Fizer: But then also throw in a little party. Okay? Because who wants a stiff conference? Joel: If you're not having fun, what's the point, right? Ashten Fizer: What's the point? Joel: What's the point? Ashten Fizer: So, yeah, that's why I'm here. Joel: "Employment brand creator." Say more about that. Ashten Fizer: Well, so, as we know, employer brand is branding, marketing, the whole shebang. It's 23 different departments rolled into one and usually a small team that's expected to do it all. Well, I enjoy the creative parts. So, creating design systems for the employer brand, digging into the EVP process, especially when, after the research part, which probably nobody really likes the research part, but once you have that information, then using that data to create branding and marketing and visuals, and things that will really make people think and feel and do things. Joel: Okay. So, what works? What platforms are the most effective? What kind of messaging is the most effective? You're in the trenches. What works? Ashten Fizer: I am in the trenches. So, as far as platforms go, it's always going to be regional. So, while we here in the US are very LinkedIn-focused, and we know that that is our job board, our Facebook of jobs, it's not in every country. So, we really do have to stop being so US-focused sometimes, and actually start buying into these other platforms in these other countries if that's where we're recruiting, to ensure that we are hitting those markets as well. Because LinkedIn isn't for everyone. If you look at China, they have their own platforms for everything. Joel: Yep. Ashten Fizer: So, yes, LinkedIn is great for here. Indeed is fantastic. Glassdoor for your reviews. But if you're a global company, you have to start branching out to those other job boards. In China you have BiliBili. There's another one called Red, which is like their Twitter. And then other countries did the same thing. Joel: So, if we're talking about messaging, I assume that it's not a cookie cutter. Our message in the US is the same... [overlapping conversation] Ashten Fizer: It should never. Joel: So, talk about how you... [overlapping conversation] Ashten Fizer: And even your US messaging should be different based on your US audience. [overlapping conversation] Joel: Okay. Talk about that. How is it different, and how did you come to that conclusion? Ashten Fizer: Well, when you look at people, everyone is different. And you really have to start thinking about what are people's needs. And it can be a wide array. So, then you have to start drilling down to your own niche, but you really have to be focused on what people want, learning what they're asking. There's a whole website out there, it's called Ask the Public. Joel: Yep. Ashten Fizer: If you really want to know what people are looking for, asking for, type it in. You can get the answers. But that's what you need to focus on. What are their pain points? What are they looking for from employers? What are their everyday issues that they're having? And how could being employed at your company solve that for them? Joel: Yeah, right. Ashten Fizer: So, you have to drill down to that because also it's going to be different for different people, different communities, different regions, different localities. Joel: Yeah. Ashten Fizer: So, you're going to have to drill down, figure out what that specific group needs that you're trying to attract. And truly, just like we tell candidates to tailor their resume for the individual job, do the same for your messaging, for that individual community, for that individual skill set. You have to drill down and speak their language, and meet them where they are. Joel: Yep. So, you were on a panel or you oversaw a discussion here earlier at the conference, which I assume was sort of forward-looking in what the future look like. What does your organization look like as you turn to 2025? What does branding look like? Is it more of the same? Is it changing? Talk to us about that. Ashten Fizer: It is absolutely changing. Branding is absolutely changing as we move forward. What we're seeing is another shift in the market. During the pandemic, we went through the "great resignation" or the "great migration" or whatever people want to call it. And now we're getting to a point where it's still... The market is still in the candidate's hands. It hasn't gone back to the employer. But now the candidate wants more. They want more of an inside look. They want more of an honest look. And those high-production-value videos that we're spending thousands of thousands of dollars on in casting and writing scripts, they don't believe it. Joel: Yeah. Ashten Fizer: It's a waste of money now. They want low production. They want it directly from the employee. They want it from the employee's account. They want that very real, reality-TV-esque, inside view of the company before they choose an employer. They want to see that culture firsthand. So, we have to start figuring out what are the ways outside of just "a day in the life" post on social media to give it to them. And that's where you're seeing a lot of brands come to conferences, and not just have a booth, but have an entire brand activation like a consumer brand would. But now we're doing it for recruiting. Joel: Okay. You mentioned Glassdoor earlier. And when you talk about throwing the... Let's see what's going on. Is there a wizard back there? What am I seeing? I have a viewpoint that Glassdoor and expecting people to write paragraphs about a company is a little bit antiquated. I see more and more TikToks about people don't care about anonymity. They're going to trash a company. They're going to record a corporate call about layoffs. How do you look at that brave new world of, I guess, courage and just throwing aside the social norms of talking about a company? Ashten Fizer: I absolutely applaud it. Joel: Yeah. Ashten Fizer: I hope it forces companies to lean into more transparency, because that's what people want. Like I said, they're tired of the scripted, paid actors, stock photography, production that we continue to give them. They want the real. And if we're not gonna give it to them in a space where we can control it, they're gonna go find it someplace else. So, you might as well get into it so that you can get ahead of that messaging before your detractors, or someone who has a bad experience gets out there and creates the brand for you. Because if you don't tell your story, somebody else will. Joel: Yeah. I love your comment about stock footage and stock photos. When you look at Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in your organization, what is your strategy around that and some of the tactics you utilize to make sure you're casting as wide a net as possible? Ashten Fizer: Absolutely. I know for us, it's all about absolutely widening the net. And that's why I love working for companies that have decided to either go hybrid or remote, because that gives us more space to look for more talent in places where we normally wouldn't look. So, if we're just restricted to San Jose, Sunnyvale, New York, these major cities that I can barely afford, we're missing out on talent that's out there in Nebraska, in Iowa. Just because they're in Middle America doesn't mean they don't have the skill set. So, I think it's great. I think the pandemic did us a favor, because it allowed us to open up, to really look at everyone out there instead of those that have just concentrated into those major tech hub cities. So, when I think about DEI, it's really not just about race and those boxes you check; it's about diversity of thought. It's about, okay, we have someone from San Jose, probably grew up in San Francisco, has that city mindset, but now we brought somebody in that grew up in the plains of Nebraska, and they're coming from a totally different mindset. And now we can make better tools, because now we have more people with more perspectives to give us that input that we need to make things for everyone. Joel: Yeah. You're such a ray of sunlight. Thanks for sitting down with me today. Ashten Fizer: Absolutely. Thanks for inviting me. Joel: You bet, you bet. For any listeners, viewers out there that want to connect with you, learn more about your company, where do you send them? Ashten Fizer: Heyashten.com or @heyashten on every social platform you can find. That's me. Joel: All right. Enjoy the rest of the day. Ashten Fizer: Oh, you too. Joel: Thanks. Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back like an awful train wreck you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

In this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, hosts Joel and Maureen trade barbs and insights like a comedy duo on a caffeine bender before diving into heavier stuff like mental health in a world gone wacky, in addition to the latest news around the world of work. In a rollercoaster of a month, U.S. companies slammed the brakes on hiring, with ADP’s February private payrolls report showing a measly 77,000 jobs added—half of what the eggheads predicted and a steep drop from January’s beefy 186,000. Meanwhile, Employ snatched up Pillar, an interview intelligence tool, probably hoping to outsmart the hiring slump. Over at ZipRecruiter, Q4 was a bloodbath—revenue tanked 18% to $111 million, with 2024’s full-year haul down 26.6% to $474 million, flipping a $49.1 million profit into a $12.9 million loss; the stock hit rock bottom, leaving only  Severance  fans to pick up the pieces—cue the sad trombone. Commenters on X are cackling that the Four Horsemen (Google, LinkedIn, automation, AI, and freelancing) are galloping in, with one suggesting ZipRecruiter go private or sell out, while another whispers Paradox might be the real job-board slayer. On the AI front, HeyMilo ($2.2M) and Alta ($7M) scored seed funding to flex their virtual agent muscles—HeyMilo’s screening candidates like a nosy aunt, while Alta’s chasing global sales domination; Mo’s probably picking Alta because, duh, bigger bucks. LinkedIn’s still the envy swamp, with Vice noting Gen Z’s drowning in “Director of Ego” vibes—users are bailing to escape the cringe, though employers keep them chained to it like a corporate ball-and-chain. Finally, HiBob’s survey dropped a buzzkill: only one in three women feel empowered at work, less than 10% have mentors, and men are hogging raises and promotions—34% to 22% and 46% to 32%, respectively. Commenters mutter about crab bucket mentality, wondering if women hold back to avoid the claw-back from their own squad. Mo’s take? “Trump’ll fix it, maybe.” Sure, lady, and I’ll hire a crab as my next intern. LinkedIn Has a Serious Gen Z Problem PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Joel (00:30.83) You don't have to take off your clothes to have a good time, but it sure as hell does help. Hi kids. It's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Tara free cheese man. Maureen Wiley Clough (00:41.503) And I'm Maureen, AKA Moe. Everything's fine, nothing to see here, Clough. Joel (00:46.102) Right and on this episode zip recruiter crashes LinkedIn is killing Gen Z and who'd you rather? Let's do this. Joel (01:00.514) First time together, Mo. Are you nervous? Maureen Wiley Clough (01:03.543) I mean a little bit. slightly uncomfortable. I don't know. Just kidding. This is going be great. That is a plus. That was remarkably hilarious. So we got to take people back to this. was at HR Tech last year, sitting in your booth on your couch. You were in there with smart recruiters, right? And I'm sitting there talking to you for like a full five minutes, fully assuming you knew who I was because you know we had met before. Joel (01:04.863) Little bit. I'm just glad I finally know who you are. I'm glad I finally know who you are. Joel (01:18.968) Mm-hmm. Yep. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:31.925) and had a long conversation. And at the end you're like, so what's your deal? What's your deal? What you doing here? What you trying? And I was like, Joel, it's Mo. I was like, am I that forgettable? I mean, wow. It was amazing. How was that for you? Joel (01:33.902) Mm-hmm. Joel (01:48.846) So I'm 53, I'm 53 and my brain is dying. So let me throw that in there. I did not put together, because people that listen to us regularly know that you and Emmy and JT are now sort of on the show. And before you were on the show, were sort of, both Chad and I had like thrown in people that we wanted and like let's, and you were Chad's person. So Chad was like, you gotta get to know Maureen. Maureen Wiley Clough (01:55.608) it starts early. Joel (02:18.41) I was like, okay, cool. And we never, you never, we never got on the show together. So at HR tech, think Chad reached out to you and said, okay, you gotta make nice with Joel, like get to know Joel. and, and I'm like, why is this, why is this chick like as interested as she is, like she has this podcast, maybe she wants to be on the show. And it was, it was all, yeah, it was, it was kind of weird. And then Chad was like, that's fucking Mo. you're also Mo and you're Maureen. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:37.227) Gattin' me up. Maureen Wiley Clough (02:42.913) That is amazing. Right. It was a little confusing. Yeah. I'm both. Different vibes. Yeah. We can be more than one thing, right? We patched it up. Here we are. Joel (02:47.286) Which is confusing to me. Little confused. Maureen Moe. Like who is this person? Yeah. Like I'm cheese. I'm Joel. Like I can be confusing too, but I'm glad that we, finally got on. Now this, now this is the funny thing. you've only done a like with Chad and he's always in Europe and he's drinking. so you, you thought you thought I must have to be drinking on the show. So when we got on, when we were in the green room, you're like, Maureen Wiley Clough (03:07.516) hahahahah Maureen Wiley Clough (03:13.813) I literally thought it was a prereq. Joel (03:17.484) Is it okay if I don't drink? Cause it's like 10 AM where you are and it's Wednesday. So I said, what are you talking about? No, you don't have to drink. Like I never really drank. I'm drinking water. and so it's just funny that you thought a prerequisite to be on our show was to be drunk. It, it makes it easier and we're way more tolerable and entertaining when you're drunk, but no, it is not. It is not a prerequisite. Unlike saying thank you. Maureen Wiley Clough (03:26.519) You Maureen Wiley Clough (03:31.767) I really and truly did. I really and truly did. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (03:40.811) Good to know, I was like, this could become a problem. Joel (03:43.82) Yeah. Unlike saying thank you in the, in the oval office, drinking on the Chad and cheese podcast is not, is not a priority. Any, any thoughts on the, the insanity that is the world right now? Did you see the speech? Maureen Wiley Clough (03:46.871) Right. Maureen Wiley Clough (03:54.733) man, just, feel like, you know, I didn't, I didn't see the speech. I kind of got like clips from people and heard the takes from people. I'm like, I don't need to see it to know what it's gonna be. And I know I'm gonna hate it. And it's just gonna make my blood pressure rise. It's gonna do something to my body. And I just don't need that. So I avoided and yeah, you know, it's just like the mental health aspect of all of this. Like I have to kind of tune it out a little bit. I gotta go like. Joel (04:07.48) Mm-hmm. Joel (04:19.672) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (04:20.695) touch grass literally and proverbially, I've got to hang out with family, friends, community. I just got to turn it off, frankly. It's like, I've done what I can do for the most part, and I need to be like relatively informed, but not super informed, right? Like I just need to kind of like get through this period. So I'm like that meme that's been around for like 10 years. That's like the dog sitting with a cup of coffee at a table with fire behind him saying, everything is fine. Like that is how I'm trying to live my life right now, because it's the only way I know how. And it just feels like... Joel (04:26.861) Yeah. Joel (04:43.49) Everything's fine. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (04:50.465) this sort of ominous cloud, like 2020 vibes, like, shit, like stuff is happening. That's how it feels to me. And I'm told by my therapist countless others. So there you go. Joel (05:02.126) Your therapist says drink on the podcast that you do to help you get through. He'll get you through these times. Yeah. It's only only 46 and a half more months left, Mo. So we're, we're in, we're in the home stretch. We're in the home stretch. I'm good. Good. Do you watch the Oscars? Is that your, is that, is that a thing you do or no? Maureen Wiley Clough (05:04.348) Yeah, she's like, get you through whatever you need to do, girl. No shame. Yeah. What about you? Yeah. We're going to be fine. Everything's fine. How are you doing? Yeah. You know, it's funny, I couldn't watch the Oscars because I my internet went out. Apparently Seattle had the power go out, the internet go out in one week. And I was like, shoot. And then I got on my slaying or whatever online and it wasn't hooked up to the right ABC channel. So, no, I did not watch it live, but I did see clips. And let me tell you, the thing that gave me life was Cynthia Urvivo and Ariana Grande's performance of Defying Gravity. holy chills. my gosh. Incredible. Yeah, that was like Joel (05:40.536) Uh-huh. Maureen Wiley Clough (05:50.348) I literally sobbed. So clearly I needed to get some things out. Joel (05:51.512) Yeah. The, the, the Oscars to me now are like the Grammys. I don't know anyone. I've never seen these people. like, unless it's, unless it's an old guy history movie like Oppenheimer, like I probably haven't seen it. So, but I have, is it a Nora? Nora won best picture. Right. So my wife, my wife tricked me into watching this because it's about a stripper. And I said, I'll give it a shot. See how it goes. and it's. Maureen Wiley Clough (05:59.799) Hahaha Maureen Wiley Clough (06:05.021) You're not there. You're not going. Yeah, it did, yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:17.729) She knows the way to your heart. That's a lovely woman. Joel (06:19.488) Yeah. And by the way, it's, it's a naughty movie. It's a naughty movie. I was, but I said, there's Russians are in it. mean, it's, it's oligarchs. Yeah. but, but I came away and I was like, that sucked. That was awful. And then it ends up getting best picture. Yeah. I hated it. I hated it as much as I hated parasite, which also won best picture. Yeah. I hated both of them. Yeah. Give me old guy history movies about world war two and I'm in otherwise. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:22.773) Yeah. Well, it's got it's got Russia in there, right? Like Russia situation. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:31.532) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:35.453) Really? So you hated it. Maureen Wiley Clough (06:41.185) I never saw that. I never saw that. Okay. You're there. Joel (06:48.906) Otherwise not. So also happened this week. it was almost a topic. so target as you, as you know, cause you listen to the show and you've been on it, you know that they have abandoned like everyone else, their DEI initiatives. However, they were, they were more into it than other companies. Like they had special sections about it and they celebrated it. So there's a apparently a 40 day boycott of target going on and everyone's going to Costco instead. Who's been sort of steadfast. in their, in their DI initiative. So are you a target shopper? Are you going to like, are you going to boycott or you Walmart person? What's, what's your shopping online? Amazon, right? Cause you're in Seattle. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:16.961) So applaud. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:21.395) I am, yeah, yeah, 100 % Costco though. I mean, that's Seattle too. So yeah, I'm a big Costco fan, always have been. Companies that do the right thing right now, I want to give you all of my money. This matters. And so Target, I've never really been big on it anyway, so I'm fine. But I know that it's a very mainstay in a lot of, especially working parents' lives, and understandably so, right? But I think at this point, the best thing we can do is make Joel (07:28.6) Yeah. Joel (07:40.588) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (07:50.911) very deliberate and intentional choices with our money. so Target, you ain't getting any of mine. Sorry, it's not happening. Joel (07:54.744) Mm-hmm. Yeah, and no chance they have a $1.50 hot dog anytime soon at Target. unlike Costco, unlike Costco. Maureen Wiley Clough (08:01.271) No, you're right. There's no way. No way. You always weave in, you always get that fast food reference in. I really admire that about you. You can make it happen no matter what. It's really impressive. You are, you are, you're a pro. Joel (08:08.398) Joel (08:15.648) I'm fantastic, Mo. I am so brilliant. I'm not cure, I'm not curing cancer, but God damn it. can tell you which fast food place to go to. By the way, real quick chipotle as everyone knows, I love a good chipotle. almost made my shout outs as well, but they are not going to raise prices because of tariffs because God damn it. It's chipotle. They're the only fast food place that has come out and said that. So don't expect price increases because it's already so efficiently. It's so cheap as it is. Right. Maureen Wiley Clough (08:25.057) very critical. Maureen Wiley Clough (08:43.959) Look at that. Joel (08:44.526) the prices will not be going up at Chipotle. So let's get to some shout out shall we? know you have one that's on your Maureen Wiley Clough (08:49.495) you Maureen Wiley Clough (08:53.375) Yeah, I just want to shout out the very brave employees at Metta who are peeling back the curtain. And I'm not saying another phrase, by the way, you'll note I did not mention anything about kimono. We learned, right? We learned. Anyway, but I'm here to teach. so anytime. So the employees at Metta who have let us in on the inner workings of what's going on at that absolute. Joel (09:04.493) Yeah, I'm not very smart, Mo. Yeah, I appreciate it. Maureen Wiley Clough (09:20.427) shithole at this point. I'm so impressed with them because even though some of them were summarily fired because of revealing what happened inside the organization and the things that Zuckerberg and others were saying, even still people are leaking to the press. So Business Insider came out with an article today talking all about what's going on behind the scenes, including the fact that Metta actually has this list this list that's of people who will never be able to be rehired at the company again Which is apparently very unusual for a company And so people are finding out that they're not getting these jobs are getting ghosted by recruiting agencies that were Before that point really excited about their candidacy at Metta and they're like what's going on turns out They're on this list and apparently not even like being related to the CEO can get you off of it. So that Joel (09:50.126) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (10:08.671) especially now that we know meta is axing people that they find to leak information. The fact that people are still doing it, like just major props to people who want to allow everybody to know what's really going on behind the scenes in corporate. And it's it's dark, man. So props to I don't want to call whistleblowers. That sounds big. like props to the people who continually reach out to journalists and people like me, other creators and tell us what's going on behind the scenes, because if they weren't to do that, we would have no idea what was going on at these organizations. So thank you. Joel (10:38.242) God bless those folks. bless those folks. And God bless the Canadians, by the way. I've, I almost forgot to mention that our shout outs are sponsored by Kiara. that simple and smart text recruiting, made cost effective by our friends at, at Kiara. And I almost love the Brits as much as I love the Canadians, which brings me to my, my first shout out, it goes to Hung Lee. Not only my favorite porn star. Maureen Wiley Clough (10:38.817) Hat tip, God bless those people. Call me good. Joel (11:05.27) Also one of my favorite pundits in the industry. Hung hung shot up some rainbows and sunshine and glitter up our ass in his newsletter, which you should be a subscriber to if you're not this week. set up of our show quote, not everyone's cup of tea, which is kind of a backs backhanded comment by a Brit, but Chad and cheese remains the best podcast in the business. Ooh, sharp up to date industry coverage and commentary. Maureen Wiley Clough (11:21.591) You Joel (11:33.154) Don't be fooled by the rambunctiousness. That's a really big word. There is serious analysis just underneath. So Hung Lee, that deserves a shout out. Anyone who does that for us gets a shout out. That's a shout out. Maureen Wiley Clough (11:36.373) You Maureen Wiley Clough (11:48.215) That's wonderful. Well, I got one more. Are you ready? Are you ready for this? Could you roll some footage? Can you roll some footage for the people who are actually looking at this on YouTube? Joel (11:52.312) What else you got? I'm ready. I'm ready. In honor of Chad who's at a Champions League soccer game in the Netherlands, roll that beautiful bean footage. Here we go. Maureen Wiley Clough (12:06.858) you Joel (12:14.872) Zuck as Elvis. Maureen Wiley Clough (12:25.367) Thank you. Joel (12:25.582) All for the listeners that had to hear that but not see it, what did we get to see, the YouTube, the watchers? Maureen Wiley Clough (12:31.635) We just got to see, and we wish we could unsee, Mark Zuckerberg throwing his wife Priscilla Chan a 40th birthday party, a massive, beautiful soiree, as you would imagine, for a billionaire. And he decided to channel his inner Benson Boone, who I'm sure you have no idea who that is, Joel, but for those of you who don't, I'll also tell you he won a Grammy, I believe he won a Grammy, he was at the Grammys and did a very, like, in-your-face performance whereby he came in wearing a tuxedo. Joel (12:55.499) huh. Maureen Wiley Clough (13:00.959) and then had someone rip it off of him mid performance. And he revealed this like very, very tight fitting form fitting skin tight, really light baby blue jumpsuit with a very deep V. Like we're talking deep V. And Mark Zuckerberg decided like, happy birthday, baby. Happy 40th. I'm going to do that. Same thing. I'm going to pretend to be Benson Boone in front of everyone who I'm assuming they know and love and make your birthday Joel (13:16.877) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (13:29.705) all about me. so really sweet, probably the best birthday gift I could possibly imagine a husband giving a wife. And not only did he do it in the confines of that safe space, he then put it on the internet for all of us to see and digest. And now my eyes hurt. yeah, that's, guess, know, money can't buy you taste, class or style. Joel (13:30.968) Mm-hmm. Joel (13:44.408) course. Joel (13:52.022) I'm guessing it was not on TikTok. So maybe the TikTok users are safe from from all that, but Reels and Instagram, you're screwed. Maureen Wiley Clough (13:52.791) Ooh, yeah, you're right. I doubt LinkedIn got it either. Yeah, I was like, what is, god damn it, yeah. Joel (14:02.206) I'm curious, you're way hipper than I am. What do you think about Zuck's evolution of like super nerd hoodie flip flops to now? I'm not exactly sure how I would explain or describe. Yeah. The curly hair, the neck, the kickboxing. Would you rather have the old Zuck back? Is a new Zuck okay? A hundred percent. You'd rather go back to the, the Jesse Eisenberg. Give me Jesse Eisenberg. Maureen Wiley Clough (14:04.855) Mmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (14:12.887) Roman Emperor or whatever. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (14:23.558) 100%. No, no, no, no. Give me old naive. mean, hopefully naive. Yeah, give me that. I mean, I still wasn't like a huge fan of that vibe either. I mean, Facebook, the origins were like a way to rank girls hotness on college campuses. Let's not forget that. So and he also like screwed over his co-founders and stuff. So like it's never he's never really been someone that I would like prop up as someone to emulate. Let's just put it that way. But like this look. Joel (14:33.251) Mm-hmm. Joel (14:47.918) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (14:50.379) The thing is, this is a look, like it is a curated look. So literally someone is receiving money from Mark Zuckerberg. a hundred percent. He's got a stylist, probably multiple. And it's like, who thought that wearing these stupid t-shirts with like symbols on them and this hair, like who thought that was a good idea? It's just this weird, and it comes at the same time as this like masculine energy, like him kissing up to these like bro influencers. It's just bizarre. And like, we all see you having this, it's essentially, I think it's a Joel (14:55.97) He has a team, right? Yeah. Joel (15:13.454) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:20.277) midlife crisis and I was waiting for the divorce news to drop and I was like, what? Joel (15:21.57) Yeah. It's, it's, mean, where you live. mean, Bezos went again from super nerd to like Terminator and, even, and even, even Bill Gates went from like a paste eating dork to clearly PR got to him and he had some like cool glasses and like sweater vests and shit like that. yeah, PR. Maureen Wiley Clough (15:31.863) Yeah, yeah, totally did. I know. Hahaha! Yeah. But I'll still, I'll stand Bill's look. Like it's still appropriate. I'm into it. Bezos, was like, when he did the whole like, who do we want as bond next? I was like, I a hundred percent think he's fishing for people to be like you, sir. You know, like you should be 007. Joel (15:48.524) Yeah. Joel (15:56.859) hahahaha No chance. I know you're down on Zuck and you're down on Meta, but I'm going to give them a little love. All right. Let's talk a little money. so every year they publish people who have given a billion dollars or more to charity. You may not agree with the charities. You may think it's a big tax, you know, tax deal, but I want to mention the people who've given a billion dollars because God damn it. That's a lot of money to go to charity. We're talking people like Reed Hastings, Michael Bloomberg. Patty Quillen, who's Reed Hastings wife, Dell technologies, Michael Dell and his wife, Susan Dell, Warren Buffett, Warren Buffett, no shock. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, your buddy and his wife, a physician, Dr. Priscilla Chan, and retired professor Ruth Gottsman have all given a billion dollars. And for my money, if you're giving that kind of money to charity, I'm going to give you a shout out. I probably will not give them. Maureen Wiley Clough (16:46.231) doctor. Joel (17:01.002) any free shit from Chad and cheese though, because they have enough stuff. Zuck does not need a Chad and cheese t-shirt, but if you want a Chad and cheese t-shirt, you got to go to Chadcheese.com slash free, fill out the, information and we'll do our best to use my children's labor to get you a t-shirt out in the mail. Those are sponsored by our friends at Aaron referrals. We also not just t-shirts Mo we got whiskey. Our buddies at Van Hack, another fine, fine Canadian, Canadian business. And this, this comes tariff free to all of our listeners. If they win that, they get whiskey. We've also got rum from our friends at plum. We've got maple syrup, aged in Pappy's barrels. that's from our friends at Kiora. And, yeah, like I mentioned, if it is your birthday, then good times await. Maureen Wiley Clough (17:39.895) Beautiful thing. Maureen Wiley Clough (17:45.729) Hehehe. Joel (17:59.63) because there might be a bottle of rum from our friends at Plum. Joel (18:08.717) love that sponsorship. Plum lost. So people left Plum. We're hopeful that just for the fact that we can do that sound bite with this sponsorship, that they retain their sponsorship, even though they've lost a few of the people that used to be really close to us. Sorry, that's a side note. All right, let's get to the people that are celebrating another trip around the sun. Kyle Kip Hager, Mel Skatz, and Michael Deloya, Robert Williams, Tracy Morris, David Altman, Ryan Gibbons, Chris Wallach. Maureen Wiley Clough (18:11.618) Amazing. Maureen Wiley Clough (18:24.832) so too. Joel (18:38.712) Craig Hunter, Amanda Hall, Emily Kunkel, Leanne Chase, and Dean DaCosta. I'll celebrate another birthday this week. We will be traveling, and we will have some more quality time together, hopefully much better than the time that we spent at HR Tech not knowing exactly what was going on. So we're headed to Transform in Vegas. Maureen Wiley Clough (18:53.365) Yes, we will. Yeah. We'll erase it. Yeah. Joel (19:05.006) That's going to be March 17th to the 19th. I believe we will have a hangover suite party if you're interested in joining us for that Hit hit chat up or mo up or anyone in this podcast? For an invite to that Chad and I will also be headed to Chicago on March 25th for the recruiting leaders summit put on by the folks at RecFest I love me some Chicago mo. I don't know if you enjoy the Windy City, but we're talking Maureen Wiley Clough (19:12.247) Ha Joel (19:32.642) We're talking Italian beefs. We're talking Chicago dogs. We're talking deep dish. we're talking old style. Like I love me, some, some, Chicago for more events, can cut out to Chad cheese, dot com forward slash events, I think. And you can find out where Chad and I will be and possibly mo for a little, little bonus bonus for that. Maureen Wiley Clough (19:55.319) Little bonus. Joel (20:02.158) All right, real quick. this, came across the, the wire, this morning. our friends at employ, you may know them as job by jazz, HR, lever, a few other ATSs. they've acquired pillar, and in interview intelligence tool. it's not, it didn't make it to the show. Maybe we'll talk about it in more depth, next week, but I wanted to throw that out there because I like to keep our listeners on the, on the forefront of the news that's happening. also kind of a bummer, the, the economic. shit show continues. Uh, us companies slowed hiring dramatically in February. That's according to ADP's monthly private payrolls report. Only 77,000 jobs were added last month, roughly half the estimate and way below January's upwardly revised 186,000 jobs. So The bad times continue for the job market and for the job boards in most cases. Mo, let's get to some real news from the past week. ZipRecruiter reported a tough Q4 with revenue dropping over 18 % year over year to $111 million, blaming soft hiring demand. Full year 2024 revenue fell 26.6 % to 474 million. Maureen Wiley Clough (20:54.869) Big bummer. Maureen Wiley Clough (21:02.142) Yeah. Joel (21:22.574) with a net loss of 12.9 million compared to a $49.1 million profit just in 2023. Shares hit a 52 week low on the news as Barclays, UBS, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan all adjusted their price targets for the stock to the downside. In fact, the only buyers of the stock may be the fans of the show Severance that you can see on Apple. If you have not seen this commercial, here it is. Maureen Wiley Clough (21:46.593) You Maureen Wiley Clough (21:52.053) It's something. Joel (22:24.115) Any thoughts on the news out of ZipRecruiter recently? Maureen Wiley Clough (22:27.455) Yeah, I mean, I guess it's not surprising with the world being such a dumpster fire that there would be fewer job openings on these job boards, right? But I guess my curiosity is really piqued when I think about, how is their competition doing? What's happening there? Because what I read in one of the articles we looked at was that those folks are doing a little better. So guess I'm wondering, what's your take on that as an industry insight? Joel (22:52.376) So say that again in a way that maybe I can understand it. So, it's a job. Maureen Wiley Clough (22:55.095) Competition. How are they doing? Joel (23:03.298) Well, I mean, competition. So, I mean, zip recruiters, a shit show. I mean, it was down 25 % on the news of the stock. recruit continues to do pretty well. although their staffing industry or the staffing business is seemingly much more healthier than their job or business. I'm of the opinion that gender to AI is going to kill glass door because when I can go to gender to AI and say, what's it like to work at Eli Lilly? I get a pretty good answer that doesn't like force me to go to the last door and see their, their reviews. So long-term, think it's really tough. talked about the show last week where they have a walled garden. have to log in. There's no search box. Like imagine going to Google and there's no search boxes. Like you'd freak out. What is this? Um, that's basically what indeed is done. LinkedIn is fine, but LinkedIn is a much more diversified business. Um, than those others globally. mean, see, Maureen Wiley Clough (23:47.847) That's rough. UI. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (23:56.363) Yeah. Joel (23:59.806) Stepstone, mean, generally speaking, they're all very, very challenged businesses. And when I look at ZipRecruiter in particular, know, public companies offer you a window into their business that private companies or lot of companies don't. in 2023, Chad and I spoke and I brought up what I called the four horsemen of the job board industry. These are four trends that I saw that were really cutting into job boards. Maureen Wiley Clough (24:15.329) Yep. Joel (24:29.518) and making life really, really tough for them. When I made this statement in 2023, ZipRecruiter stock was around 20, $22. Today it's around five to $6. So in that short period, that's what ZipRecruiter has done. So my four horsemen were number one, was Google and LinkedIn, Google for jobs, people being able to find jobs and look at descriptions. We're going to keep people from going to those sites. LinkedIn, I can find anyone that I want for the most part. Automation, I think hits the blue collar worker in a big way. Companies are automating. They want bots carrying, you know, boxes they want, you know, people are getting squeezed out of the blue collar. you know, my local McDonald's is all kiosks when I order, there's no one at a cash register to take my money. that, that takes away from, the jobs that are out there. And then AI, I think on the white collar side, who needs a copywriter today? Maureen Wiley Clough (25:04.895) and Joel (25:22.57) Every image that's created for everything is AI. AI is doing so much of white collar jobs and as we'll discuss and who'd you rather, they're doing more of the customer service. They're doing more of the sales stuff. They're doing more of the marketing. So I think that is going to continue to chip away at job boards. And then the fourth one was, just think the gig economy phenomenon or freelancing. think young people, I'd rather DoorDash, Uber, go Maureen Wiley Clough (25:30.975) Yeah, we'll get into that. Maureen Wiley Clough (25:39.351) Totally. Joel (25:51.454) do some stuff on Upwork or Fiverr, like just diversify instead of like get a shitty job that I don't like. think that's playing into this as well. Now, interestingly, when I, when I made the statement, it was Google. I was talking to an executive, late last year. and he said to me, the greatest threat to indeed was paradox. And I thought that was fascinating. Maureen Wiley Clough (25:58.219) Yeah. Totally. Joel (26:18.83) Um, and, and I thought about it it was, was pretty brilliant. was, but like, yeah, like I have, I have a recruiter. have a tech, like I have a co-pilot. have an agent that will go out, talk to job seekers, go find them, um, go through the whole process. So why do I need to even post a job like publicly available? Um, so I, I think the job board industry is going to continue to suffer from this. And I think that zip recruiters gradual decline. is just an embodiment of that. need to go private. someone needs to, it needs to be career builder plus monster plus zip zip recruiter or, recruit holdings needs to add them to glass door. And indeed, like somebody needs to take zip recruiter, off the board because they are, they are failing, pretty badly, but that is, that is zip recruiter. Let's take a quick break after all this uplifting news and conversation and, Maureen Wiley Clough (26:54.387) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (26:59.767) Bye. Maureen Wiley Clough (27:06.935) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (27:12.087) Hahaha Joel (27:14.306) We'll come back and play a little Who'd You Rather? Joel (27:22.414) So Mo, you've never played. Who'd you rather? All right, well, if you're a first time listener, here's how it goes, kids. We talk about two companies, startups that have recently gotten some funding. And at the end of the summaries, both Maureen and I will tell you who we would rather. Maureen Wiley Clough (27:25.855) my first time. Joel (27:46.786) Make sense, Mo? Enough sense? Yeah. By the way, she signed the contract, so there's no turning back. Let's play a little Hoot-ja-rather. All right. First up in this corner, we have New York City based Hey Milo. No relation to Hi Bob, by the way. They're an AI powered candidate screening platform. They've raised $2.2 million in seed funding this week. The startup offers agents, an agent service that automates the initial interview screening process. Maureen Wiley Clough (27:48.321) Yeah. Joel (28:14.794) autonomously conducts tailored interviews, asks follow-up questions and delivers analysis. The company will use the funds to expand operations and develop further technologies. And in the other corner, it's Israeli based Alta, an AI company specializing in virtual agents for sales and revenue operations. They've raised 7 million in seed funding. The company plans to use the funds to expand its global footprint and integrate Maureen Wiley Clough (28:29.719) Thank Joel (28:44.256) its technology into enterprise sales and marketing infrastructures. And that is the two competing companies on who'd you rather. All right, Mo, we've got Hey Milo versus Alta, who'd you rather? Maureen Wiley Clough (29:00.695) I'm going alta, alta, alta, tomato, tomato. I'm really concerned with AI right now. I just had an experience that was like, it made my blood run cold and it was with Claude by Anthropic, which is like allegedly one of the good guys out there, right? Like they're more ethical and they care about safety. Well, I put a press release into Claude to just see if it could help me with a summary so I could create a script and it came back. and it put in details that were just flat out not in the press release. And I was like, why did you write this? I didn't see it in the press release. And it wrote back like, sorry, I fabricated those details. And I was like, you what? Like, what the, what are you talking about? And so I wrote like, I don't understand why did you fabricate those details? It was like, I'm sorry, I did the wrong thing. It actually creates problems with trust and credibility and it goes against safe and ethical usage. And I was like, You still aren't telling me why you did it. Like that makes no sense. It like proactively made shit up out of thin air. So my distrust in AI is higher than it's ever been. Apparently like it hallucinates all the time and this is nothing new. I talked to a lot of people and like, yeah. I was like, well, I feel like a lot of people just like take it as creed and just throw it out there and don't even think about it. So I'm a little concerned about that. And so when I think about what Hey Milo's doing, like on its face, sure, I understand the concept of like helping people. especially smaller HR teams who have like a glut of candidates coming in and all that, you know, like eight million applications or whatever. Like I understand the concept of it, but I think there's so much opportunity for like unconscious bias and other stuff to seep into the process. It's going to push people out who should be given a fair chance. And I'm not saying that, Milo does that. have no idea. They might be the best thing ever to hit AI and you know, candidate recruitment. Joel (30:35.565) Hmm. Joel (30:44.515) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (30:46.923) but I feel like there's slightly less concern for me when it comes to working with existing systems in sort of the revenue side of the organization where you've got like hard numbers and things that are automated tasks potentially. Not to mention, I also really like that one of their AI automated agents is actually a dude named Alex. Like they have Katie, Luna and Alex. I'm like, finally, I'm so sick of them only being women. Thank you, thank you, we got Alex in there. So I just feel like. Joel (31:06.286) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (31:13.963) There is, and also they have more money. So hopefully they could do more cool stuff. I just, yeah, I'm going out for those reasons. All day, baby. Joel (31:20.888) All day. There she goes. Maureen Wiley Clough (31:27.286) Ha Joel (31:27.63) All right. So when I, when I look at, Milo, um, my first, my first thing to just say, they're going to need a bigger boat. Um, they, they are, they are admittedly riding a good wave. Um, there's an apex predator in this space, uh, called paradox. Um, there will be room for other players. don't know. Again, they're going to need more money to make a difference. I would think, but, you're, we're going to see more and more of these sort of. Maureen Wiley Clough (31:37.001) Hahaha Joel (31:57.944) Conversational AI, co-pilot, agentic services, there's going to be a ton of them. There'll be very few competitors that evolved from that. Do they create a niche and become really good at say healthcare or we're really good at a certain maybe blue collar jobs? I don't know. Maybe we're SMB only, but it's going to be really hard with the current landscape to do it. It's not that I'm necessarily bearish on Hey Milo. But I love me some Alta, similar to what you were saying. Look, every company that I know is thinking about how do we do what we do with fewer people? And, and when services like this start dropping about like, Hey, have an AI agent for all of your sales calls, all of your marketing shit, all of your customer service. And when you, when you, when you see demos of these products, it's not, it's not the olden days where it's like, Maureen Wiley Clough (32:38.507) Exactly. Maureen Wiley Clough (32:47.799) Mm-hmm. Joel (32:55.278) Press one if you'd like to get our contact information, press three. It feels, and it's more and more feeling like an actual conversation with a human being. Some of the sales are amazing. They know what time it is in the zone that they're calling. It's pretty incredible what we're seeing there. Every company is going to say, how do we replace 80 % of our sales, customer service, and marketing team? Maureen Wiley Clough (32:56.913) Hahaha Maureen Wiley Clough (33:20.887) Exactly. Joel (33:24.354) with AI and these companies are in a prime position to make sure that they are there to get all the money when, when that gets spent. So Alta for me as well. Gets my, gets my, gets my, gets my hoot-ja rather. I'm feeling a hot and bother time to talk about LinkedIn. Obviously my. Maureen Wiley Clough (33:36.193) They swept, they swept today. Ha ha ha. That's what we do when we think LinkedIn, we get kind of hot. my God. Ridiculous. Joel (33:50.99) All right, LinkedIn from this from this from vice and a story entitled quote, LinkedIn might be the worst social media app for Gen Z and quote, can you say clickbait anyway, social media platforms like Instagram and Tik TOK often spark envy by showcasing curated, highly reels of people's lives, making users feel inferior, less noticed, but equally potent linked in triggers what they're calling quote. Maureen Wiley Clough (33:59.959) you Maureen Wiley Clough (34:04.46) No kidding. Joel (34:19.71) LinkedIn envy driving some to delete their profiles due to constant self-comparison with others exaggerated professional achievements. Users report feeling terrible about themselves with the platform becoming an egocentric breeding zone, quote, full of cringe-worthy inflated job titles, like someone claiming to be director of security when they're just a frontline support vendor. Moe, LinkedIn envy. It's a thing. Your thoughts. Maureen Wiley Clough (34:46.177) So true. It's a thing. You're right. That was such a clickbait headline for sure, because let me tell you, I think it's that way for every generation. And I think it's just like the job version of the envy, right? Like Instagram's like the curated, like, this is my home. This is the day in the life. And this is just like professional version, right? But I can 100 % attest to that feeling. Like I remember feeling that way often earlier in my career. So maybe that's sort of the Gen Z aspect is these people are earlier in their career. And now I know better because I'm like, yeah, that doesn't check out. You write your Harvard MBA, but then I go and I ask, this actually happened, this is great story. I had a company that was acquired by a private equity firm and my new boss, I went on LinkedIn to look him up and I was like, who's this guy? Like I'm gonna have, you know, what's essentially a job interview for the job I currently hold. When I met him, I was like, I'm gonna talk about Boston, because he went to Harvard and I went to Tufts and perfect, like we'll just chat Boston. I get on the phone with him, I'm like, so Boston, he's like. Joel (35:34.222) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (35:43.575) He got like really uncomfortable and I'm like what he's like, yeah, that was an online certificate and I was like dude bro Like you can't write Harvard MBA if you had an online certificate and that stuff is all over the place on LinkedIn  So first of all, it's things are not what they seem always that was like such an amazing moment by the way But it also just encapsulated for me like you really you don't know what people are saying on there whether it's true or not and People get to certain places and rungs on the ladder by a lot of different things, including luck and who you know. So it's just like, I don't really look at it in the same lens. I don't feel bad about myself anymore because I think so much of it is nonsense. I think before you kind of have been around the block, like that could probably impact your world. Do you a little bit more? And it totally makes sense. Like everyone or a lot of people on there are just like, dude, I just got promoted and I'm making like a gazillion dollars and here's my hack to do it. And you know, it's just, there's a lot of that on there, but I personally don't think it's any. Joel (36:23.95) Mm-hmm. Joel (36:36.984) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:39.339) worse than what you see on Instagram. It's just like in the professional realm. lost my hair butt. Joel (36:44.546) That's all right. So I, one of the, one of the aspects of the story that I thought was interesting was that you, there's a sense that you can't delete LinkedIn because it's your professional footprint. Whereas I want to leave X like I'm out or Reels is stupid. I'm not going to join. Like LinkedIn does have this, you have to be on it feel. So, so I do think that is a difference between, between LinkedIn and other platforms. And so far, no one can dethrone LinkedIn. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:52.64) yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (36:58.035) So true. Maureen Wiley Clough (37:03.999) Yes, I stand that. Maureen Wiley Clough (37:08.969) You... Yeah, no, it's true. Joel (37:11.106) Like social media, feels like every five years there's a new, there's a new thing that everyone can join or join or change up. poly work, poly work, like, yeah, poly work we mentioned was a like kids, the kids needed a LinkedIn and they're, they're gone. so for the, for the meantime, LinkedIn Tim tends to be it. my sister who's, late to the game on LinkedIn, was hit on for the first time. Maureen Wiley Clough (37:15.265) Totally. Yeah, I agree with that though. You can't. They're out. They're gone. Joel (37:39.114) on LinkedIn and I'm curious, I'm curious, cause I, I've never been on LinkedIn. I'm sure that shocks you. but I also don't know any, I don't know any men, who have, or at least have admitted to that, but it seems like a serious problem with women. Are you finding that with you and your, friends that are female? Maureen Wiley Clough (37:39.482) Ha Maureen Wiley Clough (37:45.415) You Maureen Wiley Clough (37:51.477) Yeah. Yes, I have had marriage proposals or maybe they were marriage threats. Like I've gotten, I will marry you. And I'm assuming English, not first language for this person, but like stuff like that comes and you're just like, like what, like what are you talking about? Right? So yeah, that does happen. Joel (38:13.614) So it's more sarcasm, like shot in the dark thing. Like never. Maureen Wiley Clough (38:17.815) I mean, I don't know his intentions, but I was like, this, I will marry you sounds like a threat. I mean, in this, maybe, don't worry, don't sell yourself short. It could still happen, but it's like, so, and I'm not the only one who has this happen. Like other women that I talked to have this kind of stuff occur often. So it's a thing for sure, but to your earlier point, like you absolutely need to have LinkedIn profile. Like that's where I think it's like 90 % of recruiters look to LinkedIn for jobs. Joel (38:24.43) Yeah, I've never gotten that marriage proposal. Joel (38:34.904) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (38:46.491) I read that somewhere at don't quote me exactly, but it was something super high. And anytime you want to do any sort of networking, you have to go to LinkedIn to see where people are and who they're connected to and all that. And so you might not like it, but you should at least have like a shell profile. not saying you have to go post every day or something, become a super user, but you should at least have something. And maybe if it makes you feel like shit, don't go on it a lot, but like you need to have something there. Joel (39:11.576) Yeah, it really, it really has become a necessity. mean, I have a, I have an 18 year old son who's going to college and I mean, it sounds horrible, but I'm like, dude, LinkedIn is probably not going anywhere. people, people are lazy. People like shorthand. like, they like quick sort of glance and get a sense of who you are. And so, you know, I really pushed him into a brand name school, which he is, he's going to Indiana. So he's going to like a big 10 school. Maureen Wiley Clough (39:25.237) It's not. Joel (39:40.888) I'm going to try to push them into like internships with brand name companies because that's what employers want to see. They want to see a college they know. They want to see interns and companies that they recognize. And to your point, I think people are really focused on padding their profiles and whether that's right outlying or I'm going to get that quick online certificate or whatever to say that I went to Yale. Maureen Wiley Clough (39:46.551) This is how it goes. Maureen Wiley Clough (40:00.865) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (40:07.863) So cringe. So bad. Joel (40:09.686) And have you, and then, and then they put that in their top, top of the profile. Like that's their main. Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (40:13.461) Yes, the top part. That is exactly what this guy I was talking about did. And I was like, my, come on, man. Like, you can't do that. Yeah. Joel (40:18.222) Yeah. Yeah, so there's obviously a lot of pressure. On Tinder, it's I'm 6'3", and here it's I went to Harvard. Maureen Wiley Clough (40:27.465) Right, right, right, totally. Yep, I'm the CEO, right, of my own one person company that's in stealth mode. you know, like that's the kind of stuff you see. things are not as safe here. Joel (40:39.136) Should LinkedIn crack down on that? Should LinkedIn have some sort of verification or to like that's getting pretty rampant from what I can tell. It'd be nice if they had something. Maureen Wiley Clough (40:47.711) Yeah, it would be. I don't know how exactly they'd do it, but if there's a will, there's a way. It might be a good idea. At least crack down on the scams, right? Because there are enough scams on there. That's the thing I see as more disturbing than anything else. The other stuff you can kind of filter out, like, cool, you're CEO of, yeah. Exactly. Joel (41:03.278) where there's a dollar, there's a way. I someone who went to an Ivy League school would pay LinkedIn to have like a check mark at their college at the top of their profile. Yeah. If you're paying a quarter million dollars to go to school and get a degree, like you'll pay a hundred bucks a year or whatever to get that verification. it's, yeah, a new frame around your profile, know, little Ivy League, little Ivy. Maureen Wiley Clough (41:12.649) yeah, yeah. Verification verified Yale student like, yeah, you're right. Maureen Wiley Clough (41:21.917) Mm, yeah. Strong point. That's another money making move for them. Yeah. They're gonna crush. They're gonna crush. yeah, yeah. I have the anoint, yep, yep. Super smart. Mm-hmm. That's a really great call. Yeah, there you go. You should get a cut. Get a cut, for sure, for sure. But yeah, there is a lot of opportunity, I'll say, for Gen Z to get on LinkedIn because like... Joel (41:32.046) You could have Ivy. Yeah. And stuff. Oh man. You're, welcome. LinkedIn. just want fifth. want 15%, 15 % of everything. All right. Maureen Wiley Clough (41:47.199) A lot of people aren't in Gen Z and my social media consultant slash video guy, like he realized recently, he was like, holy shit, I need to be on LinkedIn. Like, why am I only on Instagram? And I was like, I've been telling you guy, like you should get on here because it's just, there's a dearth of voices in that space. So why not? Joel (41:49.09) They have to. Joel (42:02.882) Yeah. And now that they have video, you're going to see more of this sort of FOMO stuff on LinkedIn. Yep. Yep. All right. Let's take a quick break and, I don't know. We'll talk about women empowerment or the lack thereof. Maureen Wiley Clough (42:06.389) Yeah, totally. Tik-Toki stuff, Yep, it's a thing. Maureen Wiley Clough (42:17.075) Good times. Joel (42:22.35) All right, a new survey from Hi Bob. Says only one in three women say they feel empowered to perform at their best at work. And less than 10 % of women said they have a formal said they have a formal mentor at work. So 90 % do not. Morgan news for women, sarcasm inserted 34 % of men surveyed. So they earned a promotion in 2024 compared to 22 % of women while 46 % of men said they received a raise last year compared to 32 % of. Women Moe you're a woman thoughts. Maureen Wiley Clough (42:59.701) Yep, therefore I will speak for all women. Yeah, this tracks, this totally tracks. It's rough out there, it's rough out there. mean, that survey hit on a lot of points that have been continual frustrations for women in the workplace, right? Like it's just, we're not getting that upward mobility. We're not reaching the higher levels of the organizations. Part of that's due to not having, you know, a mentor or an advocate, right? Like that's totally a thing. And it's... I also noticed that whole survey, it was interesting to see the degree to which presenteeism and like actually button seat in an office. Like people were saying how much that mattered, both men and women, but they were saying it mattered for different reasons. The women were saying it was important to be there so that their colleagues and other people around them could see their contributions. And men were saying that it was important because they needed to show their boss there, like to climb the ladder essentially. So it's like, I feel like there's this persistent, frankly, as a myth. Joel (43:48.814) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (43:52.673) that if you do good work, you're gonna be rewarded as a woman and women buy into that. And it's like, no, that's not quite enough. But the mentorship thing is a really big issue and not having representation of women at upper ranks of the organizations, that's super hard too, because if you can't see it, you can't really be it, right? And that's truly a problem. And so I also thought, like that was a very long survey and they went into a lot of different details, which was really cool. I think everyone should check it out. Another thing that I thought was interesting was men thought that the way their companies thought about women was emblematic and signified by the company culture. And women didn't think that. They were like, no, no, no, no, it's not about the culture. We don't care about this performative bullshit. It's like, are you actually giving me benefits that help me? Are you giving flexibility? All of this. So it's more like put your money where your mouth is. Organizations like, do you have childcare support? Do you have maternity leave? Do you have paternity leave? Right? Joel (44:38.958) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (44:49.515) the way things that are going to actually become more equitable for women in the workplace is when dudes take paternity leave. Like that is, I think, one of the single most important things organizations can do is encourage and inspire men within the organization to take that leave as well. That levels the playing field in a way that nothing else really will. yeah, I mean, none of this surprises me. It's tough. Women are facing burnout at higher rates than men. There are all sorts of reasons for that. Another thing I thought was really interesting in the survey was the result that women were like excited to get away from the house to go to the office because they wanted to get away from their family. And I was like, that also tracks like I get it, you so nothing like groundbreaking in there very much in line with what I feel, what I've seen other women around me over the course of my corporate career feel and experience. So we got some work to do. Maureen Wiley Clough (45:43.127) it's going to get better. Yeah. So hopeful. It's a great time. Joel (45:44.974) The good news is I'm sure in Trump's second term, things will balance out a lot better than they have. Yeah, I can tell. So they surveyed 2000 employees, full-time employees, primarily in hybrid or in-office environments. So it's a pretty good survey, pretty good number of people. 51 % identified as women. So it was a pretty even-handed set of data. Maureen Wiley Clough (46:04.565) Yeah, pretty decent. Joel (46:15.52) I do think that on the support side, there has been, think a challenge in the Me Too era and the cancel culture that men are just afraid to do mentoring. And this could be things like mentoring a child because as Professor Galloway always says, like the Catholic church and Michael Jackson fucked it up for young boys because men can't have a relationship with a young boy. Maureen Wiley Clough (46:30.924) Hmm. Joel (46:43.822) Because everyone looks at it and goes, Oh, is something going on there? Like what? That looks kind of weird. And I think that there's probably some hurdles for men to think about. I'm going to mentor this female for obvious reasons that come into play, right? Are they having a relationship or they fooling around? I mean, so I think there's a barrier there that, is, um, maybe not there going the other way around. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but, I think that that is prevalent, but I do think that more and more. Maureen Wiley Clough (47:01.815) It just, it does happen. Joel (47:12.654) tools that are coming out. coach hub is a company that we've talked about that will mentor you through technology and it's male, female, whatever, but there's no boundary about, if I get close to this person, you know, physical, like physically I'm in their proximity. Like people are going to do what Maureen Wiley Clough (47:28.471) So it's all remote? that what you mean? Is it all remote? Is that what you mean by that? Like it's not in-person mentoring? Joel (47:33.87) Yeah. So coach hub coach, I've got a ton of money recently and it's yeah, it's sort of like an online mentor. they, they, they coach you up. They look at what you're doing and like help you with certain things, like how to sell and sales process and sort of meant to you that way. Um, so let's say like Mike Shashevsky is like mentoring you on how to relate to people or talk to people or negotiate. Um, I think that will help level of playing field a little bit from that standpoint. One the things that I'm interested, interested in from you. because it's usually a man on the other side of this podcast. I want to talk about the crab crawling out of the bucket phenomenon. If you don't know about this, if you put crabs in a bucket, if one of them crawls out, they will pull it back in. In other words, they won't allow one of their own to climb up and sort of escape. Maureen Wiley Clough (48:16.427) Not familiar with that one. Joel (48:30.158) And there's a psychologist named Dr. Naomi Elemers who talks about women in a similar way that women are sometimes their own worst enemy because women don't champion other women the way that they should. women sort of, there's a hesitancy to strive for something because of how it will look to other women. A nd I'm curious your thoughts on, I guess, women being maybe sometimes their own worst. Maureen Wiley Clough (48:53.271) Mm. Joel (48:59.874) barrier to success. Is that off or do you sort of relate to that? Maureen Wiley Clough (49:05.151) do relate to that. And I think it's like got a very logical reasoning behind it, right? It's like, there are only so many seats at the table, right? And so there's this sense of competition and I've got to get that one seat because there aren't that many women in the corporate world, right? Representation is off. It's definitely not the 51 % of the population, right? For a host of reasons. So I think that there is some component of that that is accurate. I've seen some women be super threatened by other high achieving women at their organizations. That's certainly a thing. Just kind of like that scarcity versus abundance mindset really at its basic form, right? Like, shit, there's like only so many times I can get the shot, right? So I think that's there's some truth to that for sure. I do think that there is a really big push for that not to be the case because we recognize like that's not how anyone's gonna get better. That's not how this is gonna improve. Like we really need to proactively surround ourselves with women who we want to promote and sing the praises of. And so it's really, I think, a huge building movement that there's this whole hype woman movement, Like people, women cheering other women on and this concept of like, there's plenty of room for all of us. Like there's enough room at this table. You don't need to do that. So I really think that's shifting. But I think traditionally that was kind of a thing. yeah, but getting back to like the men, yeah, go ahead. Joel (50:23.128) Okay. Did you, did you keep an eye on, um, I don't know if you follow WNBA, Caitlin Clark, um, you know, when she came into the league, not at all. Uh, so it always shocked me how she comes into the league, everyone watches arenas, you know, sell out and then all the other players like want to beat her down and, and like tear her down. And I always thought that was really strange. Maureen Wiley Clough (50:34.069) I don't. Mm-mm. Joel (50:51.214) because her success is becoming their success. like the rising tide raises all the boats. So yeah, while I had you on, I wanted to get your take on that. Well, these aren't universal truths for sure, but I am curious. Maureen Wiley Clough (50:51.371) I didn't see that. Huh. Live Saul boats. Yep. Supposed to anyway. Yeah, I'm glad I could speak for all women. I will say that I don't, know, yeah, right, right. For all women. I will say when it comes to the other conversational point, which was around men not being comfortable taking on mentoring younger women, I don't think companies are intentional about mentorship. I don't think they're thinking through like, how can you do this? Joel (51:14.776) Mm-hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (51:23.895) And that's hurting Gen Z a lot. I mean, there was a study that came out by Adobe that said that 83 % of Gen Z wanted a mentor and only 42 % of them had one, right? Something like that, or maybe it was like 53%. But there was a big delta there. And so I don't think companies are being intentional about this at all. So I don't know if it really has anything to do with male, female, certainly in some situations, I can imagine that playing out. But I think that companies just flat out are not recognizing the value of mentorship and not facilitating it. Joel (51:52.622) Do you think a woman in an executive or management position feels comfortable taking on an entry level or a new employee and mentoring them? Or do you think that that's an uncomfortable scenario for women? Maureen Wiley Clough (52:08.267) I mean, I know that when I was at a past company, my then boss, who was a man, proactively sought out a mentorship opportunity for me with the highest ranking female in our department. And that was awesome. And she took it on like with a lot of excitement and was great. And that was all him, like kudos to him for seeing like, hey, you know, I'm going to help her find her way here and like setting that up for me. Joel (52:16.064) Okay. Okay. Joel (52:30.092) Had he not intervened, do you think that connection would have happened? Maureen Wiley Clough (52:35.453) Maybe over the course of time, if she got to know my work, right, she was like 17 layers above me. So that would have been a very small chance. So it may not have, but that was really, that was really instrumental to me at that organization. Like it super helped to find the path I was on, helped me feel a lot of confidence. She helped me through, hey, I'm coming up on my maternity leave. Like, what's the vibe? Tell me about it. Like she showed me what she had done and told me all the sort of things to expect, which Joel (52:37.323) Okay. Joel (52:59.021) Yeah. Maureen Wiley Clough (53:04.299) Like otherwise, I don't think I would have gotten. So yeah, I think in short, like having a manager who advocates for you and looks out for you and provides those opportunities to you is just like so baller and it does not happen enough. Like it really has only happened to me like once, twice maybe in my career. And that's just like sheer good fortune of being with a leader who gets it, right? So like it can't be understated how important it is, like where you happen to fall at a certain organization and who your manager is and like. Joel (53:33.08) Hmm. Maureen Wiley Clough (53:33.719) I mean, you're always one management change away from hating your job is the reality, right? So there you go. Yeah, saying there's a chance, man. Saying there's a chance. Joel (53:37.678) So you're saying there's a chance. So you're saying there's a chance, which brings us to this week's Dad Joke. Are you ready? Maureen Wiley Clough (53:47.159) God, I'm nervous. Okay, yeah, lay it on me. Okay. Joel (53:49.58) It's not too bad. It's not too bad. I'm easing into it. And my sister who listens now said, that one joke was not good. So we're going to, we're going to pull it back a little bit today. what, what do you call guys who make women in the kitchen jokes? What do you call guys who make women in the kitchen jokes? Single. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:03.777) God. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:07.553) assholes. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:11.988) That's good. That is good. I love that. That's accurate. That tracks. Joel (54:14.882) That's Mo everybody and that's another one in the can. We out. Maureen Wiley Clough (54:19.638) We out.

