CareerBuilder acquired a company with a funny name, companies are gaming Glassdoor to make themselves look better (or are they?), and Africa is the next hub for tech talent, compliments of Al Gore, Walmart is looking to corner the trucker talent market. And much more, including weed, porn and hangovers.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by: Disability Solutions provides training and development to help your workplace leaders and employees integrate with and value people with disabilities.
Announcer: 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.
Chad: Oh yeah!
Joel: It's frickin' freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth. Welcome to The Chad and Cheese Podcast, HR's Most Dangerous and Most Degenerate ... I'm Joel Cheesman.
Chad: I'm Chad Sowash.
Joel: On this week's show, CareerBuilder acquires a company with a kooky name. The Wall Street Journal says Glassdoor employers are behaving badly, for shame, and we pull a podcast hat trick with porn, weed, and hangovers.
Chad: Whoo-hoo!
Joel: And somehow find a way to tie it all with employment. If there's something below rock bottom. We're certainly shooting for it. Stay tuned after this word from Canvas.
Canvas: Canvas is the world's first intelligent, text-based interviewing platform empowering recruiters to engage, screen and coordinate logistics via text and so much more. We keep the human, that's you, at the center while Canvas spot is at your side adding automation to your workflow. Canvas leverages the latest in machine learning technology and has powerful integrations that help you make the most of every minute of your day. Easily amplify your employment brand with your newest culture video or add some personality to the mix by firing off a bit emoji. We make compliance easy and are laser-focused on recruiter success. Request a demo at goCanvas.io and in 20 minutes we'll show you how to text at the speed of talent. That's goCanvas.io. Get ready to text at the speed of talent.
Joel: I think you just found a new sponsorship opportunity.
Chad: What's that?
Joel: The show bloopers.
Chad: That's a good one, yeah. That's pretty cool.
Joel: There's always the best part of the show anyway, and no one ever gets to hear the way we screw up the show. Because you're so good with that editing pen.
Chad: Yeah, it doesn't happen that often. I mean, I don't have to cut out too much. Just some of the stupid rambling that I do in most cases.
Joel: Well, hey if there's money involved we can make up some bloopers.
Chad: When it gets warmer out, we need to spend some time in Indianapolis with the Canvas crew, go out for drinks or something. I haven't seen those guys in a while.
Joel: Now why does weather have to be a reason to go see them? They're still there in winter.
Chad: Yeah, I don't know that Aman comes out.
Joel: I want to know if the bottle of Jergens is still on the conference room table.
Chad: It wasn't just Jergens, dude. It was Jergens and Kleenex right next to it.
Joel: Yes. I had forgotten that. My brain had conveniently filtered that information out. Yeah.
Chad: Don't worry, I'll help, I'll help.
Joel: The Canvas crew works really hard. Let's put it that way.
Chad: Yes. Yes. And that being said, let's go on to shout out since we're talking about the up in Indianapolis, big indie shout out to Eli Lilly. You actually shared some stuff. What did you find out about Eli Lilly?
Joel: Okay, Eli Lilly and company began a concentrated effort four years ago to recruit, mentor, encourage and support women in senior leadership positions. And today's six of 14 Executive Committee members are women. The company was recently recognized for the Catalyst Award for these efforts. So shout out to Eli, a local company. They've been doing good stuff for a long time. So it's good that they're getting some recognition for it.
Chad: Yeah, big shout out Eli Lilly. That is awesome. If you want to be able to actually impact your ranks, this is how you do it. You put programs in place and you execute and big shout out to Eli Lilly. So I'm sure there's some other companies that are out there that are doing it.
Joel: Maybe-
Chad: Throw them our way. We'd love to talk about.
Joel: And maybe we should send that news out to Oracle who's had some issues lately, right?
Chad: Oracle's totally fucked up, man. That being said, let's talk about a genius company. KFC.
Joel: KFC.
Chad: Remember the fireplace logs they had that smelled like chicken?
Joel: I'm burning one right now. What are you talking about?
Chad: Dude! They fucking came out with candles that smell like gravy. Genius people.
Joel: What's next? Taco Bell with candles that smell like chalupas? Can life get any better? Do we not live in the best time in human history? Good lord, KFC.
Chad: Yes. Genius.
Joel: Shout out to Hireology, company that actually from what I understand has like company sanctioned, scheduled meetings to listen to our show.
Chad: It's kind of like a book club. So they get together, they have this monthly Chad and Cheese podcast club. So it's like a book club, right? We're gonna have to get some more intel. I think you listen to the pods right? And then you all come together and you talk about it. It sounds like every company should have one of these.
Joel: It sounds like a harassment case waiting to happen, but I certainly appreciate if you're out there listening Hireology and apparently you are because you have sanctioned meetings or book clubs or whatever, just take a couple pictures hashtag it #ChadCheese and show us exactly what the hell is going on over there at Hireology.
