AUDIO VERSION
In this riotous episode of the Chad and Cheese Podcast, Joel and Chad cover everything from sleep-deprived dog tales to the latest "Skynet Lite" drone news out of New Jersey. Spoiler: It’s like a Black Mirror episode, but with more traffic violations.
They dissect corporate stress management—or lack thereof—with a jaw-dropping story about a company firing employees for being stressed. Nothing says "we care about mental health" like a pink slip for looking frazzled at the water cooler.
Next up: AI in recruitment and marketing. Translation: robots deciding your job future while probably judging your LinkedIn photo. They even squeeze in a fantasy football update, proving that even AI can’t predict how badly your QB will tank this week.
The boys also tackle AI in education via Khanmigo, a platform designed to help teachers personalize learning—or, as it’s known in schools, "please make grading less soul-crushing."
Rounding things out, they ponder the job-crushing potential of AI, the soft skills hiring managers actually want (hint: it’s not being good at Excel), and whether nuclear energy can power our TikTok-fueled future—or if TikTok will be banned before the next viral dance craze.
It’s a wild ride through tech, trends, and corporate chaos—with enough snark to power a small city.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel (00:25.984)
Awwwwwwwwe YEAAAAAAAAAAH!
Joel (00:32.454)
As cuddly as a cactus and the other is charming as an eel. Hi kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Mystery Drones Cheesman.
Chad (00:37.538)
Yes.
Chad (00:43.906)
And this is Chad, you're stressing me out. Sowash.
Joel (00:46.996)
And on this episode, branching out is TikTok out and what you talking about. Let's do this.
Chad (00:55.064)
Willis?
Joel (00:57.824)
That wasn't a very good Gary Coleman, circa 82 different strokes, was it? Man, I am tired today. Here's why. Little story. So the wife is out of town, which means sometimes Peepers gets to come into bed and Peepers has the Jimmy leg. He snores, he farts, like he's a nightmare to sleep with. But at 13 years old, which I think is like 94 in human years,
Chad (01:00.91)
Let's do this, Willis.
Chad (01:12.302)
parties.
Chad (01:25.196)
You allowed it. Yeah.
Joel (01:27.44)
I can't, I don't have the heart to kick him out of bed. So I just have a shitty night's instead of, kicking the dog out. don't know if that's, that's, you know, that's, that's humanitarian that I am, but I slept, I slept really poorly. In addition to that, are you, are you seeing this news about the drones over in New Jersey? Are you getting that in Portugal?
Chad (01:40.046)
appreciate that.
Chad (01:43.885)
Yes.
Chad (01:51.394)
I am not. I am not.
Joel (01:53.172)
The news is freaking me out, Chad. First we had aliens in the ocean. Okay. We had people go in front of Congress, talk about alien ships in the ocean. And now we have drones over New Jersey, apparently other parts of the world. We're not shooting these. The government doesn't know what they are. We can't shoot them out. Apparently they disappear if we get too close or something. It's just really, really weird. We don't know. That's the problem. Some congressmen said they think there's a mothership.
Chad (02:16.75)
Are they alien drones? What the, mean what? come on.
Joel (02:22.496)
an Iranian mothership that's launching these things. The Pentagon said that's bullshit. People are saying China, people are saying the aliens are finally here and they're, they're hooking, they're, they're setting up in New York, the tri-state area with drones. It's just, it's, and these things are apparently as big as a car or a truck. These aren't like the recreational drones that your kids got for Christmas. Like these are huge drones. It's really creeping me out. Yeah. It's the, it's the end of the, the end is near.
Chad (02:25.164)
Ha ha ha ha!
Chad (02:35.992)
with drones. Okay.
Chad (02:48.866)
Really? Wow. Yeah, no, that does end of the world as we know. Yeah, no, I've been watching a bunch of YouTube videos about how Ukraine has beaten the shit out of Russia with drones. I love it. You got like Mattel toys that are taking these T-90 tanks out. That to me is the coolest thing ever. This little thing, a little block of C4 on it right into the crease of the turret and a multi-million dollar tank. A dud. That's pretty amazing. So yeah.
Joel (02:52.639)
telling you.
Joel (03:07.072)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (03:13.45)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (03:17.246)
Yeah, they got drones look like birds. got like it's the, the, the, the world of warfare is going into some weird places and I'm not sure it's, it's great for humanity, but anyway.
Chad (03:25.837)
I know this.
not that, none of this is going to be great for humanity, kids. None of it. None of it.
Joel (03:33.384)
Yeah, let's just get to shout outs, which you know is sponsored by our friends.
Chad (03:38.526)
at Kiura.
Joel (03:39.864)
up north. That's right. Keora, the key to, solid and inexpensive text recruiting. That's I just made it there. Tagline the key to text recruiting, text recruiting. What do you got? I got, I got, I'm to go first for shout outs because I gotta, I gotta come back from the, the, ledge a little bit. there's a, there's a new documentary on HBO or max, whatever you prefer to call it. It's on yacht rock.
Chad (03:42.07)
Mm-hmm. Yora.
That was nice. The key to Yora. Yeah. Okay.
Chad (03:57.774)
You
Chad (04:02.2)
Do tell.
