There's always a bigger fish. And with the recent acquisition of GoodHire, Checkr - valued at $4.6 billion - shows that it's got an appetite worthy of great white shark status. (Sterling, you have been warned.) And speaking of warnings, freeloaders on Talent.com should know there are no more free lunches on the Montreal-based job board. Canadians aren't so generous after all it seems. Next up, we talk a little remote work, and some recent LinkedIn data, a Google shopping spree, and how white men just can't say no to going back to the office. White men can't jump either, but that's a different podcast. Lastly, like most weeks, it's all about OnlyFans.
The episode so nice, you might listen to it twice.
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 (20s):
Oh yeah. Our long national nightmare is over. Chad is back in America, at least until he goes back to Europe in a couple of weeks. Hi kids. You're tuned into the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "living in America" Cheeseman.
Chad (37s):
This is Chad "back home in Indiana" Sowash.
Joel (42s):
And on this week's show you better Checkr yourself before you wreckr yourself. talent.com says gas, grass or ass. No one rides for free. And LinkedIn says remote work is where it's at, but Google says not so fast as well as white guys. Can you dig it? I knew that you could. Welcome back Dreams of you. What's up Chad?
Chad (1m 7s):
Welcome back Kotter. I love it. I got to say, I am excited to be back home. Believe it or not. My house, my bed, my dogs, an American washer and dryer, which is hard to find if you can. Yeah, if you can, in Europe. And I also found a bottle of single malt scotch from our buddy Oras Al-Kubaisi, the founder of jobdescription.ai. He was actually just on a pitch up presentation with myself and Louise over at UK recruiter. And this is the thanks I get. So thanks. Oras loved me a little 14 year old Balvenie aged in Caribbean Cask.
Joel (1m 46s):
Very nice. And how's, how's your keto Kaylin doing? Is he all right? Your health center.
Chad (1m 50s):
Wonderful, man, I can't, I can't get a better setup. That's all I got to say
Joel (1m 55s):
Time in Columbus, Indiana. What could possibly be better? The only thing better would be some shout outs.
Chad (2m 1s):
Amen.
Joel (2m 1s):
I'm going to go first. Shout out to Quincy, the queen of chatbots, Valencia, she's got a new gig, Chad. This is from a share on LinkedIn quote "I'm happy to share that I'm starting a new position as VP and research director, human capital management at Ventana Research. I'll be covering the entire vertical of HCM technology as an analyst for the firm. And I couldn't have joined at a more exciting time" end quote. Q was having a great year also you can remember she was named the 2022 influential woman in RPO. God she's winning #bigtime. I don't know who the hell have been Ventana Research is and apparently I should.
Joel (2m 41s):
So she's got to hit up my calendly and educate me on Ventana Research. Cause if I don't know them, they can't be that big a deal.
Chad (2m 49s):
She's been an RPO for way too long. She just launched Hourly what like 18, 24 months ago, something like that. I mean, there's been a lot going on not to mention, you know, she's making these lists so on and so forth. So good for her. This is awesome. Again, ride that wave while you're on top.
Joel (3m 6s):
Maybe ride it, ride it hard,
Chad (3m 9s):
Ride it. Oh, my first shout out is going to be fun. It's to Signal AI. It's a company who says they transform decision-making through augmented intelligence. That sounds important. They published an article entitled McKinsey in the top five companies for positive gender pay gap perception. Yes perception, not outcomes, not reality, but perception. So as you read the article, you start to understand that Signal AI is actually demonstrating right out in the open. We're starting to see a lot of this nowadays, how companies with deep pockets like Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Johnson and Johnson and Meta are using PR firms and spending cash to buy articles and perception.
Chad (4m 0s):
Not real outcomes aKA, you might remember this Cambridge Analytica. I couldn't believe they published this out in the open. So shout out to, to companies who act like they give a shit and really don't, that was sarcasm by the way.