Chad: Yeah, and do you have to sign like a waiver or something like that?
Joel: I will not sue the company for harassment for making me listen to the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Chad: Shout out to Glenn Martin over at the Digital Works Group who posted on LinkedIn about the #SocialRecruiting show last Friday. Remember, you couldn't understand why Katrina and Audra would have me on to the show. [crosstalk 00:05:54]
Joel: Still can't.
Chad: Well, let me read this post. Essential watching/listening as the recruitment whirlwind that is Chad Sowash talks to the wonderful Katrina Collier and the hard rocking Audra Knight. Whirlwind says Glenn, whirlwind.
Joel: Yeah, one man's whirlwind is another man's airbag, so you know, take that however you want to hear that. Speaking of airbags and whirlwinds, Indeed's annual meeting this year is bringing in SNL veteran Amy Poehler into to keynote. That's an odd one to me, but it should be funny, I guess, right? Like she can at least make a little bit of the Google pain go away for a while with jokes.
Chad: Indeed needs to make their clients and partners laugh somehow because they're fucking them the other way, right? So it's like here's a whole 40 minutes or so of laughter while you forget all the pain that we're causing everywhere else.
Joel: I like it. It's not a bad strategy. Laughter is the best medicine.
Chad: I agree. I agree. A shout out to Jim Stroud, thanks for all the social love, my man. And if you guys aren't listening to The New Jim Stroud podcast, take a listen. Just go to JimStroud.com. Our man over there put together some really cool stuff. He's doing this short podcast that is kind of like on the freaky side of recruiting. So almost like a Black Mirror kind of style of thing. So it's kind of out there, but it's fun to listen to.
Joel: Black Mirror kind of podcasts? Interesting.
Chad: Uh huh. Yeah.
Joel: Jim's an interesting cat. Go check that shit out.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: I have a little bit of a side rant/just insightful shout out, I guess, to a couple of college kids that I had lunch with yesterday.
Chad: Oh, Jesus.
Joel: Who are launching a job board. They didn't really like what I had to say. But much like young kids are going to do it anyway 'cause mom and dad don't know shit. So they're gonna launch this job board. Anyway, what I found interesting in my discussion with them is I was expecting to hear some really cool information and context around how college kids are hustling, right? Are they on Upwork? Are they selling shit on eBay? Are they driving Ubers in their spare time? What are college kids doing? And I was incredibly disheartened to hear the answer that no one's doing shit. So I don't know if it's this particular school or particular whatever, but I was really bummed to hear that college kids aren't hustling with all of the online opportunities that are out there.
Joel: So I don't know if that's on the college, on the students, on the whole system. But man, if I had had just eBay in college, I would have been hustling my ass off.
Chad: My daughter who is in college now, she has a hustle where she is an online stylist and she's been doing this since she was in high school. She was a high schooler hustling. And she was styling 40 year old women. They didn't know she was in high school. But they loved the styles that she put together. Now she's a college kid. So it's much cooler, but she is hustling her ass off.
Joel: I don't know what a designer is. Maybe we can take that one offline because I don't really care that much.
Chad: But she's hustling. That's all it matters, dude.
Joel: People now have more opportunity to hustle than ever before. Like, you can say like yeah, GenX and Baby ... Like technology has made hustling so easy and so efficient and so cheap that I'm just surprised not everybody's doing it. I thought they'd all be like competing with each other on what they could do, and how much they're making and everything else. But at least in this situation, everyone's just going to school to get a job for 40 years and die.
Chad: They don't realize that's how it works today. Or I don't get it. Okay.
Joel: I don't know, dude. I'm old. I don't know. Let's get some kids on the line and figure out why aren't they hustling? What the fuck is going on with these people?
Chad: Yeah, I don't know that I could put up with that. Shout out to HCMTechReport.com. I'm voicing and ad libbing some news roundups for them for Mark and the crew. They put a shit ton of content together. And I reached out to Mark and he does interviews every now and again. And he interviewed me. And I said "Dude, I'll do some voice for some of the things that you guys put out." And they're starting to do more of that. And as we see, like from our standpoint, we do a show and then we get it transcribed. They're working at the other angle. He's still writing his ass off, much like you do. Writing his ass off, but then there's going to be that audio angle as well. And I think that's really cool to be able to see some of these old timey, text driven articles turn into something that's more portable.
Joel: So anytime that you want to badger me for napping, I want people to remember that you just said "I write my ass off."
Chad: Text and Twitter characters. And then Talk Push Demopocalypse. Did you see the new video that they just popped out, promoting Demopocalypse?
Joel: Yeah, it's a professional video. It's great.