Joel (04:04.84)
It's called yacht rock documentary and documentary is spelled D O C K like dock of a boat, I guess. But if, if you lived around the late seventies to early eighties, mean, Steely Dan Toto, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, like I smiled half the episode. It like just the memories, the cool laid back California, just the sounds. mean, Michael McDonald with the hair and the beard,
Chad (04:06.944)
Nice.
Chad (04:20.11)
Christopher Cross. yeah.
Joel (04:33.962)
Just a really great feel good documentary if you remember those times. Yeah, you gotta watch it. I highly recommend it. Yacht Rock documentary on Max. Check it out.
Chad (04:37.311)
watching that that's for sure.
Chad (04:44.928)
Yeah, the Christopher cross a guy who looks like you but has the voice of an angel. MTV MTV is what killed that man's career because he looked like baby Ui. But he had a he had a great voice right and MTV I mean,
Joel (04:50.836)
Ha ha ha ha!
Joel (05:01.288)
And the industry, you're kind of spoiling it, but they talk about the demise of yacht rock. was, it was MTV. Like if you didn't have the look, if you couldn't perform on camera, if you weren't Duran Duran or Madonna, like you were out. So, but also a little bit of, a little bit of spoiler. a lot of the Toto guys were responsible for a lot of the thriller, and Michael Jackson's career. So there is, there is a link there. I won't spoil it, but, you gotta check it out. It's pretty, if you like music history, it's also very.
Chad (05:04.366)
yeah. Yeah.
Chad (05:12.11)
Luckily Kenny Loggins was a good looking guy. Yeah.
Chad (05:23.723)
really? Okay. Okay. That's good.
Joel (05:31.508)
Very interesting. yeah, shout out to Yacht Rock and the Yacht Rock documentary.
Chad (05:32.86)
yeah, nothing. Nothing but a good yacht rock playlist on Spotify kids go check it out. Yeah. Well, my shout out goes to workplace stress. Why? Because it's a problem Joel. It's a problem. Recently. Yes, madam and in house spa service was in house spa service was seemingly concerned, concerned about the
Joel (05:40.94)
yeah, totally. Totally.
Joel (05:49.376)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (05:56.288)
Ha ha ha ha!
Chad (06:01.28)
workplace stress of their employees and it's understandable because 62 % of Indian employees experience burnout, which is about triple the global average due to work related stress and poor work life balance. 12 billion working days are estimated to be lost every year around the world to anxiety and depression. That's 96 billion working hours lost. Productivity gone down the drain because people are stressed the fuck out. So
Yes, madam, did the only prudent thing that you should do. You should survey your employees, find out who needs help. Well, yes, madam did that. And just after receiving the results, sent the following email from yes, madam's go figure, very empathetic HR manager, which was then leaked to linked in, quote, recently we conducted a survey to understand your feelings about stress at work.
Joel (06:32.256)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (06:57.398)
Many of you shared your concerns, which we deeply value and respect as a company committed to fostering a healthy and supportive environment. I love this already. We have carefully considered the feedback to ensure that no one remains stressed at work. have the difficult decision to part ways with employees who indicated significant stress. This decision is effective immediately. Impacted employees will receive further details separately. End quote.
Wow. Apparently, yes, madam solution to high stress for 100 employees was a you're fired, because losing your job isn't stressful at all. No, wait, no, it's stressful as fuck. So yes, madam denies they fired or laid off anyone. wait, Joel. So yes, it's just a misunderstanding. Right? Like, again, the just a couple of excerpts, kids.
Joel (07:29.93)
That is not a happy ending, Chad. That is not a happy ending for those employees.
Joel (07:57.472)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (07:57.646)
quote, we have made the difficult decision to part ways and quote, and quote, this decision is effective immediately and quote, neither of those two sound like go to the spa for a day, right? So yes, madam, was this a, was this a stunt? Did they care? Who knows? It's just, this is, this is, this is the asshole of the week kids, the asshole company of the week.
Joel (08:10.816)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (08:22.078)
Yeah, yeah. And we actually have the message before Grammarly, Nye stood up a little bit.
Chad (08:27.926)
You
Good day, ma'am.
Joel (08:34.174)
Jeez, that is fucked up. All right. my shout out, a second shout out goes to artisan, artisan AI. We've talked about them on the show. They are the company that is creating AI, workers. So your sales staff, your customer service staff, this is all going to be automated by a company called artisan of one of the many, but anyway, they have ads running now at bus stops and billboards in San Francisco that have digital people.
Chad (08:37.118)
Exactly.
Chad (08:55.534)
Crazy. Crazy.
Joel (09:04.028)
With the message on the ad that says stop hiring humans, artisan, et cetera, et cetera. Now. So critics are coming out. Reddit apparently is blowing up. people are calling this a dystopian nightmare, but Chad, I call it good marketing. Good marketing is, is marketing that enrages people, gets people on, on X and Reddit and gets everyone fired up. so for my, for my take, shout out to artisan, the startup.
They raised about a million and half dollars. say they're on their way. Keep your eye out on these guys. Stop hiring humans. Add. know it. I know it gets your heart heart all, all excited for sure, but yes, it does get attention whether you agree with it or not. Artisan.
Chad (09:44.28)
Yeah.
Yeah, apparently, yes, madam and artisan have the same PR agency. So so we're not traveling, but we are traveling. And if we weren't traveling, shaker recruitment marketing would be powering the travel. But in lieu of travel, we always do free stuff. So doesn't matter. Free stuff by Chad. She's got to go to Chad cheese.com slash free. What could you register to win? What Joel what t shirts?
