If you're numb over unicorns, well, get over it. This week, the boys highlight two more newly minted members of the Billion Dollar Valuation Club. Yup, welcome Hibob and Karat to the unicorn party. Also on this episode:
Canvas and Luma, er, Pillar are in the news (or suffer growing pains, depending on your point of view).
Snagajob says "Everything Must Go!",
LinkedIn unplugs from China (kinda),
and back by popular demand: Porn!
Stop watching The Squid Game and enjoy another riveting episode of HR's most dangerous podcast.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel 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 (21s):
Oh yeah. Another episode, closer to cancellation. Hi kids. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast, the real heavyweight champion. This is your co-host Joel "flight cancellations" Cheeseman.
Chad (35s):
And this is Chad phasers on stun" Sowash.
Joel (38s):
On this week's show a double unicorn extravaganza! LinkedIn rethinks China, and librarian is the number one search term for PornHub in the state of Montana. Big Sky indeed. Let's do this! Big week, Chad.
Chad (56s):
Yeah, I, I gotta say whoever thought of Captain Kirk on yesterday's flight was a fucking genius, right?
Joel (1m 5s):
Well Bezos, obviously. Your buddy.
Chad (1m 7s):
I really doubt that and you know why they put Shatner on that launch, right?
Joel (1m 12s):
Oh, please tell me.
Chad (1m 13s):
All anyone was talking about during the last launch was rich white billionaire spending money on space toys instead of something, you know, like poverty or something like that. Now, all they're talking about is Captain Kirk. It was a brilliant diversion. It was fucking brilliant. So they learned from the first time now they just put somebody, you know, a 90 year old icon on the, I mean, come on. If Kirk goes out, if it blows up in space, which I was hoping it did not. I mean, can you think of a better way to fucking go out as Captain Kirk? I mean, this was a no brainer for him.
Joel (1m 50s):
Well, that would have been bad PR, had that happened. My two takeaways where we now know why the head of the penis is so big because those fucking windows are huge. It's like a living room in that thing, the windows are so big. And the second thing was, I mean, really heartfelt to me, the interview he did with Bezos and, and thanking him for the trip seemed to me really, really genuine, really heartfelt. William Shatner is a 90 year old dude who got to go up in space. I could feel the genuine, just joy in William Shatner's face. So to me, that was really heartwarming. And I don't think I've ever really felt a desire to go to space like that until I saw Captain Kirk so excited.
Joel (2m 29s):
I mean, this is the guy that has seen just about everything. He's partied with the you know, the biggest names in Hollywood. He's made love to supermodels and green women. I mean, he's seen it all and this just, just heart warmed his heart. So that was nice to see.
Chad (2m 46s):
Yeah, well it didn't warm my heart. Well, no, it did was when the Raiders kicked fucking Gruden to the curb that, that warmed my heart too.
Joel (2m 56s):
Those who aren't football fans. John Gruden is a very volatile coach, I guess you could say some emails came out that were, Jesus, they were racist, sexist, xenophobe, I don't know, he definitely did not discriminate against who he was discriminating against because everyone seemed to get a piece in the emails that he threw out. So what was your takeaway from that other than happy?
Chad (3m 18s):
The NFL is having a problem with brand. They've had a problem with brand and they're trying to clean it up. The players are the ones that everybody comes to see, not Roger Goodell and not any of the fucking coaches on the sideline, even though they're brilliant, but they come to see the athletes play the game. It's one of those things where I think in America, at least in the US we're starting to have an awakening and I hope it doesn't stop.
Joel (3m 41s):
Yeah. I think you could do a whole show on all the things that sort of this thing, this event touched on. For me, just to make quick of it, it was really heartbreaking because really to me, nothing more than sport should be a meritocracy. You and I both played high school sports. We weren't good enough to go beyond that. But for me, for example, I went to a pretty diverse high school. I played basketball. I play with black guys, Latino guys, Asian guys, and it didn't matter what color you were, if you could ball, you could ball. And that didn't matter. So when you see something like sports and that this is so apparently predominant in that environment.
