Thanksgiving week means it's time for our annual Jive Turkeys edition of the podcast. This year, the boys take on Twitter's failed hiring platform after Elon Musk's acquisition, Kid Rock's inconsistent behavior and impact on Bud Light, Grindr and Xing's questionable shifts into job matching, Joonko's collapse due to unethical practices, and OpenAI's leadership upheaval with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman quitting abruptly. Next up: iCIMS' CEO's sudden resignation of Brian Provost, and Silk Road's rebranding to Rival-HR ... this after multiple leadership changes. It's a fun-filled episode of industry missteps, unethical behavior and sudden, drastic changes within these companies or individuals ... ultimately labeling them as our Jive Turkeys for 2023. Gobble! Gobble!
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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 and Cheese podcast.
[music]
Joel: Oh, yeah. Just a couple of guys who like legs and breasts. Of course, I'm talking about Thanksgiving dinner, you bunch of sickos. Hi, kids. This is The Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host Joel, never convicted, Cheeseman.
Chad: Chad Turducken Sowash.
Joel: And on this episode.
SFX: It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.
Joel: Yeah. Let's do this. Happy Turkey Day week, Chad.
Chad: Pretty stoked. Here in Europe you can do just about whatever you want with whatever food you want. The thing that's beautiful though is, I think you talked about it, is we don't have to put a turkey in the oven for eight fucking hours. We can just eat whatever we want, which is great. It's great being an adult.
Joel: Sometimes it's great being an adult. Middle age, by the way, is the most thankless time of your life. Why's that? Your aging parents aren't thankful. They're mad about everything. Your kids hate you. They're mad about everything. Everyone just expects you to be on, keep the ATM full and just shut your mouth and do your job. That's middle age, everybody, in case you haven't gotten there yet.
Chad: I'm not feeling that. I don't know what your problem is.
Joel: Yeah, empty nester probably changes things and you haven't had any parental issues. Illness, death?
Chad: Both my mom and dad have had medical issues, but they've gotten through it. They're continuing to get through it, so. Yeah, it's...
Joel: Do they still live independently?
Chad: Part of life. Yeah.
Joel: It's coming for you.
Chad: Thanks. I appreciate that. Something to be thankful for.
Joel: So this episode, everybody, if you're a new listener, the holidays are just... They just hit different for us. We do this Jive Turkeys episode. We will do Naughty and Nice. We'll do Predictions. We'll do all kinds of stuff for the holidays, which is really an excuse for us not to work. We just do these fun episodes, 'cause I think everyone kinda likes...
Chad: This is still work. I don't know what you did. I don't know what you did, but I worked.
Joel: As the Portuguese sun beats down on your bald head, yeah, definitely work that we're doing. So we usually go to shoutouts, but I have some thankful fors and you have shoutouts of your own. So why don't you go and just hammer out your shoutouts and then we can be thankful for some stuff.
Chad: Yeah. My shoutout and being thankful, all in one, is for having American football in the Algarve. Yes, I am five hours behind Eastern Standard Time. Yes, I do get the abundance of amazing European football from all the different leagues around here. But one of the thanks, my favorite bar has American football. And that to me is just something even more to be thankful for. Not only do they have an amazing whiskey selection, they have American football.
Joel: Now I'm feeling like that's Latin for I get to watch the Ohio State and Michigan game this week. Is that what that means? Will this bar have Ohio State and Michigan on?
Chad: Yeah. That one might be a little bit hard. NCAA's hits a little bit different, but I will ask. I will ask. Because if they can get it, they will get it.
Joel: 'Cause you probably see this on your feed, but all kinds of drama. Harbaugh is a dirty boy. Michigan is naughty. Yeah, Michigan is on our naughty or nice list as a naughty. Ryan Day is under pressure. 'Cause if he can't, if it's a third straight loss to Michigan, Harbaugh's not on the sidelines. So Ryan Day is under pressure. They're talking about him being on the hot seat if he doesn't win.