Joel (09:51.956)
You
Joel (10:13.882)
so much goodness.
Chad (10:15.79)
T-shirts the beautiful soft cuddly t-shirts that are Chad and cheese t-shirts that are sponsored by our friends at Aaron app bourbon barrel aged syrup they're so so amazing on the waffles by Kiara Beer craft beer by Aspen Tech Labs. Love those kids whiskey two bottles two bottles you can buy Tex Colonel Birthdays if it's your birthday and you want some rum
Joel (10:29.888)
So good.
Joel (10:34.505)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (10:44.492)
You can get it from plum. That's right. Plum.io. Got to go to ChadCheese.com. Flash free.
Joel (10:53.45)
That's right, Chad. Some listeners are celebrating another trip around the sun, including Matt Miller, Kim Stewart, Lars Kuz, Chaz Johnson, Patrick Hodgdon, Lana Schuman, Craig Anderson, Bob Scruggs, Paul Gunderson, Brandy Dawson, Tanya Truelove, Charlene Williams, Natalie Coxworth, Matt Stubbsy Stubbs, Alen Bailey, Anub Gupta.
Chad (10:58.434)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (11:14.466)
There he is.
Joel (11:16.87)
And some chick named Julie, so wash happy birthday to everybody celebrating another year. What'd you guys do for her birthday?
Chad (11:19.948)
There she is. There she is. Went out to eat, sat and enjoyed Portugal. I mean, it's what we do every day. Every day is Julie's birthday. I mean, that's just the way it is.
Joel (11:34.752)
By way, remember Monica Evgie, Evie, whatever. So she messaged me this week and said, if by chance I'm on the giveaway upcoming, I'd really love some of that syrup. So Kiara making a difference in Monica's life. A little bird tells me she might get some maple syrup here pretty soon. Yeah, she might get some goodness. Which brings us Chad, one of my favorites.
Chad (11:38.768)
yeah, yeah. I take them, okay.
Chad (11:49.05)
Hahaha
Chad (11:53.526)
Yes. She she might get some maple syrup. That's nice. Yeah.
Joel (12:03.594)
parts of the show, although it's, it's in the fourth quarter fantasy football by our friends at factory fix. we're going into the final season of, of the regular season. After that it's it's playoffs baby. Top four next four. Like it's, going to be interesting. So here's your leaderboard going into the last week of the regular season. Dean, the daddy back macro man, the guy from down under just keeps, he stays, he stays on top. man from down under.
Chad (12:09.102)
There it is. Get ready.
Chad (12:15.742)
Mm-hmm.
Playoffs?
Chad (12:25.516)
Mm-hmm. He's killing it. Killing it. I know. I know.
Joel (12:32.228)
I I'm sticking out number two spot followed by you with a bullet coming up at the number three spot. David Stiefel, Keith Sonderling, Keith could be the upset guy. If he wins this week, he could move into that, that playoff position. the commissioner might have his best trick safe for last followed by Laura Martinelli, Christie Lisbon, action Jackson, Dalquist, Dina, para for pyros number 10, Jennifer Terry.
Chad (12:36.258)
What?
Chad (12:42.542)
It could be. It could be. Yeah. Yup.
Chad (12:56.236)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (12:59.336)
Sean Horton, here's a who stays at that 11 spot and scooping up the shit at the back of the parade is our friend Adam Borden, apparently.
Joel (13:12.0)
Apparently some things out of Scotland are crap. Stay away from fantasy American football to our Scottish friends. But that is another week of fantasy football brought to you by our friends at factory fix, which rolls us right into.
Chad (13:25.582)
think I play the Commish this week. Atopics! I think I'm playing the Commish this week.
Joel (13:33.364)
Who do you have this week?
Joel (13:38.034)
Okay. So if he wins, does that drop you to like the fifth and he comes now? No chance. Okay. Well, anyway.
Chad (13:39.148)
I think. No, nope. Nope. Yeah, no, no. I have the second most points in the league at number three. yeah. It's all about luck and timing, baby. Luck and timing. That's right.
Joel (13:48.862)
Yeah. And I have the least amount of the playoff teams currently, but you gotta win. You gotta win, man. You gotta win. All right. Let's, let's go into some education as if our show hasn't been educational enough. from a recent episode of 60 minutes con Migo, con an AI tutor is now in 266 us schools.
Chad (14:01.198)
Chad (14:05.952)
Mmm. Yeah.
Joel (14:13.0)
It offers rapid lesson planning and interactive learning by encouraging critical thinking over rote answers. It's been tested for its ability to provide feedback, detect plagiarism and personalized learning with plans for integrating advanced vision technology. This tool aims to revolutionize teaching by providing time-saving benefits and tailored educational experiences while maintaining the importance of human interaction and education. Sounds too good to be true, Chad. What are your thoughts on
Chad (14:40.568)
Mmm.
Joel (14:42.752)
Han Migo and the AI in the classroom trend.
Chad (14:47.638)
So have you ever used Khan Academy? It is fucking amazing. I remember when kids were in middle school and high school and they'd have homework questions. And in many cases, I would pull up Khan Academy to search for the type of math equations or what have you. And we would solve them together. Because to be quite frank, you know, I was rusty, right? And whenever your kids come to you with questions, you want to at least try to help, right? Well, I knew I didn't. I was rusty.