Joel (4m 23s):
To me, it's just really heartbreaking because if any, if any environment should be colorblind, it should be sports.
Chad (4m 30s):
Yeah. Well, and I think you're remembering is much different than mine because I remember the coach's kid getting to play whatever position the coach wanted him to play, whether he was the best, there was no meritocracy. That's totally total bullshit. So I think it's funny that you try to color everything with meritocracy, but that's probably just your whiteness showing.
Joel (4m 52s):
Agree to disagree, Chad, but sports has been a longstanding example of people getting along where they normally wouldn't in society. Speaking of getting along though, Chad, my stomach and I have a great relationship and I was really happy to see Portillo's my favorite Chicago eatery. If you haven't had an Italian beef wet from Portillo's, you're missing out, they're filing for an IPO here coming up. And I think I've probably made them as profitable as I possibly can with my own. And also want to bring up Raising Cane, who doesn't like some fried chicken? They were in the news this week staffing is so tight at Raising Canes they asked people in the HQ to fill in as cooks and cashiers.
Joel (5m 38s):
And I think I read about a third of people in the HQ volunteered to serve up some chicken, which is heartwarming as well. I love it.
Chad (5m 47s):
I mean, as a startup and they're not a startup, but as a startup CEO, you have to do everything. You're doing fucking demos. I mean, you're helping with a UX design. I mean, you're doing everything that you possibly can to be able to be an organization of that size and say, look, it's time to get back to startup status and understand that we're not going to be able to move on without everybody actually pitching in. So get out of that leather chair.
Joel (6m 12s):
So if we pivot back to sports, did you catch the heavyweight fight on Saturday?
Chad (6m 17s):
Nope.
Joel (6m 17s):
Yeah. So I normally wouldn't. I was at my sisters and brother-in-law who was just a big fan, actually bought the fight. So I was able to watch it. Tyson Fury, this dudes like 6'7", 320. I mean, he, he gives a new definition to what heavyweight is and he gives, he gives real inspiration to the dad bodies of the world, because if you're remembering heavyweights as Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Evander, Holyfield, those guys were ripped. This guy looks like he just got out of a Portillos. So it's really, really nice to see him rip it up in the ring. Tyson Fury, shout out to you, my man.
Chad (6m 54s):
So what was the result?
Joel (6m 56s):
Well, Tyson won in the 10th. I believe TKO, but it was a great fight. Tyson got knocked down twice in one round. I mean, it was just, it was what you think of as a heavyweight bout, right? Like you can actually hear and feel the punches as they land and you feel for the guys that are in it. It was great. It was great. If you saw the fight, you, you most likely loved it.
Chad (7m 15s):
I don't want to get hit by a guy who weighs 300 pounds.
Joel (7m 22s):
No, no.
Chad (7m 23s):
Shout out to JobSink you wraskily wabbits for grabbing up Leah Daniels as their new chief commercial officer, former app castor, and one of the smartest people in our industry. Good job guys, over a JobSink and congrats Leah on the new gig.
Joel (7m 42s):
And aren't we a permanent stamp on their marketing campaign?
Chad (7m 45s):
I don't think so.
Joel (7m 45s):
Maybe that's Appcast I'm thinking of. Anyway, moving on, let's talk about LinkedIn real quick. We'll talk about them more in depth in today's show as we normally do. This out of Mike "Batman" Cohen, he says that LinkedIn is not allowing you to use the site if you're logged on in different locations, call it a spam fighter or just call it annoying. Mike "Batman" Cohen is not a fan. So LinkedIn you're in his cross hairs as you've been probably for the last 10 years.
Chad (8m 14s):
Yeah. And you can't log out of the other device either, which is a, yeah it's a real pain in the ass. A big shout out to Owen Diaz. So Tesla was ordered by a jury to pay $137 million to Owen over racist treatment during his time as an employee at Tesla. Now 137 million is not much for a company like Tesla, although this could be seen as a damn good precedent. And if workers who have experienced the same kind of racist treatment start coming forward, that million dollar figure could actually turn into a billion. And hopefully it'll drive actual change at Tesla and more importantly, send shockwaves through corporate America.
