This episode could've been a double album it's so full of amazing content ... Chad & Cheese: The White Album, if you will. We're talkin' layoffs at Snagajob and Meta, Indeed telling customers, "There's nothing to see here," LinkedIn embracing its inner Guns 'n' Roses, OpenAI taking aim at Apple's iPhone, Tesla getting nervous about the UAW strike, Who'd Ya' Rather with Hiring Branch and Transfr and Chipotle's "cobotics," collaborative robots that work with, rather than replace, humans. It's a nice compliment to Chipotle’s Chippy and Autocado automation. Drink it all in, because the boys are travelin' for the next 2 weeks, so we made sure this one was the Big Mac of podcast episodes.
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Intro: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Joel: Oh, yeah. We sail around the world and go port to port every time. Hey kids, you are listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host, Joel, bags-packed, Cheeseman.
Chad: And this is Chad, speaker of the house, Sowash.
Joel: And on this week's show Indeed clears the air, open AI takes on the iPhone and Cobotics at Chipotle. Let's do this. Alright. Is the Portugal jersey a subliminal message that you're ready to get out? Get the hell out of the US? As we sit in a rainy Indiana as we...
Chad: Yes. Yes. Wait a minute. My dogs are going crazy.
Joel: The dogs even wanna go. That's right. The dogs...
Chad: Oh my God, my dogs want to go to Portugal. [laughter] Yeah. They want to go to Portugal. Unfortunately, they're not gonna go to Portugal. I'll be back. There's a cat.
Joel: There's a cat. And we're back.
Chad: Luckily we went through COVID and everybody's used to that shit now. So it's all good.
Joel: Okay.
Chad: As a matter of fact, I gotta do this. It's been one of those days, dude. It's fucking October. Yes. And you're right. One of the things that I am excited about is being on the road and finding myself on the beaches of Portugal for all of Q4. I can't fucking wait.
Joel: So a lot of news around bedbugs in Paris, which scares me a little bit 'cause we're going to Paris, but they haven't made their way to Portugal yet. No bedbug issues...
Chad: No.
Joel: In Portugal. Yeah. This is scary stuff. We got riots in Paris. We got bedbugs.
Chad: You always have riots in Paris.
Joel: That's true. Always a revolution in Paris. I see videos of like don't sit down in the metro. It must be bad.
Chad: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I reached out to our Airbnb and said, we need to ensure there aren't bed bugs there. And they said that they've been doing the refreshing checks and whatnot. So I do love taking the metro while I'm there, but I'm not sure that I'm going to this time around. I think I might just stay close to home on this one.
Joel: As long as there's no outbreak of the Vonk in Paris during UNLEASH.
Chad: There's gonna be an outbreak of the Vonk, I can almost guarantee you.
Joel: Oh shit. That's gonna be scary.
Chad: I can guarantee you. We're gonna need shots again for that shit. Yeah. No kidding. No kidding. Fuck!
Joel: Oh, I can't wait to get out though. Can't wait to get out. Can't wait to get out. Vegas next week we get back and basically I get a, a two hour nap and then it's off to Europe that next week. So shows will be interesting for the next couple weeks everybody. So enjoy this sit down, boring, well prepared for, long show 'cause there's a lot of stuff in the news.
Chad: Lots of content gonna be coming your way kids. And that being said, let's go ahead and hit a little shout out action. And I'm gonna start out with Terry Baker. You might've heard of him before, who was just named the new CEO of Daxtra. Terry is an industry veteran with deep CEO and CRO experience in this space. Prior to this position, Terry was the CEO of Pandologic, prior to their acquisition by Veritone. He was there for a little bit after that. And I forgot that Terry was with Adicio for six plus years.
Joel: Wow.
Chad: Remember Adicio?
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Yeah. What a blast from the past. Anyways I personally felt that Daxtra was given a knockout punch by Textkernel after Textkernel acquired Sovereign, but apparently Daxtra has a new sugar daddy. They've got some money. This is gonna be the first swing I see is Terry jumping in and we'll see if they can make some noise. But Daxtra was, they were around and they were in the conversation for years prior to COVID. It's almost like they caught COVID. They never came out of it 'cause they went silent. Apparently they're back. So, we will see what kind of ammunition they have, because I'm gonna tell you right now. Yes, Textkernel is a sponsor of the show, but I'm gonna tell you right now, kids, they are the world fucking leader in this space, especially after buying Sovereign. So they're forced to be reckoned with. So good luck to Terry.
Joel: Yeah. I'm just happy that Terry's working for a Scottish company, which means there could be bottles of scotch show up at my house randomly. That's...
Chad: Yes.
Joel: That's what I'm excited about everybody.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: That's what I'm excited about. Well, speaking of companies with a lot of money, Jamie Dimon gets a shout out from me. I know how you love a good Jamie Dimon. Shout out. But anyway, I digress. JP Morgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon expresses optimism about the benefits of AI predicting it will lead to a shorter work week and enhance various aspects of the bank's operations. Dimon said this week in an interview with Bloomberg, "Your children are going to live to a hundred and not have cancer because of technology." And literally, they'll probably be working three and a half days a week. Of course, if they're working for JP Morgan Chase, all of those days will be in an office. Shout out to Jamie Dimon.
SFX: All right. All right. All right.