I needed a little Khan Academy, so I used Khan Academy and it was fun for both of us. It was really cool experience. So I am a huge fan of Sol Kahn. And let's just put it this way. I'm going put it out in the universe, kids. Sol Kahn should be leading the Department of Education in the US. He created Khan Academy in 2006 where he used recorded videos of himself teaching how to solve math problems for his nephews.
Joel (15:30.761)
it out there.
Chad (15:44.94)
And then he scaled it to help teach math and science to thousands via video with math, engineering and computer science degrees from MIT. He's not a dumb guy. genius was amplified with money from the Gates Foundation, allowing Khan Academy to reach millions. Right. So now Khanmigo is being piloted by 266 school districts in the U.S. providing teaching assistance for teachers and personal tutors for kids.
We have an education problem in the US and in many countries all over the world. We don't have enough teaching talent. Those teachers are being stretched way too thin with bigger and bigger classes. And then, in their off slash downtime, they need to create lesson plans that could take hours, days, maybe even weeks. So having the right people in place to guide the tech and then allowing LLMs to learn then scale
support as teacher assistants or tutors is exactly what AI was used for. We hear about all these bad, deep fakes, hallucinations, but what about the great stuff? This is the great stuff and we need to have more humans like Sal Khan doing the good work. This is, think, one of the best stories of 2024.
Joel (17:04.96)
That's nice. So necessity is the mother of invention. And here's a few numbers for you. There are currently 55,000 vacant teaching positions in America. 270,000 of those are filled by under qualified teachers. The annual salary for a teacher is 8 % less than the average wage for all workers in the country. a recent survey of teachers, 40 % of them say they're
Chad (17:16.012)
Mmm, yeah.
Joel (17:34.782)
looking to leave the profession in the next two years. So we need something teaching our kids. And if we're not going to pay people like the rock stars they are to teach, which doesn't seem like something that's going to happen. I've called for it on the show quite a, quite a bit. They should all get six figures coming out of college to teach schools. if local state governments don't want to pay teachers, they should be able to find a way to pay.
Chad (17:41.432)
Yeah.
Chad (17:54.344)
hell yeah.
Joel (18:03.072)
I think it's $15 per student to have this technology in the classroom makes a teacher's job that much easier, much more interactive and engaging. It's able to get in front of every student and be a friend. The ability to track students are having a hard time, which ones are having a hard time. It's basically bringing AI, what we talk about in the workforce, into the classroom. Who's struggling? Who's excelling? Where do they need help? Who should I focus on today? All that AI and that data comes in.
Chad (18:07.948)
So.
Joel (18:31.028)
to teaching, which makes it a lot more efficient. I love the visual stuff. Like to be able to watch you, you know, the, the, the, where's the brain go? Like, excellent. goes in the head. Like where's the liver? You know, it's on the other side. so this is the future. has to be because we're not going to pay teachers what, what we should, but we can find ways to pay for, for technology. my hope is that it dem dem dem democratizes.
Chad (18:40.056)
Yeah. Yeah.
Joel (18:57.888)
Education. so our rural kids, urban, know, urban inner city kids that don't have good teachers, two full classrooms, don't get any attention, is, hopefully going to happen. I do have some fear that the equipment that you need, which isn't crazy, right? You need desktops, know, you need laptops, need a tablets. A lot of school districts don't have the money to have those things. rural districts.
Chad (18:57.954)
Yeah.
Joel (19:25.632)
Broadband internet is not common in a lot of rural areas. 25 % was the last number I saw. 5 % of urban areas don't have broadband internet. So some of those things have to happen for this to really come to fruition. But again, like you said, if we're going to spend money, it's a lot easier to spend money on technology and the equipment to do those things than it is to hire people and keep those people happy in a job. The one criticism or the one nuance I think of this is that
Chad (19:46.2)
scales.
Joel (19:54.44)
The examples they had on 60 minutes were pretty much the sciences. So it was math, was biology, was kind of stuff like one plus one equals two. When you get into stuff like history, the social studies, the things that there's nuance around, I wonder how the technology can give you different aspects of different events in history, right? Because things can be looked at differently. So I'd like to see it in that.
in that aspect of education, but there's no question that for our kids to be educated, something has to happen. And it looks like AI for all its scariness that is permeating society. If we can educate a lot more kids and get them on the road to success, I think that is a fantastic thing. this is a feel good story for sure. If you haven't seen it, go to YouTube, search 60 minutes.
Chad (20:34.274)
Hmm.
Chad (20:49.934)
it's awesome. Conmigo. K-H-A-N. Yeah. I mean, so we can, I think, pretty much all agree that one plus one is two, right? And so the math and science stuff is pretty solid. The hard part is...
Joel (20:50.666)
Conmigo and it's about 15 minutes of good stuff. Yeah, for good stuff.
Chad (21:06.158)
You know, the the the history around, you know, very volatile figures like Hitler or things of that nature. Right. When you have individuals who are out there who are like, well, he did some good stuff, you know, so I can see why they haven't gotten into that. And they might not. Right. They they they they just might not just because of, you know, how how flaming. Bullshit is happening all over the place. Yeah.