Chad (8m 60s):
To the point they see that this behavior is not something that is going to be put up with and it's not risk slapping anymore. It's actually something that could really hit their bottom line.
Joel (9m 11s):
Awesome. You got anything else before we talk about free shit?
Chad (9m 16s):
Yes. Big shout out to George LaRocque who reported that global investment in WorkTech exceeded 6 billion in the third quarter. Another record setting quarter for WorkTech. It is blowing up the money is gushing.
Joel (9m 42s):
And speaking of Gushers, let's talk about free stuff. Chad, if you haven't signed up for free, t-shirts free beer and free whiskey, you need to head out to Chadcheese.com/free. We announced two of the new winners from this last month. You could be this month's winner. We've got t-shirts by Emissary, beer from Adzuna and we have whiskey sponsored by Sovren. Get out to Chadcheese.com/free and sign up today. Pretty next up. We've got some fantasy football updates sponsored by poach.ai. Here's the rankings as of week six, heading into week seven. Number one is Bill "football"
Joel (10m 22s):
Fanning for the second week in a row, as well as the wonderful Miss Q number two, she stays in that spot. Next up, Jason "Vorhees" Putnam. I come up in the fourth spot, which is a nice.
Chad (10m 35s):
He was last like two weeks ago.
Joel (10m 36s):
He was last two weeks ago. And I was last, last week. And I mentioned I was going to be like rat out of the cellar. And I, I went to number four. "Breakin Benjamins" Kunze, which was, was that Kunze? Anyway,
Chad (10m 52s):
Koontz.
Joel (10m 52s):
We'll go with Kunze. Okay. Breakin' Benjamins Kunze. You remember he was last or he was second to last or last, last week.
Chad (10m 59s):
He was last.
Joel (10m 60s):
But he had the most points so he's up in the rankings. You follow him. We got Kristy "dark side of the moon." After that we got Michael J. Cox, Chris "Viva Las Vegas" Russell. And in last place, Pete "don't call me douchey" Suchi. That is the fantasy football leaderboard.
Chad (11m 22s):
Roy fucking Kent is in the cellar. That sucks.
Joel (11m 24s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you didn't listen to our podcast from this week, we had a fantastic interview with Namely's CEO, Larry Dunivan, go check that out if you missed it. And we have some birthdays, fans of the show, we got Mark Jenkins, Denise Adams, Gary Gray, he had some creative parents, and Madeline Laurano celebrated a birthday.
Chad (11m 56s):
Yep. And I have a special one. My daughter, Emma Sowash actually turns 20! 20!
Joel (12m 4s):
How's that feel?
Chad (12m 6s):
Fucking crazy. I mean, it's ridiculous. I've got to say really proud of her. She's actually starting on her birthday this week. It was Monday, she's starting a new job and she's training to be a phlebotomist at the local hospital. And I'll tell you what, what we need more of as healthcare workers. So I think there's was a smart pick. We'll see.
Joel (12m 34s):
Can you spell phlebotomist?
Chad (12m 35s):
Vampire V A M P I R E.
Joel (12m 42s):
hahaha.
Chad (12m 43s):
Topics!
Joel (12m 43s):
All right, Chad. It's that time of the month. We got crazy unicorns to talk about. All right. Let's start with Karat with a K. KARAT an interviewing platform and Seattle-based Karat announced a $110 million series C round that values of the company at $1.1 billion.
Chad (13m 6s):
Oo.
Joel (13m 7s):
Karat's platform includes a network of interview engineers that clients can contract to provide technical interviews for software engineers via video. All the kids are doing it! Karat is more than doubling revenue and the number of customers year over year. It has eight companies spending more than $1 million per year. Chad, are you buying this unicorn?
