Everything Must Go at CareerBuilder!
Who doesn’t love a good garage sale? Items that have outlasted their usefulness going for pennies on the dollar to a new owner. We don’t usually associate the garage sale with HR tech, but here we are (again) with the once mighty CareerBuilder giving us plenty of bargains and clearance rack specials to talk about. Lots to talk about. But the gold plated content doesn’t stop there. Twitter has made an acquisition in our space, Elon thinks remote work is a moral issue, Google just may crush half the businesses in our space with their new search, Qualifi continues to make us Hoosiers proud and there’s a new Caryn in town, and this one mints money while vacationing, well, wherever the hell she wants. Lots to digest this week; good thing Chad & Cheese are here to make sense of it all.
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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 & Cheese Podcast.
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Joel: Oh, yeah. Oscar Mayer is changing the name of the Wienermobile to Frankmobile. Ironically, Frank is what I call my wiener. You are listening to the Chad & Cheese Podcast. This is your co-host, Joel, all beef, Cheesman.
Chad: And this is Chad, did Dwight from The Office just become CEO, Sowash.
Joel: And on this week's show, CareerBuilder burns. Who would you rather, pitting Twitter against Google, and CarynAI. Buckle up. Let's do this.
Joel: So Chad, the new dynamic, you're in a happy hour in Europe, and I'm at lunch time in America. I'm not sure how that's gonna go.
Chad: Beautiful. New beer. Local, local.
Joel: Seneca? What does that say?
Chad: Senescal. Senescal.
Joel: Senescal.
Chad: Yes, Senescal.
Joel: Okay. Cardinal ALE.
Chad: Cardinal ALE, religiously multi-ruby ALE.
Joel: So monks are making it at the...
Chad: The Templar knights. Actually...
Joel: The temple down the... Yeah.
Chad: No, literally, the Templar knights, one of their last strongholds is really close to here, and this is where they brew the beer.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: I shit you not.
Joel: 'Cause when you're dying in the middle ages, it helps to be drunk, that's for sure.
Chad: Well, it always helps to be drunk, c'mon.
Joel: Especially podcasting, so drink on a drink, Chad. Drink on. Drink on. Well, I'm glad things are going well. Things are going well. Shall we get to some...
SFX: Shout-outs.
Chad: Shout-outs, let's do it.
Joel: Alright. I gotta go first. So I'm in America, you're in Europe. I'm gonna see stuff on TV that you're not gonna see, or you're gonna see second hands.
Chad: Thank God.
Joel: So this week, CNBC had a big interview with your boy, Elon Musk, and he opined about work from home, and he framed it as a moral issue, which I found really interesting. So I'm gonna play this sound bite for you and our listeners, and we'll talk about it on the other side.
Chad: Okay.
Elon Audio: I am a big believer that people need to... Are more productive when they're in-person. Look, there are some exceptions, but I kind of think that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the fake Mary Antoinette quote, "Let them meet cake." It's like, really, you're gonna work from home and you're gonna make everyone else you made your car work in the factory? You're gonna make the people who make your food that gets delivered, that they can't work from home? The people that come fix your house, they can't work from home, but you can? Does that seem morally right? That's messed up.
Elon Audio: You see it as a moral issue?
Elon Audio: Yes.
Elon Audio: I mean, I see it more as a...
Elon Audio: It's a productivity issue, but it's also a moral issue. People should get off the goddamn moral high horse with the work from home bullshit, because they're asking everyone else to not work from home while they do. The laptop class is living in la-la land.
Chad: Hello.
Joel: The laptop class is living in la-la land. What do you think about that, Chad?
Chad: Well, I think it's pretty simple. This is what the rich guys have always done. They've pit the middle class against the lower class, against the low wage class. They've always done that. So it's like, don't look at us and the million/billions that we're making and super yachts and all that other bullshit. Now, I know Elon likes to say that he sleeps in his office and that kind of shit. That's just 'cause he's a weird fucking nutso job. At the end of the day, what this is, is what he'd said right out of the gate, it's a belief. It's a belief in his fucked up head. He's pitting one class against the other, and then he sits back with the popcorn and he watches. And that's what rich dudes with a lot of money, who can get on big TV, can do. Either buy ads and/or just get on these interviews.