Chad: On the other side of that spectrum, shout out to unions who seem to be getting their mojo back. Since UPS, SAG-AFTRA and the UAW started making waves, more unions started following their lead. This week Kaiser Permanente had 75,000 workers walk off the job, which is the largest healthcare workers strike in history. The American workers have taken lower pay year after year, after year, while profits reach record levels, executive take huge pay increases and stock buybacks occur and they're becoming the norm. The rich get rich richer off the backs of the people who are actually performing the work. And this makes the union mojo even stronger. So here we go kids. Shout out to Union Mojo.
SFX: That escalated quickly.
Joel: Yeah. Unions are having a moment, but I hope they're not having too big of a moment while we're in Vegas because apparently the service folks want to strike. And if I can't get a Laphroaig at the bar, I'm gonna be really upset in Vegas.
Chad: If I have to serve myself, I'll be okay.
Joel: It is not gonna be...
Chad: I'll be fine.
Joel: Not gonna be good. You know who needs a union, Chad? It's all the AI actors...
Chad: Oh Jesus.
Joel: That are going down recently. This week Tom Hanks, the real Tom Hanks warned fans about a fake advertisement using an AI generated version of his likeness without permission. Sharing an image of the ad on Instagram and highlighting the issue of deep fake technology. But wait, Chad, there's more. Zelda Williams, daughter of the late Robin Williams criticized the use of AI to recreate her father's voice this week, expressing concerns about consent and the impact on living actors saying, "These recreations are at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous frankensteinian monster cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is." Me thinks this is just the beginning of AI's weird dance with Hollywood, Chad.
Chad: I agree. I hope that AI doesn't get into the free stuff business. That's all I gotta say, because while we are at it, you can go to chadcheese.com/free where you can win beer from Aspen Tech Labs. Whiskey from Textkernel, t-shirts from JobGet. And if it's your birthday kids, you could win rum from plum.io. Go there and get your assessment done.
SFX: Really? Can you feel the tension in the air right now? I know I can, I can feel it all the way down.
Joel: Oh, that's right. Everybody as Chad Chugs another beer. Let's celebrate another trip around the sun with...
Chad: Oh that's good. Cheers.
Joel: Some birthdays of fans this week. And by the way, I put in I think two or three weeks in our birthdays 'cause we're probably gonna miss them next week after Vegas hangover. So celebrating, is that a Great Lakes? Very nice.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Cleveland style. All right. That's good. All right. We got Daniel Brian Fellows, Mark Jenkins, Gary Gray, Denise Adams. Cheryl Callaway, Jameson Stark...
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Tom Kenny, Ryan Beck. Gareth Feevu, Tom Hannon, Brandon Pointer, Carla Dewey Goings. Does that sound... Dewey Goings? That sounds fake to me.
Chad: I love it. No, it does sound fake, but I like it.
Joel: Carla Dewey Goings, Todd Duclose, Tom Stonelink. And our favorite Scott Steven McGrath, all celebrate another birthday.
SFX: Here we go. Happy birthday. Yes!
Joel: We'll see Steven in Paris. Maybe he'll show up with a little, little liquid gold for us down there in Paris. Hint, hint, hint, hint, Steven. Although it's his birthday, maybe we should be the ones bringing something.
Chad: That's not how this works, Joel.
Joel: I know.
Chad: That is not how this works.
Joel: We're the podcasters. We don't pay for shit.
Chad: When you're talking about events, we've got HRTech next week in Vegas. If you're going to be at HRTech, where can you find the Chad and Cheese? Where can you find t-shirts? Where can you find, I don't know, beer and food? Or where can you bring beer and food? That's a good question. At Booth 1125, we will be in the Fuel 50 booth where they're allowing us to crash. I don't know why they're doing that, but they're allowing down by the river. We're gonna be there doing interviews.
SFX: I'm happy.
Chad: Saying hi, doing pictures. They've got like professional headshots that are going on there. I think you do a professional headshot and then you do a professional headshot with Chad and Cheese. So come to the Fuel 50 booth. Then as you had said, Joel, we got to hop on a plane, come back home. I actually have to go to Ohio for a for a wedding. My niece's wedding. Then I've gotta come back. Then we've gotta go to Paris. Then we're going to Paris for UNLEASH, which is always fucking amazing. Who doesn't love Paris? Sands bedbugs, obviously but Paris, just a staple of products, services, practitioners and great content. Chad and Cheese are going to be in the Textkernel booth. It feels like a Textkernel show so far. So come out there and then December 4th through the 6th, I'm gonna be in the London for TA Tech Europe where I'm going to be MCing. So it's gonna be a good time. We've got a lot of stuff going on. And fuck guys, we're in Q4. Come out, enjoy the rest of the year and do that at HRTech, UNLEASH and TA Tech.
Joel: So let's touch on this pictures with Chad and Cheese at HRTech. I wanna start a new LinkedIn profile pick trend. I wanna see a bunch of profile picks with Chad, I and whoever is taking the photos. I think that's a trend we can, we can all get behind. Unlike the trend of my record in fantasy football, Chad.
Chad: You suck.
Joel: It is a tough, it's a tough...
Chad: An A player baby.
Joel: It's a tough first quarter of the season. Our fantasy football is sponsored by our friends at Factory Fix, which they've apparently thrown a ringer into the mix 'cause their number two on the leaderboard is Joe Dixon. But number one...