Joel (4m 17s):
Yeah, everyone's doing it. Chad, is this the, is this the PR that Facebook had against TikTok that they were producing articles, anti-TikTok articles or is this something totally different?
Chad (4m 27s):
No, this is all around pay gap. Being able to, these big companies that I named are seeing positive perception in the market because of the number of articles that they're actually showing up in. Not because they're actually doing anything to be able to drive real outcomes, to start paying women, what white guys are getting paid, but the perception that they're doing something. It's all disinformation again, AKA Cambridge Analytica, just in a new wrapped form.
Joel (4m 58s):
Gotcha. Well, I'm going to continue my win streak in my shutouts and give a big shout out to Jobcase.
Chad (5m 4s):
Nice.
Joel (5m 5s):
LinkedIn for people who aren't on LinkedIn, for those who don't know they're on permanent offense, apparently you'll remember that recently the acquired our friends at Recruitology, also a sponsor and hired friend of Chad and Cheese Michael O'Dell we'll add another solid hire to the roster. Per Business Insider Jobcase has hired Paw Anderson, which is a great name as its chief technology officer, especially a guy named Paw as your chief technology officer doesn't get any better than that. Prior to Jobcase, Paw served as CTO for Metro Mile and spent many years in senior leadership at various tech companies, including ones you may have heard of Chad Uber and Groupon.
Joel (5m 45s):
At Uber he grew his team from 27 to 700 at a time when Uber was filling up to 10,000 new driver jobs a day.
Chad (5m 54s):
Wow.
Joel (5m 54s):
Can you say IPO, Chad, shout out to Jobcase and the winning with the big hire.
Chad (5m 60s):
Yeah. And just so that everybody understands, it's not Paw it's Paw it's P-a-w, right?
Joel (6m 6s):
Oh yeah. Like a Beverly hillbillies kind of shit.
Chad (6m 11s):
Like a paw. That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay. Okay. So mine and my next shout out, I got to get your response from this because this is kind of interesting to me. So a tweet from the CEO of Zero to HOD, I have no clue. That's one of the worst names ever, but anyway,
Joel (6m 27s):
Another great name. Yeah.
Chad (6m 28s):
Here's the quote "We are running a fun health program at @zerodhaonline. Anyone on our team with BMI <25 gets half a month's salary as bonus. The avg BMI of our team is 25.3 & if we can get to <24 by Aug, everyone gets another ½ month as a bonus. It'd be fun to compete with other companies." Now there there's more, there are more tweets, but I'm going to stop there. So your thoughts on bonus by BMI what do you think about that?
Joel (7m 4s):
And BMI for the layman is
Chad (7m 7s):
Body mass index.
Joel (7m 9s):
Okay. Something I'm not real familiar with, obviously. Julie and, I have this conversation, your wife semi-regularly in that why aren't chubby/obese people part of DEI conversation To me, this sort of underscores the bias that the world has against fat people. And I think it's shitty. So I want to start a new trend of putting chubby people in the conversation of DEI and be in some form or fashion. Can, Julie can make that happen?
Chad (7m 42s):
You're not answering my question. My question is, what do you think about people getting a bonus because of their BMI?
Joel (7m 49s):
I think it's probably going to be a trend that we see. We talked to a startup recently that incentivize people to wear ora rings or Apple watches. And if they stay healthier, they obviously get rewarded for such healthy behaviors. It certainly costs the company less if people aren't in terms of healthcare costs and things like that. But I do think it is probably going to be something that happens, but I'm not sure that it's a good thing.
Chad (8m 19s):
As Americans, we're an obese nation. We need to do something about it. But the question is, is that the role of your company.
Joel (8m 26s):
Depends on the company. I guess.
Chad (8m 27s):
It's really hard, but I, I see body shaming perspectively happening. When can you imagine getting taped doing BMI or something like that? Anyway, I thought it was interesting just because the conversation itself, as you brought up before, and we've talked about before. we've never talked about BMI and that in itself is more slated to a person's body and their shape. But I don't know, this is a real hard conversation to have.