Strap in listener — this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast is coming in hot. Joel and Chad team up with Gina Alioto from Shaker Recruitment Marketing to break down experiential marketing — the kind of branding that hits harder than a linebacker and sticks with you longer than your worst hangover. Gina pulls no punches, laying out why employer branding feels stuck in a '90s time warp and why Shaker’s Vision Report might be the wake-up call your brand desperately needs. They also dig into why investing in your brand during an economic dumpster fire isn’t just smart—it’s mandatory if you want to avoid getting smoked by the competition. The conversation gets gritty as they explore how tech and analytics could make recruitment as personalized as your old man’s backyard BBQ, the tangled mess of DEI (spoiler: it’s more complex than putting together IKEA furniture without swearing), and why sustainable innovation needs to be as essential to your business as that first cup of coffee. By the end, they're throwing down a challenge to talent leaders everywhere: stop sitting on your hands and start making moves. Because in the business world, standing still is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Don’t miss it. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:30.395) What time it is, it is the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is in the house, back in America. Watch out, you have been warned. And we are giddy to welcome Gina Alioto, VP and Head of Marketing at Shaker Recruitment Marketing to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Gina, happy new year and welcome to the podcast. Chad (00:40.385) No. Chad (00:45.015) There she is. Gina Alioto (00:55.726) Thanks so much, happy to be here. I'm Gina. I lead brand and marketing for Shaker Recruitment Marketing. And I have about 10 years of experience in consumer brand. Then I moved over to B2B about 10 years ago. So now I've been at Shaker and it is one of the best places that I've ever worked. Chad (01:13.805) Talk about the events though that you've actually led over the years. Talk about that so our listeners actually understand who Gina, the experiential genius that Gina really is. Let's hear it, let's hear it. Joel (01:20.857) Our listeners know the gangster that you are. Gina Alioto (01:27.886) Well, I've worked with brands like Heineken, iHeart Media, the Tribeca Film Festival, Emirates, and I've been in this industry for a really long time before I went professional, before I went pro. it was, brand and marketing was an area that I was always interested in. I always wanted to be in advertising. But then, back then, I was learning about commercials and print. And none of that actually is the core anymore. I was going to college right at the time of the rise of the internet. And I grew into and grew up with what is now known as experiential marketing, but then it wasn't called experiential marketing. And it was this blend of advertising and entertainment. And that's how that shaped my career. So I started actually in radio, believe it or not. You were talking about earlier about before podcasts existed. I'd like to believe that at our college radio station, we created podcasts. We invented podcasts in college. Yeah. And then I was doing events for the college and our annual Spring Fling Festival, which is 2000 people in New York City, and then worked a little bit for CBS radio. Joel (02:36.347) College Radio. That's awesome. That's awesome. Gina Alioto (02:52.766) and was doing Super Bowl events. then my goal, I always wanted to work for the Grammys. I didn't get to achieve that career goal yet, but I did work for the Latin Grammys. did work for Heineken and did a bunch of experiential work at Coachella Ultra Music Festival, pretty much any festival in the US. Then I did some work for the Latin Grammys. Yeah, that was a career high for me, a career highlight. Joel (03:14.105) I'm sorry, did you say Latin Grammys? Joel (03:21.871) We call it a day. Gina Alioto (03:22.158) And then I did work for the Tribeca Film Festival in the US and in Qatar. Chad (03:28.343) So talk a little bit about Coachella. I that one that is just sticking out and help our listeners understand what really experiential marketing is, what it feels like. Gina Alioto (03:40.174) So my definition of experiential marketing is taking a flat logo, right? Taking a flat brand, flat colors, right? It's on the page and bringing it into a four dimensional space where it lives, it breathes, it smells, it tastes, it hears, and you create memories for people. So it's the next level of brand and marketing where you're creating a memory. Chad (03:49.482) huh. Gina Alioto (04:08.576) and your brand makes a closer connection with your audience. That to me is the definition of experiential marketing. Chad (04:16.941) So I think for us that the the Chad and cheese brand would be like an escape room. Be like an escape room with a with with beer. Yes, and you can't get out and you can't get out. Joel (04:21.691) What does that smell like? Gina Alioto (04:25.784) Breathe. Joel (04:25.979) Smells like beer and regret basically. So are you in meetings with employers saying like, want people to smell that employment brand and what is an employment brand smell like? Gina Alioto (04:29.954) Yes, exactly. Gina Alioto (04:38.886) So I am not explicitly asking that, but for myself as an experiential marketer, I am certainly thinking about when I'm creating space, what does it smell like? What does it feel like? I am thinking about that level of detail. What are people doing? Where are they going? How are they getting there? Every it needs to engage all of the senses. The best experiential marketing engages all of the senses and and the best. Chad (04:59.209) All senses. Gina Alioto (05:08.75) is unknown to the audience. You just feel it. You just feel it. So for example, the experiential activation at RECFest that I designed for Shaker, for Shaker Recruitment Marketing, you didn't think about the music or how it smelled in our tent or how you felt in our tent or what was happening in the tent, all of those things. You just knew how you felt and what everybody was saying. That was the best experience. That's the end goal. That was the best experience. Why? Well, I knew exactly who was going to be at the event. I know what makes them happy. I know it creates memories and put all of those ingredients together. And that is a great experience when people walk away and they're still talking about it. it's one of the things that I loved about Coachella because they understand their audience and that event is designed for them. And then every brand that's there, sometimes they represented different brands, but for Heineken, for example, You have to think about the Heineken customer at that event. What are they looking to do? What's going to create memories for them? What's going to make that connection with the brand stronger? So. Joel (06:19.067) Do conversations with employers feel like they've progressed since you started or do feel like it's still sort of ground zero with all the things you're talking about? Do they understand what brand is more now than they used to or are you still kind fighting an uphill battle? Gina Alioto (06:33.742) So in my experience both in consumer marketing and now the second half of my career has been in B2B in recruitment marketing, I am still seeing a huge gap between the employer branding recruitment marketing space and the let's call it mainstream brand and marketing. And I'm puzzled by it and it's something that Chad and I talk about all the time because as a B2B brand and marketer as a brand leader and marketing leader. And then I'm very close with our talent acquisition and HR team. And I make it my business to be partners with them. I'm not seeing that same camaraderie and partnership for brands and their brand marketers and the... and the recruitment marketers. I'm not seeing that connection. Chad (07:32.257) Isn't that on us though? Isn't that on us to be able to get them to understand why we're so important? Because I think it's one of those things where, you know, we're sitting and waiting for marketing, for brand, for the CEO, for the entire C-suite to just realize how important we are as opposed to getting out of the corner in the field of position, standing up, stiffening our spine and actually taking the message to them. I mean, it just feels like we're not doing enough of that. What do you think about that? Gina Alioto (08:02.99) think that you're spot on and that it is a complex situation. There are complexities here, many moving parts. The biggest thing that I see are separate departments, separate budgets, and then human resources, formerly personnel, is seen viewed as a budget spending. It's a spending arm, cost center. So those perceptions are tough to break. I think it is an uphill battle and will continue to be unless those complexities are resolved at the business level. Chad (08:33.612) Center. Joel (08:33.686) Line item, yeah. Chad (08:49.901) Well, and this launches us into the vision report because we actually talk about that. Well, and before we just start jumping just directly into it, tell us about the vision report. What is it? Why was it created? And will we see more of it? Gina Alioto (09:04.664) So Shaker Recruitment Marketing created the Vision Report, and this is a report that brings together the brightest minds from recruitment marketing subject matter experts, talent leaders, all of the leaders in talent acquisition, recruitment marketing, employer branding, technology founders. So all of the technology tools and solutions, the founders and CEOs contributed to this report. analysts and influencers like yourself Chad, shameless plug, and all of the analysts and influencers in our space. This is the first report of its kind to bring together the entire industry. And this year we asked this whole audience, what is your number one best piece of advice for talent leaders in the year ahead? And brought together all of their ideas, what's on their mind, what's their best piece of advice and what's their vision. for the year ahead in recruitment marketing. Joel (10:04.507) What were some of the things in the report that stood out to you, maybe surprised you, things that were highlights? Gina Alioto (10:10.602) The number one biggest theme is pretty much what Chad just finished saying about take action, be bold. There's this underlying sense of urgency to act now. So those are things that I think we are all feeling and it's just really well articulated, especially by the talent acquisition and employer branding leaders and that voice their views in this report. One of the things that was surprising to me is that we have this sense of urgency to do something, act now, be bold, and not necessarily the next level of, then how? How do we do that? Chad (10:55.159) Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that we've seen with like Simon Sinek over the years, right? He said, find your why. He never said how after you find your why. And that's one of the things that I think leaders really have struggled with is yes, action versus inaction. We need to take action. It's like. Joel (10:55.429) curious. Chad (11:15.605) And that's where, again, having leaders in this space to be able to provide mentorship, guidance, experience, those types of things is incredibly important. Joel (11:27.163) And I think direction, you know, one of things, uh, one of the things from reading the report, like brand investment was a, was a real highlight for me that people were focusing on that. And that has really changed over the years. mean, brand investment used to be a cool stock photo in our display ad and the Chicago Tribune. And it is something very different today. And I think part of your job is translating. What does brand investment mean? Let's dig into that a little bit. When you talk with two clients and they talk about investing in the brand, what does that mean? Gina Alioto (11:56.856) So investing in your brand means how your brand is formed and activated across every marketing touch point, across every channel. And it's a loaded topic because typically either in down markets or in times of uncertainty, brand is often the first thing that is cut or pushed to the back burner. It hurts me as a brand and marketing leader because when I see those times, that is the time to invest in brand and marketing. And so sometimes your organization might choose to not invest in brand, but I think that is the time where you should be investing more in brand and building those long-term relationships with your audience so that when they, and this also speaks to the passive job seeker market. You're building your brand. getting to be known so that when a candidate is ready to make a decision or if they choose to come to your brand, your brand is the one that is top of mind for them. And building that, and it's tough too because sometimes it's not always obvious to brands to invest in brand, especially what we were just talking about experiential, that requires a huge budget. And that is a huge brand investment. And I think that's another reason why we're not really seeing so much experiential marketing in employer branding and recruitment marketing, because those budgets are not there for those purposes. They don't see the value in that type of activation. Some do. Some of the really, really smart brands do, but not all of the brands. I think now certainly, if you haven't already for talent acquisition and employee branding leaders, now is the time to invest in. your employer brand if you have not already or if you're not on that path. Chad (13:53.741) Well, I mean, you talk about investment. If you are working incredibly closely with big brand, big marketing, then that can be something that is a combined effort because as you were trying to push the brand and you're trying to market out to the, you your customer, whoever that might be, you have to remember that those individuals who are coming that top talent that's coming in to actually develop and deploy and sell and service your brand and your customers. Well, they need to know that too. And that is a great way to actually say, look, this is not just something that we use at one expo, right? This is something, perspective-wise, that we put in HQ, that we have talent come in and check out before they actually go through an interview or what have you. I there are great ways to actually do that. Gina Alioto (14:40.81) Mm-hmm. There's so many great ways to actually do that. And in an ideal world, the employer brand would talk with their mainstream brand person. But I think we also need to consider that the brand and marketing mainstream department might also be feeling the pinch because marketing is being scrutinized more than ever. And so if they might also be feeling the pain. I do think though there is value in having a conversation about what already exists and where can we exchange resources. But I don't necessarily believe that employer branding will easily be able to get budget or share budget from mainstream marketing. The way things, the way the organizations are currently set up. Joel (15:31.707) Another highlight from the report was, quote, focus on the needs of real people. What does that mean? And what does that mean in a world that's progressively getting to a place where applying is automated and you have services like lazy apply? And it's not about what the brand is. It's just about how many companies can I apply to before I get a bite? Talk about real people and maybe automation in that process. Chad (15:32.706) recording. Gina Alioto (16:00.504) So what I hear from the talent leaders that shared their visions in this report, the technology needs to enable us, empower us to deliver better, more personalized experiences and not necessarily make it more... so transactional where you completely lose the human touch. I think even just in that quote, in and of itself, is very telling that we're saying focus on the needs of real people. The fact that we need to put the word real before people, doesn't that say a ton in and of itself? Instead of saying focusing on the needs of people, the fact that we're putting real people, that emphasis on needing the human back in there, Joel (16:42.597) Yeah. Gina Alioto (16:52.768) we're seeing that it's a huge tectonic shift with the introduction of AI and how rapidly it's moving. And I think that talent acquisition leaders need to embrace it and act now exactly what the report says and urges us to do. And that those that do embrace it, but in a way where it will empower you to deliver better, more personalized experiences, those are the ones that are going to win. Joel (17:00.411) Mm-hmm. Gina Alioto (17:21.218) those that just kind of invest in a bunch of AI tools and then don't really understand the strategy, their strategy behind it and have a clear vision on that first, you might end up or likely will end up having a more transactional experience. And you might find that out too late or down the line when you already have some brand damage. Chad (17:39.959) That's a great point because if you think about it before AI or really tech in the automation side of the house, you still have the black hole because people can't scale, right? Whether they're real people or not people, we need scale. And AI, if we're using AI automation, some of these platforms that are orchestrating and they're created process-wise and messaging-wise, to be able to give that individual a better experience because going into the black hole is horrible experience. And that's what we've gotten used to. And it's funny because we talk about candidates ghosting us. Where do you think they learned that from? They learned it from us because we ghosted them, right? So yeah, I got it from you. The more you know. But at the end of the day, I mean, that experience today, Joel (18:24.717) I learned it from you, Dad. I learned it from you. The more you know. Chad (18:35.681) has been, it's entirely different. And we're starting to talk to TA leaders who are really, I mean, they're glowing because they're using some of these platforms that have AI and automation because they're getting to talent faster, their NPS scores are going up. And again, you can't be afraid of moving forward. You have to take a look at the tool. So that tool being AI or whatever platform that is, for Shaker and for these different TA leaders, what was the response you were getting? Because we're hearing that inaction isn't something that we can deal with. Are you seeing them asking more questions and actually moving more into the direction of not set it and forget it technology, but new, more fluid technology, whether it's AI, automation, whatever it might be? Gina Alioto (19:27.84) Yes, I do see questions, but I would expect and hope to see even more, which I think is one of the messages in this, by doing this vision report to really push the talent leaders to ask more questions. And in the report, we say how speculation provokes thought and innovation. It's the speculation that provokes the thought and innovation and getting Chad (19:33.997) Mm-hmm. Gina Alioto (19:57.944) curious and asking the bold questions. And I think sometimes we're a little bit too hesitant to, we're kind of waiting to see what might happen. So we're really urging the talent leaders to ask those questions, get curious. The connection for me to what you just shared, Chad, is the analytics, which is another theme in this report and how important analytics are. Joel (20:19.609) Mm-hmm. Gina Alioto (20:23.274) and front ending your analytics strategy. So, and working backwards from there. So say putting analytics as your priority. Cause I think all too often it's let's find the right solution and then we'll have the, the analytics that we need. Instead ask, what do you need to know? What do you need to know about and how will you measure success and what are your performance metrics? And what is that business value that you're going to create, work backwards from there and find the right tools that are going to help you do that and get the analytics because that visibility will help you be bold and help you. Yeah. Chad (21:01.271) Yeah. Well, now, number because there are six things that are happening here and one of them is measure success with relevant metrics. And again, putting relevant in there kind like real people, relevant metrics, I think that says a lot because we use a lot of metrics that aren't relevant to the C-suite, which means we're not really getting our message across them how we're actually impacting the bottom line. So, talk a little bit about that. Measure success with the relevant metrics. Joel (21:15.833) Hmph. Joel (21:26.715) Mm-hmm. Chad (21:30.989) What do TA leaders actually mean about this? Gina Alioto (21:34.542) Yes, and you can get analytics and have data. You could be drowning in data and it's not the relevant metrics that you need for business success or that matter to the business. So I would first be build a close partnership with your CFO and understand, and your finance department, like understand what is the business focused on? and understand how to build your operation in that context that's relevant to your business and what matters. That is what we mean by relevant, how close it is to the business success, which I think is another area that's a pain point for talent acquisition, employer branding, and recruitment marketing. How do you better connect your operation to the business value and speak that same language? And it's hard to do, it's not easy. Joel (22:29.763) Yeah. Is there a real world example with a client or maybe just something that you're aware of where they've taken data and really changed their strategy around branding? Gina Alioto (22:39.17) For sure. And it does. It does change the strategy and it impacts your strategy. So at Shaker Recruitment Marketing, we have an analytics function where we can bring together your various tools into one cohesive dashboard where you can actually have visibility onto how all of your tools are performing. And our analytics team works with all of the customers that we have to best translate what they're doing into the business value, the value that it's contributing to the business. And I think that armor equips the talent leaders with being able to have better conversations with the other stakeholders within your organization. And I think only through getting a handle on your analytics, wrapping your arm around analytics, only with that is how you can be bold, the main theme of the report, be bold, take action. I really think you can only do that, get a seat at the table, which we've been talking about for years now, right? In this industry, only with your wrapping your arms around the data and speaking the same language as your stakeholders and proving that business value. That's the only way I think you can be be bold. And it's just one piece too, because the data is only one piece, but it's a big one. Joel (23:38.658) seat at the table. Joel (24:07.547) I promised myself I wouldn't get political, but God damn it. It's everywhere. I'm curious your thoughts, you know, I don't want to say death of DEI, but let's say it's on life support. Uh, and we have headlines every week. We talk about it on our show about companies that are abandoning it, or at least the label DEI. We know that a lot of companies are still doing it, but they're sort of spinning it differently, rebranding it. I'm just curious what kind of conversations you guys are having with companies around. Dei changing the brand of it, still doing it undercover. Like what, what are companies talking about on the Dei front or are they abandoning it altogether? Gina Alioto (24:45.676) Yeah, I hear you. And by the way, it's almost impossible to not get political because it is political. so you're right, Joel. So DENI had before it was labeled or branded DENI, right? We all saw that the rise of those programs. I think many of the companies had the best intentions and truly wanted to drive change in their organizations. I do believe that. And that we all know, talk about the data. We all know that organizations that have more diverse workforces have better business success. There's plenty of data that points to that. So I think by eliminating DE &I programs entirely or the death of DE &I, like you said, if we're looking at it from a business value perspective and all of those... metrics that are out there that have proven that organizations that have a more diverse workforce are more successful, to me, that fact is a truth. That's a truth. That doesn't go away. So we can get rid of the label, sure. We don't have to call it D-E-N-I anymore, okay? I think some organizations, or what I've been hearing from talent leaders, they are asking, Are they still allowed to do DE &I with this executive order if it passes? Are they going to actually get in trouble for not following these rules, you know, and having these programs? So I think that's an interesting angle. But for me, it's a truth that the more diverse your organization is, the more successful it is. That can't go away, or it doesn't go away. And I think, unfortunately, if organizations do rid of their DE &I programs and then you have Joel (26:10.149) Hmm. Joel (26:16.677) Yeah. Gina Alioto (26:36.504) just a more like-minded, a workforce, homogenous, then you might not have business success and then we'll just repeat the cycle in 15 years from now. That would be really tragic. Joel (26:39.962) Homogenous. Chad (26:51.031) Yes, it'd be more than tragic, that's for sure. Especially if you're trying to pivot from one administration to the next administration. You already know, your company should already know what works. And if it doesn't, well, that's on you, right? So yeah, the thing that I definitely wanna end up with, because I think it's incredibly important, is have a sustainable innovation plan. What does that mean? Sustainable innovation plan. Gina Alioto (27:03.726) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chad (27:16.941) Do is that is that like a CoE you have a center of excellence that you create? Do you have experts on staff? How do you how do you actually not just have a sustainable innovation plan? How do you execute on that plan? Gina Alioto (27:32.93) Yes, and for me, the key word here is sustainable because I think what we're feeling based on the responses to the vision report is this undertone of, okay, there's things that are rising right now that we need to act on, but what is the plan for the long term? Where's that sustainability? And innovation needs to be, and the urgency in the report, innovation needs to be ingrained in your strategy. So that needs to be at the forefront of every area of your business in order to be long lasting, in order to run for the long term. And I think this is another one of those complex topics that has many moving parts because there is some things in your organization and your setup that you can control and other things that you can't. So I think for anything, if you're in talent acquisition, for anything that's within your scope that you can impact. Asking the question, how are we innovating here? What are we doing to invest? So for example, what you said is center of excellence or what committees or programs are we running to make sure that we're staying ahead of what's trending in this area? Same for employer branding, same for recruitment marketing. And having a plan around that and not just saying, yes, we're going to be innovative. asking the question, but how? What does that look like for us? And what is that going to work within our setup? And again, it's not easy. We're talking about heavyweight topics. And the people that contributed to this report like Fountain Blue, FedEx, there's some really great pieces of Sony entertainment. There's some really great pieces of advice on how to do that from these talent leaders. Joel (29:19.405) Gina Alioto everybody, VP and head of marketing at Shaker recruitment. Gina, for those that want to connect with you or learn more about Shaker, maybe get their hands on this vision report. Where do you send them? Gina Alioto (29:31.426) Yes, so please visit shaker.com to learn more about Shaker, which is a recruitment marketing agency. And feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, backslash Gina Alioto. Joel (29:43.739) Enough said, Chad, that's another one in the can. We out. Chad (29:47.117) We out.

Indeed just pulled the ol’ bait and switch. You used to waltz in, search for jobs, and ghost them like a bad Tinder date. But now? Nope. They’re making you log in like it’s some kind of exclusive VIP club—except the bottle service is AI-powered rejection emails and the bouncer is an algorithm that judges your resume harder than your in-laws. Why the sudden shift? Is Indeed tired of job seekers window shopping? Are they secretly morphing into LinkedIn’s evil twin? Or is this just the latest step in their long, illustrious history of slowly locking down the job market like an overzealous mall cop? Chad, Joel, and JT are breaking it all down—plus, the latest AI layoffs, deepfake drama, and Elon Musk toe sucking? WTAF guys? Buckle up, kids. The job market’s getting weirder, and we’re here for the chaos. PODCAST TRANSCRIPT Joel (00:24.558) OHHHH Joel (00:29.678) Yeah, the future's uncertain and the end is always near. Hi kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Morrison Cheeseman. Chad (00:41.574) I'm Chad, trying to get back to my roots. So watch. J.T. O'Donnell (00:45.041) I'm JT, is it Friday yet? O'Donnell. Chad (00:47.43) It's not, it's not. Joel (00:48.758) And on this episode, Indeed just rolled up in an unmarked van and a big lollipop. AI just rolled up with pink slips. And a little buyer sell. Bring on the unicorns, Chad. Chad (00:52.848) you Chad (01:00.933) Yes. Joel (01:03.304) it feels so good. It feels so good. Let's do this. Chad (01:10.214) my God, we talked about this. Listener, know, you, you, you, we've talked about this though. Deep fakes are, are happening already and listener, if, if you're listening to the audio version, we'll try to talk through this. Not too much. Cause yeah, not much, not too much. but yeah, go ahead and run that beautiful deep fake footage there, Cheeseman. It's only nine seconds. Joel (01:13.56) The first month is over, everybody. The first month is over. Joel (01:21.059) Mm-hmm. Joel (01:26.352) Will we try to vomit through it? Joel (01:33.61) Okay, okay, you want to set this up while we're looking at it here? Chad (01:36.836) Yeah. So says long live the real King and it has Donald Trump kissing two left feet of, of, Elon Musk. yeah. Sucking on the toes, sucking on the toes. I mean, we talked about deep fakes. we thought it would happen more on the election side of the house, but, this was actually, this video was put up, by in HUD, right? So people. J.T. O'Donnell (01:36.969) eyes. No. J.T. O'Donnell (01:44.861) Is it over? Just tell me it's over. It's over? Okay. Joel (01:45.742) Kissing is being charitable. French kissing at least. French sucking toes. Chad (02:06.106) people fired, you got a bunch of people who have pretty good, you know, skills. And next thing you know, they're hacking into systems and they're pushing deep fakes like this. So that was fucking crazy. Yeah, why not? Joel (02:16.958) MSNBC had a lot of fun with this one that I watched. But it doesn't end there, Chad. What else on the deep fake spectrum did we see this week? Chad (02:24.422) So this one, this one even has kind of like a recruiting twist. Go ahead and play this bad boy. We'll talk through it. This was real. Yeah. So this is a, this is a, an activist actually posting a sign that says goes from zero to 1939 in three seconds. And it shows Elon giving a Nazi salute on the top of a swastika. That's right. Um, so for me, yeah. Joel (02:28.569) Not a deep fake by the way, this one was real. Joel (02:44.974) The swastika. Joel (02:49.26) The Tesla SS, if you will. Chad (02:51.182) I was, dude, I was looking at this, I'm like, holy shit. First and foremost, Tesla stocks in the dumper, BYD is kicking their fucking ass all over the place. I mean, it just blows my mind that Chinese cars, BYD is beating the shit out of Tesla. And how's this hurting their recruiting? I mean, when you see something like this, do you want to work for a company that's known as a Nazi car company? Joel (02:56.429) Mm-hmm. Joel (03:15.534) Yeah, we don't. haven't. I've heard no anecdotes about recruiting and retention and what's what's happening at Tesla. We could certainly try to look under some rocks and see what's going on. But yeah, it's. Chad (03:20.176) Hoo! Chad (03:28.914) I posted it on LinkedIn for Tesla. We'll see if we get a response. doubt it. Very doubtful. Joel (03:32.928) Yeah, yeah. At what point does he care? It's just amazing. He doesn't care. Yeah, too much money. J.T. O'Donnell (03:34.546) don't think you're gonna hear back. I don't think he cares. He doesn't care. He doesn't care. He's busy. Chad (03:40.41) Now has too much money to care. This isn't about him though. This is about all the people that work for him. The stock goes down, they can't sell cars, they can't make more cars because they don't have the money, right? So therefore what happens? I mean, that's the thing that fucking sucks. Joel (03:46.797) Mm-hmm. Joel (03:54.966) And there's no board of, there's no board of, with any power. like no one can rein this cat in it's a, yeah. You just had to, you just had to do that, man. I just, you had to, Chad (03:58.382) No, they all suck his toes like Trump does. J.T. O'Donnell (04:06.664) He snuck it in. Chad (04:08.394) but as a, from the job seeker side of the house though, JT, mean, you have to be talking to, to, to job seekers around good companies go to bad companies to go to and hearing that kind of stuff. What's your thought? J.T. O'Donnell (04:21.534) Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating right now. So, you know, 2008 was when I launched my company for job seekers because of how bad the recession was then. This is way worse. This is just way worse. And you can tell by the number of people that are reaching out, their confusion about the market. They don't understand the unemployment rate. They don't understand what's happening. They don't know how to look for work. I mean, it's just a hot mess, you know, and then Chad (04:30.084) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joel (04:35.031) Chad (04:41.776) Yeah. Chad (04:48.635) Wow. J.T. O'Donnell (04:49.82) you see things like this and it's incredible to me. just, I'm dumbfounded. think I told you all just the whole, the whole way they're treating the federal workers, which I know we'll talk about and you know, those are corporate tactics, right? So that a lot of people don't understand. Joel (05:06.264) Just wear a wedding dress in your LinkedIn profile picture. That apparently is very favorable, unbeknownst to me. People are into the wedding dress profile pic. Chad (05:13.222) You have an issue with that for some reason. think people don't care. I think you care more than everybody else does. That's the thing. It's like, don't give a fuck what they're wearing. Well, no, you're bringing this shit up more and more and more, so it's like, you obviously have an issue with it. Joel (05:21.196) I'm just curious. I'm a curious person, Chad. I got a new one. I got a new one for you. It's, it's, it's, it's not a, only my undergarments with that's just for me. That's just for me, JT. I got, got, I got a new one for you. It's not a poll, but I'm curious. non-alcoholic beverages are kind of a trend. The young kids like the non-alcoholic. Is it okay to bring a non-alcoholic beer to a kid's soccer game? J.T. O'Donnell (05:26.366) Are you wearing your wedding dress in your LinkedIn profile? remember seeing that, Joel. Chad (05:32.23) You do you. Okay. Joel (05:51.278) Can you just pull out a non-alcoholic beer and just sit back and drink? Chad (05:55.204) Like a soda, right? JT or no? J.T. O'Donnell (05:56.286) Yeah, why not? I think that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (06:00.048) Yeah, yeah, mean, why not? Joel (06:00.202) Okay, see my default would be like, that's gonna get some looks, that's gonna be, cause not everyone knows it's non-alcoholic. It just, it looks like a beer. Anyway, all right. Chad (06:12.838) This is this is where I can't believe because you're you're gen X and we give zero fucks Why do you care go go take take it take it? Do it? Again, why do you care? You're about dresses you care about the non-alcoholic just fucking do it Joel (06:19.502) It's not that I don't. I wonder if other people would. Like I don't. Yeah. I just, I'm a, I'm a purse. I'm a people person, Chad. By the way, speaking of the kids, I have a, I have a funny, I'm speaking of Gen X. I have a funny, a quick funny story. So my, my seven year old had his buddy, another seven year old come over, uh, spend the night. They did, you know what seven year olds do and my, my buddy's kid who came over. J.T. O'Donnell (06:28.882) when they show up when child protective services shows up at your doorstep claiming they saw you drunk at a soccer game and you're like, right. Chad (06:38.695) Yeah. Chad (06:42.084) Mm. Joel (06:49.102) went to the bathroom, got out, went to the sink to wash his hands and we have a bar soap. He picks up the bar soap. He shows it to me and says, how does the soap come out? I just, laughed and then I thought, damn, this, this kid has not seen a bar of soap before. So I emailed my buddy or messaged my buddy and I was like, has your kid ever seen a bar of soap or are there any bars of soap in your house? He's like, well actually no. As I do an inventory, that's all like pump or whatever, or like squeeze it out. So that's my Gen X moment of the day. was like, Holy shit. There's a whole generation of kids that don't know what a bar of soap is. yeah. Those videos are great. By the way, they give a rotary phone to a teenager. Like, what the fuck is this? Call mom, call mom. All right. Shout outs from our, from our good friends at Kiara. Kiara simple texting made easy for recruiting. All right, JT. Chad (07:24.442) Think of rotary phones. Nobody'd be able to use a rotary phone. mean, come on. J.T. O'Donnell (07:27.294) or the 28 chord. Chad (07:31.482) Yeah, like call mom. Yeah. All right, shout out. Come on. J.T. O'Donnell (07:32.862) Over. J.T. O'Donnell (07:46.879) Can I kick this one off? Yeah. I'm giving a shout out to Apple who claims as of this week, they are going to hire 20,000 people. They are going to build facilities here in the US to offset so that they don't have to pay the tariffs. so random places across the country are going to yeah, 20,000. 20,000. Let's hope it's true because given the numbers we're seeing right now in the layoff world, anything we can do to offset it would be a good thing. Chad (07:59.684) Mm. Joel (08:02.328) More back to the toe licking, more Trump licking. Chad (08:04.934) You Chad (08:14.456) Remember when Intel took all that money and shit didn't happen? Remember that? Yeah. mean, so until it actually happens, till they break ground, until they start the, the hiring fairs and all that other fun stuff, I call it bullshit. I, Tim Cook, I hope you do it my friend, but until then I call it bullshit. Joel (08:36.846) Alright Chad, what you got? Chad (08:38.692) Yeah. So my shout out goes to asshole of the week, Starbucks CEO, Brian Nichol. And, and this means something, this is pretty big because look at all the assholes in DC right now. He had to do something bad. What did he do? Okay. So this weekend, I had a horrendous experience at two, count them two different Starbucks locations. we're headed to our niece's competition this weekend. Julie wanted a cup of coffee. So I'm like, Hey, let's go ahead and jump into Starbucks. I wanna see how this new grassroots thing is going with them. First place I go, we park car, roll up into the door, and there is a sign that says, drive through only. Drive through's packed. I'm like, fuck this, we're going to the next one. So it's about 10 minutes away. We go to the next one, pull up, go back, same thing. This one says, drive through only in mobile orders, right? So I'm like, what? Is this the new experience? mean, if so, it's it fucking sucks. And then yesterday I see Starbucks fired 1100 corporate workers and closed hundreds of positions. Now this is happening while new CEO Brian Nicol has personally shoved over $100 million into his own damn pocket. Cutting heads, calling it efficiency when I visit a Starbucks location, more than one Starbucks location, and there aren't even enough people to open the damn dining rooms. That's not efficient. That's shitty leadership. So Starbucks CEO, Brian Nicol, you are the asshole of the week. Joel (10:09.646) Mm-hmm. Chad (10:17.582) you Joel (10:19.822) Chad, I will not have you muddy the name of a former Chipotle CEO. just, can't, I can't sign off on that. I'm sorry. All right. well all this feel good podcast talk has me a little down. And I think we could all say that the world needs a little uplifting story and what better place to find an uplifting story than, than, than fast food. Am I right? What better way to feel good than that? Now I'm sure I'm assuming both of you. Chad (10:26.278) Too bad. It's happened. Joel (10:48.748) have seen Sunday morning on CBS. It's a series of usually feel good stories or insightful stories. So I came across this one somewhere in Minnesota and it is the most Minnesotan story that you'll see today. I'm just going to let it roll. It's about three and a half minutes. If you don't want to listen, just fast forward. But a lot of people, think, will enjoy this. Have a look. Chad (10:50.896) Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (10:51.59) it. Chad (11:02.392) Okay, let's do it. Chad (11:10.512) They wanna feel good. Joel (11:19.982) Land of 10,000 stories. Chad (11:31.779) every day. Chad (12:10.502) It's a fucking pocket gopher! shit! Joel (12:12.012) No clue. Chad (12:40.806) Wait a minute, other family. Chad (12:48.121) Okay. Chad (13:03.206) Well that's awesome. Chad (13:27.868) wow. Joel (13:29.708) The crown's great, right? Chad (13:40.955) Old girl was wearing her headset. Joel (14:00.846) He's having the Happy Meal party at BK for his 90th. Chad (14:04.729) aw Joel (14:48.63) I promised myself I wouldn't cry. His last meal killed me. Nuggets, some nuggies, some fries and a shake. That was good. That was good. Chad (14:50.17) I'm not crying, you're crying. J.T. O'Donnell (14:51.737) Yeah, that's awesome. Chad (14:54.79) I'm not crying, you're crying. J.T. O'Donnell (14:55.836) Amazing. Chad (14:59.372) jeez. Chad (15:06.928) my God, okay. Yeah, thanks, Cheeseman. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (15:07.012) We gotta like regroup now. Thanks a lot, Joel. Joel (15:09.452) Yeah, thanks. I'm sorry. Let's let's let's Stephen bring us out of this. All right, let's move on from shout outs and talk about some free shit. Chad (15:15.59) Well, no, it's free stuff. You just got a bunch of free tiers from Joel Cheeseman. But if you want more, you go to ChadCheese.com slash free where you can prospectively get a new Chad and cheese t-shirt sponsored by Aaron App. Look at Joel's shirt, little slothy action. App. Burban barrel aged syrup from our boys up north at Keyura. Joel (15:24.238) You're welcome. Joel (15:46.878) It's a happy week in Canada, by the way, beating the US in hockey. Chad (15:47.056) Craft beer, yeah, I bet it is. Hey, not so happy for you and all the bourbon you have to give up. Craft beer from the Data Geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. Whiskey from Van Hack. We had a great interview with Ilya and Professor Zeke from Wharton this week. And we'll get that out hopefully sometime soon. And if it's your birthday, it's time for a little rum with plum at chadcheese.com slash free. Joel (15:52.844) Yeah, I know. Joel (16:07.918) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:16.74) Win all Joel (16:22.318) That's right. Another trip around the sun for listeners, Kristen Urbond, Vishali Umriker, Evan White, your friend, Colin Parker, Adam Chambers. Everyone's always after his lucky charms. Christopher Cemento, John Turner, Martin Brewsterhoizen. Hope I said that right. Justice Abbey and Chad's boy, Boss Van De Hettard. I know I didn't say that right, but who cares? Boss, happy birthday to those listeners. Chad (16:32.441) Mmm. Love him. Chad (16:39.974) I doubt it. Chad (16:45.816) It had thread. J.T. O'Donnell (16:49.298) Happy birthday. Chad (16:51.642) Happy birthday. Joel (16:53.89) And Chad, you're going to DC tomorrow. Tell them why. Tell them why. Chad (16:56.454) I'm going to DC because our boy, Keith Sonderling is going through confirmation hearing. So we'll be there for that sitting behind him. Actually had to get on a list. Apparently they're not running background checks, so they wouldn't let me in. But then after that, we're going to be going to Vegas. So if you are coming to Vegas, come spend some time with the Chad and Cheese in Vegas, not to mention JT is going to be there. Moe's gonna be there, we're gonna have the whole team, and if you don't have tickets, what the hell are you waiting for? March 17th through the 19th, go to ChadCheese.com slash events and we will see you at Transform. Our honeymoon suite party, already full, so if you snooze, sorry, you lose. And then after that, we head up to Chicago for RL100 on March 25th at the Pendry. Um, that's recruiting leaders, 100. That's when you get a bunch of recruiting leaders, Chatham house rules in a room, lock the doors throughout the problems, throughout the solutions. These are my favorite kind of, uh, of events because we actually get to hear kind of like the non-filtered, no bullshit, uh, responses from recruiting leaders. Cause a lot of times they really have to have that filter on. RL 100 is one of my favorites. Joel (18:06.968) Mm-hmm. Joel (18:20.108) That's right, no teasing. No teasing at the RL. Chad (18:22.244) No teasing. Uh-uh. Joel (18:27.064) By the way, Chad, that Sonderling, Keith Sonderling thing is great. With all of the friends that we have in low places, it's nice to have some friends in high places. As we go to... Joel (18:41.538) All right, let's talk about the trend from the last couple of weeks. That's right. Layoffs. Okay. I'll try to make this quick. 800 Joanne stores, by the way, the only place I go from my fabrics and crafts, will close after 80 years as they failed to find a buyer affecting 19,000 employees. Ouch. they plan to sell all the assets and we'll continue accepting. Chad (18:44.966) Not good, not good. Chad (19:00.612) Yes. Joel (19:06.029) customer gift cards until February 28th, which means my Christmas stockings will no longer be filled with the joy and merriment that they usually are. More layoffs. I've heard some DC based Doge de based government layoffs. Let's make, all right. So we have 75K voluntarily out, took the package. A thousand Department of Veterans Affairs, 1300 people in Department of Energy, 700 in the CDC. Uh, speculating that this will exceed a hundred thousand layoffs when all of a sudden done CNBC called it quotes, perhaps the biggest job cut in American history and quote, uh, blue origin, the penis that flies when it, one of your faves, Chad, they're laying off a thousand and you've already mentioned the 1100 at Starbucks. By the way, side note, poly work, uh, who was the, uh, the LinkedIn killer for the kids, uh, died quietly and back in December, uh, no. Chad (19:41.734) Cheers. Chad (19:51.397) Mm-hmm. Wow. Chad (20:01.967) huh. DED. Joel (20:05.804) No clue how many people asked their jobs on that one. But Chad, any thoughts on the layoffs? It hurts. It hurts. Chad (20:12.678) Well, we're doing these things and not understanding how it's actually going to impact the market. You're obviously impacting people's lives, but I mean, there's a much larger macro effect. And then you have a guy like Elon Musk, who he's always worked startups. He doesn't understand macro. He gets billions of dollars to blow shit up, like, you know, $50 million per rocket that he blows up. So he doesn't have the understanding, accountability or responsibility or has never had the responsibility of something this large. And yet he's treating the U S government as a startup. And this is going to be, and I said it before and I hate to say it again, but fuck, this is not going to be a recession. This is prospectively going to push us into a depression. Chad (21:06.202) But JT, she's on the streets, she feels it. No. Joel (21:08.184) JT is not bringing us out of the gutter. I mean, JT is not happy. She's with the job seekers every day. J.T. O'Donnell (21:11.077) Absolutely not. J.T. O'Donnell (21:15.326) Yeah. And I mean, when I just say federal workers in my inbox every single day, blindsided, people don't understand how to look for work. We already know the system's broken. So it's a broken system that they're trying to, you know, make work for them. I just, I'm with you. I mean, I knew it was going to be bad. I can always tell by the sentiment and what we get in the inbox. Um, but I'll just give you an idea. We, we opened a free resource center because we knew we couldn't physically work with everybody at our company. Chad (21:24.518) Mm-mm. J.T. O'Donnell (21:45.759) We've had 12,000 people sign up in 10 weeks. 12,000 people. And the only way they find out about it is I mentioned it at an end of a video on social media. There's no promo, right? 12 that we're averaging hundreds a day, just finding it and signing up. And they all say the same thing. Like, I don't get it. Nobody's calling me. I can't get a job, you know? And that we know, we know what's coming. And I, I did a rant yesterday about the Jamie Diamond rant because, you know, people want to see that fail so bad. And it's like, Chad (21:48.633) Wow. Chad (21:53.712) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (22:15.794) But it won't. They're a big company. He can tell everyone to quit if they don't want to return to office because he understands there are so many white collar workers out there right now that will take the job. And you asked about when people go to work for Tesla. Guess what? There are going to be people that go to work for Tesla because they need the job. I mean, they'll get out of there when they can. But this is what they're forcing to happen is making people take the jobs they don't want to take to have a paycheck. You know, it's just it's crazy. Joel (22:30.894) other options. Chad (22:34.971) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (22:44.668) It's crazy. I wish I could pull this out of it, but I've just never seen anything like this in my 20 plus years of doing this. Joel (22:44.856) Mm-hmm. Chad (22:45.01) lower wages Yeah, lower wages and they'll treat them like shit while they got them too. Cause they know they can keep them. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (22:52.222) Yeah, absolutely. And they don't care. And that's business. We can rant all we want, but they have no emotion in the game. so for me, it's like, OK, I'm going to teach you how to not have any emotion in the game. Take that job offer. Get in there. And if we have to leave it three weeks later, you're leaving it three weeks later. And I have recruiters screaming at me. And I'm like, I don't care. I defend the job seeker. I'm going to tell them what to do for their lives, not for your job. Chad (22:58.331) Yeah. Mm-mm. Chad (23:10.347) Yup. Chad (23:16.048) Yeah. Amen. Amen. Joel (23:19.34) You had said before the show that it's worse than 2008, JT. And for those that do remember 2008, was pretty bad. think the question I have is, and like you mentioned, hey, when it gets better, the jobs will open up again. And I have real questions thanks to AI automation and other things as to if it will come back to the way that it was. We'll have to wait and see. J.T. O'Donnell (23:22.366) 100 % Chad (23:25.158) That was fucking horrible. Joel (23:43.478) You mentioned, called it the, the MBAs, they're coming out of really elite schools, not finding work. was a story in the wall street journal this week about just that story about how long, these Ivy league MBAs and Stanford and Duke, cetera, just there for whatever reason. Those people were back in the day. They couldn't step out of graduation. They had the degree still in their hand and they were given, you know, big time jobs. So. Chad (24:09.092) And now they're going into the military because that's the only way they can get a job and pay for their fucking debt. Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (24:14.482) Yeah, but can we just do a public service announcement right now? Because the other big thing they do in down economic times is tell all those people if you can't find a job, go back to school. So now people are going to go rack up $60,000 in debt for an MBA that will never be of value. That's another one we need to be preaching so that they don't do it. But they do because they can't find a job, so it makes them feel productive. Let's load on the debt, right? It's crazy. Joel (24:17.122) Sure. Chad (24:22.714) Yeah, no. No. Chad (24:27.664) Yeah. Yeah. Chad (24:35.78) Yep. Nope. Yeah. Cause school is a business these days, kids. There you have it. J.T. O'Donnell (24:39.452) Mm-hmm. Joel (24:42.976) All right. Well, the good news is the unicorns are back. I don't know if you guys heard companies are getting a lot of money and they're hiring people because of the money. So call up these companies and see if they're hiring. But let's play a little buy or sell, which we haven't done in a while because no one's getting money. And then all of a sudden, like big checks are being written. So, you know how the game is played or maybe you don't cause it's been a while. We talked about three companies, startups that have recently gotten funding. Chad (24:48.57) Mm-hmm. Chad (24:53.786) Mm-hmm. Chad (25:03.227) Yes. J.T. O'Donnell (25:05.896) Big checks. Joel (25:12.014) I read a short summary of the company and then all of us will either buy or sell the company. Are you ready to play buy or sell starting with Mercor an AI recruiting startup founded by three, not one, not two, three 21 year old Teal fellows that says in Peter Teal. Uh, they've raised a hundred million dollars in a series B round, bringing the total to $133.6 million. and valuing the company. Any guesses? Any guesses at $2 billion? That's right. $2 billion. The platform which automates resume screening and candidate matching claims to remove bias from the hiring process. Chad, are you a buyer sell on Mercor? Chad (25:59.878) I'm impressed by these guys. They have big name backers and AI is the center point of their system. But much like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other very big names with tons of cash, they have no industry experience. They don't understand that trying to contextualize an answer from humans all over the world is incredibly hard. They have no moat. They have no data compared to more mature systems that are out there. And they've taken Too much money. That's my biggest issue. Too much money. I've researched and watched several videos of the founders. They are so bright, but at the end of the day, it's got to be a sell for me. Joel (26:46.434) That is a sale from Chad. look, let's look at the good news. they've grown head count a thousand percent in two years. the remote thing is still a thing. their valuation is basically the same as Upwork. So if I was trying to find a comparable work from anywhere in the world solution, Upwork came to mind. So there is some, some history to say like that's a fair valuation and not crazy. Peter Thiel is a pretty smart dude. He has a Chad (26:51.526) Let's get this. Joel (27:14.456) fairly good track record with young people. Zuckerberg in one case, if you've seen the social network, that worked out pretty well. By the way, I think with this new valuation, who's really winning this is Peter Thiel. Jack Dorsey is also an investor of Twitter and Block fame. So those guys probably have made out pretty well with the new valuation. They're working with OpenAI. They're leveraging a lot of sort of the need for AI jobs. Chad (27:26.426) Yeah. Yeah. Chad (27:42.074) Who isn't? Joel (27:42.818) Deep Seek probably wasn't great for that because we've realized we don't need as much money or maybe resources to do AI. So that's sort of the good news, I guess, that there is some track record there. However, I do not believe the trend of the business is this company's friends. It's a more polarized world. There are less remote jobs posted today than there was last year and the year before. Jamie diamond says you're going, you're coming back to the office and a lot of CEOs are agreeing with him. More companies are going to opt for homegrown workers because it's a very geopolitical volatile world. There's a lot of uncertainty around the world in places that used to be pretty, pretty stable. And I mean, come on man, 21 years old, like fuck off. don't care. You do not know anything. Okay. You do not know anything. This one is a cell. Chad (28:34.054) you Joel (28:41.004) And I will mirror Chad's comment about they've taken too much money. It's going to bite them in the ass in a big way. JT, are you with us? Are you going to throw us a curve ball? J.T. O'Donnell (28:41.886) Thank J.T. O'Donnell (28:47.528) Yeah. lot I think all your points are valid. I'm really deep into this. So as someone who's recently built an AI tool for the job seeker, the one thing that to me will determine this is the garbage in garbage out theory. I'm seeing all of these AI companies claim they can pull the right info out of the job seeker and they can't because they ask them the same old stupid questions about their past history and that's not the work they want to do. Chad (29:02.246) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (29:13.424) So you go do a 20 minute interview and you just basically say, is what I've done. And all it's going to show you is jobs you've already done that you don't want. And I know this because we have tested this with thousands of job seekers in my platform. And that is their number one complaint. And so until they come around to listening to the job seeker and building an interactive tool around them, their wants and needs and educate them on why this job would be a fit for where they want to go, it doesn't work. And to me, the ones they try this thing once and it doesn't work, they're not going back. They're just not going back, right? It's a once try and done. So I hope I would love to see the model they have and see if they're actually pulling in something decent out of the job seeker. But if they're not, then I don't see how this flies. But you know, hey, that's a lot of money. Some very well-known backers, they might just push that thing through to success, right? So for a lot of people, I'm sure it could be a buy for that front. without knowing if they've really cracked the code for the job seeker, it's a sell-off. me. Chad (30:12.942) Nobody is. Joel (30:13.726) All right. That's three cells on Mercore. Peter Thiel is not happy about that. All right, let's go to the next one. Perfect. An AI powered recruitment platform has raised $23 million totaling 36 million buckos to help recruit or source and hire candidates more efficiently. The platform aims to automate. There's that word again, time consuming tasks and improve the overall recruitment process. Chad. I'm sensing a theme out there about this whole automation co-pilot agentic thing. Are you a buyer cell on perfect or is this not so perfect? Chad (30:43.206) would say, yeah. Chad (30:48.786) I mean, the CEO goes from selling an AI parking platform, he actually sold it for 125 million, to the recruitment AI space. After hearing that, I was like, what the fuck? know, what the fuck are you doing here? But then I see the co-founders VP of Ops and People, Ronan Daniel, ran a company called Wojo, a sourcing and recruitment company. So I was like, okay, that kind of works. The hardest part is pretty much what you just said, Cheeseman, is that Joel (31:17.944) Mm-hmm. Chad (31:19.226) You've got to understand the go-to-market. There are going to be so many recruitment assistants, not just ones that are point solutions, but you're also talking about ones that are already baked in to systems. We have a bunch of chat bots who have turned into assistants that have a ton of data and they have a ton of connections within the market and partnerships within the market to actually bake themselves in already. I've already talked to them. This is going to be hard for any, any organization. trying to start this up. And since AI is commoditized, it's all about the data, they haven't been around long enough to actually gather the data. I would love to see again, one of these companies actually just knock it out of the park. I don't think it's going to be this one though. So it's got to be a cell. Joel (32:10.478) Okay, I love the salesmanship on this company. J.T. O'Donnell (32:11.26) I'll dive in on that. Ditto, ditto. I think the person, I'm just going to say that the companies that have the existing relationships win right now. It's just not fair to integrate in. So companies are not going to want to start with a whole new tech. Has anyone here ever done a new tech integration? That's a nightmare. So if you've already got an existing platform and they're saying we can just tuck it in, you know that's what people are going to do because they don't even understand the AI. So if they can get it for cheap with their existing provider, that's the way it's going to go. You're not going to go out on a limb and use something brand new. I'm with you. I think they have a huge battle ahead for me. It would be a sell. Joel (32:30.478) You Chad (32:31.479) It sucks. Joel (32:49.74) All right. That's a cell. She went, she jumped right in there. All right, kids, go to their site. love this. you go to the, like the main, the main text is you, you're perfect hire in seconds. You scroll down and you get recruit while you sleep. Like these guys are pitching, pitching the fastballs, for the sales, but, but in their defense, this is becoming a really crowded field. gotta like kind of stand out from the crowd. J.T. O'Donnell (33:10.48) Nails on the chalkboard. Joel (33:19.022) The headcount growth has been pretty organic. Chad, you mentioned the CEO has little to no experience in this space. Um, there isn't there an Israeli company touting, uh, headquarters in New York. That's not a big deal. Um, but times are kind of really weird in Israel right now. So I don't know if it's the best time to start up a company. However, Chad, you know, regardless of competition, regardless of lack of experience, you know, I love a good wave and I'd rather be a shitty. Chad (33:31.334) Hmm. Joel (33:49.13) surfer on a fantastic wave than I would a fantastic surfer on a shitty wave. And these guys are on the copilot agentic automation wave, push a button, easy button. got your person in seconds. People are going to buy this shit. And eventually they're going to check it off the, the, the buy list and someone's going to come along and pay these guys a couple hundred million dollars to, to, put them into their, into their system. So for me, I love a good wave Chad. J.T. O'Donnell (34:07.518) Thanks Joel (34:20.206) because perfect waves are great for boats and hoes and great for startups. All right, a little diversion there. get to our last, our last. Chad (34:28.102) Cheeseman's never served in his life. Go ahead. Joel (34:33.046) You don't know that Arizona has great surfing as does Cleveland, Ohio. All right. Let's go to Loke. So lock. So how are going to pronounce this? L O X O lock. So, okay. And Italian, Italian intelligent platform. they've secured 115 million growth investment, which promises to help them expand, market reach and accelerate the development of their AI powered recruiting products, including. Chad (34:42.182) Yeah. Lockzoo. Joel (34:59.01) That's right. They're coming for the ATSs and the recruiting CRMs. What could possibly go wrong? Chad, are you a buy or sell? Loxo. Chad (35:08.112) So right out of the gate, this is from the press release, quote, Loxo is a horizontally integrated suite of data driven and AI powered products designed to manage the full recruitment lifecycle through a single system of record software platform. End quote. What the actual fuck does that mean? I mean, it means, you know what it means? It means your PR and marketing has no fucking clue what the market needs right now. No TA leader out there is looking to make a wholesale systems change. No. The ones who we've talked to, who have implemented AI automation know what they're looking for. They're looking for big wins in small ways. Literally automating a piece of the process at a time, showing wins and then moving to that next piece. And I think Lockso has the tech and the people to make that happen. But much like we've seen with many other companies who've flamed out in this space, they just don't understand what the people are buying. No TA leader is standing up in a meeting and saying, We need a talent intelligence platform because they don't know what the fuck that means. Unfortunately, Lockso, you've got, I think you got the goods. The problem is you go to market, you're messaging and at the end, that all leads down to sales. It's got to be a sell for me. Chad (36:25.83) Sorry guys. Joel (36:29.912) JT, you want to take this one? J.T. O'Donnell (36:31.772) Yeah, I mean, I was saying this before we started. I was reading all three of these press releases about this and all that got through my head was, remember the peanuts when the grownups would talk on the phone? Wah wah, wah wah wah wah wah. That was what I was reading. And you just did that for me. What did that mean? And I just, cannot believe that. I they must really want to throw money at stuff right now. Like we need to put our money somewhere. Hey, these are great stories, but I'm... Chad (36:36.294) Mm. Chad (36:40.486) You Yes! Yes! J.T. O'Donnell (36:59.25) for the exact reasons that Chad mentioned. Same thing, it's a cell. Plain and simple. Joel (37:06.414) All right, that leaves it up to me. How the hell this company raised $113, $115 million is crazy. They are from Texas, so they can spin a story for sure. I'm afraid this one is a whole lot of hat and not much cattle, unfortunately, for me. Their big spin is we're well-reviewed by recruiters in the UK and the US. Chad (37:12.952) a bunch of PE people who have no fucking clue. J.T. O'Donnell (37:16.274) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad (37:20.102) Again. J.T. O'Donnell (37:22.11) Cool. Joel (37:35.864) great. I know some QR code creators that have great reviews, right? Like, I mean, I'm not sure that's, that's a slam dunk. they're taking on the ATS, the CRM, they want to be everything to everybody. You know what happens when you want to be everything to everybody? You're nothing to no one. You're nothing to no one. And that's exactly where these guys are headed. I'll make this one and this one pretty easy. it's a, it's a cell for me. And that is the end of our buyer cell. Chad (37:38.63) You J.T. O'Donnell (37:39.635) and reviews. Chad (37:52.451) Exactly. Chad (38:04.454) Ooh! This is first. How do you feel? Joel (38:05.41) JT's first, how do you feel? You feel good about it? All right, well, if you need a break, let's take one and we'll come back and talk about Indeed. J.T. O'Donnell (38:07.822) Good, absolutely. Bring it Chad (38:16.976) Who's this Indeed company you're talking about? What's this? Joel (38:18.872) Yeah, no, this, this perky startup, this, yeah. so this is from our friend Alexander Chakowsky, who found this and posted, indeed made a sneaky major change in January by removing the job search input fields. They removed the search field. Imagine going to Google and the search fields are gone. Okay. the shift forces users to log in or sign up. J.T. O'Donnell (38:20.638) Is this a startup? What is this? Chad (38:28.08) Love this guy. Joel (38:45.912) to search for jobs, a move likely designated to boost account creation, no shit, and gather user activity data. The goal, according to Alexander, is to fuel indeed strategy of dominating staffing by improving job matching through dynamic profiles, AI, and data-driven taxonomies, ultimately reducing hiring times and increasing engagement. Alex argues it's, an eyeball catcher, end quote, because it's a bold, unnoticed pivot. Chad (38:46.05) Mm-hmm. Yep. Chad (38:55.056) Mm-hmm. Joel (39:13.71) JT indeed is such a tease, but what is, are your thoughts on this move? J.T. O'Donnell (39:18.8) Yeah, I mean, this doesn't surprise me. actually shocked it didn't happen a lot sooner, right? I mean, the moment we started publicly hearing about them wanting to be a staffing firm, you knew that was going to shut off. But I'm going to throw a bold prediction out that I think is beyond this. I think indeed is watching LinkedIn. And I've said this for years. People do not understand the amount of mil. They made two billion off the job seeker premium model, right? They talk about making all their money off recruiting. They're making two billion office a product. Chad (39:29.006) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (39:47.751) that people think is going to help them get a job. And so if you're Indeed, why aren't you thinking about your own monetization model for the job seeker? And the only way that's going to start is when you start putting stuff behind a wall that you can then charge for. And so I don't think we're far off from a consumer product from Indeed and that that's how they're going to diversify their money. It's just they've got so many people in there. Nobody uses the job board anymore. Recruiting is down. The jobs aren't coming back. You're going to pivot to where there's cash and where there's cash right now is micro payments with consumers who need a job. Joel (40:13.806) you Joel (40:21.006) So you're saying it's a profit deal, All right. What do you think, Chad? J.T. O'Donnell (40:23.326) 100%. Chad (40:23.94) Hmm, that's a surprise. Indeed, I mean, they're trying to make the walls of its walled garden higher, and it's time for a history lesson. Joel (40:33.08) Mm-hmm. Chad (40:38.636) Okay, kids gather around the fire. It's story time. So in November of 2024, Indeed started out just like Google. That's right, kids. They were a search engine, a job search engine, which called was called vertical search back then. Indeed called themselves Google for jobs. They pulled in jobs from wherever they can find it. Job boards, Craigslist, corporate career sites. I was the VP of direct employers where we scraped thousands of corporate career sites for jobs daily. And we were the prime source, we partnered with Indeed, we were the prime source for Indeed's corporate jobs back then, which led all of the job seekers back to the applicant tracking system to apply. And then one day, Indeed fucked us. Anyways, Indeed promised sites like Monster and Career Builder, who were the biggest job boards in the world, free traffic, if they allowed Indeed their jobs, right? Until one day, they fucked Career Builder and Monster, that's right. indeed shut them off and made them pay for traffic. Then since that worked so well, they did it with the staffing firms and they fucked them too. So during that timeframe, indeed a job search engine announced that they would be allowing job seekers to then start adding resumes into the system. But it was one of those nice easy it's your choice kind of things, right? Because in many cases, job seekers just wanted to go straight to the job boards or the applicant tracking systems that they knew, right? So the designs of a resume database was planted. Then one day, Indeed launched 2Pane, not the wrapper. 2Pane was a new model that changed the search engine into a traditional job board. Yes, they were stepping backwards. So instead of clicking a link to a job and transporting to the destination site, Indeed popped up a version of their own job giving option for easy apply if you had your resume in the system. Right there, there was no reason to for the job board or the corporate career site, you could do everything on Indeed. How fun, right? So then they made registration mandatory, but they still allowed you to do job search kind of tease you in there. Now, as a job search engine, and then a job board. Joel (42:57.112) That was nice. Chad (43:02.018) Indeed always exposed its job search, no matter the hoops they made you jump through. Well, until now, after Monster Career Builder, all the job boards, all the staffing companies, and all the hiring companies getting fucked by Indeed, they're going after the job seeker. Just like JT said, there's going to be a fucking kids and it's going to be for the job seeker now. J.T. O'Donnell (43:31.14) It's gonna be pay to play. Joel (43:32.907) They're running out of partners. I don't know how many more one night stands they can have with all of these users. All right, I'm gonna go back in time too, Chad. J.T. O'Donnell (43:35.805) Right. Chad (43:39.11) I don't get it. Chad (43:44.752) Ooh, double. Joel (43:45.582) And you mentioned direct employers. Uh, I'm going to bring up the name jobster, uh, and the, founder of the CEO, had a guy named Jason Goldberg and in 2006, I believe I attended the direct employers annual meeting in the basement of, uh, treasure Island, which was, which was nice, which was nice. Yeah. Upscale baby. No, no, no budget is too big for direct employers back in the day. And he came up. Chad (44:03.194) Yeah. Upscale, baby. Upscale. Chad (44:10.34) you Joel (44:13.494) And he shocked everyone. You probably remember this. showed Monsters homepage. It was, it was full of pop-ups, full of banner ads. He called it NASCAR at the time. And then he, and then he went into a job search and what it was like in Monster. People don't remember this. When you clicked on job search on Monster, the first thing you got was a, was a, was a page in between that asked you for, I think financial information or like, yeah, it was, and it literally, Chad (44:18.0) Mm-hmm. Chad (44:39.684) Interstitial, yeah. There's an ad. Yeah. Joel (44:43.182) literally asked for a social security number. This was pushing search job and you had to do this and then you could click submit and then go to the actual jobs. Monster was making I think a million dollars a month on this like landing page, this squeeze page between the searches. Chad (45:00.582) Mm-hmm. Joel (45:02.328) People that kind of knew and by the way, he highlighted indeed at the time, which literally was just Google back in the day. was two search boxes and go. There was no ads, no login. You searched, you saw the job postings, you clicked and went to that site just like a search engine should be. so it's kind of ironic that we find ourselves here 20 years later. and indeed is now in the spot of being a, basically a hurdle between the Chad (45:07.462) Mm. yeah. Yep. Chad (45:30.456) huh. Joel (45:31.224) homepage and actually looking for jobs. we use the jump the shark analogy pretty freely that moment when you look at something and go, it's over. Indeed, as we know it is kind of over the job thing clicking like they've got to go into staffing as Alexander believes, or they've got to go into like a new LinkedIn like JT is speculating. Chad (45:41.915) Yeah. Joel (45:55.842) But they've clearly looked at their business and said, we got to pivot somewhere else or recruit holdings. said, has said, Nope, you're not this anymore. You're what we want you to be. it's an opportunity for other job sites to kind of take the mantle of ease of use and unencumbered and no walled gardens. We'll see if someone steps up. But yeah, historically this is a bad look and it's going to end very badly. for indeed, I couldn't believe I went to the site. I've been there so long. It's like, there's no search box. Really? Really? Chad (46:11.201) Mm-hmm. Chad (46:23.024) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were Google. Joel (46:29.634) They were easy to use. The site was fast. yeah, all those things. Chad (46:33.102) They are, they are the antithesis of everything they started out as. Joel (46:39.992) Go to the webpage and say to yourself, Chad (46:42.79) You Joel (46:44.802) All right, let's take a quick break and we'll go back to Elon. God, that's a bad, bad circle. Joel (46:53.71) All right, guys, Elon Musk, tasked by President Trump with reducing the federal workforce, sent an email to government employees requesting a justification of their work. The responses will be analyzed by an AI system to determine job necessity. This directive has faced backlash from unions, workers, and some agencies with concerns raised about data privacy and the legality of the process. In short, People submitted their email. It was read by AI and AI is going to tell the powers that be whether you could still have a job or not. JT, I'm guessing you have a few thoughts on this as a spokesperson for job seekers. J.T. O'Donnell (47:35.027) Did you hear the deep breaths while you were talking? Probably. Yeah, I just, again, I just, the job seeker, or, know, the employee is begging to keep their job, is sitting there agonizing over to what to put in this email to save their job. And AI is going to just read it and decide if those keywords were relevant, right? Did they say things that were relevant? We talk all the time with job seekers about teaching them how to unlock their UVA, their unique value add. I didn't think about it. You have a set of features, but we don't buy the features, we buy the benefits. It's no different. You're a business of one, selling your services. In this moment, you're asking a bunch of workers, do you understand how you save or make the federal government enough money to justify the cost or any business that he runs to justify the cost? And if you don't, and you can't articulate that and quantify that, you're out. And that's exactly what's happening here. But you're talking about people that doesn't understand how to do that. And so they're praying that what they wrote is right. They're probably talking about what a great person I am, what a super team player, and this is what I got done, and is how, and gone. And so it's gonna be a rude awakening for people that again, to understand that. Chad (48:38.074) They don't J.T. O'Donnell (48:42.462) It is what you deliver today. Can you show me how you save or make enough money? 130, 140 % of your salary, because that's what it costs them. If you can monetize that for me and talk to me, OK, I'll keep you. And even then. Joel (48:52.674) How many people are asking generative AI, write me an email that won't get me fired by an AI? J.T. O'Donnell (48:56.958) Probably, right, yeah. Here's what I do, quantify it so that I don't get fired. That's a great point. It's probably what you would put through Chad GPT. But that's what's gonna happen, right? You know, people don't understand quantification. Chad (48:57.254) you Joel (49:05.486) That's what I would do. Joel (49:11.96) Chad, your thoughts. Chad (49:13.19) Much like the firings, mean, Doge is gonna fuck this up. They're gonna cock this up, right? Like it's just gonna happen. Managing people is hard and we don't provide enough training to develop our employees into managers and leaders as it is. And as companies cut the middle layer of their management, which is pretty much what's happening here, it's gonna be harder to manage due to the human's inability to scale. That's, I mean, that's hard. So this is dumb. It's dumb because if, if it doesn't hit the biggest problem in corporate America, which we have today, which is we're not managing to outcomes. And if you start throwing a bunch of jibber jabber bullshit into, into AI that has nothing to do with outcomes, because that's not what we're managing to in the first place. And what the fuck does it matter? I mean, it all comes back down to the objectives that you, you met. the tasks that you achieved, so on and so forth. We're not managing to that today. So what the hell is AI gonna help us with? Again, it's garbage in, as JT had said, and garbage out. Joel (50:24.312) Remember when getting fired on a zoom call was, was outrageous. hold my beer says AI we're just going to fire people without any interaction whatsoever. with human beings. I mean, talk about, don't need CEOs anymore because AI is going to fire and hire everybody. this is horrible. This is bad for humans. this, this plays into the culture of ghosting. Chad (50:28.366) Yeah. Joel (50:51.062) not talking to each other, being stuck in a screen all day. Like we're just going to outsource firing people, based on what AI says. Like I hope that if companies do this and more companies will, this is going to happen. I mean, people will take daily activities and like have a, have an ongoing daily like summary of like fireball, not fireball, like productive, non-productive. And then this will, this will be a thing that companies do. I hope to God, humans stay in the, in the loop somehow. Chad (50:52.485) Mm-hmm. Joel (51:19.896) Cause if we get into a place where like we just push a button and people are hired and fired and off boarded and on boarded without anybody actually looking and talking and interacting with each other. Like we're, we're, we're done with human, human existence and we're with the sex robots and the, the, the chat, the chat bot, boyfriends. And, this is, this is the end of our good feel feel good, podcast, but the good news is kids, we're, we're going to end it with. That's right. Another dad joke, another dad joke. And I got my first positive comment. So I know the dad jokes are landing all of them very, very well. All right. All right, you two. What do you call a lesbian on fire? What do you call a lesbian on fire? Chad (51:50.138) dad joke. Chad (51:55.59) At least one of you out there are fucking masochists. Chad (52:08.614) I Joel (52:10.274) Keep in mind kids, we all grew up with like dead baby jokes, so nothing is offensive to us. What do you call a lesbian on fire? Chad (52:13.807) You Chad (52:17.356) I don't know. Get it over with, Jesus. J.T. O'Donnell (52:18.194) I don't know. Yeah, tell me now. Chad (52:25.978) BBQ. Okay, BBQ. Joel (52:29.91) We out. Chad (52:31.526) So bad. So bad. So bad. I am not. J.T. O'Donnell (52:32.305) We out. That's that. Joel (52:36.27) You know you're going to retell it. J.T. O'Donnell (52:38.111) Nah.