Chad: It's early.
Joel: Number one is Marcy Mallrat, who I think is in her fourth week now. Oh, I guess third week at number one. She's kicking ass at four and O. Joe Mama Dixon. Number two, followed by Michelle Sergeant Pepper, Brent Berry Losie at number four. Dina Freeman Perro, number five, number six, Chad Sweet Sowash, sweet spot, he's right in that middle. He is not showing off. He's not falling behind. Just like Castanza. Number seven, Jack and Jill Patterson. She's got an MBA I know. 'cause it's in her name on LinkedIn. Number eight, Dean Ozzy Ossner. Number nine, Kristen Bell Urban. Number 10, Jasper Indiana Sponge Art our European guy in the mix. Number 11, Joel Blue Cheeseman. It's blue 'cause I'm kind of blue that I'm so down the line at number 12 in the caboose again. Dennis, last year's champion, terrible tupper rounds out our fantasy football.
Chad: Dude, I almost knocked Marcy off the fucking top. She had 27... Her defense scored 27 downs defense. 27 points which is like three times the normal amount. So I thought I had her. And then Dallas played, and I knew I was fucked.
Joel: I, every week have a component who has someone who blows up. This past week it was McCaffrey. McCaffrey had like 50 fan... Dude scored four touchdowns.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: And I lost by four points like that. I still feel good about my team.
Chad: It hurts. It hurts.
Joel: When I played you, it was Keenan Allen who had like 40 some points. Every week someone blows up the tanks. Tanks my team. But it's a long season. Half the league is at two and two. So there's, still hope. I gotta perform this week. But...
Chad: It's okay.
Joel: But otherwise, yeah. It's not, not been a good season for me at all. Alright. Let's get into...
SFX: Playoffs.
Joel: Let's play some layoffs here.
Chad: Layoffs?
Joel: To start the show. Snagajob is on life support. The company who says they're the country's largest marketplace for hourly work and who had a round of blowoffs in August 22, has laid off, "Many workers." That's according to a post on LinkedIn by a former employee. Also according to LinkedIn, the company has hired pretty much no one in 2023 and has seen a 33% reduction in sales and engineering in the past 12 months. In the past 24 months, there's been a 38% reduction in head count. They currently have 216 total workers. We'll see how much they have a year from now. I talk about CareerBuilder and Monster getting acquired by European Sugar Daddy, screw that. Job and talent, if you're listening, Snagajob is on sale now at your local TJMaxx. Don't walk, run to get this on the cheap job board in America.
Chad: Don't do it. Oh my God. Don't do it. These companies and the ones that that we talk about that are definitely, they've just fallen off the cliff for god's sakes. When you see salespeople being pushed out the door, that's a huge fucking identifier. That's a huge signal that things are fucked up, right? Yeah. So I did see many salespeople on LinkedIn saying that they were part of the purge. All I can say is we should play taps right now because they're dead. Snagajob is pretty much dead at this point.
Joel: Yeah. Taps, I'll see your taps and up you a... How about that? But that's not all Chad. Meta, your favorite social media site is planning to lay off employees this week in the unit of its metaverse division. That's according to Reuters. We don't know how deep the cuts will be, but 600 employees work on the Metaverse project. I wonder if they'll be laid off in person or in the Metaverse. Chad, what do you think?
Chad: I think that Mark Zuckerberg obviously doesn't know where the puck is going because where he's skating, is not working, is not working. And I don't know how many times we've talked about CEOs where they can reach a certain level. And you've got your, your, your startup CEO then you've got your take it to the growth stage, CEO and so on and so forth. He's been around since day fucking won. He just needs to go find a fucking yacht, be chairman of the board and give somebody else the reins 'cause this motherfucker does not know what's going on. Hey, go have your cage match with Elon. Go train for that. Go train for that, but get the fuck outta Meta because you are fucking things up, dude.
Joel: I guess that means you're not gonna buy their new RayBan augmented glasses.
SFX: Hasn't anyone noticed this. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: All right. Well, that is our layoff segment of the show.
SFX: Playoffs.
Joel: Let's get to some real news, shall we?
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Two of our favorite companies are in the news this week, Chad. First up, Indeed says there's nothing to see here. They've apparently resolved initial issues with its pay per apply system. Raj Mukherjee, a senior executive at Indeed mentioned during a marketing conference that employer satisfaction has improved since the PPA rollout. The company plans to continue with PPA while also offering pay-per-click with daily budget limits for the foreseeable future. They're also getting into AI in a big way, soon to be using it to enhance matching and messaging technologies for employers, including drafting email responses, creating job seeker profiles, and improving response rates. Chad, what are your thoughts on the news from Indeed.
Chad: So Indeed is trying their nothing to see here, as you'd said bit again.
Joel: Yeah. Yeah.
SFX: Alright, move on. Nothing to see here. Please disperse. Nothing to see here, please.
Chad: Okay. It's funny because they sprinkle AI into this, which is a total diversion. It's like, oh, look over there. Nothing to see here. Look over there. Raj Mukherjee or whatever the fuck his last name is.