Joel (8m 55s):
It sounds like prejudice to me. It's just not what we typically think of as prejudice. Let's keep the winning ways with my shout outs going. This one is to podcast sponsor ThisWay Global another company that seemingly doing everything right announced this week that they aim to be the Stripe of HR tech. For those that don't know, Stripe is a payment software that people plug in and you probably use quite a bit when you buy stuff online. So how so are they going to accomplish this? Well they've partnered with IBM to streamline integrations for vendors into platforms such as Workday and Salesforce, and according to them any more coming now, instead of building on multiple platforms, companies, vendors, startups, et cetera, can build once on ThisWay Global and plug right into multiple platforms like Workday.
Joel (9m 48s):
That applause, you hear all the startups who hate building multiple integrations, by the way, this way's latest crowdfunding round is almost over at Wefunder. They're almost at $1.5 million disclosure. I own a little piece.
Chad (10m 3s):
A little piece.
Joel (10m 4s):
I'm getting my beak a little wet, maybe. So if you want to get on that time is the window is closing on that one over at Wefunder. But ThisWay Global is doing some good stuff. And I love the idea is how many startups have we talked to that hate building multiple integrations, getting into multiple sandboxes, paying multiple fees, multiple development, this way it's a one-stop shop into multiple platforms. So I think it's pretty cool that they're taking this initiative on.
Chad (10m 30s):
I think it's cool, but this is all going to be about execution. Period. We've heard so many companies talk about integrations and being the one-stop shop for integrations. It's never happened. So if they can pull this off and I mean, no, this is fucking blue chip style right here, but it's about execution. So I'm going to sit back, watch and get the popcorn for this one.
Joel (10m 52s):
Yeah. It'll be fun. Fun to watch for sure.
Chad (10m 55s):
Yeah. Last one for me. Don't miss this week's firing squad with Sean over at RecruitCRM. The guy has chops, but can RecruitmentCRM help fill the recruitment marketing automation gap? You'll have to listen going to chadcheese.com and click on firing squad or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Joel (11m 16s):
Let's say one of my favorite episodes of firing squad of the year so far, although we're not very far in the year, it was a good time.
Chad (11m 23s):
Not that we're giving away our grade or anything.
Joel (11m 28s):
Speaking of exciting launches, Chad, our friends at recruitmentmarketing.com. It's open for business. Tons of good content, site looks great. Congratulations to them on a job well done. If you liked reading some good stuff, digesting some good content, get your ass to recruitmentmarketing.com.
Chad (11m 45s):
Yeah. And if you like James Ellis and you like recruitment marketing, he's got version two of talent chooses you. The audio version that is available there at recruitmentmarketing.com as well. So go check it out.
Joel (11m 58s):
Yep. And speaking of like, and winning Chad and we got.
Chad (12m 3s):
And free.
Joel (12m 3s):
And free sure. And we got some new whiskey and beer winners.
sfx (12m 10s):
Oh yeah.
Joel (12m 11s):
Nick Bradford. Remember Nicholas Bradford from Eight is Enough in the seventies. Sorry. I brought up another old time 80s shows. So Nick Bradford at VONC is our whiskey winner.
sfx (12m 21s):
Hell yeah!
Joel (12m 21s):
And also our free beer winner this month is Tim Warsaw from Hashi Corp. No, they're not a drug dealer. It's they do something. But anyway, HashiCorp and VONC represented this this month on free whiskey and beer. So congratulations. Congratulations to everyone. That's going around the sun for another year. Those people celebrating birthdays this coming week. We've got fans of the show. Amanda Hite, Lauren Berger, AKA the intern queen, Brian Moore, Carrie Noon, fan favorite, Berry Doctor, which sounds like a porn name or something but that is her name, I guess, Jonathan Godzilla, Duate, Mendoca, and Rick Kramer all celebrate birthdays.
Joel (13m 12s):
So have one on us.
sfx (13m 13s):
Happy Birthday!