Joel (21:18.922)
Yeah.
Joel (21:24.532)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (21:32.256)
Sure. Well, this is the story in Florida, right? you know, I, I can tell you, Chad, I, I had the fortunate, setup of, in Indiana in fifth grade, get Indiana history in Texas in seventh grade, you get Texas history. the book in Texas is about that thick and Indiana it's about like that thick, but that's a different story. And I can tell you that the description of slavery in Indiana history is just a little bit different than the description of slavery.
Chad (21:44.142)
jeez.
Mm-hmm.
Chad (21:51.053)
Yeah.
Chad (22:00.493)
I'm sure it is. Yeah, in the South.
Joel (22:02.248)
It is in Texas. So how is AI going to handle those nuances throughout history will be interesting.
Chad (22:09.076)
Mmm, it will be, much like.
Joel (22:14.686)
What you talking about Willis? Let's talk about what jobs Chad, what a London based job search engine founded in 2019 will launch in the U S in January of 2025, appointing Angie Brooks X ad Zuna to lead the organization. Brooks with 25 years in recruitment will hope to enhance ties with recruiters and drive us growth. The platform will introduce AI job matching, of course.
Chad (22:16.354)
Yeah
Who? Who?
Joel (22:42.546)
offering curated job selections to improve what they say is better efficiency. Another senior hire is planned for January, 2025 to aid this expansion. Chad, what's up with what jobs?
Chad (22:56.974)
Angie Brooks is a player man in our space. She's a player. I mean back in the early aughts. She was with True Star Solutions. Remember those guys out of Indianapolis. Then she was with Next for 10 years and then she obviously did some time in Edzuna. Now I've never heard of what jobs until recently but it's as you'd said a London based company. So I reached out to some friends in the UK for some insights. I mean a company trying to break into the US has to
Joel (23:05.29)
Hmm.
Chad (23:26.124)
be a known entity in the UK, right? Well, the answer is no. My contacts knew little to nothing about what job, and it's pretty simple to understand because Europe is a duration-based market. They haven't gone all in on performance-based. So here are the three problems I'm saying for Angie and the crew. Problem number one, they are a performance-based platform in the UK, a duration-based market. That's an issue. They're selling a product
to a market that just isn't buying. Problem number two, they only sell CPC, which is a signal that they're just looking for a money grab and or that's just another signal that their tech is prehistoric. Only been around from 2020 though. Problem number three.
They want to come to the US, which is where they should have started. And the timing is not great. So there's light at the end of the tunnel. We've seen performance based companies like Sonic jobs start in the UK and successfully cracked the US market. The big difference is that Sonic is much more than basic PPC. They're providing advanced tech and brought on advisors who knew go to market and how to properly crack the US market. everybody in the US does
Joel (24:33.535)
you
Chad (24:41.972)
CPC. That's fucking table stakes. So what's so special about what jobs? We've also seen companies like Vonk who are duration and performance based. Vonk tried crack in the US market, hired some great US talent, and then in the very short time found themselves sounding the retreat horn back to the European shores. So I really hope that what jobs has a big funding round.
Joel (24:54.163)
you
Chad (25:10.952)
that they're preparing to announce along with this other senior position because if they want to come to the US, they're going to need a lot of cash, going to need a lot of cash.
Joel (25:16.17)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (25:26.196)
Or they could just hire art zeal from dice and then it's, and it's all gravy. It's all gravy from there. yeah. Tell me if you've heard this one before. I don't know. Auto new vo now talent.com jobs, careers, job.com ad Zuna. mentioned a few, apparently there are 10,000 job sites. this is per Chris Foreman, that cast who we interviewed recently. Like it's really, really hard to have a job board.
and cut through the noise and the clutter and make an impact. Like, was it, mean, well, 30,000 sites, I think, but I think he's, said 10,000 job boards. and I don't, don't, Angie Brooks can walk on water. I like show me the go-to-market show me the money. Show me what you're going to do to spend because they are as, they are as traditional a job site as I've seen in a long time. Like they still have the links at the bottom of like every.
Chad (25:59.342)
thought he said 30,000. I think he said, yeah, I think he 30,000. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Chad (26:22.318)
Hmm.
Joel (26:25.298)
every location, every job, like all the SEO stuff. so like you have your job cut out for you no matter what. indeed in LinkedIn kind of have 80 % of what's going on. That leaves the 20 % left for you. and you're coming into this market out of the UK, hire some people, but you better spend some money. You better spend some pounds. You better get some sterling. You better like drop some coin. and then it's just a game of like keep
Chad (26:39.096)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (26:50.35)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (26:52.97)
keep spending because once you stop spending the traffic dries up and the attention and the jobs dry up as well. I
Okay, we'll see. Good luck. Good luck, Angie. Angie must love getting hit in the head on a regular basis because that's what she's going to deal with, is these guys try to come into the market for sure.
Chad (27:08.27)
Well, she is in strategic partnership. So yeah, that's kind of part of the job.
Joel (27:16.274)
I mean, who's she partnering with? Facebook? mean, shit better be huge. They don't, and they don't even have a TikTok presence, Chad. What kind of job board today that wants to break into America? It doesn't have a TikTok. TikTok platform. Jeez, jeez.
Chad (27:21.646)
yeah, I don't know.
Chad (27:26.647)
god. god.