Chad: Yeah. So this is the thing that I keep telling companies is that so when you do a demo with us, or you do a demo at all, right? You have so much content to be able to play off of to be able to do these awesome short videos, so on and so forth. These guys put one together that just kicks ass. And hopefully they'll be able to put out more because again, there's like half an hour of content. But I don't believe that recruiting and branding professionals are taking all the content that's thrown into their lap and using it like this. That's a missed opportunity, man.
Joel: Yeah, video's great because you do one video and you've got multiple videos, you've got text. You've got probably audio for a podcast. Yeah, video's great. Definitely leverage it and use it. And I think I'm hearing a little bit of a promotion for our demopocalypse product, am I?
Chad: Oh yeah. I mean, if you're a company that's out there and you are looking to launch, you're looking to push out new features or you just want people to see your shit, you can do that with Chad and Cheese. We're only doing two a model.
Joel: Only two.
Chad: We're only doing two a month because we don't want to be frickin' avalanched with this shit. But yeah it's awesome and if you take a look at what Talk Push did, I think one of many videos that they're actually going to put out, it's a great way to really get your brand and your message out to people that you want to get in front of.
Joel: It's also a great reason for Chad and I to have a beer, which we always need excuses to do that, right?
Chad: Yes. That's always a good excuse.
Joel: Well you have, speaking of great video, you love a recent commercial by Aeroméxico. Tell me about that.
Chad: Dude, this is the funniest fucking thing. So Aeroméxico is definitely trolling Americans. They go down to the border states, which has a good amount of bland of Mexican heritage, obviously, DNA crossover, right?
Joel: Sure.
Chad: And they ask these Americans "Hey, would you like to come over and visit Mexico?" You know, tour Mexico. There's great tourism spots and the people that they're talking about are "No, no. You guys stay over there, we'll stay over here." And then, they do a DNA test with them. Tell the listeners why it was so fucking funny.
Joel: Well, so a little context, the demographic of who they're interviewing are Texans where their signs in town that say we don't need 911 because they have guns basically. So this is the audience they're talking to. They tell one guy who I don't know, he looks like he's out of a '50 sitcom. They tell him he is 22% Mexican. And he just says "Bullshit." And then they asked one guy who wouldn't go to Mexico like "Do you like burritos?" "Yeah." "Do you like tequila?" "Yeah." And he gets a discount to go and says "Well, I guess I'd go if you know there's a Taco Bell on every corner." Just little things like that remind me how great America is and how progressive our attitudes are.
Chad: Well, and it's just hilarious that Aeroméxico they're doing this whole trolling thing and saying "Look guys, you have this opinion of Mexico, but it's in your DNA. It is in your goddamn DNA, people. And guess what? You get a discount. Come on over and see us." And some of their faces when they saw that they actually had 15, 16, 22% discounts, they're like "Oh, okay." Yeah, their whole attitude changed when they thought oh, I could go and it would be cheaper.
Joel: When are you gonna do your DNA, dude?
Chad: I don't know. That's a good question. I should probably get that done.
Joel: Do you want to? You want to, right?
Chad: Julie won't have it down. Oh, I don't see why not. I mean-
Joel: Julie won't do it?
Chad: The government already has my DNA, right? I served 20 years in the military. So it's not like it's not out there everywhere. So yeah, I would definitely like to do it. Julie, she's totally paranoid. She does not want to have anything to-
Joel: Why? That's weird. Why?
Chad: It's like the Big Brother stuff, man. It's all the DNA thing. And I don't know, I think she would.
Joel: Yeah, no, I think it was great. I did it and it was really cool. I think knowing where you came from is what everyone should sort of know a little bit about.
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Joel: Shout out to The Gathering. Most Americans, speaking of smart fun, Americans won't know The Gathering. But it's an event in Canada, in beautiful Banff. I said it correctly, I think, near Calgary. Very scenic ski resort kind of town. We're going to get together with a bunch of branding experts, CEOs, a lot of forward thinking companies. Hopefully we'll get some great content and interviews while we're there. In addition to having probably pretty good time.
Chad: This is real, high powered branding. And they're talking about cult brands and it's funny when we think about cult brands, we think about the Apples of the world, right? People who stand in line for the product and really for the brand or Marvel who stand in line for the movies. Airbnb, Porsche, I mean all these really big brands are going to be there talking about branding.
Joel: Don't forget Cinnabon when we're talking about standing in line because I've been in that line more than once.
Chad: That's a good call. That's a good call. So I think it's going to be awesome from our standpoint to be able to bring kind of like the employment angle into that conversation as we get an opportunity, cross my fingers, to interview some of these high powered branding moguls from huge brands.
Joel: Yup, absolutely. Absolutely. Could I give a shout out to Talroo for their secret project? Would that be kind of a nice teaser?