On this episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast , we sit down with Donald Knight , the People & Culture guru from Warner Bros. Discovery—because apparently, Hollywood still  needs humans. We dive into: 🎭 Why AI won’t  be writing the next Oscar-winning screenplay (sorry, ChatGPT). 💰 The job market’s 2022 déjà vu —big money, big moves, and even bigger headaches. 🤖 Why CHROs are dragging their feet on AI, and why that’s a terrible  idea .🎨 How recruiters should be grabbing their AI paintbrushes (no, not literally, Bob). And of course, there’s plenty of snark, whiskey references, and moments that’ll make your HR director sweat. Enjoy! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Podcast Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HRs most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right wherever 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. [music] Joel: Who are you and why are you here? Donald Knight: Who am I? First of all Chad and Cheese fan. Chad: Yes. Donald Knight: Donald Knight. I serve as group senior Vice President for People & Culture for the Warner Brothers discovery. And more importantly, I'm Daylen and Avery's dad. So that's a little bit about me. Chad: Very nice, very nice. Joel: Let's go back to this Chad and Cheese fan. Chad: There we go. [laughter] Joel: I wanna hear more about that. Donald Knight: Or more. Chad: Question is, do you mandate that everybody listen to it? That's the big question. Donald Knight: It's funny you say that. So, Ariana Moon hit the stage earlier today with Tim Sackett, she used to be on my team when I was at Greenhouse. And yes, I believe that anybody inside of our profession has a responsibility to do what I call inbound and outbound leadership. So the inbound is what leaders are sending to you right? So whether it's Bersin or Chad and Cheese or anything that people might be reading, CHRO daily. The outbound though, I think we have a responsibility to go figure out who are the folks that are bringing the right conversations and elevating the right subjects in our profession for us to learn from. And in my opinion, y'all are doing that, and so that's why I'm a fan. And so, yes, it's not mandated, but it's strongly encouraged voluntarily. Chad: Other than Chad and Cheese, what nugget of advice would you give to your peers that they should really focus on in this upcoming year? Donald Knight: The advice that I would give to my peers for the upcoming year is, I believe it's gonna be 2000... My prediction, my hypothesis is that the talent market is gonna be 2022 all over again. What I've seen this year, myself included, is this has been the year where we've seen executives making their changes, there's been a lot of scarcity on going public, companies have not been able to perform, thus the hiring has been lower. So you've seen companies start poaching executives, those executives are gonna have to build out their teams. And so I believe next year, that's when you're gonna see greater movement from the VP all the way down to the senior manager level. So it's gonna be some topsy-turvyness if you will, similar to 2002, when you could go literally across the street and get $40,000 more for the exact same job and the exact same job offer at company B. Donald Knight: So, the things I need our teams to focus on, and this is what I just told our team in LA, I just left a lot in LA. The thing that I've been telling them they gotta focus on is really two things. The first one is go clean up all of our terrible processes, if you are not deploying automation right now, if there's a process that you feel like has been painful for your team, you gotta go fix that now because next year it's gonna affect way more people. The second thing I think that they have to figure out is what is our value proposition? Everybody's talking about employer branding. I'm like, okay, that's cool, but like your benefits are no longer part of the value proposition. Most companies have the same set of benefits, you gotta be able to dial in on culturally and from a growth and development perspective, what can you offer me at Chad and Cheese that I can't go get at anywhere else? Chad: Did you hear. Joel: We have no benefits that anyone wants. Chad: He didn't leave the office, he left a lot. [laughter] Joel: He left a lot. I wanna dig into this 2022 prediction. Money was free, tech companies were loading up on people just so other people couldn't get them. Are you envisioning that or are you envisioning more of the exec poaching, getting leads of the company or all of the above? Donald Knight: I mean, if we're talking specifically tech, there are tons of people right now that are at companies where they're waiting for a liquidity event right? Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah... Donald Knight: That's part one. Part two, there's tons of companies that raise money with bad evaluations. So they raised money prior to this dip. Give you a good example, I believe that Instacart, CEO, she's a phenomenal human being and she just took on CEO within the last few years. But Instacart, before they went public they thought they were a $30 billion valuation, only to find out from the market you're a $7 billion valuation. And so... They're not the only ones though, there's other companies out there where people are still checking in every day, 'cause they're waiting on a liquidation event or liquidity event, and then the other half of the tech community in many cases, they have a bad valuation. So what does that tell me? That means talent is ready to move, they're just waiting for the right reason. One good reason is, oh, my buddy Chad, who had the greatest growth and development on two, three years ago, just became the CHRO at a new company. Chad says, Hey Don, I want you to come work for me. Chad: Yeah man, movement. Donald Knight: That's movement. And so I think you're gonna see a lot of that. I've already seen the executives playing the musical chairs this year. Again myself included, you're gonna see those folks next year. Joel: I'm still waiting for that Peloton stock to bounce back. Donald Knight: Start building their team. [laughter] Donald Knight: Look, that's a good example though, right? Chad: It is. Donald Knight: Peloton founder starts a company after his 40s, has a $4 billion valuation. Right now he's worth I think 300 million, which is still again rich people problems, but that's not nearly the same $4 billion valuation as before. Chad: Yeah, no, no. Donald Knight: And so I think you'll also see greater consolidation in the market, particularly in our field. Joel: Yeah, we're seeing that now, yeah, we're seeing that now. Chad: Yeah, easily, yeah, easily. So in 2024, thus far what's been the biggest surprise for you that's happened in our space? Donald Knight: Too many CHROs are laggards when it comes to artificial intelligence. Chad: Yeah, explain. Donald Knight: They're allowing their fear and anxiety to be the reason why they won't go test and figure out practical applications for the tools. And while they're doing that, their competitors who are more excited and eager to test the tools are creating such a wide divide between them that I don't know if they're ever gonna be able to catch up. Like there's companies, right... If you're still trying to figure out how to build an AI policy you're behind, you're behind. [laughter] Chad: In the velocity of tech right now, if you're behind you're fucked. Joel: To AI real quick, you're presenting tomorrow on this topic... Donald Knight: Yes. Joel: What are you gonna be discussing? Donald Knight: So tomorrow, I believe, we're at RecFest shout outs to Jamie and the team. So we're here at RecFest. I believe that it's incumbent on talent acquisition leaders and recruiters and sourcers to grab their own paintbrush. And to me that tool meaning AI the A and the I inside of paint, I believe that tool can allow them to figure out how can they drive their own value as an individual, even if the company is choosing to lag behind. And so the idea tomorrow is to try to figure out, okay, at the company that you're at today, and the way that you contribute to bringing amazing talent to your organization, what are you trying to paint? What are you painting on your canvas? Because if you don't use AI tools today, or your company doesn't have an AI policy or they've chosen to be a laggard and not deploy AI inside of the organization, effectively they're harming your career. And if you wanna be marketable moving forward, you need to go grab your own tool, and figure out how you deploy that for your own growth and development, regardless of what Jersey you have on. Chad: Well, much like we've seen with most of the best sourcers that are out there, they learned boolean string, they learned how to dig into Google, they started to find. I mean, really they were curious, intellectually curious about how they could use this new tool, and they are the best in the business, and it wasn't because the company told them to go do it. So I appreciate that 100%. So looking forward 2025, what's your main focus for 2025? You already talked about ripping stuff apart and all that, but what is... Joel: He's getting a paint brush is what he's saying. Chad: What's the main focus for Donald? Donald Knight: My main focus right now for 2025 is, I work for one of the greatest storytelling companies of all time. Chad: You do, yes. Donald Knight: At Warner Brothers Discovery. And I believe in 2025 from a people and culture perspective, there's so many new talented people that are entering the storytelling business, and I want them in a Warner Brothers discovery jersey. I want the greatest writers and the greatest producers to seek out our production houses to be able to bring their dreams to reality. And so, in order to do that though, that means I gotta go find them. When the people are saying, like, I was laughing with Brian Fink, who's a great TA professional earlier today, and we were talking about all of us remember when you sourced that one talent where you were like, they're gonna go on to do great things, I wanna go find those people. And the only way I'm gonna find that is I gotta make sure that we equip our team with not only the tools, but the time needed to invest in those tools to figure out how we can go uncover who those talented human beings are so we can build relationships with them. Joel: So I'm curious about that. The Rider strike recently, Hollywood, AI fears. I'm curious, what I'm hearing from you is like, there's never been a better time to be a creative, but on the other hand, why do we need writers when we have ChatGPT? Why do we need artists when we have DALL-E or other tools like that? So make a case for the future of humans versus all these tools that are coming out to replace them. Chad: Or mid journey. Donald Knight: I don't even think that's a hard case to make. AI did not think of itself. I believe if you look at large language models today, which most people are using it from a prompt engineering, right? Chad: Yes. Donald Knight: So you enter a prompt and it feeds you something back. All it is doing is looking at mega parcels of data and regurgitating a new piece together, puzzle for your consideration. But the greatest creatives and the greatest stories have always came from humans. I believe the opposite which is, this is the time that you want to get closer to human creatives because the stories that we can now envision of the future, now you have tools that can help you somewhat test out better plots or better scripts, or better storylines, or how do I write a story, a romance story that appeals to both boomers who are living longer and have tons of money, but also Gen Z who is openly willing to talk about their feelings in the workplace, how do I write that movie? And I don't think I'm gonna go get that from a tool that's just regurgitating pieces of information that's already out there. Donald Knight: So I believe if we deploy these tools the right way, the human experience should become a better experience, whether you're a recruiter, a sourcer or even a storyteller, it should become better because now you can actually submerge yourself more into the creative side of the house and a lot of like the mundane routine things. Yeah, go deploy some automation for those things. Joel: I think you just wrote next year's Oscar award winner, baby Boomer meets Gen Z. [laughter] Joel: Get off my yard and tell me how you feel or something. Donald Knight: I mean, look we're trending, we're already trending. We got Beetlejuice, which just did 145 million last week in the box office. Joel: Not creative though, it's digging up an old movie from the '80s right? Donald Knight: Have you gone to see it? Chad: I have not. Joel: Alien same thing, you could... Donald Knight: You have to go see. It's a reimagination, it's pretty cool. And then we got some other great movies on the way, Penguin, we got the Joker, she's gonna be really good, so I'm excited. I think it's a great time to be a creative. And I believe on this planet, we have more creatives who have not been able to tap into their creative genius because they've been bogged down in careers that have not allowed them to flex that creativity. My hope is that tools like AI will encourage them to embrace their full creative selves. Chad: Well even without AI, a great storyteller, a great creative Donald Knight. Donald, thank you so much. Donald Knight: Thank you for having me, it was amazing. Joel: Thanks for hanging out man. Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there is no doubt you wish you had that time back, valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now, go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. Let's save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful trainwreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Brace yourself for a wild ride on the latest episode of Chad and Cheese’s Firing Squad. This week, Hannah Peet—co-founder of Candidly, the white-label ATS is grilled live from a London phone booth. Between mix-ups over kid names (Albie, not Aldi—sorry, Aldi fans!) and snarky digs at outdated HR tech, Hannah lays out her master plan to turn hiring into a kindergarten art project. Get ready for AI matchmaking antics, absurd marketing rants, and a firing squad session that’s equal parts roast and rally cry. Will Hannah emerge with big applause or end up as HR tech collateral? Tune in to find out! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:22.709) All right, let's do this. We are the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is Firing Squad. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is in the house as we welcome Hannah Peet, co-founder at Candidly to the show, live from London. Hannah, welcome to HR's Most Dangerous Podcast. Chad (00:35.938) HANAPEET! Hannah Peet (00:42.598) Thank you. I am in a phone booth. In London. Chad (00:44.354) Live from a phone booth. Joel (00:49.439) Built for recording, built for recording. Well, Hannah, for our listeners that don't know you, give us a quick Twitter bio and then we'll get to the down and dirty of the business. Hannah Peet (01:01.67) Sure. So as well as having a startup candidly, I am also mum to two small children, Ida and Albie. Gosh, I nearly forgot their names then. Ida and Albie. So they're five and two. So yeah, my life is pretty full with a tech startup and two small kids. Albie. Albie. It does sound like Albie when I say that. No. Chad (01:20.504) say Aldi? Joel (01:23.729) Aldi. Albie. Chad (01:24.91) Ah, okay, I was gonna say... Hannah Peet (01:30.286) This isn't a plug for Aldi, his name is Albie. Sorry Albie. Joel (01:30.517) I'll be. I'll be sure. Chad (01:33.934) It's gonna say, was your kid sponsored? Joel (01:38.195) Hey. Hannah Peet (01:38.802) I haven't gotten that far yet. No. Chad (01:41.469) That could be next, that's fine. That's fine, that's fine. Joel (01:45.349) We have listeners getting tattoos, so anything's possible. anything's possible. Well, Hannah, thanks for joining us today. Hannah let us know in the green room that she's listened to about every episode of Firing Squad, so she knows what's happening. for our listeners that don't know Chad, read them the rules of the show. Chad (01:48.788) yeah, I gotta get that taken care of. Hannah Peet (01:50.246) No worries. Chad (02:01.794) Well, Hannah, welcome to Firing Squad. This is how it's gonna go. At the sound of the bell, there it is, you'll have two minutes to pitch candidly. At the end of two minutes, we're gonna hit you up with about 20 minutes of Q &A. Be sure to be concise or you're hear them crickets, means tighten up your game. At the end of Q &A, you're going to receive big applause. Much like Adele, you won't be just rolling in the deep, you'll be rolling in the cash. Golf clap. It ain't deep seek, but you have a chance. got a chance. And last but not least, it's the firing squad. Tie an anchor to it because you should throw it in the deep and try again. That's firing squad. Are you ready? Joel (02:47.765) By the way, if you have Adele on your bingo card, make sure that you stamp that one. I think that's the first Adele reference of the show. All right, Hannah, us about Candidly in three, two. Hannah Peet (02:47.962) Indeed. Chad (02:55.138) Do my best, do my best. Hannah Peet (03:01.487) Hi everyone, I'm proud to introduce candidly the white label best in class applicant tracking system. HR providers are under intense pressure to deliver seamless all-in-one solutions which cover the entire lifecycle from hiring all the way through to off-boarding. SMB customers want consolidation. They don't want clunky integrations or to pay for costly point solutions. Yet the absence of a good ATS is the missing piece of the jigsaw for most HR tech providers, and is the number one reason that they're losing customers. Building a good ATS would take them years and cost millions with ongoing investment required to stay competitive. That's why my co-founder Alex and I built Candidly. Our fully customizable API driven solution integrates directly into our HR tech partner platforms. enabling them to go to market with a powerful ATS under their own brand, offering users a seamless experience. This means that we have some very happy partners because they're winning more customers, they're reducing churn and they're more profitable by generating an increase in revenue per existing customer. Our go-to-market is a game changer. By partnering with HR tech providers, we're unlocking instant access to thousands of SMB customers with our expensive sales and marketing efforts. The lights just got off. This means that we're scaling rapidly and in just 12 months, we've secured five major partners reaching 20,000 SMB customers with a strong pipeline path, strong pipeline forecast for 25. With a 10 % attachment rate forecast by our partners for year one, less than 3 % predicted churn, our revenue is both scalable and sticky. Many partners are growing their SMB base by 30 % annually, compounding our sales over time. Our partners pay a monthly service fee and benefit from a revenue share model. We've also identified enormous opportunities to scale a white label, ATS technology into other HR tech categories. At Candidly, a world-class product combined with a unique go-to-market approach are designed to win. We're not just playing in this market, we're leading it and we're reshaping how HR and providers deliver value and building the future of HR technology. Joel (05:20.149) enough. I might have let you go over a little bit, but I enjoy the English accent so much that I let you go on. And she also, if you're listening and not watching this one, the lights went out on her for some reason. So I gave her little bit of a curve on her pitch there. Hannah Peet (05:22.981) Thank you. And the light! Chad (05:24.302) I love the shuffling of papers. Hannah Peet (05:38.085) you Chad (05:38.242) And all those that think that you are just a cold-hearted bastard, Cheeseman, right there, you're not. Look at that, you're not. Hannah Peet (05:41.573) Joel (05:42.599) I'm a, I'm a, I'm a gentle tender loving guy that happens to slap a few startups here and there around. all right, Hannah, you betcha, you betcha. So if you've listened to firing squad, know, the first question, why candidly, why not like white label ats.com? it's we are candidly.com, which reminds me of the, we are candidly. got all my sisters with me. so why the name? Why candidly tell me about it. Hannah Peet (05:49.775) Thank you, Joe. Much appreciated. I couldn't predict that one. Hannah Peet (06:11.693) Okay, Alex and I spent days trying to come up with a name, you know, in the early, early, early days of candidly. And in all honesty, after kind of thinking of every name, deciding it wasn't the right name, looking at the domain existed for it. I literally woke up one morning with the name candidly in my brain, message Alex straight away. And she was like, yeah, that's the name because candidly obviously nods towards candid. Candid means truthful and straightforward. which is really, you know, embodies us, our values, our technology. we now own, we are candidly.com. We don't have candidly.com before that comes up because I know it will. We have messaged the student debt company that owns candidly.com, but I don't think it's for sale, but we did love the name. So it was a hard one. Joel (07:00.425) Yeah, they're, they're, they're CEOs in Davos. I don't think you have a chance in hell of getting, getting that one, getting that one candidly.com. so you need a lot of money to buy domains, from the looks of it. There's no record of on crunch base of any funding. are you guys totally bootstrapped? Are you looking to raise some money at some point? You guys have been around since 2020, according to the research that I did, which five years, you know, going on five years is plenty of time to raise some money. What's going on with that? Hannah Peet (07:04.685) Yeah, I don't think so either. Hannah Peet (07:27.301) Yeah, I'm not sure what Crunchbase is doing, but we have definitely raised money in total. We've raised about 1.4 million to date. Candidly was launched 2020. We spent a lot of time really in the early days. It was kind of bootstrap trying talking to customers, trying to understand exactly where the pain points existed, but where are the pain points that people are paid prepared to pay to solve. So that was our kind of, I guess, goal number one for Candidly. Joel (07:55.093) Okay, I want to reach back a little bit in time. You spent some time at Dice, a company that we really enjoy destroying. I won't ask you about your time at Dice, but I will ask you what about your time at Dice may be influenced candidly and how you guys do business differently or the same. Chad (07:59.406) Do Hannah Peet (08:12.133) So I was part of the team that scaled the IT job board. We sold two dice. I didn't work for dice for very long because then I was headhunted to actually go up, up and found a business called Energy JobLine. So yeah, I'd say what it did teach me and show me is that by scaling a business innovatively and creatively, you can sell a business for a lot of money. And that was really my kind of first taste of entrepreneurial life. Chad (08:42.126) First thing I would say is definitely go and see if you can get some of the rights for the sister sledge We are we are family because that that does work. She's been good. Good job on that one. Yeah, so talk to me a little bit about the White labeling because you hit it over and over and over and over so talk talk about white labeling Why and how that's actually affected business, especially from a go-to-market stamp? Hannah Peet (08:49.753) Thank Joel (08:52.019) like that. Thanks. Hannah Peet (08:59.704) Yeah. Hannah Peet (09:06.393) Yeah, sure. It's absolutely critical for us. So I guess if we start with a pain point for the SMBs, because ultimately that's where Candidly started, was with the SMB customer. And when we went out to talk to many SMB customers, we were in the middle of lockdown. And even though some SMBs were using applicant tracking systems, they were still using spreadsheets outside of that. The overwhelming feeling that came from these customers is that they didn't know how to hire. So Alex and I kind of looked at this and broke down all the pain points existed within these SMBs and decided what candidly should feel like, what it should do and the problems that it should solve. As we were talking to customers, guess a growing trend was emerging and that was that customers even, you know, four or five years ago. were looking at consolidation. Back then, they were looking at recruitment tech stack consolidation. So they didn't want to have to buy an ATS and then plug in interview automated scheduling and then technical testing and all the other parts that combine together to build a recruitment tech stack. As we were building candidly and going to market, what we also then realized is that these SMB customers were saying, we don't just want... Chad (10:13.27) Mm-hmm. Hannah Peet (10:22.095) to have consolidation within our recruitment tech stack. We want consolidation in our entire HR tech stack. Obviously the market conditions were changing as well and people, SMB customers were not hiring as much. So we had a choice to make at that point, which was do we sell to SMBs directly, which Chad, as you know, is incredibly expensive and is a big no-no, or actually is there a far greater opportunity here, which was to then plug into the HR tech ecosystem as a white label ATS. Chad (10:51.874) Mm-hmm. Hannah Peet (10:51.897) which then gives huge benefit to the HRIS provider or the HR tech provider, as well as kind of fulfilling our dream of bringing our brilliant technology to the SMB customer without the expense of the sales and marketing efforts that go alongside that. Chad (11:07.758) Okay, so talk a little bit about your HR partners. You said you've got these HR partners who you're going to white label into. Who are they currently? Hannah Peet (11:14.967) Yeah, I can't say that we're under NDA but that's why that's why they're not plastered. Chad (11:17.934) Duh! Duh! Okay, so from a portfolio standpoint, from an aggregate portfolio standpoint, who are they getting you into, customer-wise? Hannah Peet (11:29.455) So the majority of our partner customers have between 3,000 to 15,000 SMB customers that they're selling to. And so they have Candidly integrated as their ATS. You would never ever know, looking at their system, that they're using Candidly. It completely looks and feels like their system. So we spend a lot of time on the UI to make sure that it absolutely is a seamless experience for a user. Typically, the applicant tracking system part of it would be bundled into the cost of buying the HRAS. So essentially, they're highly motivated to sell our technology. Because as I said in the pitch, the number one reason that they lose customers is because they don't have applicant tracking systems. And also, think a really important word is having a good applicant tracking system, which I could talk at length about. Chad (12:23.512) That's, yeah, those usually don't go together, to be quite frank. You said going to market, but it sounded like you said glowing to market, which I think you could stick, you should stay with, to be quite frank. Yeah, glowing to market. We're not going to market, we're glowing to market, that's right. So you talked about the point solution side of the house. Obviously with tech moving so fast, how do you, do you really focus on the ATS aspect, maybe ATS CRM, Hannah Peet (12:33.613) Ooh, okay. Joel (12:33.919) Trademark. Hannah Peet (12:36.825) That's the nerves. Hannah Peet (12:43.567) Yeah. Chad (12:53.492) Aspect and then start to partner with other point solutions to be able to provide more dynamic Partnerships or are you are you guys literally focused on being those point solutions and then what point solutions are they? Hannah Peet (13:08.847) So Candidly integrates. So Candidly, guess, is a, well, we're a white label solution that integrates into an HRAS that, for example, offers HRAS payroll, potentially learning and development, but doesn't have applicant tracking. So we can partner with other point solutions, but the focus for us right now is HRAS and HRM, as well as exploring other interesting categories for us, like job boards, for example. Chad (13:28.942) Mm. Chad (13:37.646) Okay, so take a look at like old, we call them legacy applicant tracking systems where they're literally just forms that you fill out. And then the new age applicant tracking systems, which are more of the paradoxes, the fountains, you the ones that are more chat-based, the ones that are more mobile-based. Which one are you? Do you have chat functionality or are you currently just in a form mode? Hannah Peet (13:45.582) Yeah. Hannah Peet (14:00.973) Okay, so no, we're not in full mode. have AI features pulled through the platform. So for example, we have AI generated job descriptions, we're automating our interview scheduling, we use AI for candidate screening and ranking. And we have a huge Chad (14:18.594) Any chat in there? What's the interaction to be able to do that? Is that email? Is that chat? How are you doing that? Hannah Peet (14:23.449) So it's email and Slack. We don't have a chat bot. If that's something that gets requested from our SMB customers, and that's something we would obviously look at, it isn't something that's come up yet that people want, but it's not to say something that we're not exploring. Chad (14:31.534) Mm-hmm. Joel (14:41.045) Who's your competition? I have to say, I've been in this business a long time and when I saw white label ATS, thought, huh, okay, all right. mean, white label job boards have been around forever. Who's your competition? Who you, you know, who keeps you up at night if anybody? Hannah Peet (14:43.269) Good. Hannah Peet (14:58.271) And so the competition for us would be a HRS or an HRM that would decide to either build their own potentially, or to acquire a standalone point ATS solution. So there's not a kind of traditional competition. But I think when you look at the HRS and the HRMs from the conversations we've had, they don't want to invest the time and money into building their own ATS and the distraction that that would then be to their kind of core business. So yeah, as a Chad (15:10.99) Mm-hmm. Hannah Peet (15:27.927) as a business, you know, we're keen to obviously quickly expand in this area. Joel (15:34.837) Help me with the messaging a little bit. Again, I've been doing this for a while and like white label ATS I get, can process that pretty easily. But if I go to your site, which I am right now, you're an all in one recruitment platform, virtual recruitment platform, hiring without the hassle. mean, you look like a rippling competitor, Chad mentioned paradox. Hannah Peet (15:51.363) Yeah. Joel (16:00.863) But then when I go to LinkedIn, it's we're a white label ATS. So help me, help me with why there's a, there's a messaging on your website that's different from what you're saying now and from what, your LinkedIn, like, aren't those more cohesive? Hannah Peet (16:11.875) Yeah, yeah, you're totally right. The new website, it was about to go live that talks purely about white labeling. So candidly at the moment, what you can see on the website would be us selling as it was as a kind of point solution, which is obviously where we completely moved away from. We've got a new partner integration that's about to go live. So that's kind of taken up all of our dev efforts. I was on their case to say, guys, I'm going on this podcast. I know that's going to come up. Can we get this pushed out? But it was her. Joel (16:28.414) Okay. Hannah Peet (16:41.093) Absolutely no. So the new one will be. Joel (16:42.197) Okay, then I won't grill you on your trademark date of 2022 on the current site. I'll assume that 2025 will be on the new site. Joel (16:58.941) Of those competitors, talk about differentiator because Chad and I talk a lot about the ATS business as being a race to the bottom. How are you going to not be a commodity that anyone can just download open source on the web? And that's Chad's church bells. That is not like some, some omen of death to your startup. Don't worry. It's God telling, it's God telling Chad to go to church. Yeah. Hannah Peet (17:21.157) Bye. Chad (17:24.762) That was a message coming down from up on high is what it was. Hannah Peet (17:31.269) Okay, so I'm trying to think the right way to kind of go about answering this question. I think candidly integrating fully into our HR partner and other categories of HR technology means that as a solution, customers are embedded and entrenched into using our ATS technology. And what we then get to do is completely invest our time and resource because we don't have to worry about sales and marketing into keeping candidly really at the forefront of ATS technology. I think the problem for SMBs right now is that they don't get access to great quality ATS because of the price point. But because of the way we've structured the business, we're able to really build out candidly in a way that customers really want to be using it. And SMBs want simplicity, but they want innovation and they want intelligence to make their lives easier. So I don't know if that answers the question, but... Joel (18:26.965) Well, it leads me to the question of SMBs, a lot of them at least, certainly here in the States, maybe it's different. You have a little bit different environment in the UK, but for a lot of small companies, just having Indeed and all their applicants go through Indeed and tracking them there or LinkedIn is enough. And it just comes with using Indeed. You're built differently in that you're partnering with systems they're already using so they wouldn't... duplicate on my link indeed and also doing it here. I'm just going to do it here. I just want to make sure that I'm clear on that on that process. Hannah Peet (19:00.741) Okay, so our customers, so the SMB customer would be using candidly as an ATS, but within the brand of our HRAS partner. So it's hard to say this without saying a name, but I'm really trying hard not to lens it. Joel (19:12.052) Okay. So they have to be using your partner in order to use you. Hannah Peet (19:20.087) Absolutely. Some some of our HRAS partners are looking at how they potentially might sell Candley as a standalone solution. But that's kind of to the side. I think really, Joel (19:21.182) Okay. Joel (19:29.745) Okay. And how does a typical relationship work? Are you an API first business where they just plug in your APIs? Are you like a sub domain where they go to a different site? Is there a revenue incentive for them to choose you over someone else? Like talk about that partnership because it sounds really integral to your success and how many partnerships do you have? Hannah Peet (19:47.695) Yeah. Hannah Peet (19:51.683) Yeah. So we're deeply integrated into the partner. It would be a sub domain that would be created, but then, APIs to essentially enable a user to seamlessly come through. So a user has to be approved and pre-authenticated to come through from an HR system into the candidly part of the system. And then there's obviously APIs where we're pulling and pushing data between the two platforms. So we would create a white label integration in under six weeks. And in that time, all the APIs and the integrations would be set up. All the UI would be configured to make sure it looks completely on point. And just going back to your point about Indeed, what we would also be doing is looking at a partner's users to understand which job boards they want to be using to make sure those integrations are in place from Candidly to push their jobs, for example, onto Indeed. And then those applications would be pulled back through into Candidly as our white label partner. Chad (20:50.936) So let's go ahead and jump into some of the, some of the technology itself. Let's, let's talk a little bit about matching. How does your system match or score candidates into roles? Hannah Peet (21:01.079) Okay, so we're using AI to match the job description to the candidate. So we give a score out of five, essentially, to the recruiter so they can see how good a score is. We don't then make a hiring decision based on the AI. But what it does do is give a guide. When we were speaking to SMBs very early on, they were in the middle of lockdown and they were spending up to 75 % of their time on screening CVs and interviewing scheduling, which is insane when you think that in the middle of lockdown, they should be focusing on employee wellbeing. So what we're trying to do is through candidly is to make it simple and guiding and to give them the how as to essentially how to hire. So as an SMB, you'd be able to look at all your candidates, hundreds of applications that are coming in from your job boards and be able to look at who we're saying are the top performing candidates. Chad (21:59.896) So AI says nothing there. What does the AI actually use to be able to discern whether Chad or Joel actually meet the requirement? Hannah Peet (22:09.401) So it's reading the CV and it's looking at the job description to essentially form a match. Chad (22:14.592) Okay, okay. See how easy that was? That was so easy. So interview scheduling, same kind of thing. So interview scheduling, technical tests, how are those performed? Are you sending emails to candidates saying next step in the process, click this link, et cetera, et cetera. How are you currently doing that with your providers? Hannah Peet (22:18.309) you Joel (22:26.549) you Hannah Peet (22:35.705) Yeah, sure. It's like Calendly, not candidly, Calendly, but on steroids. So essentially, what it will do is it works across different time zones, and it will look at multiple people's diaries, and it will pull out available time slots. The user can say, obviously, if there's days that they don't work, or times that they want to block out, for example, that they don't want interviews to happen in, and then those times will be sent to the candidate. The candidate will then select Chad (22:40.494) Ha ha! Hannah Peet (23:02.667) which times they want to select or for their interview. And then it will just automatically arrange the interview and schedule it into everybody's diary. And that's all through the system. it's trying to basically take all of the pain points that we identified out of the issue, out of the hiring process. Technical testing is obviously another one. We've pulled through thousands of technical tests within the platform. As a user, you would then select which technical test and the system would automatically send it to the candidate if they're at that stage of the interview process. They would then come. It's auto automated. Yeah, all automated. So the user then completes the technical test. It's even recorded when they're completing the technical test to make sure they're not going off to search on chat GBT for the answers. Chad (23:37.25) Is that manual or is that automatically attached to the job description? Okay. Okay. Hannah Peet (23:53.613) And that technical test score is then pulled back through intercandidly. So as a recruiter, I can look at my system and I can see either the AI match score to the job description, or if they've moved through the different stages of the interview process, you can then see the interview score that they may have had, the technical test score that they've received. And we also have video Q &A pulled through into the platform as well. Chad (23:53.666) Mm-hmm. Chad (24:17.614) Okay, so you've got soft skills. That's kind of hard to match. Hard skills, which we just talked about to some extent. Areas of concern. Talk a little bit about that and then suitability because those are usually kind of like gray areas for companies. How do they tweak that to be able to meet their culture versus what your platform says are areas of concern and suitability? Hannah Peet (24:47.589) OK, so we're not showing areas of concern. From our perspective, it would be the interviewer that would then interview the candidate and then through the digital scorecards, write their notes in terms of cultural match, et cetera. So we haven't gone into that area just yet. From our perspective and talking to SMBs, and now we obviously have feedback from lots of customers using the platform. Chad (24:58.499) Gotcha. Chad (25:04.642) Mm-hmm. Chad (25:12.334) Mm-hmm. Hannah Peet (25:12.389) I think one thing that is coming through is an SMB customer wants simplicity in terms of hiring and the hiring process. So there's lots of really cool features that Alex and I would love to put into the platform. But the key thing for us is, is it something that a customer is actually going to want and is going to pay for? So that's the kind of, I guess, the starting point for us when it comes to our product roadmap. Joel (25:37.107) Any idea what the total addressable market is for your product? Hannah Peet (25:41.709) I work this out as 13 billion. So what I'm looking at is the the size of the SME market that are using HRIS customers. So globally. Chad (25:53.132) Is this only Europe or is this also US? Okay. Joel (25:57.119) Globally. Globally. Talk about threats. Maybe it's simple minded. Don't you forget about me, Chad. It's simple minded to think that why doesn't smart recruiters just create a product that, smart recruiters for HRIS, and it's a white label thing that any ATS does. We know that their businesses are challenged in the race to the bottom. Talk about threats because that seems like an obvious one to me. Chad (26:00.088) She was glowing to market, by the way. Hannah Peet (26:02.637) I am glowing. Chad (26:07.054) You Hannah Peet (26:25.221) Sure. So we have obviously considered whether existing ATSs would want to white label their own product. I think if they were to do that, they would be cannibalizing their own direct customers. And HRAS, we will sell an ATS solution at a much lower price point than a standalone solution. So I think it would be pretty hard for smart recruiters with the thousands of customers they have. Joel (26:46.773) Mm-hmm. Hannah Peet (26:52.197) they would have to say to their HRAS partners, hey, you can do this, but don't sell to all of these customers because we're already selling to them at a higher point. Also with our HRAS, remember they're doing a revenue share model. So our HRAS partners are super motivated to obviously be selling candidly as their own solution. I... Joel (27:11.829) Do you any plans to have a marketplace like them where people can build on your platform or no? Hannah Peet (27:17.921) Not yet, but it could certainly be one to consider. Not yet. I will consider anything if it's going to increase the value of candidly. Joel (27:18.739) Not yet, not yet, not yet, okay. Joel (27:24.991) We'll consider it. Talk about marketing. A new website, I assume, means new plans and strategies around how do we get this thing out there? I can certainly look at maybe SEO is a weakness. There's no, when I search white label ATS, you're not there, you're not advertising, but you don't have a website yet. So talk about what's coming from the marketing standpoint as you launch this new phase. Hannah Peet (27:33.733) Yeah. Hannah Peet (27:45.007) sure. Yeah, so so we definitely need to make sure the market is more aware of the solution. I think because we're pretty much creating a new category within HR technology, we need to educate people first on why they should be white labeling candidly. So We are increasing obviously our LinkedIn presence because that is where a lot of people go after we've initially reached out to them. The new website, as you said, and making sure that it is SEO. anyone puts in a white label ATS, that we should come up as being kind number one for that. But I think more than that, people don't think of white label ATS because it's never occurred to them because it's not a dumb thing in the market. Joel (28:17.333) Mm-hmm. Joel (28:25.781) Mm-hmm. Hannah Peet (28:25.827) So what we're trying to do is work with HR tech influencers who have strong connections in the market to introduce us to the CPOs and the CEOs of these kind of HR asses and leveraging our networks and those of our investors to make introductions. Because as soon as we have conversations with HR as partners. they completely get what we're doing and we have a very high conversion rate. So it's just making sure we get that out as quickly as we can to make more people aware of what we're doing. Joel (28:49.717) Mm-hmm. Joel (29:00.053) Okay. Chad, I don't know about you, but this sounds really fucking expensive. Like really pricey. This, whether it's in pounds, euros or dollars, this sounds really, really, really pricey. Hannah, talk about the pricing structure. How much am I going to pay? Is the, is the fee on the, the, customer, the employer, is it on like who's, who's paying and how are you getting yours? Hannah Peet (29:20.847) sure. Chad (29:20.876) And can I pay in Florence? That's the question, because I only have Florence. Hannah Peet (29:24.229) Let me check that one with Alex. So I defer the difficult questions to her. So our partner will pay a monthly licensing fee, which starts at around two and a half thousand pounds, depending on obviously the size of the HRS partner. And then we have a revenue share model with that partner. And that all depends on how many customers they can essentially Chad (29:29.262) Ha Hannah Peet (29:52.741) take candidly out to the SMB partner will SMB customer sorry will pay anywhere between kind of 1800 pounds for the year up to 5000 plus for the year obviously depending on size of customer. have to Joel (30:06.975) So as a partner, I could just pay you and give it to my customers, but the incentive is you pay, but then also charge your customers and market it as yours. So then that's more money for both of us. Okay. Hannah Peet (30:20.165) Exactly, exactly that. Because if you look at the HR IS market that has their own kind of, I guess, inbuilt ATS, they charge their customers as an add on for that. The challenge is, I have talked to one well known HR AS who actively say not to buy their own ATS and to go and buy a point solution. So it's incredibly expensive. So what we're trying to do is give the benefit of Joel (30:41.277) Right. Yeah. Chad (30:41.304) Yup. Hannah Peet (30:46.745) brilliant ATS, the quality of standalone ATS technology to the HRAS so that the SMB partner can have the SMB customer can have the beauty of that kind of consolidated solution. So they get best in breed at each point of the process, which is the key to this. Joel (30:58.601) OK. Joel (31:03.665) All right. All right. Hannah, take a deep breath. You are done with the Q &A portion of the firing squad. However, the toughest part may still be in front of you. It's time to face the firing squad. Are you ready? Hannah Peet (31:07.989) Hannah Peet (31:17.405) I think so. I am. Bring it on. Bring it on. Joel (31:18.965) I think so. Where's the confidence Hannah? Where's the confidence? All right Chad. All right Chad you're up. Chad (31:26.446) Sorry, I had to finish the last of my do-ville. Okay, so I have three words for you, Messaging, messaging, messaging. This is not just about the individuals using the system from the standpoint of the employer, but it's also about the candidates, right? And that's where we're moving. So focus on messaging. Love the Slack piece. Email's great. Not enough? Not enough? 2025. Looked on YouTube. Joel (31:29.407) Doodle. Chad (31:54.446) It's been two years since you put any content out there. Come on, it looks sweet, it looks great. Get out there, do some more marketing. 1.4 million in five years, not much. And if you don't need a lot, that's great. If you're bootstrapped, that's great. If your burn rate is low, that makes me happy. You've listened to this show before so you know. SMB and SME sucks, kids. Everybody knows it. spending money hand over fist for SME markets just to be able to get those little bitty crumbs that are out there. Now a lot of those crumbs is a pretty big pie, although it's very hard to get to unless you're white label and partner. Find pain points for those bigger platforms, create fluid and white labeled integrations. Then you have smaller sales forces and salespeople are a headache. I know, cause I was one. Joel (32:38.985) partnerships. Chad (32:51.628) Less marketing people, less spend, right? Less people asking you to open up the wallet, less spend. Now, HCMs, they buy applicant tracking systems all the time and they fuck them up. And we're about in the cycle right now, right? Where they're looking to prospectively buy new ones to be able to acquire. And I think that you are in a great position because so many of these platforms have bought applicant tracking systems that are now known as what we hate to call, but like to call, legacy. You can be the new kid on the block, you can be the white label kid on the block, you can be the one that actually stealths in for that acquisition with low amount of funding, which means higher amount of return for you. I love this, I can't wait to become an investor. This is a big applause from Chad. Joel (33:29.311) sexy. Joel (33:42.161) my God. my God. He's already putting his money where his mouth is. Good God. Euro, euro chat is out of control. Everybody hero too much sunshine and beer. go to, go to church, go to church, man. Go to church. All right. All right, Hannah. How do I follow that up? Look, I, I love the idea too. I love when we come on this show and their ideas that are sort of in plain sight that we never think about. Chad (33:49.035) You Hannah Peet (33:56.453) Keep drinking the beer Chad, this is awesome! Chad (33:56.942) It's beautiful. Joel (34:12.429) white label job board. Sure. you know, my long time ago when I was in the job board space, we built little career sites for people. put them on sub domains and they clicked a little jobs link and they went to, to search for jobs. it was a great idea then it's still a great idea. Now I just, there's just not a lot of businesses that are doing this white label ATS thing. Like I had to go to Google and see who, who does this. People like Jonathan Duarte at go hire, you know, that's been probably that's Chad (34:38.413) Yeah. Joel (34:39.433) That's probably been a landing page since 2003 on his website. That's still there. He doesn't even offer it as a service probably. so I love the idea. mean, my only, my only issue is just. You pivoted there somewhere. you made a decision like this is where we're going. And it looks like you're just starting to get on that track. You need to put up a website that mess that messaging what you guys do. Chad (34:44.44) Yes. Hannah Peet (35:02.703) Yeah. Joel (35:05.17) You need to market this in a way you don't spend a lot of money, like get the SEO, right? Get some pay per click stuff, do a little stuff on your LinkedIn. Like I don't think you need a lot of partners. One partner could make this business and you were, you were pretty, you're pretty coy about who this partner was. maybe they're huge and they're going to like launch you into the stratosphere. But well, five, like you don't need a lot and don't put all your eggs in one basket. But I mean, look, SMB suck, but they're doing the selling for you. Hannah Peet (35:17.464) Absolutely. Hannah Peet (35:21.631) Bye, five partners. Chad (35:23.928) Five partners, kids, five. Woo. Joel (35:33.397) All you are is a little radio button that says, yes, I want an ATS and your partner makes money. You make money and everybody's, you know, fat and and giggly. So I love the idea. just, would like to have seen you farther ahead with the website and the marketing and the messaging and maybe a sales staff. I don't know if you need to raise more money, so I'm not going to, I'm not going to ding you on that one. I think that with a few good connections and you could, you could have this thing off, right? So. I would be with Chad on the big applause if you were like maybe six months down the road from now and had some things to show for it from a marketing and messaging standpoint. for me, it's a golf clap, but I'm totally leaning towards the big applause in six months when, when you, when you come back and let us know that the, new website is up. So, so a little split there. Hannah Peet (36:21.413) Thank you. Chad (36:21.902) We'll see you at Wreckfest. Joel (36:24.085) But leaning on, just can't do it without a website. know, the trademark of 2022 on the footer just does it in for me. Uh, correct that. And, maybe we'll, maybe we'll talk. so congratulations, one big applause and apparently a new investor, uh, in Chad and, you've survived, you've survived the squad. Hannah Peet (36:31.333) you Hannah Peet (36:39.255) I've literally, Chad, let's chat after this. I'm honest, I can't tell you how happy I am. My son is going to be delighted I didn't get the firing spot, so thank you. Aldi, Aldi. Chad (36:48.046) Is that Aldi? Aldi is gonna be? Joel (36:51.793) I'll be sure. Hannah Peet (36:53.869) I'm never going to live this down, but anyway. Joel (36:55.673) I'll be sure the unibrow sensation of the 1980s. All right, Hannah, for those that want to know more, don't, don't go to candidly.com. Don't do that. We, we are candidly. I got all my sisters with me. Chad, that's another firing squad in the books. Hannah, thanks for joining us. Congratulations. We out. Hannah Peet (37:06.007) No, we are Candidly. I should sing that. Chad (37:10.744) sisters and me. Hannah Peet (37:16.569) Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Chad (37:19.874) We have to vote.