Chad (13m 27s):
Okay. So seeing this through the eyes of a hiring company, who's hiring engineers. I believe this is brilliant. I mean, don't take my engineers away from their jobs and allow others to actually do the interviewing. But my first problem with this was scaling with humans who perform the interview because this isn't tech scaling, this is actual human engineers doing the interviews. So this process actually takes engineers out of the job market. It was, it was meant to actually be used almost like a side hustle. You know, you're an engineer, you can do a side hustle, make some money, but some engineers are making $250,000 doing this full time.
Chad (14m 9s):
So I'm sure Karat can sell a white glove service. And they're doing that now, right? Especially in this market, but when the asset, the interviewing engineers who could leave the platform tomorrow, what do they actually do? I mean, seriously, the contracted talent is really the secret sauce here or what happens if demand explodes. And there isn't enough human engineers to actually perform the interview. So to me, I believe the human variable is the situation that doesn't make me a fan. So I'm glad they have the money they're going to need it. I'm sure companies will be buying in left and right.
Chad (14m 50s):
But I'm just not confident in their ability to scale again, if this explodes, what do they do? How do they actually meet demand? Not to mention, not to mention what happens when platforms that don't need humans are just kicking their ass, right? So this is, this is, this is the hard human versus robot conversation.
Joel (15m 10s):
You're saying, if there a gusher, there could be problems. There could be a problem. Something like that. Indeed is a client, I'm just going to throw it out there. So for if we're predicting, maybe acquisitions going into next year, I might make this prediction. Indeed is using their shit.
Chad (15m 25s):
Well, you know what I think, Recruit, I think Recruit buying them because they are on the recruiting side of the house. This could be perfect for Recruit Holdings. I don't see this for Indeed, but I do see this for Recruit and staffing, but you take a look at BrightHire who just raised 20 million last week, right? They're not a, they're not a unicorn, but from a scalable standpoint, a scalability standpoint, they're there and they can, they can expand and contract with the tech, not with humans.
Joel (15m 52s):
Yeah. I think it's pretty interesting. I'm not as, as bearish as you are. So these guys, this company is led by a former director for X-Box and a guy who previously was chief of staff at Melinda Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. They have about 200 employees. And I guess stop me if you've heard this one before, but they're on a hell of a wave. So this company covers, you know, the shift to remote work that's hot, the acceleration of digital transformation, i.e. everyone is hiring software engineers. The increased attention on diversity Karat says it removes bias from interviews, that could be a separate discussion and the great resignation. So when you talk about RAD companies, these guys are on that cutting edge.
Joel (16m 35s):
So I'm probably a little more bullish on these guys than you are. I think they got a lot going for him.
Chad (16m 42s):
They're missing the A in your RAD, and that's where they're fucked.
Joel (16m 45s):
That's true. That's true. Two out of three ain't bad, Chad, which was a great song for back in the day. Well, let's talk about, Hibob, our number two. HRIS Solution's Hibob announced a $150 million series C funding round this week. The round brings total investment at Hibob to 274 million since its founding in late 2015, giving an evaluation of $1.65 billion.
Chad (17m 21s):
Wow!
Joel (17m 21s):
Hibob's clients includes five include Fiverr, Vayner media and others. It's HR technology platform enables companies to send shout-out messages to employees, poll employees, create onboarding workflows, track time and attendance, manage compensation management and manage performance reviews. With this recent funding Hibob's plan is among other initiatives, acquire complimentary technologies and expand their global presence. Chad are you more bullish on this unicorn?
Chad (17m 50s):
Yes. Hibob is a mid market play and most of these organizations would enjoy getting into a system that costs much less than most ACM dinosaur legacy enterprise companies use. Right? So Hibob covers multiple pain points, which is shit nobody wants to do like coordinating time off, payroll, onboarding, benefits, and the list goes on.
Joel (18m 15s):
Don't forget, shout out messages.
Chad (18m 16s):
Yeah, it does a lot of the shit work that nobody really wants to handle and it automates, which means it scales. So it does those two aspects that are important to me, not to mention this is one of the things that I think is incredibly important, where you start to see a big vendors that are legacy tech, they're paying so much in a technical debt right now. They need systems like this to be able to refresh them. If they're not bought, I see them being a much larger brand. Believe it or not, Bob, a brand in this industry.