Joel (13m 13s):
Another trip around the sun.
Chad (13m 13s):
It is a good life. And as you have a trip around the sun, well, why don't you have a trip to Belgium? Because that's where we're going to be. We're going to be in Belgium the first week in May at the Erecruitment Congress. I'm sure you heard about it. If you're in Europe and you're not registered for the Belgium event, go get it done. We're going to be there. Let's have some drinks. Let's let's listen to some good content. And after that, we're going to be flying to Vegas. That's right kids for Unleash, where we're going to be on the main stage with E O C commissioner Keith Sonderling talking about AI, hiring.
Chad (13m 55s):
He's going to be able to talk about just the compliance pieces of it. What is going to get you kicked in the nuts when it comes to AI and hiring? Well, you know what are you doing bad? What kind of guidance can they provide? It should be a good time.
Joel (14m 10s):
All roads lead back to chadcheese.com. If you want free stuff, you go to chadcheese.com/free. If you want to know where we're going, you go to chadcheese.com/events.
Chad (14m 22s):
No it's not!
Joel (14m 24s):
What is it? Travel.
Chad (14m 24s):
Just have them click on something. You make things to goddamn hard. Just Chadcheese.com. Click on free, click on events. There you go. TOPICS!
sfx (14m 41s):
fluffy unicorn song
Joel (14m 43s):
All right. Should I let's start with Checkr. Checkr announced this acquisition, its acquisition of Redwood City based Inflection in a deal worth $400 million, that's according to the Wall Street Journal. The 16 year old company was valued at just 30 million in a secondary deal last year, that's according to PitchBook. The transaction marks Checkr's largest acquisition to date and is a critical part of its expansion strategy and its fastest growing small to midsize business segment, San Francisco based Checkr, which emerged nearly eight years ago, as part of Y Combinator summer 2014, batch of startups processes more than 30 million background checks per year. This is one unicorn with one hell of an appetite Chad, what are your thoughts on Checkr writing some pretty big checks?
Chad (15m 29s):
Writing some checks. Well, it's pretty important to note that these HR back office outsourcing segments are so flush with cash that Inflection was started in 2006, they've taken $30 million in funding that was back in 2010. This is well before cash was being handed out like cheese sandwiches at Phish concerts. It's easy to get cash let's just say that. Anyway, this is a great competitor consolidation move by Checkr with the position really of Good Hire, who boasts a hundred thousand customers and they are focused on the small business side of the house.
Chad (16m 9s):
Inflection also gives Checkr solid APIs for somewhat instant background checking to integrate into HR platforms as well. What's the safest bet in TA HR platforms today it's back office outsource SAAS platforms like Checkr and Good Hire. So Checkr is mustering the troops to continue to take massive market share from heavy hitters like Sterling who's about 500 million in revenue where Checkr's about half that today. This is exciting to me because this is not an exciting space because background checks are boring as fuck, but nobody wants to do them. And you've got to love that there are two great domains that are actually a part of this too.
Chad (16m 55s):
inflection.com and goodhire.com. Would you, would you take the misspelled Checkr and move it and move it to Good Hire? Or would you just leave it where it's at?
Joel (17m 3s):
I'm an old school guy who loved Flicker. So every time I see Checkr, I think of the old Flicker. So you know what, whatever I think the Checkr brand is probably gonna stick around for a while. My question is, are they going to buy Fama or what? I mean, come on Ben Monez must be one hell of a negotiator. They need to add some background, check on social media to their portfolio. Okay. So Checkr has evaluation of $4.6 billion and, and Sterling, you mentioned a public company and the 800 pound gorilla has a $2.4 billion valuation currently. What does that tell you? Chad, either either buy some Sterling stock because it's way under valued or Checkr has some serious growth, aspirations and acquisitions are the best way to achieve that said growth.