Chad: Whatever.
Joel: This is number two versus number three in the nation. Huge repercussions for this game. And most importantly, for me, my wife is going to New York City for the holiday, for the Macy's Day parade. She's meeting her at her sister there. So I get guilt free, unhindered viewing of Ohio State and Michigan this year, which is usually a bit of a hurdle for me to clear. So Thursday football. Friday, they have now what they're calling Black Friday, which they have football now on Friday, NFL football. And then Saturday is college football galore. So I'm gonna be really happy for the next week or so.
Chad: Football, football, football.
Joel: Football, football. And we're not doing dinner. We did dinner at my sister's, the Thanksgiving thing.
Chad: Nice, nice.
Joel: At this house, we're going barbecue. I'm going down to...
Chad: Good call.
Joel: The barbecue shop. We're getting ribs. We're getting some chili. Maybe some sausages, some mac and cheese, some mashed potatoes. It'll be really good.
Chad: Get it all.
Joel: I'm gonna have my 84-year-old dad over and my six-year-old son. That's the threesome. That's the three stooges that are gonna be watching TV. So anyway, enough about me. Football's great. I'm glad you get to watch. I hope you get to watch Ohio State, Michigan, if not, well, you're in Portugal and it's life is okay either way.
Chad: I'll soldier through.
Joel: Yeah, I'm gonna skip the shoutouts and I'm gonna be really stereotypical and just do thankfuls.
Chad: Okay. Don't make me cry.
Joel: Number one, our fans. Dude, we're two middle-aged knuckleheads. To see people wear the shirts, to share the booze, to reach out, certainly I think both of us get contacted. Love the show, where you have your open office hours or whatever, where you take calls. So I'm sure you hear people... It's just fantastic, the little podcast that we've built. But it wouldn't be anything without the fans. So I gotta thank the fans. It also wouldn't be anything without the sponsors. I'm continually just amazed at the people who will write checks to be sponsors of the show. Certainly we think we have a great show and our listeners do as well, but our sponsors stick with us. They become friends, they become supporters, and it's just really great to have them around. Other than that, I think you and I are both really blessed. We have great families, great friends, and damnit, Chad, I'm thankful for you too. I'm thankful for you.
Chad: I knew you were gonna try to make me cry.
Joel: Yeah, I don't wanna make you cry.
Chad: I knew it was coming. I could feel that.
Joel: I didn't wanna bring you off the Wham, the Careless Whisper. But goddammit. I'm thankful for so much. I think we complain a lot on the show. We complain a lot in our everyday lives. Give thanks. Think about how grateful you are, how lucky you are. Your country is hopefully not at war. You're hopefully not dealing with any kind of trials and tribulations. Hopefully you have a lot to be grateful for and you can give thanks even if you're not American. Take time to give thanks this week.
Chad: Yeah. Well, and also would like to thank all the listeners/watchers who are watching us on YouTube. In a very short amount of time we have almost 750 subscribers. We have great sponsor participation, people watching the shorts, people watching the full episodes. You and I both thought, "This is good audio. Anybody really going to want to look at our ugly mugs?" And they do.
Joel: We never thought it was good video. That's for sure. We never thought, "This is going to make some great video."
Chad: Well, thankful for the team at Skillscout for making us look good, and so good that now we have a second series on YouTube under the Chad and Cheese YouTube handle. Just youtube.com/@chadcheese, where Toby Dayton from LinkUp once a month connects with us and goes over the job numbers, goes over the landscape, goes over a lot of things, and tries to talk it down, kindergarten style, to us and to our listeners. So really, again, thankful for all of that. If you haven't subscribed, check us out on YouTube. Just search for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Joel: Absolutely. And thanks to the European show that's still voice only. That may change. Levin's just too...
Chad: It might.
Joel: Good looking to keep boxed up in a speaker forever. So look out for that. I don't know. I don't know. No promises, everybody.