Joel (18m 55s):
It reminds you remind me of Ask Jeeves from back in the day. Yeah. So a few things real quick. Hibob proves that names obviously don't matter. So whatever I say in firing squad, just disregard cause the name clearly doesn't matter. I can't fathom a Salesforce. Hi, this is Joe from Hibob. This is a really interesting company, was founded in Israel is now looking at the United States. They recently hired Candice Miller as their head of global demand generation. Candice was previously at Intello/Convey IQ. And from talking to her occasionally, you know, they have a real eye to north America and now they have the money to do it.
Joel (19m 38s):
So any of, any of the Americans in the audience today, if you don't know Hibob today, you'll be saying Hibob at some point, if you're in that mid level market. So to me, it's incredibly interesting. My thought process is like, who would they buy? Because they're pretty transparent around wanting to make some acquisitions. So my head kind of thought about who would that be? And we'll just have to watch and speculate on who some acquisition targets might be. Cause there are quite a few in the US they could probably gobble up and get a nice little foundation here in the states.
Chad (20m 16s):
Yes. Especially if they want to get into the talent acquisition side of the house, which they, I mean, they're not yet. So, you know, there there's room for growth there, but I mean really if they just focus on a market acquisition right now and they grow, then they could be a huge acquisition target for some of these again, legacy tech vendors.
Joel (20m 44s):
Yeah. That'd be a hell of an acquisition based on their valuation. But stranger things have happened in our business. All right. That's enough for our unicorn segment of the show. Let's talk about Canvas, canvas.com. I'll highlight that friend of the show Canvas is going through some changes. I'm not going to call them growing pains at this point, but after raising $50 million last month in a series C, most notably Ben Herman is stepping down as CEO and moving into a full-time board of directors position. The reason the company wants to bring on a seasoned leader to take the company to its next phase of growth.
Joel (21m 28s):
In the interim co-founder and chief revenue officer, Adam Gefkovicz and chief people, officer Tariq Meyers will become co-CEOs. Chad, what's your take on this move?
Chad (21m 36s):
Well, I think it's smart for Ben being the CEO of a startup. And we know that for the most part, if you're early stage or you're in startup mode, you have a different CEO for different stages and different transitions. So I think it was probably good. And we know great CEOs who knew when to move on, whether that was to a different position in the organization or whatever it might've been. I mean, think of Colin at iCIMS, right. And Steve actually stepping in, they went to IPO from there. Right? So I mean, this isn't a bad thing. The thing that, that bothers me is that they didn't have somebody to step into the position when he left.
Chad (22m 22s):
So this is abrupt. Right. And then also to say that we have co-interim CEOs, I've heard of interim CEOs before, but co-interim CEOs. I hope, first off that Ben, his family are great. And anybody who's out there looking for, oh, you and I should run for co-CEOs. I just thought of this.
Joel (22m 42s):
That was my first point, Chad
Chad (22m 44s):
And I have co-interim CEOs. We could just be co-CEOs.
Joel (22m 48s):
Yeah. For those listeners that remember our Monster campaign to be co-CEOs of Monster I'm thinking we could be co-CEOs of Canvas. We can do this, we can do this.
Chad (22m 60s):
A couple of white guys we're in charge of DEI.
Joel (23m 5s):
Heading up a diversity play. Yeah, that'd be good. That would, that would go over like a screen door on a submarine. So Ben proudly puts high school dropout on his LinkedIn profile in terms of education. He is not your average cat. Right. He's barely in his thirties I think. He's a serial investor, entrepreneur.
Chad (23m 22s):
Yes.
Joel (23m 23s):
You know, hats off to him for realizing like, you know, what him stepping down makes a lot of sense. We talk, we talk so much about CEOs that stick around too long, Mark Zuckerberg. That just can't you know, give up power or can't give up control. So hats off to Ben for that. But I do agree that the exit was quite abrupt. It seems like they just put him on the board to sort of be a figure head instead of just totally kicking him out of the company or him leaving the company. So that is certainly not great for a company that just raised a bunch of money. I would've liked to have seen someone step in that, you know, had some gray hair, had some experience in the industry.