Joel: Yeah. So to me, we've seen this evolve, at first it was a culture issue. It was, "Well, if we're not in the office, we're not hanging out at the water cooler talking about Seinfeld or whatever." And then it became a productivity issue. And, well, I think last week we talked about the new productivity report and productivity is down as people are working from home, and now it's a moral issue, which I find really, if that's not a reach, I don't know what is. But if we're like, "it's a moral issue." And he also said a few things that stuck out to me in the interview. One is that, I think he said 3.6 million applications came in to Twitter... Oh, Tesla. Sorry, Tesla last year. When you have three million applications, and he also said it's harder to get into Tesla than it is to Harvard, was one of the things that he said. And when you have the mentality that you're more exclusive than Harvard, then yes, you better come back to the office because I've got three million other people that are willing to do the job and come in the office. So his luxury is not everyone's luxury for sure. So he's in sort of a bubble from that end. The other thing that he said was that he and Larry Page, one of the founders of Google, hang out quite a bit, and I'm sure that he and all the gang at Silicon Valley hang out...
Chad: Oh, sure.
Joel: And have cigars...
Chad: The yacht club.
Joel: And bourbon or whatever, and I'm sure what they talk about is, it's costing us a lot of money in rent and real estate and whatever else, how do we get these fuckers back in the office? And they sit around and go, "Let's paint it as a moral issue. Maybe that'll work," and this is the latest thing. So I don't know. Moral issue is a real reach from my perspective.
Chad: These are all... And again, one of the reasons why I love this podcast is we get a chance to actually break down the bullshit. Just these narratives, productivity, we broke that down last week. It's not fucking productivity, guys. It's the bullshit situation that you actually make people work in every fucking day. In this case, again, he's just pitting lower class with middle class so that they can sit back and watch those two fight it out. Yeah, the last thing I wanna do is listen to the richest man in the world tell me how we should actually fucking work. It's well beyond him at this point, not to mention, he's the guy who actually went into Twitter and had all of his engineering staff re-engineer his account so that he would actually be more popular than some of the other influencers that are out there. So this is where the guy's head is. It's all about him. Has nothing to do with anybody else. It's all about him. If you wanna worship Elon, great, you should, and you should work at Tesla.
Joel: And for 3.6 million people, that's exactly what they wanna do.
Chad: There you go.
Joel: That's exactly what they wanna do.
Chad: I'm gonna switch it up. I'm gonna give a shout-out to a start-up, Adsee. I'm going to shout-out to Adsee because, the organization, we literally just did a shred on them, and they were part of a laundry list of organizations that were in it. But Vlad, the Founder and CEO over at Adsee, who's in Kyiv, by the way, first and foremost, if somebody talks about you, amplify it. Fuck, get it out there. Amplify it, number one. No matter whether it's good, better or indifferent, you can actually turn a negative into a positive, or at least a perceived negative into a positive. And we see this from so many companies when we do by ourselves or we have opinions during our podcasts or what have you, where some companies, the smart ones, they want to help control the narrative. They reach out to us and they say, "Let's talk through what you're saying. We want to know more about what you're talking about and/or try to educate you on what we're trying to do in the market." To me, that's trying to control the narrative. Trying to be smart. We have big companies who have gotten unicorn cash, who we talk about, never reached out to us at all. Now, some have, don't get me wrong, but to me, it's a huge brand fail for an organization not to amplify what's being said about them, one way or the other. In this case, a little bitty company out of Ukraine called Adsee was like, "Holy shit, let's amplify." So big shoutout to them.
Joel: Yeah, and by the way, what happens when that happens is Chad and I share it, we like it, and then you get to access our tens of thousands of followers on LinkedIn. So in addition to good practice, it's a pretty good marketing strategy. As of this recording, Adsee, that's A-D-S-E-E, has 14 followers on LinkedIn.
Chad: Ratchet that up.
Joel: Let's see if we can get that up a little bit, if nothing else, just because of what they did. And they went deep, Chad.
SFX: Just the tears.
Joel: They went deep on that marketing. My second shout-out and my last one is on LinkedIn. Chad, if you've noticed a dip in your LinkedIn follower account, this would be why. LinkedIn will no longer count inactive or restricted accounts in connection and follower stats.
Chad: Really?
Joel: So if you've seen your number dip, that's why. I frankly haven't seen much, so that's a good news. Being in recruiting, everyone that I'm connected to is probably on LinkedIn all the time. So I didn't see a dip, but if you have, that's why.
