Stop me if you've heard this one before: HR tech company gets buckets of money. Well, the song remains the same this week, as companies like BetterUp, Deel, and Wonolo keep ringing the register. Also, Cornerstone OnDemand goes private (that always works out well, right?), and a little buy-or-sell with Continuum, Interviewing.io, and Reejig. And if you thought robotic dogs that could open doors were scary, how about ones with guns attached to their backs?
Yikes!
Listen before civilization checks out for good.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel 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.
Joel (22s):
Oh yeah. A new research says the Vikings landed in north America exactly 1000 years ago. Suck on that Christopher Columbus! Hi kids you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. The real conquistadors. This is your co-host Joel "20% Scandinavian" Cheesman.
Chad (39s):
This is Chad "trick or treat" Sowash.
Joel (42s):
On this week's show Cornerstone on demand needs a little privacy, BetterUp gets one hell of a deal and buy or sell. Oh, and more pink, fluffy unicorns.
Chad (56s):
Everywhere!
Joel (57s):
Do you in Valhalla Skoal, let's do this episode 700 and something
Chad (1m 5s):
Like 760 or something like that. I think we'll find a groove someday soon. I'm hoping.
Joel (1m 9s):
Yeah. How did we make it this far?
Chad (1m 12s):
Don't ask.
Joel (1m 12s):
It must be the shout outs in my first one goes to WeWork. Yes. The, the much, much maligned company finally went public today. Under the ticker symbol "We." Creative, right? The stock jumped today is we are recording this as high as 12% at being mid down Thursday. Chad, this is a business. I think whose time has come and the pandemic has supercharged, flexible work places. WeWork.
Chad (1m 42s):
It's all about timing, right? And that being said, timing it's Halloween. So if you have a Netflix subscription and you're-- if you're listening to this podcast, you probably do. I have a recommendation for our listeners. The movies that made us, they, they go beyond Halloween, but they dropped three of the newer episodes that were around the movie, the making of the movie and the background of Halloween, which is my favorite Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. So treat yourself, go to Netflix, look for the movies that made us. Watch those three. And I love it because it's always like a throwback feeling for me.
Joel (2m 22s):
Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen the new Halloween?
Chad (2m 25s):
I have not.
Joel (2m 26s):
Where they dig up Jamie Lee Curtis and like the entire cast of the first movie.
Chad (2m 32s):
Did it even come out yet? Yeah. I mean, when does it drop? I can't remember when it drops, but she, Jamie Lee Curtis is a bad-ass number one. And if anybody's going to kill Michael Myers, it's going to be Jamie Lee.
Joel (2m 47s):
One of my fondest memories as a youth was Jamie Lee Curtis is Boobies on Trading Places where she plays a prostitute and doing a 180 from boobies on screen, shout out to Pillar who sent us some dope ass swag this week, we're talking mouse pads. We're talking king size, Yeti, which I know you have a shout out here, this might segue into that. A t-shirt and some sort of a weird backpack thingy. I'm not quite sure what that last thing was, but yeah. Thanks to Pillar. Love it.
Chad (3m 21s):
No question, but I want to see you wearing that backpack thingy. Yes. I'm going to go ahead and transition into another Yeti type of a shout out. Shout out to Pandologic. Apparently Julie, my wife, and co-host of Crazy and the King. She won a drawing and it was a Yeti cooler on wheels and four Yeti tumblers delivered to our front door. Damn, that's a prize worth winning. Thanks Jen, Jason, Terry, and the Pandologic gang. Also even bigger. Shout out for Pandologic. Jen Rivoli.
Joel (3m 59s):
Yeah.
Chad (3m 59s):
I think I believe CMO. I mean, she's like the head cheese over there on the marketing side. She just had a new baby girl. Her name is Samantha. Why are you playing sexy music? When we're talking about babies?
Joel (4m 15s):
How do you get babies, Chad?
Chad (4m 17s):
That's not you are one creepy fuck. That's all. Anyway, we have a new listener and that is worth shouting out. So thanks, Jen.