Chad: I think you just did it. So yeah.
Joel: Okay, we did it. We did it. We're gonna to be going down to Austin for little secret marketing thing. So not giving too much away. That should be really fun. We're pretty
excited about what they're up to down there.
Chad: We are. We're also excited about RecFest. We're going to RecFest that's in July. Tickets are on sale. So go to RecFest. Check it out. It's going to be in London. TA Tech, their AI event, which is in Phoenix, Scottsdale, something like that. Go to TAtech.org. Check that out. And last but not least, right now we're going to many more, but these are the ones that I know are open for registration, SmashFly’s Transform Live event, which is going to be in Boston this year.
Chad: We will be there and I believe they are now open for registration. So get your ass out there. Register. Buy your tickets, whatever the hell it is and learn some shit people. Not to mention buy us a beer. We'd love it.
Joel: Let's get to the news.
Chad: Boom.
Joel: Good god, our shout outs were 20 minutes long. We got to put a moratorium on that.
Chad: It's less than that because you fucked up the-
Joel: Oh, that's true. That's true. It's still too long. All right. CareerBuilder, our buddies, officially acquired Textkernel this week. The company took a 60% stake in Textkernel back in 2015. For those who listen to the show know that couple years after that, CareerBuilder jumped into bed with Google to run their search which was kind of what Textkernel does. So it kind of look like they were going to move away from Textkernel. Well, guess again. This week they got full in on Textkernel and acquired the company. This however does not mean that they're dumping Google Search technology. A spokesperson told me that they'll be combining the two technologies for some cool and innovative stuff.
Joel: A couple takeaways for me on this is they're bringing in 120 Textkernel employees, many of whom I believe were engineers. Thinking about how much talent CareerBuilder has bled throughout the last couple years it's kind of interesting that they'll just add another 120 to the bottom line. Also a little bit skeptical that they'll keep Google long term, by buying and making the investment in Textkernel. But we'll see about that, I guess.
Chad: Yeah, there are so many different types of search. Obviously there's the job search that the candidate does when they get on to your site. There's a ton of matching that happens behind the scenes, which they're not using Google API for right now. So there's that which Textkernel could obviously plug into. So I mean-
Joel: Searching resumes.
Chad: Yeah, definitely searching resumes. I think there are so many different things that they could use this technology for. And I mean, I've heard for years that Textkernel is amazing semantic search. So we'll see. I know that Google is eyeing the opportunity to launch an API that will be a candidate search type of AI matching API. Will Career Builder go full Google with that, I think this says no. They'll stick with the job search piece and the job search obviously different than the candidate search and some of the other products that could prospectively have.
Chad: But this is nice for them because they know the Google job search is working and it's working better than anything they had before. So they can focus on other areas where they could actually provide product for employers. That's worth a shit.
Joel: Let's add some automation stuff to that and it gets kind of interesting. You know, I've been always pretty critical of their innovation over there at CareerBuilder last few years, augmented reality. So hopefully bringing in some new blood on the tech side will help develop some cool products going forward. I also think if they do move away from Google, like I'm not mad at him for that. I think that, you know, we talked to Monster CEO and kind of owning that and not giving that to Google, although we agree as a cost efficiency and probably Google searches better than anything else. Also, seeing Google evolve into a competitor would make anyone a little bit wary. So maybe that's what we're seeing Career Builder do with the Textkernel acquisition.
Chad: Right. Well, I mean we're seeing Google do the candidate matching inside of Hired by Google. So we know that's happening and they're doing all the wonderful testing behind that. And they have partners like the ISEMs and Jives of the world that they can work with to be able to finally tune those things. So yeah, I mean I think it's a good opportunity for CareerBuilder to get some fucking engineers in that place for goodness sakes, and hopefully focus on employer products that just kick ass which is different than the actual job search itself, which is working well.
Chad: So if they can get focused, they can get priorities in place I think that's a good thing. And it's funny I was text messaging some internal people at CareerBuilder and people who just left not too long ago and they're all positive about it. And one of the guys said "Yeah, I'm really interested to see how you guys spin this into how it's all fucked up." I'm like "Dude, I don't see it yet, but maybe it will."
Joel: Well, what's fucked up is the name. So hopefully they'll either dump it or change it to something else because I'm really tired of these like hokey, farmy, Corn Kernel, Text Rooster, Job Rooster, Recruiting Rooster, Horse Job. Let's ditch the whole farm-like theme. And I know Kernel is like a kernel of information, but I think of a corn kernel. And maybe that's because we live in the Midwest but Textkernel in general is just a dumb name and it says nothing really about the technology that they have. So hopefully they'll dump it or change it or something. So that's my criticism of the deal. Get rid of the name Textkernel.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also got another text from somebody else say "Everybody pretty much thought that CareerBuilder owned TextKernel anyway." When I saw the story pop out, I had to check the date. It was like oh, yeah, that's right. They had a majority stake, they just didn't own the entire company. But this individual who just texted me said "Those Textkernel guys probably want to kill themselves right now."