Joel: Rob M. [laughter]
Chad: Said employer satisfaction has improved considerably with the pay-per-application product. So remember Indeed was charging companies at like around 10x. The system was going out of whack, right? So improved considerably is a fucking low bar, Raj. Okay? That's a low bar. It's improved considerably. Okay. Let's get back to the basics here again, they're trying the diversion of AI. Don't bite on that bait. On the SMB side of the house, small companies will have to pay higher rates for a wave of unqualified candidates with a new shade of lipstick on the Indeed Pig called Pay for Results, which is the exact same as pay-per-application, right? Pay-per-apply, exact same thing, but they put a new shade of color of lipstick on the Indeed Pig. On the enterprise side, pay-per-started-apply is another new shade of lipstick on the same fucking pig. Pay-per-started-apply is what used to be called pay-per-click back in the olden days, just like 10 years ago.
Chad: So don't be fooled, kids. Indeed is just applying a new shade of lipstick to the same old pig and they're asking you to pay more. It's the same thing, only at a higher price. Don't be a sucker. Don't be a sucker. Don't fall for the AI games. Don't fall for the new lipstick shade on the same fucking pig, guys. Also on the trusted network side of the equation, and this one's from the AIM Group, they did some really good reporting on this "Indeed now reaches 350 million job seekers each month worldwide and has ongoing relationships with 3.5 million employers. Both numbers up 40% in the last 18 months." Okay, so all of you vendors that are out there that are pushing job seeker traffic to Indeed and you are responsible for that 350 million job seekers. I want you to listen up. Indeed crushed Monster and CareerBuilder without having forced registration processes in place. They crushed them without that. Now Indeed forces job seekers to register, which means they are actually siphoning your talent pools. If they now own your talent, what the actual fuck do they need you for? So you're going to be squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until you're dead. Or just zombie companies like CareerBuilder and Monster. But remember, kids, there's nothing to see here.
Joel: Is it any coincidence that Indeed started putting their jobs on Google For Jobs about 6 to 12 months ago? Do you think that maybe they realized they were having their annual meeting and wanted to juice up their numbers? And putting jobs on Google might help with that 40% increase that you mentioned...
Chad: Doesn't hurt. Yeah.
Joel: From the AIM reporting. Is that a coincidence? I don't think so.
Chad: No. Doesn't hurt.
Joel: At least we know now their next magic trick. [laughter] Their next shiny thing over here. Oh, it's AI everybody.
Chad: AI.
Joel: AI, we're going to be launching some AI shit that's going to blow you away and keep you on the heroin drip that is Indeed. So. Yes, Chad is right. You guys keep falling for this shit. It's incredible, amazing. But their next show...
Chad: Everybody does.
Joel: Their next show, and we will be tuning-in and talking about it endlessly and ceaselessly is the AI magic trick. And we know about magic tricks, Chad.
SFX: 60% of the time, it works every time.
Joel: Oh, yes. But there's someone else, Chad, that's getting into the AI game. And this one might be for real. Not to be left behind in AI. LinkedIn also made news this week. The company has introduced new AI driven products to enhance recruitment and employee training. The new recruiting tool leverages data on over 950 million professionals to identify qualified job candidates beyond traditional sources I.e. Job boards allowing recruiters to describe ideal candidates in natural language and suggest expanding location skills and remote work options to widen the talent pool. The tool also relies on candidate provided insights like their willingness to work and company values alignment integrations called CRM connect linked recruiter with existing Candidate Relationship Management System. These products are currently in pilot stages with select customers. Chad, are you ready to board the LinkedIn AI train?
Chad: See, now, when Indeed says AI, it's a total fucking diversion. For LinkedIn it's not a fucking diversion. They have many more signals from job seekers. Not just signals, not just daily signals, not just interactions and engagement, but they also have history, right? They've got crazy amounts of it, they are 21 fucking years old, which just blows my mind. They're legal to drink, which I need another beer here in a minute. But here's a quote from the TechCrunch article. "LinkedIn is not entirely new to the AI rodeo. It has, in fact, been a heavy user of AI over the years. But until recently, most of that has been out of sight." Okay, so let me get this straight.
Chad: LinkedIn's job matching algorithm has been shit for years. It still is. And now they're telling us that that's been AI, I really, really hope, and this is my hope for LinkedIn. I hope they can get their shit together when it comes to not all the fluffy bullshit stuff that they... They won't talk about AI coaching and whatnot. Don't fuck with that. Fuck with the things that you have already. The data that you can grind into that AI, those large language models can eat. That's what you need. That's exactly what you need. Go after that. Give us a better relevance, deliver better job postings, deliver better content, and focus on those things first. Then the rest of it will just come in line. I really want to see LinkedIn do well here. I think they have a better, a much better opportunity than Indeed is, but at the end of the day, they gotta prove it.
Joel: Chad, I got to admit, I was pretty excited about this news...
SFX: What are you doing step-bro?
Joel: So welcome to the party, pal. Oh, by the way, your boy Josh Burson calls this exciting, and that's probably enough for anybody in terms of what this is.
Chad: How much does LinkedIn pay Josh Burson to say that it's exciting? That's the question.
Joel: I don't know, but he's excited.
Chad: I don't either. Josh, Josh, how much do they pay you?
Joel: Whatever it is, he's incredibly excited.
SFX: Aai, papi.