Chad: Oh, you know he wants it.
Joel: By the way, speaking of sponsors, if you haven't signed up, go to ChadCheese.com. Free t-shirts from our friends at JobGet, bourbon, one from Chad, one from me. That's our friends at Textkernel. We got free beer from our homies at AspenTechLabs. And if it's your birthday, you could win a chance to win some really good ram from our friends at Plum. And if you listened to last week's show you know that I went through the rest of the month's birthday, so I wouldn't have to read them on the show. But however, I'm thankful for this sound bite.
SFX: Can you feel the tension...
Chad: Yes.
SFX: In the air right now?
Joel: Oh, I can feel it.
SFX: I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plum.
Joel: And if you love that one, oh yeah, you're gonna love this one too. This is our fantasy football sound bite. And Tuesday means we have a new leaderboard, Chad, and we're recording this on Tuesday. So I wanna read our top 12 leaderboard in fantasy football. Number one, Marcy Mall continues to crush it, just like number two, Michelle Sargent.
Chad: Killing it.
Joel: Killing it. It'll be a travesty if neither one of them win the league. But anything can happen. Anything can happen. Dean Aparro. Chad, you're number four now, which puts you in a playoff spot. If you can hold on to this, then happy days for you, my friend.
Chad: That's a big if.
Joel: The following list is Joe Dixon, Dean Osner, Jill Patterson. I come in at number eight, which is up from number 10, so watch out for me. I stuck it to Jasper, which makes me feel good. I think I beat him, I beat Tupper, and I think I beat you this year, which is really all I need from fantasy football. Number 10, Brent Losey. Dennis Tupper continues to drag on the bottom.
Chad: Winner last year.
Joel: He's a bottom feeder. He loves it, apparently. And Kristen Urban, just a string of bad luck for her. But that is our fantasy football list.
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Joel: And with that, Chad, are you ready for a little jive turkey time?
Chad: Bring it.
Joel: So if you're a new listener, here's what we do. We each pick three or four companies, people in the industry, that just deserve to be called out as jive turkeys. They've either broken a law, they've disgraced themselves, they've destroyed share value, something or other.
Chad: Themselves, their families.
Joel: They've just embarrassed themselves, and there's just no fun...
Speaker 4: It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.
Joel: For jive turkeys this close to Thanksgiving. So Chad, let's have you start with your first jive turkey of 2023.
Chad: This will not surprise anyone right out of the gate. My first jive turkey goes to the Twitter hiring platform. Twitter was bought at a $44 billion price tag by Elon Musk, and now it's worth $19 billion. So how does Elon make up that $25 billion in losses? Well, it's easy. You start a job board. Apparently, that's how you do it. Earlier this year, Twitter's announcement of a hiring platform after acquiring Laskie, it got us thinking. Since Laskie was a job matching engine, how would Twitter match people to jobs? Unlike LinkedIn, Twitter doesn't have a person's career information, expertise, skills or anything really regarding occupation. So what corpus of data would they use to match these users to jobs? We were really racking our brains on this. Well, I guess we thought way too deep on this because Twitter launched their first version of job cards, doing what everybody's been doing on Twitter for years, blasting jobs into their feed. Top five job listings on corporate profiles. That's innovative. And last but not least, we just heard last week a basic 1990 style job search. So Elon compared what was coming to a new and cooler version of LinkedIn. Well, Elon, maybe in 2006, but not in 2023. So this early version of Twitter hiring platform gets a jive turkey from me.
Joel: Oh, boy. And Twitter/X gave us plenty to talk about in 2023, Chad. You picked obviously the most relevant one to the industry. How do companies pick their top five? It's like MySpace when you had to pick your top friends.
Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joel: I don't know how they come up with their five. But, yes, the search box...
Chad: And how do you manage it?
Joel: Let's hope that comes in '24. Let's hope the LinkedIn killer gets launched by Elon, because that'll be a lot of fun to talk about.