Joel (27:36.436)
Good luck, Angie. Good luck. What's up? What up? What jobs? We'll be right back.
Joel (27:46.976)
All right, Chad, from one company to another. And this one, this one is not out of England. They are out of Canada.
Chad (27:58.286)
Grenada. Grenada.
Joel (28:00.052)
Hiring Branch, a Montreal company focused on evaluating job candidate soft skills, has secured 3.5 million USD in a Series A funding round. The funds will support expansion into markets in North and Latin America, Asia and the UK. Founded in 2014, Hiring Branch specifically uses AI to assess soft skills through interactive voice and chat, aiming to reduce the need for traditional interviews. Chad, your thoughts on this deal?
And did you bring your Montreal Canadiens jersey to Portugal?
Chad (28:32.398)
I did not because it's heavy and I don't need something heavy on when it's nice and warm here. First off, reached out to Beth, you know, friends with the the peeps over at hiring branch love them to death in a study entitled accurately measuring soft skills, large language models versus hiring branch quote hiring branch ran a series of fine tuning experiments using the Dilbert machine learning technology. No, that's not.
Joel (28:33.194)
Okay.
Joel (28:43.996)
Yeah, yeah.
Chad (29:01.208)
Dilbert's that's distill a Burt distill Burt. Yeah, I'm using distill Burt to measure what the accuracy it's soft skill predictions would have on different various data sets while equipped with billions of variables large public data sets led to poor accuracy results. Meaning there wasn't enough data for an algorithm to learn to detect soft skills accurately, end quote. So
Very simple. We've talked about this story before. In this very early era of mass AI adoption, it's starting to become clearer and clearer that the large language models are powerful engines, but the training data sets are the rocket fuel. And without the right fuel, your engine just doesn't perform. So yes, hyper-focused point solutions will easily outperform massive LLMs, at least in the very
early era of AI. The key for all of these vendors is to do exactly what hiring branch is doing. Hone in on your expertise, find a market that will buy it and then sell the living hell out of it. And wait, wait for that &A hiring department to come knocking. Wait, hopefully many of them come knocking because as we've seen the shift in tech,
Joel (30:13.376)
Mm-hmm.
Chad (30:27.254)
There are going to be many less companies who want to become quote unquote a platform and they're going to be just a killer point solution that's going to be gobbled up by some of these bigger Goliath platforms that are more legacy, although have a shit ton of cash.
Joel (30:39.028)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (30:45.376)
Did I mention my wife is French Canadian in the, in the opening? Probably did not. yeah, I, I'm a little biased in the sexiest language in my opinion, probably French. God. so yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm biased. I like, I like the gang and hiring branch. we've done at least one event. I took my wife out to Montreal. They took us to a Canadian's game. Like very nice people. Stefan is great.
Chad (30:47.598)
I didn't sound Canadian.
Chad (31:00.482)
deal with Columbia.
Chad (31:13.218)
Yeah, Canadians.
Joel (31:15.552)
I, I first, I met a company in 2003, think, called Psymax who did assessments and they, and they, they spewed all this thing about algorithm and science and PhDs and it felt like witchcraft to me then. And it still feels kind of witchcrafty to me now. when I look at tradeify plum hired score, like tradeify to say, we just, show some images and we can like,
Chad (31:30.062)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (31:45.566)
That all seems so witchcrafty and beyond, guess, sort of my P brain. But the proof was in the pudding. Companies use this stuff and apparently retention goes up, hiring is faster. I did love the initial messaging from a hiring branch. was like, fuck interviews. Still have the t-shirt, got a t-shirt from them.
Chad (32:05.189)
Yes. Yeah.
Now that's great PR.
Joel (32:09.906)
If it's good stuff, Evan white, shout out to our friend, Evan white, for that one, probably. And, Beth as well, marketing person there. if it works, it works and companies love this shit. Like if you can take out interviewing from the process and these guys have a way to do it with assessments, I mean, obviously paradox, everyone is kind of trying to do this. If they can do it and do it well, there's a market there for it. There's like, there, there are companies that will do it. And I think there's a huge amount of runway for growth.
Chad (32:29.239)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (32:37.244)
And to me, that is probably driving what is going on at this company. mean, Canada, large landmass, 30 some million people, like it's, California. So if you can get a little, little fuel to get this thing out into more of North America, the UK, I love the Latin America angle was really interesting as well. Like you can scale this thing up and make a real business. So I, although I don't claim to understand all the shit that goes on in these assessments and testing tools.
I do appreciate the growth rate of what's going on and what these companies are doing. I say party on Wayne, party on Garth. This is good stuff, as far as I can tell.
Chad (33:16.61)
Sounds like a land and expand when they're doing the, or the talk about Latin America and those types of things where they actually have clients, obviously, that are either Canadian or US and they're expanding into different markets. So just again, for our friends at Hiring Branch, don't start getting salespeople into Latin America. Don't fucking do it. Just focus on Canadia and the Americas.
Joel (33:23.253)
Yeah.
Chad (33:43.026)
And then expand where those companies, those new clients take you. just for friendly advice.
Joel (33:47.646)
Yeah. Yeah, I do keep in touch with Stefan occasionally. I know he's in Asia a lot. mean, Asia is like a third of the population. So that's a huge opportunity.
Chad (33:58.991)
Bangkok? What's he doing over there?