Joel: All right. LinkedIn has a new appetite for destruction and everyone should start looking alive. Okay? Not surprisingly, LinkedIn also announced that jobs mentioning AI doubled in the past 2 years. This is what a billion dollar investment in OpenAI by your sugar daddy, Microsoft, means for LinkedIn. You mentioned the rich get richer, and it could not be more true. While Indeed is concerned about packages and playing magic games, LinkedIn is moving it at hyper-speed. Look, we're moving beyond job search. It's like, let Google have the job posting. LinkedIn owns sourcing and soon to own AI. Look, SeekOut, better have some life alert. They better have that little necklace with the life alert. I'm very nervous if I'm competition to LinkedIn, which by the way includes just about everybody that we're going to see at HRTech and UNLEASH World in the next couple of weeks. Appetite for destruction. The big dog is hungry, everybody, and OpenAI is dangerous. Chad, it's on son.
Chad: Indeed's fallen and they can't get up. Is that what you're going for?
Joel: It's on.
SFX: Alright, alright, alright.
Joel: I got kind of juiced then, I need one of your beers, I think. All right, let's go to our next new story. OpenAI versus Apple. That's right more AI everybody. OpenAI is reportedly exploring the development of an AI hardware device. Sam Altman, OpenAI's founder, has had discussions with Jony Ive, renowned for designing Apple products, about this endeavor. While specific details about the product remain limited, it suggests a potential next generation consumer electronic device that integrates AI into your daily life. Sounds like it's about time to dump the Android, Chad, what are your thoughts on this development?
Chad: So I got to say Apple is the only big player that's not in the generative AI product game, right?
Joel: They're doing something. They got stuff going on in the background, don't you worry?
Chad: Okay. Okay. Okay. We'll hope that that's the key. Well, if not, that means that they have an exposed flank as Google and Android will probably integrate Google Genesis into their operating system with, while Apple does what? They're going to have to lean heavily on Microsoft or Amazon at some time. So this is a very, very big signal to Apple that they can not sit back and watch. We've talked about Amazon last week becoming a much bigger player in the generative AI game by dumping $4 billion into Anthropic. More importantly, this is Sam Altman signaling to investors who have sunk billions and billions and billions of dollars into OpenAI. Apple isn't a purveyor, I mean they, I think, have a great opportunity to get in the game late and still dominate.
Joel: That's what they do.
Chad: But they have to get in the game. That's the thing. Now being able to actually create a device, whatever that AI device is, it's going to have to be a mobile phone. It's going to have to be, 'cause this is what we're used to. This is what we're addicted to, right? So it has to be something like this. If you create something else like, I don't know, VR-Headset or something, it's just not going to happen. Right? And you can't fit a GPU into this, right? So he has to figure out how AI works with something that is not going to be AI. It's going to have to be a conduit to AI. So it's gonna be interesting. And smarter people are going to be answering this problem and we get to sit back and watch. And I'm excited because these are big fucking companies, kids. And let me say this real quick. The big names are NVIDIA and AMD, because none of these companies, these AI companies will exist in the future without these companies producing their GPUs.
Joel: Yeah, yeah.
Chad: Period.
SFX: Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
Joel: So, Chad you know that I'm prone to the occasional SEO-geek, article, podcast, etcetera. And I always wonder, what's after, what's today? What's after search, what's after this phone in your pocket? There's got to be something next. And when I heard this, I thought, okay, what the hell does this look like? And I was listening to sort of a future of SEO, search and how this would work and so right now, all the major publications, authors are suing OpenAI for their data and taking their data. Now, assuming that they either win that case or that case is in court for the next decade, what do those companies do to protect themselves, to protect their business models? And what this one pundit thought was, there are going to be walled gardens everywhere, and we're all going to have co-pilots, assistants, whatever we want to call them, and we will ask our assistant questions. And the assistant will basically ping all these walled gardens that you either have a membership to or a subscription to, or somehow you've connected with these content providers.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: They will go out, seek the answer, and bring you back the answer to your question as best as they possibly can. Because...
Chad: If you have access. If you have access.
Joel: If you have access.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: So right now, search is becoming like, we'll give you the answer. I don't know if you, I know you use Google on a regular basis like if you ask Google a question...
Chad: Oh, yeah, the generative AI search... Fucking awesome.
Joel: It's there. You don't have to click any links anymore. Well, that's going to come to a head at some point. So when I think about, what does this device look like? I think about the movie Her. I think about a co-pilot, in Her's case it was a date, I guess. But we will have these assistants and they will get answers. Is it audio? Is it visual with glasses or contacts? Is it a speaker in your house? Is it all the above? Maybe your TV? I don't know. But if anyone's going to do it, Johnny Ive has certainly got the chops to do it. Carrying a big phone in our pocket is pretty stupid. Like, if you think about it, like.
Chad: Don't tell me I need a chip in my head. Don't we do that shit.
Joel: That may be an option. You might have to wear the contacts, Chad.
Chad: No.
Joel: I don't know.
Chad: I could do that, pretty cool.
Joel: But something it's going to come to a head. I think it'll be incredibly interesting how content providers protect their stuff from AI, who they do deals with, who can access their information. The legal process is going to take forever. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. But what we have now is not going to be what we're going to have in 20, 25 years.
Chad: No.
Joel: And this is our first glimpse into what the future could be.