Chad: Talk a little bit more about that later.
[laughter]
Joel: Yeah. Yeah. This was bad for sure.
Chad: I don't think it's gonna be Twitter, though.
SFX: It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.
Joel: All right. That brings me to my first turkey of 2023. Well, Chad, we talk a lot about brand integrity, walking the walk, if you're gonna talk the talk if you will.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: Well, let's look at how not to do that by focusing on Kid Rock from 2023. By the way, do you have a favorite Rock, Chad? We got the Rock, Chris Rock, Kid Rock, Plymouth Rock. Do you have a favorite Rock?
Chad: Do I have a favorite Rock? I like Pet Rock. That thing. Yeah.
Joel: Pet Rock. Okay. Go '70s. I'll go Chris Rock. Just generational comedian. Anyway, so back in April, the right wing lost its mind When Dylan Mulvaney promoted Bud Light as a trans celebrity. Here's Kid Rock going to Twitter with a really big gun showing the world what he thinks about Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney's relationship.
S6: Let me say something to all you and be as clear and concise as possible. Fuck Bud Light and fuck Anheuser-Busch. Have a terrific day.
Joel: [laughter] Have a great day. Anyway, pretty tough guy. He was on brand, everyone on the right, the mega knuckleheads all cheered him. However, in August, Chad, just a few months later, he was sighted online enjoying a Bud Light at a Nashville bar. Oops. That's...
SFX: That's winning.
Joel: That's not winning, Chad, by the way. So Twitter cried treason, of course, highlighting his flip flop.
[laughter]
Joel: Then, Chad, just this month, he goes on Hannity, and for those of you who don't know Hannity, he is a Fox News celebrity, and says that he never called for a boycott of the beer, and he feels bad about the people who lost their jobs because of his stunt. For the record, Bud Light's stock has almost back up to pre Kid Rock and pre boycott levels. No word on the hundreds of people who did lose their job when the stock did tank. But for all this and more, the flopping, the idiocy, just the relevant knuckleheadedness of America, Kid Rock gets my first jive turkey of 2023.
Speaker 4: It ain't cool being no jive turkey so close to Thanksgiving.
Chad: So much fake outrage in 2023. There's just so much of it. People are so pissed and they're so mad, and you try to ask them, "About what? What are you really mad at?"
Joel: He should be mad about not making a hit in the last 20 years. That's what he should be mad about.
Chad: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was a diversion.
Joel: Bawitdaba was a long time ago, Mr. Rock. Bawitdaba was a long time ago.
Chad: Nobody is paying attention to him. And he wants somebody to pay attention to him. So therefore, fake outrage gets him attention, apparently not the attention that he wanted.
Joel: Before we get to yours, and I know everyone is really excited, let's take a quick break, pay some bills and we'll be right back with Chad's jive turkey of 2023, number two.
Joel: All right, Chad, it's our Jive Turkey episode. You've already given us one, Elon and Twitter/X. Now give us your number two jive Turkey of 2023.
Chad: Well, Joel, my next turkey is what I would like to call a shared dining experience, where a portion of this is gonna go to Grindr, a location-based social networking and online dating application targeted towards gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Why Grindr?
SFX: Just a tip.
Chad: That's right. Because Grindr targeted LinkedIn by saying their location-based matching platform would double as a hiring platform.
Joel: Say what?
Chad: Yes. A dating app doubling as a hiring app. Anyone with half a brain will understand that using a hookup app is not a smart move for hiring. Seriously, what company wants to have a hookup culture in the office? And the final portion of this turkey dinner goes to Zing. Zing is reversing course and turning itself from a LinkedIn style platform, mainly in Germany, into a job board. So literally, instead of just adding job search matching and engagement capabilities into their social platform, they decreased their tam dramatically along with any valuation they had. So this shared dining experience is a combo platter for Grindr and Zing served up by our friends at LinkedIn.