Joel (24m 4s):
So this, this move reeks of a little bit of a chaos. And I hope for their sake that they get that chaos under control because it's not a good look co-CEO.
Chad (24m 15s):
Well, and I'm hoping that one of their funders isn't going to step in as CEO, if that was the plan, I think that would happen pretty quickly. So hopefully that's not the plan.
Joel (24m 28s):
We will be watching Chad and speaking of watching, you were at a special event in Indianapolis celebrating a Indianapolis based company. Tell us about that.
Chad (24m 40s):
Yeah it was pretty cool. The company formerly known as the artist, formerly known as Lumateams.com is now pillar.HR, and they were having a relaunch/rebrand. Other than that, I mean, I think the new CEO wanted to put his stamp on the company, which I appreciate. And Mark Simpson, who's the new CEO, the guy has a ton of chops and exits, which is important. And they are funded by a High Alpha in Indianapolis.
Joel (25m 9s):
So full disclosure and a little bit of a news, a news break Pillar is going to be our new beer drop sponsor, and Adzuna is going to move to a bigger advertising spot. So we speak of Pillar with that in mind, and this is a cool local story, but it's sort of an odd story. So High Alpha, as I understand, they have sort of two different levels of investments. They do, like from the idea stage and then they sorta let use all their resources and they grow the company, but they take a pretty big chunk of it in that, in that scenario, the other scenario is, Hey, we've got a product, we've got some customers, you know, we're ready for like a series A or something significant from a seed perspective.
Joel (26m 0s):
Luma was one of those incubator early, early stage companies. And they're hardly even a year old. I think they were founded in 2020 that summer of if I'm not correct.
Chad (26m 11s):
Yeah. They're young.
Joel (26m 13s):
Yeah. So one of the co-founders her name is Grace Tyson, she left in May of this year and they brought in Mark from there and he's got a ton of experience. Grace is now VP of Sales, I think at a east coast company, her tenure was really short-lived, which is really weird for a co-founder. So that was a little bit strange. And then I was like, well, the name change is, is odd because Luma's not awful, but so why change to Pillar, which isn't awful either. So I was curious about the trademarks, like, does someone have Luma as a employment trademark? So I dug into trademark. Yeah.
Joel (26m 53s):
It turns out a company called Dovetail Software in Austin owns a trademark for hiring software under Luma. Although the law firm that secured that trademark is out of Indianapolis. So something weird is going on there, in terms of the name change. I know they're selling it as a rebrand or like a relaunch or a rebirth, but something is a little bit strange there. And it reminded me of a company I worked for in the oughts called background information services. They were background check company who I've eventually ended up working for, and they sold to Sterling. I've talked about them a couple of times. Anyway, background information services was a trademark. So they had a decision to make of either, well, do we fight the trademark and give six figures to a lawyer and hope that we win, or do we just change our name and go about our business and rebrand?
Joel (27m 40s):
Which is what they inevitably did. The domain was employee screen. So they just tagged on IQ at the end of their name and became employee screen IQ. I'm not saying that this is what happened to Luma, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was something sort of trademark related or ownership related that made them say, fuck it let's just rebrand as something else.
Chad (28m 4s):
I got nothing. 'cause I mean, nothing. I mean, nothing in the platform has changed. I mean, again, I think this is more of more momentum and again, a team trying to take a platform and make it their own. Yeah.
Joel (28m 21s):
So the tech obviously works. The leadership team now is experienced. A new brand. So we know those issues if they were there, are gone. So we're rooting for these guys and they're an Indianapolis based company. So they're sort of on the home team here in Indiana. So we'll be rooting for them. Well, let's take a quick break Chad, we'll talk about a company we haven't in a while and talk about a company that we seem to talk about every week. We'll be right back.