Joel (34:05.324)
geez, speaking of Latin America. All right, let's go. Let's talk about, let's talk about Metta. One of your faves. Metta is exploring nuclear energy for its AI projects, targeting operational reactors by the early 2030s, aligning with Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. AI's rising energy needs and carbon-free goals drive this initiative despite nuclear safety concerns and historically bad PR.
Chad (34:07.011)
my god.
Chad (34:14.638)
Mmm.
Joel (34:34.106)
the inflation reduction act offers nuclear incentives, but these might change under Donald Trump states like Utah and Texas are backing nuclear for its carbon benefits. Chad, what are your thoughts on the growing need and adoption of nuclear energy?
Chad (34:50.094)
So I mean, a question to chat GPT takes about 10 to 30 times more energy than a traditional Google search, depending on its complexity. Training a large language model like OpenAI's chat GPT, for example, uses nearly 1,300 megawatts.
hours of electricity that the annual consumption of 130 US homes and by 2026 it's estimated that collective generative AI models will use more energy than all of Japan. Now,
Microsoft recently announced that CO2 emissions has risen nearly 30 % since 2020 due to data center expansion and Google's 2023 greenhouse gas emissions up 50 % higher than it was in 2019. So we want to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but the use of and development of AI isn't slowing down. So we need to have
something done. Something has to be done fast. Well, I mean, unless you really like, you know, crazy weather patterns, flooding, cyclone bombs, atmospheric rivers, and know, shit like that. Which which I'm not a huge fan of. I'm not a huge fan. So what happens when Microsoft, Amazon, Google Meta and other massive corporations start pulling more and more and more energy from the grid? Well, neighborhoods have to use rolling blackouts because I mean, some of these guys are talking about creating their own.
Joel (35:59.88)
Mysterious drones in New Jersey, yeah, that kind of stuff.
Chad (36:20.994)
but you know they're gonna be tapping into the local grid as well. So I mean, would the demand be too much and drive energy prices higher? That's something that they've actually seen is that the demand's been too high just for nuclear and they've had to go back to fossil fuels as a secondary, which boosts the prices. So we're really going to have to be smart about how we do
all of this this power plant, whether it's you know, whether it's wind, solar, it doesn't matter what it is. Is nuclear the answer? Fuck man, I don't know. But we're talking about single data centers that would require power of a major city and some companies like Google are planning to build, like, again, their very own their very own power plants. But to me, AI is not slowing down, it's consumed faster.
We've got to feed it, but we're running out of data. We're running out of energy. What's next? I mean, this to me does nothing but bring more fucking questions about where are we going? And it's kind of scary. I think the drones is that's a a that's that's a fun, happy story compared to this shit.
Joel (37:33.618)
Aliens in the ocean Chad aliens in the ocean
Chad (37:37.614)
This feels like feels like the matrix. It does.
Joel (37:39.572)
Yeah.
Weird times, weird times. So I a couple angles on this. you know, speaking of yacht rock and the seventies and early eighties, I mean, you, you and I remember a thing called three mile Island. we were at an age where we didn't understand it, but people were scared to death and there was a lot of news about it. there was a movie called silkwood, I think, that came out, to that a few years later, we had Chernobyl, which scared the shit out of everybody. there's a great.
Chad (37:47.983)
Hahahaha
Chad (37:52.44)
Yep. yeah.
Chad (38:07.63)
Ukraine.
Joel (38:09.12)
series on that as well, a movie that you should watch. And then Japan had one a few years ago. So the PR on nuclear is awful. But the thing is we were using technology from the 40s, 56s, really old shit to power these things. There's another documentary that you should watch. think it's called In Bill Gates Brain. It's about Bill Gates and some of the things that he invests in. And one of those things is nuclear energy.
I mean, we've made incredible strides in making it safer. There's no meltdown, apparently meltdown risks now. So it's way safer. And if you look at the carbon emissions, zero, like you can't be a pro environmental person and not be open to nuclear. From what I can tell, and this isn't my expertise, but wind, solar, it's just not going to get us there by itself. And what you mentioned with AI and the amount of power that's taking, like you need something, you know,
You need something on steroids and nuclear seems to do that by not, you know, and not kill the earth. in the, in the process, we haven't even talked about what crypto is doing, in terms of energy, the energy to mind shit again, not, my, not my expertise, but we're using a lot of energy and technology and we need something to do it. I'm, awful. I'm all in on nuclear. think it's, think the, fear, the fear is, is, is unnecessary. so I'm all in on that. The second, the second angle of this is.
What does it mean for jobs? So I did a little research. Apparently each new reactor supports up to 7,000 jobs during the construction phase. And a single operating nuclear power plant employs between 500 and 800 people. So we can employ a lot of folks. And by the way, because of the PR factor, I don't see a lot of automation in power plants that are nuclear. I don't see a lot of people signing up for no humans at the power plant.
Now they're going to be augmented. They'll be supported. They'll be supported with AI, but I don't, if something bad happens and we go, well, there's nobody there. Like it's all automated. there's going to be some, some splaining to do, when the public, yeah, Homer will be there with some, with some donuts. so, so I, I think there's going be a lot of jobs. think America can kind of lead, this area. know.
Chad (40:06.067)
just wait. just wait. just wait.
Chad (40:19.138)
Homer Simpson will be there, it'll be fine.