Joel (4m 24s):
Now we just need to find a sponsor for the Chad and Cheese onesies that we can now send out to people. Well, we love Pando, but you know who we love more Chad? Facebook. That's right. That's right.
Chad (4m 38s):
Love to hate.
Joel (4m 38s):
Facebook is in the news this week. They're apparently changing their name, changing the façade. So Facebook will obviously still be there, but they'll have more of an umbrella company similar to how Google Google created Alphabet. Although although Facebook might be more akin to Philip Morris changing their name to Altria because we all knew social media is the new smoking. And interestingly Metaverse is sort of the theme of the new name. So I'm excited. And I know you are Chad about the new name of Facebook allegedly coming out next week.
Chad (5m 16s):
I literally don't care. What I do care about is a big shout out to companies using old school recruiting tactics. They're going to love this Coca Cola bought a billboard outside of a Smith and Wesson plant that touts that the jobs are $24 an hour with benefits. And, and the reason why they're targeting Smith and Wesson is because Smith and Wesson is moving 550 jobs from Springfield to Tennessee. Another company, even more, I don't know that they don't want to say more, more guerrilla Tacticky. That's a word, tactically. They parked a moving billboard outside the plant, which says "not ready to pull the trigger on Tennessee, stay here and work with us."
Chad (6m 1s):
I love seeing this kind of stuff.
Joel (6m 4s):
That is nice. Speaking of gorillas Chad, I didn't put this down as a shout out, but I took the big kids who are on fall break this week to Cincinnati to see the zoo, one of our destinations. And you might remember Harambe from a few years ago, the kid, the kid who fell into the gorilla enclosure.
Chad (6m 22s):
How old are the kids? I mean, are they three and four now you're taking them to the fucking zoo. No.
Joel (6m 28s):
Yeah, you haven't, you haven't visited in a while. Chad they're 15 and 12 now. So
Chad (6m 32s):
Yeah, yeah, no, that was my point. You're taking them to the zoo. That's awesome!
Joel (6m 37s):
Hey, the zoo's great. This was great. And I took them to the Cincinnati Reds museum. I don't know, which is worse for a 15 and 13.
Chad (6m 43s):
That sounds like a hell of a day trip that they won't remember. Good for them.
Joel (6m 49s):
yeah. Well they got some Skyline Chili, that'll make it all better. We have talked way too much about Cincinnati. What's your next shout out?
Chad (6m 58s):
Events! Join Chad and Cheese for Thanksgiving in Belgium. That's right. We're going to be in Belgium during Thanksgiving, November 25th. That is pretty sexy. If you are in Europe, in and around that area, Hey, go to erecruitment.congress.com and register. If you're here in the US and you want to get, eh, different tastes than Turkey, maybe beer, go ahead and check it out to Erecruitment-congress.com. Check out the speakers, register, get yourself a plane ticket and come have Thanksgiving with us.
Joel (7m 32s):
Yeah. Europe has a bunch of countries in it. If you know, you know, well, Chad, we both love a good side hustle, but side hustles may have officially jumped the shark this week. So posted onto Instagram, a young industrious enterprising young lad has offered people the chance to kick his ass for money. So his ad reads and I quote, kick my ass to impress your girlfriend. Are you tired of your girlfriend thinking you're a pussy? For just a small fee, you can prove her wrong and show her how much of a bad-ass you truly are. Just set up a time and a place for me to come harass your girl.
Joel (8m 14s):
And then bam, you come and rock my shit. He's got different pricing tiers. Chad, his weekday fee is $50. He pumps it up on the weekends. He's obviously a busy guy that goes to $60. If you want to impress your girlfriend and kick this dude's ass. I think side hustles have officially jumped the shark, but shout out to this enterprising young man.
Chad (8m 37s):
Yeah, no, that kid just doesn't understand what a sustainable business model looks like, that's the problem.
Joel (8m 43s):
That's going to be a hard to scale. Well, not hard to scale is free shit from Chad and Cheese. Chad, if you haven't signed up for free shit, we're giving away t-shirts, we're giving away whiskey and we're giving away beer. Shirts by Emissary beer from Adzuna and whiskey from Sovren. Just head out to chadcheese.com/free. It's free to sign up free everywhere. chadcheese.com/free. Get your shit. But you got to sign up to do that. Fantasy football Chad.