Joel: Why?
Chad: Being pulled into a dumpster fire. I don't know.
Joel: Okay. Yeah, yeah. They're nice little happy Amsterdam existence or wherever they're from has been postponed till further notice. I'd say get on CareerBuilder, like innovate by acquisition, get talent. You know, if this is what you want to do, do it. That's all I have to say about that. I'd say we have on to the Glassdoor Wall Street Journal story.
Chad: Yeah, your favorite, talking about those reviews.
Joel: Yeah, this was interesting. Wall Street Journal who is typically known for pretty hard hitting journalism did I guess a study where they looked at companies and review spikes during certain times of their existence and you know when an excessive amount of five star reviews happened during certain times. And I mean basically kind of called companies guilty of sort of stacking the deck on their reviews and getting employees to write good reviews and whatnot. They did have maybe one or two actual quotes from employees who said that they were told or asked to write good reviews. The companies they had employees from weren't really big companies. They talked about Tesla, a few other big ones.
Joel: But I find it a little disingenuous. I won't go into the fake news territory, but I mean, companies really ... Like to me there's nothing wrong if a company wants to make a concerted effort to try to get more reviews. That doesn't mean that they're saying give us five star reviews or you're fired. It just means like hey, let's strategically target our happy employees and invite them to write reviews. That's still anonymous. We still don't know who did it. I'm just saying like there are things that companies do to improve their rankings or get more involvement by employees and it doesn't necessarily mean they're trying to stack the deck or get five star reviews. I know that stuff goes on. I know stuff. People buy reviews, et cetera. But for the most part, I do think that companies aren't trying to game the system.
Joel: Additionally if you're telling employees to do that, ultimately one or two employees are going to go to Glassdoor and say "Hey, I was told to write a five star review. Fuck my company like they suck." Right? Like that's probably going to happen if you do that. So I'm a little skeptical of The Wall Street Journal article. What do you think?
Chad: I kind of side with Hung Lee. We just did an interview with them and he felt much like I do that the anonymous side of reviews. You know you've got to be skeptical about that. And also the buying reviews and whatnot, which we've seen in big platforms like Amazon. So you have to take it with a grain of salt. I know that I was in a company at one time and I've also heard of other companies where it felt like they were being strong-armed almost into doing these reviews. It was part of weekly team conversations and those types of things. Right before their annual reviews. So it didn't happen all the time. It was right before annual reviews, right? So it's almost felt like they were being strong-armed and doing these things.
Chad: You know, it was interesting. Some employers on Facebook were taking the side that you were saying look. You know they were defending Glassdoor and what it felt like to me was back in the days of Monster when Monster was being like total shit heads and assholes, but companies were spending money with them. And they felt like they had to defend because they were spending money there. And if anything was coming bad out of the money that was actually being spent it could prospectively impact them. That was the feeling that I got out of it. "Well, I've been working with Glassdoor forever and there's no way that this could happen in a large scale." It's like "Okay. You say that, but do not realize the shit that's happened at Facebook, the shit that's been happening in Amazon. I mean, come on guys. You've got to open your eyes to this shit."
Joel: Yeah. I mean happens to what degree. I mean not one size fits all. What I would've found interesting from the Wall Street Journal story is if they had also gone to Indeed's reviews, maybe looked at Twitter, maybe looked at like multiple different platforms to see if the same trend happened on all of those other platforms because it's pretty hard to like have a concerted strategy around we're going to bump our Glassdoor, we're going to bump our Indeed, we're going to bump our Comparably, we going to bump our InHerSight. That would take a lot of work and that's very hard to do. So if Wall Street Journal would have done multiple platforms, they could have said this only happened on Glassdoor and not the other ones, so maybe there's something fishy there.
Chad: And you would have thought that they could have cross reference with many of those other review sites, but shit they probably don't even know they fucking exist.
Joel: They should have talked to Ratedly.
Chad: Yeah, they could have. If they just had the Ratedly app.
Joel: Yeah. I kind of hooked him up with some data for that shit.
Joel: All right, well before this turns into a Ratedly commercial, let's hear an actual commercial from Sovren, with a little Walmart and Al Gore.
Chad: Nice.
Sovren: Sovren AI matching is the most sophisticated matching engine on the market because it acts just like a human. You decide exactly how our AI matching engine thinks about each individual transaction. It will find, rank and sort the best matches according to your criteria. Not only does it deliver the best matches, it tells you how and why they produce them. And offers tips to improve the results. Our engine thinks like you so you don't have to learn how to think like the engine. To learn more about Sovren AI matching, visit Sovren.com. That's S-O-V-R-E-N.com.