Joel: Look at you with the puns.
S8: Has anyone noticed this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
[laughter]
Joel: And you accused me of the dad jokes. My favorite part about the Grindr story was it happened when we were live at Shaker headquarters.
[laughter]
Joel: And we bring Joe Shaker to an interview and the first thing we say is, "So Grindr for jobs, man, are you guys pushing that to your customers?" And of course, Joe had to be as diplomatic as possible and say...
Chad: He took it like a champ. He took it like a champ.
Joel: Yeah, something like, "We look at all the advertising mediums and we look at them, objectively," yada, yada, yada, yada. But you could tell he really appreciated that he was on the Grindr episode. He really appreciated that.
SFX: What are you doing, step bro?
Joel: All right. Well, that's gobble number two from Chad. My number two gobbler goes to Joonko, yeah, a company we didn't talk about a lot. That's J-O-O-N-K-O. And they got KO this year, if you will. A little bit about them. Founded in 2016, they focused on helping underrepresented candidates get hired. Well, that was pretty hot back in 2020, '21, '22. A noble go for sure. They were spearheaded by Ilit Raz, their founder and CEO. Well, in September of '22, they raised $25 million and things looked pretty great for the company. Now, fast forward to June of this year, and Raz is in trouble as the company faces collapse... And in fact, they have collapsed. We'll get to that in a second. Due to allegations that it misled investors. An internal probe revealed Raz's involvement in unethical practices, exaggerating the company's business size. She allegedly claimed partnerships with 150 companies than the actual number was much lower than that. The scheme involved fake invoices, fake wire transfers, and fake bank accounts. Oi!
Chad: Jesus. Oh, my God.
Joel: Raz, who resigned following these findings, has not commented on the allegations. They also, Chad, if you want more, claimed 500% sales growth for the two years following the investment. They lied about partnerships with American Express, PayPal, and Accenture. As of today, the website is kaput. It's down, it's out. Sorry for the employees that got behind this company and this leader, including our friend, Albrey Brown, who's been on the show at least once. Turkey number two for me goes to Joonko and its founder. Oi!
Chad: How is she not in jail? She took money, she faked invoices, she faked wire transfers, bank information. How is she not in jail? That's the question.
Joel: I wanna know when her Hulu series is coming out. Forget jail.
[laughter]
Joel: These people go to TV when they do this kind of shit. We work.
Chad: Well, I think if she went to jail...
Joel: We work Uber. She should face justice for sure. We'll follow this story. But yeah, everything has been erased minus their LinkedIn page which they still have.
Chad: Yeah. That's fraud. I don't know how they don't go to jail.
Joel: Every year something like this happens. Whether it's the oil rig guy from a year or so ago, whether it's Zenefits.
Chad: Rigzone. Yeah.
Joel: Yeah. The fraud isn't just for Theranos and WeWork and the companies that get Hulu series. They happen in our industry too. And hopefully, we're there to highlight it and talk about it in 24 when it happens with whoever. Whatever unicorn defrauds investors next year, we'll be there to talk about it a year from now. But that is my turkey number two, Chad. What do you got next?
Chad: I've got the biggest turkey. So let me go ahead and set this up for you. You might know a guy by the name of Sam Altman and also Greg Brockman. They did what every other founder was afraid to do. While every other founder keeps their products behind the demo wall, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman gave everyone access to the product. No charge. Go play with it. Have fun. Rate it. Talk about it. Tell your friends, family, your peers at work. Just use it. Use ChatGPT.
Joel: This is sounding pretty good so far, Chad. Does this turn take a turn for the worst? What...
Chad: It's getting there. It's getting there. This is why it's a big Turkey. I need a big setup. Overnight ChatGPT and OpenAI became household names and catapulted into a position as the leader in generative AI, a company most of the population had never heard of before. They became the leader in AI overnight. Sam Altman was constantly featured in stories, on stages all over the world. He was the new tech wunderkind.