Chad (9m 18s):
Oh Good God.
Joel (9m 19s):
Sponsored by poach.ai. Oh, oh, the, the leaderboard is just chaos here.
Chad (9m 23s):
It is chaos.
Joel (9m 24s):
Here's our rundown from one to 10, the wonderful Miss Q, Quincy takes the number one spot, which you know, she talks shit so good for her. Bill "football" Fanning drops to number two after losing to your boy who climbs to number three, that that'd be me. Followed up by "Benjamin Buttons" Kuntz, don't call them Kunts. Next up is Christy "fly me to the moon," Jason "and the Argonauts" Putnam. And then you follow him after that, Chad. Next up Pete "Maravich" Suchi comes out of the cellar. Good for him. You follow him. And then next is Michael J. Cox and bringing up the rear, he was there in week one and he's back everybody.
Joel (10m 7s):
Chris "let's go Knicks" Russell is back in the cellar. Let's hope that he can play like rat and come out of the cellar all on 1984.
Chad (10m 15s):
Not going to be a good week. That's for sure. This is, this is they call the buy apocalypse. So many, a shit ton of teams, good teams are on by. So this is going to be a bad week.
Joel (10m 27s):
And you and I take on each other this week. So that'll be fun. Yeah.
Chad (10m 33s):
Go fucking figure. Jesus
Joel (10m 35s):
Well make sure if you haven't listened to our podcasts from the week, we did our Euro show, which I think we all agreed was the best Euro show to date. Make sure you go check that one out. And then I sat down with an old coworker from Cleveland to talk about some of the marketing efforts around recruiting,
Chad (10m 53s):
Sexing up the trades baby. She was helping companies sexy-up trade positions. And that's what you get in Cleveland. I mean, there is a very, you know, obviously hefty professional vibe around Cleveland, but you can't get away from the laborers, which is awesome because you know, we need that. It's nice to actually make shit in the US and they do that in Cleveland.
Joel (11m 16s):
They proudly wear that blue collar down baby. Well proudly wearing some, some birthday outfits this week, Dr. John Sullivan.
Chad (11m 25s):
Not who I want to see in a birthday suit.
Joel (11m 29s):
I know that's, that's not good for anybody. Maybe an improvement over that is Jeremy Roberts celebrating a birthday this week and Peter Gold, who literally has dubbed himself "Mr. ATS." I don't know if that's to pick up chicks or just a, a real, real badge of honor, but Peter "Mr. ATS" Gold, Dr. John Sullivan and Jeremy Roberts celebrating a birthday this week.
Chad (11m 58s):
It's like saying, you know, I'm Mr. Horse and Buggy. I mean, ATS is like the relic of our entire industry. And you want to name yourself that come on, Peter.
Joel (12m 23s):
Mr. Betamax, Mr. VHS gold. All right.
Chad (12m 25s):
Topics!
Joel (12m 26s):
All right. Cornerstone on Demand, Santa Monica based learning and talent management software company needs a little privacy, Chad. Shareholders' recently approved a $5.2 billion deal to take the company private. In an all cash transaction Clearlake Capital Group takes ownership of the company through a combination of equity and debt buying the outstanding shares at $57.50 cents per share. Adam Miller, founder and co chairman at Cornerstone says the move is designed to give the company more flexibility, to pursue avenues of growth that might be unpalatable, "interesting choice of words" to shareholders that expect growth on a quarterly basis.
Joel (13m 6s):
Yes, God forbid, shareholders expect growth. Companies in our space have a disastrous history of going private and totally crapping the bed. Chad, will this deal be different?