Chad: No dip here, kids. Shout-out to Lauree Porter. You might remember Lauree because she's the director of all things cool at PENN Entertainment. She was on stage with us in California during iCIMS INSPIRE. Now, Lauree went above and beyond. She actually took the panoramic view of us on stage and she made that her LinkedIn background. And I just have to say, I saw it, I laughed my ass off and I loved it. Thanks, Lauree, and I can't wait till we see you again because you bring the best beer.
Joel: That's right. If you don't know PENN Entertainment, they do gaming, Chad. And if you're not playing the game at Chad & Cheese, which is free shit, well, you are a loser, my friend. You are loser because we're giving away, get this, Chad, free t-shirts from our friends at JobGet, free bourbon from our home boys and girls at Textkernel, free beer from Aspen Tech Labs, and this month's winner for free beer is Britney Kaiser. Britney Kaiser lives in Michigan, but she's a State fan. She's not a Wolverine fan. That was important, but not necessary to win, to win stuff from us. And if it's your birthday, you can win rum from our friends at Plum, and this month's winner goes to Sean Campbell. Again, if you want free shit, if you wanna be a winner, you can go to PENN Entertainment, but you can as go to chadcheese.com, click the free link and sign up up.
Chad: Yep, you miss every shot you don't take, kids. Events, guess what? We are getting ready to travel. Oh, that's right. I've got some travel already happening. But we're gonna be at RecFest in Knebworth Park. That's right. Courtesy of Shaker Recruitment Marketing and the lovely kids over at RecFest. We're gonna be emceeing the Disrupt Stage. And that's gonna happen early July. If you are in the UK, hell, if you're in Europe for God's sakes, and you've never been to RecFest, take your whole crew. It's all there is to it. Not to mention, if you're in the US, guess what kids, we're going to have RecFest in the US in Nashville. And Joel and I, we were two douche bags on a yacht. We're gonna try to do the two dudes on a pontoon again, podcast of the people, but that's in September. So you have time, in the US, go to chadcheese.com, click on events in the upper right hand corner, and the whole hero image says RecFest. Click on the button, register your whole fucking team, man. This is an all hands meeting. Learn, drink, enjoy, and come to RecFest.
Joel: And by the way, Chad, I think at Knebworth, there's gonna be a Lieven sighting.
SFX: Oh.
Joel: Lieven, our European man on the street, is gonna be there and joining us. We're gonna drag him on stage at some point.
Chad: I cannot wait.
Joel: Yeah, but that'll be a ton of fun. And as you're in Portugal, I will be in Vegas in June with the gang at the ERIN app, that's E-R-I-N. In honor of you not being there, they've actually purchased some cardboard cut-outs of you, like three big Chad heads, and then one, I think, full body Chad, that'll be in the booth with me recording, so that'll be a lot of fun, and that's in Vegas in June at the SHRM National Show.
Chad: It's me, my plush bathroom when we were in Sweden, because we actually walked to the Kattegat because we were gonna jump in and swim with your ancestors.
Joel: Oh, we did, yeah.
Chad: And we had it on, and we had the beer, and we had it all. So yeah, no, that's a great pic.
Joel: Oh, thinking about you in a bathroom, Chad.
SFX: Can you feel the tension in the air right now? I know, I can. I can feel it all the way down on my plums.
Joel: That's right. Let's talk about birthdays this week, celebrating another trip around the sun, we've got Michelle Sergeant, Matthew Bringham, Kalm O'Quinnan, tell me you're Irish without telling me you're Irish. Jack Linadare, Janet Leeds, Matt Seroka, Sean Campbell, Madison Richard, Stephanie Trisick, Caitlin Phil, Sara Grossman, Bill Cudic, and the doctor, not Jay, not Detroit, not Strange, The Job Board doctor.
Chad: Job board, yes.
Joel: All celebrate another trip around the sun.
SFX: Happy birthday.
Chad: And don't forget, kids, the Chad and Cheese are now on video. That's right, video. You can go to YouTube or you can go to chadcheese.com, you can click on the YouTube logo on the header, and you go to YouTube, subscribe, check us out. You can listen to us, you can watch us. All that fun stuff.
Joel: Literally, this video is new for us.
SFX: Alright. Alright. Alright.
Joel: But we are loving it so far.