Joel: Poster child. Yep.
Chad: So an overnight success. And remember most people had no clue who the fuck he or OpenAI was just a year ago. Microsoft sees its chance, funds OpenAI with $13 billion, that's billion with a B, $13 billion. All Microsoft products are now infused with OpenAI generative AI. Yeah, exactly. Google is caught off guard, fumbles the release of its ChatGPT competitor, Bard. Who makes Google stumble and look like it's amateur hour? Nobody does, but Greg and Sam did. Last Friday, this is where it comes. Last Friday, a year after ChatGPT was opened up to the masses, OpenAI's board sacked Sam Altman and Greg Brockman quit in solidarity. Microsoft only received word about two minutes before the press release was dropped. That's right. Microsoft, the same close partner, the one that has $13 billion, injecting OpenAI tech even into their product suite. No heads up. So in a baller move, Microsoft brings Altman and Brockman both to the head of Microsoft's new AI venture. That's right. The new CEO of OpenAI will have to report to its big biggest partner and customer, Sam and Greg.
[laughter]
Chad: So meanwhile, 550 out of 700 employees at OpenAI have signed a letter telling the board to resign, or they're going to leave and go to Microsoft with Altman and Brockman. OpenAI, no doubt, is the biggest turkey of the year.
Joel: And more directly, the board, I guess, and whoever made these decisions.
SFX: 60% of the time it works.
Chad: Three people left on the board. Three people left on the board. They're going to have to go ahead and commit Harry Carey. They're gonna have to restock the board. There's gonna have to be something that happens. But what does Microsoft do? Do they just sit back and watch or do they just go ahead and and buy this thing up? That's the question.
Joel: Yeah. This is fascinating.
Chad: It is.
Joel: This is news. This is like unfolding as we record and more news will come out about this. There was word of trying to bring Sam back. There are obviously employment agreements in place. These people in California, where there is no agreement. There is no non compete.
Chad: Exactly.
Joel: How many are in states that do. The board has egg on its face just immensely. The payouts by Microsoft, as I understand it, are due to milestones that the company hits, and so it wasn't like they just backed up the Brinks truck and said, "Here's billions and billions of dollars."
Chad: But it's their waiting, right?
Joel: Yeah. [laughter] Microsoft may have just bought this company or the brain power of this company. They're already doing the server power. They've already integrated it into their stuff. Microsoft may have pulled off the biggest coup in corporate history, 'cause Zuck and Google and Amazon was all on the phone trying to get Sam to come...
Chad: Oh God. Yeah.
Joel: Do something at...
Chad: Easily.
Joel: The only few companies that have the power that can do the things that OpenAI does. But anyway, yeah. This may go down in history as Microsoft's greatest takeover by acquisition. I don't know. It's very interesting. The board looks really stupid and we criticize Zuck for having total control of Facebook. We criticize Elon for basically having no board. He just calls the shots. This is kinda what happens when a founder or guy that is in charge has no stake in the company. He's on record saying, "I don't want any share of the company. This is an open project," yada yada. This looks like a hissy fit. This looks like a knee jerk reaction.
Chad: Easily. Yes.
Joel: It looks like billionaires that are having a hissy fit are throwing a tantrum over something. But it's very odd. Very odd. Very odd.
Chad: Well, I've gotta give you one more quick story. So Julie and I, we went to a Google developer conference in Lagos this last weekend. On our way back, we were listening to one of the "emergency podcasts" from one of my favorite podcasts called Hard Fork. And I'm sitting here listening to it and I look at Julie and I said, "You know what I would do if I was Satya? I would hire Altman and I would... " That is a baller move if you can get him. Because then whoever comes in at OpenAI is going to be literally reporting to Altman at that point. And the next thing you know, Julie comes out yesterday and she's like, "Did you see the news?" I'm like, "No. What?" "Yeah. They did exactly what you said they were gonna do."