Chad (13m 16s):
Not sure that it will be? First and foremost, Clearlake has a shit ton of cash. My God, but this does free Cornerstone up to do what they really need to do and this is one of the things that, you know, stockholders would not have wanted them to do, is implode and rebuild different aspects of their system, because that takes money, right? And spending money eats into margins and stockholders like the EBITDA so Cornerstone really has to do something to be able to flex, because what they were doing and trying to ensure that margins and EBITDA is really that's their focus. They couldn't focus on what they needed to, especially in this market, which is growth, which is building something again, getting away from Relic, ancient fucking tech, rebuilding, maybe even acquiring things to come back to, you know, a tech that not everybody sees as horse and buggy tech these days.
Chad (14m 11s):
So I think this is good for them, whether they will shit the bed or not I think that gives them the freedom to make the moves that they need to. And I think it's smart. Yeah.
Joel (14m 26s):
Going private rarely goes well. CareerBuilder has been a nonstop source of content for us since going private. Yeti may be the only really training star of companies going private and being successful. So the stock price was at $65 a share before the pandemic, it dropped to about $20 and has climbed back since, like I mentioned, the news selling for 57 and a half. Selling may be a timing thing, looking at the previous peak a little bit about Cornerstone. They provide end recruitment services. They have deals with Indeed, CareerBuilder, Bounty Jobs among others. They have about 6,000 clients and 75 million users.
Joel (15m 7s):
That seems like a lot, in 180 countries. So clear, like has their work cut out for them. But I think they got a pretty decent asset in Cornerstone. Clearlake has zero properties in employment. So that makes me a little bit skittish on totally rubber stamping this as a good thing. I'd say time will tell. There's no track record of these guys chopping up companies and selling them. But there's really no history of getting into this business, as you and I both know, tends to be tougher than you expect. So we'll be watching this to see what the hell Clearlake does with Cornerstone on demand.
Chad (15m 47s):
I have no clue where they're going to go, but they could go in any fucking direction. I just think for them, this is probably their best move.
Joel (15m 57s):
Yeah. Pursue avenues of growth that might be unpalatable to shareholders. Let's see what kind of unpalatable moves they make in the coming months. So.
Chad (16m 5s):
That means spending money kids.
Joel (16m 10s):
Yeah. Let's make some acquisitions, Cornerstone. That's what, that's how we want to talk. So, and we love also talking about Unicorns, baby. That's right. We got
Chad (16m 19s):
This fucking song it's just playing all the time because we have so much goddamn money that's coming into this industry. It's fucking crazy.
Joel (16m 30s):
Yeah. This thing just auto repeats itself, in my head mostly. Alright. BetterUp announced a $300 million series E round of venture capital at a new $4.7 billion valuation for its mental health and coaching app. This brings its total raise to $569.8 million. BetterUp becomes a unit, became a unicorn in Q1 of '21 after its $125 million series D round at a $1.73 billion valuation. They have grown their customer base by 80%, recorded a net revenue retention rate of over 170% and reached a hundred million in annual recurring revenue.
Joel (17m 12s):
That's known as ARR Chad, as of July of this year.
Chad (17m 17s):
Hello.
Joel (17m 17s):
BetterUp also reports to have grown its coaching network to over 3000 coaches, expanded the number of behavioral scientists by 50%, doubled corporate employee head count over 500 and today serves more than 380 enterprise businesses. Take a brad, are you ready to ride this unicorn?
Chad (17m 36s):
This is the silver bullet. Companies have finally employers have finally started to understand that they have to pay attention to the human condition. Remote work and being locked inside, takes a toll on employees. Being a parent takes a toll on employees, especially when they had to do it for like 18 months, right?
Joel (17m 58s):
Oh.
sfx (17m 58s):
Oh hell no.
Joel (17m 59s):
Inequity in the workplace takes a toll. You know, my fear is that companies are just looking for a silver, silver bullet to solve these hard problems. Now that's great for BetterUp. And I see blue skies for BetterUp, but this may not be addressing the real issue that employees have.
Chad (18m 17s):
I think there's no question BetterUp is going to be that silver bullet, whether we like it or not. And whether it works or not, this is going to continue to get cash. Correct.