Chad: We're gonna have to make sure that we get ahold of our Sovren peeps as we head down to Austin here pretty soon.
Joel: That's a good call. That's a good call. We're also Xor, one of our favorite firing squad company just down there in Austin. Maybe we can drink some Russian vodka while we're there to see them as well.
Chad: I'll do it.
Joel: Twist my arm. Vodka with Russians. Love it.
Chad: Hope I wake up with both my kidneys.
Joel: God. All right. Speaking of transporting illegal items, Walmart wants to hire 900 drivers this year with average salaries of am I hearing this right? 90K to drive a truck?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Damn.
Chad: Yeah, I mean, so take a look at the market. So in 2018, the turnover for truckers was 96% just because obviously, the landscape is so competitive. And there's a shortfall, I believe it is like 50,000 drivers. So the 8,000 truckers working for Walmart today are getting a raise. And that raise equates to around $90,000. They the way that they did the math, it was like 87,500, but that's comparing to do DOLs numbers in 2018 for the median annual pay for a trucker was $53,000.
Chad: So that's one hell of a boost. And I think that will help obviously Walmart in a couple of ways. Number one, retention, right? We're going to pay you a hell of a lot more money, not to mention, we're also going to look at doing work schedules that are routine work schedules. So, you know when you're going to be home, you know when you're going to be with the family, so on and so forth. So there's some things that they're trying to do to ensure that they have retention. Number two, there are also some things that they're doing, I would say, to be able to disrupt Amazon and they're shipping because Amazon's already having issues and having to raise prices from a shipping standpoint. So I see this not only from a retention standpoint, but from a competitive landscape standpoint. Yeah, there's a big, big war that's going to be waged here.
Joel: Is it starting to feel like we're farther and farther away from self driving cars, or is that just my imagination?
Chad: No, dude, I see this happening right now. This is just a part of the battle, right? This is the human piece of the battle. Behind us they, I guarantee you, are pushing money into autonomous vehicles and then the individuals who have to be in the cab at first, obviously they're not going to make $90,000, right? But there's going to be this slow kind of push of humans out of the cab of the truck because at the end of the day, Amazon and Walmart, everybody, they want to be able to raise those margins. The way that they do that is the cut overhead. This is all overhead.
Joel: Have you seen Amazon's scout drone thingy?
Chad: Yes.
Joel: It's like this little four wheel dump truck thing that rolls down the sidewalk. The commercial, I don't know the intricacies. I'm sure a lot of people saw this. The little car, the little Tonka truck drives up to your house. I'm sure it'll alert you on your phone. You go out. I'm sure your phone unlocks the truck and then you get your item and then it goes off and delivers more stuff. And I'm not sure what to think about that. Like I know if I were a teenager that would be so ripe for graffiti destruction. Louisville Slugger to the back end. Like just a world where like drones and these little cars are delivering items to people, do you have a hard time envisioning that or is it just me?
Chad: No. We're already seeing that like the scooters that you just walk up to and you like-
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: We're already seeing those being demolished and thrown into dumpster, shit like that right? So yeah, I could definitely see that. I think those types of delivery systems will definitely have cameras on them so they will be able to identify who's doing this. So there'll be a lot of hoodies and masks to ensure that they can't identify. But yeah, that's just going to happen, there's no question human beings are fucking stupid and they like to destroy. It's true.
Joel: All right. I have no other comment for that. But I just think, yeah, it'd be a great world if drones were delivering pizzas and these little trucks are delivering, you know, whatever. But it just seems really hard, especially in big cities.
Chad: We heard reports that I think it was Lyft or no, it was Waymo. So Waymo, it's marked that it's an autonomous vehicle, even though it has somebody in the seat, right?
Joel: Oh yeah.
Chad: That other cars were trying to run ... Uber's we're trying to run these Waymo cars off the road. So we already have reports that this shit ... It's like the whole kind of Luddite uprising shit where it's like "Oh, look, there's not a person." Well, there was a person in there, but we're just going to run this bitch off the road. Same shit like you're talking about with these delivery systems. Or kids shooting BB guns or whatever the hell they have at these drones. Yes, that shit's gonna happen. Humans are fucking stupid.
Joel: Doing this podcast has not enriched my impression of mankind unfortunately. Okay, well there's hope in Africa.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Al Gore is back in the news here. His fund invested I guess $100 million in training, educating Africans in high tech jobs and then outsource contracting them that talent across the globe, which I think is wonderful. It's basically India 10 years ago, 15 years ago. You know, Africa was bound to be the hub for like cheap engineering talent. And we're seeing signs of that now.