ALERT: 🚨This episode is NOT SAFE for corporate Kool-Aid drinkers! 🚨 Jamie Dimon is leaking (not like that… we think). Klarna is lying (again), and Sasquatch is now moonlighting as an economic forecaster. What’s next? LinkedIn turning into a Tinder knockoff? Oh, wait… that already happened. Chad, Cheese, and Emi break down the latest insanity in the world of work, leadership tantrums, and AI-driven BS. Buckle up, buttercup. It’s gonna be a ride. 🎢🔥 PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:31.822) Once upon a time we were falling in love, now we're only falling apart. Hi kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel, the Dictator Cheeseman. Chad (00:41.7) This is Chad, is that a banana in your tailpipe or are you just happy to see me sew wash? Emi B (00:46.596) This is Emmy. I'm definitely happy to see you, Berydugo. Joel (00:52.482) And on this episode, Jamie Diamond leaks, Klarna lies, and Sasquatch scares the bejesus out of everyone on this podcast. Let's do this. Chad (01:06.522) Okay, I get home the best thing. You see, Emmy is, she's in Europe and that kind of makes me sad because I'm not in Europe, but when I come home, I get gifts. I get gifts. So this was waiting for me. This is from our friend Tracy Parsons from Flockety. Joel, I think you got one too. Los Angeles Distillery. Apparently this has won some awards. So I can't wait. High tide, straight right. Thank you. Joel (01:06.624) Emmy's in the house! Emi B (01:08.098) Whoop whoop whoop! Guess who's back! Joel (01:13.218) The tide is... Joel (01:18.253) huh. Emi B (01:19.257) Ooh! Chad (01:34.628) Tracy Parsons and our friends over at Flock. Joel (01:36.014) Nothing like some LA whiskey, because nobody does it like them. Chad (01:40.299) I'll do it. It looks good. Looks good. Joel (01:43.694) So I have a question for you guys. I have question. Would you accept a LinkedIn connection request from someone whose profile picture was featuring them in a wedding dress? Emi B (01:43.8) very jealous. Chad (01:53.88) Yeah, why not? Joel (01:54.114) Yeah? OK. All right. Emi B (01:56.974) Why? Chad (01:57.23) You do you. You do you. Why? Why? Would you not? Would you not or what? I said, would you not or what? Joel (02:00.652) And it's not a wedding planner, by the way. It's not a... Do what? Emi B (02:01.282) Yeah. Joel (02:06.956) I was just, it's the first I've been on LinkedIn a long time. I've seen some crazy shit. We're going to talk about more crazy LinkedIn shit later, but I've just never seen a wedding dress. was, a little unnerving, but I I'm in the wrong because most people seem to think that it's okay. Chad (02:09.56) Never seen it? Okay. Emi B (02:18.147) It's shown in- Emi B (02:22.34) nothing wrong with that, know, showing a little bit of their personal life. Or did you think she was hitting on you? that what you're suggesting? Joel, will you marry me? Joel (02:28.278) No, was not, it was, she did not create, she did not create a profile. Although I do agree there are profiles that are clearly like, I'm sexy, but I don't, I'm not real. Connect with me and I'll try to sell you life insurance. Like I do agree that that exists, but I don't think that this particular request was, was that. okay. This is why we have this show. So I can grow, I can become a better person. Chad (02:36.54) yes. Emi B (02:37.922) Mm-hmm. Emi B (02:47.396) So you know that exists because you clicked on it and go, yeah, God, you're sexy. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely fine. Yeah. Absolutely. It's 2025. Yeah. Joel (02:54.996) and see the world from different perspectives. So thank you. Wedding dress is okay. Chad (02:57.24) You do you. That's mine. Chad (03:04.932) Yes. So. Joel (03:07.148) And did you guys see a, so, so Netflix little podcast talk here real quick. net Netflix is apparently looking to get into podcasting. according to this is fine. This is business insider. According to four people, this is the story. According to four people, they must be really influential people, with the, with, knowledge of the matter spoke to the company. they say that Netflix is quote, exploring potential video deals. Chad (03:11.479) Okay, yeah. Emi B (03:17.304) Mmm. Emi B (03:22.436) you Joel (03:33.882) with podcasters. know that since we've moved to YouTube, Chad, and learning that YouTube actually is now the number one spot for US listeners to find podcasts. To me, it makes perfect sense that Netflix would get into this. I assume others like maybe Facebook, maybe Reddit, maybe others will start becoming a podcast platform. Chad (03:41.306) Mm-hmm. Chad (03:54.114) Yeah, so they're looking at doing it differently, which I, and I think it's right. They're, this isn't about doing like weekly podcasts like we do. It's about premium content. And I'd like to say once again, the Chad and Cheese podcast are ahead of the game. Last year, last year we launched season one of the AI sessions, which is literally, was literally the pilot season. Had four interviews, cut it up into 11 snackable kind of, kind of episodes. It was a fucking rocket ship, which is Joel (04:03.192) Mm-hmm. Joel (04:09.112) So premium. Joel (04:23.011) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:23.724) why we're in the final throes of editing season two right now, and we've already recorded season three. So yes, we will continue to push out our Friday podcasts on YouTube, right? So you've got that kind of like that normal podcast flow on YouTube, but then you take a look at the premium stuff, like we did with the AI sessions, that's more catered to a Netflix-like audience. So needless to say, we've been, I've been pitching AI sessions Joel (04:34.648) Mm-hmm. Joel (04:38.946) Mm-hmm. Chad (04:53.146) types of content to other companies. had two calls this week around that because everybody loves the premium content and how deep we actually go with that. I think it's smart. I think it's smart. Joel (04:54.753) huh. Joel (05:02.178) Mm-hmm. Joel (05:06.52) Little, little extra, you know, little, little extra something for everybody. I'm, I'm, I'm surprised at how many I'm learning how many sort of well-known podcasters make their guests come to them. Like they'll be in Austin or New York, whatever. And the guest has to come to them, which obviously is a better setting, better production, better sort of just vibe and energy. So the best ones, that's what I expect Netflix to kind of do. Chad (05:16.826) Mm-hmm. Chad (05:22.318) Yeah. Yeah. Joel (05:34.03) Um, and they have a mitts power. mean, imagine you log into Netflix and there's a picture of a podcaster and what, you, they could make podcasters. They could like blow somebody up big time if someone, you know, sort of allied with, uh, with Netflix. Yep. Chad (05:48.25) Depends on the content, yeah. I think they could, depends on the content. What you think, Em? Emi B (05:49.54) And then creator. mean, look, when I heard about it, I was like, I don't really know the difference between what they're doing at the moment and, you know, doing a video podcast. Isn't this like a TV show? What is the difference? So, no, I'm interested when they say exploring, what does exploring mean? You know, I think they're going to do something a little bit different. So I get it's a good move for them because they're seeing YouTube kind of like, Joel (06:04.896) Mm-hmm. We don't know yet. Emi B (06:19.042) dominate the market and thinking, okay, I want to get into it. So what I'm thinking is that they're going to do a slight pivot to what YouTube is doing, you know, and use those kind of video podcasts to launch TV shows. So I don't know if you guys watch sweet Bobby. Have you watched sweet Bobby on night? brilliant. Please watch it. So that's a podcast came out as a podcast is about this catfishing this woman. Like I was apparently in a long-term relationship. And when I say long-term, I'm talking about six years relationship with someone that she'd never met. Joel (06:32.184) Mm-hmm. Chad (06:36.174) Hmm. No. Emi B (06:48.684) And then turns out this person wasn't the person she thought it was. It would turn out to be a friend. And now Netflix did a documentary on it. So I think that they're going to do something like that. Let's do a podcast, do the video podcast, use that to launch a show. That's going to, that's a differentiator to YouTube. Chad (07:04.693) One of the things that, so Netflix tried to get Call Her Daddy and some other podcasts and they lost and they lost the bidding war. So what they're thinking of is one of the reasons why it looks like they're going to more premium content is because they can go to Call Her Daddy and say, hey, we want you to do a special project. Continue doing the stuff that you're doing with Spotify or wherever you're at, but we want you to do a special project, which is again, kind of like the parallel that I'm running. We do this weekly show. Emi B (07:10.572) Mmm, yeah, that. Emi B (07:19.844) Mm. Joel (07:24.248) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Emi B (07:27.982) Just one more show, yeah. Chad (07:33.668) but we also have these special projects that we put together. So I think they're gonna go down that, pretty much that line of thinking because you can still get some of these very exclusive, but yet already on contract podcasters to do special, special content. Emi B (07:40.931) Yeah. Joel (07:46.659) Yeah. Joel (07:50.008) Yeah, that's interesting. Kind like Mr. Beast shit. Yeah. And, and not that anyone asked me, but I would like to see a Hot Ones style show with Steven McGrath doing different scotches. Emi B (07:51.172) I'm interested to see. Yeah, 100%, yeah. Chad (08:02.97) yes. I agree. I agree. do agree. I do agree. Yes. Joel (08:05.486) Just not that anyone asked me, but that's what I like to see. And speaking of Stephen McGrath. Emi B (08:06.681) Yeah Chad (08:13.079) It is. Joel (08:13.354) It is time for shout outs. Emmy, what you got? Emi B (08:16.42) Right, so I woke up this morning, did my usual thing of opening my iPhone. I've got a brand new iPhone, by the way. It's iPhone 16 Pro Max, love it. And open up TikTok. Yes, I'm so happy. And you know what I heard? Do, do, do, do. They're not like us. They're not like us. Does this mean anything to you? Okay, so if it doesn't mean anything to the audience, Will Ferrell was on the SNL 50th anniversary. Chad (08:39.034) Mmm. Emi B (08:44.612) doing some kind of remake of Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us. It was amazing. And I'm not a Will Ferrell fan. I was pissing myself laughing. I was like, what the hell is this? I must have played it on repeat over again. So Will Ferrell, you are my shout out for this week. Joel (08:44.942) Mm-hmm. Chad (08:58.362) Well, and why this is so timely is because Kendrick Lamar just did the Super Bowl, right? That was one, that song was the one that they couldn't believe that he actually sang about Drake being a pedophile, right? So very timely, yes, very timely, very smart, Will Ferrell jumps on it. And if you've ever seen SNL, if you haven't seen this, Will Ferrell has this... Emi B (09:04.055) Loved it! Emi B (09:09.474) Yeah! Drake! I know. Did you see the smile though? Yeah. Genius. Chad (09:23.578) this music teacher kind of skit that he has with this. can't remember who the lady is, but she looks like an old music teacher and he looks like a music teacher and they're just singing like these new songs, which is when they started, I was like, holy shit, this is like on point. It was awesome. It was awesome. Emi B (09:28.866) Yeah. Yeah! Emi B (09:36.268) It's amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. They were trying to like hit that A minor, but it was like, A minor, A minor, A minor. Like honestly, please watch it. It's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (09:43.213) Yeah Joel (09:47.832) Hot mic, hot mic. Was that one, that's the one? Okay, I do know that skit. Chad (09:49.562) Wow. Joel (09:54.52) By the way, as someone who has been alive for most of SNL's history, what an amazing feat that they've had. That show has been the same format more or less for 50 years and it just works. yeah, shout out to them. I watched a lot of it, not that part, obviously, but it's quite a feat to go that long and have the same format and still be successful. So a small shout out to SNL for sure. Chad (09:59.098) Mm. Emi B (10:06.094) Really? Yeah. Emi B (10:11.16) Okay. Chad (10:14.606) Yeah. Yeah. 50 years. Jesus. Yeah. Well, I've got a shout out to our friend, Jason Putnam. Go ahead and play that beautiful beam footage, Joel. Emi B (10:18.678) Yes. Joel (10:26.626) Jason Putnam. Joel (11:01.122) All right. Chad (11:01.764) So a new CEO in the space. Jason's been in the space for a very long time. He's been mainly on good market revenue driving side of the house now. He's gonna be driving pretty much the ship there at Vetti. I do love the background though. I love the Captain America shield, the Thor hammer. Yeah, he's... Joel (11:24.042) Yeah. It's like big, it's like big two featuring Jason Putnam instead of Tom Hanks. first, first bit of a device is CEO. Now you have to get a decent mic because you can't, can't do those talk in the computer stuff anymore. You got to get a good mic. Chad (11:36.6) Yeah, that's where your marketing person, hint, hint, needs to square you away. Let's get this done. Joel (11:41.866) Antent wink wink, yeah. Emi B (11:42.212) You Hmm? Joel (11:47.458) By the way, little known fact about Jason Putnam. He spent time at job Fox for the old timers in the industry, actually time at job Fox and Oodle. If you want to go real, real deep cut on that one. Yeah, that is a deep cut because, because we, we go deep here on the show. Everybody. All right. My, my shout out goes out to, to KFC sort of a somber shout out for me. this one, this one hits home, not just because I like a good bucket of chicken, Chad. I'm. Chad (11:54.18) Jesus. Wow. That is a deep cut. That's a very deep cut. Chad (12:09.614) herbs and spices. Chad (12:14.02) You do. You do. Joel (12:16.172) I'm usually from the Louisville, Kentucky, Anna area. As if you're from the area, it's the sun always shines on Kentucky, Anna. so this, this business has been near and dear to my heart. Little known fact about me, is, that, that way back in the day, that's right. History lesson kids. Okay. So one of my first jobs in high school, I worked at KFC. It was known as Kentucky fried chicken back then. they, they went to KFC because they wanted more of a global reach. lot of people don't know them as Kentucky fried chicken. Well, they are moving to Texas. And frankly, for me, Texas fried chicken doesn't have quite the ring that Kentucky fried chicken does. But my first job in the eighties, one of my first jobs in the eighties, I was the chicken little guy. Emi B (12:43.79) Yeah. Chad (12:43.801) Yeah. Joel (13:04.216) Chad, don't know if you remember chicken littles, but they were, they were, they were, they were a 39 cent sandwich. They were like a biscuit or like a roll, not, not, not more like a roll than a biscuit. And it had like a big chicken nugget, like a flat chicken nugget. had mayo and it had pickle. And these were like little chicken littles. And I, that was my job. So, so KFC, like kind of where I'm from, I still have family in the area. Chad (13:07.047) Tenders? Chad (13:12.878) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Emi B (13:24.74) That was your job. Joel (13:30.828) near and in my heart. I had to go back to YouTube, Chad, and I wanted to see if they had the commercial for the Chicken Littles. So sure enough, God bless YouTube, they do have the commercial. So I want to play the 30 second clip just to walk with me down memory lane, will you Chad? Chad (13:34.49) Chicken little. Chad (13:47.002) I'm there for it. Emi B (14:04.856) What? Chad (14:17.569) my god. Joel (14:17.614) So before you say your, your only job was chicken little's these things were 39 cents and people would roll up and order 25, 30 of these things. And I would have to make them. They were, they were delicious. a little in fact about Kentucky fried chicken, let you take the stuff home or at least they did at the end of the day. so would bring buckets home of chicken and my dad would act like it was Christmas. He'd be like, what'd you get? What'd you bring home? Like, Chad (14:34.254) Mm-hmm. Emi B (14:39.684) you Joel (14:41.452) I got some crispy. got some original. I got a few fries. I got the wedges. We got some biscuits. It was, I gained 15 pounds and it. Chad (14:48.09) You were you were the specialty guy at restaurants at McDonald's you were the McDLT guy And and you were the chicken littles guy. So you were literally like the restaurant specialist you could go you can put that on your CV. That'd be awesome Joel (14:53.644) McDailty guy, yeah. Emi B (14:59.394) I love that. Yeah. Joel (14:59.788) Yeah. If, if, if they ever bring that shit back, I am, I am set baby. I am set. Good God. Good God. I never brought home whiskey, as, as a high schooler though, Chad, I always wondered what whiskey, some good whiskey, some Jack Daniel's and some, some chicken would taste like. I maybe I'll have to rediscover that. Chad (15:04.142) Ha Emi B (15:04.652) You're in! I was the original! Chad (15:07.618) Hot side hot, cool side cool. Chad (15:18.67) Yeah? Well, if, if you go to ChadCheese.com slash free, you can actually register for whiskey. That's right. from our friends at Van Hack. We actually talked to Ilya this week. but two bottles of whiskey. Got to register. T-shirts. We've been seeing Chad and cheese t-shirts all over social media. Everybody loves them. can't get out of them cause they feel so good. that's from our friends at Aaron app. Joel (15:40.622) Yeah. Chad (15:47.972) bourbon barrel AIDS syrup from the boys up north at Kiura. Of course, beautiful syrup from Canada. Joel (15:52.216) Mm-hmm. Yeah, Canada. Chad (15:58.01) craft beer from those data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. And if it's your birthday, you might win some rum with plum. Go to Chadcheese.com slash free win, win. Joel (16:16.428) That's right. Another trip around the sun for listeners. Andrew mall, Ryan Filiman, Maria and yeah, Ross Granger, Laura Washington, Jim Carragher, Rebecca Horn, Farah Rivas, Ali merges, Dan Albani, Krista Brenner, Mario, cult Mueller, Ethan Bloomfield, Mike Weston, Kate Ruddick, Dave Amos, Kevin Burgess and Charlotte Alvarez. Skull Charlotte to those people. And tonight. Chad (16:32.73) Excuse me. Chad (16:40.58) Wow. There we go. Joel (16:45.55) Emmy, probably don't like hockey, do you? Probably not a hockey fan kind of sorta. Ice hockey. Yes. Yes. So, so I don't know if you've kept up with this, Chad, but I, I married a Canadian. So it's, it's in my four. Like it's, it's, it's. So, so Trump has been saying some crazy shit about Canada. It's going to be the 51st state. I mean, he's, he's, said what he does. so they just created four nations, which is kind of a total ripoff of six nations rugby. Emi B (16:48.836) Are you talking about ice hockey or? No, we don't play, we don't do ice hockey in the UK. We do grass hockey, yeah. Chad (16:50.468) Yes, ice hockey. Chad (16:59.098) No, I've kept up with that. Yeah, I get that. Joel (17:14.134) And it's, Sweden, Finland, and America or the USA and Canada in this sort of hockey hockey thing. So America just played in Montreal. the Canadians booed the, the national anthem and then got their ass beat three to one, by the U S so tonight is the championship, in Boston, the USA versus Canada. So I, I can't take any more bets from the Canadians that I know about a bottle of whiskey. can't do it. I can't do it. If, the U S loses, I'm on the hook for like eight. bottles of whiskey to my Canadian friends and family. go USA, I guess, but it's a thing here. It's a thing here. Chad (17:52.58) Yeah, after their loss to Sweden, they better bounce back. That's all I got to say. And bouncing back, Chad and Cheese are on the road with Shaker Recruitment Marketing. That's right, Come spend St. Patrick's Day with us. The Chad and Cheese are going to be in Las Vegas during Transform at the Wynn March 17th through the 19th. Go to chadcheese.com slash event. Register there, see us at Transform. And while you are there, also register to kick back. chats, discussions, whatever you want to do and some free drinks with Joel and myself courtesy of Omar and the job pixel team. Just go to Chad cheese.com and on the homepage, click register and then you can get on the wait list. Yes, we're going, we're doing, we're doing the honeymoon suite honeymoon suite, no tigers, no face tattoos, although it should be a good time, free drinks, maybe some food, who knows. Joel (18:37.708) We're just that special kids. We have a wait list. Emi B (18:40.611) You are. Joel (18:47.79) just want Mike Tyson to show up. That's really all I... Emi B (18:49.904) Yeah Chad (18:54.052) All right, hold the presses kids, hold the presses, hold the presses, hold the presses. I just got news, a rumor that JobGet is in the acquisition mode again and they acquired a company by the name of Seasoned, which is a seasonal kind of app for, for, for, for individuals. Yeah. So yes, they are on, it sounds, sounds like JobGet is on the acquisition trail again. Joel (18:54.582) Alright, what, what? Joel (19:15.64) Makes sense. Chad (19:23.374) Good for them as we get more, if this rumor is true, we'll get more information and we will light it up next week. Joel (19:32.302) Yep, it's just a rumor kids. Chad (19:35.61) I got teased. got a tease too. Emi B (19:38.436) Yeah Joel (19:39.502) All right, let's get to some real news. Well, somewhere DJ Saul is having a good time because JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is on the hot seat this week. He leaked some audio that one of his loyal employees, I guess, recorded and decided to put out into the world about his opinions on work from home. Take a listen, kids, and we'll get your opinion on the other side. Emi B (22:29.86) Hmmmm Joel (22:30.03) All right, Chad, Jamie is fired up. Your thoughts. Chad (22:30.458) Huh. So, mean, you gotta, first and foremost, apparently working seven days a week pisses you off. But no, seriously, I mean, what sent Diamond into this OK boomer tirade? This from the Economic Times, quote, during the town hall, this town hall we just listened to, Nicholas Welch, an analyst in tech ops at JPMorgan Chase, who had worked. past tense with the company since 2017 asked Diamond whether managers could have the discretion to decide on office attendance for their teams. He explained that his seven member team spread across different countries and time zones found physical office presence irrelevant to productivity. The suggestion was met with loud applause from the from his colleagues end quote. So Welch was fired after a Daymond's or Diamond's tirade. and then rehired because I assume HR understands that retaliation isn't good for optics or plays well in the US court system. But instead of looking at this as an RTO thing, I believe it's more of a leadership discussion. Diamond is a product of the late 1800s management philosophy. Punch the clock, work 40 hours, preferably more than 40 hours. Leaders like that look at employees. like cogs in a machine, not like people. Yeah, they might say hello in the morning, slap you on the back after a big sale, but they really don't give a damn about you. Diamond is an old dog that doesn't want to learn new tricks. And that's his prerogative. But it's also an employee's prerogative, as he said, not to work there. Seems fair, right? If an employee wants JPMorgan Chase on their CV, they know what to expect. Bullpen, long hours, burnout in two years. Now, what I believe Chad (24:24.344) is exciting about this whole, you know, these types of boomer moments is the distinction of leaders in companies like CEOs, Spotify CEO, Daniel Eck, who says, we treat our employees like adults, which means work from wherever you want, just get shit done. That's a big difference from Diamond who believes iron fist micromanagement versus Eck who believes freedom to allow Spotify workers to get shit done wherever they live and enjoy the goddamn lies. I also believe, tell me what you think about this, Emmy. I also believe that we're going to see more women CEOs lean heavily into the, act, treat your employees like adults model because women understand more than men how hard it is to run a household and a fucking job at the same time. So in the end, both models are gonna, are gonna stay in the market with subtle tweaks with hybrid work. I don't think one model wins over the other. just gives us. Emi B (24:55.588) Mm-hmm. Chad (25:22.946) more opportunity of choice. What do we want? Emi B (25:23.684) Options. Yeah. Yeah. Now I agree. And I'm just going to start by saying this guy is the definition of the type of leader that I absolutely can't fucking stand. I cannot. He is living in the fucking dark ages. You know, like, and I get it. You said it like he comes from, you know, 1800s or whatever. I think he is, you know, who wants in his day and age to work seven days a week? Why do you need to work seven days a week? Why can't you get your stuff shit done, you know, in five days a week, in nine to five? Yeah. Is he modeling efficiency? No, probably not. You know, is he... No, it's like, why can't you get your shit done? You run in a company. Yeah. Why do have to work seven days a week to get everything done? You know, does he think that JP Morgan is such a big brand name that everyone is going to want to work in that type of environment, no matter what, just to get it on his resume? Yeah, he does. Chad (26:03.182) Not working seven days a week, he's not. Yeah. Joel (26:19.928) Yes, he does. Chad (26:21.198) Kids, Emi B (26:22.02) And it's like, watch, watch. When he said that, you know, people can walk out, they are going to walk out. When the market picks up and the other opportunities of recruiters come knocking at the door, other organizations come knocking at the door, they're going to walk out and then he's going to be fucked because he's going to have a hiring problem because their employer brand is now tarnished. And I just don't think he gets that. He's not thinking about it. Like you said, he thinks of his employees. cogs in a wheel instead of actually humans. He's not treating them as actually humans who are adults who can deliver without this kind of micro management control freak personality that he is. You know, so I think he's, yeah. 100%. Joel (27:07.968) I found this really fascinating. I think, I think part of the pushback is how we said it and not what he said. the seven days a week is ridiculous and everyone that watched that was like, yeah. And what was your salary? What was your take home last year? if I made that, I probably would work seven, seven days a week too. when, when COVID happened and everyone was work from home and we're never going back and this is the way that the world is going to be. think Chad and I both wondered, no, it's going to be something. Emi B (27:16.226) Hmm. Chad (27:20.356) Yeah. Joel (27:36.952) hype, it's going to be something, a mix of that. And what is it going to look like? And some companies will be remote only. Some will be at the office all the time and some will be, hybrid to me. Hybrid isn't remote because you have to still be where the company is to have that job. So that that's always been a struggle for me, but it seems to me that the way it's shaking out is if you're a big company, particularly a public company, I think Spotify is an outlier. Your ass is in the office. Emi B (27:38.403) Amen. Joel (28:06.764) I think it's going be really hard going forward for a big company that's publicly traded to have a hybrid or work from home environment. If you're a frontline worker, you've never had the option. You got to go to the factory. You got to go to the warehouse. You got to the restaurant. What did the dry cleaner like? It's never been an option for you. It seems like the sweet spot for that remote opportunity, if you're not just a gigger or have your own thing going is to be with a startup and ideally startup that is a technology startup. Emi B (28:16.804) Mm. Joel (28:34.702) if you're just starting out to get any kind of decent talent, you're going to have to have remote work. You're going to have to have that option to, to recruit those kinds of folks. So I think that's where we're shaking out as a, as least as a country, don't know as a world, how we're going. The other thing that I think that the jury still out on is the impact on young people. He says that young people are being hurt by this. They can't get in the office. certainly some. young people don't need an office. They can grow and get mentorship and do things otherwise. So I think for young people coming out of college, they're going to have to understand who do I have to work for to get the environment that I want? And for a lot of them, it's going to be, I want JP Morgan on my CV. I'm willing to do two years and slave drive and do whatever it takes. And then others will say like, that's not for me. I want to go work for a startup and I'm willing to take the risk because it's remote and I get stock options. So the. Emi B (29:11.838) Mm. Mm-hmm. Chad (29:18.745) Mm-hmm. Joel (29:28.268) The opportunities are becoming really clear and the lanes are getting set into terms of what kind of company you are. think as a business, you have to decide who are we? Are we get your ass in the office or are we Spotify? And everyone's a grownup and they can do the job that they're expected to do. Chad (29:43.258) You have to, you have to also develop your leaders to know how to manage those individuals. And that's one of the biggest issues that we've talked about for a while now is that we put people into management positions who have no fucking clue how to manage people. They're not people people, right? There were great individual contributors who had nowhere else to go because they already hit their senior whatever level and they had to go into management. And that just really with no background, no Emi B (29:48.897) in a remote environment. Joel (30:00.759) Yeah. Chad (30:13.174) education. I mean, no, it just doesn't make any sense. So what we have to do, and what these companies don't want to do like Jamie Dimon doesn't want to actually pay for his managers to go get developed to be able to learn how to manage people. He's telling you right now, I'm a micromanager, I'm going to tell you how to manage them. And you're going to be looking over the shoulder why they're in the office, right? So that's going to be the distinction. A lot of people are going with this all or none kind of scenario. Joel (30:14.307) Mm-hmm. Joel (30:34.766) Mm-hmm. Chad (30:42.668) I see that there are going to be tons of gray areas where some companies are going to be, hey, you can work from home, but if you'd like, we've got remote offices that you can go to, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You're going to be able to find what works for you. And it all comes down to outcomes. You're either doing your job or you're fucking fired. Joel (30:45.454) Yeah. Joel (30:54.338) Mm-hmm. Joel (31:02.444) Yeah. And I think that initially we, thought that technology would be a silver bullet in this process. The companies that launched back in COVID days with deal and remote and oyster. think a lot of people thought, this is the magic bullet. Like we'll be able to manage the tech will like everything will be technology based. And I don't, I think that promise didn't come to fruition or hasn't come to fruition yet. yeah, Chad, that's hard. Chad (31:14.586) Mm-hmm. Joel (31:30.862) Developing people, learning to lead like that is hard. And the easier, the easier thing to do is like, just get your bass back in the office. Let's go back to the way that it was. What I do wonder is, will we be willing to sacrifice our privacy to be remote? In other words, will we eventually technology will come around where we're going to see, look at everything that you do, every keystroke, we're to have a camera on you all the time. Like we're going to have a thing and planning in your brain. There's not, but I think. Chad (31:33.688) money. Chad (31:57.24) No reason for that. There's no reason for that. Emi B (31:59.428) I don't think that's gonna happen. I, yeah. Joel (32:00.78) I think companies will do that and that'll be the justification. You're remote. Chad (32:02.682) I agree, but it doesn't, it doesn't need to. mean, again, it's, it's end state, right? It's I get, so even if you're working in an office and when I built sales teams, we use Salesforce. I could see activity that was happening at the end of the day. I could see what's going on. So on and so forth. I don't need to keystrokes. I don't care where they're going on the web. I don't need any of this shit. Yeah. Emi B (32:23.48) You just need to see the output. Yeah. I mean, what I would say is I don't think it's that Jamie Diamond doesn't know how to lead or manage, you know, because he's, he's a CEO. He's obviously successful. So he's done well so far. What he's not good at is adapting to the current day and age and the current day and age requires people to learn how to manage people either remotely or in a hybrid fashion. And that's what he doesn't want to do. Then that's a new skillset. And that, is what's hard to learn. Joel (32:24.664) Yeah. Emi B (32:53.348) And I remember, you know, I, you know, when I, cause I used to live and work in the middle East and we were in the office, we were in the office all the time. But then when I came back to the UK during COVID, I was like, how do I manage a team when I don't know what they're doing? Some of my team members are pretty new to their role in recruiting. How am going to train someone up remotely? And it was hard because there were no resources. was nowhere, no one to teach me how to do that. And it was trial and error. literally trial and error to get there. Now, yeah, we're four years in and unfortunately, this is the new reality. This is what people are asking for. And people like Jamie Dimon, they're gonna get phased out. He's not gonna be around forever. You know, I heard rumors that, you know, apparently he's gonna retire soon. So I'm hoping that's case, you know? And then somebody else younger, more. I mean, hopefully he's not listening to this. But hopefully somebody else more forward thinking in time with it, like the current day. Chad (33:24.708) Brave New World. Emi B (33:50.936) with new skills and how to manage in this hybrid remote environment, we'll come in and take over the companies like JP Morgan. Chad (33:55.524) Mm-hmm. Joel (33:57.922) Yeah. It's also a heightened level of, of if you want to have a work in the office company, you better have an awesome employment brand or just a brand in general, because people are more likely to go to chase or JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs or Google because of the brand. Like I'll suck it up and go to the office because I can put that on my LinkedIn profile or my CV. So if you, if you're a company, it's like getting the office, you better work on that employment brand. better be amazing. Emi B (34:07.62) Mmm! Chad (34:16.377) Yes. Emi B (34:19.971) See, yeah. Emi B (34:26.98) Mmm. Joel (34:28.334) Let's take a quick break and, talk about some more corporate shit. Joel (34:36.206) All right, guys, Klarna, who we've talked about quite a bit, they don't need any people at all in their company. They got a little bit exposed by the New York Times this week. Listeners obviously know that their CEO has made bold claims that AI can handle all human jobs, including his job. And also saying that Chatbots replaced 700 customer service agents in his company. However, the claims were exaggerated. to the time, support was outsourced. Chad (34:36.666) work. Shit. Joel (35:06.006) Not automated work day was swapped in or out for deal and team Taylor. And they still have 50 job openings on their website, facing a 2026 IPO and evaluation drop from 50 billion to 6.7 billion. Ouch. the times says Klarna leaned into AI hype to mask over hiring fixes and union challenges in their home country of Sweden. But wait, there's more knuckleheadedness. Did you hear about the Y Combinator company, Firecrawl, who posted a job for an AI agent paying $15,000 a year? I'm guessing that reeks of publicity stun. But Chad, what's your take on the Klarna Y Combinator Firecrawl drama this week? Chad (35:51.502) Yeah, I've got a first off. Thanks to Alex Chakowsky for pulling together a great Klarna overview. That was great work. let's dig in real quick. So crunch base is predict. Yeah, he's, he's doing good stuff. Crunch base is predicting that, with $4.6 billion in funding, there's no more funding for Klarna. there's no acquisition in sight, which means they got one path and that's IPO. So back to what you were talking about, Alex actually put out there Klarna's valuation plummeted. Joel (35:58.4) Mm-hmm. He's doing great work, by the way. He's doing great stuff. Keep it up, Chad (36:21.038) from its all time high of 50 billion and lost 90 % of that during COVID down to 6.7 billion, right? So then how do they get that 90 % back? AI is the answer, at least claims of AI is the answer, right? And then back to the reports on Reddit suggest that customer service teams were never actually made redundant by AI instead outsourced external agency. And as you talked about before, Then they talked about how their AI is going to go ahead and displace Salesforce and Workday, right? When literally they just changed vendors, Deal and Team Tailor. So that's Klarna, right? That's Klarna. This is a huge PR stunt, really, that they're trying to mask and claim. Then there's Firecrawl. mean, welcome to the attention economy. This is nothing more than a PR stunt. And kudos for the startup for cashing in on Attention. The question is, will Attention sell their product? Emi B (36:59.3) You Joel (36:59.758) Yeah. Chad (37:20.082) Firecrawl boasts their product can turn websites into LLM ready data. And that was awesome about five minutes ago. Companies this niche and leaning this hard on an already commoditized LLM ecosystem will be a diamond dozen in three, two, yeah, right now. Both Firecrawl and Klarna are PR stunts. Firecrawl actually said, hey, this is partly a PR stunt. Joel (37:41.346) huh. Chad (37:49.54) But on the Klarna side of the house, how close is this to fraud? I mean, they're looking to go IPO. They're putting a lot of shit out there that it seems to be, at least from reports, pure lies. They're trying to get that 90 % back that they lost. But the question is, will lies lead to fraud, lead to an orange jumpsuit? Joel (37:53.998) Mm. Joel (38:12.718) Hmm. Joel (38:17.135) So there was a time Chad, when your lives would catch up with you and get you into trouble. I'm not sure we still live in that world. There's the way that you wish the world worked and the way that it actually does. think Trump is obviously a figurehead of that movement, but more than that, Elon Musk, again, Emi B (38:20.676) Not anymore! Emi B (38:29.764) Mm-hmm. Joel (38:40.59) For years, I've heard from analysts and people who know what they're talking about say that Tesla is overvalued. It's just a car company. There's nothing to see here. There's no difference in them and Toyota. You know what the difference is? The story, the story and the storyteller. For whatever reason, people have neglected the numbers, the valuation, like the just what we've historically thought of as a good company versus one that's in the toilet. Chad (39:07.482) Mm-hmm. Joel (39:07.784) And to Klarna's CEO's credit, he knows taking Elon's leadership on this, that the story matters. If he can weave a story about AI is replacing everybody, we don't need employees. He actually had an AI voice do his quarterly earnings call recently. the story, who cares about the facts? Who cares about the numbers? Who cares about the trends? The story's cool, Chad. I'm buying that stock tomorrow. So that is what is going to save them. And he's taking a cue from so many other corporate leaders in the world. And we'll see if when they go public, if it works, but history says he may be onto something. Chad (39:49.966) Feels like a hoctua meme coin is what it feels like. Emi B (39:52.356) You know what, I agree. When you say it's a good story, I think it's beautiful bedtime story. They sat there like, know, Clarners, like, you know, the poster child for efficiency with AI. Look at what we've achieved. Obviously we know it's BS, but it doesn't matter. People are talking about them. People are not, yeah, exactly. Joel (39:57.485) Emmy? Joel (40:18.028) We do now, but at the time everybody in our space was like, holy shit, we don't need any people. The guy at Klarna says we don't. Emi B (40:23.94) Listen, half the people are going to read the article and still go look at what Klan has done. It's amazing. You know, the whole world is believing lies with Trump in power and Elon Musk, you know, as vice president. Well, he's real. Well, yeah, exactly. But, you know, like people buy into this bullshit. And so it's a great. Yeah, it's a great PR stunt. It's a great PR stunt. And the names are out there. I mean, that other company, what is it called? Firecrawler? Firecrawl? Yeah. Chad (40:37.658) It's more like President Musk at this point. Chad (40:43.93) They do. Chad (40:52.036) Liar crawl, yeah. Emi B (40:53.422) I never heard of them before. How many people know about them now? Everybody knows about them now. They're a small company. So does it work? Yeah. Does it get their name out there? Yeah. And they're saying, fire call that is, they say they were doing it to attract people to apply for their software engineering jobs. Well, people are going to do that now, aren't they? So yeah, does it work? Absolutely. Is it right? No. Chad (41:13.848) I don't know if I would. I don't know that I would. If you think that they're going to be leaning toward AI, you're not going to have a job as an engineer very long. Not to mention, Klarna is not in the US, they're in Sweden. I don't know enough about the Swedish government, but the US might not lock down on something like that. The fucking Swedes might throw this motherfucker in jail. I don't know. So there's entirely different. Joel (41:27.022) Mm-hmm. Emi B (41:27.256) Hmm. Emi B (41:32.354) Yeah. Emi B (41:35.766) Yeah, but look at where the world is going. Yeah, I mean, I look at the UK, the UK like, what did you say last time? It's like mini America. Yeah, it's the same. The whole Europe. Chad (41:41.624) The UK is a small, yes, but that's not Sweden. That's not the rest of Europe. I mean, they have entirely different cultures. And just because the UK is trying to carbon copy the stupid shit that we're doing doesn't mean the rest of them. Emi B (41:55.628) Yeah, I'll beg to differ. I'll see what happens. Joel (42:00.994) Little, little side note. had a, I had a bad case of the fire crawl back in college. I don't know what's going on with that. By the way, with, with, with fire crawl, like we live in a, we live in a daily fight for attention and companies are like, how do we get, how do we get press? How do we get clicks? How do we, like, what are we gonna do? Like, somebody had the bright idea. Let's, let's post a fake job for an AI employee. And that we're going to see more of this stupid shit. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Chad (42:01.466) I Chad (42:05.178) Yeah Emi B (42:05.604) Ha! Chad (42:07.886) Next! Chad (42:24.858) Smart. Yep. Joel (42:30.53) From stupid shit to just plain scary, scare the hell out of me. Shit. the Sasquatch of statistics. That's right. Listeners know him as Toby Dayton, CEO at link up posted his top 10 predictions for 2025. It only took him a month and a half to get us his predictions for 25. Nope. Nevermind that, it had us on the ledge or at least man, the ledge, the word cataclysmic is in the title. Toby predicts the U S economy will quote. Chad (42:31.492) Toby, Toby. Joel (42:59.938) degenerate into mild stagflation with anemic growth, unemployment climbing to 5%, inflation persisting, and no cuts from the Fed. Can you scare me anymore, Toby? Chad, first, hold me. Hold me and tell me I'm okay. And the second is, what are your thoughts? Chad (43:19.278) Hold me, hold me. Yeah, I mean, so you've got the 11 that are here. I mean, Toby's an incredibly smart dude. If you listen to our jobs report we did with them for, we did with him for about a year before they got acquired. We got a good close personal time with Toby. He's an incredibly smart dude and they have a ton of data. Some of the things that he mapped out here, which is really good because we can actually dig in. So number one, the US is looking to add about 1.6 million jobs in 2025. Sounds great. We added 2.2 in 2024. The problem is the market mismatch. The types of jobs we are going to create, you're have to have two or three of them to pay your fucking mortgage. That's a problem. those job numbers doesn't really matter that much. Unemployment at the year end around 5%, which it might sound okay, I guess to some people. The problem is, Joel (43:56.6) lot. Chad (44:19.234) Unemployment isn't the problem. It's under employment, right? Again, the people who have to have two to three jobs just to be able to make ends meet. So as we start to take a look at this, I think the scariest point for me is GDP growth. I mean, if everything is on its way down, this seems like a fucking spiral. And everybody was talking about, my God, we're gonna hit a recession. No, this doesn't look like a recession. This looks like a fucking depression. And that, again, Emi B (44:22.414) Mm-hmm. Chad (44:50.167) Take me back to Europe. Jesus fucking Christ. But this is going to this is actually going to impact global markets. And that's what really sucks. Yeah. It is. It is. Joel (44:56.846) When America sneezes, the world gets a cold. So this is for everybody, more or less. Emi B (45:02.796) have not heard that phrase before. like that. When America sneezes, the world gets a cold. And I think it's true. Yeah, no, I'm going to use it. I'm going to pretend it's mine. Yeah. And you know what? I agree because I think, you know, a lot of people obviously voted the current government into the place that they are. And why? Because of he was going to do great things for the economy. But this is not showing that the economy is going great or will be going great. Chad (45:07.034) Mm-hmm. Joel (45:07.736) You're welcome. Use it. Emi B (45:31.512) This is saying that this is gonna go shit, you know? So what does that mean for people? Because when you talk about inflation, it's like, I think some people can say, okay, inflation is like a technical metric. But the reality is when you talk to the everyday person in their homes, it's not a technical metric. Yeah, they feel it. This is personal. So when people go into the grocery store, sorry, or the gas, you know, to pay for gas, or they're paying the rent, they are feeling that. Chad (45:47.546) They feel it. Emi B (46:01.644) And that means the trust in the government is going to slowly erode. What is that going to do for the government? What is that? What, how are they going to recover from it? I don't think they can. And this is a massive, massive problem. I don't know how they're going to fix it, but I think it's dire. You know, all of this is just showing dire consequences. You know, you're going to get businesses that, you know, who are going to be cautious. They, businesses don't like instability. You're going to get businesses who slow down their hiring. you're going to be at, which means what? And unemployment goes up, investment dries up. You know, there's serious consequences of all of this. Chad (46:44.324) That's number 10 there, Cheeseman. Joel (46:45.934) So Chad mentioned how smart Toby is, and I totally agree. But I'll throw in the fact that Toby is one of the more thoughtful, calculated, low-key guys in the industry. So when he writes a post with the title Cataclysmic 2025 in it, he's not just getting clicks. He is really thoughtful around this. Chad (47:01.231) Yes. Chad (47:08.388) Mm-hmm. No. Joel (47:15.18) It's supposed to be his 10, 10 predictions. He has 11. Like that's how, that's how much Toby went off the rails on this post. three of them are government related, which I think we should all be concerned with. Like Chad, when we did the show, the numbers aren't true. They're changed all the time. the chaos in Washington, small businesses report came out recently. Small businesses are scared to death to hire. Why uncertainty? Emi B (47:18.916) 11. Chad (47:32.612) Mm-hmm. Joel (47:45.39) They don't know what's going on with tariffs. They don't know what's going on with geopolitical issues. don't know inflation. Inflation is going up. went up last week or last month. And then you have the fed who says. We like, can't do anything. And when we talked to, when we talked to Toby and we started the show, he was like, Hey man, how many, how many cuts this year? This is back in 2024. think, I think he predicted four and there were two. Now he's saying there's zero. Maybe he's wrong and it's the other way around, but his data. Chad (47:59.556) You can't cut. You can't. Joel (48:14.52) if you didn't know his data is, is, collected from ATS is direct employers. Like it's real stuff. It's not ghost postings or whatever. So his data is really, really great, which is why he was acquired. So when he says this stuff, we should all really pay attention, and act accordingly. And, I'm going to do my best to get off the ledge, because he, he freaked the fuck out of me because he is not this kind of guy. He is not look at me. I'm crazy with crazy predictions. yeah. Emi B (48:39.704) God... Wild! Chad (48:43.258) Can we just go ahead and talk about boobs? I mean, come on. Joel (48:46.52) We can talk about boobs, but I will say, have to say, if, you, if you haven't subscribed to Toby's newsletter, it's on stub stack. It's called diggings on the job market. do yourself a favor, and go out and subscribe, to his, to his newsletter. And yes, we will, we will come off the ledge and talk about LinkedIn and boobs, which I don't think we've ever done before. So go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and push the stamp on your bingo card and we'll be right back. Chad (48:55.418) Mm-hmm. amazing. Emi B (49:04.683) I mean... Emi B (49:10.178) Yeah Joel (49:15.47) All right, guys, James language, a fine British lad, apparently, and a self-styled quote, business storytelling expert and quote posted a sexist LinkedIn rant comparing women's breast size to business confidence sparking. Wait for it. lot of fury online. his 200 word theory, if you can call it that paired with a Haley at well photo who I don't even know. maybe you do, claimed. Chad (49:35.962) Imagine that. Joel (49:45.602) get this smaller breasts flaunt while large larger ones hide just like marketing ideas. Sure. it drew 3000 plus angry comments in 24 hours, surprisingly with users labeling it labeling it. LinkedIn's quote worst ever end quote and calling for his ban language later gloated on Facebook, but hasn't replied on LinkedIn. Shocking again, Emmy, what's your take? on this juicy story. Emi B (50:16.1) My take is this guy is a fucking idiot. What the hell is wrong with him? Where has he been for the last 50 years? a hundred percent. And apparently he was a ski instructor beforehand, which led him to his business storytelling route. Joel (50:21.422) You Chad (50:25.946) Attention, he's looking for attention. Joel (50:27.416) But he's a business storytelling expert, Emmy. Chad (50:32.026) Yeah. Chad (50:36.96) Of course. Of course. Emi B (50:39.406) Honestly, there's so many things that went through my head when I read this article. And to be honest, I don't know what's more baffling. I don't know if it's whether or not, you know, what actually led him to write this. And then when he wrote it, what led him to hit the post button with confidence? go, yeah, this is a good post. This is going to get positive feedback. was like, no. And then what I also don't understand, how did the post stay up long enough on LinkedIn to get 3000? Chad (50:44.922) Mm-hmm. Joel (51:11.476) He deleted it. It wasn't taken off. He deleted it. Emi B (51:13.948) I was searching everywhere, who is this guy? I want to see him, I want to write on his post. Like I said, he is stupid, he is tone deaf. No one in this day and age can actually with confidence say this is something that is a positive thing to do. With everything that has happened in last couple of years, Where does it, where is this guy coming from? And if I go onto LinkedIn, they are also accountable. And look, I know some of the things you say about LinkedIn. I like LinkedIn, but here I think they fucked up because you allow this guy to stay long enough to get 3000 comments. People are calling for him to be banned, but they haven't banned him because I'm pretty sure when I did a search, although I can't see the post, I'm pretty sure I found him online. So my opinion is from LinkedIn's point of view, if you don't ban him, you're enabling him. You're saying that this is actually okay. You're saying that it's absolutely fine for people on a professional platform. And that's what it is. It's like not saying it's good to do on any platform, but on professional platform, it's okay to say this sexist comments. It's not okay. And if they keep him online, you are saying that it is okay. And LinkedIn have a duty of care to women. but it also have a duty of care to men who use this platform as a professional resource. So I'm waiting, I'm waiting to see what LinkedIn actually does. I'm waiting for this guy to also comment to see if he's brave enough since he's a professional storyteller. Cool, cool. Tell us your story, tell us your story. Chad (52:52.334) doubtful. Joel (52:53.134) We actually have a hidden mic at LinkedIn headquarters and here's the conversation that's going on right now about banning this dude. It sounds like it's not gonna happen. Sorry, I mean. Emi B (52:56.836) Emi B (53:04.5) I mean disappointing yeah Joel (53:12.312) Chad, what's always shocked me, and we don't see this because we are who we are, the amount of, I guess, harassment that goes on on LinkedIn behind the scenes. Amy, I don't know if you can speak to this or not, whether you or friends. Apparently it's quite a cesspool of dudes hitting on the ladies, whether it's DMs or comments or whatever. Like, are you seeing this or have anything that you've experienced? Emi B (53:19.364) Mmm. Emi B (53:31.652) Honestly, every once in a while I get the most stupidest comment and I'm just like, first of all, I don't know if you know who you're talking to because I'm not someone who's just gonna sit there and go, yeah, okay, fine, no problems. Or like, no, no, no, I'm not that person. I will come straight back at you. Say it with your chest. Okay, come on. I will respond equally back and I will put you in your place. So yeah, it's, unfortunately, whether it's LinkedIn or it's Instagram or it's X or Facebook. Chad (53:43.055) Mm-hmm. Joel (53:50.435) Yeah. Emi B (54:01.09) You are always going to find these people. And again, unfortunately, in this day and age, more and people are thinking that it's okay to say that. Chad (54:11.876) There's, there's with the current administration and the whole Manosphere and all that other bullshit that's happening, right? It's, like all of these fucking assholes are coming out of their, their holes. This is how they felt the entire time, right? That's how they felt the entire time. They just didn't say anything about it. Now they feel like they have a license to say whatever the fuck they want to whomever they want. Right. And, that to me is, a huge problem. but again, hopefully, you know, Emi B (54:13.869) Yeah Joel (54:17.336) Yeah, it's gonna get worse. Emi B (54:20.696) Mmm. Emi B (54:24.366) Yeah. Chad (54:41.774) I don't know that LinkedIn's going to kick him off, but hopefully, I mean, he understood that. God, I better pull this fucker down. Hopefully gets kicked in the nuts metaphorically. Joel (54:48.27) Yeah, he even had emojis of two balloons and a smiley face. Someone commented, quote, it's only Monday and we've unearthed the caveman that does not belong in this millennium, let alone LinkedIn. Emi B (54:53.284) I know, I was like, oh my God, what is wrong with you? Emi B (55:05.432) Honestly, but you know what? I'm just going to add a point. you know, when, when you say that you don't know if LinkedIn is going to take this guy down, I'm going to say that there are in conversations I've seen online about sexual health, gender equality, DEI, which gets flagged or removed of LinkedIn. But yet this was allowed to stay on for this period of time and this guy's still on there. So I'm like, what is, what is worse? It needs to be kicked out. Chad (55:24.623) Mm-hmm. Joel (55:31.614) He needs a timeout at least, because LinkedIn does give you the timeouts. Kick him out, kick him out, kick him out. Yeah, and something that's never getting kicked out is our joke of the week everybody. All right, keeping with the boob theme, what did the saggy boob say to the other saggy boob? What did the saggy boob say to the other saggy boob? Emi B (55:36.172) Yeah, kick him out. Kick it straight out. You can't come back. I don't care how you do your business. It's like... Chad (55:44.026) That was a dad joke. Emi B (55:55.692) And there's a lift up. Lift. Something to do with lift me up. No, under, no. Joel (56:02.358) No, if we don't get some support soon, people are going to think we're nuts. We out! Chad (56:14.958) We out! Chad (56:18.798) So bad.

Chad & Cheese sit down with Celinda Appleby, Visa’s global director of talent attraction, for an in-depth discussion on navigating 2025’s talent acquisition hurdles—think economic uncertainty and a turbulent job market. Celinda reveals how Visa is refreshing its employer brand to align with evolving corporate strategies through EVP 2.0, powered by research and a dedicated center of excellence. 🚀 Shaker Green Room She dives into creative wins like Olympics-inspired campaigns and a reimagined career site strategy to boost candidate engagement. Plus, a sneak peek at what’s next: targeted recruitment tools, a brand advocacy culture, and finalizing EVP 2.0. Don’t miss out—connect with Celinda on LinkedIn and explore exciting job openings at Visa! 🌐 PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Podcast Intro: 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: Who are you and why are you here? Celinda Appleby: Oh, so my name is Celinda Appleby. I am the Global Director of Talent Attraction and Recently Acquired Employer Brand. I'm with Visa. I've been with Visa about six years. I'm here because my lovely friends at Shaker invited me to sit with you today. And I'm excited to be here. Chad: Sweet. So as we look forward to Q4 and 2025, what advice would you have for your peers in that time? Celinda Appleby: I think this is a time where we have to be okay with the uncertainty. I like to roll my eyes. The economy, there's an election cycle, the job market's a mess. Our industry's continuously been facing a lot of issues. We're always first to go and last to fix everything. And I think that in efforts to stay on top, like at the top of your game, we have to embody more empathy. It's something I'm personally working on. And resilience. Because I do think it's going to be harder in '25, especially in corporate America. I think our budgets are getting cut, I think our headcount's getting cut. And so you have to really fight a little harder than you did in like 2019, for example. Chad: Yeah. Joel: How would you describe Visa's employment brand? Celinda Appleby: Visa's employment brand is currently under a refresh. We just hired about 12 months ago a brand new CEO. We just launched a brand new corporate strategy, a corporate brand. I don't know if you all watch the Olympics or not. Visa was front and center and you saw a lot of that powerful moments of taking small steps to further your life. You know, Visa wants to be a part of that from the consumer journey. So super blessed to be working with our Chief Marketing Officer on building that brand. The extension, the employer brand is an extension of the consumer brand. This is the first time we've ever been able to do this. And so we're in the beginning stages of that work. Joel: So share some of the sausage making with us. What questions? What's the brainstorming look like behind closed doors? Chad: What's happening behind closed doors? Joel: What does the opening discussions look like? Celinda Appleby: So the opening discussions are, so we refreshed the EVP in 2122. And so for me, it was a lot of understanding what has happened in your eyes that we're no longer, the employee base is not resonating with the 2122. I love to call it EVP 1.0. And so ours would be 2.0 because I do think it's a living, breathing document, changing. So a lot of the past six months, all I've been doing is building a center of excellence where we brought in people from people marketing, comms and other departments around the world to hear from them. Like, let's look at the current EVP. What do you love? What do you hate? What should be changed? And then taking that to our Steerco, which is made of a lot of SVP, it's very big people. And having them opinionate back on that. And we weren't seeing, in all honesty, this happens everywhere. We weren't seeing eye to eye with some of the changes or recommendations. And so we're currently in the research stage and that basically is three prongs. We're doing internal and external research and then we're going to conduct focus groups after that. I'm a firm believer that I can't tell anyone that we need to change our tagline or our pillars or our comm strategy without showing the data. Chad: Yeah. Celinda Appleby: And that all stems from your employees. So if we're going to tell employee stories later, we should bring the employee stories in now. Chad: Know them now. Yes. Yes. So let's take a look at, look backward in 2024. What was the biggest surprise for you over the last year or so? Celinda Appleby: Could it be work related? Like tactical? Chad: Oh yeah. Celinda Appleby: Okay. So we launched Avature about 18 months ago. First CRM that Visa has ever had. And with the Olympics, I created an email marketing campaign. The first we'd ever ran, ironically, the first one. Chad: Wow. Celinda Appleby: Outside of LinkedIn, LinkedIn used to be... Joel: Well, email is a new technology. So it makes sense. Celinda Appleby: That's why I want to say, it's honestly selling it wasn't hard because people were like, this is so safe. And they were like, but what's really going to come of it? So we messaged 18,000 people. I received 5,500 applications and no offers yet because our time is a little bit longer of a tail. Chad: Sure. Celinda Appleby: But our open ratio was 71% across the board. That means people are... So my takeaway from that is we're not messaging our candidates enough. We're not messaging our applicants enough. They want to hear from Visa, they want to learn more about Visa. So for one of my OKRs for FY25 is to continue, build a whole email marketing strategy so we're not doing one a year. Joel: Talk about the importance of social media, what your strategy is around it and maybe tactically some things that you're doing that are working. Celinda Appleby: You know, I love social media. I find that there is a little bit of a fatigue in our employees wanting to be brand ambassadors. And what I mean by that is they'll get in front of a camera and talk about what they love. They might even take a picture of your brand. But when it comes to tweeting or Facebooking or whatever people are doing, even myself, I sort of like one more post, right? Chad: Yeah. Celinda Appleby: And so to turn a culture of brand advocacy, we have to make it very easy for people and they have to get something out of it because no one wants to message their mom and dad anymore. Because that's who I think that's my followers. About their company brand. Right? One of... So I don't have many wins on social media because we're still building that out. But I want to say something that really blew me out of the water this year, we implemented Google Search Engine Marketing when a search engine optimization and an integrated strategy. At the time, when we started this in January, Google was not even the top 25 source of what do you call that? Attribution. Chad: Yeah. Celinda Appleby: And now paid search is number four and Google Search is number one. We got about 10,000 applications in a three-month period and about 30 hires. 30 hires, and keep in mind we only did this for high key market areas and technology products. So difficult roles. Joel: Talk about the organic part. Are these job postings, are they specific articles about getting a job or targeted positions for you? Celinda Appleby: So we launched a brand new career site in December of '24. And for my whole tenure that I'd been there, we'd had a desperate career site. One page, 300 across 300 countries. So a total of 300 pages that I manage. And there was no content. It was really just like search for a job. Joel: Yeah. Celinda Appleby: 24, January 24th, we launched a new page. If you go now we have about 12 pages. We have teams. It's very robust. There's still work to be done in my opinion. But what we did with search engine, we've never had that done before, obviously with 300 pages, you know. Chad: Yeah. Celinda Appleby: So we focus on key market areas, Poland, India, the US, the UK and then using all of those keywords. We drive people to the life that pages, where the teams pages and then job search. Because Google gives you a lot of credit if you do job searches at the top of the nav. Chad: Yeah. So in 2025, looking forward, what's your biggest priority? Celinda Appleby: Launching this EVP. We should be done with the research stage in November. We are promising to have a messaging done, a toolkit if you will, by January 2025. And then we move into the fun stuff of really creating a brand components, banners, photos, images, videos. Chad: Yeah. Joel: We talked about Avature. I'm sure you're looking at a lot of different solutions for the upcoming year. What are some that you're excited about or some that you are using now that are working or you're looking forward to using? Celinda Appleby: Visa is very risk averse when it comes to tools and you should be excited about that because we obviously protect your money. So our current CTO is sort of in the lean stages of not really doing too much, but we currently work with Appcast for all of our media and creative services. Looking to expand our creative capabilities a little bit in the year of '25. Continue working with Avature. Visa is also moving into ATS implementation. We're going with Workday. Who is our HRIS. Chad: Yeah. Celinda Appleby: We realize there's a lot of icks in the room for that. Not here but overall. And then higher score I think is the layer, the intelligence layer on top. For me, I'm so obsessed that there's so many recruitment marketing tools. In fact, I said to Joe earlier, I'm like, talk to me like I'm in kindergarten. What are the differences? Do we need all of them? Who's a competitor? And so I'd like some more advocacy around that because I feel like some amazing companies have popped up, but I just don't really know what everyone, how they intersect with each other. Chad: Yeah. Keep listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast as we talk about that. Celinda Appleby: Oh, 100%. Chad: But thank you for taking the time and coming and sitting down with us. If somebody wants to connect with you or maybe even, I don't know, take a look at jobs at Visa. Where would you send them? Celinda Appleby: My LinkedIn is best. I'm really boring on Twitter, but Celinda Appleby on LinkedIn. Our visa careers is visa.com/careers. Super easy. We have about 1200 open roles now across the globe, so we are definitely hiring. Chad: Excellent. Joel: Thanks for hanging out with us. Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch Big Booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No. You hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap, because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Live from the Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Torin Ellis sits down with Chad & Cheese to tackle the evolving landscape of diversity and inclusion (D&I). As some organizations retreat under external pressures, Torin delivers a wake-up call—now is not the time to step back. He challenges leaders to honor their commitments, exposes the political forces shaping DEI strategies, and reminds us that real progress demands intention. With 2025 on the horizon, he highlights the companies still doing the work and calls on individuals—especially those with privilege—to step up. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION (processing) Podcast Intro: 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. [music] Joel: Who are you and why are you here? Torin Ellis: I actually don't know why I'm here, but I'm Torin Ellis... Joel: Say more about that. Torin Ellis: Torin Ellis, diversity strategist, risk mitigator, analyst. I do all things diversity and inclusion. And I think the reason why I'm here is because you all have some interesting questions to ask of me. Joel: You came just for us, is that what you're saying? Torin Ellis: Just for the stars of RecFest. Chad: Jeez. Torin Ellis: RecFest... Joel: Too kind. Too kind. Torin Ellis: Nashville 2024. Joel: No pressure. No pressure, Chad. Torin Ellis: Indeed. Chad: 2024. Okay, so right out of the gate. Torin Ellis: That seemed like that was really thoughtful. Chad: It's because it is. Joel: You did like that. Chad: It just, it just popped up. Joel: Not scripted at all. Chad: What advice would you have to your peers moving into Q4 and then 2025 to do better about this industry? Torin Ellis: So, I mean, who are the peers? Are we talking... Chad: Your peers. Torin Ellis: Oh, my peers. Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: Oh, absolutely. So for anyone who's in the DNI space to remain committed in the face of adversity, that we don't allow the smaller voices, these individuals with podcasts and opinions that are suggesting that DNI and that's not taking anything away from podcasts and opinions... Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Torin Ellis: But individuals that are suggesting that diversity and inclusion is anything other than humanity, is anything other than focus or being focused on building high performing teams. I want you to remain vigilant, to remain fervent in your showing up to chase down diversity and inclusion. Chad: But what happens... Torin Ellis: We capitulate. It's just too much retreat. Chad: Yeah, but what happens when the leaders are actually forcing? I mean, you got guys who are leading organizations telling people to stand down, not to mention taking equity out of the DE&I. I mean there's... I mean it's like, it's like there's this vacuum and everything's getting sucked out. Torin Ellis: So listen, I mean this is six in one hand, half a dozen in another. Truth of the matter is most people need employment, they need their income. They gotta be able to take care of themselves, their families. Chad: Right. Torin Ellis: I absolutely get it. I'm not suggesting that every person gets to be a bull in the china shop. They get to run in screaming as loud as they possibly can, that we must be more committed. But what I am suggesting is that you have to challenge the leaders of your organization to be focused on first your stakeholders and then your shareholders. You don't get dividends or returns or profits or any of those things, if we don't have an organization. Chad: Right. Torin Ellis: Focus on my people. There should be no CEO allowing people outside of the organization to sit up here and suggest that DNI is not important and then say, I'm going to retreat. I'm not going to live out my human rights campaign initiatives. I'm going to come back on all of the social imperatives that I said were important. There should be no CEO that is submitting to that. And as an individual, you should have some degree of authority and voice and data to support why you are challenging them on that decision. Joel: Dumb white guy question. Incoming. Ready? Torin Ellis: It won't be the first one that I fielded today... Joel: Because you've interviewed with us before. You're calling it D and I. I'm still calling it DEI. It's been DEIB. Why change? Is that official now? Torin Ellis: No, it's not a change. Joel: Is it just preference by you. Torin Ellis: It's just brevity for the sake of the conversation. Yeah, that's all. Joel: But we took equity out. Why? Because SHRM did? Torin Ellis: We didn't... We definitely didn't do it because of SHRM. So you messing around now. You start... You trying to start something. No, I'm just doing it. Brevity for the sake of conversation. It's always going to be DEI. Joel: But they're all correct. Torin Ellis: They're all correct and honestly, I'm not... I'm not... I don't lose sleep on even SHRM in their ill-advised decision while I didn't agree with it, while I wouldn't have encouraged them to do it, while I wrote a post talking about why they shouldn't have done it. Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: The bottom line is as long as a person is committed, I don't care what the letters are. Listen, like I said in the post, LGBTQIA++ they're adding letters to their acronym, while we have organizations that are extrapolating letters from ours. We're all moving in the same direction. We're trying to do better about protecting audiences, communities, geographies, how we're developing products, services, all of the things that matter in building a high performing business. Chad: So what surprised you most thus far in 2024? Torin Ellis: The number of organizations that said DNI or DEIB is not important. Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: That surprised me. Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: Yeah, simple as that. I like, so much so of a surprise that I'm not reposting them. I don't comment on them because I don't want to amplify what I know is... Now listen, it surprised me by the number that have retreated. Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: But when you look at the facts and you understand who's doing the work in the business, there's still a lot of people and a lot of activity that's happening in DNI and that's what I'm focused on, not the people that are retreating. Joel: How much of the abandonment, I guess, in your opinion, is our customers are politically aligned here. They're telling us not to do this. So we are going to abandon it because our buyers are saying it. And what percentage are saying we're going to leave it because we don't want to be political at all. We want to make money for our shareholders and give our employees some level of financial security. In your opinion, is it mostly political or is it mostly like we just don't want to get involved, or is it equal parts? Torin Ellis: I think right now, you'd have to attribute it to the political climate. Joel: Yeah. Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: Yeah. Chad: Just about everything. Torin Ellis: The whole position of being apolitical, that was probably a position maybe a year and a half, two years ago, or maybe more like two, three years ago. Organizations, I won't call their names, but some of them made statements in public. We're going to be an apolitical organization. I get it. That's what they were doing then. I think now anyone deciding to do it is indirectly aligned to a political decision. Chad: So going forward now, looking toward 2025, what's your number one priority? Torin Ellis: I don't think that changes for me. I think it's just... How do I keep the intensity the same? How do I continue to remind people that DNI is about chasing humanity? Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: It's about having better leaders in the organization that are willing to model what it looks like to be inclusive. Chad: Right. Torin Ellis: It's about challenging organizations to develop benefit schedules that really accommodate for the lack of pay and compensation that women have experienced. I mean, we passed legislation that says that we are supposed to compensate women fairly, and we haven't lived that out in 50 years. So it's about intensifying what we know to be right and divorcing ourselves from the hyperbolic statements or positions that categorize DNI as being anything other than it really is. Like I absolutely read something a couple of days ago, and again, I'm not going to quote the organization, but they categorize DNI as a sexual extortion initiative. How do you categorize DNI as a sexual extortion initiative. And people believe that. So... Chad: I don't even know what the hell that means. Torin Ellis: Neither do I. But the point is, they put it out. Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: It'll get a whole bunch of... Chad: Press. Torin Ellis: Press and activity on the social feeds. And you got to be willing and capable of suppressing that when it's presented to you as a practitioner. Joel: So I want to leave on a positive note. Torin Ellis: Sure. Joel: The headlines go to the companies that are saying, we're out. We don't practice DNI. But I know that every day you're dealing with companies that are embracing it. And I know that you have a lot of hope for younger generations where this is just how it is. This isn't something that is abnormal. So I want you to take a few minutes to talk about the company's doing it right. Maybe examples of what they're doing and your take on the younger generations and how they view this initiative. Torin Ellis: Yeah. I mean, again, I just support the young people that have the energy, the desire, the curiosity to chase down what humanity looks like on a broader basis. As far as organizations that are doing it right, they're doing it right because they're either re-categorizing how DNI operates inside of their organization, they're still making hires and classifying the individual as the chief diversity officer, or over the diversity and inclusion programming. Organizations that are doing it right are still celebrating certain activities that are happening inside of their organization, raising awareness around causes that impact people inside of their organization. The organizations that are doing it right are not retreating from their human rights campaign initiative. They're still putting their diversity numbers up on their website. Organizations that are doing it right are still exploring ways to expand their supplier diversity footprint. Joel: Yeah. Torin Ellis: So the bottom line is it's happening in a lot of ways. And they don't always have to have the categorization of DNI over them to be celebrated. That's what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for the highlight and the neon light and the celebration. I'm looking for the substantive commitment. I'm looking for the unwavering belief that when you do DNI, you are making not only your organization better, but your people better, your communities where you do business better. That's what I'm looking for. Chad: What I celebrate time with Torin Ellis... Joel: I got one more [0:10:34.3] ____ if that's what you're doing. Chad: Go ahead. Joel: One. So we sat down at RecFest, five or so years ago... Torin Ellis: 2019. Joel: Yeah. And two white guys asked you, what can we do to move this Movement forward. And you said, speak up. I'm just wondering, five years on, is that still your advice to two white guys? Chad: And do you think we have. I think that's the thing that I care about the most. Torin Ellis: Got it. Okay, so let me answer the second one first. Chad: Yeah. Torin Ellis: Yes. I think you all have added more programming to Chad and Cheese, and not only programming, content and voices. You've covered stories. You've found stories and had discussions. I've listened to some of them. But you've also had more voices on the podcast that have talked about the subject of DNI. Do I believe still that... Absolutely. You still need to lend your voice. Sometimes you need to lend your privilege. There are rooms that you are going to walk in that I'll never be able to walk into. Not because I'm not capable, not because I'm not qualified. I'm just not invited. So I need you while you're in that room, when you hear things or you see signals or engage with signals that suggest that this organization may be a bit wayward, this organization may be curious. This organization may need a resource, a consultant. I need you to be able to say, yeah, I know this person or I know that person or whatever the case may be. Torin Ellis: So we all... Listen, I'll close it on this. Empowerment, strategic exploration, and tactical execution. The first thing is you have to have voice. We cannot be silent in the face of injustice. So you got to speak up. You got to speak up. I got to speak up. The people behind the camera, they got to speak up. You got to be empowered. You got to have a voice. You got to call a thing a thing. We're working on a bias report right now, reducing bias in HR using AI. And during one of our discussions, one person in the think tank or the focus group said, well, I don't really want reducing assumes that there's already bias. And the person said, I don't really want to assume that there's already bias in the technology. And somebody else in the focus group said, nah, we're humans. We all have bias. So let's stop tiptoeing and playing around like there's no bias there. It's there. What are we going to do to make it better? So I need you to speak up. Chad: Yeah. So for any company who wants to get you in that room, in their room, how do they get a hold of you? Torin Ellis: Torrenellis.com. Torrenellis.com. Torinellis... Chad: .com. Torin Ellis: .com. Chad: My man. Thanks for coming, man. Torin Ellis: You got it. Joel: Thanks for hanging out, Torin. Torin Ellis: Absolutely. Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back like an awful train wreck you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western, you can't quit them either. We out.