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SFX: Alright, let's peel the onion. Okay, CareerBuilder has reached an agreement to sell its international business to a recruitment marketplace in Greece called Kariera. The deal includes CareerBuilder sites in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Vietnam and India. Meanwhile, CareerBuilder has reportedly laid off a significant number of employees with sources estimating up to 60% of its workforce in the US. The company has appointed Jeff Furman as the new CEO, replacing Susan Arthur, all this to focus on growth in the US, where CareerBuilder is still one of the top five job sites. Chad, lots to unpack here. Let's start with the international angle.
Chad: Yeah. So this is a real Moe Greene Godfather moment here. You don't buy me out, I buy you out. So CareerBuilder bought kariera.gr in 2007, but sold it back in 2020. So they bought it and then sold it back. They probably sold it for less.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Chad: I mean, they did the same thing with Texkernel. Kariera Group will have 300-plus employees in 10 different cities. The CareerBuilder sites acquired are in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Vietnam and India. Via SimilarWeb, there is only one of those, Vietnam, that is in the top five. So there's a lot of work for the group to have, and hopefully they got this on sale, they got all these sites on sale.
SFX: Europe has a bunch of countries in it.
Joel: Gee, how often do we talk about Greece in the game of world employment technology? Not very often.
Chad: Never.
Joel: So here's our introduction folks, Greece. I'm guessing a TJ Maxx in Milan had CareerBuilder on the rack. I don't know what to make of this. Offices, employees, this feels like an acquihire. It feels like a total fire sale from CareerBuilder standpoint. I mean, why they... Whatever. Are we gonna be talking about this on the European show? I wouldn't hold your breath. We'll see what happens, but I don't see this new company that's putting a stake in the ground in all these countries making a big impact. I don't see Stepstone shaking in their boots any time soon. So I don't have a ton of commentary on the international piece other than let's wait and see.
Chad: $30 million going into Greece. That's not a bad thing. I think they're definitely gonna try to spin what CareerBuilder was. Most of these sites were CareerBuilder branded sites. There's only one, I think, maybe one or two, Jobs.de, which is one hell of a domain to have, was the German site.
Joel: Do they kick out the CareerBuilder ad? Do you think they become a house of brands?
Chad: Yeah, I don't think that you can in Europe. We've talked to Lieven about that. You have to stay with a brand that is something that the community and the country aligns with, and I think that was one of the reasons that Monster had problems, that Indeed has had problems. It's slowly ticked up in some of the countries, but I think, I would say that's some of the reasons why CareerBuilder is having problems. Remember, and you still see it, when you go to a restaurant and you see a sign that says, "Under new management," I think they should, in every single one of these sites, put, "Under new management," and then actually put, "We're Europeans" on it.
Joel: And they need to go back to the old CareerBuilder branding, and if there's a God in heaven, they'll bring back the monkey commercials. This time with CGI, 'cause you get cancelled with real monkeys in ads these days. So, they'll have to be CGI, but they can always bring...
Chad: I don't know that they have that kind of budget, by the way, but, yeah.
Joel: Bring the monkey. That's right. That's right. The CGI, let's use some puppets or some shit. I don't know.
Chad: So, the question is US, what the fuck with the US?
Joel: Yeah, US, still a top five site, still on auto-pilot. Most of their shit is email still. The number of email addresses they have and registered to the user site, they're still pumping out tons of emails to unsuspecting job seekers. The cash cow, they can eliminate most of the employees. Now, what I've heard is everywhere from 20%-60% of staff. I think 60% makes a lot more sense based on what's going on with what history and what we think the future is on this. So you've got better insight on this, so I'm not gonna steal your thunder, 'cause we talked about it in the green room, but other than the US is about it. We're both pretty sure Broadbean is gonna be off the table very soon, if not already. More insight on that is we know more or get approval to talk about that, but you have more insight on what's gonna happen in the US, and I don't wanna steal your thunder, so you go ahead and give your opinion and insights.