Chad: Yeah, the big difference here is that they're going after quality and not cheap dev. The company's names Andela. They now operate in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda. They have about 1,100 developers on staff working for more than 200 companies, nearly 90% of which are in the US. So yeah, I mean, the big piece here is they want to focus on being able to ensure that we're getting the tech talent that we need, especially in an age where unemployment so high and it's investors say remote work can also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, right?
Chad: So I mean there's kind of like [crosstalk 00:35:20] flavor to it because obviously Al Gore's involved, but from my standpoint, I think we've talked about it on the show for, shit I think since the show has started that Andela is actually doing a contract, train and then pipeline program, which means they're getting these individuals on contract, then they're teaching them up, right? They're learning them up. They're giving them the skills in which to do the job. But they're on contract for two years, three years, whatever that might be.
Chad: Now you have a pipeline of developers and they have crazy amounts of analytics to see what types of code is actually being put out. Is it good code? Is it failing? Is it successful? So they're doing this with an eye toward the future and actually pipelining talent. I've been saying this forever. This is the actual process, this the actual type of program we should be putting together in this country. These least 200 companies that are actually using them today, they should be doing this shit themselves. They should be doing it here, obviously, but also abroad. It makes no sense why this isn't a standard.
Joel: Can I get socially conscious for a second?
Chad: I don't know.
Joel: So there are a few things that bug me, like chopping off rhinoceros horns for medicine in China and like elephant tusks for shit around the world-
Chad: That's bullshit.
Joel: That really stupid and it happens because people in Africa in this case don't have opportunity. You know, don't have education, don't have like hope that there's something better than I have to go chop a horn off of a rhinoceros to make money to feed my family. So when I see stories like this, it gives me hope that technology, capitalism, progress will in some weird way save the old world, or like nature and educate people. And so to me, obviously, yes, from a commercial standpoint, this is very interesting. It's great. I think the more talent that's out there doing this stuff is fantastic. But from a social perspective, I love seeing that these things are happening in parts of the world where bad things are happening to the environment and to animals that are just minding their own business and have no reason and no benefit at all for doing what we do to them.
Joel: Slicing fins off of sharks for soup is another thing that really bothers me, but you get the point. Just a little bit of a rant for social consciousness. We'll move on to weed porn and alcohol here in a little bit.
Chad: Well, it just makes good damn sense that we focus in a global economy and to try to go back, World War II's isolationism, Lindbergh's America first bullshit. You can't do that. It didn't work. It won't work. Our community is much larger because of the internet because of technology. We just have to think in with more broader scope and these types of programs I think are amazing, but they can also be implemented here in the US along with abroad.
Joel: I agree and we talk about automation a lot and losing jobs. To me the thing that will save it is if we give education and the tools to the world to create new businesses, to create new products, to create new innovations, like to me that's probably going to save us from circa 2118. If we put the power of education and innovation in more people's hands, that'll create the jobs and the opportunity that will sort of combat the automation of so many industries.
Chad: Done.
Joel: I won't be alive to see it, but damn it, maybe that'll happen.
Chad: Yeah, we'll be living through the second version of the Dark Ages.
Joel: All right, let's get a quick word from JobAdX.
Chad: Is this a new one?
Joel: No, they're not letting us run the new ad yet. They're still pimping the birthday ad. So you have to wait till February to hear the new JobAdX, which is appropriate because Super Bowl new JobAdX, maybe it all ties together really well with Tom Brady's next Super Bowl appearance. Here it is, JobAdX.
JobAdX: With JobAdX's first birthday almost here, we are proud of all we've accomplished with advertising clients, publisher job sites, recruitment marketing agencies and staffing firms. Thank you for all the support and trust you've placed in us. Since 2017, JobAdX has used the best of consumer ad-text bidding and ad delivery to build an incredible programmatic job advertising exchange, and continue to rapidly grow our network of partners sites. We've also launched a feed inventory management platform called Switchboard, effectively offering our dynamic technologies to all job board partners. And we've developed our revolutionary LiveAlert which eliminate latency and expired job ads via email. No more dead clicks or overages from job links whether open today, next month or next year. For more information about our solutions, please reach us at joinus@jobadx.com.
Chad: Now that is a JobAdX commercial, but stop teasing us guys. So government shutdown. 800,000 people are impacted.
Joel: It's a lot of folks. They got a lot of time on their hands.
Chad: They do have a lot of time on their hands. So you saw that PornHub saw a bump in traffic over this timeframe.
Joel: Sure. Well, we reported last week I think that Upwork and Fiverr and some of the gig sites are getting a spike in activity. Well, shocker. All these government workers with extra time on their hands are going to porn sites and reported by Mashable, PornHub saw a spike, no pun intended, in its traffic. Saw an average daily increase of almost 6% during the week of January 7th, which was the shutdown's third week over traffic from the previous year's traffic. I'm looking at a bar graph now and there's a nice steady uptick. It is erecting quite nicely in terms of traffic to porn sites. So I'm wondering if job boards are seeing a similar spike in their traffic as well.