Chad: Yeah, I totally agree. And I definitely agree. With regard to the walled gardens piece, you're going to have to pay to access the data so that you can actually get answers from any of these different sources. Right? So that's going to be one way. And then the rich obviously are going to be able to have access to everything. So they're going to have co-pilots and assistants that can answer just about anything that they want or need. Then we've got to think about the multimodal piece of it. So it's audio, it's video, it's text, it's everything. Right? That's the next leap of generative AI is not just text. It's much more than that. So I think that's awesome. But the hardest thing that and I think the dumbest thing is to get somebody away from this because we are addicted to this.
Chad: And if you're not watching the video on YouTube, sorry, kids, but I'm holding up my phone. The phone has become it's like the ball and chain, dude, I can't go anywhere without this fucking thing. And it's behavior and human behavior. So how do you break that human behavior for a entirely different device? I don't know. I think it might be like an Alexa, which can have more hardware in it that you can have in your house, in your car, right, with these new electric vehicles. And then maybe once the tech gets to the point we don't have to have like, 1980s huge ass block cell phones. We can have the same types in size of cell phone that we have today with GPUs that are actually installed.
Joel: Yeah. And you talked about Apple. I know you don't use Apple products, although you watch Ted Lasso, which makes me question your...
Chad: Julie has an Apple phone.
Joel: Yeah. Okay. Julie has it. So Apple, we know, has a deal with the Music, the record companies, they've had for a long time... They have Apple Music. They have Apple News, which I subscribe to, which gives you access to Wall Street Journal, a lot of... I share articles on our feed. And you're like, Apple News sucks because I can't get to it. But it is a walled garden that I pay for that I can get access to. So when you think about Apple, they are building these bridges to content providers and providing a way to monetize that for everybody. So Apple is a little bit in an advantage state there, as opposed to, like, Google or Facebook.
Chad: I think...
Joel: All of them could write a check tomorrow and get the same content, I'm sure.
Chad: Apple when and if they move to micro payments, they could outflank Twitter. I don't think Twitter's longevity is there. And I think Apple could kill it, could crush it in an instant. Definitely with micro payments, especially around access to great content.
Joel: The way they do it now is subscription. I pay a base fee for the whole family.
Chad: But that leaves me out, right?
Joel: It's news, it's music, it's Apple TV. Well, I don't care about you.
Chad: You don't, but Apple does. Apple wants my money and they're not fucking getting my money, right?
Joel: Yeah. Similar to how the iPod back in the day integrated with Microsoft. That was like a huge deal when it happened. Well, it worked out pretty well for Microsoft. Let's take a quick break. A lot to digest here, everybody. But please listen to the ads, because there is no show without our sponsors. All right, Chad, who's in the mood for a little Who'd You Rather? You know how the game is played, right? We talk about two companies that recently got funding, and Chad and I decide who would we rather?
SFX: Aai, papi.
Joel: You know what I'm saying? All right, first up, we have Transfr. That's T-R-A-N-S-F-R, kind of like Flickr from back in the day Chad, you remember Flickr, a New York City based company has raised 40 million in Series C growth funding, bringing their total to $90 million. They offer Immersive Simulation Training for various careers, I.e. VR with trainees using headsets to engage in real world skill development and practice. The funds will be used to expand the executive leadership team, scale the platform and develop new training simulations covering a wider range of skills and scenarios, including Espanol. They are currently deployed in over 1000 locations nationwide across various industries. And that is Transfr. But let's go to our next corner. We have HiringBranch straight out of Montreal. Chad, one of our favorite cities in Canada.
SFX: Take off, will you? We're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show, you hoser.
Joel: HiringBranch has secured $2.5 million. The company plans to use this funding to support its growth and expand its AI capabilities. HiringBranch measures and assesses soft skills required for different roles. Their approach includes benchmarking top performer skills and creating tailored scenarios to evaluate candidates, resulting in what it says are improved hiring quality and efficiency for their clients. So, Chad, two companies. Only one can survive. Who would you rather?
Chad: First off, a little love for us. Are you talking about foreign languages? Chad and Cheese have almost 50 episodes that are in five different language. Obviously, we've got number one, English. Then we've got Spanish, French, Portuguese and German. That's right. You can find the Chad and Cheese podcast in five different languages. Believe that shit? Okay, on the Transfr.
Joel: We did it before Spotify, Chad.
Chad: Way before.
Joel: We did it before Spotify.
Chad: Way before Spotify. So I believe the only real practical application for VR/AR goggles today is for training purposes, which is what Transfr is doing. But in general, companies who continually whine about the skills gap, they still have done nothing to close it. Generative AI is the new tech darling which has pushed any platform with a VR/AR goggles further down the rabbit hole, plus as we talked about earlier, Meta is actually laying people off. HiringBranch on the other hand, now we're friends with the Ckanuck up in HiringBranch, but nonetheless, I'm a big believer in work simulations and assessments as proof of a skill, instead of just believing a resume. It's a practical step forward in assessing talent, which is why for all practicality, this is something that will be adopted. It's practical HiringBranch, I'd rather HiringBranch all day.
SFX: All right, all right, all right.
Joel: If my T-shirt is any indication of where I'm leaning on this one, Chad.
Chad: Fuck interviews.
Joel: Little story back in the day, I'm gonna say circuit 2005. I met with a company called Life Agora.
Chad: T hat's a horrible fucking name.
Joel: It was very awful, especially when some shit...
Chad: I hope they had the.com.