Chad: Yeah, I think, right out of the gate, top five, from my sources, CareerBuilder is making over a million dollars a month in arbitrage alone. Arbitrage alone. You can effectively run the operation on a skeleton crew, just for arbitrage, depending on the amount of tech debt you're facing. Hell, you could switch to a job board in a box at that point. You can kill the tech debt and still get the cash handsomely. So, we'll talk more in-depth about the CEO change in a minute, but I don't think you bring in a guy like Jeff Furman to finish off a CareerBuilder USA deal or a Broadbean deal. I believe they're both already done. And that's one of the reasons why Sue Arthur walked out the door. There's no way in hell you let Dwight Schrute do this. I mean, that's all there is to it. To me, and again, this is mostly opinion and vibes that I'm getting from my sources and from the industry itself, there's a shit load of cash that's there. There is an asset. It could be almost on autopilot to some extent. I think both those deals are done and there's nothing but turning the lights off, kids.
Joel: So, if it was an acquisition target, any guesses on who might come in and pick up the yard sale rubbish?
Chad: Yeah, that's a good question because this is core CareerBuilder. Everything was built around this. So, the question is, does Apollo have fatigue after this? And I don't think that they would, because this is what they do. They carve up companies and they sell that shit. So I think they're gonna get a good price out of it. Who would buy it? To be quite frank, Indeed could smash it or they could buy it. I think that's smart. Anything beyond that, it's up in the air to me, because all you're doing, if you take a look at some of their acquisitions they've had over the years, some of the big ones, Career Mosaic, we know that name, 'cause we've been in the industry for a while. Career Path. You go to those domains today, they don't go anywhere.
Joel: HeadHunter.NET.
Chad: They don't go anywhere. They don't resolve. It's like, "Oh my God." So, there are all these domains and what not that they're not even doing anything with. I don't even know if they understand the value of those assets or even if there is a value anymore.
Joel: Yeah, from my perspective, Indeed would be interesting. I think Indeed has enough problems going right now to deal with that. And we talk a lot about companies in Europe coming to America, a job in talent could come in and buy this thing up and have instant brand, instant user base.
Chad: Stepstone.
Joel: Stepstone. Yeah, if you're looking to come to the US, CareerBuilder seems like a really nice door to the market with customers, with users, regardless of what you do with the brand after time, no big deal, but if you can get a foothold through CareerBuilder, that seems like a pretty good strategy to me, and if...
Chad: You're not buying the tech. You're buying the lists, you're buying the portfolio, because the tech, from my understanding, again, is shit.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: 20 years old, it's shit. And they've juiced everything out of that tech they possibly can, so it's gotta be an operator, who already has tech in place.
Joel: Yeah, slap their logo on your brand, and you're done, and you move over all their data and customers, and you're good to go. So, you mentioned your commentary on the CEO. I'll go ahead and mention, Sue Arthur who came in in 2021, she barely had enough time to put her stapler on the desk before this shit went down. And yeah, you're right about Jeff Furman. His LinkedIn profile, if you had white bread on a profile picture, that would be Jeff Furman. He was VP of Facilities and Real Estate before this position. Doesn't really inspire a vision for the future.
Chad: No, no.
Joel: At any rate, so more of the same with managing the... He's in the cockpit. Who's driving really? And this things on autopilot, whatever. Jeff, I hope you have a good parachute to jump out of when this thing goes down. But yeah, it's like they picked one of the few guys left and said, "You wanna be CEO?" Like, "Sure, I'll add that to my resume." And Jeff Furman, congratulations.
Chad: Yeah, as soon as I heard this, I automatically thought of Dwight from The Office. It's like, who do you hand the keys to? 'Cause who's gonna be the only one left standing? It's gonna be that fucker. Yeah, so seriously, today, May 19th, 2023, Jeff Furman is their CEO. Going a little bit deeper into the LinkedIn highlights. He was the Director of Real Estate at Johnson Controls, the Chief Procurement Officer and Head of Global Real Estate at AmEx. Responsibilities were for all global real estate operations, including transaction, project and facility management, as well as strategic planning and lease administration across a global portfolio. Jeff was hired at CareerBuilder five years ago for this specific reason, to sweep up, turn off the lights and lock the doors because everybody's gone.
Joel: If Jeff's profile page was a sound bite. So, lay-offs real quick, are you in the 20% camp, the 60% camp, where are you?
Chad: They're definitely more toward the 60%. At this point, they're trying to lean out. Broadbean, CareerBuilder, I personally think they're off the table. I think there are done deals already, so those individuals, well, obviously those are individuals that will go with those organizations. So, yeah, I think it's closer to 60%. One way or the other, it doesn't matter. This is a plane that's going down and Jeff Furman was hired to be the Kamikaze pilot to put this baby in the dirt.