Joel (18m 28s):
Perhaps Cornerstone on Demand is just making room for a new IPO from BetterUp, which is bound to happen in the next 12 months. It's RAD baby. It's RAD. My favorite acronym. The pandemic has supercharged this industry, coaching, mental wellbeing, BetterUp is riding that wave perfectly. Stop me if you've heard this one before. The question going forward for me is can the quality of coaching scale on a global parameter as the number of coaches increases all working across multiple customers. When you deal with people, that shit's hard to scale, right? And you have different cultures and different things that come in to everything.
Joel (19m 7s):
So do enterprises lean more on sort of in-house or localized help? And I think a lot of them will eventually ask the question of that. And interestingly, our friends in Philly, we love Philly, so they had a little, a little Zoom call last week with our friend, Isabel Kent. And they had a startup, the startup's called On the Goga yeah. On the goga.
Chad (19m 36s):
What?
Joel (19m 36s):
But their business is localized mental wellbeing. And actually, you know, talk in Philly to Philly Philly folks, which, you know, they like to hear John and in their language now. So do companies eventually look for more localized, you know, culturally in-sync businesses. And this becomes more of a cottage thing than one big monolithic business, like BetterUp. I'm sure there'll be space for both. And maybe the smaller businesses go for the localized stuff and the big enterprises go with BetterUp, but clearly mental health coaching, all that stuff is going to be around for a long time. It's not going to go, go away with the pandemic.
Joel (20m 17s):
So BetterUp IPO up baby. Cause these guys are on a fast track to doing that. As well as Deel. So Deel that's D E E L, a San Francisco based company, provides payroll compliance tools and other services to help businesses hire remotely has raised 425 million in a series D funding round that gives it a valuation of $5.5 billion.
Chad (20m 47s):
Damm.
Joel (20m 47s):
This follows almost exactly six months after raising $156 million at a $1.25 billion valuation. The company TechCrunch has seen its global customer base jump from 1800 to over 4,500 and employee head count grow from 115 to 400 since April this year. It was only in September of 2020 that Deel raised $30 million in a series B. Deel claims to allow businesses to hire in less than five minutes. And it gives companies the ability to pay teams and more than 120 currencies with just a click. So rocket ship alert. Chad, not sure if Captain Kirk is on board, but are you ready to blast off?
Chad (21m 27s):
This is definitely a penis rocket. Let me tell you so welcome to the remote worker wave. Yeah. Deel hit unicorn status what six months ago and much like Personio, which we talked about on Wednesdays European podcast, if you haven't heard it, listen, it's awesome. Deel didn't need the cash, they're like another hot girl at the bar who doesn't have to buy their own drinks. Everybody's looking at those guys. Nine Xd its number of customers in 13 months. This is fucking crazy . So this is a hot segment. We've talked about remote.com and it's pulled in close to 200 million boundless, which is still in baby startups stage. I think that most eight cm companies that are out there, or maybe even just, you know, core talent platforms that are out there right now should be looking at this because you want to be able to have this as a part of your tech stack because it is going to be obviously hot.
Chad (22m 28s):
Remote is hot, but the hard part about it, go figure, has all these goddamn regulations and on these goddamn countries or these goddamned states, right. These guys have figured it out. And that's the biggest key right now is to be able to integrate into the remote work segments. If you can't do that, it's going to be hard for you in many industries unless you're in manufacturing, actually.
Joel (22m 52s):
Yeah. So Chad, you and I have a bet. I think that was made in January about who would get more money HCM versus Talent Acquisition.
Chad (22m 60s):
Yeah.
Joel (22m 60s):
My side of the bed is not looking great at the moment, but there's still a few more months to go in the air. So totally RAD, dude, stop me if you've heard this one before I echo everything that you said, the pandemic has changed shit, probably forever companies that support this new reality of remote work are going to blow up a Deel is another beneficiary of good timing and a pretty cool product. Frankly expect an IPO as well at some point. And we'll really see what all these companies are made of, but this trend is not going away and more money's getting pumped into these businesses. It's fun to talk about.
Chad (23m 38s):
It really is. We always ask ourselves, you know, did they take too much money? You can't think realistically that they're going to be their own platform. I think right now they're perfect and prime for an eight CM who has a shit ton of cash to be able to pull them in and add new brand new tech to their stack.