Chad (28m 50s):
Snagit,
Joel (28m 50s):
Snagit jobs.
Chad (28m 51s):
Snagit jobs, snag it all right, here's the news. And we'll get to the commentary after workforce and inventory solutions, provider Fourth, that's the name of the company is acquiring Snagit jobs, applicant tracking, and onboarding solutions, which are branded people matter and hiring manager in a deal backed by Marlin Equity Partners. The financial terms were not disclosed. Shocker. People matter in hiring manager employees will be retained by Fourth and all 3,500 customers with approximately 60,000 locations will experience no interruption in service. Under the new parent company. Chad, there was a time when Snagit job was somewhere between Craigslist and ZipRecruiter and Hourly hiring influence.
Chad (29m 36s):
What's your take on this news? Shouldn't Snag be expanding, not contracting right now?
Joel (29m 40s):
You'd think so.
Chad (29m 41s):
I mean, the market is so hot. I would have expected Snag to be strapped to the nose of the penis rocket yesterday. I mean, it's just, that's how the market is. Right. I couldn't understand
Joel (29m 53s):
That's a Snagt his penis rocket doesn't want to see.
Chad (29m 57s):
That's exactly right. So I couldn't quite understand this move, but then I listened back to our interview with a Snag CEO, Mathieu Stevenson, and started thinking about the rebound product we talked about. And then also what type of tech does a company like Snag really need to help hiring companies be more nimble? So Snag doesn't need legacy tech, the kind of tech that they got rid of, applicant tracking system, and then also onboarding? They don't need that. Right? And as a matter of fact, paying the technical debt for an ATS in onboarding, I would assume that's got to be sucking them dry to some effect, right?
Joel (30m 40s):
Yeah.
Chad (30m 41s):
So unlike CareerBuilder, who sold off interconnected components that drove other aspects of the business. I see this as, this is a great way to shed legacy tech while the prices are high. So they're selling it the high and then building for the future. I see them moving more toward, as we talked about on the interview with Mathieu an app based product. So I think Fourth was sold a rusty old VW bug. And they're happy about it.
Joel (31m 15s):
Yeah. Yeah. We talked to Mathieu, I guess it's French, back in 2019, after I guess a failed platform launch, they launched an app called Snag, which was sort of, I guess, a hourly worker based platform where people could actually get badges for flipping burgers or having certain skillsets in the hourly workforce. And we kind of applauded that move. Unfortunately, it didn't work out very well. And the app is gone. The CEO who launched it is gone. And Mr. Stevenson at the helm has been there for a couple of years. Obviously I agree with you. They should be seeing incredible growth in that space. People need hourly workers.
Joel (31m 55s):
This is a Snagit jobs, sweet spot. But part of me thinks the world is, is sort of passing, passing, snag a job by. And I think part of that fear is like, let's get back to our core business. What do we do best? What do people really want? And let's sell off the pieces or get rid of the pieces that are fat in the business and try to recoup and grow from there. I was curious, I went out to Glassdoor and some other review sites and some of the comments around their turnover in senior leadership, somebody talked about people leaving left and right. So clearly not all is great at Snagajob. And if they're losing executives and people, then you know, the time to Batten down the hatches and start doing what we do well is nigh.
Joel (32m 40s):
And it sounds like, sounds like that's what they're doing. The question for me will be, you know, too little too late or just in time. And only time will tell, and we will be watching, but you don't hear much about Snagajob anymore.
Chad (32m 57s):
No, you don't. You really don't. Definitely reached out to Mathieu, to be able to get some clarification on this. Again, you're selling two systems that are driving revenue, although again, it might not be the future for the organization. So we'll see if we get a response, maybe we have them on.
Joel (33m 15s):
Yep. Sounds good. Well, let's talk about a company that we rarely talk about. Wink, wink. LinkedIn!
Chad (33m 22s):
Wow.