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Joel: And that is our CareerBuilder block, and after that, we need a quick break. But when we get back, we'll talk about Twitter and Google.
Joel: Alright Chad, let's play a little, 'who'd you rather' with some heavy weights, Twitter and Google. These aren't two startups in HR tech. These are big companies. So two of them made news this week. Two have pretty big aspirations. We're gonna break it down and give who we'd rather pick in this decision. So, number one, we have Twitter. Twitter has reportedly made its first acquisition under your boy, Elon Musk's leadership, purchasing a fellow San Fran-based job matching tech startup called Laskie. Reports say the acquisition aligns with Musk's vision of transforming Twitter into a multi-functional super app. The exact acquisition price is not disclosed, but Laskie had raised $6 million. According to Crunchbase, founded in 2021, they employed 26 people.
Joel: Now to Google. Gloves are off. That's right. Google announced new conversational features for its search engine and made its Bard chatbot accessible to English speakers. Google's updated search engine uses AI to provide detailed summary responses and allows users to ask followup questions in a chatbot-like manner, Google also announced upcoming enhancements to Bard, including image responses using Google Lens, image search and integration with partner applications like Adobe, KAYAK, OpenTable, ZipRecruiter, Indeed and the Khan Academy. Chad, who'd you rather? Twitter's super app or Google search enhancements?
Chad: This is the worst superhero I think I've ever seen. It reminds me of the Facebook for jobs thing that happened. Twitter with jobs. Elon is all over the board. No focus, wants to be an influencer. Twitter is nothing but a hobby for him. But on the other hand, Google, with generative AI search, this is about survival for Google. Last week, you mentioned Google seeing OpenAI as really a huge threat to search and to their model, to their advertising model. OpenAI has created a subscription-based model, where Google Search entirely predicated on advertising. Instead of just packing up the search tent and putting everything into Bard, which they could have done, which more than likely would have been and will be subscription-based, Google was forced to evolve the search experience by folding in generative AI, which will allow for text and voice interaction, not to mention, as you said, image. But the result sets will be served up in a new generative AI model, instead of the old timey search algorithm that we've known since the 2000s. This will allow for a new and better experience with the ability to keep advertising and then start charging subscription, aka, freemium models, which are big again, through Bard. It's the best of both worlds and evolves more than just the UI of the Google Search product. This is what Google needed, to get away from the good old algorithm they've been tweaking for 20 plus years.
Joel: So, you'd rather Google?
Chad: A-Fucking-men.
SFX: What are you doing step-bro?
Joel: Alright, Twitter, okay, super cool and interesting that they bought a company in our space. Did not see that coming, but it's really weird. They basically shut it down. Usually, when somebody buys a company, the company's website is still up. There's a big thing on the header like, "Hey, acquired by so and so." And then, click here for the press release. You go to laskie.com today, and it's like, "We're not working anymore. We're just done." There's nothing there. So it's like, why the hell would you buy this thing? $6 million isn't a lot of investment. San Fran-based, for all I know, Elon hated the founder and wanted to buy him and shut him down. For all I know, he wants to hire everyone that's working there and make them Tesla employees or Twitter employees. Maybe he wants access to the database of tech workers to come work for his company, and he wants to just give them to his recruiter base as an ego or a quick way to get resumes. But if he's getting three million resumes a year, does he really need more profiles and resume? It's just really fucking weird. I wish I had an insightful comment about what the hell Twitter is doing buying Laskie, which we never talked about on the show by the way.
Chad: No.
Joel: So, I got nothing, man. Usually I have something to say. I don't know what the hell Elon is doing. The super app thing, could I see Twitter having profiles like LinkedIn, where they're more professional, maybe some basic professional information or degrees or credentials? Yeah. Is this that? I don't think so, maybe. I don't know. Payments are gonna come in. He talked about Tesla automated driving. So that could be done through Twitter maybe. I don't know. It's just really weird. Now, Google...
Chad: Who trusts Elon with their credit card information?
Joel: Google. Google, watching their demo.
SFX: Alight, alright, alright.
Chad: Fucking sexy.