Joel (17m 50s):
Seriously. If you own a background company with any customers, call the folks at Checkr today because they're in a serious acquisition mode to satisfy their lofty valuation. And they've got a checkbook with a lot of checks.
Chad (18m 3s):
Yes.
Joel (18m 4s):
So it'll be fun to get them to talking about their acquisitions. And I'm pretty sure that our European show, at some point we'll have some Checkr acquisitions in Europe. So background checks made fun thanks to big checks.
Chad (18m 20s):
Yeah. Thanks to nobody having to do them. They're automated through Checkr.
Joel (18m 25s):
Yes, that's right. Small business, big business doesn't matter. Doesn't matter to a lot of people are the people posting jobs for free on our friends at talent.com Chad. The artist formerly known as new view.com is scrapping free job listings. This is from our friends at Aim the company said it was making changes to its posted job product whose beta model was launched last year in order to improve the caliber of applicants. We got to blame the applicants Chad, the Canada based job board added that it was no longer accepting free job postings immediately. Free job postings already on the platform will remain until active until April 25th, right around the corner before being automatically paused.
Joel (19m 11s):
The company has gradually transitioning from predefined payment packages to a maximum budget per job model changes will be phased in over the coming weeks. Stop me if you've heard this one before. The free lunch is over. Chad, what are your thoughts?
Chad (19m 27s):
Yeah, the question is this quality over quantity or is it job board over aggregator? Or is it just, Hey, we're in a time of need and all of you guys need to start paying for the service. So that was a question that I actually asked to Lucas over at talent.com co-CEO. And this is his response "When we launched New VU in 2011, we did not start with a PPC model. And after changing six times our business model, until we had something that scaled. It's in our DNA to break walls, until we get something that will satisfy us. We are learning every day, we have all the right elements to make it happen, but we felt we needed to focus on quality/results for our candidates and employers at the smaller scale before we scale worldwide and maybe reintroduce free postings as well,"
Chad (20m 23s):
end quote. So again, they're a moving target, right? It's like, whatever's going to work and we're going to try things out, right? This is the market where they're obviously making money hand over fist. I don't know anybody in their space that's not making money hand over fist so they can pretty much do whatever they want and they are.
Joel (20m 44s):
So I have three letters for you. I, P and O. Let's go over the checklist Chad. Spend millions on a URL check, raise $120 million check. Employ 400 people, one of which is a high profile CFO. Check. Open in 78 countries in 29 languages check. Now it's increase the revenue and clean out some of the crap check.
Chad (21m 10s):
Yeah.
Joel (21m 10s):
They are now the number seven traffic job site in the world, up from number 35, just two years ago. That's according to some AME reporting. To me, it's all prepped for the public markets, but I do think the spin on quality is true. 20 years ago, Craigslist started charging a small amount to post jobs just to keep out the spam. It worked then and it probably still works today. But to me, this is all about profitability. Getting the dollars up before we walked down Wall Street.
Chad (21m 41s):
Yes. Do you think this is going to harm their traffic at all? Having less content, being able to search engine, optimize, having a smaller footprints, those types of things. Do you think that will hurt traffic?
Joel (21m 55s):
I don't think so. Particularly if, if the jobs were crappy, if know, no one wants to be looked at as a cesspool of crap, you know, it's like going to go into a search engine back in the day and all the site that it linked to were junk. You just, you just kind of stopped using the search engine. And so I think having quality is the right idea. I don't know if part of the plan is backfill, programmatically partnering with somebody that can fill in jobs and make money on the clicks that way. But yeah, I don't think having quality is ever a bad thing. And I think too many job boards in our space sacrifice quality for the almighty dollar. And I think then talent.com is just in a position now where they have so much traffic, so many users, they have such a big footprint that they can afford to start trimming the fat and just having quality on the site.
Joel (22m 46s):
So I think they're doing everything right.
Chad (22m 49s):
Yes. The more polite indeed is being more polite in saying, pay for this shit.