Joel (23m 56s):
Well, you know, I know that a, it's not a lack of money that kills companies, it's too much money that kills companies. So the only thing more fun than talking about these guys getting tons of cash, we'll be talking about them burning out and dying.
Chad (24m 13s):
Ouch!
Joel (24m 13s):
But in the meantime, let's take a quick break and talk about buy or sell, which I don't think we've played in a few weeks excited about that. So Chad, before we get to buy or sell, we got another, another investment, another exciting company, Wonolo think I'm pronouncing that correctly. Wonolo blue collar gig platform Wonolo announced a $138 million funding round bringing total funding to more than 200 million. More than 1 million workers known as Wonolors have used the mobile platform to connect with jobs since the company was founded in 2014, Wonolo's clients include firms such as Uniqlo, Aramark, Peloton and Drive Line Retail.
Joel (25m 4s):
Are you a pretty excited about blue collar gig platforms Chad?
Chad (25m 9s):
Welcome to the labor shortage wave baby. So remember market timing is probably the most important anchor or booster to any organization, especially startups. So Wonolo has been around since 2014 and laborers have always been in high demand, just not this high of demand. So Wonolo kind of like the Uber of temp and part-time workers, I think they're hitting this obviously at the right time. They were seeing growth before, I think the hardest part to their business model is they're in 27 cities now, right? What do they do with this money? You know, and they have a million individuals in their, a million users in their system.
Chad (25m 48s):
They have to look at mega growth now into different cities and obviously growing that base of a million, at least 5X.
Joel (25m 60s):
So this is one of the more interesting trends of the past few years, in my opinion. So Wonolo on this, but they have competitors like Snapshift, actually Her Local, we talked about Paired, which is sort of strategic to the restaurant industry, InstaWork was just funded to the tune of $60 million recently. And this is somewhere between, I guess, full-time employment and driving an Uber. I think it makes a lot of sense for both employers and workers, people in the pandemic have said, you know, sort of step back and think what do I want in my life? And more people are saying flexibility, more control and these platforms allow workers to do that. And I think it allows employers to do that as well.
Joel (26m 42s):
I think if I were running a facility like a restaurant and we were short staffed, or I didn't have enough people, it'd be really nice to just go to this platform and put out this opportunity. It's market driven. I pay sort of based on demand and how busy my restaurant is in this case. It's just one of those things that just make sense. It's just a question of, do they hit critical mass? Do they get to a point where both restaurants or businesses and workers sort of all get on this plane and figure out this is a way that jobs are obtained as opposed to heading out to Craigslist. So, to me, I think this makes too much sense not to be the new norm at some point for a lot of workers and a lot of companies who need flexibility in their shifts and getting people on board.
Joel (27m 31s):
So Wonolo good for you guys! I think this is a trend that's only going to get hotter. It's interesting you mentioned timing and we talked about Snagajob, I think last week and Snag was early with one of their platforms that they tried to sort of launch and get out there. Timing for them was probably bad and these other guys sort of have stuck with it and are reaping the benefits. So there is something to be said for patience and diligence.
Chad (27m 57s):
Discipline as well.
Joel (27m 58s):
Indeed and speaking of all of those things, let's play some buy or sell Chad. Shall we?
Chad (28m 6s):
Yes.
Joel (28m 6s):
All right. You know how we play, guys, we're going to talk about three companies. We'll give you a little bit on each one. And then Chad or I will either buy or sell that company. So first up is Continuum. New York City based hiring marketplace Continuum has raised 2.9 million in seed funding. Officially launched just this month Chad, the company has been quietly developing a tool that matches venture backed companies with executives who have been there, done that, but don't want to be tied down again to a full-time position. Continuum's model does the outbound work for companies and presents a list of executives within 48 hours of people who are available to start work that day working 15 to 20 hours per week, executives create a profile and set their availability and rate and can accept or reject an opportunity.
Joel (29m 3s):
Continuum charges a 15% fee on top of that, Chad, by or sell Continuum.