Joel: Some shit was available back in the day, they went with Life Agora. Anyway, the company was video interviews pretty early on, and they would literally send job seekers a web cam that was branded with the company they were interviewing with. So the company had to pay for the web cam, the job seeker would get to keep the web cam.
Chad: Sounds like Green job interview.
Joel: You know where this is going.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: They went to a total shit show of shipping, camera doesn't work, how do you turn the audio on? It was awful. Long story short, devices and getting into that business sucks, unless the device is ubiquitous, everyone has it like cameras now, video interviewing makes a ton of sense 'cause there's a video camera on every single computer and phone, etcetera. It's not the same with VR, it's not the same with headsets. Companies have to buy this shit. Who are they gonna use? Shit's broken. Does the company get involved? It's a pain in the ass. And like you said, with the Metaverse doing layoffs, the jury is still out on VR. Is this kind of thing be embraced? I think there's a place for it, medical, industrial, maybe service some other places, but it's not a huge, huge market, unlike HiringBranch who yes, aside from having probably better T-shirts [laughter] is a better deal. Let me count the ways as to why it is. 300% customer expansion growth within Fortune Five companies. Number two, they cut interviews by 80% for one of their clients, and number three, 90% lower hiring costs and under 1% bad higher rates for another client, and more than anything else, the TAM, the total addressable market for hiring branch is far bigger than it is for their opponents. And who doesn't love a good Canadian company Chad? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? So for me it's a clean sweep for HiringBranch everybody, and that is another episode of Who Would You Rather?
Chad: I can't believe you didn't go with VR.
Joel: I'm down on it and I'm down. I love the Canadians, you know that.
Chad: Literally, yes.
Joel: Can't get enough of the Canadians.
SFX: Take off, will you? We're doing our movie. Don't wreck our show, you hoser.
Joel: All right. Next story is the ongoing strikes by unionized workers at GM, Ford and Stellantis have drawn the attention of non-union auto workers at rival companies like Tesla. Some non-union workers support the UAW's demands while others remain skeptical particularly when it comes to concerns about job stability and perceptions of unions. Despite the challenges the UAW is looking to expand its presence and influence in the auto industry, particularly in non-union plants. Unions are having a moment, Chad, like we've already covered, but what are your thoughts to their expansion.
Chad: I think, again, they've gotten their mojo back, and this is something that scares the shit out of the Elon Musks of the world. But before we get into that, let's dig into some of the workforce equation around how we move to electric. Because the first thing that we talk about is that the automobiles are going to need 20% of the parts that a traditional combustion engine needs. So that being said, so many people, and if you take a look at, so many people have honed in on the 32-hour work week proposed by the UAW, that was done for a reason. The four-day work week is one of the mechanisms to try and combat the need for fewer bodies throughout the manufacturing lines. Cutting from a 40-hour work week leaves eight hours unaccounted for each week. Will the automakers just close up for those eight hours?
Chad: No, of course not. So if you do the math for every four employees that are taken down to 32 hours, that creates another full-time position. That's one step in being able to create a more full workforce answer to this, it doesn't answer it entirely. Now, the parts manufacturing landscape will change immensely, only needing 20% of the parts. What do you do to boost the jobs numbers? Well, you bring those jobs back to American shores for the cars that are manufactured here, and you create parts manufacturing jobs. Our biggest supply chain issues during the pandemic, and even today are a lack of redundancy. When your company only makes a certain part in Wuhan, China and nowhere else. Your supply chain was broken.
Chad: So I really believe we need to legislate redundancies. And since electric vehicles will provide much larger margins and the auto companies are already making record profits as it is, that's one of the only ways we can shore up supply chains while creating more jobs for where the vehicles are actually sold. And here's some real quick data around that, Tesla's profits nearly $10,000 per vehicle, which is five times more than GM. And GM are still making record profit. So don't believe the millionaires who are sitting on their super yachts drinking Bubly, saying that this is going to implode them. That's not gonna happen. The future is electric, higher profits, better margins, more jobs is definitely electric.
SFX: That escalated quickly.
Joel: Look, we've talked about this for weeks, labor has been getting their ass kicks for 40 years. It's shocking it took this long to happen, I think it's a matter of automation becoming real for people in a way that it hasn't ever been. I think inflation, I think the pandemic was an eye-opener for everybody. This is a window for labor to basically get theirs. Because I think that Mexico is the new China, there's a threat of near-shoring obviously, politically, we can...
Chad: Tariffs.
Joel: Deter some of that tariffs. But the future is automation, if you look at a Tesla plant, there aren't a lot of people there. If EVs are the future, then there are gonna be less workers no matter what in the long term. You have the added kick in the nuts in that the government is pushing for EV vehicles which says, Hey, our window may be closing faster than it should be with the $7500 tax credit. More and more people will be looking at EVs than they have before. So I think that's why that's politically dangerous, 'cause you have Biden on one hand, pushing The Green agenda of EVs and pushing incentives to do that, but then you also have him on the picket line talking about unionized workers should be getting paid what they are worth, etcetera. Ultimately, what I'd love to see happen, and I've mentioned this a couple of times, is the government stepping up with a fair living wage, a minimum wage increase.