Joel: Okay. The gloves are off at Google. Somebody at Google said, "You know what, we've been scared to launch this shit. We've been thinking about humanity and our survival. Fuck it, we're dropping the bomb on everything." So, Bard is impressive. It's still not... What's cool about Bard is, OpenAI is, 2021 was the last time that they sourced content. Unless you feed stuff into it, it's old. Bard is like real-time. You can ask it news question and it knows, in real time almost, it can comment and tell you what's going on in the news, which is exceptional. Google is leveraging everything they have in their arsenal, which OpenAI does not have. They gotta build that shit up. Google's like, "We got a whole mansion of shit. We're gonna dump it in and fuck shit up." This is, step brother is walking into the interview. We're here to fuck shit up. That's what Google did with this demo. Now, what's interesting to me as well is, I'm always curious about, who are they gonna kill in our industry? Who's in trouble? The first obvious one, the Textio's, the job description things, I think anyone that helps you write a resume is probably fucked through what's going on now.
Chad: Too easy.
Joel: I was searching on Bard, what is it like to work at, name a company? It was able to tell me, Glassdoor style, Indeed review style, news and the whatever style, what it's like to work there, the good, the bad, the ugly. There's real potential to fuck Glassdoor and Indeed reviews and Blind and whoever's doing reviews is fucked. Because I can go in and find out what it's like to work at any company. I don't have to go to your site, which may or may not be true, and what's seeded, what's fake? I think that's a real issue with these sites. Google Bard will do it. It'll tell you what it's like to work at a company, and to me, that's a real threat to the review sites. That's one of my main insights. So yeah, I don't know what the fuck is going on at Twitter. It's fun to watch, and I'll continue to do so, but what Google is doing is, as a user, cool shit, as an industry, shake up. A lot of people are gonna be scared about this, Google for sure is who I'm picking in this debate.
Chad: And as soon as they get their head out of their ass, with regard to job feeds, and they just go over to Google for Jobs, because all that content's already marked up, new fucking, game big boy.
Joel: Yeah. If and when you can say, "Find the perfect job for me," and it could just give you shit, that's... Anyway, that may or may not be where we're doing.
SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time.
Joel: Alright, let's talk about some company getting some bucks. Indianapolis-based Qualifi, has secured $4.5 million in funding to support its growth and development. This brings total funding to $7.7 million. Qualifi plans to use the funding to enhance its hiring platform, establish industry partnerships and address recruitment challenges. The company aims to streamline the hiring process and provide a memorable candidate experience through automation and asynchronous phone interviews. Chad, your take on the news from our, who's your brothers and sisters?
Chad: Yeah, so Darrian was on firing squad about a year ago, and I believe we both gave him a big applause.
[applause]
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Yeah. So, there's one thing I look at as a priority and align most of my weight behind, whether I'm looking at a yes or no decision when I'm assessing a start-up. It's not the domain name, it's not the colors, it's not the brand, it's not the tech. What matters is the founder, the CEO, the visionary, the voice box, and I think Darrian is a winner. He's personable, he's humble, moldable, but most of all, you can see the sparkle in the guy's eyes. The vision is clean, the platform is clean, and that's the reason they over-subscribed. I also think it's smart, that much like Adam Gordon day with crowdfunding, you set the bar low and then you blow it out of the fucking water. So in summary, for me, I don't like the koala. It doesn't matter. I don't like the colors. It doesn't matter. I really don't like that they don't have pricing on the pricing page. I'm gonna grit my teeth when I say this, but it doesn't matter. But what does matter is that I like the tech, the vision, and most of all, Darrian is a fucking winner, and he's in a space that is very crowded, very crowded, but I think they do have the guy at the head of the table, the vision and everything necessary to make this win.
Joel: Yeah, we're a little biased. We've known Darrian for a while. Just a solid guy. Just someone you wanna hang out with.
Chad: I think we only had beers with him once though. So we've seen him several times.
Joel: Oh, he's been at shows, he's been at conferences.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: He's around.
Chad: Everybody has.
Joel: But, I wanna say a sweet kid, but that's maybe a little...
Chad: He is amazing.
Joel: Look, he's just a sweet heart.
Chad: He is.
Joel: So, Indiana, we're biased. He's a Black founder. We're biased. We love seeing that. We love seeing the organic growth. Like you've mentioned, they were founded in 2019. This isn't some one-year-old company getting $10 million. They've grown organically. They employ 25 or so people. Most of them are Hoosiers as well, so that's nice to see. They've just grown organically, done it right, and we just... That's always something that appeals to us. The thing is, the whole voice interview, chat interview, texting, there's so many companies doing that. I can't imagine the push and pull of like, "We should do this. We should do that. We need to add this because so and so just launched and has that." Qualifi's done a really good job of focusing on what they do best, honing that, making it as superior as possible, and you and I both love the focus with any start-up, and these guys showcase that as well. So I speak for both of us when I say like...