Joel (22m 52s):
They didn't take our advice on that. We said it should be like really big on the homepage. The nice indeed, listen to us. And hopefully they didn't listen to us, but hopefully people are going to listen to the advertisements from our sponsors because that's how we pay the bills people. We'll be right back.
Chad (23m 9s):
It's like Botox,
Joel (23m 11s):
What's a Botox. And how do you pronounce this guy? Jobox jobbox
Chad (23m 16s):
Jobox Botox. Yeah, job box. I would say that's what I would go with. But
Joel (23m 22s):
Do you remember Joboxer from back of the day, the underwear company? So this company is kind of cool, but the new summary is Jobox a company that provides marketplace infrastructure for home service professionals is raised $42 million in a Series B round bringing the grand total to $56.7 million. The company founded in 2018 has offices in Florida and Palo Alto. They offer professionals such as locksmiths, carpet cleaners, and plumbers, a mobile based operating system that lets them manage their businesses from their homes. The platform also includes a marketplace infrastructure that lets them search for jobs that match their schedule, skills and location. I think of it as a private label TaskRabbit or Thumbtack, and instead of paying for leads, blue collar pros only pay when they get paid.
Joel (24m 10s):
Chad any thoughts on Jobox?
Chad (24m 14s):
That's the difference between this and Angie's list now, Angie? HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack? I mean, other than paying a chunk of what you make, right? I mean Angie's list. I mean, those are the ones that I mentioned. Yep. You're pretty much pay to play. Right? You're you're paying for a posting. So will the services, businesses need this platform? That's the big question.
Joel (24m 33s):
Yeah. So I read this and thought, what the hell do these guys do? So I kinda, I went to YouTube and watch some videos and it's pretty cool. So this is an industry that represents like $600 billion of opportunity. So it's a huge space to have a lot of different options. How I read that is, and there's a story about it on YouTube, about a company that's a customer. And this company has these kiosks that make keys, right? I don't know if you've got an ACE hardware or Kroger? Lowe's you don't go to Kroger anymore. But if you went to a whatever grocery store and you put in a key, then it makes a key equal to your house key or whatever.
Joel (25m 16s):
So this company was getting calls from people about, I need a locksmith, which makes perfect sense, right? We make custom keys and people are calling us about locksmiths, but that wasn't their business. So this company, I think it's called Minute Key. If you go to their website, there's a link that says locksmiths. And it's a whole like private label, white label site where people can schedule locksmiths and it's based on their location. And then, so basically Jobox is powering all the technology to put these contractors on the jobs for locksmith. So they're basically going to businesses that provide services and then find themselves needing other services that they don't provide and this enables them to have the middleman, to get the contractor to the work and they can step out of it and, and not have to worry about it.
Joel (26m 12s):
So, whereas TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, et cetera, that's direct to customer from Thumbtack. And what Jobox says is like, they pay a lot of money on leads that they get. And sometimes you obviously don't get the job in their business model. You always get the job and then you get paid when, you know, when the service gets done. So again, I don't know a hell of a lot about plumbing and this whole world, but I think if I were a plumber, this would be a place I would want to set up shop to get jobs, to come to me. I'd be in every other platform as well. But I think this is a really interesting take on bringing contractors, blue collar folks and customers together. Anyway.
Chad (26m 48s):
You don't understand that plumbers. The only reason I do is because I live next door to one. And if I'm a plumber, a locksmith or any type of craftsmen today, I don't need leads. Hell. My phone is ringing off the fucking wall as it is. My texts are blowing up. I believe this is a great model just not for an industry that's already in demand. As a business owner why give Job Box any of my money when people, they they've got too much business, they're actually sharing it with competitors. So, I think it's interesting because you have big names like Angie, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack in this space.
Chad (27m 30s):
But I came home and my refrigerator, my ice maker in the refrigerator, it was broken. So what did I do? I didn't even think I just went straight to Google and put in refrigerator repair. Right. And that's where I found my person. So from my standpoint, they're going against Angie, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, Jobber, and Fusi, which is a numb two other platforms that are just like them. And they're competing with Google. So I personally don't think that an in demand industry, like this needs a quote unquote, "Uber for service industry."