Chad: Yeah, I bet. And they also showed that in Washington DC, it was higher than 6%. So yes, they did see it like an average overall, but in DC specifically, it was over 6%. I don't know. I would assume that these individuals who are sitting at home, they're furloughed or what have you, they're not just sitting and waiting. I actually the hell wouldn't. Obviously the gig site thing is going on. They're driving Uber. They're watching PornHub. What's next? You look for another fucking job because I'm telling you right now this shit could happen again and what the fuck are they going to do, right? They can't survive this way.
Joel: Of course they can't. I'm waiting for the story to hear how many people are being poached to the private sector because of the ongoing shutdown.
Chad: FBI was talking about this. Many of their agents could get three times the amount that the government pays them and why put up with this bullshit with somebody who's you know saying that the FBI is fucking deep state and all this other bullshit? Why put up with this when I could go make some big cash and not have to worry about this shit happening anymore.
Joel: Agreed. And we've got the Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, I don't know if you saw this today, the today being Thursday, said ... You know, someone asked the question "Hey, people are in soup kitchens. They're really hurting. They're sacrificing, et cetera." And his comment was "I do read that and I don't understand it. They can all go to a bank and get a loan because all this money is federally backed, that they will get paid." I'm sure that's true, but how many people are actually going to go to the bank and get a loan for a month's worth of salary because their money is federally funded. It sounds really sort of tone deaf to me that the Commerce Secretary said just go get a bank loan. The money is federally backed.
Chad: Yeah, it's not kind of tone deaf. It is fucking tone deaf. Every time I see Wilbur, I always think of Weekend at Bernie's and think that that fucker's not really alive and somebody just kind of moving him around like a fucking Muppet. Yeah, dude, I don't get it. We're hearing so many things that really are contrary to understanding that I think it was 40% of Americans live somewhat paycheck to paycheck. Those individuals don't understand what that means. So they can't even come close to trying to comment on it. The only thing that can make this right is to be able to ensure that they get back to their jobs or they might already be at their jobs, they get fucking paid. That's it.
Joel: It almost makes you want to smoke weed and drink alcohol, which leads us to our last two stories. A company in the US here is giving out what they're calling donations of weed to government workers. Company called Bud Trader, gotta love that donating medical marijuana, I guess that's one of the workarounds there for illegal weed, giving them to furloughed workers if they're willing to ask for it. So we've got free weed and we've got hangover cures. Wanted to be a shout out, but I think it's an actual story.
Joel: Company called Morning Recovery is pushing ads saying that American companies lose $4 billion every year because of hangovers and employees drinking too much. Now I'm wondering if Morning Recovery is on next to the coffee, tea that that get people ... Maybe some companies are out there doing it because hangovers are a real problem, people. So we've got weed smoking furloughed workers that are at least going to be rejuvenated when they go back to work after drinking for nights on end.
Chad: Yeah, I don't know that they can afford the liquor right now, but this should be a part of like corporate practice is what it sounds like. So most of those people won't make it in, in the first place. So make sure that they have like their own kit, their own like emergency hangover kits that they have right beside their nightstand or what have you. So it's like hey, when you get up in the morning you feel like shit, guess what? Take this, get in the shower, and then get your ass to work.
Joel: That's like the recovery kits that companies gave out at HR Tech that one year. Also, if companies put out a hangover relief sort of drink, are they encouraging drinking? I could see that being an issue.
Chad: No, no. They're not encouraging drinking. It's like saying you want to ensure that people have protected sex. Are you promoting that they have sex? No, they're gonna have sex. I mean, it's what they're going to do, right?
Joel: Yeah, but companies aren't putting out bowls of condoms in the break room.
Chad: That's because having sex doesn't stop people from actually coming to work. But prospectively drinking obviously does, right? If it did, then they would. If it was a problem and they were losing money, then they would. But that's not the case. In this case, it's the people who are getting drunk. So yeah, I mean, make it a standard. Hey, here you go. Here's your kit. We know that there's the Christmas parties coming up, or the holidays party is coming up, shift it out to those guys and say "Can't wait to see you Monday morning."
Joel: I think they're a lot for Pedialyte and Red Bull instead of something like Morning Recovery, but that's just me.
Joel: Dude. I'm at a gas. We out.
Chad: We out.
Tristen: Hi, I'm Tristen. Thanks for listening to my stepdad, the Chad, and his goofy friend Cheese. You've been listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes, Google Play or wherever you get your podcast so you don't miss out on all the knowledge dropping that's happening up in here. They made me say that.
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