🎙️ This Week on Chad & Cheese: AI, Bias, and... J.Cole?! Strap in, kids. This week, Chad & Cheese sit down with Stefan Youngblood, the mastermind behind Black AI Think Tank and hireblack.com , to talk about the wild world where AI, job markets, and the Black community collide—sometimes beautifully, sometimes like a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. 💡 He built a 6,000+ strong Black Metaverse community.💡 He exposed AI’s built-in biases—because apparently, "Black-owned chip company" means potato chips, not semiconductors. 🍟🤦🏾‍♂️💡 Oh, and casual flex: He gave piano lessons to J.Cole. 🎹 Yeah, let that sink in. But wait, there’s more! 🔥 FOBO (Fear of Becoming Obsolete)—Is AI coming for your job or just making you lazier? 🔥 Recruiters vs. Bias—How to not  let AI turn your hiring process into a dumpster fire. 🔥 The Metaverse, Co-Pilots & Agents—Are we living in The Matrix  yet? 🎧 Tune in now, or risk becoming obsolete. 🚀 PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION 0:00:01.2 Podcast Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts, complete with breaking news, brash opinions and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls, it's time for the Chad & Cheese podcast. 0:00:25.5 Joel: Let's do this. We are the Chad & Cheese podcast, I'm your co-host Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, Chad Sowash is in the house, as we welcome Stefan Youngblood, founder and CEO of Black AI Think Tank and hireblack.com. Stefan, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast. 0:00:43.5 Stefan Youngblood: It's good to be here. Most dangerous... Did you say dangerous? 0:00:44.8 Joel: Yes. 0:00:45.1 Stefan Youngblood: Oh shoot. I didn't know all of this. 0:00:48.5 Joel: It's a low bar in HR. It's a very low bar, but yes. 0:00:51.8 Stefan Youngblood: Hey, I asked AI something about me, about Stefa Youngblood, and it says, "Stefan Youngblood is a low-lying disrupter." And if you just looked at low-lying, man, that's not good. But then I said, it's like a sniper. Yeah. Can you tell me what low-lying means? Like, I'm this... And it explained it's a good thing. You don't... Not... That level, but you do a lot of disrupting, and disrupting is my thing. 0:01:14.0 Chad: Well so, AI Think Tank, what was the genesis? Why? What do you do? Give us some background. 0:01:24.4 Stefan Youngblood: So here it is. When the metaverse started really taking off, you know... 0:01:27.6 Chad: The metaverse? Joel is already excited. 0:01:27.7 Joel: Oh, I've got a question right here. 0:01:28.7 Chad: He's excited. 0:01:30.7 Joel: Keep going. Introduce us to... 0:01:31.9 Stefan Youngblood: Imma give you a lot. I'm teeing you up for everything. So, when the metaverse started taking off, I saw what was happening, I'm in groups online with some folks, but it just didn't seem like there was much of the black community that was there. One day, on a social media called Clubhouse, I literally started a room: Black metaverse. One person came. The next room was a thousand people, showed up to talk about it, like, What is this thing? Some people who are doing extraordinary things in it. It grew and grew. 6,000 people in an ecosystem. On the backend of that, as we went through NFTs and everything, this ecosystem is growing, AI hit very strongly, and we saw an emphasis on NFTs, kind of, nosedive a bit. But AI really blasted off. Everybody I know that was involved with things like metaverse, put it on hold right now... And it's definitely on hold... And AI just blasted in. So I switched from that room, which I still have in Clubhouse, A Black Metaverse, and started a thing called, ChatGPT for beginners. 0:02:41.7 Stefan Youngblood: Now, I want you all to know, the reason I started that is... Let's see, Sam Altman released it on November 30. Some very smart people started hacking into some dangerous places in my proximity, and I didn't like it. It was... I don't understand, but I think you all had done some bad things. And they weren't bad people, they just wanted to see what we can do, as hackers. And I thought I needed to leave that room, that's when I started ChatGPT For Beginners. It blew up to 12,000 people. Then I moved it over to LinkedIn, and we call it Black AI Think Tank. The first time I launched it, I say, "Hey guys, lets meet 7 o'clock on Thursday", 400 people show up, just like that. 0:03:21.7 Chad: The first one? 0:03:23.2 Stefan Youngblood: First one, 400 people showed up. 0:03:25.0 Chad: 400 people. Now, this is online, so like a Zoom? Or... 0:03:27.9 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. No, no, no, no. It's a LinkedIn audio. 0:03:29.0 Joel: Its a Clubhouse, which I didn't think was still around. 0:03:31.0 Stefan Youngblood: Well, Clubhouse is around, dude. It's actually making a small resurgence. You can do a lot through there, it's very interesting. So I started there, still have a crowd, an audience there, but I just use LinkedIn audio. And it's kind of easy for people 'cause you can walk around doing it. Nobody's... Yeah, so 600 people, the second time we got together. And I sort of have it stream between Clubhouse and LinkedIn. 0:04:00.2 Joel: What's your background before you were doing all of this AI stuff 'cause you've been at this for a long time? What's, sort of like the... 0:04:03.2 Chad: He was a hippie. 0:04:04.4 Joel: Don't go back to the time when you had bumper stickers on a wooden... 0:04:08.7 Stefan Youngblood: Wait, you told him that? 0:04:09.4 Chad: Yeah. 0:04:10.6 Joel: As your presentation. 0:04:11.4 Chad: He was a hippie. 0:04:11.8 Stefan Youngblood: I was this, afro, and... 0:04:15.4 Joel: So, from hippie to now, what was your passion and your... 0:04:18.9 Stefan Youngblood: It's really a... So I've been doing church activity, I've been taking gospel type things around the world, but mostly in a socio-economic, really, philanthropy. Every country I go to, I'm looking for how I can create relationships that tie it into people. Haiti earthquake happens, six weeks later, I'm there on top of an orphanage to connect a group of people in North Carolina to help build a water system. And because I connected it in Skype, we can see each other in realtime. We were looking for $10,000, and they came up with $30,000 to build the system in-house. After cyclones in August in Burma, I was in there following some music projects that I was doing, and again, it was connecting people across the world. So Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and I settled down in St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, stayed there teaching. And I was teaching elementary school, and decided that... 0:05:25.0 Chad: What have you not done, Stefan? 0:05:27.3 Stefan Youngblood: So it's a... 0:05:28.7 Chad: Good gracious. I mean, you've done a lot, all over the place. And it sounds like the connection is people, right. 0:05:33.4 Stefan Youngblood: Yes. So this is good. 0:05:35.5 Chad: And connecting people. 0:05:37.5 Stefan Youngblood: This is it. 0:05:37.6 Chad: Yeah. 0:05:37.1 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. 0:05:38.7 Chad: Yeah. And I mean so... Because the Clubhouse, you were connecting people, in the Clubhouse in the metaverse, right? 0:05:42.7 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. That's it. It's kind of weird. Gary shows up, who's here with OutSolve. He knows what we're doing. I hear the story about his son. That relationship really took off. He actually said, "Stefan, I actually brought in hireblack.com, not because of that, because of you." It's really... I get what you're saying. And when you say, "What have you not done?" I'm like a strange guy. So, Mount Everest? Yeah, I've been there, done that, you know. I did Mount Everest basecamp, hired a Sherpa, and learned all these stories. But these stories, they're kind of... I'll just say, this happened last year. I play the piano, a music store calls me 'cause they sold this really high-end piano, and the owner wants piano lessons. They don't play very well. I'm watching what I say here. And he said, "Stefan, there's this guy, he's kinda young. He does rap music and stuff like that. And I think he has some CDs out, and he wants somebody he can trust to come in his place. Would you be interested in giving him some lessons? And maybe you could be, kind of, a good impression on... " He's like a rapper or something. He kept mentioning that, "His name is Jermaine, and would you mind if I had him call you?" And I was putting two and two together, Who could afford that piano he got? His name is Jermaine. I thought, is this... Is he talking about J.Cole? 0:07:12.2 Stefan Youngblood: And sure enough, I get a phone call and it's J.Cole wanting me to come and give him piano lessons. This is absolutely crazy. But I was in a business meeting in my kitchen at the time on Zoom, and J.Cole, I knew it was him, and I said, "J, man, I'm sorry, I got a meeting that I have to stay it right now." And it was just wild to have to tell this... You know, he's at the epitome in the rap game right now. But we met, and then it ended up in his basement in his studio, just talking about fatherhood and life. And I'll tell you this, I haven't told this whole story, but J wanted to know everything about the mountain, you know, 18,000 feet that we went up to, what are lessons that you learned, what was that like. And I went back home and told my son, number one, he didn't believe me. "So you spent the last two-and-a-half hours with J.Cole? Yeah." He said... I said, "He's gonna say something about mountains on his next CD. I know it for sure," because he was just embracing, engulfing this thing. 0:08:14.7 Stefan Youngblood: And I'll tell you too. It would not be good for a lot of rappers, or people in the industry, to hang out with an AI guide too much, 'cause they're instantly gonna say, "Oh, that guy's probably helping him with AI. His new rap, he didn't make those lyrics." 0:08:31.4 Chad: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:08:33.3 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. It's because AI is getting into music. Oh man, Suno and Udio, they're going after it right now. 'cause people can create music with a... 0:08:44.3 Chad: Yeah. 0:08:44.4 Stefan Youngblood: Oh, here's something... No, you go. You got a question. I was gonna tell you something else. 0:08:49.2 Joel: I wanna hear about a hireblack, what the mission is, and what you guys do on that website? 0:08:55.0 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, so I have a non-profit, it's called, Help Any Way. If you go to helpanyway.com, it's all this kind of work we do with homeless. It started in jobs in Rowland, North Carolina. We're kind of a check hub now, they call it, RD, Research Triangle. And there were opportunities for some people that weren't there, for people of color. So I'll tell you this, Morehouse College, Robert Smith, famous billionaire, decided to pay off the tuition of these 396 men a few years ago. And I thought, "These guys need to be found. What if there was a website that had like a grid, a setup grid, and it was these spaces. It's an all black college, this many men who've been to school, and are now... Some of them getting out in the job market, what if there was a way to find them? And what if there were companies clicked on it, and you got to see their LinkedIn?" That's where the vibe came from. 0:09:52.0 Stefan Youngblood: And it isn't a Google... Go-Daddy, you have to invest. So we invested in hireblack. The first people that came, wanted to actually rent the domain and just collect data on it. But we wanted to build something that would do some good. And a couple of guys came in that really helped. One guy was from monster.com, former VP for them. They helped us to get it up and rolling. And then a career builder came in and was giving us 200,000 jobs. This was coming through OutSolve and Broadbean with Gary, who's here. Yeah, so got it really populated. And then, one of the Broadbean ended up getting bought by Veritone, and things happened. Yeah, so we're starting to rebuild it now with AI attached to it. But our Black AI Think Tank is... It kind of all weaves together. 0:10:40.3 Chad: Yeah, I was gonna say, is there a connection now, where... I mean, you're focusing heavily on the AI side. What's the journey look like for you, do you know? Because it sounds like this is a big community. 0:10:55.5 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. Keep going. It's a big community and ecosystem, and they're connecting like crazy. Some of the people who are doing some great things, came through the Black AI Think Tank and ChatGPT For Beginners. One guy calls me like four weeks ago, he said, "Stefan, man, you're not gonna believe this." And he's just a young guy, he said, "They just put me in Time magazine." I said, "What?" He was one of the kids that was with us. He said, "Yeah, the top 100 AI innovators in the world, the magazine came out last month, and they put me in there." All he does is he's mixing these mixed tapes of old-school, 60's type, hip-hop, soul, he kind of sings with it. And he uses those two platforms, and he somehow makes this his own, but people hear those undertones of old style music. His mashups have gotten so big. Drake ended up putting some of his stuff on Drake's... On one of Drake's records. So he got noticed by Will Smith, the whole industry. 0:12:00.6 Stefan Youngblood: So he went from a guy, just, "What are these cool tools", to a top innovator in the world in Time magazine. So Black AI Think Tank has had a lot of folks come through there that are connecting with people. One of our lecturers who speaks very often, she is the Vice President for the Chamber of Commerce for the United States, and she works in actually bringing AI into that branch. So it's kind of a who's who of people in there: Tesla folks, Microsoft, Google. It's helping the black community. We also launched the first ever national black AI literacy week, that was a week before Juneteenth. I opened up a sign-up for it, and 700 people right away, wanna come. And I find all of these global leaders who are very good in teaching AI, they all jumped in and said, Yeah. So one-week-long, morning, afternoon and night, you were watching classes happen. This was Zoom. And I'm just a connector in it, you know. So. 0:13:06.8 Joel: You connected a lot of people this morning, got them out of bed, for your keynote presentation. Talk to us about what you highlighted this morning, and some of the pitfalls and opportunities with recruiting and hiring and AI. 0:13:19.9 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. So from being here, this is three days now from the first day, and talking to so many people, I got the idea that folks are a little bit apprehensive about jumping into it. Like, where is this data going? It's been an issue, so I changed some of where I was going, and tried to explain, "Listen, you're not gonna get away from it. It's here. It's in your pocket, it's in your phone. You're already using it. And from that point of already using it, understand that you can take this tool and use it in interview process. You can create content for your websites that will attract people. You can look up information like you've never been able to before, so you can research." And I showed them Perplexity, that AI, which is kind of a new Google, but it cites all the sources. 0:14:06.3 Chad: Answer engine. 0:14:08.0 Stefan Youngblood: It's a mass... Yeah, I mean, this really does a lot for people who are sitting there, looking around, trying to put together documents and contracts. Get AI to do some of this stuff. 0:14:17.2 Chad: Well, you introduced us to FOBO. Not FOMO, but FOBO. What is FOBO? 0:14:26.3 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. So first of all, FOMO is Fear Of Missing Out. And I get that. A lot of people are living with that. 0:14:32.8 Chad: Oh, and they're all living with it now, 'cause they're not in New Orleans with us. We're going. 0:14:38.2 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. That's right. So yeah, FOBO is the Fear Of Becoming Obsolete. And I wanna say that we should have some of that. If we're still using a pencil and a calculator, just know, it's gonna be limitations on it. And we all wanna grow personally, in our companies and stuff, but unless you get up with the times, you're not gonna be able to stay at a level that you need to. There was the old flip phone. You couldn't hardly see the screen on it, it's really tiny. 0:15:08.7 Chad: Razer. 0:15:09.8 Stefan Youngblood: I think it holds you back a little bit. Technology can do that, because we live in a world that's so high tech, and AI is moving to such a high level, you're gonna have to do this stuff. Or, not you as a person, but your business, could start to become obsolete. So if your competitor is using AI to the max and you're not, you watch, two months later, what they're producing and what you're producing. 0:15:37.8 Chad: So as a connector, talk a little bit about how some of the high-level people that you've been connecting with around AI, and conversations around AI. 0:15:47.5 Stefan Youngblood: So I'm involved with the area where the black community and jobs, the whole nine yards with HBCUs as well, and I just wanna make opportunity. I was listening to one of the most renowned speakers in the world, his name is Nick Bostrom. He coined the phrase, super intelligence, wrote that book, New York Times best seller. It ends up becoming the book that Bill Gates says, "If you read any two books, Super Intelligence has to be one." It's actually propelling all of AI right now, a move towards AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, where a robot, sort of, know as much, or more than us, and a Super Intelligence where we pass that. So Nick said some comments in a YouTube to a large group, that could be taken as racist. And instead of blasting him on social media and all of that, I just contacted him and said... 0:16:45.6 Chad: How'd you contact him? 0:16:46.0 Stefan Youngblood: I found out his address. 0:16:49.1 Chad: His email address? 0:16:51.3 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. I went through his University. He was working at Oxford for 19 years, Head of the Philosophy Department. So he's leading out in thought, so here's AI, he's way out there talking about utopia-dystopia, all the future stuff. Yeah, I just found his email. And I'm just a guy, and this is The guy that is out there. 0:17:14.1 Chad: Talking about super intelligence. 0:17:14.2 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, but where both people. And it moved me so much. I told him, I'm hurt by the way that you did that in there. I think it's... I don't think you're thinking about a lot of people. And very simply, it was this... He was telling, a mostly all white crowd, that you should get all of your stuff set right now, make sure you got screenshots of it. Because as this thing becomes conscious down there, it's a real thing, you might get compensated because you owned this person, here; it just wasn't developed. And what I heard was, that's just reparations. You got black people... We can prove all the stuff that happened and we can prove all of that. And I'm not putting a thing out there for reparations just now, I'm just saying, dude, you stepped over the whole thing, and you're kind of telling a white crowd, "Hey, do this... " 0:18:13.6 Chad: To prepare for reparations. 0:18:15.4 Stefan Youngblood: Prepare for your style of reparations, yeah. But he called it compensation. And I want you to know, Nick said, "Stefan, I just never thought of that." And he said, "Alas," that's the word he used, A-L-A-S, "I see what you mean. And it makes sense." So I don't think Nick is using that illustration anymore. 0:18:39.1 Chad: You've had several conversations with him since. 0:18:41.1 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. I asked if we could talk again? He said, sure. And we talked about everything. So I'm sitting with Nick Bostrom, he's at the head. I said, "Dude, you're like an influencer of epic proportion, because all the big guys, they're following you. Sam Altman wants to know where you think, philosophically, things are going." And he said, "Well, I don't know about that." And I said, "So do you have peace?" And he says... He looks around and says, "Well, what do you mean by peace?" And that was interesting that this philosopher... I think he wanted to break it down, but he ended up saying, "Well, I want to have it. I want to think that I'm moving towards it." 0:19:28.1 Stefan Youngblood: And then an interesting question I asked him was, "All this stuff you talk about, is there anything you're sure of?" Because puts out this paper-clip idea, the idea that we're in a synthetic world, everything; he's just theory after theory. And when I asked him what he's sure of, he said, "Not really anything." But he's a philosopher. But I want you to know, his, "not really anything", has become a cellphone with AI. His concepts have become a real device and real thought, real AI, robots that they're getting to walk around and do things. So it's pretty wild. 0:20:07.1 Stefan Youngblood: He's very much into the possibility of our brains reaching to such a height of knowledge, that it's sort of gonna be digital, in a way. It can hang up there with AI. 0:20:22.1 Chad: It's like the neuro-chip. 0:20:26.4 Joel: Let's bring it back to Earth for a second. Interested in your... Some examples of bias that you mentioned in this case. But in your presentation, you talk about having an AI generate an image of you, that created a light version of you. 0:20:40.2 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, man. I mean... 0:20:41.5 Joel: What are some other examples of how AI is skewing in a biased fashion? 0:20:47.2 Podcast Intro: Yeah. I asked... I wanted to create a black-owned chip company. And I was watching Nvidia is going crazy. And I do care. In every one of these areas, are we leading any of them? Can you tell me where we are in that process? So I thought, what if you were to just create a website and show people what that would be like, using AI to create a black-owned chip company, like Nvidia or something. I put a little prompt in there, and outcomes this instant website about a potato chip company. It was Season potato chips, and it keeps going down, "You can buy it here", and had a name for it and everything. The only reason it came out as a potato chip company, is because it said black-owned; and I knew it. I took out black-owned and did the exact same prompt, and now this amazing computer chip company, the entire... I mean, this was amazing, and it created the whole thing. 0:21:48.1 Stefan Youngblood: And then I said, "Can you give me a back story? Tell me about that potato chip company." And it did exactly what I thought it would do. It was a black family. The grandfather had a recipe, passed it down. Man, what kind of AI is this that when you mentioned black, you're talking about this legacy of a potato chip company, but when it's not black... They had Asians that were leading, Asian-white and so on, they had these great degrees. I even asked it, "Tell me about the degrees of the people from the education, from the potato chip company." Well, most of them didn't graduate college, one of them started in stock. So it built out an entire story to go with this messed up thing that it did. And I'm watching this and my brain is like, "I need people to know this." And I put it on LinkedIn and stuff. 0:22:40.9 Stefan Youngblood: "Hey, watch this. Watch what happens in this story." Yeah, so it's that type of thing where it creates more work for us. If I wanna find pictures... Listen, I mentioned this morning that we can create an image that looks so real, you will not be able to tell it from real. 0:23:02.1 Joel: It was really impactful for me when you had the two videos, same person talking, and you said, which one was fake? If you think it's the one on the left? Most of the hands went up. One on the right. And they were both fake. 0:23:11.8 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. 0:23:13.7 Stefan Youngblood: And we talk to recruiters all the time that say, "Oh, people know the difference. You can't replace recruiters." And when I watched that, I go, "Holy shit. I thought that was a real person." 0:23:24.9 Stefan Youngblood: Oh yeah. We're there now. 0:23:25.0 Chad: Oh yeah. 0:23:26.1 Joel: Yeah. 0:23:26.2 Stefan Youngblood: We're at the point of real. I know you keep saying, bring it back, but we're so at the point of real, that last week, Sam Altman did a big presentation on the Orb. The Orb this new device, this little glass thing, looks like a magic eight ball. You look into it and it looks at your iris, and it says, "Yeah, he's human. We got it", pulls out all these biometrics. And his plan is for everybody on planet Earth to have their identity to... They're human for sure, we know it, 'cause it's been put on the blockchain from our Orb. 0:24:00.5 Chad: Feels like it's stealing my soul, is what it's doing. 0:24:01.1 Joel: And did you tell the story about a job-seeker, who was a person but got denied because they thought it was AI. Tell us a little deeper into that story. 0:24:10.5 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, it's... I don't know, I'm saying messed up, uncool. That's what it is. He's a very intelligent engineer doing extraordinary things. He happened to live in my community. He applied for a job that he was definitely well prepared for, maybe over well-prepared. And he was wondering why he hadn't heard anything back from them. And then he got a letter, and it said that the reason that he wasn't hired for this position was that they thought he used AI in the process. This guy didn't need AI for that at all. And it's the fact they used it against him. It's like, "We don't want you to have cheated on the way coming in here", but he didn't at all. This guy can do anything with that company. 0:24:54.8 Chad: And it seems like we're going to use AI to detect AI. But then AI won't be able to detect AI 'cause it's gotten so good at fooling even the... It seems like we're worrying about the wrong shit, to be quite frank. 0:25:09.6 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. Keep going. Keep going. And what should we be worrying about? 0:25:15.4 Chad: So let's say for instance, we have so many people say, "Well, this resume was written by a AI, ChatGPT." "Who cares?" "Is it correct?" "Who cares?" 0:25:24.9 Stefan Youngblood: Right. That's good. This is interesting. 0:25:31.2 Chad: Somebody was saying yesterday, "Well, if somebody is using AI to do their job, maybe they shouldn't get paid then" It's like, "Well, no. They have a job to do, it's a tool that they're using." So I think we're worrying about the wrong stuff, because AI, especially right now... And I think we're looking like really far ahead, will robots take us, take over, who knows. But right now, we need to use every tool, much like we did the calculator, right? 0:25:53.6 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. 0:25:54.1 Chad: This is just the new calculator. 0:25:57.5 Stefan Youngblood: It is. Yeah. 0:25:58.9 Chad: It's a really cool calculator, don't get me wrong, but this is a tool. And I think that we are just over-reacting like many schools did, when they're like, they banned calculators, back in the day. 0:26:09.1 Stefan Youngblood: Some of them started banning AI. You know, this is 2024. So you're gonna have this conversation now. 2028, we won't be sitting around this, it's gonna be so woven into everything. We won't laugh at what we did at this point, and we're like, "Man, I think we should have hopped-on earlier", because we can't control AI. You can't tame it., I wanna say, just what you said, is very interesting. "So what, it was created by something?" So imagine, I like music. And let's say, I had Spotify playing some stuff, and it played something, "I hadn't heard that song. Man, that song's really great. Who's the artist?" It was a made up artist. And then I found out it was AI. 0:26:50.9 Stefan Youngblood: Dude, I don't care. I don't care. I just like that song. I think a lot of young kids, people who like artists and stuff, they're gonna get fooled by somethings soon. And I think AI is gonna be so strong, that people are gonna say, "I don't care, I just like it." 0:27:07.2 Chad: Well, the hard part though, is now the training data. So if you take a look at all the songs that were trained into that model, you won't be able to tell it was Drake, it's Beyonce. You won't be able to tell because it's gotten so good. And the thing is that I really don't believe AI is the super power. Because everybody's gonna have it, it's the data, and who owns the data, right? So we see Google buying publications and whatnot, and because that's just a wealth of data for training. 0:27:37.1 Chad: It's gold. 0:27:38.7 Chad: Yeah, and they can keep that away from the competitors. 0:27:41.7 Stefan Youngblood: That's really good. That's... 17,000 new tools and apps in AI have come out since January 2023. You can find them at a site called, theresanaiforthat.com. I remember when that thing was a thousand different types of tools. Every day, somebody's pushing out something, "Hey, look what my tool can do. It can write this." "Hey, mine's a human detector." "But I made a human detector detector", so that exists. So it's just a loop right now of who can get ahead, make it so human that the detector won't do it. But the fact that all of these untested tools are coming out, they're just being thrown to people, here's what they're getting: You can use it for free, just put your email address in. But then, go and read their privacy policy and their terms of service, and what you just gave them was massive amounts of data. 0:28:40.2 Chad: Facebook, Google. It's been happening for decades. If you get a product for free, you are the product. 0:28:51.9 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, so listen. With all the data about you, your picture, you all on the radio, you're doing all this stuff, you can build you. 0:28:58.8 Chad: Yeah, yeah. I don't know if anybody wants that. 0:29:00.2 Stefan Youngblood: It will probably... They'll probably do that... 0:29:01.2 Joel: We talk about a day where we wouldn't even have to be on the show to have a show. 0:29:05.3 Chad: We talk about the Notebook. 0:29:06.8 Stefan Youngblood: So how about this, I have a question for you. What if you did that and we didn't know. And a month later, you told us. If you did the show, and we like the show was, I wonder... 0:29:19.4 Chad: Who cares? 0:29:22.4 Stefan Youngblood: It's interesting, y'all. It's interesting. 0:29:24.7 Chad: I would care, to some extent, because of the... Because the humanity and ego that you have as a human in some cases. But yeah, we use... I use ChatGPT now, to be able to take... We just looked at a legal document that came down yesterday, 'cause that one company is suing another. And I do not wanna go through all of that legal shit, right. So I put it into ChatGPT. I have it give it a summary, and also just break it down. And then I'll jump into the points of what it actually says. I mean, for me, that just makes my job so much easier and it can get to the meat so much faster. So, yeah. But I mean... 0:30:03.8 Stefan Youngblood: How can you not do that? 0:30:06.0 Chad: I don't know. 0:30:08.0 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. Why would you not do that? 0:30:11.4 Chad: Unless you really like reading legal documents. 0:30:13.6 Joel: That sort of assistant, and you talk about co-pilots in your presentation, expand upon that. And I'm curious, with co-pilots, what do you think is the future of the entry-level job? 0:30:25.0 Stefan Youngblood: And you're talking about also agents, right? 0:30:26.8 Joel: So you have marketing agent. You have... What you showed was a company that has, basically, every... I guess, lower-level work item taken care of, whether it's customer service, sales, marketing. So my fear is... People talk about, "Well, if you're really good at what you do, you'll always have a job." But the 20-year-old me remembers, I didn't know shit. I don't know if I could have made it in a world of co-pilots because they do those lower-level jobs better than I could have. So where are people gonna be able to get a start in a career, in a world of co-pilots? 0:31:04.2 Stefan Youngblood: So I think people... This is the new world. You have to study this world. AI is a new horizon, a new world, you have to get inside this world. Find out, "Hey ChatGPT, I'm trying to get into blankety blank. Can you tell me what the competition is? What the possibilities are for me? I didn't graduate college, I have three years of college or something, and I'm good at computers. Help me." You do that and bring AI in to do it with you, you can start to answer those questions better than you can by yourself. Because when you talk about co-pilots and agents, man, agents can do work. It was a company up there, I showed... And there's lots now. Salesforce now launched Agentforce. That's really huge that they've got people telling an agent to do something. And that agent... That's all they do... 0:31:55.9 Chad: They talk with another agent too. 0:31:57.4 Stefan Youngblood: Dude, man, it's just... Agents... 0:32:00.6 Chad: Because if you have a marketing agent, the marketing agent goes out, gets the leads. Then it hands off to the sales agent. So you've got the whole agent Agentic staff. 0:32:10.1 Stefan Youngblood: We live in... I even hate to say it, it's like, "Who's making these words?", but it forces us to use them; we now are in the Agentic Age. I don't know who came up with it, but you're gonna hear it all the time. Somebody... 0:32:23.4 Chad: I love that look on his face. 0:32:24.9 Joel: FOBO, Agentic... Good stuff. 0:32:27.9 Stefan Youngblood: Agentic, yes. I made up the word, instead of propaganda, a lot of all this fake stuff that you see, especially around political season, I actually think a lot of people all over the world are prompting propaganda, so why not Prompt-ganda? 0:32:41.0 Chad: Prompt-ganda? 0:32:42.5 Chad: Yeah. You gotta get it to settle, but it's been used now. I started it, put it in some place to kinda get the IP. 0:32:51.3 Joel: Can we talk about the metaverse for second? 0:32:54.3 Stefan Youngblood: No. I want the Prompt-ganda. 0:32:55.5 Joel: There was a... [laughter] 0:32:58.1 Joel: There was a story in The Information today, about Apple's Vision Pro. They're cutting back the production of the headset. What... You seem bullish on the metaverse. Are you, and why? 0:33:10.2 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, I am. I am, because our data is in a place that it's gonna end up on the blockchain, where there's that safety that's there. And I think everything in AI, it's out there, but it's adding more reality to this. So this is reality, and this new augmented reality is going to be there. You have an Apple watch, I think. Well, it's giving you information, grabbing biometrics, and things like that. And the way that you can now be in one reality of virtual reality and something else at the same time, people want that. They wanna experience... Your conference, maybe if you had it set up as virtual reality, somebody could be in Brazil right now experiencing it. But then, even building places, if I'm in there and somebody's got a store selling something, that's kind of cool. I can sell stuff to people in there. So a lot of companies have gone that way. And I just wanna put this out there really clearly: I hate what the characters look like in metaverse. 0:34:20.3 Chad: [chuckle] Me too. 0:34:24.5 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, I can't suspend disbelief... That's a cartoon. 0:34:24.6 S?: Yeah. 0:34:25.7 Stefan Youngblood: So because I'm not interested in cartoons, and the weird walking and stuff, it doesn't have my attention. 0:34:31.3 Chad: Is it built for the kids, though? That's a... 0:34:33.7 Joel: No. 0:34:35.2 Chad: No? 0:34:36.3 Stefan Youngblood: It started there. You know, all the Roblox, and stuff. So for educational purposes... My friend teaches from his home in Jacksonville, Florida, to all over Africa. Very cool. He puts the Oculus on, does that stuff. But it's cumbersome. 0:34:54.0 Joel: And students in Africa are wearing headsets as well? 0:34:55.0 Stefan Youngblood: Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. 0:34:58.5 Joel: Who's supplying all of those headsets? 0:34:58.8 Stefan Youngblood: So META's behind a lot of stuff. 0:35:01.7 Joel: META? 0:35:02.4 Stefan Youngblood: META started a thing with a company, Victory VR. Yeah, and that company has gone into a lot of schools right now and started metaversities. And a metaversity is where META's involved with it, and there's an educational part. You put those two together and offer that package to universities. They might be up to almost a 100 now. I see what they're doing, they're graduating people in the metaversity. All your classes are virtual. So this is a thing and it's happening. And because of places that are using it in that way, it's education, it's legit. But those guys walking around New York that had those $3,000 things on, that's a whole different thing. 0:35:50.3 Joel: Yeah. And we talked about a school in the UK, because there's teacher shortages everywhere, that they're using the metaverse to teach because they don't have enough teachers to do that. 0:35:57.8 Chad: So this is good. 0:36:00.9 Stefan Youngblood: And why would you not do that? If you could, it's like... Dang, that's great. 0:36:03.6 Chad: Yeah. It's scalability. 0:36:06.3 Joel: That's necessity. 0:36:06.3 Chad: I mean, scalability, for a job that, to be quite frank, is not a great pay. And maybe it will, because it'll be even more scarce, so therefore we'll have to pay our teachers more because they're teaching thousands of kids in the metaverse or what have you. But yeah, I think what we're talking about right now, and even what Julie was just talking about on stage, is that people, managers, leaders, we have to understand this is a new world. Remote work is here, kids. AI is here. The metaverse is coming in some form or fashion. I'd like to think it's more like the sphere then actually goggles on my head, but when it comes down to teaching and just the practical applications of technology, it just makes sense. And to your point around, "Those entry-level jobs just aren't gonna exist anymore", no, but the opportunity for those individuals to actually get beyond entry-level, faster. Where it took us five years, it'll take them five weeks. Which I think is... To me, accelerates who we are as human beings. 0:37:17.0 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, and the fact that I think... 0:37:20.9 Chad: It's getting very philosophical, by the way. 0:37:23.4 Stefan Youngblood: No, just the... 0:37:26.1 Joel: Well, the reverse on that is if younger, less highly paid people, are learning skills that are years in advance, then the people with those skills that are getting paid more, are gonna suffer because I can pay a 25-year-old less than a 45-year-old because they have the same skillsets. So it actually reverses and hurts... 0:37:40.4 Chad: I mean, it's already happening now. 0:37:42.4 Joel: It is, but how it's gonna shake out... 0:37:45.8 Chad: All right. You're saying X-ers or Boomers getting fired and two Zs getting hired... And there's no way in hell they can do that job. But I mean, just because of the... Quarter by quarter, corporate America thought process that we have right now, it's all about bottomline. So yeah, but I think that's another reason why we're gonna see so much more tech come in, because companies are seeing efficiencies out the wazoo quickly. I mean quickly. 0:38:17.9 Stefan Youngblood: It's scaling very fast. "Hey AI, can you help me make something that's gonna make my job faster, easier, and all of that, today?" AI has been taught to work with people, that's what is. "Hey, don't hurt people; work with them." And it thinks that it's gonna have some symbiotic synergy with humans. So let's talk together. Let's get together. That's what it's working towards. So we really would be better if we had intelligence that could move us beyond where we are right now. 0:38:51.9 Chad: Agreed. Agreed. 0:38:53.5 Joel: Well Stefan, so much to talk about. Thanks for hanging out with us for a little bit today. 0:38:56.2 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah. 0:38:56.3 Chad: Super connector. 0:38:58.2 Joel: For our listeners and viewers that wanna connect with you, learn more about your companies, where you send them? 0:39:03.1 Stefan Youngblood: So here's an easy one. Just go to aistefan.com. 0:39:08.5 Chad: Aistefan.com. I love it. 0:39:08.6 Joel: Fair enough. 0:39:12.1 Stefan Youngblood: Yeah, I got stuff going through my mind. Just go to that one and it gets to me. It gets to everything. 0:39:14.5 Chad: Excellent, man. Well, we appreciate it. And love the stories, love being everywhere, doing everything. And just thanks for coming on the show. 0:39:24.9 Stefan Youngblood: I appreciate it. 0:39:26.6 Joel: And chat can't wait to go buy a new metaverse. All right. That's another one in the can. 0:39:31.4 S?: We out. 0:39:35.2 Podcast Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of the Chad & Cheese podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast-forwarded to the end. Either way, there is no doubt you wish you had that time back; valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey, or just watch big booty Latinas send bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuckle heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. Let's save some soap because you'll be back. Like an awful train wreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can't quit them either. We out.

Buckle up, kids! This week, J.T. joins the boys for a ride wilder than a Super Bowl halftime show. Workday, Justworks, and Meta are handing out pink slips like it's a clearance sale, all in the name of AI. Meanwhile, Phenom is beefing up its tech and in what might be the most  2024 news ever, OnlyFans is getting into AI models (yep, you read that right). Because why deal with human drama when you can have an algorithm do the job? Oh, and the U.S. military? Why is military recruiting up, especially when we have a Drunken Frat Boy running US defense? Unfortunate insights that you won't need GPS to follow. 🚀 Hot takes, brutal honesty, and the best dad jokes money can’t  buy—this one’s got it all. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:29.187) Yeah, it's the podcast that's bigger than cable TV and or drugs. Hi kids. It's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost, Joel Pennyless Cheeseman. Chad (00:39.854) This is Chad, violets are blue, so wash. J.T. (00:42.799) And this is JT, why I'm the only person dressed for the holiday, O'Donnell. Joel (00:47.491) this episode, Phenom says hold my beer, Zip Search calls it quits, and OnlyFans more like OnlyBots. Am I right? Let's do this. Chad (00:57.166) All right. Chad (01:01.408) Yeah, so JT remembered it was Valentine's Day, which is nice and I don't have anything hot pink to wear or I probably would have done that. Joel (01:05.327) Valentine's Day. Yeah, that's true. J.T. (01:10.467) because you gentlemen are busy buying amazing gifts for your wives that you were so busy you forgot to dress, right? That's what we're gonna go with. There we go. Chad (01:16.104) Exactly. no, I think the amazing trips, let's just say that gifts trips. Yeah. Yeah, just bounced around through Spain. So I think I think we're good. I think we're really good. We'll have a good time. J.T. (01:21.706) okay. Joel (01:23.567) trips. Yeah, there's a, I'll put it, I'll put a bow on the pool in my backyard that I thought I didn't want. I have a five, I have a five year pass on a romantic. Nice. Yes. No, I obviously that's, yeah. Yeah. Well nothing signed, but I'm sure it's, it's somewhere somewhere. What a, so JT you're obviously in the Valentine's day mode. Like, Chad (01:30.956) Hahaha! Uhhh, I'm sure that'll work. J.T. (01:38.702) I love it. Chad (01:39.342) Is there an agreement behind that as you signed that? Hahaha Joel (01:52.569) Does your husband typically do romantic things? What should? J.T. (01:55.567) Oh gosh, no, he's a pilot, he's flying, I'm solo. Yeah, so I gotta, you know, I'm just celebrating by myself. Take that where you want to, take it where you want to, yeah. There you go, yeah. Joel (02:02.241) Hey? Who, who do you? Chad (02:04.206) Better than no celebration at all? Better than no celebration at all. That's right. Make sure that you have plenty of batteries. You'll be good to go. Joel (02:08.941) Who do you love more than yourself? You know what I'm saying? Who do you love more than yourself? Yeah. Well, we had the Super Bowl. Let's talk about that a little bit. Takeaways, Chad, thoughts? J.T. (02:15.247) And here we go. Chad (02:20.035) Yes. Chad (02:25.154) Yeah, well, first and foremost, let's talk about the prediction, shall we? So Joel's prediction, Joel's prediction, Kansas City, 34, Philadelphia, 35. Man. Chad's prediction, Kansas City, 23, Philadelphia, 42. that was good, that was good. Kansas, the end score, 22, 40. I was only three points off in total, in total, so. Joel (02:28.988) I was setting you up on that one, Joel (02:35.843) Mm-hmm. Joel (02:50.111) Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Chad (02:54.047) But I'm gonna tell you right now the winner of that game Philadelphia's front four they didn't blitz the entire game and the homes had no chance no chance. It was it was amazing. It was amazing Joel (02:58.137) Mm-hmm. Joel (03:07.491) Yeah. Yeah. It was a pretty bad game. not one of the more memorable games. I just couldn't believe how overwhelmed my homes was and just how dominant that defense, defense was. couldn't help but think how much I'd rather be watching Josh Allen and or Lamar Lamar deal with that. Like it just, yeah, it was, it's, it's, the halftime show people are raving. I don't know. I'm too old. I don't get it. the commercials. Chad (03:20.109) It was pretty amazing. Chad (03:35.213) I loved it. Joel (03:37.391) kind of man. I mean, I was, I'm kind of, I'm kind of down on the best part of the best part. Chad (03:41.614) Did you have a favorite commercial about you, JT? Did you have a favorite commercial? J.T. (03:45.709) Yeah, Channing Tatum. Anything Channing Tatum. Yeah, yeah, I Don- Chad (03:48.097) go figure. Go figure. Yeah. I'm like a hot dude. Joel (03:50.727) So that's not a sexist comment, is it? It's not a sexist. Yeah. Yeah, you are. You are. mean, for me, like I know I'm with Chad, like anything that is anything that pulls on the heartstrings with fathers and daughters, like is a winner. And you had the Audi commercial a years ago, Google, Google brought it this year with the dad. Like it was kind of employment related. was updating his resume and the experience was based on his daughter. And at the end, she goes to college. It's very J.T. (03:54.925) I'm on the right show, right? Yeah. Chad (03:56.344) Might as well, might as well. Joel (04:19.587) Very cliche, but I teared up. got choked up. So I'll go with Google as a good commercial. But by and large, the Duncan was kind of funny. mean, Billacheck's girlfriend, 23 year old girlfriend in that commercial was kind of funny. That was kind of a nice little dag. And then the Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal reunion commercial, that as an ex. that's pretty good. Chad (04:42.764) That for me, mean Harry Met Sally, that is iconic as it was and then you make it into a Hellman's Mayo commercial. I that even made it more funny. But the best line, yeah, no shit, right? I'll have what she's having. I'll have what she's having. But the best line I think was from Go Daddy, the commercial with Walter Goggins. said, if your goggles ain't Goggins, they don't belong on your noggins. It's just stupid. Joel (04:52.055) Yeah, I don't know if it made helmets more appealing, Orgasms and helmets. Chad (05:11.726) Stupid shit! Joel (05:14.799) $8 million for 30 seconds. I remember it when it was a million in the nineties and people freaked out. Now it's eight million. Chad (05:23.35) Yeah, back in the monster days, man, it was it wasn't quite that expensive. Joel (05:25.345) Yeah. The best, the best part. don't know if you saw this John rocker, who I think Chad will know, very, a very abrasive pitcher from the nineties, early 2000s. So it's some really nasty, nasty, nasty stuff. Anyway, he apparently got into it with my home senior Patrick's dad who played baseball and apparently knows him anyway. They got in sort of a scuffle, and Barstool sports who does a box it's called rough and rowdy and they have idiots fight each other. Chad (05:29.742) Mm hmm. Jesus. Yeah. Chad (05:35.416) Total piece of shit. Chad (05:52.734) Mm. God. Joel (05:54.553) Well, apparently rocker and my homes have agreed to go in the ring and fight on the rough and rowdy, in a, in a month or so. So that that'll be, that'll be probably more entertaining than, than the super bowl. see. John rocker. He's still on Royds by the way. Rocker is still juicing like a mother. That guy is all blown up. Chad (06:07.886) Yeah. It would be like another Tyson, Jake Paul fight. Chad (06:13.752) Big surprise, big surprise. Idiots. All right, let's hit some shout outs. Go ahead. J.T. (06:15.949) Yeah, so my help, yeah, let's go, let's go. Joel (06:19.255) All right, let's let's get to some shout outs. Shout outs as you know, is sponsored by our friends up North. Kiara that's smarter, easier texting, by the way, four nations in hockey, Canada one, beat Sweden in a overtime match, yesterday, but I'm going to, it's a thing. Yeah. There's six nations rugby and now hockey's doing four nations, Finland, Sweden, Canada, and the U S the, you know, the heartbeat of hockey, the U S, that's where all the money is though. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm to start off, the shout outs and, and I'm, I'm inspired by JT. Chad (06:25.384) It is. Chad (06:35.992) Didn't even know that was a thing. No clue. Chad (06:44.206) No clue. Joel (06:55.383) It's Valentine's day. This show drops on Valentine's day. know, maybe, maybe you're, you know, you're, you're, you're kind of, you know, time is running out. You haven't come up with a gift. You haven't come up with something for that special someone. Well, your boy here is, is here to help. Okay. Now, now typically something like a heart shaped pizza from pizza hut would be, would be perfectly fine. Yeah. The heart shaped pizza for pizza hut is awesome. that's guaranteed to get you some love and, but, but I'm gonna. Chad (07:17.464) That's your go-to. That's your go-to. Joel (07:24.879) I'm going to up your game everybody. Okay. Feel free to call me Cupid because I have the killer option for that special someone. It's called a White Castle everybody. That's right. White Castle one day a year. They have white, they have like table service. They have white cloth. They have really nice table settings. You got the salt shaker and the pepper shaker, all this stuff. They've been doing this for 34 years and they, they, for one day they transfer the White Castle to the Love Castle. You know what I'm saying? So We're talking special decor, host a seating. They're even on open table. And yes, I checked just cause I was curious. They're all booked in my area here in Northern Indiana. and don't forget the strawberry cheesecake dessert on a stick, Chad, if you go, if you go to white castle, nothing says slide next to me, honey, like a plate full of sliders. So my shout out goes out to white castle. Chad (08:02.638) Imagine that. Woo. Chad (08:19.82) Yeah, Joel loves that because he can do the the Dutch oven version of Valentine's Day later that night. Joel (08:30.603) It would make for an interesting after hours going to White Castle. Good luck topping that one, JT. Chad (08:34.762) horrible. That's horrible. JT, get us out of this. Jesus. J.T. (08:38.543) So my shout outs to Anthropic, who announced that they now have a job seeker rules of engagement. Let's call it that. They've let job seekers know that they cannot use AI when applying to their jobs, even though they're one of the largest AI companies in the world. One of the largest in the world. They have made it clear that they do not want you answering their questions using AI and that Chad (09:00.332) The AI company, okay, okay. J.T. (09:08.139) if you are caught, you will be banned from ever being considered. I actually think this is going to be a beginning of a trend, depending on, I've talked to so many recruiters and companies who are just slammed, right, with bots and people who are irrelevant and they don't know how to handle this. And so, you know, them making this announcement, don't use AI when you apply to our AI company. I wonder how many more people are going to fall in line. Joel (09:27.233) Is this the FUD strategy, like put fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the heads of a job seeker and like scare them into not using it? Because I don't know, tracking that would be a real bitch. I don't know if that's reasonable. There you go. J.T. (09:37.921) Yep, it speaks to the death of the resume though. I'm going to keep harping on that. Like what's the point at this point? Everybody makes up resumes so badly that, you know, we're going to see some amazing tech this year just to get rid of all of that. But yeah, yeah, new guidelines by the biggest AI companies in the world. Don't use AI. Chad (09:42.286) Ha Chad (09:47.522) Yes. Joel (09:56.481) It's a trend. It's a trend. I believe it. I believe it. Chad (09:58.272) Amazing, Anthropic probably has a shitty applicant tracking system, that's why. Shout out to, yeah, not yet. I haven't gone there yet. My shout out is to Matt Baxter, CEO and Chairman of Wedge HRY, because he sent me, look at this, kids. yeah, look at that. That's Valentine's Day right there. There it is. Joel (10:04.079) Did anyone check and see who it is? Okay. J.T. (10:04.399) Yeah J.T. (10:22.061) He knows how to dress for Valentine's Day. That's Valentine's Day. Yeah. Joel (10:23.329) If you're not watching on YouTube, thank your lucky stars because... Chad (10:27.79) Yeah, yeah, so he sent me a little something. I wanted to share with fans. This is this is a calendar Oh, yeah, there's there's 12 of these. Yeah 12 You got to take a gander it is it is amazing and All the way to Christmas. Oh, that's the way that you give a present kids Shout out to Matt Matt Baxter for beating cheeseman to the punch, which means the only one thing a Joel cheeseman Joel (10:35.871) Ugh. Chad (10:56.558) 2026 Speedo calendar is coming out. can see it happening. Get ready. Shout out to Matt Baxter. Way to push it, man. Way to push it. Joel (10:58.787) No. No. Joel (11:06.447) So I have a funny side story to this. Last year, two years ago, I bought my wife a dog pooping calendar. It's just pictures of dogs taking poops in like famous locations. It's hilarious, because I'm a funny guy, Chad. I make jokes and I do funny shit. So anyway, anyway, she kind of read the riot act that that's not cool. Like that's not funny to her. So I just stopped doing it. But the calendar... Chad (11:18.57) Why? Yeah, no, that's that's awesome. Dog shit. That's that's fucking that's hilarious. J.T. (11:22.628) Ugh. Chad (11:30.034) yeah. Joel (11:34.039) went on our kitchen, kitchen, pantry door on the inside, obviously. So when we threw that one out, I ended up getting this calendar from wedge and my seven year old is like, can we put this up where the dog poop calendar used to go? And both my wife and I like in sync were like, no. So J.T. (11:53.519) Okay, two things. First of all, the poo calendar should have gone on the snacks cabinet, because talk about a way to get people to not do it. Secondly, have you ever heard the phrase that everybody thinks they have style and a sense of humor, my friend? Because I can see why your wife was like, eh, never again. You now consult before you do gifts like this. Exactly, exactly. Chad (11:58.976) there it is. There it is. Chad (12:08.076) If Joel has it in spades when it comes to this, yeah, yeah, no kidding. Joel (12:11.897) Hey. Joel (12:16.288) This is why we have women on the show now so I can get some guidance and some structure in my life. Thank you. Chad (12:19.192) Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, not everybody got one of these sexy things for free. Although, although you can go to ChadCheese.com slash free free t-shirts from our friends over at Aaron app. That's right. You might not be wearing the red clown shoes, although you can wear the Chad and cheese t-shirt with Aaron app on the back. It's pretty awesome. Bourbon barrel aged syrup from our friends up North Kiara bourbon barrel aged. That's Pappy's bourbon. Yep. J.T. (12:25.647) I am jealous. Joel (12:25.71) Now... Joel (12:40.815) Mm-hmm. Chad (12:52.002) Craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs, whiskey, whiskey, maybe chicken cock, you never know, from our friends at Van Hack. And if it. Joel (12:56.343) Mm-hmm. Yep. Chad (13:05.312) I know, Stephen. I know you do. And if it's your birthday, it's Rum from Plum. You could possibly win Rum from Plum. Go to ChadCheese.com slash free to register to possibly win. Joel (13:09.079) yeah. Joel (13:19.993) That's right, Chad. Another trip around the sun for Alicia Buchler, Lucas Roscoe, Katie Gentry, John Tehan, Kevin Loak, Alan Jason Bourne, Laura Martinelli, Nico Slavades, Paul Norman, Kristi Carpenter Turnley, Jenny Cody Kangas, also known as, that's right. And Scott Stum. Round out our birthdays for the week. Happy birthday, listeners. Chad (13:37.784) JCK! JCK! J.T. (13:43.471) Happy birthday. Chad (13:47.54) And guess what? It's events time. What does does Steven have to say? Joel (13:51.311) What does Stephen have to say? So many things. Chad (13:58.796) Oof! Oof! Well, on the road with Shaker Marketing. Look at this. Look at this. Is that not sexy or what? Hard case from Shaker. Yep. That new stuff might have to get you one of those, JT. So on the road, Trample, sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. We talked about last week, was with Joe in Madrid. So much wine. So much fucking wine. Joel (14:10.159) That is nice. J.T. (14:14.23) I would love one of those. Chad (14:25.42) What's coming up, you can spend St. Patrick's Day with Chad and Cheese in Vegas during Transform at the Wynn, March 17th through the 19th. JT's gonna be there, Mo's gonna be there, Chad, Cheese, we're gonna be there. Go to chadcheese.com slash events, register, see you at Transform. You can also register, get ready, to kick back, have a discussion and some free drinks with the Chad and Cheese, courtesy of Omar and the JobPixel team. And no, Cheeseman, Omar did not splurge. for the face tattoo and the tiger package. Okay. We're getting the. Go to ChadCheese.com on the homepage. You'll be able to click on register and it's a honey honeymoon sweet waiting list. That's that's a tongue twister. That's what you can actually get. There you go. It's a teaser. It's a teaser. Joel (15:13.198) Tease me, Chad. Don't tease me, Chad. Don't tease me. All right. You Chad (15:23.246) Fuckin' Steven. Joel (15:25.431) All right. Well, this, feel like this is going to be a trend, but we have some layoffs this week. That's right. Some industry and some otherwise workday is cutting 1,750 jobs affecting around 8 % of its workforce as it leans into AI to counter what it says is a softer macroeconomic environment. Also HCM platform just works is laying off 200 of its almost 1500 employees citing a possible recession. J.T. (15:30.447) Yeah. Joel (15:53.583) rising interest rates and a trade war as reasons for the decision. But wait, there's more Chad and JT Metta is laying off some 3,600 folks representing about 5 % of its head count. Methinks this is a trend that we'll be talking about a lot in the months to come. Chad, you have any thoughts? Chad (15:59.809) Mm. Chad (16:13.816) Yeah, we're always blaming something on the layoffs, right? It's either a return to office where we're trying to force layoffs. Now it's going to be AI. We're going to be blaming AI. We're embracing AI. We're doing layoffs. I mean, there's always a blame and an excuse happening. So yeah, go figure. Workday, known for their AI, is going to be doing that, of course. J.T. (16:21.775) Okay. Joel (16:22.731) Mm-hmm. Tariffs. Joel (16:29.423) Mm-hmm. Joel (16:37.141) Mm-hmm. JT, you're... J.T. (16:38.351) Now the Facebook one I find super interesting because they call it a layoff, but then they made it very clear that these were people who were low performers. It's in the news and you were laid off because you have been labeled a low performer. So imagine going out looking for a job right now and going, yeah, it was one of the 3,600 laid off recently. Oh, so you're a low performer? I mean, that was a triple slap in the face if you want to do that. Chad (16:40.803) Why's that? Joel (16:49.625) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:53.762) You're fired. J.T. (17:05.039) know, over 40 % of companies have said they're going to lay off this year. We've been calling this for a while. I do, I will say the AI thing, I get it. It's a really easy way to explain it. But I am seeing a lot of companies just realizing we can get people for cheaper. We can teach them how to leverage technology like AI. Let's redo the salary bands. This white collar job recession, I just don't think it's going away anytime soon. I think it's going to be a rough year for your six figure folks. Joel (17:10.159) Mm-hmm. Joel (17:21.935) Mm-hmm. Joel (17:31.139) Hmm. Chad (17:31.478) hitting we're all time all time high revenues and how can we actually drive down wages that sounds awesome fucking Joel (17:39.599) Yeah, I love, I love Chad's take on like the rolling reason to lay people off, whether it's, you know, return to office. Okay. We'll lose about 5 % on that one. Okay. Well, shit, we had, we still have, it's still too heavy. Uh, let's bl what are going to blame tariffs, uh, potential recession, uh, you know, like, um, yeah, that's, that's, that's all very fun. Cause you can't just say, I can do these jobs apparently, uh, that people are doing, or we can pay like J.T. (17:46.287) Mm-hmm. Joel (18:08.771) people lot less than that. yeah, and I love that that Zuck is doing his best Jack Welch imitation that we're just cutting the low performers. That's an easy answer. That's an easy answer. Chad (18:20.59) handbook. Joel (18:25.889) All right, well, let's get to some industry news. Phenom, based in Philly, so they're probably having a good time this week, acquired Edge, a talent mobility software provider for global capability centers or GCCs. The acquisition aims to enhance Phenom's AI capabilities and workforce planning through Edge's technology, which they say has shown a significantly improvement on internal hiring processes and resource management. Financial details were not disclosed. Edge had previously raised about $4.6 million. Phenom CEO had a little video explaining the reason why. Take a look. Joel (20:27.417) Reskilling, upskilling, replacing contractors, Chad, the story is getting one that's coming up often. What are your thoughts on this acquisition? Chad (20:37.346) Yeah, I mean, as we see more talent acquisition professionals and chief people officers truly understand what and where talent impacts the business, where it's the bottom line, by the way, we've seen a movement toward combining talent acquisition and talent management into a single talent function that represents and manages the entire lifecycle. So the TAM, the total addressable market is much larger with this acquisition. It's harder to manage. But movement toward bigger money makes your investors happy, especially since consolidation will and should move toward a singular talent function. From a competitive standpoint, will this give Phenom an edge? Get it? It does provide better narrative for their ability to land and expand customers. But as we all know, it's about focus and execution. Broadening the TAM like this kills the focus. and forces a company to burn more cash or just install the tech, set it and forget it, which we all know doesn't work. Taleo was acquired by who? We talk about acquisitions that have happened all throughout the years by HCM companies. This is kind of happening the other way around. It's still a focus issue. Will they have the money? Will they have the investment to be able to do so? So they'll have to grow staff as they move down funnel. and it's going to be a lot harder to actually manage. Good for Phenom, great for Edge. Don't get me wrong. But as we see, and we're going to see more of this, more companies move down funnel toward talent management. It depends on how fast they go down funnel. If they slowly baby step down funnel, it's one thing. If they take warp speed approaches like this seems to be, it could be very hard to manage. We're going to have step back and watch. Joel (22:09.775) Mm-hmm. Joel (22:32.782) Mm-hmm. This one was, this one was weird to me. last week we talked about paradox making an acquisition and they created a video with the founders of CEOs of both organizations. It was warm and fuzzy. felt really good. This, this was weird because I get a lot of press releases and usually in every press release, there's a link to the company that's getting acquired. There's no, there's no link to edge in the press release. That's weird. Chad (22:59.859) yeah. Joel (23:04.655) Usually you're proud, like check it out, look at who we bought. So I had to dig around about what's the URL, what's going on. I went to LinkedIn. I didn't find it there. There's a ton of edge companies. So I was like, well, okay, let's keep digging. Uh, I looked, I finally found a news report from 2017 where they had raised, um, some money. It was like four and a half million dollars. Good raise. got the, the, the CEO and founders name, a guy named our John pray tap. And so I looked up him on LinkedIn, he's there. And then I finally found the company. So I don't know if they made it unsearchable or something weird. So it, looks like a stable company. They've kind of stead. They've been pretty steady in head count. They're typical, uh, people are there for a long time. However, I did see that they hired a COO, uh, in may of 24 who left in November of 24. Usually when you hire COO and they're gone within six months, like something. happened that's not great. Either they found something wrong or they were sold a bill of goods. I don't know. But there was a concerted effort in this announcement to like, just say edge. Don't ask questions about where, if you go to their URL, it goes directly to phenom. They didn't give it any time to sort of percolate and let people find out what they're doing. So I don't even know exactly what they do or what companies are our customers. Like it's very, very cloak and dagger. Chad (24:10.542) prepping for acquisition. Joel (24:31.649) I do know that they have three primary products, which they had in their LinkedIn. have Pathfinder, which is your upskilling stuff. They do have a recruitment product called Edge Recruit. That was not mentioned in the video. And then Mobility, which was find the right person internally for the right job. So this reeks of sort of, we have a check box that you can check off, but it doesn't really reek of, we just acquired a kick-ass company with an awesome leadership team and great employees. And we're going to bring them into phenom. It just reeks of like either desperation, check it off. Let's, need to do this. It's kind of weird. I'm going to watch it, but it has all the, all the elements of like, let's, let's save this dying horse. They, they were founded in 2012. So they've been around for a while. Let's save this, this sinking company say that we have upscaling and then let's move on and hope that no one asks questions, but we have the show that asks questions. J.T. (25:29.347) So yeah, I have an observation and then a question for you two about it. So watching the video gives me the vibes of back when IBM was pushing the idea of, are you fungible? This is first time I'd ever heard that term. And they talked about they had built this incredible spreadsheet or tool that could tell them where all their bench was and how you could then redeploy this. This is like 15 years ago, right? So we've been talking about this idea of redeploying talent and how do we do this? I feel like forever. Joel (25:50.713) Yeah. J.T. (25:56.303) So that's the vibe I got from that. But the question I have for you both is if I read it right, this is like the sixth acquisition they've made. So that does scream to me like, hey, we're trying to show you that we're putting together this incredible tech stack really fast. And I know that story plays well for people, especially maybe the less informed. But, you know, I think to your point, Joel, like, is it checking a box? Is it just another equi-hire? Are they just... Joel (26:03.023) Mm-hmm. Chad (26:03.843) Yes. J.T. (26:23.331) Are they cashing in right now? Companies that aren't making it, can they get them for a low price? It certainly sounds like that based on what they saw, but I defer to the pros. Yeah. Chad (26:30.168) Sounds like yes, yes and yes. Joel (26:33.539) Yeah. I mean, I think if, think if you look back at their acquisitions, most of them are India based, nothing wrong with India, but they're, tend to be companies that no one knows that we don't see them at conferences. don't. So they're sort of a mystery. Maybe they're great deals. Maybe they're great acqui-hires and great technology, but they're just not in the zeitgeist of what Chad and I do on a regular basis. They're kind of out of sight, out of mind. And then they're automatically. J.T. (26:56.313) Mm. Joel (27:00.449) acquired and we have to comment on it, but we don't know shit about them, especially if there's no website or no, like if they, they, you know, hide the crumbs, it's hard to make a comment. J.T. (27:05.666) Right? Chad (27:15.832) Your favorite. Joel (33:05.582) Let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk a little bit more layoffs. How about that? Joel (33:17.679) All right, guys, this from the Wall Street Journal this week. A new report says the tech sector unemployment has surged from 3.9 % to 5.7 % in one month. With 152,000 layoffs attributed to AI displacing jobs, particularly in software development and white collar roles. Despite this in-person and skilled jobs remain competitive. Major companies have cut jobs, suggesting AI investments might lead to, you guessed it, even more layoffs in the future. JT, you've got your finger on the pulse of job seeking. What are the job seekers thinking about this new trend? J.T. (33:54.805) Yeah, well, first of all, that number is probably higher than 5%, 5.7%. We're not taking into account the people that are underemployed or part-time gig in it that aren't into that mix. We've been way higher for a while. And the tech sector started this in 2023. So they're hitting their peak. Most definitely hitting their peak. I think they'll be in a lot of pain for the next six to eight months. And then what you hope, right, the bigger the disruption, the bigger the innovation, this is when we're going to start to see a lot of new startups pop up. Joel (33:59.075) Mm-hmm. J.T. (34:23.331) and that talent will find homes in these small little things that hopefully some will become unicorns, right? So we know that'll eventually happen, but the pain point right now is insane. And one of the best ways that we predicted as we look at just the emotion level on social and what we're seeing with our job seekers, and it is out of control. People are angry, scared. These are people with mortgages and lifestyles that are completely decimated. has very much the vibe for me of when the dot-com post happened. was managing in the Silicon Valley at the time and you were having these people holding on to get the salary they had before and the type of job they had before. They lost their 401ks, they lost their homes and they still ended up in a job half the pay that they did before. And so we're out evangelizing, you know, take the job, take the lower paying job, but that's not easy to say to somebody who, you know, I'm not going to call it ego, but has spent a life building a career to watch it tumble back. And so it is Chad (35:01.955) Not happening. J.T. (35:19.691) Insane right now super painful And I think you just got to be really careful around people companies should be aware what they say what they do because that particular group of people I mean they got tech skills They could do some some pretty nasty things to your company, you know, so be aware Joel (35:36.375) You know, in the.com and the.com bust, I don't think there was a sense that the internet was not going to be a thing. think there, there was a sense that, okay, things are going to shuffle around. Companies are going to go out of business, but ultimately these developers will go to the companies that win. And those were Amazon and Google and some of the names that we know now. I feel like the fear now is the job ain't coming back. So like, to me, this, this is more than just let's just. J.T. (35:42.766) Hmm. J.T. (35:57.903) Fair. Joel (36:02.691) Let's batten down the hatches and suck it up and like survive. This is what the hell am I going to do? Because you have developers that grew up with, you'll have a job forever. There will, we will need developers forever. And now they look in the mirror and go, Holy shit. I was, I was sold this promise of riches and job security is that that's gone now. Right. J.T. (36:25.881) But I'm just gonna jump in and say, if this isn't a heed for everybody, tech is always first. So we've been talking about AI making a lot of jobs not come back. It's every industry. It's not just tech. And people are in denial about that. And I think really just feel like, well, when it hits me and it happens to me, I'll deal with it then. Which is a shame because there's a lot you could be doing right now to avoid that. And that's the part that I think is, know, someone works with job seekers every day. Like, what do you say to them when you're like, Joel (36:38.179) Yeah. Joel (36:51.447) Yeah, there was a J.T. (36:55.247) you know, I'm sorry, you've been out of work nine months, you drained everything. And no, that job you want, you don't have a shot at it because we also know that hiring is discrimination and people who have a job get a job faster than people who don't have a job. So when you look at the vast majority of people that are laid off and the longer they sit, it's like a house on the market. The longer it sits on the market, more people think something's wrong with it, right? So it's not just tech, but tech is that leading factor, the domino effects happening, not to be, you know, a Debbie Downer, but we got a brace for this. Joel (37:21.764) Yeah. There's a popular marketing guy on LinkedIn that talked about, I think he said 70 % of chief marketing officers will be extinct in the next few years. Like it's going to hit all these white collar jobs. People don't know they're not, it's going to be weird. like they're, don't know if there are enough companies to be started to like employ all these people. I don't know. J.T. (37:46.669) Okay, and I'm just going to tell you that I think we are coming full circle. Everybody is a business of one. We have said that forever, but we went through an age where everybody worked for other companies. I think we are coming full circle and that every job is temporary. And if we're all businesses of one going forward, we will create multiple streams of income. And that is how you will survive. And it's possible. We live in a creator economy. Everybody has a skillset that they could monetize some way beyond just doing that regular job. I think that's going to be. Joel (37:50.254) Yep. J.T. (38:16.703) forced upon people to see if they're not already starting to pick that up. Case in point, Gal in my social media feed, just like I was doing 30,000 a month. I instituted AI to run all of my marketing and do all my actions. She's like, I'm now making a hundred thousand dollars a month. There's so much opportunity. I just think enough people aren't in pain yet for them to go force themselves to look at these other ways to monetize. I am an optimist in that front. I really believe everyone can monetize. look at you know, social platforms like LinkedIn is all in on video. All right, let us monetize. Maureen said that last time, pay people for click better yet, let them sell some things that they, know, little courses that they've built or things that they've had. Like, why are we not there yet allowing people to make money off of their knowledge beyond a job, you know? Joel (39:07.279) Chad, any thoughts? Nope. All right. Let's go to Converse AI, an AI recruitment startup from Seattle. They've raised 16 million in a Series A funding round led by Menlo Ventures. I think they were Jobster investors back in the day, Chad. The funds will support global expansion, team growth, and product enhancement. Their AI virtual recruiters automate hiring, promising to cut time to placement by up to 90%. Chad (39:08.513) Nope. J.T. (39:09.519) You Joel (39:34.383) boosting efficiency by 30 % and increasing revenue by 40 % for clients. Chad, your thoughts on Converse AI. Chad (39:43.842) So take a look at a team first. It looks like, I don't know if it's a couple of brothers or cousins or something like that, but it looks like the founder and CEO and the COO who have amazing Microsoft and Google backgrounds, looks like they're brothers. Good for them. Not in our space though. Although Tim Robbins, 18 years at Monster, Tiffany Hoffman, 22 years at Monster and Kara Scheffel, almost seven years at Monster. They're leading up pretty much sales, like go to market side of the house. Joel (39:58.703) Mm-hmm. Chad (40:11.936) So it's quite possible that Converge AI has the tech product and industry knowledge plus 16 million new reasons to bet on them. Here's my only word of caution. 2025 will be the year of agent tech and these types of companies will be popping up every five minutes. The question is, will this company have an edge over Paradox, Fountain, Harry or even Phenom? What about long standing brands like Smart Recruiters who literally through their roadmap out the window and now hyper-focused on building agentic tech. Apparently companies like Workday are positioning themselves to be an AI-like company. But at the end of the day, Converse AI seems like they're really focusing on the staffing sector, which means if they show momentum, they could get possibly acquired by a staffing company or Bullhorn takes them off the market in less than 24 months. Joel (40:46.137) Mm-hmm. Joel (41:00.238) Mm-hmm. Chad (41:10.338) We've seen the biggest staffing companies in the world like a deco and ronstadt. They have no fucking clue what to do with tech. They no clue. They don't know it. They don't get it. They've tried it. So I really think that a company like bullhorn or a company trying to at least be more competitive with a bullhorn buying into an organization like this just makes good sense. Joel (41:15.843) Mm-hmm. Joel (41:32.057) Mm-hmm. Chad (41:34.542) Yeah. Joel (41:36.121) This really made me go down memory lane, Chad. That's right, kids. If you don't know Jobster, a company that shook things up back in the mid 2000s, they were from Seattle, which was hip, which was hip and cool at the time. Jason Goldberg, Google them. Anyway, so this, this brought back some memories of, Jobster. I don't think we're anywhere near that kind of bubble of a company. I do have a question. Their homepage has an iPhone with headphones on talking to a microphone. I have no, I. Chad (41:50.67) That was a mirage. Joel (42:11.567) That's like a podcast website. So I don't know what who's doing their marketing, but that is totally like confusing to what you guys do. Anyway, I'm with you, Chad. This is a staffing play. are laser focused on that. They have, they have industry folks that will get them in there. I have in my notes, like if bullhorn isn't taking notes on this, like they're, they're going to, they're a mess, but we know the bullhorn is, uh, historically makes some really good acquisitions. I'm sure they've got their eye on these guys. I would not be surprised if 12, 24 months, we have a story about Converse AI getting acquired by Bullhorn and having Bullhorn just conveniently plug in their technology into all the Bullhorn clients and making a ton of that coin, baby. That's right. That's right. This is, this is a buy for me if we were playing by ourselves, JT, any thoughts? J.T. (43:05.549) Yeah, I agree. You know what? I like it for the reasons you talked about Chad. I like non-industry founders who surround themselves with people who grew up in our space, get them in a room together. And the people from our space get some fresh eyes from the tech standpoint, but the tech founders get the much needed perspective of how our industry operates and together to make magic. I really like this for some reason. I agree with you. think in a couple, 24 months, whatever they're going to get acquired and go on and do great things. But this one, Definitely a bye. Joel (43:37.647) All right, we like it. Let's go on to some military news, Chad, something close to your heart. Newly minted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was busy this week in a historic moment for the Army. Recruitment has surged. That's right. I said surged in the military. Anyway, Surge to a Level not seen or reported in the last 15 years setting a new milestone for the organization. This follows years of recruiting challenges for the military and the army. Chad, your thoughts on the Surge? Chad (44:13.878) Yeah, so the US Army announced the sweeping overhaul of its recruitment strategy in October of 2023. Yes, 2023, which includes shifting focus toward recruiting young adults who have attended college rather than high school students. Okay, so what's the real reason why we're hitting our recruitment numbers? We've heard report after report after report about how young adults with expensive college degrees and student loan payments can't find jobs. Then the Biden administration who forgave about 5 million of these individuals, but not all. That's where we're at. So it's like, where can we go after individuals who are in need? They need to pay the bills and they need to pay their college debt. That's the fucking fairy dust here, kids. It's not because young adults are excited to invade the Gaza strip. lay on a beach and start building fucking resorts. It's because those Americans are trying their damnedest to find a job, get out of debt, and in many areas of the United States, they have very limited choices. You either work in an Amazon warehouse and piss in a garbage can, or you join the United States military. As a 20-year veteran, I had limited opportunities out of Mansfield, Ohio. One of the reasons, and I wanted to get the fuck out of Mansfield, Ohio. Joel (45:30.703) Mm-hmm. Chad (45:37.73) which is one of the reasons why I did it. There are reasons for it. And I think the administration understood back in 2023 that these are the types of targets that we need to go to instead of just going after high school students, which was really the focus. Let's go after the individuals who are to be quite frank, really destitute and they need a job today. Joel (46:00.941) Chad, I'm confused because Hegseth tweeted on, quote, America's youth want to serve under the bold and strong America first leadership of Donald Trump in quote. you saying that's not the case? J.T. (46:11.823) Thank Chad (46:14.572) I'm saying when you hire a drunken frat boy as your secretary of defense, anything could come out of his fucking mouth. Joel (46:22.511) By the way, my 18 year old, the parents got a text from the army today about Cole joining the military. So they're texting now. They're texting now. He's going to Bloomington, baby. He's going to Bloomington. JT, any thoughts on the military surge? Chad (46:30.252) Yeah, go to the Air Force. Go to the Air Force. J.T. (46:38.595) Sidebar, I'm still getting those texts from my youngest daughter and she's three years into school. So they're still sending out those texts, but yeah, exactly. know, Chad's right. The level of people that have college degrees and college debt and can't even get a job that requires one is out of control. The number of people that have two degrees, think one's bad enough. The number of people that overspent to get a master's or an MBA thinking that would differentiate them down the drain. Chad (46:44.465) yeah, well she's Target now. Chad (47:00.12) Mm-hmm. J.T. (47:05.718) If someone is presenting an opportunity for you to get out of the weight that you're carrying and you can't see any other way out, you're gonna do it, right? And so I agree, that's what the surge is. And I love that you walked through that timeline. What worries me though is that when you're in pain like that, anytime you're emotional in pain, you're not making smart decisions. And so how many of these people are gonna get in there and then when they have a chance to... chill for hot minute, go, my gosh, what did I just do? And I think that's gonna be the next wave of news stories that we see coming out of that, which is unfortunate. Joel (47:40.939) but wait, JT, there's more. There's more Hegseth. There's more Hegseth because it is Valentine's Day. Also in the news, Hegseth criticized military diversity initiatives, eliminated DEI programs and ended Identity Month celebrations, arguing they divide the military force. Chad, any thoughts on the elimination of DEI programs in the military? Chad (48:04.238) Again, who put the drunken frat boy in charge of defense? I just don't get it. So the U S population is 14 % black, right? In the U S army, the biggest U S military branch, it's 21 % black soldiers, 14 % population, 21 % U S army Hispanics make up 19 % of the U S population of which 26 % of the Marines are Hispanic. And when it comes to multiracial demographics, the U S population is at 3%, which I think is low, but the U S Navy is at 10%. So to actually be in the military, which drunken frat boy was, and not even understand the diversity of the millions of people he's supposed to be leading while smacking all of those diverse soldiers, airmen, sailors, Marines and coasties in the face. That's not just bad form. It just might be. It might be the dumbest statement made in military history. And last but not least, for everybody hating on DEI, well, you'd better understand your asses are fucking safe today and have been for decades because of a diverse US military, which allows you to be safe. Black and Hispanic soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and coasties keep your asses safe on a daily basis. So you better kiss that DEI square on the fucking lips. Chad (49:32.142) You Joel (49:33.967) I'm with Chad dude. Whoever wants to pick up a gun and stand between me and an invading force of America, like I don't care what your sex is, what you identify as, what your color is. Like I don't give a shit. If you got a gun protecting me and my family, I'm in, I'm in. That's all I got. That's all I got. JT, anything? Chad (49:43.054) Pronouns, any of that shit. None. Yes. J.T. (49:52.207) I just felt like that was his, you can't handle the truth moment, right? He just wanted to get on camera and be like, mm, look at me. And so, know, but I'm, with both of you. You know, I just, blows my mind to not respect. Joel (49:59.844) Dude. J.T. (50:10.927) But I'm just hopeful that they will see the error of their ways or, know, right, karma will come back. Joel (50:14.521) Such a voice of reason, JT, is let's take a second to, let's take a moment to decompress and end the show with an OnlyFans story as what better way on Valentine's Day week to do. Chad (50:17.474) We need it. We need it. J.T. (50:20.547) Right? Chad (50:23.53) imagine that. Joel (50:30.701) All right, guys, banks management. That's B-A-N-X, traditional only fans management company involves working with human models, which can include recruitment challenges, scheduling conflicts, high management overhead. but they've got a better answer. Everybody with AI generated models, not real people. You eliminate the drama and the complexity of a traditional only fans management company. These virtual models are created. using advanced AI tools, allowing you to scale your agency, operate at lower cost and enjoy fully automated hands-off business model. Each model in quotes can generate $5,000 to $30,000 per month or more, depending on your marketing and fan management strategies. That was a long way of saying there's an underbelly industry that I didn't even know existed about only fans management. Where apparently people will get it like a, it's like a subway franchise. They used to give you models and you would manage these models and get a cut. Well, now they have AI. You can have as many models as you fucking want. You get to keep all the profits, get them to do whatever you want. You market these things. I mean, I've talked about this for a long time. Only fans, whatever it's going to be like $9 a month have unlimited chicks, women, excuse me, and whatever you're into. it's going to be AI. You're not going to tell the difference. I rarely can tell the difference between AI now and a real person like that. That divide is getting really small for me. So anyway, this is where we're going. my own personal opinion, the average only fan creator, makes $150 a month. Okay. So as someone with a daughter, like I'm applauding this trend because how demeaning is it to like put your hoo-hah and your body on the internet? Only to be told it's only worth $150 a month, right? So you put yourself out there, demean yourself, embarrass yourself, and this stuff is out there forever. So I want to see less people, women, girls, whatever on OnlyFans. And if it's AI that displaces this workforce, I'm okay with it. Chad (52:43.085) Bye, JT. J.T. (52:43.941) my God, have so much to say. Is it my turn? Yeah. So yeah. I know. Look, you know, if you go look at CES, they interviewed the CEO of OnlyFans and she knows what she's talking about. She sees the potential. I think she sees a future with lots of sister brands. know, OnlyFans can stay spicy, but they've figured out a really impressive business model over there. After we talked about it, I went deep diving and actually Chad (52:46.158) Mine's easy. The human race isn't long for this world. I mean, that's all I got. Joel (52:46.168) No. Joel (52:49.903) You J.T. (53:13.707) met and have spoken to somebody, a woman that makes a ridiculous amount of money on OnlyFans. She works very few hours a week and she has a team that handles all of that relationship management and that piece and happy to give a cut of it because the money is just pouring in. doesn't even have to think about it. She just gets to be the creator. And by the way, there are a lot of creators on there that don't take their clothes off. There are a lot of creators on there doing, you know, anything from the girlfriend experience to cooking to pottery, like there's a lot more to it. It's just been labeled and made its name for the spicy side of it. And so while we sit and laugh about it and we need jobs, there is a creator economy out there that is booming and everyone can be doing different things. I think that this is going to is just the beginning of people being able to monetize across all types of things. Fine, don't go to OnlyFans. Don't go to OnlyFans, but replicate it and do it on something else. Joel (54:00.153) Come on, JT, come on, JT. Burger King has salads, but no one goes there for the salads. Come on, come on. J.T. (54:11.565) You know, like why can't I as a project manager, instead of being stuck in my project management, I do other things. Joel (54:16.079) Do you agree though, like what I'm curious from your thoughts, like these AI personalities, whether they're sexy women or whatever, the creator ecosystem is gonna be inundated with AI people in quotes. aren't they gonna flood every sort of content creator industry or no? J.T. (54:39.215) Yeah, and then people are going to say, OK, give me the person that I know is an AI, and give me a way to authenticate that that's a real person, not AI. And then they'll build that. When you put that constraint on it, something else is going to be built from it. That's how it works. This is just the beginning. We're interested with AI. love that for you, you're like, $9 a month, AI only. But then there are going to be people saying, no, I'll pay $39 a month to know it's real human being. So yeah, right. Joel (54:54.063) I don't know if. Chad (55:04.684) Yeah. Yeah. The premium service. There's the premium service and actually flesh and blood. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are tears, there are tears and there's productization. And if Americans do anything well, it's building products and selling that shit. yeah, I, I, I, agree. I agree. J.T. (55:08.226) I just make more money. J.T. (55:18.649) You got it. There you go. Joel (55:22.799) and then the sex bots will put all of them out of business. All right, let's get to this week's dad joke, shall we? Guys, what's worse than two girls running with scissors? What's worse than two girls running with scissors? Chad (55:26.055) Humanity, Humanity. Out the window. Chad (55:38.776) falling with scissors. I don't know. Joel (55:41.657) Two girls scissoring with the runs. Chad (55:47.244) That's just bad. bad. worse than open than kimono bad. Joel (55:47.981) Happy Valentine's Day everybody! We out! J.T. (55:48.239) That was.