Joel (33m 23s):
This news came across the wire as we were preparing for this week show, so we actually bounced a story in light of this one. So we talked about China last week, basically bowing down to the Chinese government, censoring, some journalists that were on the platform. So this announcement, well, it didn't take long. So we talked about that last week. And today, as we record this on Thursday, Microsoft said it would pull LinkedIn its existing professional network website in China and instead launch a jobs only version later this year.
Joel (34m 3s):
The new website called InJobs that's creative, will not, I repeat, will not include a social feed or the ability to share posts or articles.
Chad (34m 15s):
Yeah. I got to say this deserves a big applause. As you said, you know, we talked last week about LinkedIn blocking profiles, censoring content really from the Chinese LinkedIn version. In effect, LinkedIn was bending the proverbial needs of the Chinese government. The conversation around, wow, how does Microsoft do that? And then our banter was well it's profits. Google's not there. Facebook isn't there. Many of the other platforms aren't available in China because they have strict regulations on speech. Pretty much, you know, if we don't want you to say, you're not going to say it. So LinkedIn is one of the only major platforms operating in cashing checks while the other big names are out.
Chad (35m 1s):
Well, LinkedIn, apparently they were pushed too far. And this to me again, is a big applause. I appreciate a company, I don't care if it's an American company, I don't care where they come from, but actually sticking behind, not bending the knee.
Joel (35m 15s):
Yeah. Yeah. You and I were, I think we all appreciate the, the rock and the hard place that companies, you know, lie between when they make decisions to deal with China. And I agree that the applause is necessary. I think LinkedIn was probably going to be bounced from China eventually, whether that would have taken months or years, I don't know. But eventually I think China would have eventually said you're out of here. Applause to LinkedIn and Microsoft for making the move. China was their third biggest market for LinkedIn. So there was a price to pay financially for this, but the price for your soul, I guess, was more valuable to them and their decision to get out is certainly a good one.
Joel (35m 55s):
Look, China doesn't play. And if you dance with that devil, it could hurt and it could come back to bite you. So I think it was a good business decision because I think it was eventually going to happen. Anyway, it was a good PR decision from that, that business side. And it was a good position, I guess, politically and just for a democracy and freedom, loving people, Chad. America, fuck. Yeah,
Chad (36m 21s):
I think they saw the writing on the wall and they might as well went ahead and pulled the plug themselves as opposed to waiting for the Chinese government to cut it.
Joel (36m 35s):
Yep. LinkedIn had been there since 2017, so they had a pretty short run of communist China. Well, let's take another break Chad and we'll move from communism to pornography, which is just what our listeners expect.
Chad (36m 50s):
Search terms, search terms.
Joel (36m 53s):
So Chad, we veered off from porn, pornography and prostitution last week and deep fake sexting and whatever else. So we decided to go back.
Chad (37m 4s):
Because it was out there.
Joel (37m 6s):
A site our listeners know nothing about, obviously, they serve up porn and every year they publish their most search keywords by state. Not surprising to me. Asian is a keyword is hot on the west coast. Lesbian is a keyword is all the rage down the middle of the country. And the Midwest prefers their moms with milk being the top search term in most of the Midwest states, but some were less obvious. Chad, what were some keywords and states that stood out to you,
Chad (37m 48s):
Oklahoma with goth hospitals, I have no fucking clue what that even means.
Joel (37m 52s):
No clue, but it sounds very Oklahoma to me. Librarian and Montana, that was interesting. Droopy balls in Colorado, racist in Michigan. What the fuck we got to get Sackett on the phone about that?
Chad (38m 7s):
I'm going to say this is the, this has gotta be an onion version of pornhub's search terms.
Joel (38m 13s):
I don't know. It might be fake news, but damn, it's fun to talk about. Florida with boats. And then the south, Ebony was the number one search term in most of the Southern states. And Kevin James was one in Connecticut or something.
Chad (38m 36s):
No, in Tennessee.
Joel (38m 39s):
Even better. Kevin James and Tennessee. So that, that was your PornHub most served key phrases from the past year. I got nothing else, Chad, except to say we out.
Chad (38m 53s):
We out.
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OUTRO (39m 35s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.
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