Joel (40:31.37)
parts of, parts of Europe and other parts of the world. think France has 80 % of their energy is nuclear. So a lot of, lot of the world is embracing this and we should as well, because frankly, lot of the big tech companies are here, using, using all that power. Tik TOK is also, in America, but maybe not for much longer, Chad, maybe not for much longer. when we come back, we'll talk about the future of tick tock in America.
Joel (41:04.16)
Maybe Jim Durbin just missed it by a few, a few years, Chad. you may not be able to doom scroll on TikTok much longer unless the social media company finds a way to stop a new law from going into effect in America. The rule, was signed into law in April requires TikTok to break ties with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance before January 19th of 2025 or
It will be banned if it doesn't comply. Chad, what are your thoughts on the future of TikTok in America?
Chad (41:38.508)
Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this before and the answer has always been money, right? It's it's going to it's going to fix itself because of the money in it. And from the numbers that Tiktok shared, we would lose a billion dollars on day one. Just America, just America and influencers. People are making money day one, a billion dollars. Think of not having Taylor Swift around. mean, that just that that hurts my heart thinking about something like that.
But just like thousands and thousands of many tailors. anyway, yeah, I mean, there are there are security risks. There's no question, right? There are security risks. We have to be able to take care of those. have to we have to be able to ensure that, you know, again, we don't have data that's being siphoned off, much like the American company Facebook had. Right. So this is not just a tick tock China problem.
This is a social media problem. The reason why we focused on TikTok is because they are Chinese and because of of by dance. And what will will Trump do when it comes to this? Well, he'll he'll look, I'm sure, to try to make a deal. But he's not going to care about those influencers. He's not going to care about that money coming into the country. He's on his last term, OK, he's not vying to get that next term.
Joel (42:35.84)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (42:57.364)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (43:03.539)
Lame duck.
Chad (43:03.726)
So he's just going to do whatever the fuck he wants to do. And it doesn't matter if it impacts you or not. So at the end of the day, I think there's going to be a lot of work that needs to be done from individuals to be able to lock down the security side of the house. And once that's out of the way, if this means it's bought by another company or what have you, or at least, you know, the we have data centers in the US, then great.
But it's going to have to get figured out. I don't think it's going to get figured out by Trump.
Joel (43:40.906)
So my prediction is there's still a TikTok. It will be divested and it'll suck and it'll slowly start being shit because China's not going to let the algorithm go. They're not going to like give the keys to that golden goose. So the brand TikTok will live. It'll be owned by some antiquated shitty company that probably gave a of money to Trump.
Chad (43:58.594)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (44:06.376)
And it will slowly just degrade to a point where everyone moves over to reels or wherever. so I do think it will survive, but it will not survive in the state that we currently know it. It will just sort of wither on, on the vine. you mentioned money and that's a huge part of it. think Trump doesn't want to piss off a lot of the investors and people that are behind tick tock that are frankly in the U S. but he also doesn't want to piss people off.
A lot of his young, young influencers that, are backing him love tick tock. He's not going to piss them off, but if, if I'm Mark Zuckerberg, this is a opportune time to make friends. I think the market believes that if, if it doesn't get banned, it's going to be greatly, crippled. Meta stock is up over 80 % year to date and they, they are in the position to benefit if tick tock.
Chad (44:39.15)
It would just push them to a true social.
Joel (44:59.806)
gets kicked out of the company. And by the way, Chad, dropping in the, on the new sites today, we're recording on a Thursday, meta just donated $1 million, to Trump's inaugural fund. that $1 million may buy. Zuck and met us some nice, some nice, you know, some nice influence with, the new president. know, I know Zuck has met with him. So Zuck is jockeying, to get on Trump's good side.
Chad (45:07.213)
Mm.
Chad (45:22.798)
Imagine that.
Joel (45:28.71)
And a million dollars goes a long way in an inaugural celebration to get Trump on your side. So I think politics comes into this, money comes into this, but ultimately TikTok as we know it is going to, is going to fade into the ether. So, build up those followings on reels and Instagram kids, because that's where the future is in my opinion. Or blue sky. Is that the new one? What, what, what's the new one you're on? Is it blue sky?
Chad (45:49.614)
That would be sad.
Chad (45:53.4)
Blue, yeah, it's pretty much just a Twitter clone. It's a happier version of Twitter. It's a less Nazi version of Twitter.
Joel (46:01.408)
All right. Well, Jesus, it's been one interesting episode. think the only thing that can save it is a fantastic, fantastic dad joke. Chad, are you ready for this week's dad joke? It's inspired by, inspired by nuclear energy. So it's, it's gotta be, gotta be good. Chad, what, what did the nuclear physicist have for lunch?
Chad (46:14.698)
Okay. I have faith in this one.
Chad (46:24.344)
Good. It's gotta be good.
Joel (46:28.84)
What did the nuclear physicist have for lunch?
Joel (46:35.648)
Fish and chips, fish and chips, get it?
Chad (46:36.92)
vision.
Chad (46:40.706)
I was just saying fission, that goes with nothing. Yes. And chips, apparently chips. Okay. Yes.
Joel (46:43.08)
Yeah, Fission chips, Chad. That's right. That's right. drones and aliens in the ocean, kids. We out.
Chad (46:49.966)
We out.
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