Joel: We know what it is now, increases have been anemic make it 25 bucks. Have exceptions for maybe teenagers or certain rural areas or maybe startup companies or small businesses, but if the government just says, hey, here's the level playing field that we're all gonna play on, it's fair for everybody. We don't get in these states versus states, we don't get in these political battles and all these things that are headaches. A living wage by the federal government is the ultimate union, and I'm surprised that in an election year, we're not hearing more about what the government can do to make labor more prosperous. They seem to be playing politics with the union workers and treating them as a swing vote as opposed to looking at the bigger picture, which hopefully we'll see come out in the election in 2024, but I'm not super optimistic on that one.
Chad: Well, I mean, the United States only works from quarter to quarter anyway. We don't look five years down the road or 10 years down the road, and the Green Agenda, let's just be clear, is a life agenda. This is trying to make sure that we have great lifestyles moving forward, and the whole oxygen thing is pretty important too. But if we take a look at a living wage from state to state, and then if you open a plant in Alabama, which you've seen companies do because it's much cheaper to get talent there, the thing is if you still force the living wage job, it's much more of a level playing field, but the thing we really need to focus on, and I think we'll drive wages up is if we put legislation or a cap in place to say, look, CEOs can only make 30 times that of their lowest wage employee, if they wanna make more, they gotta move everybody up. We've talked about the rising tide that's been bullshit for decades, the only way we get a rising tide is to cap the dollars on the top to be able to raise everybody up else up with them.
Joel: That is a great point. I doubt it's a Chad original, but it's still a great point.
Chad: No it's not. It's not.
[laughter]
Joel: If you own in a small business, if you want a 401k plan for your business, the more you can pay yourself more or put more away, the more you give your employees, so to me that makes... It's already kind of being done, we just have to do it on a salary and to say, hey, if you want X amount what your lowest person is paid, you have to bring yours down and bring theirs up if you want your... That seems like an equilibrium that we could aspire to. It is funny although by the way, how quiet our friend Elon Musk has been about this issue. He's just hoping that he can be quiet and that the whole thing just goes away, I think that.
Chad: He does not want this to happen.
Joel: No, he does not.
Chad: That's why he has profit margins that are just exploding, one of the reasons why, right?
Joel: Yeah. Well, let's take another quick break and we'll get to one of my favorite topics, but you gotta stick around to know what it is. Alright Chad so let's get to some real news, shall we?
SFX: Oh my God, I love Chipotle. Chipotle is my life.
Joel: I was waiting for that. It's like we've been doing a podcast for six years together. Alright, yeah, your Chipotle burrito will be rolled by human, but its guts may soon be assembled by a robot, the fast casual chain announced this week a new automated digital makeline, get it makeline, that uses machines to build bowls and salads to customer specifications. Human employees are then expected to incorporate the robot assembled ingredients into burritos, tacos and quesadillas. The shift is part of Chipotle's foray into cobotics, collaborative robots that work with rather than against humans. For now, at least, Chipotle's Chippy Autocado and other Cobotic efforts will work alongside their human co-workers to get orders filed. Chad, what are your thoughts on Cobotics at Chipotle?
Chad: I'm only thinking about universal basic income at this point. Because they say with, the robots work with humans until they can take over the human jobs. So at the end of the day, we used to have, you and I, when we were growing up, much different than it is today, we had to go find a job. And for the most part, we went to work in fast food, I worked at Burger King, I worked at Mr. Hero, I did those things 'cause I had to. 'cause if I wanted money, my parents weren't just gonna give it to me, I had to go and make that money. So today, it's different. We evolve, I appreciate that. We don't have kids doing those jobs as much, and it's much harder to find individuals, especially with the constraints on immigration that we do have, in some cases. These companies have no choices, especially when it comes down to this. Now, when it comes to fast food, I would love to see that industrial complex shrink dramatically, just as long as Chipotle is not a part of it, 'cause I do love some Chipotle.
Joel: I do, and just in case you didn't know my policy, when there's a burrito in my hand.
SFX: Just the tip.
Joel: Oh no, it goes all the way in. Look Chad at there's no way around it, there are going to be fewer food and burrito prep workers at Chipotle. Assuming the quality stays the same, I don't think consumers are gonna care whether a human being or robot makes up their bowl. On the flip side, Chipotle needs to hire more workers to deliver food. Right now, DoorDash, I think brings me my Barbacoa Bowl but there should be a Chipotle branded delivery person, and they should combine it with their rewards program of which I'm a proud member, Chad. After so many orders, for example, I should get a free trucker hat or maybe a T-shirt [laughter] with that delivery. It's less about the automation and more about the UX Chad, it's all about the UX, and that's why we're launching our new Chad and Cheese experience, we're going to automate this podcast so we can randomly show up at listeners offices and homes for a new way to engage the brand. Maybe we can order some Chipotle...
Chad: No we're not.
Joel: While we hang out with some of our fans Chad.
SFX: Oh my God, I love Chipotle. Chipotle is my life.
Chad: We out. See you in Vegas.
Outro: Wow, look at you. You made it through an entire episode of The Chad and Cheese Podcast or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way, there's no doubt, you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy a nutritious meal at Taco Bell, enjoy a bottle of your favorite whiskey, or just watch Big Booty Latinas and bag fights on TikTok. Now you hung out with these two chuggle-heads instead. Now go take a shower and wash off on the guilt but save some soap because you'll be back like an awful trainwreck, you can't look away. And like Chad's favorite western, you can quit them either. We out.
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