[laughter]
SFX: Oops. Winning. [laughter]
Joel: Yes. It's very, very bizarre. Well, from one corporate gobbler to another, my third gobbler of the year. And this pains me, Chad. It pains me, 'cause... I think I speak for both of us when I say that we love iCIMS.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: Early supporter. Analyst day. We knew the early people, the early folks. We were there in the acquisition. Some of the people there are our biggest fans, we're some of their biggest fans, but there's really no getting around that they did a real jive turkey move this year. So in fall of '22, they announced at their annual show a new CEO, Brian Provost, who gets ultimately my Jive Turkey of the Year award. So '22 fall, they announced Provost as CEO. By '23 fall, he is out, resigned abruptly as CEO of iCIMS. The company cited personal reasons. You and I went on the show on the weekly edition and said thoughts and prayers if this is something personal that he just couldn't get out of, just like an emergency thing.
Joel: And the more I talked to other people that I trust and sort of been around a while and I thought about it myself, if it was a personal reason, when CEOs leave for personal reason, even when Steve Jobs left for cancer and dealing with that, they had an interim CEO, and typically, "I'm gonna come back once we've beaten this thing," or, "Once the personal thing is resolved, I'll come back." But until then let's get a plan together. Who's gonna be interim? Who's gonna be the new whatever? There's a plan laid out. It's not like an abrupt, "I'm out of here for personal reasons." So clearly, just like OpenAI, multi-billion dollar valued company has hissy fits on the board, has CEOs that abruptly leave. There's no way of getting around it. Brian Provost bounced on iCIMS. We don't know why. We can speculate. They were supposed to go public. Maybe that was part of the vision and the company did a u-turn on that. Maybe he got into the business and said, "Oops, this wasn't what I expected." We don't really know. And unfortunately, I don't think we ever will know. To this day, iCIMS is still without a CEO. Or at least I haven't seen anything across the wire. And I think that I would if I did. I don't think they've announced a date for their annual event. I think that's on ice.
Chad: Yeah, I think it's in May.
Joel: Okay. So tentatively next year it'll hopefully happen. And we'd love to attend. We did their keynote, I guess, or one of their big stage... We had a nice stage presence last year. Anyway, this guy comes on at the annual event. He talks about his family. He is a hockey guy, kind of a tough guy, Minnesota salt of the earth. And then he just bounces from the organization. According to his LinkedIn profile he is now a board member at Zenwork and Border Foods. I don't know, Border Foods, but Zenwork deals with taxes and regulation reporting, and they just got $163 million in investment. So I'm guessing Mr. Provost will land on his feet there at Zenwork in some form or fashion while iCIMS sits sort of stagnant without a CEO. And for that reason, my number three gobbler of the year goes to iCIMS' former CEO, Brian Provost.
Chad: A guy like Brian Provost, you expect more. And at this point, the only thing I can say is from the outside looking in, he just didn't give a shit.
[laughter]
Chad: He just didn't give a shit. He either has enough money in the bank, which I'm sure he does. He has enough connections. He was part of this PE portfolio. He just didn't give a shit. And that to me is sad because, again, it impacts a company, hundreds of people, thousands, especially if you're talking about customers.
Joel: People we know and love.
Chad: Yeah. So personally for me, I'm going to say, "Fuck that guy."
[laughter]
Joel: Always you to mince words, Chad. Always you to dance around the topic. But yeah, look, you don't take this job without being an adult, and that did not happen here. And that is very unfortunate. ICIMS will land on their feet though. ICIMS will land on their feet.
Chad: I think they will.
Joel: And we will land on our feet after we take a quick break before we get to Chad's final gobbler of 2023.
Joel: All right, Chad, we've gone through a long list of turkeys, my friend. I'm almost full. I'm almost done with turkey. I almost can't take it anymore, but I think you might save us with a new menu item. What you got?
Chad: Yes. Well, for those who don't like turkey, I've chosen to add a little ham to the menu.