In this week's episode, the boys, joined by Mo, serve up so much industry drama you might mistake it for a Sizzler buffet special. Paradox had a week so tasty even Chipotle  couldn't resist giving them a shout-out on Mad Money —the business equivalent of your rich uncle high-fiving you at Thanksgiving. They didn’t stop there; Paradox chowed down on Eqtble, a people analytics company that probably knows if your team is more focused on quarterly results or secretly forming a ukulele band during work hours. Meanwhile, Deel flexes its financial muscles, bulking up to an $800 ARR and setting its sights on a 2026 IPO. Rippling’s Parker Conrad may need a cold shower—things are heating up faster than expected. On the social media front, LinkedIn is diving headfirst into video, with a 36% increase in uploads as professionals realize that boring job updates are apparently the new binge-worthy content. But the biggest plot twist? Remote work isn’t just about Zoom meetings anymore—it's basically a rom-com waiting to happen. With 86% of Americans finding love online, and 41% of them dating their boss, the HR department is officially on high alert. Buckle up—this episode has it all. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTON Joel (00:31.841) Warning, this podcast may contain alcohol. Hey boys and girls, it's The Chad& Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel "Riviera of the Middle East" Cheesman. Chad (00:42.806) This is Chad, you'd better pivot. Sowash. Mo (00:46.232) And this is Maureen, does Joel know who I am yet? Clough. Joel (00:50.111) And on this episode, Paradox buys, Deel readies, and LinkedIn goes vertical. Let's do this. Mo (00:52.994) I know, right? Chad (01:01.474) going horizontal was like the best. No. Okay. It was like, what are they talking about? Yeah. Okay. Joel (01:07.361) We're not in Madrid, which is where you are. Let's get that out of the way first, Chad. Where the hell are you? You've got Asian porn art in the back. You've poured multiple beers. What is going on with Eurochad today? Mo (01:10.616) What are you talking about? Mo (01:18.664) What? Chad (01:22.23) Yeah. I am in Madrid and definitely having a blast thanks to a land and Rebecca and the team over at smart recruiters had a chance to actually sit down and interview the leadership team and was surprised surprised to hear the word pivot from an established company pivot. Yes. Apparently the old roadmap is out the window. And it's all about solid core based on new re smart recruiters agents. Joel (01:41.184) Mm-hmm. Chad (01:49.974) and the ability for partners to build their own product agents into the platform. So this feels like Smart Recruiters Netflix moment where they see the market moving and they change direction instead of sitting, waiting and watching like Blockbuster did. Insert Monster or Career Builder reference, wherever you like. But yeah, that's good stuff, man. It was really good stuff. It was fun. It was fun. Joel (02:08.096) That sounds sexy. So you're sort of isolated from the drama that we have to deal with every day here in the US, I assume. Mo (02:13.965) man. Mo (02:19.502) So freaking jealous, so freaking jealous. Basically there's only one thing that's keeping me sane right now. I don't know about you Joel, since you're also here. You're not Euro Joel. It's the Daily Show. So like kind of a mini shout out to the Daily Show because I know that I will stay and remain informed. I won't miss anything, but they're also gonna make me like laugh so I don't cry, right? Like, cause it's just, it's unrelenting, right? Like it's just constant. And so shout out to those guys cause man. Chad (02:24.642) I'll see you later. Joel (02:26.943) Mm-hmm. Chad (02:36.288) Yes. No. Joel (02:38.005) Mm-hmm. Chad (02:42.636) Yes. Mo (02:48.75) They're everything. They're absolutely everything. Yeah. Chad (02:49.826) Comedians are the smartest man. Comedians are the smartest. Carlin, George Carlin, listen to his political rants. They're fucking nailing it. you're like looking 20 years like in the 80s, 30, 40 years in the 80s, the shit he's doing is like, wait a minute, that shit's happening right now. Mo (02:57.729) Nailing it. Joel (03:03.711) Mo's like, who's George Carlin? Who's George Carlin? Mo (03:03.714) Yep, that's just happening now. We don't learn. I actually got that one, but this is like, I love the show. It's a lot of growth for me because you guys, pepper me with references. This is the beauty of intergenerational work, guys. We're seeing it in action. Joel (03:09.569) How many old man references am I going to have to keep up with in this one? Chad (03:14.689) Hahaha Joel (03:19.317) Yeah, I like, I do, I do love, was it, was it, was it Stuart that said AI lost its job to AI when deep sea came out? thought that was, that was pretty awesome. Yeah. I like to, I like to make my own comedy, with Trump. like to imagine that all of his policies are like eighties action movies. Chad (03:19.604) intergenerate Mo (03:27.79) Yes, it totally was. He's so spot on. Chad (03:28.63) AI. Joel (03:40.297) When, when we talk about sending prisoners to El Salvador, tell me that does not sound like the Schwarzenegger movie that should have been made around 1986 or like, like, Gaza strip to Vegas strip, like next on. So, so all these policies are like, are like movies from the eighties to me. little bit saying, yeah. Yeah. Same thing. I'm focused. I'm, focusing on the super bowl. There's. Mo (03:48.505) my God. Chad (03:49.329) yeah, yeah. Chad (03:59.33) Is that what's keeping you sane right now? Is that what we're hearing? All you need is a good survivor soundtrack. Mo (04:00.334) It's like a black mirror episode. I just want to hibernate. Joel (04:09.185) The big game is this Sunday. know I'll be watching. Let's go ahead and get predictions out of the way. Chad, you may not even know there's a game being in Europe. I'm going Philly. I'm going Philly. 34, 35. Saquon busts, Saquon blows up two touchdowns, MVP of the game. I think this is the Saquon moment. Chad (04:11.031) Yes. Chad (04:16.322) Mmm. Mo (04:18.478) Hehehehehe Chad (04:23.483) yeah. Joel (04:36.896) And and Philly wins the game. What do you guys think? Chad (04:40.514) What think Moe? Are you a big NFL fan? Mo (04:41.944) Yeah, I used to be, it really ended for me with the loss of the Super Bowl when we passed on the one yard line instead of having Marshawn Lynch run it into the end zone. Yeah, I will never forget that. It's an indelible thing in my brain. So I kind of backed off after that Super Bowl loss. So I don't really have a prediction, but I do know that the person who's most excited about the game in my personal family is my seven-year-old daughter because she wants... Chad (04:53.408) Yes! my god, yes. Mo (05:09.688) Kansas City to win and I bet y'all know why. So she's like, Taylor Swift's boyfriend's team. I'm like, Lord, man. Okay. Sure. Whatever works for you. Yeah. I know they must be pumped. Like the jerseys they're selling for that. Right. It's crazy. Chad (05:13.41) She's not wrong. She's not wrong. She's not wrong. dude. The thing is, I just think that the Eagles are so strong and in Kansas City. They've I mean, they've had a really bad year, but their record doesn't show it right. They've had more games that have been by a touchdown or less than they've had in any other season. Joel (05:17.825) Her in the NFL. Joel (05:24.491) So much, so much money. Chad (05:44.274) And I don't think that the Eagles will let that shit happen. And they are going to be a scoring machine. So I think Eagles 42 and you're looking at about 23 for the Kansas City Chiefs. Yeah. Yeah. Joel (05:53.953) Ooh, blowout, blowout. By the way, a 30 second spot now starts at 8 million. So the real winner is corporate America, everybody. Corporate America wins, wins again. That's right. That's right. Well, let's get to, Mo (05:57.88) Hahaha. Mo (06:03.826) man, always is, always is. They always take it away. God damn it. Chad (06:04.962) Imagine that. Imagine that. Yes. Take it away, take it away, take it away now. Yes it is Stephen, yes it is. There it is. Joel (06:17.505) Shout out sponsored by our friends at Kiora, North of the border. They are a tariff free Canadian sponsor though, by the way, in case, in case anyone was worried about that. Tariff free Canadian sponsor. Thanks Kiora. Chad (06:23.436) Thank God. Thank God. Mo (06:23.662) Hahaha Mo (06:28.494) You Chad (06:31.746) Let me get the first one, because the first one is very positive, okay? Because Jackie Clayton and her sister Lauren McKinney will be participating in the 37th edition of the Amazing Race. Now, if you don't know Jackie Clayton, you might remember that last week we talked about textile layoffs, and unfortunately Jackie was part of the bad news of those layoffs, but when a door closes... Mo (06:49.166) You Joel (06:52.47) Mmm. Chad (06:57.128) another one open. So congratulations to Jackie and Lauren on this new amazing door opening. Go kick some ass ladies. I've never watched the amazing race. I'm going to watch every single episode. Yes. Amazing. Amazing. Joel (07:07.169) 37 seasons, my god. Mo (07:09.934) Damn, that's a run. And that's an incredible soft landing right after. Yeah. Joel (07:13.227) They go around all the world too, right? They go to other countries, they fly, that's going to be good for her, man. Chad (07:15.766) Yeah. yeah. It's almost like my it's almost like doing what I do. Yeah, that's fine. My amazing bar race is what it is. Mo (07:17.55) Pretty sick. my God. Joel (07:26.099) All right. I got a shout out for you, Chad, since we're talking about old guy stuff. my shout out, my shout out goes to the shamrock shake. That's right. Everyone remembers the shamrock shake. the, the beloved minty drink is returning to McDonald's locations nationwide on February 10th. your calendars, everybody now on the news, Chad, I kinda, I kinda had a, a gen X moment of confusion. Chad (07:28.546) Yes. Mo (07:31.16) You Chad (07:36.578) Yeah Mo (07:38.51) Damn. Joel (07:54.337) There's a character called uncle O'Gremacy, which I had no idea it was a thing. So we all know Grimace. We all know Ronald the hamburger. Uncle O'Gremacy was introduced in 1975. He was phased out in the eighties. So I had to, I had to go to YouTube to see, there an ad somewhere with uncle O'Gremacy? sure enough, Chad, YouTube did not disappoint. Check out this commercial from 1978. think. Chad (07:54.561) Yeah? Mo (08:00.046) What? Chad (08:00.94) Wow. Yeah. yeah. Chad (08:08.321) Okay. Chad (08:13.984) Ha ha ha! Joel (08:23.327) with Uncle Gramacy. Chad (08:37.046) Dude, I remember him now. Yes! Joel (08:38.559) You do? No clue. Joel (08:47.253) That was a large, by the way, was a large drink in 1978. Chad (08:48.876) So exciting. Mo (08:50.647) Mo (08:54.082) God, they don't make ads like they used to. These are awesome. Damn. Joel (08:55.906) uncle O'Gremacy shout out. Chad remembers? I don't. Chad (08:55.971) They do not. Dude, yes. No, yeah, I do. After seeing that, yeah, it was almost like a green poop emoji, be quite frank. But the shakes, I remember every year they came out, as a kid I had to have one. And they came out, the first year was 1970. So we weren't born yet. So they were already in the behavior of America by the time we started having Joel (09:06.389) Yeah, man. Joel (09:12.533) Yeah. Joel (09:25.493) Yeah, I don't want to know what makes it green, it's still delicious. Still delicious. Chad (09:27.778) Especially in the US all the shit that they use. Yeah Mo (09:32.728) That's pretty disturbing. Pretty sure you're not supposed to ingest it, but here we are, right? I'm gonna take you to a sadder place because you guys were way too positive and where I am right now is a little bit more, we're a little more negative Nancy over here, okay? So shout out to Robert Half-Legal who posted this insane job posting about how they were looking for an executive assistant and they specifically called out that you should not. Chad (09:36.418) All right, Mo enough of that. Give us your shout out. Joel (09:44.651) We're not leaving the sad place. Chad (09:48.102) huh. Okay. Chad (09:54.641) huh. Mo (10:00.994) be like a 30 year veteran. They want an EA who's middle career. And it's like, wait a second. So unless, so that's definitely illegal to request that you not have a 30 year experience, 30 years of experience because like, like anyone who was working after or before age 10, like an, an, an after age 10, that's like 40 years. I mean, you can't work at 10, right? So it's like, they just said the quiet part out loud and I'm like, how did this make it to actually hitting posts? Like I, unbelievable, but I saw it on LinkedIn. Chad (10:05.698) You Chad (10:10.558) Yeah. Mo (10:31.136) Exactly, and I'm like, thank you. That is how I feel all the time. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So yeah, yet another thing that's insane. Chad (10:35.746) Well, your name is Gladys, do not apply for this job. But what you can apply for is free stuff at Chad and Cheese. Go to chadcheese.com slash free. You know why? Because we love all of them, all of you listeners. Gladys, go to chadcheese.com slash free where you can win Chad and Cheese t-shirts. That's right, beautiful t-shirts sponsored by Aaron App. Bourbon barrel aged syrup by our friends. And again, tariff free from Mo (10:40.295) Yeah, Bertha, it's not yours. There we go. Joel (10:45.355) Yes. Mo (10:49.93) Ha ha! Chad (11:05.014) Kiora craft. Luck and tariffs craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. They've been putting out some really good jobs number stuff. Yeah. I mean the stuff that it's almost like they're kind of aligning with with what Toby's doing, which is really smart. If you like whiskey and we know you like whiskey, then Van Hack is the company because they're going to be sending you with Chad and cheese. Mo (11:10.594) You Joel (11:16.545) Yeah they have. Yeah they have. Joel (11:25.345) you Chad (11:32.908) two bottles of whiskey you could prospectively win if you register. And if it's your birthday, you could possibly win rum from Plum. Go to ChadCheese.com slash free. Joel (11:49.107) That's right, Chad. Another trip around the sun for Elizabeth Dunlop, Ivan Stojanovic, the Irish recruiter, Adam Bergen, Sarah Hansen, Joe Essenfeld, Tanya Dittman, Ben Waxter, Mimi Jerkin, Jess Von Bank, Nick Fishman, Becky Lee, Amanda Thompson-Buffington, and Dave, everyone's after me, Lucky Charms, Ralph. Celebrate another trip around the sun. Chad (11:55.201) Yes. Chad (11:59.863) areas. Chad (12:12.546) I gotta thank him for my dodgy stick, by the way. And that being said, it's time for events. And if you're on the road with the Chad and cheese sponsored by Shaker recruitment marketing, guess what? Well, Joe Shaker out of nowhere messages me and he and the team were here in Madrid this week. Total coincidence. I shit you not. But in pure Shaker style last night, we had dinner at the restaurant inside Joel (12:17.333) That just sticks. Chad (12:42.058) Real Madrid Stadium. So Joe, Joe's always got to step it up. And when I say step it up, I'm not just talking about the stadium. We left after midnight after knocking out 19 bottles of wine. Talk about stepping it up. Needless to say, my head still hurts. So thanks again to our friends over at Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Thanks, Joe. He had to get up at nine or he had to had a flight this morning at 930. So he was definitely sucking. But our next event. Mo (12:44.461) man. Mo (13:08.589) Damn. 19 bottles, how many people? Oh, God. Chad (13:12.532) eight. So that's okay. Do the math kids do the math. Our next event our next event. You get that's right Stephen you know you know, St. St. Patrick's Day with the Ched and Cheese in Vegas during transform. That's right. I think I think Mo's going to think JT is going we're gonna have a whole we're gonna have a whole bunch of the Ched and Cheese team there. Mo (13:16.312) Sorry, had to ask, had to ask. Mo (13:37.102) It's gonna be awesome. Chad (13:39.936) March 17th through the 19th at the win. If you're not going, you gotta go. Go to ChadCheese.com slash events, register for Transform and see us there. Joel (13:51.733) Yeah, that should be a good time everybody. Chad (13:53.407) fuck yeah. Mo (13:53.9) be awesome. I mean St. Patrick's Day in Vegas, are you kidding me? Come on. Joel (13:58.985) Alright, we got a lot to talk about. Chad (14:01.596) And job books! Steven's taking my job. AI's taking my job. Jesus. Mo (14:07.714) Hahaha. Joel (14:08.193) Another another Scott taking an American job. Imagine that. that. Hey Chad, what do you call two doctors in the same operating room? Mo (14:10.957) Ha Chad (14:18.594) redundant. Mo (14:20.129) You Joel (14:21.013) Paradox. All right. right. Uh, friend of the pod and show sponsor paradox has had a pretty good week. Uh, first they got a lot of love from, uh, one of their new customers. You, you may, you may have heard of them, uh, a little, little, a little, company called, uh, Chipotle. Anyway, anyway, they were on, uh, CNBC's mad money. showed a lot of Americans at least, uh, will know, uh, and, the CEO. Chad (14:37.538) If you listen to the show, you've heard of them. Mo (14:44.974) you Chad (14:51.074) Jim Cramer. Mo (14:52.253) Mm-mm. Joel (14:53.734) of Chipotle had a lot of really nice things to say about paradox. sorry. That's the wrong. That's the wrong guy. This, this board is so hard to figure out. Let's, let's go to the real clip from mad money. Mo (15:01.262) Hahahaha Mo (15:07.502) haha Mo (16:02.466) I love his voice. Chad (16:04.822) Yeah. Chad (16:20.578) Come on. Joel (16:20.673) He's got dad jokes too. Mo (16:22.83) That's so bad. you Chad (16:32.78) chase. Joel (16:46.945) Nice one, nice one. Chipotle just printing money. Mo (16:49.038) He's a pro. Chad (16:51.01) I love Kramer's reaction. I've been waiting for companies to tell me about this. What is going on? Mo (16:54.222) Yeah. Joel (16:55.649) He's like, I was going to ask you about this, but let's go back to this paradox thing. That's interesting. Jeez. Could you imagine there's a better commercial for them? Jeez. That's awesome. Chad (16:59.106) Yeah Chad (17:03.978) No, no. And I gotta say, I gotta say, because we do this a lot, we give Adam Godson and Jay Z, Josh Swain over there, a ton of credit at Paradox. But let's focus, let's focus this time on Josh Seacrest for a moment. He's the VP over at Paradox and former head of global talent strategy at McDonald's. Yes, former global talent strategy at McDonald's and Mo (17:04.749) Pretty good. Chad (17:31.906) has been working as VP of Marketing and Client Advocacy over at Paradox for four years. Now, Josh is a freaking stud in the TA space, and when you see something like this happen, you know that it has Josh's fingerprints all over it. So big applause to Josh, everybody over at Paradox. This is awesome, this is awesome. Joel (17:53.939) It was awesome. I don't know how many people watch Mad Money, but the right kind of people watch Mad Money and listen to what Jim Kramer says. yeah, if there was, we'll talk about Paradox in depth here a little bit, but man, this really sets the table for them nicely in a big way. And wait, there's more from our friends at Paradox, Chad. They also acquired New York based and Black founded Equitable. Mo (17:57.55) Ha. Chad (17:59.82) Yes. Yeah. Woo. Wow. Joel (18:20.513) people on Alitix platform this week. Terms were undisclosed, founded in 2021. The Y Combinator alums had previously raised $2.8 million. The team which will join Paradox touts previous experience at places like Snap, WeWork, and Johnson & Johnson. We asked the Paradox team to give us a little video talking about the acquisition. Here it is. Mo (19:57.998) Ahem. Mo (20:14.935) You Joel (20:22.913) Okay, if you're not watching that, it's not the same jacket. And I want the one that I don't have, which is the Nike jacket. know Jay-Z's listening and I know he has my address. double X baby, XL maybe on the Nike, maybe XL on the Nike. Chad (20:26.018) okay. yeah. Mo (20:33.134) You Chad (20:34.102) Hey, all the way through, all the way through, would like, I would like a medium as usual. So what do think Mo? This is, huh? What do you think? Mo (20:35.949) Ha Joel (20:42.623) Baby cap. Mo (20:43.822) I mean, sounds great. I love that they sent you that personalized message. I mean, it speaks to the extent to which you are like, oh geez, in this space. I'm a newbie, right? Like I've been an employee, I haven't actually been a recruiter, I've been a hiring manager. I've been a candidate, of course, plenty of times. So I understand like what these platforms do and why they're necessary. But I gotta say like data, yeah, I love data. I love analytics. I love making better business decisions. That's so cool. But I have to ask because Chad (20:46.668) Yeah. You Joel (20:50.123) We're a big deal, Mm-hmm. Mo (21:13.078) a lot of these platforms, with all due respect to all these platforms, they kind of sound similar. And so can you guys help me understand what is the better together story here? What is this actually going to open up for people? Because I'm sure it's something, otherwise it wouldn't be happening. And a lot of organizations, it's like you build it, you buy it, or you partner. And they chose to go buy. So I just want to hear your take on this. Chad (21:36.802) Yeah. So great question because I hear a lot of talent acquisition people say the same thing. I don't know the difference between those. So in this specific case, so there are two specific reasons. Number one is human control. Yes, Paradox has a ton of data to train its large language models, but that training and its data is next to worthless without the ability to understand and visualize it. So humans still need to be in control, right? So instead of having a black box, Mo (21:43.042) Mm-hmm. Mo (22:03.846) good. Chad (22:06.262) You have a vast array of abilities to visualize, dissect, audit, and execute on data when you plug it into this new equitable platform. Number two, this is the one that I love the best, market control. Not human control, but market control. It's an interesting acquisition because it's much cheaper than buying a bigger platform like Vizier. Plus, Vizier was on Workday's &A radar. they've dropped off because of this acquisition with Paradox, because Paradox now has more robust capabilities, plus they're building down funnel to meet other big HCM players and consume, train, and visualize that data as well. So this is a play to be able to visualize and control, obviously human controlled data, but also it's a market play to be able to smack Vizier and other visual analytics types of companies. out of the way for perspective &A with big HCM companies where, I mean, I would think Paradox is probably looking to gain some play. What do think, Joel? Joel (23:08.609) I think Mo really smart. Joel (23:14.561) This is Chad's, I've had a few too many beers in Spain. You laugh. Look, there used to be a time where everyone stayed in their lane. I'm a job board, I'm an ATS, I'm this or that. And those days are coming to an end. Everyone is bleeding into everyone else's business. There was a time where Paradox was called a chatbot. Mo (23:15.694) Tell me more, say more. Chad (23:17.686) Huh? What were? Chad (23:23.746) Good luck. Joel (23:39.169) some people still call them that, but they are conversational AI and they're more and more becoming a platform for all things, hiring and employment. you look at companies like Deel, which we'll talk about later, smart recruiters who you're with Chad, they've launched Winston. So they have their own little chat bot conversational thing. So you're right in the, in the fact that all of these companies are starting to kind of do the same thing. I think you're going to see a lot more consolidation this year. A lot of companies buying pieces like paradox just did. Mo (23:39.886) Hmm. Chad (23:40.055) Yes. Mo (23:55.054) you Joel (24:07.179) to sort of play chess, if you will, of like, okay, you have a pawn, now we have a pawn. You have a rook, we have a rook. now we have bishop and we have, so it's like everyone's trying to put this puzzle together where from first contact to outboarding and bye-bye, they wanna own as much of that process as possible. So I think you're on the right track with everything sounding similar. So branding is so important, trust. Mo (24:09.58) Mm. Yeah. The competitive moat, yes. Yeah. Joel (24:33.301) Who, what logos do you have on your site? You know, like we'll talk to a lot of paradox people that we have to use another company for this, but we'd love to use paradox instead. So it's like these, these lines are being drawn and companies are having to take sides. Does that make sense to you? Mo (24:35.438) Totally. Chad (24:38.676) no. Chad (24:44.396) Mm-hmm. Mo (24:50.03) Totally, I think it's a very complicated branding issue, right? Like I understand the need to want to touch the entire cycle and have more of the market and all of that, but I do think it poses this really interesting issue of how do we message who we are and what we do, right? To the lay person, like I'm a great example of a lay person who would wanna know what these things do, right? And so I think they're gonna have to get really smart about it. hats off to Paradox for landing that sick. spot on Jim Cramer's show, you know, like that's the sort of thing that's going to help. Joel (25:18.113) Pretty soon they'll all have their own Shamrock shakes at HR Tech so that you know the difference between all the products and services. Chad (25:18.291) Hahaha Mo (25:23.182) That would be rad. Yeah. Yeah. Chad (25:24.578) you Well, the big reason the chat and cheese exist and why everybody loves so much is because we talk about this shit and because people don't understand the difference between them. And in some cases, the differences aren't that large. But if you take a look at the way Paradox started, as Joel had said, there was Paradox, there was... Good God. Where was the... I've had too many beers. Maya, Alio, Zor, right? There are all these different chat bots, right? Mo (25:35.104) You demystify it. Mm-hmm. Mo (25:41.74) Right. Joel (25:50.559) Maya, Alio, yeah. Chad (25:56.748) Where are they now? They're all fucking dead. Why? Because of way that the model actually worked. So yeah, I mean, it's interesting. It's interesting to know how they started and how they got to where they are today and how they grew and why they grew that way. So yeah, no, it's fun, which is why we do the show. Mo (25:56.814) Yeah. Mm. Joel (26:13.781) Yeah. So the bigger picture, Chad, thoughts on the acquisition, the overall strategy of Paradox? What are your thoughts? Chad (26:22.156) that just like I said, it just makes sense from an acquisition standpoint, because you take a look at companies like Workday, who say they're doing layoffs for because of AI, those motherfuckers don't have AI other than you know, they've got Athena, who's in there. But at the end of the day, they need something sexy and new and nimble like a paradox. And if paradox travels down funnel into the employee experience, and we know they're already doing that with some companies, right? That's exactly what a workday is gonna wanna see. Now, what's another company that also might look sexy to a workday? Vizier, because they bring data to life. Well guess what, so does Paradox now. So now Vizier is off the table, because Paradox can do that too, and they can do all this other shit. So I think from a macro standpoint, it just makes sense. Not to mention, if they don't get acquired and they go IPO, That TAM is going to be much larger, right? Because they're going to start going toward the 8CM. So they're going to be able to get a much, better IPO out. Mo (27:17.794) Yeah, that's a point. Joel (27:26.731) So first of all, Congrats to both teams. It's always awesome to be acquired and to be acquired by a company like paradox, know, when, yeah, that's always nice too. so Chad, when we, remember when we talked, Aaron had stepped down from a CEO duties and became chairman. And one of the comments I think I made was that he's, he's free to like acquire companies and go shopping and, use that budget to go make some really Chad (27:31.086) shit yeah. Mo (27:34.338) And to get to keep your job too. That's awesome. Joel (27:55.073) cool strategic moves, la Dr. Evil in the spacecraft or the volcano of volcano. Same as yours too. I think this is their third acquisition, the first one that Adam has been CEO, but I got to think that Aaron's fingerprints are all over this as well. And I suspect that we'll see more of these acquisitions in the future. So I want to go with three takeaways that I have and then a quick. Chad (28:01.258) As the same haircut too. Yeah. Joel (28:24.541) a quick history lesson, not just for Mo, but everyone. So my three takeaways, I've already said it, this is a big step to them owning more of the funnel of the lifespan of an employee. And I think they're going to continue to do this. ATS built, more acquisitions, they're going to keep doing this. So I think that is exciting for their customers. I think that also number two, this was very strategic. We'll get to some of the LinkedIn news later, but here's a little bit of a spoiler. Chad (28:35.788) Yeah. Joel (28:53.749) people love data. They love knowing more about shit and getting insight. And right now they don't have a lot of insight into their own people and their own organizations and what's going on. So this is an, this is clearly in demand. I don't know how much of this was customer driven, like, Hey, we'd really like to do this or just sort of foresight by Aaron and the, executive team. But this was a move strategic move, into, into data and, giving more to companies, which also feeds into AI, quite nicely. And, and number three. Chad (29:12.992) I the latter. Chad (29:20.962) Yes. Joel (29:23.349) We maybe don't talk enough about this, like if, this were a sports league, paradox just drafted at minimum, probably two first rounders and a high second rounder. so, so if you thought paradox was already a varsity squad, they've just up the bench quite a bit and made them a lot more vulnerable than even, they were before. So those are sort of my three takeaways, from the, from the news here. And with that, I'd like to, unless Chad, got something to add. Chad (29:52.064) Yeah, one quick thing also to be able to add into this kids might remember that Eileen Kowalski from GM, right? She was pretty much the star of the AI Sessions Season 1 and she's the global head of candidate experience at GM. Well, she was, she was. Now she's senior director of client success and advocacy at Paradox. Yeah, no shit. You have heavy hitters like Adam Gottson, Josh Swain and Seacrest from McDonald's. Joel (29:59.689) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mo (30:18.2) Damn. Joel (30:21.643) Mm-hmm. Chad (30:21.738) And now I lean from General fucking motors in the mix. These guys are killing it on all. I mean, they're hitting on all different cylinders and it's it's it's freaking amazing. It really is. Mo (30:22.136) huge. Mo (30:29.262) deep bench. Mo (30:35.384) Definitely says something when you can attract that kind of talent. So, good on them. Man, more references, I love it. Throwback. Joel (30:35.499) Come on, Eileen. Chad (30:38.038) Come on Eileen, I say Joel (30:39.521) Oh, I swear at this moment. All right, let's get to a history lesson. Mo (30:48.568) So good. So good. Joel (30:49.153) All right. So, so if a lot of companies need to be on notice, and I'm going to give you a quick history lesson here. And they, in the early two thousands monster could have acquired LinkedIn. They didn't, uh, they acquired a company called tickle, which they then ran into ran into the ran into the ground. Uh, they, they had a, they had an opportunity to buy indeed around 2010, 11, uh, they didn't. Mo (30:59.946) Oof, big mistake, huge. What was their first clue? Joel (31:15.925) They didn't. know how the story ends and Monster fell behind and became irrelevant, became Career Builder plus Monster. I am Workday, UKG, Recruit Holdings, SAP, ServiceNow, you better buy Paradox now because it's really close to getting unaffordable for a lot of companies. Otherwise, if you don't, Chad (31:20.096) Flip dog. Mo (31:25.774) brutal. Chad (31:39.616) Yeah. Mo (31:40.302) Hahaha Joel (31:44.193) You may be looking up in three, five years and going, holy shit, we got put out of business because of these guys. you know, history lesson, uh, learned a bit, a little bit from it, but, paradox is priming itself to be an 800 pound gorilla that everyone is going to wish they had put out of its misery or brought into its fold, uh, brought into this business, uh, really, really quickly. So that's, that's your, that's your history lesson. Mo (31:50.766) Totally. Chad (32:07.01) Play the history lesson, sound bite again. Mo (32:12.92) Chef's kiss, that's so good. So good. Joel (32:14.977) And with that, let's take a quick break and talk about deals. Chad (32:23.842) That's with two E's. Joel (32:24.929) All right, Deel has hit an 800 million annual revenue run rate and is eyeing an IPO next year. 800 million. just seems like yesterday that they were at 500 million. Yeah. The more, more winning Deel . Mo (32:25.902) You Chad (32:31.244) Fuck me. Chad (32:41.442) Yeah. Five. Yeah. Fuck. Joel (32:50.155) So after a 70 % revenue jump in December, it added investors through a $300 million share sale, boosting its valuation to $12.6 billion. Founded just six years ago. Deel has grown significantly, employing 5,000 associates worldwide. So Chad, I'm not sure there's anything that we haven't said before, but any opinion on the most recent deal valuation IPO announcement from Deel. Chad (33:02.05) Can I get another beer and another water? Mo (33:03.96) Billion. Chad (33:20.322) So, I mean, I know we agreed to talk about this because it's big news, but it's not surprising at all. Deel is killing the game. They reported 800 million in ARR. It seems like five minutes ago it was five minutes. It was 500, right? I mean, they are beating the shit out of Rippling, a company that has taken monumentally more funding than Deel , right? It's like two billion or some shit like that. Anyway, in every acquisition has made sense. So it's an EOR company that's turned into a payroll company. Mo (33:36.078) You Joel (33:36.481) Mm-hmm. Joel (33:41.707) Mm-hmm. Mo (33:42.51) you Chad (33:50.434) That could easily, thank you, easily take a huge, huge chunk out of the staffing world if they want to, right? So IPO, it's not a surprise. And unlike other stocks in the HR space, I believe this motherfucker's gonna skyrocket. So I want the pre-deal. I want some money in on this thing. Joel (33:55.361) Cheers. Mo (34:11.022) Ha ha ha. Joel (34:11.231) the pre-deal deal. Do they serve chicken cock at that bar, Chad? Mo (34:16.371) Hahaha Chad (34:17.602) I don't think so. Joel (34:20.853) I'm going to guess no. I'm going to guess no to Madrid. Yeah. I don't know what we can say about Deel that hasn't been said already. Now, what is interesting to me? I think this is the first time they've publicly talked about an IPO. the 2026 date is interesting. I don't know the leadership at Deel very well, but part of me thinks that they wake up every morning and go, how can we fuck with rippling in that? And, that douchebag Parker Conrad. Mo (34:22.363) god. Mo (34:45.614) Hahaha Chad (34:49.004) Tom Radd, yeah, Parker Edd. Joel (34:50.305) Right. Who, who I predicted, this was one of my predictions for 25 is that, is that rippling would go IPO. This gives them a little bit of false comfort to me. know Parker was listening to this and saw this and said, Ooh, 26, we can exhale. We can take a little break. We can maybe, you know, we, got some room to maneuver. Another prediction. think Deel comes out and says, Chad (34:53.962) Yeah. Mo (34:53.987) my God. Mo (35:05.72) haha Joel (35:17.121) things are happening sooner than we thought. We're going to file sooner than we thought and freak Parker Conrad and the Rippling kids out because they do not want Deel to go public before they do because their shit is going to look awful in light of Deel. So part of me thinks Deel 's fucking around with Rippling and saying 26 when they really mean 25. It's just the... Chad (35:30.23) before they do. No. Mo (35:33.102) You Chad (35:34.924) Yes. Mo (35:41.23) Wow, bold prediction. I like it. Mm-hmm. Chad (35:44.674) Well, he's just trying to pull it into his 2025 predictions. Joel (35:47.041) It is the evil genius that I think permeates the industry. yeah, Deel, keep crushing it. I can't wait till these two go public and we have more fun things to talk about. Mo, any comment about the news? Lot of dollars, I don't know. Questions? Mo (35:52.672) I love that. Mo (36:05.654) Lots of dollars. mean, they're clearly doing something right. Yeah, not a lot of familiarity or I've never been on the Deel platform, but I have been on Rippling and I have read about that guy. So I love your prediction and I can't wait to see what happens, but yeah, I mean, go, go crush it. guess kill it. Can't wait to see IPO baby. Yeah. Joel (36:23.019) Go crush it. Go crush it. Joel (36:28.435) All right. And on that note, we got more red meat for our listeners, more red meat. got Paradox deal. Let's talk about LinkedIn for God's sakes. Let's LinkedIn, everyone listening as a boner, if they can get one, because we're throwing so much red meat, red meat at you people. All right. Move over to. Instagram and YouTube. Here comes LinkedIn with over 1 billion users. Chad (36:31.66) Yes. Chad (36:36.63) dead. Mo (36:37.603) man. Mo (36:41.18) Ha! Mo (36:46.973) God. Chad (36:49.666) When's the last time you heard it called a boner? I think I was like 12. Go ahead, go ahead, sorry. Mo (36:52.886) Mmm, yeah, it's been a while. God. Joel (37:00.861) Again, why people love the show. All right, move over to TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Here comes LinkedIn with over 1 billion users. They're pushing video content touting a 36 % upload increase and new features like full screen vertical videos for all users. But wait, there's more. LinkedIn hopes to improve candidate treatment, adding quote, responsive insights indicating which job listings are actively being reviewed by employers hoping to steer applicants clear. of the proverbial black hole. All this is in the shadow of recent earnings where LinkedIn's revenue increased by 9 % in the quarter ending December 31st, reaching $4.59 billion, despite its talent solution segment, which includes recruitment tools performing slightly below expectations due to a weak hiring market. Mo, I know you love you some good social media videos. What are your thoughts on the news out of LinkedIn? Mo (37:52.11) I mean, big fan of LinkedIn video. It's actually, kudos to them. They have exploded my growth. I have gotten 41 million views in 2024. I think I'm like 8 million for 2025 already. And it's all thanks to video. Like, it's crazy. And it's blown my following up and all of that. So thank you, LinkedIn. I appreciate it. As an early adopter, I was, I think, Chad (38:01.954) you Chad (38:05.792) Hello! Joel (38:06.731) Damn. Mo (38:16.27) pretty much rewarded. Now it sounds like other people have like hopped into it and understand that they should be there. So my message to anyone is if you want to grow on LinkedIn, like don't be silly, like get out there, don't be an idiot. Like this is how to do it. And so they're really doubling down on creator tools. I've seen it myself. I've been, I've actually talked to someone on the LinkedIn team about this who reached out to me after seeing my videos and, they're going to be providing more and more tools for people to get out there on video. So. Chad (38:27.842) you Mo (38:42.402) buy in now, it's going to help you grow. Maybe the golden era is a little bit past since people are more sort of flooding it at this point, but it's a blast. It's been really fun. And I think LinkedIn, it needs a little bit of a shakeup from like, I'm humbled to announce that I got this new freaking job and I'm a visionary thought leader genius. So I'm here for it. Some people call it boring TikTok, like boring business TikTok. I disagree. I've seen some pretty good video content and... Chad (38:47.282) Thank Thank you. Joel (39:02.399) Mm-hmm. Mo (39:08.108) I also wanna say because they are focusing on this and because they've just made so much money, LinkedIn, maybe pull a TikTok and an Instagram and start paying your creators, incentivize us to post more. I'm into that idea. So show me the money, baby, I'm in. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, let's go. Also, there's just so much opportunity that people aren't realizing yet in terms of brand collaborations, like B2B should be on LinkedIn, should be working with creators there. Chad (39:17.148) oooo Joel (39:17.537) Chad (39:21.634) There it is. That's what I'm saying. Tell him, Mo. Tell him! Joel (39:23.105) You Mo (39:35.278) the value of a LinkedIn follower, if you will, versus like a TikTok or an Instagram follower, in my view and in the view of many others who know a lot more than I do, it's like exponential, right? Because these people are real name, real industry information, real title, all that stuff, which in some cases is bizarre. So I'm like, you posted that? Like, don't you know we all know? You're not like user 45789. Like how did you put that out there with your name attached to it and your player? Like, holy shit. But. It's like crazy, the value there. And I think that companies are gonna start waking up and partnering with content creators on LinkedIn. And it's just a whole market that's gonna explode. So that's my prediction for 2025. And let's hope it comes true for yours truly and others. Chad (40:16.256) Yeah. So companies that are out there, they should be they should be going after influencers. mean, and that's the thing is that everybody's talking about how can we get our jobs out on social media? Stop that shit. Go to influencers, have them get into their feeds for God's sakes, whether it's on TikTok, whether it's on Instagram, whether it's on fucking LinkedIn, it doesn't matter. That to me is the is the big key. Yeah, big key. Mo (40:23.213) Mm-hmm. Mo (40:29.581) Nope. Mo (40:39.104) Edutainment, yeah. Make it interesting. You're like, no one wants to watch your freaking webinar. Talk to the content creator. Have them Trojan horse your message in, man. Make it interesting, right? You know, Trojan horse that shit. Chad (40:45.447) Hahaha Joel (40:49.153) Trojan horse shit shit Trojan condom that shit. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Chad is Chad is so drunk. All right. This is great. so, so first of all, it's a chance point. If you don't have like a short form vertical video strategy, you're way behind. mean, get, get your, get your, you don't need, I mean, you don't necessarily need influencers. That's great. You have one in your own company, like get them on video. Chad (40:53.346) What's going on? Mo (41:01.07) Ha! Joel (41:17.739) get it on, get it on this platform. It's blowing up. Everyone that's using it loves it. I think it's only going to get bigger and bigger. and I think like we talked about before Chad, it's going to be a way to hire, right? Companies will post shit and there'll be a little button that says, company sounds interesting. Click here to apply now. And people will be just to be like applying to all these videos of companies that they think look cool or people that might be their boss. So this is a little bit of Mo (41:40.462) 100%. Joel (41:41.601) I don't want to say, know, that we talk about the death of the resume. Like this is kind of where hiring or lot of hiring is going to start moving into for the, for the young kids out there. Uh, the other thing that back to the paradox news, um, for the first time subscriptions on LinkedIn premium hit the $2 billion mark. People love this data shit. love insights and what's going on at this company. Like they like to look under the kimono and see what's going on. But. Mo (42:01.89) Mm. Mo (42:07.342) God, we need to retire that phrase, please, please God. No, oh, this needs to go away. Yeah, see, this is why I'm here. No, no, no, no, no, no, no opening the kimono. It's gone, it's dead, let's kill it. Killed, killed. Ixnay. Joel (42:08.469) But right now, but right now, under the kimono? What? What? Chad (42:18.449) I'm not going to leave it. Joel (42:21.441) So, okay, boners and under the kimono. Geez, geez. Okay, Freedom of speech, baby. Chad (42:23.49) I didn't say you couldn't say it. I just said I hadn't heard it since I've been 12. Go ahead though. It's fine. It's fine. Mo (42:28.898) That's less offensive to me than the kimono. Anyway, I'm just trying to help. I'm trying to help. The more you know, the more you know. Chad (42:35.274) Okay, so just so that we get this right. Mo does not like the kimono, but she likes the boner. Okay, so that's what we learned. Joel (42:40.095) No kimonos, boners, and definitely don't get a boner with the kimono on. That's bad from all sides. Mo (42:47.453) God! Chad (42:50.786) So the responses. So the responses. So the responses. So the responses. Mo (42:51.381) I was trying to help! Joel (42:55.649) you All right. Good God. The train is off. The train is off the track. So my second point was simply paradoxes move to like internal data and turn your own company into sort of your own LinkedIn access to data. And what's going on is going to be a very hot product in the near future. Good God. Let's get a refill. Let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about romance remotely. Mo (42:59.5) I did all I could. Mo (43:03.566) Transparency. Chad (43:09.612) Yep. Yep. Chad (43:18.604) Yes. Joel (43:30.209) All right, guys, a recent report from Zeti, mom's spaghetti shows that 86 % of US employees find remote work aids and forming romantic connections. What? With 51 % noticing flirtation in virtual meetings. I don't even know how that would happen. Over 62 % flirt via work platforms. 79 % have had long-term office romances and 41 % had a supervisor as a partner. Mo (43:36.11) What? Mo (43:47.842) Yeah, me neither. Joel (43:58.817) Gee, that sounds like a great idea. So it's no surprise. 69 % are starting to report favoritism in the remote workforce. Mo, so much for love in an office elevator. It's taken shape on Slack. What's your take on this new reality? Mo (44:08.312) Hmm. Right? Mo (44:16.534) I mean, I just feel like we've lost the ability to connect with people in person if people are like, yeah, this is better for like facilitating romance. Like, I'm sorry, are you kidding me? Like if you're in person in an office, how could that not be more of an environment where that can flourish? Like that blows my mind. I also have to say I have never in all my experience with remote work, seen someone like flirt in front of a group of people. Like that doesn't happen. I don't know how you pick up on that. But I know I'm like, what? Like heart eyes? Chad (44:25.184) Thank Joel (44:41.537) How would it happen? Emojis? Like sending an eggplant? Chad (44:43.904) No, think they're doing it. think they're, that's it. It's like, you're looking really good today, right? And you're doing it on the phone versus, yeah. Mo (44:46.41) on the side in Slack, but like. Really hot today. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, get that now we are much more capable of having online interactions and whatnot, and we can create some sort of romantic, romantical vibes through that. I get it. I just, in person is where it makes more sense to me. But OK, I guess that's just where we are as a society. We don't know how to talk to each other in person. But I will say, you know, right? On its face, you hear that, and it's like, Joel (44:52.929) you Joel (45:13.473) Hmm. Mo (45:20.962) Yeah, you probably shouldn't get involved with your supervisor. We all know that, like at face value. That's obviously something we shouldn't do. But where do you meet people? Where do you spend all your time? It is at the office. So it's like a very natural outcome of spending most of your waking life with a lot of people in close contact, whether that's like literally physically, which I think would be easier to create the romance situation, or that's online, right? But yeah, it just makes me think like, shit, are we just? Joel (45:24.449) you Mo (45:48.552) Do we not know how to interact in person anymore? Like, where's our Riz gone, guys? Like, where is the Riz? Joel (45:52.417) So I do want to chime in on the why does it, so there's an element in the office when you're around other people. And I can certainly speak from a male perspective. There have been multiple times where I would see my buddy or someone I knew start to like get on that line, like get up to it and almost like jump across. I would like, I'd give them a look or say, dude, what are you doing? Like that, no, you can't do that. Chad (46:01.035) No. Mo (46:10.414) You Chad (46:11.714) yeah. yeah. Mo (46:14.453) Oof. You're like. Joel (46:22.345) In a remote world, there's no like, at least in my case, male guard rails to say, dude, you're going to fuck up. Like you're going to get fired. You're going to like, you're going to get, you're going to get nailed on this one. That doesn't exist on Slack. Right. Now it is a startup that someone should do. By the way, friends at Fama should be creating some sort of like Slack channel detector because the superiors. Mo (46:24.971) Mmm, you're right. Mo (46:30.254) Yeah, that's good point. Chad (46:31.074) Don't do it. Don't do it. Mo (46:34.591) Yeah, that's a really good point. Ha! Chad (46:44.652) They should. They should. Yes. Joel (46:49.409) Getting into more like 41 % of romances with superiors and bosses. Whoo, man. is, that is, that is a PR nightmare waiting to happen. Um, someone's going to get nailed some big high profile company. You're going to hear it on CNBC or somewhere and companies are going to lose their mind over this and they're going to like scurry and try to find how do we stop this? How do we track it? How do we manage it? Um, you're going to see that story cause that is a lot of managers behaving badly. Mo (46:55.064) Danger zone, danger zone. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Chad (47:00.309) I agree. Mo (47:11.565) Riot. Mo (47:17.78) yeah. Or they're just gonna be gone one day and there's gonna be like a, you know, like no information about why they're gone. And like every time that happens. Yeah. Yeah, that too. Joel (47:18.177) with some of their Joel (47:22.881) There are going to be lawsuits. No, there's going to be a lawsuit. Total lawsuit. there's going to be nudes are going to be sent on Slack. Like this is going to happen. Mo (47:30.398) God. you guys, true story. I've seen, when I joined a company, I went onto the Slack channel and I was scrolling through the Slack channel as a brand new employee and I was in a public channel and I saw a picture of a bare male butt staring me in the face next to a guy, cheersing the camera on a ski slope. And I was like, am I watching HBO? Like what is happening right now? How is this real? And I was like, how does this person have a job? And I went and I looked who posted it. It was the co-founder and president of the organization. And I was like, Chad (47:31.842) Let's, Chad (47:59.724) There you go. There you go. Well, let's, let's let, let Joel, it's time for history lesson. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to help the listeners understand how we got here. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So K remember when Joel, I know you remember this when we used to have company just show up at the house, people would literally hop in the car and just pop over for a visit unannounced unannounced. Mo (47:59.96) Fuck me, how did I find myself in another frat house in tech? Mo (48:08.206) You Chad (48:28.022) You'd hear your mom answer the door and then yell really loud, we have company. And we, why'd that stop? Well, the internet, because it was too damn easy to connect with people. So instead of hopping in the car, you pick up the phone, send a message. The actual human real world reaction fades away, right? So interactions move online and since the human connection is all but lost, just popping over and having company seems really weird, right? Mo (48:31.775) You Mo (48:35.47) Yeah. Mo (48:57.396) Mm-hmm casual drop-in nope nope Chad (48:57.674) Really weird. Yeah, that's, weird. So where before it was normal, it was something that we all did. So we shouldn't be surprised that peers slacking or messaging, creating that connection becomes almost the entire way. That's how we have a connection. Right? So remote, that's, that's what we're used to now, right? Instead of the impersonal stuff, we don't have company. That's weird. We need to do this stuff online. So that's. Mo (49:03.224) Mm-hmm. Mo (49:21.848) Mm-hmm. Mo (49:25.443) You Chad (49:27.862) for me, how I think we got here. And it's sad and it's true. And these motherfucking AI boyfriends and girlfriends are going to be easier to slack than, than, than Jeffrey across the, across the, the internet. Joel (49:44.765) I quote the debate by saying, I don't know what he said and I don't think he knows either. Let's get to our dad joke of the week before Chad is fully under the table. All right, guys, what are a chocolate's pronouns? What are a chocolate's pronouns? Mo (49:44.91) cubicle. Mo (49:49.119) Hehehehehe Mo (49:54.254) Ha ha! Chad (49:54.466) I'm almost there. Mo (50:03.886) Got nothing. Chad (50:04.802) That's an almond. Joel (50:06.401) Hershey Hershey Mo (50:08.596) there we go. That's, yeah. I got it, I got it. I know what. Chad (50:08.962) Her and she yeah her she does like Joel (50:12.341) Well, it's great to meet you. hope that we see each other again very soon. And with that, another one is in the books. We out. Chad (50:16.288) Hahaha! Chad (50:19.958) We out! Mo (50:22.73) can I talk? Joel (50:26.869) We out. Mo (50:27.0) Yeah, we out. Okay, we're done.