Chad (29m 8s):
So this is a version of what the Ladders should have become. Well that's if the Ladders actually had leadership, that was worth a shit. These guys, I believe are starting to baby step into the executive recruiting space, right? And you can do that in a model like this, and then start to grow. I like this. I like the idea. I do know that there are many individuals that are in executive positions who do nothing, but take interim executive positions, or they just work as advisors. This would be a great network to be able to start the growth of a community.
Chad (29m 53s):
And that could grow into something much larger again, which Ladders should have become years ago. So for me, this is a buy.
Joel (30m 0s):
Speaking of Ladders, Chad, let's, let's check in on their R and D department real quick shall we.
sfx (30m 6s):
Crickets
Joel (30m 7s):
Oh yeah. This smell like it always is. All right. Well, Hello Boomer. I love this idea. So I have a fraternity brother who frankly got rich placing this kind of contract executive at car companies after the 2008 crash. So I know this, this idea can work. Aging execs want to stay busy, and there are more aging execs now than there ever have been and there will be more in the future. It's a pretty big generation, but they don't want the headaches of the full-time job. The whole gig thing, they wanna like have flexibility, you know, live in Portugal for a while or whatever. And this platform, I think, allows them to do that.
Joel (30m 46s):
And for startups being able to access some gray hair at an affordable rate and without a big commitment, I think this thing is definitely they they're going to have to screw this up pretty badly to make it not work. And I think it's probably going to be a pretty interesting acquisition target for some company, not named the Ladders to add to their portfolio. You could certainly see LinkedIn doing something like this at some point, but that may be five years down the road and Continuum will have gotten too big for them at that point.
Joel (31m 33s):
So for me, Continuum is a buy. Let's go to interviewing.io. San Fran based interviewing.io a solution that came out of beta just in June has raised 10 million in series A with total funding at around thirteen million. With interviewing.io software engineers can book mock interviews with a roster of hiring managers from companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google. Top performers, regardless of their background, get fast-tracked for interviews at member tech companies, the twist, those interviews are anonymous. Only once candidates pass the technical interview does the company get access to information about the candidate?
Joel (32m 15s):
The company says this approach saves companies 220 hours of recruiter and hiring manager time per hire. Chad, are you ready to take this interview?
Chad (32m 20s):
I looked into the actual background of the individuals who are the founders and they do have industry background. That's a check mark. That's awesome. And they've got really deep industry background, so that's that's awesome. Next question is, will it help companies hire faster? There's no question. Yes. Where they fail is the scalability, because there are actual human beings that are going through hours of interviews to be able to ensure that these individuals, that they're pushing forward to hire, that they're ready. Right. They're ready and they're pushing out the right people. So I think the model is really incredibly cool, but until they automate, I'm going to sell.
Joel (33m 5s):
Chad is going to sell interviewing.io. Well, if we had a hold rating, that might be what I'd opt for. But since this is buy or sell all I'll nibble on this company, a bit. I like the anonymity. I like the tech recruiting angle. I like the pre-interviewing. However like you, what I'm skeptical of is just how much competition there is in this space. We talk a lot about hacker rank and the others. I'm a little concerned about scaling, since they're using actual engineers from brand name companies, where do these guys and gals find the time?
Joel (33m 44s):
I also feel like, only the most desperate engineers are going to sign up and go through this mock interview anonymous process. So for me, it's a bind, but it's a real tentative buy. And next up, Chad, we love us, we love us some Australia and we love it when companies come to America. So let's talk about, Rejig Sydney based rejig that's R E J I G that'll that'll be fun for salespeople has raised 4.5 million us dollars and a series a to expand its workforce intelligence services beyond Australia and New Zealand founded in 2019.
Joel (34m 29s):
Rejig helps companies and businesses hire, retain, and re-skill workers. The AI based talent acquisition software integrated with an organizational HR system, considers quote "everyone from current employees, grads and interns to public profiles and past applicants" end quote for job openings. Notably the latest funding will allow the business to expand to new markets, including the US. Last year, Rejig raised 1.6 million in US dollars, that's seed funding. So Chad, are you ready for a little down under to make its way to America?