Joel (28m 8s):
So Minute Key, this business has, they can either say, okay, you need a locksmith go to Thumbtack. We don't do that. Or they can say, okay, yeah, we provide that service, go sign up and yada, yada yada. And that builds their brand and hopefully client loyalty, et cetera. So you can at least see from their point of view, we're having a private label kind of solution beats, Hey, go to TaskRabbit. If you want that. We don't.
Chad (28m 29s):
Okay. So where does that even fit in? Because you're using this one hypothetical situation.
Joel (28m 33s):
It was the only one on YouTube.
Chad (28m 36s):
Of course it is because it's the only one that works when my fucking, when my plumbing goes down, is there, you know, a sticker on my pipes that say?
Joel (28m 44s):
Toilet makers that have people call them for plumbing stuff. I'm sure there are like.
Chad (28m 49s):
They do plumbing,
Joel (28m 50s):
But the company makes toilets. They don't do plumbing. They don't fix plumbing. They'll make your,
Chad (28m 56s):
I think, I think you, you were buying into a fringe incident.
Joel (28m 59s):
I don't think so, Chad.
Chad (28m 60s):
Yeah, I think so.
Joel (29m 2s):
And based on their investment, I can give you 42 million or 56.7 million reasons why it might be
Chad (29m 6s):
How many dumb asses are spending money in the market right now. You fucking kidding me. It's so bloated and crazy.
Joel (29m 13s):
Speaking of the dumb asses, let's go to the whole remote question. Cause we tackled that last week and it's still a thing apparently. Clearly LinkedIn thinks this is going to be a thing that's going to be here to stay. So LinkedIn reported this week, that remote jobs received 50% of the applications in February, despite representing less than 20% of the jobs posted. Let me read that again. 50% of the applicants and only 20% of the jobs. Companies eager to bring back workers to the office can risk losing them all together. The report states, if they don't offer remote options, Chad, you love data. And I love LinkedIn and the data says remote wins. You gotta be pretty happy about this I think.
Chad (29m 53s):
Yeah. We talked about this last week with Google boiling the frog, I think employers will promote and promise remote and hybrid work while slowly dialing it back as the labor market changes. And then when they start to gain control, well, it's all gonna change, right? So I don't see this as a long-term situation. Unfortunately. Now, some individuals like maybe developers or what have you, they might get an opportunity to stay out of the office, but I don't think it's going to be as big as we hope it will be.
Joel (30m 26s):
Are you saying a click and bait situation?
Chad (30m 29s):
Yes.
Joel (30m 30s):
Bait and switch, not clicking bait clickbait bait and switch.
Chad (30m 31s):
Yep.
Joel (30m 32s):
Everybody put remote in your job postings and you're going to have a lot more applications, even though you don't really mean it. And as you bring up Google, Chad boiling the frog. I got some more stuff that you're gonna, like Google said this week that they plan to open a new office in Atlanta. And will also make investments in a number of existing corporate hubs throughout Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington. They're doubling down on back to work. Google in recent years has been expanding its New York operations at a particularly quick pace. So I guess Google is smarter than everyone else, Chad
Chad (31m 5s):
Case and point. I mean they're showing what the strategy is, they're saying something and they're doing something entirely different.
Joel (31m 14s):
Yeah. Great point. And I'll add that Time magazine had a great article this week basically saying that white men are the only ones that want to go back to work. Apparently we have a pension for 1950s mad men scenarios and think thanks for all Don Draper, but it was a great article if you get a chance to see it. I do think hubris has maybe set in on Google when you've been told for 20 years that you're the smartest person in the room, you tend to believe it. And it reminded me also of the story that we read about people just being on Zoom calls when they do go back to the office. So I think Google is taking a real risk here by doubling down on brick and mortar office space and really risk having a, some sort of a dystopian workplace environment that really cuts down their brand equity as time goes on.