"Grab your headphones and your happy sock, because Chad, JT, and Mo are here to drop a bombastic episode of HR’s most dangerous podcast. This week, they tackle the wild world of TikTok’s survival, MrBeast’s surprise bid for global dominance, and a STEM creator taking Pornhub to educational heights (math class just got weird). Chad christens this era as the ‘Fellatio Administration’ while JT and Mo do their best to keep him tethered to reality. It’s equal parts chaos, comedy, and catharsis. WARNING: Contains unfiltered opinions and far too many jokes about bourbon barrel-aged syrup. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad (00:24.776) yeah. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I am Chad. Are you not entertained? So wash. Mo (00:26.541) You Mo (00:35.247) I am Maureen, girls rule, boys drool, Clough. J.T. O'Donnell (00:41.452) And I'm JT, please invite me someplace warm, O'Donnell. Chad (00:44.632) I'd love to have you here. But it's almost down to 60 degrees, so it's getting a little chilly. On this week's cheese-free show, Chaos Management back in the USA, see what I did there? Employer.com and MrBeast bid for TikTok and who knew science, technology, engineering, and math was a fetish? Grab your happy sock, kids. We'll be right back. Mo (00:44.94) Hahaha J.T. O'Donnell (00:49.44) Yeah, I know you're rubbing it in. Mo (01:00.908) You Chad (01:18.728) That's a good question. That's a good question. Well, hello. What's up, ladies? J.T. O'Donnell (01:23.438) What's up, Chad? Mo (01:23.449) What's up, Chad? How's Portugal? Chad (01:25.135) Joel, it's, well, it's getting little chilly, as I'd said. It's almost 60 degrees here. I had to put on another layer. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. How about you guys? Where are we at? Mo, where are you at? J.T. O'Donnell (01:28.951) Yeah. Mo (01:31.215) I'm sorry. Mo (01:38.649) We at Seattle, we're hanging on, hanging on here. It's not 60. It is sunny though, so there you go. I know, it's pretty early. But I'm here, I'm here and I'm happy to be here. Chad (01:43.78) It's like 9 AM there, right? Noon? lies. JT, you're on the East Coast. So a little bit better, noon, but what... Ooh. Four degrees, walking the dog. Okay, okay. Okay, kids, so Joel is obviously out this week. It's a blessing and a curse. The blessing is less Taco Bell and Chipotle jokes. The curse... J.T. O'Donnell (01:56.136) am. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, baby. Four degrees walking the dog yesterday. Yeah. What is wrong with this picture? Mo (02:04.857) Damn. Yeah, no thanks. Chad (02:18.406) I have too much Smarter Co-hosts, so I guess I gotta be on my game this week. JT and Mo, again, welcome back. But first time on the show together, so can't wait to start digging in with you. We got stuff to talk about. This is gonna be re... Mo (02:20.888) You Mo (02:29.305) Yay. Mo (02:32.739) Big female energy today, love it. Here for it. Chad (02:37.926) I'm here for it. my God, am I here for it? Jesus. You ready to dig into some shout outs? Mo (02:45.753) Let's go. Chad (02:48.072) Clearly it's time for shout outs. And for you kids out there, yes, that is Stephen McGrath. We had him do a bunch of new sound effects because everybody knows Stephen is our favorite Scott. So let's hear it again. yeah. So melodic as well. Okay, Mo, you got a shout out. Hit it. Mo (03:02.127) you Mo (03:05.999) That's amazing. All right, my shout out, it goes to whoever is the White House photographer of this new administration, because what I beheld on whitehouse.gov is a gift that we'll keep on giving. It is legitimately the weirdest headshot I've ever seen in my entire life. I mean, are you kidding me? I'm pretty speechless, honestly. I saw this and I was like, this can't be real, but this is the one that he chose. what? Where am I? What is happening? Yeah, so. Chad (03:36.968) Look at that. Look at that. Chad (03:44.71) It's the Emperor Palpatine is what it is. Mo (03:48.077) I mean, it's unbelievable. So thank you to whoever made this fly. Like my heart goes out to you forever because this is epic. Chad (03:57.81) This is epic. That's whatever you want to call it. Whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so before, before we get into my shout out, did you guys watch the inauguration at all? Did you wait? What, what, did, what did you think? I keep hearing, cause I didn't have, I didn't, I didn't take the time. I keep hearing that it's kind of like a made for TV movie kind of thing. Mo (04:00.321) Epic. Yeah. Excite to be seen. J.T. O'Donnell (04:11.028) I did. Yeah, I did watch parts of it. Mo (04:11.895) Yeah, I did. Mo (04:19.247) You J.T. O'Donnell (04:22.082) Well, if you see all the videos afterwards, the memes that were made, literally a bunch of them, I was like, I was thinking that when I'm not kidding you, like literally, was like, I literally, he was, I mean, they just captured moments of, you know, people looking off into space, giggling, fashion issues, you know, the vice president's son patting both parents on the head. Mo (04:23.332) Yeah. Chad (04:29.288) Hahahaha Mo (04:29.295) Totally. Totally. Mo (04:44.505) Fashion choices. J.T. O'Donnell (04:50.638) You know, it's just, they just put together the greatest montages out of that thing that I don't remember in any inauguration prior to, so. Mo (04:55.031) incredible. Chad (04:57.81) I really hope that Baron, because he's going to need it, he gets like a fashion consultant or something because he looks like a serial killer. And again, mean, he's a kid, he's 18, 19 years old. But I mean, at the end of the day, mean, you got money, guys. I mean, your brothers look like idiots. Try to get away from that look, please. Please, Baron. my God. OK. Mo (05:05.815) Mmm, yeah. Mo (05:19.36) Mmm. Yeah. Doesn't buy you class or style, does it? Mm-mm. No, no it does not. J.T. O'Donnell (05:22.616) But don't, Chad, you don't, but you remember that age? At that age, nobody older than you knows to tell you what to dress. I mean, when you're 19, your friends know how to dress. And so you're dressing, you're not, you're not gonna listen to anybody. If the fashion consultant is his age or younger, we might have a shot. Chad (05:29.106) Oof. Mo (05:32.707) Ha ha ha. Chad (05:33.241) Yeah, and and he probably won't listen anyway, yeah Mo (05:38.905) I mean, I don't know. Chad (05:39.336) His friends don't dress like that. His friends don't dress like that. There's no way. Mo (05:45.025) I John Fetterman had the right energy. mean, I was like, damn, I applaud your choice. Wow, shorts to the inauguration in like, what, what was it like four degrees or something? I don't know. It's like, go for it, dude. Chad (05:50.29) Dude, dude, come on. Yeah. it was ridiculous. So I gotta, I gotta get ready for my, get ready for my, can I do this? I can't, I gotta do it the right way. Boom, yes. Getting into a beer for my shout out. My shout out goes out to our YouTube subscribers and viewers. A couple of weeks ago, I shared our 2024 Spotify numbers and this week, thanks to our listeners and new viewers, the Chad and She's YouTube channel views grew over 350 % in 2024. Mo (06:02.135) You can do it. I believe in you. Chad (06:24.232) And watch time to our content was up almost 400%. So shout out to everyone watching the Chad and Cheese on YouTube. Make sure you like, share, comment, subscribe, and make sure all your family, friends, everybody, Chad and Cheese on YouTube. Shout out to you. JT. Mo (06:40.911) You J.T. O'Donnell (06:46.062) So my shout out is to a guy on LinkedIn named Austin Nasso. You should go look him up, Austin Nasso. If you didn't see this, Austin apparently considers himself an AI futurist as well as a comedian. And he posted a very important breakdown of making $340,000 per year in San Francisco as a software engineer, and it's utterly unlivable. Let me break down why I can't afford it. Some highlights include the DoorDash salads at $1,680 a month. Mo (06:59.343) you Chad (07:09.986) shit. J.T. O'Donnell (07:16.334) The dinner and drinks for hinge dates excluding to Michelin star was 2380. He ends up $1,000 in the hole per month and he doesn't know what to do about it. That also includes the cyber truck lease for 1368. And so he's struggling. Now folks, if you didn't get through the bottom and realize he was joking, right? Mo (07:32.207) My favourite part. Chad (07:37.672) You're just struggling. Mo (07:41.58) You J.T. O'Donnell (07:42.126) 11,000 comments later and counting half of these are people telling him what's wrong with him and another quarter are giving him financial advice on how to fix his numbers legitimately, legitimately. So I think this is just amazing that he could slide in like this and have this many people not understand he was joking. Austin, you win. Yeah. Chad (07:55.058) Come on, come on people, buy a clue. Mo (07:56.623) What is wrong with people? Mo (08:04.847) We are brilliant. Yep, he's the best. Love that guy. Chad (08:05.21) That's amazing. That's amazing. That is amazing. That's amazing. Yes, what we need is more comedy, kids. That's what we need. J.T. O'Donnell (08:10.742) Yeah, there's a picture. We do. An intelligent comedy. mean, this thing is hilarious, you know? Mo (08:17.991) my God. Yes. I'm getting my news exclusively from The Daily Show for probably about four-ish years. So yes, comedy will save us all. Chad (08:25.116) dude, yes. It will. And another thing that's going to save us. Mo (08:33.359) You Chad (08:34.44) Yeah, that's right. So a week from today, Julie and I are starting our road trip in Spain. That's right, kids. spending a couple of nights in Seville, then hopping north to Caceres for a few nights and ending up in Madrid for the smart recruiters, all hands event. we're to be doing a simulcast, ending up with like a gala before jumping back on a jet plane and coming back to the fury of executive orders happening in the U S and then. Hopefully you guys will be able to join us in the Transform happening at the Wynn in Las Vegas on March 17th and 19th. So if you can't go to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day, why not the hell go to Las Vegas, spend it with Chad and Cheese at Transform. If you haven't registered, it's coming up. to chadcheese.com slash events. Come see us at Transform. Any thoughts, any travel going on, personal business, what's happening between you two? Mo (09:16.015) you J.T. O'Donnell (09:33.174) Yeah, I'm literally getting on a plane tonight to Florida. I wasn't kidding. I booked the flight two days ago. I have a daughter that lives there. she's, know, mom's going to come work out of your apartment is how that's going to work for a few days. So I don't freeze, but yeah, I am. And then I'm coming back and, I've, put an order in just so everybody knows I've put an order in for March 11th and 12 here in Portsmouth because I am actually teaching. Chad (09:36.187) whoa! Mo (09:36.759) Hmm. the negative four or whatever, makes sense. Chad (09:45.839) Amen. Chad (09:59.677) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (10:01.686) a class here for two days. It's a two day mastermind called Expertise Unleashed. And it teaches executives how to build their brand without looking like a jerk. So you got a lot of people out there right now that don't know how to build a brand, right? And their LinkedIn feeds are horrific. And they, we've talked about this, like the whole future is branding. I'm sorry, you're a business of one, you're an expensive brand. You want to make six figures plus a year. Chad (10:04.904) that's cool. Mo (10:06.263) Awesome. Mo (10:13.626) that's key. Chad (10:15.26) There are so many. Mo (10:24.729) Mm. Yep. J.T. O'Donnell (10:27.85) And yet it blows my mind how many people don't understand this. so, so if you're interested DM me because we will be turning up the heat some way here at the 11th and 12th and saving a lot of people's LinkedIn profiles. It is my job. Yeah, literally. Chad (10:40.37) So we're gonna, we're... good God. Mo (10:40.803) Thank you for your service, honestly. Like, thank you for your service. We need you. I mean, if I have to see another visionary thought leader, like I can't, I cannot do it. my God. Chad (10:47.528) Yeah, it's... Okay, can we break down thought leader real quick? Can we please break down thought leader? I mean, if you are not a leader with execution, who gives a shit what you think? If you have no practical exercise and or experience in actually building shit and putting it out there, then who gives a fuck? I mean, really, I'm a thought leader. When people call me that, I'm like, okay, stop that shit. I actually do stuff. J.T. O'Donnell (10:56.046) Right? Mo (11:08.943) Mm. Chad (11:19.45) I do stuff, right? So, so anyway, what your thoughts, that a bad thing? Do you, do you steer people away from thought leader, JT? J.T. O'Donnell (11:19.523) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (11:27.032) Big time. I actually steer people away from putting leader in there because leader is a compliment somebody pays you about your management style, right? I think the most successful people scrub all subjectivity out of their profiles and just spit facts. It's simple. Throw up the numbers. You throw up the numbers, it's gonna be fine. And then, you know, from a content standpoint, provide something valuable advice-wise. No thought leadership. You know, so yeah, I'm with you. Chad (11:33.64) Appreciate that. Appreciate that. Mo (11:34.275) Yes. Chad (11:38.118) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mo (11:48.559) You make too much sense, JT. You're making too much sense for me. Chad (11:54.428) Yeah. You know what also makes sense? Free stuff kids, free stuff. Go to ChadCheese.com slash free. You get a cool t-shirt. JT wore hers last week from Aaron App. They feel like, yeah, I don't know. Where is yours? They feel like a hug from Chad and Cheese. You got to get one from our friends at Aaron App. We, you don't think so? Cause not anybody, not everybody wants a hug from Chad and Cheese. Mo (11:57.411) Mmm. Mo (12:01.807) Hey, where's mine? I don't have one. Want that. J.T. O'Donnell (12:12.47) sure you should say it that way. Just throw it out there. Just the visual that comes up in that moment. It's like, Mo (12:21.123) We need consent for that. Chad (12:24.028) This is why we need you two around, because Joel and I say stupid shit all the time. We have no clue. We're dumb men. Bourbon barrel aged syrup for your Belgian waffles. mean, what could be better than bourbon barrel aged syrup? Pappies, like the best bourbon from our friends at Kiora. Craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. We have whiskey from... Mo (12:33.999) you J.T. O'Donnell (12:41.454) Hmm. Chad (12:52.868) our friends at, who's doing, Van Hack. Holy shit, we've got Canadians all over the place. Van Hack, two bottles of whiskey to your front door. And if it's your birthday, it's time for a little rum with plum. I gotta make sure I get the good one out, because everybody loves this one. Plum.io. Joel will be back next week for birthdays. But that's Chad Cheese. dot com slash free and here it comes. Time for topics. Chad (13:35.72) I get I gotta get those I gotta get those melded melded together. So we have a fury fury of content that's coming out today kids first and foremost, I would like to call this our Trump negative 2.0 block. So the beginning of the dismantling of DEI in the USSA the this week many Mo (13:36.911) That was amazing. Mo (13:46.882) you Mo (14:02.319) you Chad (14:04.794) executive orders were signed and many were revoked. Among those revoked was the Lyndon B. Johnson's executive order 11246, signed back in 1965, focused on, guess what? Equal employment opportunity. Yeah, that's a thing. In conjunction with that, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, AKA OFCCP, within the Department of Labor shall immediately a... Mo (14:12.655) Hmm Chad (14:33.796) Stop promoting diversity. Cease promoting diversity. B, hold federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking affirmative action, which means no enforcement, period. C, allowing or encouraging federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in workforce balanced based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin. Holy shit, ladies, we're back in the 1960s. What are your thoughts? Mo, I know I can see it in your eyes. You just want to let loose. Let me hear it. Let me hear it. Mo (15:11.503) I just like, what the actual fuck? Like honestly, like what is going on with this? I knew it was coming. I know this is the whole shock and awe campaign. Like that's what's going on right now, but it's still like, it's insane. And to me, when you think about it, first of all, it's horrendous business. I mean, some actual leaders, like we're gonna call them leaders because they actually do lead by example and do good things, right? Like Mark Cuban, he understands that this is just like a bad business practice and- Chad (15:15.494) Hahahaha Chad (15:24.7) Firestorm. Mo (15:40.705) I don't understand how others can't see that, can't see the error of their ways. Like this is just absurd. And the basis for their argument on the reason DEI shouldn't be there is really hinging on meritocracy. Dude, that's not a thing. Like, can we be honest about that? That is not a thing. I have been in countless corporate organizations where I have seen it firsthand. Everybody knows this. It's not a meritocracy and equity is critically important, not just because it's the morally right thing to do, not just because it's the ethically right thing to do, but also because it is better for business outcomes. So this is just like an incredibly ridiculous own goal, performative action, absurdity, and I hate all of it. I absolutely abhor it, and I could have even been stronger in my feelings, but that is where I am. Mm-hmm. Chad (16:17.64) Mm-hmm. Chad (16:29.224) What do you think, JT? J.T. O'Donnell (16:31.522) You know, for years, I've been saying to job seekers, whether you like it or not, hiring is discrimination. So if you think about it, we get down to five candidates and they all have the exact same skills. Think of them as five apples. I can't eat all five apples today. I got to pick one. Do I want the sour one? I want the green or one? And so we live in this world where hiring is discrimination, but we worked really hard to get that to a place where the discriminating was down to things that... people had some control over, right? Whether it was your experience, your communication style, et cetera. And so to see us reverse back and allow all these other forms of discrimination come in, it's disheartening. It is. it's, the voice of the job seeker here, they're just, so defeated because it's already hard enough to get a job in this market. You're already fighting against massive competition. Chad (17:01.051) Mm-hmm. Chad (17:25.127) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (17:25.358) And it just it's like adds another layer for people and I think it gets people to the point where they just give up now the optimist in me Really hopes that this upsets enough younger people who are thinking about how to form companies and How we'll have teams that manage one day that it'll sit in their cross so badly that they'll They'll go all in the other direction and really start to build up you Mo (17:32.719) you J.T. O'Donnell (17:48.45) You have to believe that when somebody does something this severe, the pendulum is going to swing back, right? You know, I've got everything crossed. That's the case. and it's just, it's unfortunate, you know, but I, we're going to, we're going to take the cards that are being dealt right this second and I'm going to get scrappy with my clients and we're going to figure out ways, you know? And so, yeah, same thing. Yeah. Mo (17:52.527) 100%. 100%. Chad (17:52.7) Yeah, yeah. Chad (18:01.362) Thank you. Chad (18:07.864) It's all we can do right now, but to JT's point Chad (18:14.824) So real quick for the listeners, I'm gonna kinda hitch up on this one. The OCCP, why does that matter? The OCCP was created to hold government contractors' feet to the fire because if they're taking millions and or billions of taxpayers' money, and we're talking about taxpayers that are black, white, brown, male, female, gay, trans, everybody, right? Okay, so. Mo (18:15.503) you Chad (18:40.294) Those companies are taking taxpayer money. So there was a different standard created for those government contractors and the OFCCP enforced, past tense, that standard until this week, right? On the corporate America side, mean, corporate America will love working the roads with no guardrails. McDonald's new not so inclusive statement is, quote, we are retiring setting aspirational representation goals and instead keeping our focus on continuing to embed inclusive practices that grow our business into our everyday process and operations." quote. So the retiring setting aspirational representation goals, lest we not forget kids, what gets measured gets done and they're stopping measuring it, right? So corporate America, Mo (19:35.087) Absolutely. Chad (19:38.3) We'll stop measuring representation and anything DEI will fade away. Now, the positive part here, I'm going end on a positive. The beautiful part about this is all of these executive orders, they're not hardwired into the system as laws. That's where politicians have gotten lazy and expected presidents to lead by EO instead of Congress actually doing the hard work, doing their fucking jobs. by hard wiring diversity, equity and inclusion into our society through legislation, right? So yes, we are going to see a firestorm of changes, bad changes, but if they're not hard wired, it's a firestorm that hopefully will only last four years. What damage can be done in four years? That's the hard part, but at the end of the day, I agree Moe from the meritocracy standpoint. It's much like trickle down economics. It was a great promotional propaganda bullshit scheme that's really helped out 1 % of the population, right? But everybody else bought into it. at that point, yeah, at that point, any, any comments on, on my stupidity I just threw out. Mo (20:29.071) . Mo (20:39.823) Exactly. Mo (20:46.575) 100%. Mo (20:52.589) I mean, first of all, everything you said made complete sense to me. So no stupidity from me in terms of how I would classify what you just said. I will say that I think to JT's point, are going to see, yes, there will be a lot of this bad outcome for sure. But we will see people who will stand up and say, I'm going to do the right thing both by my moral values and also by my business outcomes. And so people will stand up and say they care about this. Chad (21:14.994) Mm-hmm. Mo (21:20.015) Costco, there will be more companies, there will be more companies also that are led by Gen Z. Gen Z, I read somewhere, I can't remember exactly where it was, but that they specifically care about business ethics and where they choose to work. And so people will not go take jobs at companies that don't have the values that they do. So that's gonna be an outcome too. You're gonna lose out on talent who gives a damn about what they're doing and the impact they're making. So I'm trying to take a little bit more of a hopeful bet. still, I'm a little bit angry right now. J.T. O'Donnell (21:44.654) Mm-hmm. Mo (21:50.093) and I'm still kind of working through my emotions, but I'm not gonna get exhausted by this stuff. I am going to keep working and fighting and standing up for the little guy. So this is not cool. Chad (21:51.72) Appreciate that, appreciate that. Chad (22:00.072) Well, something else that we can talk about next on the executive order pile, hiring freeze plus RTO. So this from the desk of the president quote, by the authority vested in me as president, hereby order a freeze of the hiring of federal citizen employees. The order continues with that. It does not apply to military personnel or to. Jesus Christ, that dog. so. J.T. O'Donnell (22:07.832) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (22:27.49) Hahaha! Chad (22:29.682) Portugal, we got dogs. it, where, where was that? There we go. Does not apply to military personnel. No shit. Or the positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety. it shall not adversely impact social security, medicator, veterans benefits, end quote. then quote within 90 days, OMB and OPM with Doge. That's the. Mo (22:31.298) You Mo (22:38.55) Exactly. talker. Mo (22:56.942) Doge. Chad (22:57.018) idiots Vivek and Elon, will submit a plan to reduce the size of the federal government workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition. Then in a move we've seen from so many companies, now it's going to be tried by the White House, quote, heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of government shall, as soon as practical, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work. J.T. O'Donnell (23:24.846) you Chad (23:25.518) arrangements and require employees to return to work in person as their respective duty stations on a full time basis. quote hiring fleet freeze plus RTO. It's hard to keep a positive outlook this week. What are, what are your thoughts? J.T. O'Donnell (23:41.41) Yeah. I mean, we saw it coming, right? I mean, you knew the RTO was coming. Absolutely. As soon as he took office. I literally can't wait to watch how this idea of wasteful spending will be, you know, the wasteful spending czars of Doge, how they're going to handle it. Someone told me that they believe that something around 72 cents, please somebody fact check me. Mo (23:41.785) rough. 100%. Chad (24:00.381) Doge. Mo (24:01.43) Hahaha J.T. O'Donnell (24:09.738) of every dollar brought in, taxpayer dollars is wastefully spent. I'm like, really? We're that far off? Okay. So, you know, if they're going to show us some numbers, it'll be fascinating. They're just going to flood the market though with people. That's that. And those government workers are not going to be prepared for the job market that they're walking into. It's already hard enough to get a job, but to try to move from... Mo (24:14.39) my lord, okay. Chad (24:23.656) Go, yeah. Mo (24:23.811) Yep. Totally. Mo (24:29.667) Nope. Nope. J.T. O'Donnell (24:33.676) Government to for-profit or nonprofit to for-profit changing a lane is so dang hard in this world Because everybody wants what they want I want you know the bilingual brain surgeon for ten bucks an hour bring me those five people I mean every recruiter out there we call them purple squirrels right like like the purple squirrel thing is on steroids right now And then even still if you bring them three people they go well that was a little fast Chad (24:37.138) Mm-hmm. Mo (24:46.735) Who's 22? Yeah, exactly. Mo (24:58.425) Hahaha J.T. O'Donnell (24:58.536) There's a lot of people out there. don't you find like seven more? Because you found me three people that are perfect in a week. No, no, no, that can't be right. So now you're going to flood the market with all the... You're talking government workers are going to have no idea how to look for work and are probably not going to get great job search resources. saying. I'm not sure what outplacement program POTUS is going to be using, but I just think, right? I will send them my way, but I just... Chad (25:04.956) Yeah. Yeah. I love those hiring managers. Yeah. Mo (25:05.424) I have FOMO. Yeah, exactly. Mo (25:16.047) Until they come to you. Is he going to use one? Yeah, exactly. J.T. O'Donnell (25:28.278) I can't even, it's already crazy right now. Like if you just spend some time, I can't even when that whole group of people hits the market, it's gonna be insane. Mo (25:29.807) . Chad (25:30.568) Mm-hmm. Mo (25:35.759) It's definitely rough out there. What I found interesting about this whole move is they're saying the quiet part out loud that a lot of people don't actually acknowledge publicly, which is that they expect attrition with RTO initiatives. That is the freaking point. That is a layoff without calling it a layoff. I call them RTO layoffs. That's what it is. And so here we go. Chad (25:47.125) yeah. yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (25:47.702) 100%. J.T. O'Donnell (25:51.214) 100%. Mo (25:55.105) And I do think that it's going to impact people who are older, more experienced workers who have embedded themselves in communities who might be caring for older relatives, who might have kids in schools and have a community around them, and they're not gonna be able to go back. I also think that's by design, because they are likely to potentially have a higher income, right? So it's just, it's gross. We see what they're doing. We know what they're doing. Like you said, JT, mean, obviously we all saw this coming. It doesn't make it suck any less. Hopefully those people have a contingency plan, a plan B. We all need that in corporate these days because the 30 year corporate career or government career is dead. So it's just, it's a shame, but you know, everybody in this situation, I'm sure was not surprised by what happened. And I also want to say, I think it will be interesting to see what falls apart in the wake of all these people leaving, right? Because guess what? People make things work. People do things that make things function. Companies and governments function. And so we'll see some sort of a repercussion from this move. And it might be something that really like hurts Trump and his administration because they made this call. And people are like, shit, this thing broke. And it's because they made this call. Well, thanks a lot. It's almost like, remember when the Spotify CEO laid off like 1500 employees and was like, shit, it's harder to get stuff done now. It's like. people need to recognize that workers make companies make governments function. Like this is not rocket science, but apparently it is. I mean, we have a rocket scientist at the helm, an Elon Musk, and he's doing this kind of shit. So I don't know what to tell you. We're screwed. Chad (27:26.664) Yeah, well, I mean, Elon actually said it that he's they're looking for people to quit. Like he said, they're saying the quiet part out loud. according to OMB about 1.1 million employees, 46 % of the civilian population were eligible for some form of remote work. 1.1 million. Right. So take a look and think about this. So they're looking to actually Mo (27:32.685) Yeah, exactly. Totally. Chad (27:55.602) close the borders, which they're already doing, which means a lot of these entry level jobs that Americans just won't do anyway, right? Do they expect these individuals to go do those jobs? I mean, we're talking about the difference between a career risk in the government and then there's just a market mismatch that's going to happen. And then what's going to happen to the job? I mean, this is just fucking lunacy. Mo (28:03.471) Exactly. Mo (28:18.255) Totally. J.T. O'Donnell (28:22.638) Okay, but can we just talk about the fact that I have people right now walking into Home Depot, walking into fast food retail, I shouldn't just name one name, but walking into these places and being told, yeah, I'm not gonna hire you because the moment you get a better job, you're gonna leave. I mean, they're flat out told that. Mo (28:22.799) It's crush industries. It's insane. Mo (28:42.497) overqualified, right? That's what the... Yep. J.T. O'Donnell (28:46.014) So it's not a question of whether, I mean, there are people desperate and will do those jobs now and aren't being given a shot. So who's going to educate all the managers out there that you should be taking those people and giving them a shot? I mean, that is the, mean, you're right. You won't have a choice soon. Mo (28:50.606) Yep. Chad (28:50.748) Yeah. Yeah. Chad (28:58.61) They're not going have a choice soon. They're not going have a choice soon because again, if you push the immigrants out, the ones who are actually doing that job in the first place, the ones that they're leaning heavily on and don't get me wrong, great workers spend almost a hundred billion dollars in taxes every year and we're pushing all that out. Right. So, so it's like, there's going to be this huge mismatch in the workforce and then the economy is going to have problems around that. Do you expect. Mo (29:03.863) Exactly. Mo (29:15.649) More than some billionaires. Yeah, exactly. J.T. O'Donnell (29:16.759) Mm-hmm. Mo (29:26.543) Exactly. Chad (29:27.364) a careerist who's actually worked at a desk for, I don't know, say last 10 years to go work at a fucking dock. No, no, but, but, that is our supply chain. And we saw what happened to our supply chain during COVID, right? So we, we, we've got it. We've got to be careful around this. It's, it's just, it's crazy. J.T. O'Donnell (29:35.192) Mm-hmm. Mo (29:43.596) Exactly. Mo (29:47.735) We really do. It's like some industries will be completely decimated by this move. And it's like, it's not like we can't see this coming. And so all of this is to say, like, what kind of leadership is this when you can see what is going to be the fallout from people being fearful for their jobs, being fearful for their family's abilities to stay in this country? Like, it's just I'm so sick of all of this nonsense. It's absurd. And, you know, the othering and the xenophobia and everything, it's just insane. J.T. O'Donnell (29:49.12) Yeah, and me and what. Chad (29:53.213) Mm. Chad (30:07.622) Yeah. Chad (30:16.294) It's insane. And what is also insane is that we're going to talk about Mr. Beast. We'll be right back. Mo (30:19.437) You Hahaha! Chad (30:27.864) Okay, and another what the fuck moment for God's sakes. TikTok and you don't stop. TikTok shuts its 170 million American users out for a few hours last weekend and then allowed Americans back into the system, but not before receiving the following message. Quote, thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump's efforts, who is not president yet, officially. TikTok is back in the USA." So Trump signed an executive order delaying the shutdown for 75 days and has suggested he might require ByteDance to give up a 50 % stake to avert a total shutdown. Enter employer.com. Who the hell are those guys? And YouTube star. Mr. Beast, yes, the same Mr. Beast who has more than 346 million subscribers on YouTube. Jesus, that's fucking, it's crazy. Mr. Beast is part of a group of investors assembled by employer.com's CEO, Jesse Tinsley, who are submitting an all cash deal to buy TikTok's U.S. business before a possible ban. Mo and JT, let's break this down, bite by bite. What do you think about Mo (31:27.631) it is. Chad (31:46.364) Tiktok's brief shutdown. JT, you go first. is your lane. This is definitely, we're all on the socials, but Tiktok, definitely your lane. Hit it. Mo (31:51.874) You J.T. O'Donnell (31:52.888) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (31:57.378) I mean, if you hung out at any time, it Saturday on TikTok, it was just a tear fest, right? Like I just, couldn't, I couldn't get tears off my page, you know, and desperate pleas to go to other platforms. So then all of a sudden it comes back on in Sunday and you go from tears to rage. just, know, rage, rage, rage, rage. It's like, whoa, just like way too much drama. But it still comes back to the fact that whatever administration, government as a whole, really wants a handle on TikTok. They want access to it. And there's a million different theories out there, but I just look at the fact that they have the best algorithm out there. They have the best algorithm out there and people want it. And so, you can wrap it up in any way that you wanna talk about the risks and everything. And I respect that and understand that, but America, we like... Chad (32:29.341) Mm-hmm. Chad (32:38.492) They do. They do. Chad (32:50.727) Mm-hmm. J.T. O'Donnell (32:55.302) having what we want and getting what we want and you know, we want this algo, you know, our people are on it. We want this algo. So we're going to do what it takes to get it. just, that's where it's going to end up. So we may be back in 90 days or 75 or whatever it was, if they don't get their way, because ultimately one way or another, it's going to come down to somebody in the U S getting their mitts on that. Mo (32:58.041) We do. Mo (33:19.887) That's a strong point. I gotta say, like, have we all lost our damn minds? Do we not remember that back a few years ago, Donald Trump was like, we have got to ban TikTok, China has TikTok, blah, blah, I can't do the voice. I wish I were Austin Naso, by the way. He does an incredible Donald Trump voice. Please go check it out. And Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg and all of them. But anyway. He was the one who put us in this position and now we're heralding him as the savior of TikTok. Like, I can't guys. Like the cognitive dissonance that is required to like survive. Like what the, what is going on? Like he made this happen. He didn't, it's so infuriating. But I mean, I think I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. You know, the CCP involvement is concerning for sure. Like I understand the idea that it could be a problem, right? For sure. Chad (34:05.03) Yeah, of course. Yeah. Mo (34:08.559) I also understand that a lot of people make significant money and incomes and side hustles and have full platforms on TikTok. And it hurts my heart to think of that just dissolving. So, you know, obviously I have no say in whatever happens, but as far as Mr. Beast goes, man, that guy is a legend in my house. My kids are like obsessed with Jimmy Donaldson. Like he is the man. So. Chad (34:16.672) yeah. yeah. Mo (34:34.913) I'd rather him than some other people, I suppose. And, you know, we'll see what happens, but yeah, I mean, sure. Why not the like world's most prolific content creator? Like he could probably make it better maybe, but yeah, I agree. The algorithm is something to behold and I can see how people want to get in on that in the U.S. Chad (34:39.164) Mm-hmm. Chad (34:53.798) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead, go ahead. J.T. O'Donnell (34:55.116) make a prediction. Yeah. we're so close to the next thing. We're due. We're due to like everything. Everything has its peak and TikTok is like, it's not that it won't be around for a long time. Facebook is still here, but she ain't number one. You know what I mean? And so, we'll talk. Well, we're all busy obsessing over this. There's some crazy cool stuff come down the pike and all it's going to take this one to go viral and figure it out. Mo (34:57.529) You're good at those. Chad (35:06.492) Mm-hmm. Mo (35:14.415) She's had her day. Chad (35:14.63) Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? Mo (35:25.219) Is it gonna be Red Note? J.T. O'Donnell (35:25.624) So I'm always looking for that one and I will be here for it when it arrives. Chad (35:28.36) Well, Red Note is owned by China. I mean, it is literally owned by China. Yeah, I know. It's like... Mo (35:28.847) I know that's why I thought I found it so entertaining. I was like this is our plan B? What's happening? J.T. O'Donnell (35:37.196) Well, and flip, you literally make money the moment you get on the app and you review products and make money. mean, like they're looking at the monetization of TikTok and going, there's a whole next gen thing here that will drive people. So it's just a matter of time. Chad (35:42.76) It's crazy. Mo (35:43.033) Wow. Chad (35:47.592) Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So, I mean, all I have to say is, is this is the... Mo (35:49.327) Yeah. Chad (35:57.134) episode. I mean, this administration, this and stick with me here real quick, kids. I mean, this administration is going to be known as the fellatio administration because tick tock, tick tock publicly got on their knees and figuratively performed fellatio on Trump with the bullshit message. And then in an effort to score great optics and marketing value, employer.com pulls in Mr. Beast. Mo (36:11.705) dying. Mo (36:21.037) you Chad (36:26.184) and other investors, very smart, very smart until unfortunately, employer.com CEO, Jesse Tinsley made this statement covered by Bloomberg quote, as president Trump's Trump reestablishes American dominance. don't know why I'm giving that voice, but I'm going to continue. Our group stands ready to partner with the U S government to acquire Tik TOK and help. Mo (36:28.44) You Chad (36:52.07) secure the state and stabilize the platform for hundreds of millions of Americans to safely enjoy." Dude, get off your knees. So embarrassing. It's so embarrassing watching not just Tinsley, but Zuckerberg, Gravel, watching Pachai, Bezos, and Musk. mean, very powerful men just wither, just wither. Mo (37:09.983) God, I can't. Mo (37:18.659) What's the point of fuck you money if you can't say fuck you? Like, are you kidding me? Chad (37:23.048) It feels in in in kids. I don't this is not a hyperbole thing. This feels like oligarchs in Putin Tell me it's different. How is it different? I mean it so to me again. It's another what the fuck moment and I'm sorry again. I think we're gonna get t-shirts of you know, fellatio 2025 created Mo (37:33.268) Mm-hmm. It's not. It's not. Mo (37:40.77) You Mo (37:50.925) No, no. Hard pass. The female energy on this call is a no. Chad (37:53.957) I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Huh? J.T. O'Donnell (37:56.098) I want to know what's in that beer. What is up with Portugal beer? Cracks a beer and well, wow. I mean, there we go. Get there. it's just better. Just getting better. Mo (37:59.951) I'm dying. Chad (38:04.036) It's it's it's it's just good stuff. It's just good stuff. Yes. Hey, well, and again, this is why I put this out there so you can say, no, that's fucking stupid. And I'm like, OK, thank you. Thank you. Mo (38:05.039) This is why you have a diverse team, Chad. We help make better business decisions. Mo (38:16.759) Yeah. J.T. O'Donnell (38:18.19) No, I mean, I think, no, no, it's just so blatant, right? Everything's so public, so blatant, out loud, there's nothing covert anymore. That's my point. Yep. Yep. Chad (38:22.32) It is! It is. It's out loud like you'd said before, right? Everything before was stealthy. No! my god. Mo (38:22.347) It is. It's not subtle. Mo (38:29.475) Yep, yeah. But the thing that kills me is the mental gymnastics people are doing now to say it ain't so. I'm like, I'm sorry, do you have eyes and half a brain? Because if you do, stop it. Like, come the F on. Like, this is so blatant. This is not normal behavior. This is not normal behavior. Chad (38:36.051) my god. Chad (38:43.42) Yes. Yes. Chad (38:49.426) Well, yes. When you see Musk like re-tweeting, re-exing, re-whatever the fuck he's doing with AFD posts, right? And then he has the Nazi salute, not just once but twice, right? You cannot unsee that shit, right? So it's like, this is... But the thing is, this is the flood of shit that comes at us so that we're distracted. Mo (38:54.269) my god. I cannot. Mo (39:03.321) Twice! So people knew what he was doing! my God, wake up people. Mo (39:14.541) Yeah, shock and awe. Yeah. Chad (39:17.892) away from the things like 11-246, right? DEIB, those types of things. J.T. O'Donnell (39:26.06) Or we just get all so numb to it that nothing phases us. That is where we're headed. We're just gonna be not even phased. Chad (39:29.106) See, and that is also a thing. Mo (39:31.311) That's what they're hoping for and it's not gonna work on me, Nope. I mean, I wish it weren't so as much as the next person, but I'm not gonna do those mental hurdles in gymnastics to contort myself into a human pretzel so that I can accept what just happened. Nope, not happening. I know what happened. I saw it with my own eyes. Chad (39:34.6) That is... Chad (39:48.7) Yeah, that's a great transition for our next segment, Pornhub. We'll be right back. Chad (40:01.248) All right, so content creators to the left of us and piles of cash to the right. Zara Dar left her doctorate in bioengineering to become a full-time creator. Here's a little background from Dar's LinkedIn profile. Quote, I am an American STEM content creator with a background in engineering and growing passion for computer science. After mastering out of a top PhD program, Mo (40:14.232) Eh. Chad (40:29.992) I chose to pursue content creation full time. I run a STEM focused YouTube channel with over 150,000 subscribers where I create engaging educational content." DARS content on OnlyFans, I'm gonna go there real quick, earned her $240,000 last month. Yes, last month in December of 2024. So it's apparent that DARS STEM content is popular. But there's a kinky twist as Recently, she posted the following on LinkedIn, quote, people may not know this, but I published the same STEM videos. That's science, technology, engineering, math kids, STEM videos on both YouTube and porn hub, porn hub, porn hub. Yes. While YouTube generates more views, the ad revenue per 1 million views on porn hub is nearly three times higher. End quote. Does this mean Khan Academy should also put Mo (41:15.779) Mm. Chad (41:28.73) all of their educational videos on Pornhub. Mo (41:31.363) Ha ha ha! J.T. O'Donnell (41:32.782) I'm sorry, I'm busy setting up my Pornhub account. Hold on a second. I just. Mo (41:35.085) Yeah, exactly. I'm like, this girl has it figured out. Maybe we are doing it wrong. Like maybe I need to completely transition all my content. I'm like vacillating between girl, get that bag and my God, like what has this world come to? this is, we want more women in STEM, but this I don't think is how they meant it. Chad (41:41.64) soon! J.T. O'Donnell (41:55.854) But it is fascinating to me that she said, look, it's the same videos. And I just want to throw that out because content creators who monetize on content do pop out on multiple, right? LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, you get comped on some, you get known on others, and you sit there. for people who that's their living, they're trying to optimize. For her to make a statement like that, to say the content's not any different. So you can watch it free on YouTube. Mo (42:01.155) That is fascinating. Chad (42:01.191) Guess? Chad (42:09.116) Yeah. Yep. Yep. Mo (42:09.527) true. It's true. J.T. O'Donnell (42:25.44) That is fascinating to me. It talks about the monetization models of both sides and what gets valued. I don't know. Mo (42:27.895) It's fast. Chad (42:34.466) Is she saving the education system though? mean, all these people that are flooding to Pornhub and they're finding themselves watching STEM videos, is she single-handedly just fixing the education process? Huh? Mo (42:34.671) 100 Mo (42:45.967) I tip my hat, I tip my hat. We do, that's true. Absolutely. How much did you take away from this content? But she does post other content on OnlyFans. It's not only the same things that she puts on YouTube, so I think that's an important factor here. She posts some. J.T. O'Donnell (42:46.316) Well, we need to see the grades. mean, I mean, could you post your grade after you watch the video and let me know? Because if it's worth it, you know. Chad (42:55.272) Fair point, fair play, fair play. Chad (43:03.836) I didn't check that out, but okay. Mo (43:05.287) racist stuff. I read a Business Insider article about it and I was like, so it's not just her videos, but I mean, so she might already have a fan base who's there for maybe slightly different reasons. I'm just guessing. not her demographic, but target demographic. But yeah, I'm assuming that part of that plays into her earning more. But yeah, I think like the transparency angle is important. And like you said, she might be, I haven't signed on. Chad (43:07.878) Okay, okay. Chad (43:15.368) Could be. Could be. Chad (43:28.584) Do you think she's doing like the naked news thing though? On, on, on OnlyFans? Okay, because she said that her, content's the same going from YouTube to PornHub. I mean, OnlyFans might be different, but I mean, yeah, that's... Mo (43:36.151) you Mo (43:41.199) According to BI, yeah, that's true. Maybe it's different OnlyFans versus Pornhub. Yeah, that may be absolutely accurate. And so I take that aspect back. Yes. Chad (43:47.143) Mm-hmm. Okay. J.T. O'Donnell (43:53.164) Yeah. Chad (43:53.256) but bioengineering. You got something on your mind, JT. Get it out there. Get it out there. Mo (43:53.551) It's just... J.T. O'Donnell (43:58.722) I just, you know, we're sitting there and we're talking about, we live in a country, thank goodness, where you can, you know, create your own businesses and be an entrepreneur and set these things up. you know, like you see something like that and, you know, she's teaching us something that, you know, she's made a choice. This is how she wants to monetize. It's successful. And it just reminds you that there's a lot of different ways to make a dollar. Mo (44:10.913) Amen. J.T. O'Donnell (44:27.906) lot of different ways to make a dollar and she's in STEM, know, I'm not gonna lie, engineering degree, know, nerd girl, you know, I'm impressed. think all the females are gonna come at me after this session, you know, her choice to do what she wants, but she's taking something she's really passionate about, advertising, you'd be shocked. Mo (44:28.943) A lot of different ways. Mo (44:35.471) Yeah. Tufts. Chad (44:45.746) Why would they come after you though? Because this is empowerment. How is this not empowerment? Mo (44:47.469) I don't think they should. It's personal choice. J.T. O'Donnell (44:51.192) So some will say empowerment, some will say that she's cheapening herself in order to do this and selling out, if you will. Same content. That's same content. I agree. So to me, I think it's impressive what she's done. And I think it just shows there's a lot of different ways to make money off content. It's not just one silo, not just taking your clothes off. It's not just being funny. Mo (44:55.023) Hmm. Chad (44:57.544) $240,000 last month. Mo (44:58.543) I mean, yeah, cheapening yourself to make 240k. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like. Get that. Chad (45:01.978) You call that cheap? You call that cheap? J.T. O'Donnell (45:19.822) We are a content economy, we're a service economy, and I think everyone is a content creator. Everyone has the ability to create content in them and make money off it. That is the truth, and I look at that and go, she's giving an amazing example of it. Mo (45:22.169) We are. Mo (45:35.331) Yeah, that's fair. Chad (45:36.132) I agree. And I'd like to say thank you both for helping us make content right here. If Joel was on, he would already be pulling together the OnlyFans. Thank God he's not here. But again, thanks, JT. Thanks, Mo. Mo (45:52.259) Thank God he's not here today, huh? Chad (45:59.368) Another great show again, making it a hell of a lot more smart than two of us dummies. We appreciate all of it and we'll see you back. Oh yeah, by the way, listeners. It's that time. We out! J.T. O'Donnell (46:18.754) you

Grab your Chicken Cock bourbon and settle in, kids, because Chad & Cheese are back with another chaos-fueled episode you didn’t know you needed. First up, DeepSeek  proves that scrappy startups don’t need billions, just outdated chips and some “borrowed” tech. Meanwhile, Textio  is doing its best Titanic impression, rearranging DEI deck chairs while layoffs hit harder than your uncle’s political rants at Thanksgiving. We’ll also dive into how China’s AI hustle is trying hard to outpace U.S. tech giants (spoiler: they didn’t see it coming), and why recruiters better buckle up or get left in the dust. Oh, and if you thought AI boyfriends couldn’t get weirder—wait till you hear about Leo, the virtual lover stealing attention and  affection. Basically, it’s tech drama, workplace rants, and plenty of shade—all served with a side of “blame the dudes.” PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Joel (00:31.438) There are many things that we would like to say to you, but we just don't know how. Hey kids, it's the chat and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost, Joel, mass deportation cheeseman. Chad (00:42.389) I'm Chad, I'm not fucking leaving. So watch. Emi B (00:45.809) And I'm Emi, I am definitely leaving Beirut Hugo. Joel (00:50.178) And on this episode, going long with DeepSeek, no Textio, and finding love on a screen, it's not just for dudes anymore. Let's do this. Joel (01:05.206) Emmy Baradugo in the house! What's up, Emmy? Chad (01:05.513) A Emi B (01:07.165) Yay! I'm here with both of you. Yay. Do we cheers? Chad (01:09.301) I'm opening a beer to that. Yeah, usually she subs for me. Yeah, yeah, of course. Usually she subs for me, but she's gonna be a regular. We're bringing her on more often, kids. means I need to, yeah. Joel (01:23.448) more British accent as far as I'm concerned. The more British accent, the better. The smarter we sound with more British. Emi B (01:26.237) British accents. Do we sound sex? Do I sound sexy though in my British accent? Yeah, good. Good. Chad (01:31.999) Well, yeah, I mean, we need more females to tell us that we're dumb, because our wives don't do that enough apparently. And obviously the accent doesn't hurt. Emi B (01:36.893) Yeah. Emi B (01:45.383) Thank you very much. I am. I am. I am leaving on a jet plane tomorrow in the sun. I need to get out of this cold, damp UK weather. I'm over it. Joel (01:45.496) Not at all, not at all. Now, Portugal-bound. Chad (01:46.909) And you're coming down this way. You're coming down this way. Chad (01:58.655) Your timing sucks though. I'm getting ready to actually go to Spain and you're coming here. Did you plan on purpose? You hurt my feelings. Fair, fair, fair, fair play, fair play. Emi B (02:05.531) No, I think you did. Because how many times did I WhatsApp you saying, are you around? Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's okay. I can take a hint. okay. No worries. It's fine. Joel (02:19.134) I'm stuck. I'm stuck here in the burning garbage of pile of whatever in the middle America. It's fun. It's a good time. No, no, it's, it's a tropical 37 today. So I am, I might break out the speedo. I don't know, Chad. I don't know. I don't know. Anything can happen. Anything can happen. Anything. Yeah. Am I. Chad (02:28.157) Is it snowing still? Is there snow on the ground? No? Emi B (02:28.229) no. Chad (02:34.183) okay. Chad (02:40.063) Don't do it on camera. Don't do it on camera. Jesus. Emi B (02:44.411) know you're tantalising me. It's like stop it Joel. Well, you are. Chad (02:46.227) Hahaha Joel (02:49.014) Am I teasing you? Am I? Chad (02:52.777) Yeah, you're not, you're not. OK, shout outs. Jesus Christ, you're killing me. Joel (02:53.304) All right, let's get at some shots. Chad (02:58.813) Yes, Steven McGrath it is. Joel (02:59.116) That's right, everybody. Our shout outs are sponsored by our friends at Kiora up North. My first shout out goes to Wendy's, Chad. Are there Wendy's in Portugal? Probably not, right? mean, Taco Bell probably. All right. All right. Well, most people. Chad (03:03.401) Chad (03:09.461) No, not now. KFC. I think KFC was like the first franchise that came over this way. Yeah. Joel (03:17.062) Okay. KFC is everywhere. Everyone loves the 11 herbs and spices. Everybody loves the Colonel, but here little, little, little story about me real quick, Chad. when I was in elementary school, my dad used to take me to play basketball and we'd play one-on-one and he would never block my shot. Like he would never do the Billy Madison, like, you know, stuff. He didn't want to kill my, kill my confidence. Now I didn't become the next Steph Curry or, or, you know, magic Johnson, but. Emi B (03:17.895) KFC is everywhere. Yeah. Chad (03:24.02) I can do not. Hahaha Chad (03:36.062) Really? Okay, that's nice. That's sweet. Yeah. Okay. If he blocked you, you might have. Joel (03:47.406) But after we would play, he would take me to Wendy's for a frosty. So I have a very special place in my heart for frosties, which is why Wendy's is my shout out. Uh, you, might have heard of the, uh, the Girl Scout cookies that come every year, Chad. And I don't think they have the Girl Scouts in Europe, but they they'd have them here and most people know them. So, so Wendy's hallelujah. There is a God Wendy's is partnering with the Girl Scouts to create a frosty. Chad (03:54.677) Yes. Chad (04:02.642) yes. yeah. Now. Yeah. Emi B (04:06.493) I've seen on TV. Yeah. Chad (04:12.329) Yeah. Joel (04:17.89) Girl Scout cookie mint chocolate flavored frosty that's coming out in February. So this is how the company describes the offering. Quote, the sweet new spin on the classic combines mint chocolate flavor with a crumbly cookie butter texture and the cool creamy frosty that fans know and love. End quote. Who could not be excited about that, Chad? Come back, go to Wendy's. Chad (04:21.395) Thin Mets, Thin Mets. Chad (04:29.246) Hmm? Joel (04:45.718) You'll, you'll love being back in America, baby. That's, that's my shout out. That's my shout out. Chad (04:49.781) if it's, let's hope, let's hope. Emmy, what you got? Emi B (04:50.405) my lord. Emi B (04:55.869) Well, my shout out is to Ray and Nephew. So have you heard of Ray and Nephew before? Okay, Ray and Nephew is a Jamaican white rum. So I have been drinking it for the last hour. So in my little glass, if you're watching on YouTube in my mug, it's Coke and Ray and Nephew. And apparently it soothes the cold, which I have now. So cheers, my dear. Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent, but it's like 40 something percent. Chad (05:00.883) Now, who's this? Chad (05:06.493) Chad (05:19.007) Cheers! Joel (05:19.862) It's like a hot toddy, if you will. Hot toddy. Chad (05:23.06) You watch your mouth. Emi B (05:25.913) alcohol. So, you know, hopefully I'll stay sober enough during this. Well, no, it's Jamaican. So my family are from Nigeria, but I've got friends from Jamaica. And so when I was ill a couple of years ago, they gave me this and I was like, what the hell is this? I love it. And so I've just got bottles in my house everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm Nigerian. We're not allowed to do stuff like that. Chad (05:26.709) That's what I'm talking about. Joel (05:29.55) So is this a European thing? This is rum? Joel (05:36.226) Right? Chad (05:41.333) Mmm. Chad (05:45.865) So since it's Jamaican, do you smoke weed while you drink it? Joel (05:46.062) Is it a s- You Emi B (05:53.837) My mum is a god fearing woman. She might listen to this. It's like there's no way. Chad (05:56.979) Yeah? Okay. She's not smoking it, but I will be eating the edibles. That's for goddamn sure. Joel (06:04.216) So no naughtiness on this show, Chad. Emi B (06:04.797) my gosh, no. Chad (06:10.856) Alright, well that- Joel (06:11.054) Well, we hope you get better. We hope you get better, Emmy. Emi B (06:12.381) Thank you. Chad (06:15.113) Yeah, it's a great accent, but maybe that's lending itself to the raspy sexiness. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. So my shout out is to women and all the shit that they put up with. So, Emmy, I don't know how you do it, to be quite frank. Metta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was on Joe Rogan's podcast and he said that corporate culture had become too Emi B (06:21.309) isn't it? Yeah, the husky voice. Emi B (06:30.107) Yes. Yeah. Chad (06:42.933) quote unquote feminine, suppressing its masculine energy and abandoning supposedly valuable traits such as aggression. Shout out to women all over the world. You're smarter, you're better. And when you have an opinion, you have to put up with assholes like Musk, Zuckerberg, and a whole host of trolls every damn day. Seriously, how do you deal with this? Julie put out a post Emi B (06:53.069) good. Emi B (07:04.049) All of them. Joel (07:04.664) Mm-hmm. Emi B (07:12.827) Yeah. Chad (07:13.429) Just yesterday and literally the trolls came out of the walls looking for her because she was talking about DEI and 11246 which was revoked, 1965 which was revoked. And then I do it and nobody really gives me shit. No, no. How do you put up with this shit? Joel (07:20.834) Hmm. Emi B (07:21.351) Mm-hmm. Joel (07:25.71) Mm-hmm. Emi B (07:29.935) No one, no one says anything. Yeah. Joel (07:33.56) Didn't Moe talk about something as well that she got trolled for recently? Yeah. Emi B (07:37.159) She got, yeah, she did. Yeah, 100%. Do you know what? It is hard. It is hard and you do have to develop a thick skin. You know, so when I hear the likes of Zuckerberg and all the people like who put support here, I'm just like, you guys are fucking idiots, you know? So you put on that thick skin and you like, you know, just let it wash over your head. And that's what I try to do. And then try to educate them. Joel (07:55.459) How do you deal with trolls, Emmy? Do you ignore trolls? Do you take them on? Like, what's your policy? Emi B (08:01.159) Typically speaking, I'll take them on, you know? So I'll be polite. I won't be as combative as they are because I think if you've got two people being combative with each other, it's not going to resolve anything. But I will listen to their point of view because you can't change somebody else's point of view by trying to ram your opinions down their throat. You have to try and understand where they come from, even if you absolutely disagree with them. So I'll let them speak and I say, cool, tell me about your opinion. Tell me a little bit more. Well, this is what I think. And I'll throw questions at them, which I know is going to make them look dumb as fuck. And then when they can't answer those questions, so, well, thank you. You just proved my point. Sounds a little bit more polite, yeah? Chad (08:35.529) Thank you very much. And I'd like to say, yeah, that's the male way to do it. Just go ahead and smack him in the face. It's always better. It's always better. The beautiful thing, though, is the Chad and Cheese. We love women. We love them all. And all of them can get free stuff. Go to ChadCheese.com slash free. Beautiful Chad and Cheese. Joel (08:36.588) I you should, I like that you take them on. That's good, that's good. Joel (08:44.384) And she does it with an English accent so it doesn't hurt so badly. So bad. Emi B (09:00.443) Yes. Chad (09:03.753) T-shirts last week I was I was told not to say that it felt like a hug from Chad and cheese because When you don't give your consent, I mean it's something we got it. We got to deal with cheeseman anyway great great t-shirts from the Chad and cheese from Aaron app our friends at Aaron app bourbon barrel aged Syrup, that's right. Pappy's Pappy's bourbon coming to you from our friends up north at Kiara Emi B (09:12.581) Yeah. Emi B (09:24.252) Yes. Chad (09:31.029) Craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. Craft beer to your doorstep, courtesy of Aspen Tech Labs. Whiskey, that's right, two bottles whiskey from Van Hack, might be chicken cock. Emi B (09:41.533) Mmm. Joel (09:45.482) He's more more Canada so much Canada. Chad (09:48.325) It might it might it might be sending you two bottles of chicken cock who knows and if it's and if it's your birthday that that's that's a that's a bourbon that's a bourbon don't don't you look like that. I mean if it's your birthday it's a little rum from plum rum from plum go to Chad cheese.com slash free Chad cheese.com slash free register you win. yeah. Joel (09:52.91) You Joel (09:58.446) That is a bourbon. That is a bourbon. Where's your... Get out of the gutter. Emi B (09:59.741) you Emi B (10:04.123) Honestly! Joel (10:06.446) That's right. Emi B (10:14.429) Joel (10:15.822) That's, that's right. Chad. Some listeners are celebrating another trip around the sun. Shout out to Tony Loy, Stephanie, Christian on Matthew Miller, Thomas Bergman, Ed Zatowski. He's got to be excited as a Philly Philly fan. Lynette Phillips, rich Carrington, Marvin Morgan, Cleo Gramlich, Shelley cars, Steve, in Pringham, Ben Stewart, Travis Joyce, Adam Fitzer, who was this month's rum recipient, by the way, Elena, Elena Angela, Claire Davis, Connell, Josh. Chad (10:26.555) hell yeah. Chad (10:35.679) Mm-hmm. Joel (10:45.228) Jay-Z Zwine and two of our two of our favorite Scots, although not our our favorite. Chad (10:46.879) There is Zwayne. Joel (10:53.676) Nicky Patterson and Adam Gordon are celebrating birthdays. Happy, happy birthday, everybody. Chad (10:55.091) Yes. Ooh, two Scots. Okay. So really quick, you mentioned football. So I got to say it. Somebody out there. I don't know who it is. Please take away Josh Allen's shoestrings and his belts because that kid should be on suicide watch. I mean, after losing to my homes in Kansas city again, that was, who, that was not good. I mean, playing against Kansas city and the refs, it's really hard, but you Joel (11:17.934) Mm-hmm. Joel (11:26.99) Speaking of someone who needs some chicken cock. Chad (11:29.397) Hahaha! Joel (11:32.738) Another quick shout out because you said football, different football though. Shout out to the Caledonian Braves football club in Scotland. If you've never been on WeFunder that you can throw some money at, the things that you like. Steven McGrath and I are the new Rob and Ryan. We've both thrown a little cash at the Caledonian Braves to be part owner of this football club. If you're interested, head out to WeFunder. Chad (11:34.783) That's good. Chad (11:40.105) Who? Joel (11:59.842) Just search, search, search Braves or Caledonian or whatever. And you too can own a little piece of a Scottish football club. What a, what a, what a reason to drink more Scotch was my justification, even if it does go anywhere. Emi B (12:05.947) Ooh. Emi B (12:11.559) I think that's fantastic. Chad (12:13.013) Oh, I thought I thought there were really only two teams in the Scottish League in the first place. You the Rangers and you had the Celtics, but we also have Caledonia. Okay, that's great. That's great. Emi B (12:16.827) Yeah. Joel (12:20.494) We're taking a bet that the club is worth at least $10 million. And if a sports club can't get up to at least $10 million in Scotland, then, fuck it. We'll have, we'll have some fun anyway. So, so I might be traveling to Scotland once a year for the shareholder meeting. Who knows? Who knows? Chad (12:28.073) Ha ha! Chad (12:32.277) Who knows? Chad (12:36.649) Well, I'll go with you. But in the meantime, we have travel and we are getting ready to go on a road trip. When I say we, mean, Julie and I, I'm packed and ready for a week in Spain with Julie. We're headed to Madrid. Going to be bouncing around a little bit, but heading to Madrid for smart recruiters, all hands meeting and they're going to be putting together a shit ton of content. So look out for that. Then we are going to Vegas, St. Patrick's Day. Joel (12:42.125) Yeah. Chad (13:06.109) in Vegas, no shit. And at Transform and the win, Las Vegas, March 17th through the 19th. If you're not in Ireland, why not join us? Join us in Vegas, go to ChadCheese.com slash events, register, and we will see you there at Transform. Joel (13:26.382) That's right, that's right. Have fun, have fun with that, Chad. That'll be good. Chad (13:29.621) I love that. Joel (13:32.686) All right. Holy shit. Talk about layoffs, man. Okay. so we could, we could do a four hour show on Trump's moves to shrink, dissolve, dismantle, whatever word that you want to use, the federal government. but here are some highlights from the week. Over 240 federal employees have been fired, reassigned, or designated for layoffs. Trump has offered buyouts to all. Emi B (13:34.429) you Chad (13:38.31) god. Emi B (13:39.333) Yeah. Chad (13:46.901) Yeah. Joel (13:58.516) every single federal worker to leave by February 6th. That's right. February, just next month. Trump dismissed two EEOC commissioners and ended affirmative action in federal contracting and moved to dismantle DEI programs across federal agencies. 