[applause]
Joel: Great for Qualifi. Keep it going guys. Darrian, yeah, we'll have to have drinks again soon, obviously.
Chad: It'd have to be in August.
Joel: When Chad's back in the States and he's salty and miserable again, we'll have to get him a drink. And it looks like you need a refill, Chad, so let's take a quick break and we'll talk about Caryn with a C.
Joel: Alright, Chad. Caryn Marjorie, Caryn, spelled C-A-R-Y-N, is a 23 year old influencer with 1.8 million followers on Snapchat.
Chad: Wow.
Joel: She has created an AI-powered chatbot called CarynAI, which serves as a virtual girlfriend to more than 1000 individuals. Since we've seen this story, it's probably up to 5000. These virtual relationships involve conversations, ranging from discussing future plans to intimate and sexually charged chats. CarynAI closely mimics Marjorie's voice and personality, and people are willing to pay $1 per minute for interactions with the bot. During its private beta test on the Telegram app, CarynAI generated, you're ready for this? $71,610 in revenue from its predominantly male user base, no shit. Marjorie believes that having an AI doppelganger can enhance her career as an influencer. Chad, what you got?
Chad: It's the new phone sex line. I remember, you'd be watching TV at night and like, "Call 800-CarynAI."
Joel: It was 1-900, yeah.
Chad: Yeah, 1-900, yeah, whatever. But you think of it though, $71,000 in a week.
Joel: In a private beta.
Chad: In a week, kids. Okay, just my mind's gonna explode here. Imagine coupling this with video, synthesized video, because this is already audio, OnlyFans would fucking explode with content, revenue and... Well, let's just leave it at that. It would explode. Several 18-25 year old males' heads would explode as well. I listened to the Hard Fork Podcast, which is, I think by the New York Times, from February, where one of the journalists/podcasters, went into a Fatal Attraction like hole with Bing's chatbot named Sydney for two hours. This stuff, it was eerie, fucking eerie. Because it sounded... He was reading the texts back, these were text. This is, we're actually talking synthesized voices, more humanized. Sucks you in. It is fucking crazy. But think of, again, we keep talking about these OnlyFans, $8000 a month, $12,000 a month, this is $71,000 in a week.
Joel: And she did no work. A bot did the work.
Chad: Guess how this could explode. She has a portfolio of pictures. You jump into the chatbot, it's $76,000 or $71,000 in a week, will be nothing compared to what OnlyFans and these influencers will make.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: By the way, no word if it's in multiple languages, which she'll also be able to do in the near future. There is a lot of money in lonely men, Chad.
Chad: Wow.
Joel: There's a lot of lonely men and boys...
Chad: Horny men, yes, or is that redundant? Yeah, I think...
Joel: That need to be divorced from each other. I love the 900 number reference. Astrologers and phone sex lines.
Chad: Oh, that's another good one.
Joel: We're having a party, big boy. You wanna join the party? That was great. So, we've gone from $100 hookers to $9 a month OnlyFans accounts, to a $1 a minute AI women. It's become a commodity. What's next? I guess the sex robots will be a $1000 bucks a piece, and they'll eventually be, I don't know, $50 bucks at Walmart. That's kind of like where this thing goes.
Chad: I would not want one of those.
Joel: Well, wasn't there a movie where somebody got a sex robot out of the trash? It was like an older model. Anyway...
Chad: It was probably Idiocracy, which is where we're going, by the way.
Joel: That must have been Skinemax back in the '80s, when I was watching that on regularly.
Chad: Skinemax, yeah.
Joel: Dude, we're doomed as a species. We're totally doomed. Yeah, once video comes and she'll do whatever the hell you want, and then the VR headsets and the sex... We're just fucking doomed. Only Jeff Furman can save us, Chad. Somebody call Jeff Furman, otherwise our species is finished.
Chad: Because he's so hot and sexy, that's why. [laughter]
Joel: Save us, Jeff Furman. We out.
Chad: We out.
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 soup 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.
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