Joel (32m 6s):
Hubris tends to get all of us and we all pay for it eventually. Google is probably no exception.
Chad (32m 14s):
Yeah. I think, I think we're missing a main or the main reason why most companies, remember only 8% of the fortune 500 have a female CEO, remember that. That most companies are run by men and for a hundred plus years we've come into the office. So remote is outside the comfort zone of male leaders who got into leadership in the office. This is a total comfort zone and control issue. Guys, mainly white guys, but guys have been in charge. And part of keeping a power structure is control, which is hard to do physically in a remote environment.
Chad (32m 56s):
So men are uncomfortable with the thought of losing power. And that's why I believe even though remote has proven to work, this means getting back into the office ASAP. Relating once again to last week's Google and Laszlo Bock story on boiling the frog, this comes down to control and we keep talking about how, you know, white dudes are just dudes keep talking about, well, it's all about culture and we can't have a culture without being together. What they really mean is, this is uncomfortable for me. I need to maintain control.
Joel (33m 31s):
White guys are just the worst. Them and their electric bicycles. Hey, can you fade us out with some DJ Sol on this one? We're gonna pay some bills and come right back.
sfx (33m 55s):
music
Joel (33m 55s):
Chad, would it be a show without an OnlyFan story? Oh yeah, baby. Forget about the iCIMS IPO. Chad and Cheese fav OnlyFans is eyeing the public markets. This from Axios OnlyFan's has held talks with multiple blank check companies or specs, Google it if you need to, about a merger to take it public. The platform has millions of users and pays out billions to creators. But investors have stayed away because of its pornographic reputation. At one point it promised to ban adult content. You remember that, don't you Chad? Yeah, but the community rebelled getting them to reverse course.
Joel (34m 35s):
Anyway, they're hoping a spec could take them public. One spack, whose team includes Shaquille O'Neal NBA great as an advisor, ultimately couldn't get past the porn so far. No speck is biting. So OnlyFans wants to reposition itself less as a porn platform and more as a place for fans to connect directly with creators. Like a combination of Patreon and TikTok. Yeah. Good luck with that. Chad can OnlyFans shed it's naughty rep and find some love on Wall Street or is it forever banned to the back alley?
Chad (35m 7s):
I don't know why they want to go IPO in the first place. I mean, did Craigslist go IPO? They had a crazy amount of people on staff. I think it was like 50. Right? And they're making what? 500 million to a billion dollars.
Joel (35m 24s):
It's a lot. Yeah. They're projected at 2.5 billion this year.
Chad (35m 28s):
And again, this to me just feels greedy more than anything else. Be who you are, provide safe places for, you know, sex workers, women, men, whoever the fuck they are to do what they do and make money. Right. And provide better tech, provide better experiences. All those things. You can do that without going IPO. This to me is nothing more than greed or a badge? Right about I was able to IPO. So fucking what, how much money is enough money at this point? And that's the issue?
Joel (36m 6s):
How many yachts can you, water-ski behind to quote, Gordon Gekko
Chad (36m 8s):
How many lines of code can you do? You know, I mean, I just don't get it.
Joel (36m 14s):
Greed's a hell of a drug, Chad and Craig Newmark is an interesting cat. So according to an internal pitch deck compiled at the end of March 21 and attained by Axios, the company anticipated $1.2 billion in 2021 revenue in $2.5 billion in 2022, you can do the math on what 2023 probably looks like. OnlyFans creators have been paid a total of $3.2 billion with around 16,000 earning at least $50,000 annually. If it doesn't go public, it may just have to settle being the most valuable private company since Purdue pharma, who was also in the addiction business. And with that Chad another week is in the books.
Joel (36m 55s):
Glad to have you back in the USA, baby.
Chad (37m 0s):
Good to be here.
Chad and Cheese (37m 2s):
And we out
OUTRO (37m 53s):
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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