Joel: Ooh.
Chad: A couple of weeks ago, SilkRoad changed their name to, wait for it, Rival and their domain, they changed their domain name from silkroad.com, that's a damn good domain name.
Joel: Yep. Don't say it.
Chad: To rival-hr.com, a very less...
Joel: Oh, no.
Chad: Less amazing name. So this is...
Joel: No. Did you say hyphen, dash?
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Oh, no. No.
Chad: So this is quite odd as SilkRoad Technology was founded in 2003. Yeah, they're 20 years old, so why the change? If you're an established and well recognized player in the space, why change? Well, I think that's the problem. SilkRoad isn't a widely recognized player. After 20 years as a core talent platform, something had to change, and it did. Remember that SilkRoad acquired Entelo right off the clearance rack a little over a year ago, and then elevated Entelo's clearance rack CEO, Robert Tsao, to the CEO of SilkRoad. And I think we were both kind of mesmerized about, "What the fuck is going on here?" So how does a point solution clearance rack CEO ascend to become the CEO of the acquiring organization? Well, let's go back to 2021, when HighBar Partners acquired SilkRoad, there it is. PE wanted, no, they needed a change. So acquire some new cool tech off the clearance rack, kick out the current CEO, elevate the clearance rack CEO. We're all good. We're on our way. Well, apparently not all change is good because Robert Tsao was replaced by Greg DiTullio, I think that's how you say it.
Joel: R2-D2. What?
Chad: Yeah, if you are R2-D2. And SilkRoad can now be found at rival-hr.com. High Partners is slapping more lipstick on their pig than Indeed, which is why High Partners receives the 2023 Little Piggy award. That's soo bad.
Joel: That's a lot of ham right there, baby.
Chad: That's so bad.
Joel: That's a lot of ham. Chad, I'm impressed. You stayed focused. You didn't go to Johnny Taylor. You did. You stayed away from Indeed. We both did.
Chad: No, Josh Bersin.
Joel: No, Josh. That was my next one. No Bersin. So you've spared a lot of people this year, and they should be thankful for that, my friend, as they sit down for dinner. Any other honorable mentions that you can think of? I'll throw out one.
Chad: Go ahead.
Joel: ZipRecruiter's Ant-Man promotion almost made my turkeys.
Chad: Oh, Jeez.
Joel: If you remember the Ant-Man commercials that did not feature Paul Rudd's voice. I'm sure they couldn't afford Paul Rudd's voice as part of the promotion, but they did a...
Chad: Ridiculous.
Joel: Promotion with Ant-Man and put no Ant-Man stuff on the website. There was nothing on the website that was like partnering with Ant-Man, searching for jobs. So ZipRecruiter almost made my list of turkeys and shit.
Chad: So did their marketing team get totally cut prior to that? Because this is like there's... It was like there was nobody at home.
Joel: If they had just had the Marvels and the blockbuster Marvel film that just came out, that's a whole other podcast that I'm sure you have opinion on. You also stayed away from Wrexham, which I'm guessing is gonna be in our Christmas naughty or nice episode. I'm guessing we're gonna hear some Ryan Reynolds...
Chad: There's a possibility.
Joel: At Christmas time. But until then, Chad, happy Thanksgiving, happy Turkey day. However, you celebrate or don't celebrate.
Chad: Happy barbecue.
Joel: Barbecue, football, hopefully for you, Ohio State in a route of that team up north. I will talk to you, my friend, after the week. I'm gonna miss you, man. I'm gonna miss you.
Chad: Miss you.
Joel: Miss you so much, dude. Get the fuck out of here.
Joel: All right. Enough of that. We out.
Chad: We out.
OUTRO: Thank you for listening to... What's it called? The podcast. The Chad, The Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting, they talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shoutouts of people you don't even know, and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese. Not one cheddar, blue nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. There's so many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any who, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It is so weird. We out.
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