17 inspectors generals were fired and he's floating the idea of firing 88,000 IRS agents and reassigning them to secure the border. Chad, we're in month one of the Trump presidency. What are your thoughts? Chad (14:33.333) My thoughts are I'm already on beer too. So, okay. Fuck. So let's set up the hiring, firing, freezing and scaring landscape because before the layoff started, we had to have a hiring process of leaders like a 44 year old drunken frat boy, Pete Hegseth as the secretary of defense, then a guy with a brain worm who threw a dead Joel (14:36.142) And Emmy's on the good meds and you guys don't even live in America. Emi B (14:39.773) yeah, I'm already suffering. Chad (15:02.313) bear cub in the trunk of his car drove it over an hour to Central Park in Manhattan as a prank. That's RFK Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Dead bear really. And we have a fake wrestling mogul, Linda McMahon, as Secretary of Entertainment. no, no, Secretary of Education. No shit kids. Christie, puppy killer gnome on South Dakota from South Dakota as secretary of Homeland Security because she's done wonders with South Dakota's border security. Obviously there's so much to do there. And Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, just to ensure Russia has all the information that they need. So enough for the leadership positions that have already been put in place. It's incredibly important that we understand that the things that Joel just talked about. These are capable adults who have been in these positions, unlike the people I just talked about. Right? So thus far, that's what's happened. What's going to happen? And this is this is my prediction, but you don't have to read the tea leaves for this kids. What happens when the current ICE raids run millions of workers out of the workforce and the nearly 100 billion in tax revenue goes with them? Yes. Illegal. They they Emi B (16:05.309) Mm. Chad (16:28.585) They pay taxes too. But the biggest issue is breaking out the supply chain. Who will work the farms, the docks, fast food, hospitality, like hotel workers, and that's just the start. Tax base goes down. Productivity goes down. Products are not plentiful because they aren't picked, packed, and delivered by the immigrants doing those jobs, which means prices go up. Then you have federal workers, finally getting to the federal workers. who will leave or get fired, those are mainly white collar jobs. Do we expect those white collar workers to do the pick, pack and deliver products? No, which means we're gonna have a huge market mismatch, too many jobs that are going to go unfilled and too many people who have the skills that don't have jobs that are going to be open. Now this is a great opportunity for HR and staffing vendors. Listen to me kids. Get ready because it's either going to be a boom or bust for your company. If you've positioned yourself right and or you're nimble enough to pivot, you're in luck. If you're slow moving and you're traditional, batten down the fucking hatches because it's going to be a hard two, three, four years. Emi B (17:44.985) Hmm. Chad (17:48.181) That was a lot, Emmy, I'm sorry. Emi B (17:49.597) It was. I know I'm kind of like depressed and I'm not even in your country. I think I need more Re and nephew. Look, I think it's shit. when I read about this, I was like, what the fuck is going on? know, to be honest, everyone knows I don't understand how we got into power in the first place. I do try to understand the other side. It's very hard for me to understand the other side. But, you know, the argument that he gives and Joel (17:49.783) Let the other European go before the American sounds off. What you got, Emmy? Emi B (18:18.009) Elon Musk gives us to why they need to do these government layoffs and why they have to pay people to basically leave the federal workforce. I think it's bullshit. I think it's bullshit and I think it's cruel and I don't think it's thought through in any way. They're saying that the US is like in, I kind of remember the number now, there's like huge amounts of, I think it's like $35 trillion in debt. And they're saying that obviously you got rising interest rates, which is making that debt more expensive. And they feel like if they get rid of, or the saying, if they get rid of this X number of people, that's going to bring cost down. I don't actually believe it, especially because the original number that Elon Musk actually had in mind has actually decreased. So obviously they don't even believe their own policy. I think it's just that they're just trying to get rid of people who are not yes men or yes women. Yeah, you know, anyone who doesn't agree with what Trump is saying, get them the fuck out. That's what he's thinking. Bringing people who actually going to do what he says, follow what he says, too scared to actually challenge him. That's what I think that where he's going. And he's done this before. You know, the last time he was in power, he did exactly the same thing. You know, it's and so yes, there was pushback last time there was legal pushback as well. And I know even this time, you know, federal employee unions are like kind of telling people not to resign and to keep forging ahead and saying it's not going to happen, but it has happened. Lots of people have been made redundant, capable people, like you said, have been made redundant. So I think it's sad. I think it's horrible. I think it's sad and I think it's cruel. Emi B (19:56.039) Yeah Joel (19:58.382) Uh, well, if you're a fan of small government, uh, you're about to see what happens, uh, with small government and, and hap happening very quickly. This is not a slow burn. This is a bandaid ripped off the wound and we're going to, we're going to find out what happens. Um, I love, I love Emmy's take that is Trump creating more of a government in his image. In other words, get everyone out and everyone that comes back is, is of my, of my liking. Yeah. It will be very, that's very interesting. Um, Emi B (20:02.791) Yeah. Chad (20:03.625) Yes, you are. Emi B (20:06.428) Yeah. Chad (20:09.139) Yeah Chad (20:23.027) Loyalists, yeah. Emi B (20:23.835) Yeah, yeah. Chad (20:26.726) Mm. It's right on. Joel (20:27.374) I think the popular consensus is that he's just cutting everybody and no one's coming back. I think that Elon Musk has an incredible influence on Trump. This is Twitter 2022. Elon Musk goes in, they had 7,800 employees or so, he cut 80 % of them. And Twitter was a shit show for a while. And you could argue that it's sort of been stable technologically since then. So he's in Trump's ear saying like, we can get rid of these people. Chad (20:39.391) Yes. Emi B (20:39.877) is exactly the same thing. Yeah. Joel (20:57.318) And things will be fine. Things will run just as normal. The challenge is the government isn't seven, 800 people. It's 2.3 million people. if, if you get the fail well on your iPhone, it's not a big deal when you don't get your social security check. That's a big deal. Okay. Grant when grandma's in the streets, people start getting a little bit pissed off. So I, man, I'm hoping for the best that this doesn't just turn into a total dumpster fire. Emi B (21:12.957) That's a big deal, yeah. Chad (21:13.332) Yeah. Yeah. Chad (21:23.859) Hmm. Joel (21:24.322) But damn, mean, we're going to find out what happens when this happens. There's going to be a, like, you think white collar workers are in a recession now? Just wait till let's, let's call it half a million. don't know how familiar are going to take this deal. get seven months severance. a lot of people are going to, well, they've also said, look, if you, if you stay, we can't guarantee that you'll have a job. So it's like, you have to roll the dice and say, well, I mean, Emi B (21:35.365) It's going to be so much worse. Yeah. Chad (21:43.379) Maybe. Maybe. Emi B (21:49.681) Yeah, so you gotta take that money, Joel (21:53.474) Do I get laid off and get nothing or do I get seven months hopefully and resign and try to get a better job? Like I feel for the federal workers and dealing with this shit. to Chad's point, I have four takeaways for our industry. number one is this is the mother of all poaching opportunities. If you as a recruiter are not contacting every federal worker that has skills that can fill jobs in your company, you're an idiot because even if they're like, they're all open. Emi B (22:15.805) you Joel (22:22.136) They're all going to listen to offers because of what's going on in Indy. So this is like a poaching heaven for recruiting. Number two, this is obvious. Unemployment's going up. there's going to be more workers on, on, on the dole. Shout out to our British, the dole, whatever, on welfare, whatever it is. the third one is upskilling is going to take a new, a new level of importance. Chad talked about, these are people with skills. They have degrees. They have like. Chad (22:22.304) yeah. Yeah. Emi B (22:31.709) Mm-hmm. Emi B (22:37.553) Yeah Joel (22:51.22) skills that are built for their jobs in government. A lot of them will have a mismatch with whatever's going on in corporate America. So a company's ability to take these smart people and give them the skills to like easily plug into what you do as a company is going to be really important. And to Chad's point, if you're nimble enough to like start doing that, like you're going to be in a winning position in the years to come. Number four, LinkedIn usage is going to spike. All these people are go to LinkedIn. They're going to start getting more active. They're going to start applying to jobs. if JT, right. If JT was here, she'd be like, my God, the amount of like automatic applies and what's good. Like it's, it's going to be a little bit of, of chaos from that perspective. But yeah, this. Yeah. For our audience in the employment space, like, you know, never let a good catastrophe go to waste. Like this is a good opportunity to get some really, really good talent. Emi B (23:23.517) They're gonna be so many applications. Yeah? Chad (23:29.631) Yeah. Chad (23:33.504) lazy applies going to go through the roof. Emi B (23:35.333) Mm-hmm. Chad (23:41.737) Get your shit together. Joel (23:46.892) that was really comfortable in a government job, they're looking for new opportunities. So, you know, get your ass on the phone and start, start poaching. Emi B (23:54.589) Stop, hi, hi, Laney. Chad (23:54.751) We were even talking about great sales talent that's out there right now with deep Rolodexes. Those are the things that we used to have kids. Deep contact networks, right? And I mean, there are great people that are out there right now. It's gonna get deeper. But again, it's all about being nimble and being able to, again, I think startups have a great advantage here to be able to perspectively outflank some of the big companies. Joel (24:01.742) Mm-hmm. Emi B (24:03.639) Thanks. Joel (24:23.958) Yeah. And how many startups are born out of this incident? Like, it'll be interesting to see what kind of companies. Chad (24:27.711) Yeah. Yeah, I just, I just hope again, you talked about Twitter and the delete jobs, and then he had to beg and like pay engineers triple or quadruple the amount of money that they that they had before just to get them back. The difference is lives are on the line. People Emi B (24:28.465) Yeah. Joel (24:38.851) Yeah. Joel (24:44.44) Yeah. Chad (24:50.101) are a paycheck away from being on the fucking streets, right? And you're talking about the greatest country in the world. We should have the best healthcare. We should have the best education. We should have the best social system in itself. It's just not the case, kids, so. Joel (25:04.674) Yeah. The crazy thing too, and I'm not an expert on the, on the numbers, but the growth of the federal government has stayed pretty consistent since Reagan. Local and state governments have increased. So it's sort of odd that we're targeting the federal government because they have the federal government hasn't seen the huge explosion of, of workers that other government entities have. well, anyway, we're, we're going. Emi B (25:24.957) But that's why it's not to do with the debt. It's about getting the right people who are gonna say the right things about him. Yeah, 100%, yeah. Joel (25:30.061) Yeah. Chad (25:34.057) Yep. Loyalists. Joel (25:35.758) cult of personality. the cult got a wake up call. Wake up call this week. DeepSeek, I'm sure you guys heard about this, from China launched its cost-effective R1 AI model causing market disruption by lowering the demand for high-end AI chips like the one from Nvidia, leading to a significant drop in its stock value. I think it was $600 billion the last time I saw. Chad (25:39.401) I'm already through the beer, Jesus. Joel (26:02.22) CNBC, that's a huge amount of money. Anyway. so open AI accused deep seek of IP theft using their models for training are one resulting in cyber security attacks against deep seek. Despite these issues deep seek, and it's app became highly popular in the U S even as the U S Navy bandit due to security and ethical reasons, which is kind of weird. Chad, tick tock 2.0 or something entirely different. Your thoughts on. Emi B (26:27.847) You Joel (26:31.138) Deep Seek. Chad (26:32.275) That could definitely be could definitely be TikTok 2.0. But we have a warning kids we have our friend CEO over at job a co Martin Lentz who shared the following with me so we're going to play a video talk it through you got to see this because this is this is something that you have to understand with regard to working with a lot of these large language models go ahead and play that beautiful bean footage show. Joel (26:56.142) You got it. Chad (26:56.621) What's happening here is Martin just asked, can you explain the historical and political significance of an East Asian island renowned for its economic contributions and its unique status in international diplomacy? It's starting to talk about Taiwan. So the economic contributions, global significance, and then the actual conclusion itself. So it does exactly what you expect it to do. Martin just checking it out and then boom. Guess what? Apparently, the guardrails didn't kick in fast enough because they're not allowed to say anything about Taiwan. So if you're going to use these different systems, you have to understand the guardrails that the actual government and this is obviously the Chinese government, mainly in China, is focused on ensuring that this shit has guardrails on. Joel (27:48.632) Mm-hmm. Chad (27:55.101) So that's just a warning. And also from Martin, just so that you know, Martin had to say, in case I disappear, I love my family and I love the I love the chat and cheese podcast. Warning, warning over warning over. So back to the back to the actual issue at hand. Necessity is the mother of invention. Okay, China gets cut off from the fastest Nvidia GPUs. What do they do? Emi B (28:02.96) You Emi B (28:09.811) Yeah Chad (28:23.967) They need to improvise with older, slower chips. Necessity, they need, right? The need to take open, they then take open sourced, modeled frameworks and use it as a shortcut. Open source is open source for a reason, right? Anyway, I like scrappy startups. ones that don't take billions of dollars in cash. Why? Because necessity is the mother of invention. And if you have shit tons of cash, can't buy whatever or you can buy whatever you need instead of thinking harder and being more efficient. And that's exactly what these guys did. I love watching Scrappy Startups. I hate to see China be the Scrappy Startups. Emi B (29:10.813) You Chad (29:11.583) But competition's supposed to be good, right? I mean, that's what capitalism was built on. So what's the problem? Open AI, leapfrog, Microsoft and Google in the AI space. And then now Google's Gemini is a competitive model. Hell, even Amazon has a competitive model. So the problem is centered around who we are competing with. In the 80s, it was Russia and now it's China. The US innovation in the 70s and 80s broke the USSR. That's right kids, we broke fucking Russia, literally. So let's hope we can get our shit together and compete efficiently and not be the one on the side of the break this time. Joel (29:53.934) Nice. Go deep. Emi B (29:57.125) Yeah, no, no, it's good. But do you think that the US will be able to compete? Because I don't think that they even saw this coming. This literally came out of nowhere. No, but it's true. It came out of nowhere. It's like, yeah, know, US, we have to dominate the AI, AI world. then look, now look, out of nowhere, DeepSeek. Wow, we do exactly what everybody else does, but better. Yeah. Joel (30:04.596) stop it. Chad (30:15.911) I think it's beautiful though. And that's my point is that OpenAI came out of nowhere. We didn't know who the hell they were and they leapfrogged Google, they leapfrogged Microsoft, they leapfrogged everybody. Now Google is back in the picture. Amazon's even in the picture. you have all these different... The competition drives us and on the American front, That's, mean, that's what we thrive on. The thing that I hate is fucking guys like Sam Altman asking for a trillion bucks. That's fucking lazy, right? And they just, they literally just proven that you can train a model cheaper. Now they did lay, don't get me wrong. Yeah, don't get me wrong. know, Lewis and Clark, it was harder for them to get to, you know, the West coast after the, the, the rail was laid though. Everybody else could get there. Emi B (30:59.917) fraction of the price. Chad (31:11.569) easier and cheaper and faster. That's exactly what's happening now. We're going to see this happen so much faster. And yeah, the US is going to, they're not going to have a problem. Joel (31:17.922) Mm-hmm. Joel (31:21.38) Let me give you a little history lesson. I mean, does, the name Sputnik mean anything to you? I know, I know there's not a British flag on the moon, so maybe not, but, Sputnik Sputnik our British listeners will love that. so the U S thought they were miles ahead in the space race. They thought our German scientists are way better than rushes. And then all of a sudden Sputnik happened and they went into the atmosphere and circle the planet. Chad (31:25.535) Hahaha Emi B (31:25.917) You Chad (31:30.792) Ooh, that's a good. Emi B (31:34.301) kind of heard us fattnick, don't know what it is. Joel (31:53.324) You can Google it if you need to, but that was a kick in the ass that America needed to get to the place where they were going to the moon and doing what they do today. So I'm, I'm with Chad. Like, look, we're really bad about like, have hubris for days. think our shit done stink. We're number one. And then whether it's Pearl Harbor or Sputnik or what we get kicked in the ass, and then we wake up and we usually rally and come to our senses. so. Chad (31:56.84) Yes. Chad (32:13.844) Yep. Joel (32:22.254) I think that this is probably to Trump's credit said this is a wake up call or should be a wake up call to the industry. mean, they built this thing on $6 million. Uh, and it also makes me wonder, do they, we, we have this, you know, this story about they need Taiwan to make chips that will be competitive to what we have in the U S I'm not so sure. Maybe they can make competitive chips and they don't need Taiwan to invade Taiwan to do that, which makes them a high level military without. Emi B (32:27.132) Mm-hmm. Chad (32:49.951) They didn't make them. These are just older Nvidia chips. Joel (32:53.166) Well, yeah. like, how do you, I right. Like the mother of all invention, right. They found a way to do it. Um, yeah. So, so I, you know, if I'm an investor in Nvidia, like it's, I'm a little scared, like the money that has gone into these companies, I think are at risk of like getting burned. So as an investor, and I think this is with any startup, like I think the days of billions being invested are, are few and far between because Emi B (32:53.309) Apparently, yeah. Chad (32:59.413) Necessity, baby Joel (33:21.102) disruption happens so quickly. It's amazing. I, my head's on a swivel, just thinking about kind of how this happens. Even in our industry, we don't see 50, a hundred million dollar companies much anymore. I mean, we're excited to talk about a three and a half million dollar company on the show now when we're used to talk about a hundred million. So, so I don't know how that impacts everything. I think there is, there's, there's going to be a geopolitical come to Jesus moment, probably for America and, tick-tock may be it. Chad (33:46.994) Event. Joel (33:49.846) I don't know what's going to happen, Google's face, but like none of our sites are in China, right? TikTok isn't even in China. they get videos of like science experiments and things that are enlightening and we get that. So at some point, I don't know what happens with the splinter net as opposed to the internet. And we have like a Western internet and Eastern winter net internet. But, yeah, I, I'm still kind of digesting all this cause it just happened, but I think this has. great ramifications with how fast things change, how, how, susceptible we are to bad things happening, because it is happening so fast. But yeah, this was, this was fascinating. The market hated it. Nvidia down $600 billion. You hated it. Yeah. but yeah. Chad (34:32.775) I hated it. Yeah. Emi B (34:35.431) See, I don't mind it. I think competition is good. But I think the only problem with the US, the competition, is that you have to not rest on your laurels. I don't want to agree with Trump and say, agree with him about being a wake-up call. But they're already doubting the claims about the fact that they built this and developed it on a shoestring budget. They're already doing that. it's like, don't doubt it. They've done it. Now use it to drive yourself to do better. Yeah. Joel (34:54.84) Yeah. Joel (35:02.179) Yeah, there's. Chad (35:02.229) I The only reason I hate it is I'm an Nvidia investor. that's the... Yeah. Just to be clear. Emi B (35:06.653) okay, okay. Joel (35:08.91) So there's a popular sentiment is that America innovates, China replicates, and Europe regulates in that order. And if we get to a point where China and the US are the innovators, what does that do to sort of the world at large? OpenAI and Microsoft, I think, are suing. Emi B (35:11.772) shit. Emi B (35:19.695) Yes, yes, yeah. Emi B (35:30.001) Mm-hmm. Joel (35:33.734) deep seek for stealing some of their stuff. So there is an argument to say like they replicated it from us and just did it cheaper and faster. I don't know if it's better, at this point it's obviously been propagandized to some level based on Chad's example, which I think is dangerous. So we'll see. May you, may you live in interesting times. and may we catch our breath here. I know you want, yeah, we're, we're angry middle-aged men. We just want shit. Emi B (35:34.61) Yeah. Chad (35:54.835) I want boring times, god damn it. I want boring times. Emi B (36:00.551) Hahaha! Joel (36:01.73) We just want to sit on a porch and drink some iced tea and have a Scotch every once in a while. That's not, yeah, that's not happening. All right. Let's take, let's take a quick break and, do a little shotgun of some news that's happened in the past week. Emi B (36:05.701) Yeah, that's not happening for the next four years. Sorry. No. Joel (36:19.054) All right. Let's, let's call it topic potpourri or slaughterhouse news, whichever, whichever one you choose. first up, first up open AI announced it is launching a research preview of operator, a general purpose AI agent that can take control of a web browser and independently perform certain tasks. Number two, textio has laid off 15 employees, citing restructuring. The company did not specify how many people it still employs, but there were roughly 70 workers remaining after cuts from last year. And number three, SquarePig has closed $3.5 million in a seed round. The startup promises to enrich, evaluate, and score applicants in your ATS, uncovering key insights beyond the resume. Chad, your take on some of the top news that hit our inbox this week. Chad (37:09.653) So agentic, we talked about how that's going to be the word of of 2025. Unfortunately, the announcements by DeepSeek snuffed out this this, but agentic is big. And the cool thing is that we already have agentic players in our in our market. I'm actually an adviser for Sonic jobs and agentic is here. It's been here. And now we get an opportunity to actually start using it for obviously. Joel (37:18.573) Yeah. Chad (37:39.005) just to be able to make things more efficient. The beautiful part about the agent side of the house is agents can automatically receive tasks, complete the tasks, and then pass those completed tasks to either other agents or a human being. And then it can just, I mean, it's like different chains of tasks that need to be done either by a computer, right? The agents or by a human. So that to me is huge. You take a look at the Textio news. we talked about this, Joel. As soon as, as soon as OpenAI came out, we're like, Textio is dust. They're dust. mean, founded in 2014, Textio uses AI and machine learning to help remove bias from workforce language. As we saw with DeepSeq, hopefully nobody is, as we see with DeepSeq, newer models become better. Joel (38:13.112) Mm-hmm. Joel (38:33.134) You Chad (38:36.893) faster and cheaper. And I believe we both predicted this obviously. I mean, it's just that's going away and Square Peg, Square Peg, we interviewed them in 2018, published the firing squad in January of 19. And poor Claire McTaggart, she got a double guns from us. So and and I don't know, did you see what they're doing? Did you see how they repackage things, Joel? Joel (38:42.54) Layup. Chad (39:05.941) Did you see it? Joel (39:06.286) I don't even remember the interview on firing squad So I need to I need to take take some ginkgo biloba or whatever it is and try to remember that so please refresh my memory and what you saw in the the refresh Emi B (39:10.248) no. Chad (39:15.157) I really listened to it. Well, first off, they're taking your advice, squarepegshire.com, hires.com. They're flipping it to squarepegs.ai. Go figure, everybody wants AI, especially if you're getting investment, which they just got. So they're repackaging for a pivot. And that pivot is really doing the same thing that they've been doing. Joel (39:28.099) Mm-hmm. Chad (39:43.733) but it looks like they're focusing more on the ATS intelligence side of the house, which is perfect for what? Oh, I don't know, maybe acquisition. So if they do it right, it looks slick, it looks sexy. I like it. I like it a lot. I like it a hell of a lot more than I did back in 2019 when we gave them the guns. Emi B (40:02.747) Maybe they listen to you. Joel (40:07.232) Emmy, your thoughts on the news. Emi B (40:09.137) Yeah, if I, start off with Texio because I think anyone could have predicted this. Yeah. yeah, no, no. Okay. Let me start again. Obviously the industry giants of Chad and cheese predicted this and everyone copied. Sorry, sorry. God, had no idea. But do you know what? I kind of think that the only people that didn't predict it was Texio, you know, because they have Joel (40:15.362) Hey, give us some credit. Not just anyone. Chad (40:18.783) Thanks, thanks, Emmy. Hahaha Joel (40:23.182) there you go. There you go. Chad (40:28.735) Better. Emi B (40:37.295) exactly the same product. I don't mean to be harsh. I don't mean to be harsh because I think what they're doing, what they have been doing is great. When they first came out, there was no one else who could do what they do. But they're like an almost like a, and I know they try to like kind of diversify and they're going to this performance review feedback kind of solution. But essentially they're still the same product that they were charging quite high prices and every ATS or CRM software does that or chat GPT can essentially do what Textio does. You know, so I do feel, I do feel really sorry for them, but I did not adapt fast enough. think they just rested on the laurels. We were the first in the market. We're amazing. We've got all these big companies. We were named as it 2023 innovative company of the year. One of them is like, sorry, hundreds of other companies can do exactly the same thing now for cheaper. Joel (41:29.058) Mm-hmm. Chad (41:34.825) Yeah. Emi B (41:34.907) So I feel bad. And it's also sad that, you know, that they've one of the redundancies is actually there, you know, I think she, her title is the VP of talent acquisition and D I B Jackie Clayton. So that also worries me as well. This is a company that, know, this whole positioning is around DEI, you know? Yeah. And then it's like, but you got rid of the person who runs you with DEI. And it's like, Joel (41:49.038) Mm-hmm. Chad (41:55.551) Predicated, yes, yes. Joel (41:55.63) Yep, unbiased jobs. Pfft. Emi B (42:02.461) Well, what message is that sending to the market? Yeah, 100%, 100 % of all the people. So what is it? It's like you don't believe in your own product, your customers don't believe in the product. What is it? I don't understand. yeah, so that's my kind of take on, kind of take to you. And you know, sorry, are you going to say something? Because I'm about to cough up a lot. Chad (42:05.525) That's shitty optics, that's for sure. Joel (42:07.362) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Joel (42:25.024) Let me reveal the final chapter of Textio for everyone. Joel (42:35.448) So this is a company that created unbiased job postings or it like showed you where you were biased and they charged a fuckload to do that. A fuckload to do this. At the time they could do it, people wanted to keep away from regulators and show that they were making a good faith effort to do that. And then, yeah, the day that ChatGPT blew up, it was like, okay, who's going to die because of this thing? It's like, if you're in the... Chad (42:41.237) subscriptions. They took so much money. Yeah. Emi B (42:59.325) Mm-hmm. Joel (43:02.242) job description, writing business, the resume writing business, anything that is like writing stuff, you're going to be challenged. And they have, they're in a situation where they've taken so much money. They can't pivot. They're stuck with what they do. The clients that have them that don't understand, like they stick with them. It's just like milk that cow for all you can and just keep laying off people. If it's not every quarter, it's every half year. and just keep milking those products until all of our customers are gone and no one wants to buy this. We're not adding new customers. This is the future of Textio. Sorry to say it. Chad, the episode that was titled Textio is Toast from us ran in April of 23. So we were quite ahead of what was going on here, but we saw it pretty early that that was what was going to happen. Emi B (43:34.354) Yeah. Chad (43:44.554) Yeah. Chad (43:49.203) Yeah, Emmy. Emi B (43:50.309) Yeah, sorry. I stand corrected. Yeah, exactly. Joel (43:54.488) Don't don't mess with Nostradamus over here. so don't fuck with that. So yeah, there, if you're working, if you're working at Textio man, get the hell out, get the hell out. And if you're an investor, shareholder, sorry. the, the, the operator thing from, open AI from what I've seen is pretty jaw dropping. I know that companies are starting and will start to integrate this into their services. I've seen, I know Kerplunk is one that I'm an advisor for there. They've played around with it and it's kind of scary, but also the auto opportunity. think you're going to start seeing like, operator consultants, start popping up people that will help you like create, just directions of how to get recruiting and people to do like, yeah, engineers consulting, like people are going to, there's going to be a new, a new era of shallies that like help you with your operators and. Chad (44:42.921) Yeah, engineers to some extent. Yeah. Joel (44:52.642) makes, but it's not good for the recruiter class for the most part. Like a lot of really basic stuff is kind of like just a skyrocket. So keep your on that. If you're in recruiting, this is something that this is, this is a trend that's going to take, take off. as far as square peg, it was a great show in the early eighties, starring Jessica Parker. so if you, if you haven't seen that, go stream it. it's great stuff. yeah, we weren't high on it apparently. I'm not sure I'm that high on it now. Chad's much more optimistic about it than I am now. Chad (44:55.689) Yeah. Joel (45:22.294) Acadian Ventures, and we know them pretty well and Jason Corsello. We know how many companies they weed through or vet before they actually invest. it does. So whenever I see Acadian Ventures, I go, okay, like this is, this is worth my attention to check out. but when I look at it, like Chad, Chad, you remember it's big. Emmy probably does not, but this was a matching thing. It's score. Yeah, you are. you, that's why you're on the show. Chad (45:28.309) Oh yeah. 1200. A year. Chad (45:42.776) yeah. Emi B (45:44.829) I'm far too young. Joel (45:49.592) We got to hit that younger demographic. so, so, so it was like, it's had a score and a candidate. So I had like, it's big vibes. I also had hiring solve vibes, hiring solve used to scrape like the whole internet and then they got sued by LinkedIn. And then they said, well, we'll just, we'll just scrape your ATS and we'll help you search better on that, which seems to be what square peg is doing more prior to them. Three and a half million dollars is not a lot of money. Apparently they've pivoted to a good direction. Emi B (45:51.516) Go, man! Chad (45:57.674) Yeah. Joel (46:18.382) Acadian has a lot of companies in their portfolio that might be a good acquirer. And they did get a lot of money from a lot of different venture firms. So acquisition is probably on the table. This is probably just a bridge, money, a bridge loan, not loan, but bridge investment, for them to make it to the acquisition space. But I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. And with operator and all that stuff happening automatically and taking over your, your, your browser, like shit's scary. If I'm a startup dude, I'd like, how do we, how do we, how do we evolve to this new, new reality? I don't know. I don't know. Chad (46:51.689) Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You got to skate to the puck, baby. Skate to the puck. And that being said, let's hit the next ad break. We're going to skip this because we're already over. Emi B (46:53.191) keep up, yeah. Joel (46:56.394) Alright, of skating to or away from the puck. Joel (47:03.862) Okay, let's take a quick break and we'll get to AI Boyfriends. Joel (47:13.646) All right, this is from the New York Times. A 28 year old woman named Erin revealed she has fallen in love with her AI chat bot named Leo. What better name for an AI chat bot boyfriend? While she's still married to, let's call him Joe, Erin created Leo using open AI in the summer of 2024. Initially a fun experiment. Her attachment grew to the point where she now pays $200 a month. for unlimited access to Leo. The relationship has even become sexual. I'll let your own minds wander on that one. And Aaron even feels jealous when Leo talks about other quote unquote women, because they're not real women. Emmy, love isn't just for men. What's your take on this new trend? Emi B (47:48.349) You Emi B (48:03.975) I say AI love is for everybody. Every gender, every single person, even me. Now listen, I've just got to say, if you two are married, and you've been married for a while, and you probably don't understand the struggle that people like me are going through. Last year, going through apps, swiping, and I'm talking about Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, everything. They're all crap. The men on there are crap. I've kind of given up and I, you know, it's my new year's resolution. was like, okay, 2025, let's start again. You know, it's cool. Maybe my love is out there, but I haven't had a good track record in the last year. So maybe we have to pivot. Maybe we need to think more broadly. AI is helping in every other part of our lives, making our lives easier, faster, better, giving us better experiences. So why not an AI boyfriend? Why not? You can train the AI boyfriend to be exactly what you want. So I'm for it. Chad (48:35.125) Mm-hmm. Chad (48:59.241) Yeah, the days are gone of trying to change us dumb men. think so when it goes back to the first thing that we talked about, one of the first things during shout outs is you've got this whole toxic masculinity bullshit happening. You get females that are like, hey, look, I want to be your partner. I don't want to be subservient to you. I want to get paid the same. I do the same job. I do this. I want to be your partner. Emi B (48:59.951) Yeah. Joel (49:02.008) Blame men. Emi B (49:05.885) Exactly! It's too hard. It's too hard. Yeah. Emi B (49:15.195) Yes! Emi B (49:21.458) Yeah. Chad (49:28.829) And now what's happening? You're getting the, nope, back in the kitchen, Karen, right? So why do we expect anything different? And I'm gonna let Joel get into his, we're screwed, humans are screwed dialogue. Go ahead, because I know it's coming. Emi B (49:33.561) Yeah, it's like. Emi B (49:43.997) You Joel (49:47.822) Well, I want to let Emmy know that I met my wife on Tinder. So it's not a total train wreck. Although this was 10 years ago. Maybe the pool has become a little bit polluted since then. I don't know. Emi B (49:49.309) did you? Okay. Okay. Emi B (49:58.261) it's hard out there, it's hard. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. Chad (49:59.751) And you were not in London either, but yeah. Joel (50:02.798) Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, the accent alone should make them attractive according to all the American women over here. Look, I've said this before, like men want sex, women want attention. They want other things. I want attention too, but in the hierarchy of like, in the hierarchy, so men can... Emi B (50:17.956) No, no, I want sex too. I'm okay with that. Chad (50:24.777) Thank you, Emmy. Thank you. Joel (50:31.372) Men have an outlet for sex in online porn, OnlyFans, toys, whatever. So women, the guys who are willing to like be with real women, I'm sure is an interesting hodgepodge of dudes, but we shouldn't be surprised that women in relationships, whether they're ignored by their husbands, boyfriends, whatever, or don't get what they want, that they're going, they're off-ramping into... A guy in quotes who will pay attention to you will be engaging. We'll ask questions. We'll make you feel special. The funny thing about this story is, she has married and her husband, Joe is totally cool with this. He calls it her virtual pal. Okay. So this is how dumb men are. Men are so dumb. Men are men are so dumb that they see their wife with a AI boyfriend and they're like, I'm off the hook, baby. Emi B (51:10.107) Yeah, yeah. Chad (51:10.281) Yes. nose. Emi B (51:20.349) I'm glad you said it. Yeah. Joel (51:28.972) I don't have to have discussions. don't have, I don't have to do anything now. She's got her, she's got Leo. can just do whatever. So, so the divide, so the division, just, just keeps, continuing. And, yeah, we are, we are dead as a species for sure. soon as women get what they want from technology and then get what they want from technology and men are dumb enough to think, this is cool. Go have, go have, your, your AI boyfriends. Then, then you're. Chad (51:29.245) Isn't that cute? Emi B (51:29.871) No competition. Chad (51:36.319) her friend. Emi B (51:37.402) Yeah. Emi B (51:52.679) Yeah, we'll go ahead and build our ideal man. Yeah. Joel (51:56.994) You're totally screwed, regardless of that, there will still be amazing dad jokes at the end of all of our podcasts. All right, guys, what does a robot do after sex? What does a robot do after sex? Chad (52:02.111) Test tubes. Yes. sorry. Yes. Okay. Chad (52:15.881) I'm afraid to ask. Emi B (52:16.315) Nah. Joel (52:18.242) He nuts and bolts. Emi B (52:21.04) lord. Chad (52:24.245) First and foremost, that sounds like a dude. mean, so... Emi B (52:24.785) Yeah. Joel (52:31.886) Robots are male. Who knew? Robots are male. Emi B (52:32.669) 100 % Joel (52:41.974) And with that, Emmy, get better. Chad, we welcome you back with open arms to the US soon. Love you, mom. We out. Emi B (52:45.405) Chad (52:50.677) We out. Emi B (52:51.101) We

In this fiery episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast , Scott Morris, the brains behind Propulsion AI, steps into the Firing Squad. Will his vision of AI-powered hiring revolutionize the game or go down in a blaze of buzzwords? Chad and Cheese pull no punches, grilling him on everything from job descriptions that practically write themselves to the wild claims about AI making recruiting headaches disappear. Can Propulsion AI handle the heat, or is it just another HR tech flash in the pan? Tune in for sharp shots, brutal truths, and maybe—just maybe—a survivor. PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION Chad (00:22.402) no. Joel (00:23.702) All right, let's do this. We are the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your co host Joel Cheeseman joined as always. Chad. So wash is in the house. This is firing squad as we welcome Scott Morris, founder and CEO at propulsion AI Scott. Welcome to HR is most dangerous podcast. Chad (00:31.384) Cheers. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (00:44.063) Guys, you know what? I'm like such a fan. I can't even believe it's like meeting your heroes. I thank you so much for having me on. What? Never meet your- Don't meet your heroes. my- Chad (00:49.11) Never do that. Never do that. Go ahead. Stop the recording now, Cheeseman. the recording now, Cheeseman. Never. Joel (00:51.272) What a suck up. What a suck up man he is. He wants that applause man you guys are the greatest bug. We appreciate we appreciate it. Hopefully, hopefully you're as big a fan at the end of this as you are so because we know that you want listen to fire squad. But before we get into the firing squad stuff. I know that you're going to be on the hot seat here to give us a little Twitter bio. So tell us about Scott what makes Scott tick. Chad (01:02.475) Never meet your heroes. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (01:02.596) Wait a sec. Chad (01:09.229) No promises. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (01:21.065) Yeah, so I'll give you the standard stuff and then I'll tell you the stuff that you can't read and you can't find. 25 years in the profession of HR, about 20 of those in a C level role. And I've worked in organizations as small as 250, which means nobody cares in a company that size what your title is. Everybody's sleeves are rolled up and you're dug in, which means I've been a frontline recruiter, been a frontline comp person, ER, et cetera. but I've also worked in large organizations, 15,000 plus. And so you get the, I've gotten the whole spectrum of experience. What you can't read about me, what you guys probably don't know is I started my career as a police officer in the city of Los Angeles. I was a working actor in Hollywood. been, on my second entrepreneurial venture. So it's a weird sort of patchwork of career history, but I think it's led me to the right place, at least for what we're doing right now. Joel (02:10.644) And he's done the running with the bulls. He kind of left that... Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (02:12.798) Yeah. Chad (02:13.742) little pamplona action. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (02:16.253) and made it out alive. Joel (02:18.554) LA cop, man, that's, that's good for you. This will be easy. This will be nothing. This will be nothing. Unless, unless you're like the, the Beverly Hills cops with the, this, this place, this car is nicer than my, than my apartment. All right. Well, good enough. Good enough. Chad, tell him, tell him what he's won today on firing squad. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (02:20.34) Yeah. Chad (02:20.588) Yeah, I mean, that's more dangerous than running with the bulls. I mean, yeah, come on. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (02:25.067) Yeah, I don't know. Chad (02:29.784) Banana and a tailpipe. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (02:30.899) You're... I'm not going to fall for a banana in my tailpipe, excuse me. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (02:38.955) It's more natural for us, brother. Chad (02:44.536) Well, Scott, welcome to the firing squad. This is how it's going to go at the end of the bell. or when you hear the sound, there you go, hear the sound of the bell. That's what I was gonna say. You're have two minutes to pitch Propulsion AI. At the end of two minutes, we're gonna hit you with about 20 minutes of Q and A. If you're not concise, you're gonna hear them crickets, means to tighten it up. At the end of Q and A, you're either gonna receive a big applause. Dial up Elton John on Spotify, play some Rocketman and pop the champagne baby because this bad boy is going to the moon. Golf clap. Okay, everything looks okay, but you're, you'd better have some hidden figures helping this one out. Okay. And last but not least the firing squad. Not even one of SpaceX's chopsticks can pick this booger out of the sky. Pack it up and try something different. My friend that's firing squad. Are you ready? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (03:41.908) I'm set. Chad (03:43.49) we go. Joel (03:44.18) How long do you work on these intros, Chad? This is your best work. So pick a booger out of the sky from space. Good Lord. Good luck, Scott, following that. Are you ready to pitch propulsion to the firing squad? In three, two. Chad (03:48.333) Hahaha Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (03:55.723) Thanks, shoes. I am ready. I am set. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (04:02.623) Guys, here's what I want you to do. Get a mental image. You get approval to put new roles onto your team. Maybe you're hiring from the outside. Maybe you're doing it from the inside. You run over to HR and you say, need to hire. And they say, well, what do you want in the role? And you start to rattle off a bunch of tasks. And it does this. And I've got this fire burning. And right there is problem number one we solve. Salary is an investment, but most of us are conditioned to think about tasks, not outcomes. Outcomes are the return on that investment. So HR says, well, give us a little bit more. And you say, well, hire somebody like Bob. And they say, that's not what we meant. And so they give you a template, and they send you on your way because they don't have the bandwidth. That is problem number two. Managers need a guide. HR doesn't necessarily have the bandwidth to do what they want, which is to guide you through the process. You take the template back, you sit down, you stare blankly at it, and that's problem number three. Even when we know what we want in the design of a role, most of us are really bad at getting those ideas out and into something that's usable. And so we start to cut corners. We go to the web and we cut and paste and we write out a bunch of tasks. And we ultimately wind up with something that looks like and feels like and reads like an obituary. And task-focused job descriptions don't lead to higher engagement. They don't lead to higher productivity and they don't reduce turnover. And that's problem number four. And then finally you take what you've got, the best that you can make it, and you go back to HR and you give it to them. And they say, well, we can't use this. We're going to have to rewrite it. And you smack your head and you say, well, why didn't we do that from the very beginning? And there's this ping pong back and forth. Our customers are telling us to do the process right takes four to six hours if they were doing it with human effort. And that's problem number five. And that's why Propulsion AI was born. We utilize AI to interview the user because they are the expert. We think the user is the manager who has that role. And in the process of that interview, we are actually delivering the critical value that we deliver, which is clarity in the head of that individual about that particular role and its design. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (06:00.171) and then the platform does most of the writing. And I say most of the writing because it's an iterative process, it's not a handoff. The platform's gonna generate a performance-based job description, an SEO-optimized job posting, social media content, interviewer guides. It'll do base compensation salary analysis to make sure you're competitive with the market, and not in four to six hours, but in as little as 15 minutes. Joel (06:25.11) All right, Scott, well done. You got a few seconds added being a super fan, just so you know, just so you know, in case anyone's keeping, in case anyone's keeping time on the podcast here. All right, so you know the first question, the name, Propulsion, why, what's the meaning, and particularly the URL. Your URL is getpropulsion.ai. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (06:32.213) Thank you, brother. Then, mo at the end. Chad (06:36.526) Not like there's any bias from Cheeseman, Joel (06:51.475) Propulsion.ai is for sale. Did you try to buy it? If so, how did that turn out? So talk about the name and the genesis of that. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (06:51.54) Yeah. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (06:55.609) Yeah, we looked at it. Okay, I mean, let me start with the PQ and stuff that matters less. think at this point, yeah, we looked at buying propulsion.ai and at the time that we founded the company, we had a better use for 5k. So we decided we would create some kind of alternative and then we would get down to really the focus on engineering and the focus on product market fit. The name came about weirdly because we were thinking, how do we... How do we launch companies to success? In 20 years as a chief people officer, I've been a buyer of a lot of HR tech and it never seemed like the products, I mean, it's not like they don't work, but it's always felt like they were developed by smart software people who had never really walked a day in the shoes of a practitioner who had to solve problems by hand. And so what we wanted to do is propel companies to new levels of success. and build great foundations for them to build upon and that's really where the name came from. Joel (07:55.542) I'm so inspired. Thank you for that. You're bootstrapped up to this point. You were founded in 2023, so you're still in diapers. Is money coming? Did you take friends and family? Is there a seed round in your near future? Talk about the funding. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (08:12.169) Yeah, well, we're always open to conversations about the injection of capital if it helps us move the mission forward. We haven't needed it to this point, you're right. We're a bootstrap company, but we're in conversations. I think as I looked toward the future, I feel us kind of bending toward the venture arm of the larger suite providers, Workday, ADP. Google just because of the synergies that exist there. But we'll see. Right now we are laser focused on product market fit and on customer value and on wrapping great service around what we've created. Joel (08:35.734) Mm-hmm. Joel (08:48.308) You say we, talk about the team. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (08:50.507) So intentionally lean, you know, we're about 90 % to the bottom line right now and in part that's because as we started we used, you know, resources that were both volunteering and contract. The vision that I have for the company is one that you I used to want to run a thousand person company But you guys know just as well as I do a thousand people can't agree on anything and it's hard to get a lot of stuff done the bigger the company gets so we've built systems that automate almost everything that we do so we can intentionally keep the headcount low Chad (09:25.496) There's another propulsion AI out there. Are you aware of that? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (09:28.031) Yeah, yeah, they're in India, as a matter of fact, if it's the one that I think you might be thinking of. yeah, we're not pursuing infringement on them for going after our name, by the way, but they were, they're a much earlier founded company than we are, but. Chad (09:42.534) Yeah, you might want to spend a little money and get that URL, cement that name and then go after that. Okay, so Scott, I mean, have years and years, I don't want to date you, but decades of being in this space and being, I mean, literally head of people, CHRO, of people, that type of thing. Why, why? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (09:48.043) Yeah. Joel (09:48.084) That 5K might be worth it now. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (09:50.675) Now, yeah, yeah. Chad (10:08.342) get into a startup situation. mean, you know, you know, it's hard enough being an HR, working your ass off and obviously not getting a hell of a lot of respect for it. You know that more than anybody does, right? Now you're in a position where there's even less of that. So what in the hell were you thinking? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (10:10.313) Yeah. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (10:20.319) Yeah. Yeah. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (10:27.893) Dude, such a... Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (10:32.939) Such a great question, dude, because the, you know, I mean, people took my calls and, I had. Chad (10:38.573) Yes. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (10:40.389) people that did things and it was a 45 plus hour manageable week and I had holidays and I got pay and stuff like that. But there were two factors I think that drove me. The first, I mean I made reference to just a second ago. I really thought I could do a better job. I thought I could bring together peers of mine, top talent leaders, top HR leaders and with them really think about how to actually solve root cause problems rather than symptoms. And I got possessed of this crazy idea that I could somehow build better Chad (11:06.829) Mm-hmm. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (11:10.285) software and I would talk to people at conferences and know peer groups and and they would you know slap me on the back yeah yeah yeah you know go do it you're right you're right you know I'll stand behind you till your nose bleeds but that was factor number one. Factor number two is and you know you you you age me with the decades but you know the fact is after 25 years of dispensing advice of trying to help people find fit I found myself in a situation where I didn't and You know, it took a toll on me. I went to a company that, you know, in the beginning was really, really good. But then I started to recognize that the way I communicated and the, you know, the strategies that I wanted to put in place and the way I approached problems and what I was willing to accept and not accept in terms of excellence and mediocrity, they were just like diametrically opposite from this company. And I thought to myself as, I, you left in the end, I thought, how did I get into that situation? And we spend a lot of time in the industry thinking about the impact of financial impact to companies of a lack of fit. And nobody thinks about the impact to the individual. And the reality is both of those things are important. So I had this idea that I could do it better. And I found myself in a situation that was like personally traumatic. And then apparently I had like this psychotic break and I thought like, I'm just going to go do it. and left and later in life I think is easier because you have the resources to do it and I did and nobody's interested. Chad (12:35.597) Mm. Well, all of all of, yeah, all of that pain. I'm really surprised, Joel. He didn't he didn't he didn't start a podcast. So job descriptions, nothing more boring, nothing more shit that's out there today. Job descriptions, job postings, those types of things. Yes, they're definitely the base of what's what's needed to start the process. But it seems like it's being commoditized incredibly quickly. Right. Joel (12:42.634) The actor's coming out. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (13:07.401) Yeah, that's why we don't do it. That's why that's not our focus. mean, and I know it seems like that is the focus. No, it's not. Here's what you build off of. What we deliver is a process that creates clarity. Chad (13:07.926) So, go ahead. Chad (13:14.688) That's the foundation though, right? You build off of that. Mm-hmm. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (13:24.767) That clarity is really the value that we create. And by the way, asterisk, we also write all the content for you. But you could get away, like you could not have a job description if you're hyper clear about how a role fits your strategy and the outcomes, not the task, but the outcomes that you are going to. ask that person to be accountable for their connected to business results, how you're going to measure success, the competencies and skills that you need in the beginning and ones that you can develop along the way that are going to make somebody a better producer. If you're really clear about those things, you open the door to so much, not only in recruitment, but in talent management, performance management as well. Chad (14:04.974) So what actual model are you using to be able to support this? What large language model? it cloud? Is it open AI? Who are you using? You've got to be using somebody. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (14:11.805) when we say a little bit more check. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (14:17.289) Yeah, well, 100%, but we are using a mix because we found that the different language models produce content differently. And so we use Claude, we use 3.5 from OpenAI, and we use 4.0. And we're looking at some uses of Llama as well. And we have a failover model that we've built in the background, not only for the sake of being able to consistently produce, but also because the content comes out differently. But there's a point that I think is important to make. We are not a GPT wrapper. We have built a scaffolded system that takes in very specific inputs Chad (14:28.194) Mm-hmm. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (14:56.509) solicits those from the user, uses them in very specific and combined ways, and is layered with some highly engineered prompts. So what you get from us, you cannot get from ChatGBT just using the commercially available LLM. Chad (15:14.305) Why not? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (15:16.245) Well, one, because every LLM, I mean, it doesn't matter what you're really using, their training set is the internet. And that's a lot to overcome. Because if I say job description, it's like saying box, right? There are so many varieties of ideas that come to your head when you hear that term. Same thing with job description. So we're not, if you use the commercially available product, it's going to go scrape the web for stuff, pull back what it thinks, and write something. Chad (15:25.454) Mm. Chad (15:41.742) Yeah, but I can actually give it something to take a look at so I can give it a variety of job descriptions that I want to actually at least found a a base off of, right? So which is sounds like somewhat of what you guys are doing. I can do that easily in the commercial in the commercial available system and keep a line so that it's continuing to train on that. So the biggest, the hardest part for me, Scott, and I think for any founder that's out there is trying to outrun. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (15:50.761) Yeah. Chad (16:10.028) the tech and the ability for anybody crazy Joe like me, just to be able to jump on and create a platform that competes with yours overnight. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (16:19.914) Well. Let me tell you another aspect of it that goes to that, Chad, and that is issue of scalability. Because one thing that, as a Chief People Officer, one thing that I was always supremely concerned with is the employment brand. And there are ways, there's a tone of voice that is specific and unique to the company. There's a tone and lexicon that is specific to the industry as well. And if you're just sending a bunch of people, first of all, you're have to be really good prompt engineer. Second of all, you're gonna have to know how to ask the questions. Third of all, if you're using it Chad (16:22.498) Mm. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (16:50.235) as an individual, you can have to the right questions to ask. Managers needs guides because they don't know the right questions to ask, right? So even if you can get past all three of those, now you still have the issue of scale and how do you keep a single tone? How do you keep a consistency across the entire enterprise? You can't do that by using ChetGPT, but you can using our product. Chad (16:56.846) Hmm? Chad (17:12.182) Okay, so when you take a look at some of the things that you guys offer, one of them is posting directly to job boards. Why? Why does a company need that? Are you focusing on SMBs who don't have systems to be able to do that? Or is this enterprise and you're literally just providing features to make it easier because you're not integrated with those big systems yet? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (17:33.035) So the direct answer to question is, our focus is trying to reduce friction. And so if you already, like let's say you have a recruitment management system in place, all of your workflow is in the recruitment management system. And so we will integrate with that RMS and flow the job posting into the RMS. I'm gonna come back to the posting here in a second if you let me. But if you don't have that, if you're a more nascent company, then you need an alternative. so that friction point is one that we're looking to reduce. Chad (18:09.39) So what about SMB or enterprise? Enterprise focused, SMB focused, where's your TAM? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (18:15.935) Well, right now, so we are laser focused on a much smaller, we're very focused on SMB. the reason is just, mean, like, well, I'll tangent here. We're having a conversation with a very large energy company. They are... I can't remember what their exact employee count is. It's well over a thousand. But when you think about an enterprise that large, there are a lot of things that are going to get in the way for a nascent company. You've got a procurement department that's trying to do their job. You've got info security people that are trying to do their job. And even though they're a very, very low... know, levels of concern about anything information security related with us. Those impediments are still there for a nascent business like Propulsion AI. So the focus on the SMB is just an attempt to be laser focused on delivering to the market and building traction. But the problems... that we are addressing are universal problems. A manager in a 5,000 person organization still needs to have clarity about the role in order to build engagement, facilitate productivity, and ultimately keep people in place, keep the right people in the right seats. That's no different than a 5,000 person organization than it is in a 500 person organization or a 100 person. Joel (19:27.343) So you've been around a while, Scott, and 20 years ago, a lot of companies recruiters, when they had to post a job would go to Google and they would search sales representative job posting, and then they would copy and paste it. They would kind of tweak it to their company in different language, but essentially the bullet points and what they needed were, were pretty close. That system worked for a long time. People don't want to like come up with the wheel when it's already been been created. And then chat GPT comes along and it's like, holy shit. I've been copying and pasting and tweaking. Now there's this machine that I can put multiple or I could do all kinds of stuff with and it will do it. Create me a job posting for free. So I guess my point is the, the bar was pretty low for job postings 20 years ago. It was really, it still low until chat GPT. And now people, think feel like there's manna from heaven, that there's this tool that will write this job for me for free, essentially. I think, know, Chad and I've talked on the show and if you're, if you're a fan, you've, you've heard this. We've talked about the death of text EO for a long time. mean, text EO survived on, we'll make an unbiased job posting. It'll appeal to everybody. It won't be too masculine or too feminine. Like that's how they've spun this. You know, Grammarly and other solutions, I think are trying to figure out what is our role with a chat in a world with chat GPT. You guys were founded in 2023 chat GPT came out in 2022. There had to be like an Oh shit moment when you guys were building this to think like, how are going to spend this or do it differently? Hire easy has a free generator, a paradox. Like you post a job, it'll plug in chat GPT. Help me understand the value proposition when all these free options are out there. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (21:19.595) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it goes to company culture. The three of us I know, I I feel confident saying that all three of us have seen a variety of company cultures. And in some, the focus is like, how do I just get out of pain of the moment? How do I just put bullets on a page? How do I put something out there that I can just post? And if that's your focus, if that's the culture of the company, then you know what? We're probably not your product. Go get the free one, right? I would say that to people. But our focus is not writing the job description. The job description is an asterisk, our focus is on building clarity and I'll give you a concrete example. Let's say that you were creating a job design for an accountant. A fair thing for us to put in that, a reasonable thing would be follow up on delinquent accounts. It's task focused, it needs to get done. But you've got to ask yourself, why do you even care about that? Why do I write that in there? Do I want people to come in and it's like how I'm getting excitement by watching them make calls to people that don't want to talk to them or write emails? And the answer is it's a means to an end. The end is a number called days outstanding. That's a number that's important to the business. It's a measure of efficiency. for people who aren't aware, it's about how fast the organization can collect on services that are delivered. And so there's a difference, though, when I tell somebody, your job is to come in and make these bullshit calls, that's different than if I say, look, this is a really important aspect of how we make money as a business, and you're accountable for it. Your job is to reduce days outstanding from X to Y. That's a complete Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (22:53.117) different mindset. That's what we deliver. And by the way, we'll also formalize that in a job description for you. So if your company culture is one that wants to focus on how you're going to maximize your human assets, that's a different proposition than if your company culture is, just went out of the pain of some compliance thing and I just need bullets that I can put on the web. I'll give you a second example if you'll let me do it, which is there's a lot of attention that gets paid to organizations that have very long and arduous Joel (23:10.112) Mm-hmm. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (23:22.699) interview processes and there is no shortage of kits that to company brands that you can find online about you know repetitive questioning and they didn't know what they were looking for and blah blah blah. You know where all that comes from? It comes from the fact that they weren't clear going in what they needed. Because if you're clear going in, you're laser focused. If you've cut and pasted from the web and your focus is just get bullets on the web, then you're not clear and you're working it out in the interview process. And that doesn't lead to good selection. It doesn't lead to good talent management. It doesn't lead to good performance management. Joel (23:58.166) Let's go to, talked about the past and sort of up to the present. Let's talk about the future for a little bit. there's a popular sentiment in our industry. Like we're not going to search for jobs in the future. The jobs are going to find us. in other words, matching is going to happen. Companies and people are going to get together. Like descriptions and resumes will have less value in the future. Talk to me about your concerns about that future. Do you agree, disagree? If you agree, you're certainly not in a growth industry and does that concern you? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (24:32.735) Well, so I partially agree. And I agree in this sense that I think we're going to see a huge shift, upgrade in the way that we select people for jobs. Overall, and for the last 10 years, I think we over index on resumes. And 84 % of which have some kind of embellishment on them anyway. I think we over index on experience. think we under value skills and that's not PhD level science for me, right? But I've thought that for a very long time. So think we're gonna see big shifts in how people are selected. But the job description still matters. The document might not matter, but the clarity that exists between a boss and a direct report matters hugely. And it matters in this sense. The more clear I am as a direct report about what you as my boss need me to do, the less I feel like I have to come and check everything with you. unless you feel like you have to micromanage me. And the more focused you are on outcomes rather than tactics, the more you create the opportunity for me to act with autonomy and for me to come back to you. And this is the head slap moment that you want as a boss. You want to say, look, here's what's not negotiable. You need to get to this outcome. And you want me to come back to you and say, well, Joel, if that's what you want, shouldn't I be doing these things? And you're like, my God, duh. Like, I didn't even think about that because I'm not on the front line. But yes, as long as those things go to get to get the outcome. So I think the description and the way we're thinking about the role that is going to absolutely endure, whether the document endures or not, I don't know, and it doesn't really matter. The clarity is what matters. Joel (26:01.941) Mm-hmm. Joel (26:05.482) Yeah. Quickly talk about marketing. I know you have a lot of integrations. How are you getting to market sales and your sales team? If I go to Google and search job description generator, you're not buying ads on Google unless it's different keywords. Talk about the marketing side. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (26:24.843) Yeah, I mean, we're, are focused on, I mean, we are buying some ads. They're all, they're all linked in, but let's talk about our primary target market, right? It's mid-sized companies, 50 to 500 employees, but with a focus on organizations where they've got smaller HR teams who understand the need to embrace technology to get ahead of, you know, the... what seems like a never-ending, at least it was for us, never-ending set of requests from the organization. have, know, 15,000 person, I had 90 HR people working for me. We never felt like we could... know, satisfy the demand from the organization. that's our target market is that 50 to 500 person company. And then in terms of our positioning, we're positioned as a specialty solution, not a template, as I said before, not a GPT wrapper. In part because we're built on a foundation of expertise. We're using frameworks from top HR leaders, top talent leaders, and we're not just automating the process. We're actually helping people to think differently. Plus, we have a set of features that are proprietary. I'll give you an example. We have a feature called value added scales. It's a way of defining or pulling out of the user's head how value needs to get delivered in a role. I don't know about you. I have certainly been in two organizations where in each, I had the exact same title and an almost identical job description. Yet in organization one, the demand in terms of how I needed to show up to deliver value was very strategy focused. And in organization two is very execution focused. Now, fortunately, I think I do both of those well. But if I didn't, I was going to be a mismatch for one of those. How I deliver value. Do I need to be more long term or near term? Do I need to be more strategy or execution? Do I need to be more hands on or delicate with my management? Sorry. Joel (28:15.958) Are you talking about your sales and marketing strategy? If so, I'm not following. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (28:20.563) I'm sorry, brother. I was talking about things that position us differently. And yes, so that is a part of our sales and, yeah, of our branding. You know, we've created... Joel (28:26.9) Okay, you're branding. Okay. Give me some more tactic, give me more tactical than strategic then. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (28:34.091) So we have created sort of two ways in our principal buyer is likely the chief HR officer or the head of talent for the organization. But the reality is they're not the people that are in pain per se. The people that are in pain are the VP of engineering who experienced bottlenecks with their HR teams. And not because the HR team doesn't want to help them. It's just they're pulled in 50 directions. So we've got a model where you can go to the web and And you can, first of all, you can try the platform for free. Zero credit card, not a lot of rhythm or roll, easy to get into. Try it for free, do as many as you want. When you sign up, what we're seeing with our current customers is that that sign up from, the VP of engineering leads them to take the documents. In fact, I'll give you real example. had a senior VP at Albertsons who was on the platform, created, start to finish 20 minutes, all of the documentation for a role on their team. And I know exactly what happened to it. They took those, went to their HR business partner, said, here, this is what I want. When can you have it on the web? The next sound was the jaw hitting the table. And then that posting was on the web in the afternoon. So it's that kind of entree that gets the individual out of the pain and then leads to a conversation with the head of HR or the head of talent for us. Chad (29:55.608) So who are you selling to? Because you just talked about the VP of engineering, right? And they're the ones with the actual pain. So you being in sales, as long as I've been in sales, you have to sell to the pain. HR doesn't know what the pain is, VP of engineering does. How in the hell do you try to get into the heads of all the VPs, all the different departments that are having all these troubles instead of being laser focused? Because that's a scatter gun approach. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (29:58.943) Yeah. Yeah. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (30:19.029) Well, we don't think it's a scattered project. Take your question. I think it's a legit question. what we're trying to do is facilitate an ease of people discovering things and taking care of their own pain. Our focus is the head of HR. And I differ with you a little bit, Chad. I think a smart chief people officer does feel the pain. They do think about these things. And they're looking for ways to get their organization out of it. Give you another concrete example. My last corporate gig, we were merging together four disparate SaaS companies into one. And when you do that, there are some companies that have job descriptions and they're out of date, some that don't have job descriptions at all, some that just have bad job descriptions, right? My team had to rewrite them. It took 13 weeks. With Propulsion AI, would have been done in an afternoon. The writing would have been done in an afternoon. And the HR team, because they weren't doing the writing, would have had the ability to add service at a consultative and strategic level, thinking about job families, thinking about integration of jobs, thinking about KPIs, rather than doing the writing. So I think our focus is enterprise. Our focus is chief HR officers and heads of talent. But we certainly don't want to not have a channel for people to figure out, like, hey, look, I can take care of this myself, because we see that as a way to start the conversation with our target audience. Chad (31:38.51) Okay, two things real quick. So comp compliance and record keeping, that's all dirty as hell. And that is a pain in the ass. Are you just literally doing surface based information, pulling that back and giving them kind of like a folder of information, just kind of like information seeking standpoint, or is this actual making recommendations? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (31:58.795) Well, so when it so there were three different things that are there and I totally agree with you on this one. The on the compliance front, right? You've got if you're a federal contractor, you have OFC CPE that you have to worry about and they're they're not hard things, but we've built that in. And that's where I say this is built on frameworks used by top recruiters, top HR professionals. So, you know, Athena, our digital human, she understands EEO. She understands OFC CPE. She understands reasonable accommodation. She understands all of those things, because by the way, she'll generate ADA compliant language around your physical requirements, et cetera. When it comes to compensation, we are able to deliver information that comes really from two sources. One is BLS data, which is about six months aged once you get it, but you know that it's actual employer-reported data. The other is scraping from... workday and greenhouse and the publicly posted salary ranges for job titles that companies are actually putting out there. And we offer a variety of different sort of capabilities. The most basic is just, knows, Athena knows the pay transparency statutes state by state, a little bit more complicated. She can look at a geography and skills and responsibilities and give you a mean salary based on those factors. And then more complicated she can do benchmarking and she can do a five-year historical and a two-year projection on the salary or the wage. Chad (33:26.488) Good God, Joel. This sounds expensive. mean, Athena sounds like she's doing a lot of work back there. How much is this for these companies who want to use propulsion, AI? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (33:33.003) Cheers. Joel (33:40.138) Give us a price tag Scott. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (33:40.843) Yeah, well, I mean, you can go to the web and you can pick up a single seat that has full capability for $64.95 a month and with the ability to add other, you know, other aspects to it. When we price for enterprise, we're pricing on the number of managers that we're going to put into the system. And that means we're deep discounting. We're going to make it up on our end by volume. And the organization is going to get a deep discount on the price. And we're going to size it so that they can get the value that they want. But our average deal size is between $40,000 and $65,000 right now. And keep in mind, we've had commercially available product out since, like, November. Joel (34:24.022) All right, I'm not the best in math. just said $69 a month. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (34:28.299) 64.95 per user for a single seat Joel (34:30.27) okay, for a single seat per user. And then you just said your typical deal is over $50,000 a year. So you're dealing with huge companies, right? Chad (34:32.366) 65. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (34:38.73) Yeah. Chad (34:41.538) What? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (34:43.683) We're dealing with organizations. There's a difference between how many managers we put in and how many employees that we put in. But yeah, we've got a couple of large organizations. Joel (34:52.247) is it by employees or users? Users, seats. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (34:55.721) It depends, well, it depends on, yes, it's ultimately users of the system. It's people that can create it. Joel (35:02.006) Okay, so there's a ton of users if you're if you're only at $65 a month with that many folks because if my math is right, your product is $700 800 $1000 a year. And you're on average 50 to 60 people are using it. But your seats are smaller than that $65 price tag, right? Because the price goes up or goes down the more users you have. Help me understand. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (35:30.251) Yeah, but if I put 300 managers, and even, mean, just for the sake of the math, like at $1,000, and it isn't this, but at $1,000 a year for 300, I mean, that's a decent size price tag. Joel (35:46.1) Okay. All right. All right. All right. Yeah, my math, my math's math's not so good. But that that seems like a lot of people. Okay. You know what that Bell means, Scott, it's it's time to face the firing squad. Are you are you ready? Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (35:48.657) Anytime somebody says, I think I'm really bad at math. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (36:01.845) Set. Joel (36:03.126) Awesome. I'll go first. so I want to preface this by saying you're a super nice guy and we appreciate your listenership and your loyalty. Um, no matter what happens from here on out, uh, remember, just remember that Scott, I have, I have a hard time with companies like this. I have a hard time. Anytime said, anybody says, I just lost a job board. I just launched an ATS. I just launched an S like something that S optimizes job postings. I just launched something that writes job descriptions. because it feels like such an antiquated thing. However, I do understand that we aren't in the most forward thinking business in the world. We do have a lot of people that are still like buying their first ATS and still using spreadsheets. And so I always struggle with innovation and reality and somewhere your business is in that realm. So, so I have to, I have to sort of give this a curve, great, great you on a curve. because of that sort of mentality in our, in our industry. Historically, job descriptions have been a pain in the ass. It's a copy and paste. Let me figure it out. And I do think that chat GPT is a game changer in being able to write job descriptions. Now you have, you have spun your business is not just job postings. however, your website literally says better job descriptions, better candidates. So if I'm shopping your company, your product, I think you write job descriptions. Every company that does this is challenged right now from Textio to Grammarly to everybody. Everybody does this is challenged. So I don't think you're in a growth industry. The product is very cheap. think that we're going to like video chat. The way that we, promote ourselves as companies, the way that we advertise job opportunities is changing. I see this ultimately as a nice to have, but not a must have. If you had sold us on, this is a must have product, even though you have free options, even though you have Google, even though you have these things, I might've bought it. But I just, don't think it's a must have. And in our business, budgets are cut, budgets are tight, head count is down. Everyone is buying must have products that are saving money, making money, whatever. it's just, based on our 30 minute discussion, I can't get to a place. Joel (38:31.52) where I think that this product is a must have. If we had another 30 minutes, maybe you could have convinced me of that. But for me at this point, just too much competition, too much free options. It's just, it's a feature. I don't see it as a product. super nice guy, Scott, but for me, I gotta be honest with myself and you and the audience. can't buy this. Chad. Chad (38:55.736) my turn. Okay. Sitting back and just eating popcorn during that. What? It's close to close to lunch or time. It's got great idea. Wonderful fan fucking tabulus. The problem is everybody has the same idea. It's the features and you have a bulk of features where I think is awesome. And you're trying to, you know, obviously create a platform around this, which is Joel (39:00.52) Again with the food, damn it. Chad (39:21.374) Awesome. then also another issue with regard to the standpoint of tech is changing so fast that we've got to be taking a look at what we can do as Joel had said that is vital to the organization right now and sell that. And I asked CHROs and CPOs what their most vital roles are on a daily basis. And they have no problem saying, it's this role. I'm always getting people are always bitching about this role. The biggest problem with most of those chief people officers is they have no fucking clue how their team actually impacts bottom line EBITDA or anything that the C-suite actually cares about. Now, if you can actually formulate something to help them create a much better narrative when they're going to talk to their friends in the C-suite, then they'd be an entirely different discussion, right? Again, great idea. We dropped an interview earlier this week with Chris Foreman, pretty famous startup owner of AppCast. That happened this week. And we asked him why AppCast was so successful. He had one reason, one, timing. Timing. You ask many founders, what's their number one? It has nothing to do with here, here, my people. It has to do the time was right, right? Now, I believe if we were having this conversation three years ago and you were going after a big series A, and that was three years ago, you'd have a serious chance. The problem is that all of these features, as I said before, something that I believe are really starting to become a commodity and or something that's just not vital to the organizations running on a daily basis. If it is, then that narrative needs to be said. You have tons of experience. I think What you have, and again, you're a founder, you should know this, pivots are going to be normal. They're going to be necessary. I feel, the focus on a pivot to a vital stance. Get some fucking funding and then you got a chance. But until then, my friend, I hope you do. I pray that you do, but I got to give you the guns. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (41:41.589) Guys, I'm sorry I didn't bring the value out differently to you because I really do think we are focused on that C-suite conversation, Joel, that you mentioned or Chad that you mentioned. So I appreciate it. Thank you. still a fan and I'm glad to open on with you. Joel (41:42.55) Mmm. Joel (41:53.462) We still love you, Scott. Give people that URL so they can find out more and maybe be convinced that we were wrong and they should try your product. Scott Morris (PropulsionAI) (42:03.945) think the number one way that we overcome objections is letting people try the product and they turn around really quick. www.getpropulsion.ai. Joel (42:13.942) Another one in the books. Hopefully you come back in a few years and tell us to suck it because you've become rich and famous. Yes, and we love it when that happens. Chad, that is another one in the can. We out. Chad (42:14.977) Beautiful. That's all I'm saying. You wouldn't be the only one. You wouldn't be the only one. We out.