Chad (35m 7s):
Their eyes are bigger than their stomach unfortunately. Building a core talent platform from the ground up in three years is an amazing accomplishment. But as Daniel Masata said on Wednesday's European show, they need to buckle up before trying to invade the US you can't just jump into the U S because it's a single language country with tons of cash. The US also has the fiercest competition in the world. So I really like what Rejig is doing, but $6 million will not get them very far at all, especially against brands that they intend on competing against.
Chad (35m 49s):
Right? So I believe this overall is a great idea, but it's going to be a strategic fail because their eyes are bigger than their stomach.
Joel (35m 59s):
That's a sell from Chad and God damn it. I hate it when we agree. All right, worker retention is hot. We recently chatted with WORQDRIVE. That's WORQ with a "Q" who provides worker retention solutions, no spoiler alerts in that statement. And there's a ton of competition. Gloat has raised $102 million, Anthill around 4 million, Fuel50 $36 million, so I like the space. Question is, do I think this company can be Crocodile Dundee and conquer America? Well, to that, I say, hold the bloomin' onion and put down the Fosters.
Joel (36m 42s):
Conquering America is no cakewalk like Chad said, and these cats are bringing a boomerang to a gunfight. Stay where you are mates. Rejig for me is a sell.
sfx (36m 48s):
Oh, Hell No.
Chad (36m 50s):
That's not a knife.
Joel (36m 50s):
That's a knife. All right, let's take a quick break. And, Jesus, what a great segue go from boomerangs to robot gun, toting dogs. Stay put.
Chad (36m 59s):
All right, Chad. It was just a matter of time. Everyone loves everyone loves dogs, right? Yeah. So robot dogs, robot dogs are all the rage. They're small, nimble, and able to conquer environments that wield machines just can't handle. So of course it was only a matter of time until someone put a gun on one. The verge reports US based, of course, it's US-based, Ghost Robotics has developed a robot dog and put a custom gun by small arms specialist, Sword International on it.
Joel (37m 33s):
Jesus, Ghost, robotics and Sword International. What could go wrong? Dubbed the spur or special purpose unmanned rifle. It's not clear whether or not Sword International or Ghost Robotics are currently selling this combination of gun and robot. But if they're not, it seems they will be soon as the marketing competent copy on swords website, boasts quote, "the sword defense system spur is the future of unmanned weapons systems and that future is now" end quote. Boston Dynamics, who we've talked about quite a bit, best known for manual manufacturing a four legged robot called Spot has a strict policy against weaponizing its machines.
Joel (38m 19s):
Other manufacturers, obviously aren't so picky. Chad, you served, what do you think about arming man's best friend?
Chad (38m 25s):
As you had said it was only a matter of time and it'll all be framed as quote unquote, "this will lessen the need to send Americans onto the battlefield." And, I get that, but it also means since there is less of a human toll that will be paid. It'll be much easier to start and wage wars. They'll just say, send in the fucking dog. So this robo dog only currently has small arms capabilities. You wait till they start arming it with fucking rockets. This to me is going way beyond where we should as humankind in allowing something like this to happen.
Joel (39m 4s):
Yeah. And the dogs will eventually become elephants with guns and Eagles and shit there. I'm going to keep this quick. There's a line in Terminator 2 We talked about eighties movies earlier. Yeah. And I assume most of our listeners have seen T2, but John Connor says to Arnold Schwartzenegger quote, "We're not gonna make it. Are we humans? I mean," end quote and Arnold Schwartzenegger says, quote, "it's in your nature to destroy yourselves" end quote. I'm hopeful that I won't see the end of days in my lifetime. That's about the best I can say for this story. Who's ready for a beer after that one.
Joel (39m 46s):
I know. I sure as hell am.
Chad (39m 49s):
Go watch black mirror.
Joel (39m 50s):
Kids, Black Mirror and Murders in the Building is a good one too. Yeah. Everybody have a good weekend. Good week. We love you, Chad and Cheese.
Chad and Joel (40m 0s):
And we out.
OUTRO (40m 35s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs 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. Any hoo 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. Is so weird. We out.
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