Indeed Attacks LinkedIn

[00:00:00] Hide your kids, lock the doors! You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Soosh and Joel

[00:00:07] Chesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking

[00:00:12] news, rash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcasts.

[00:00:19] Oh, yeah. Two guys sharing a drink called Loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone. Hi kids,

[00:00:34] it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host Joel Solar Eclipse, Chesman. This is Chad,

[00:00:40] Girl Power Sew Wash. And on this episode, LinkedIn, TikToks, Indeed Sources and Amazon

[00:00:48] Just Walks Out Plus Buy or Sell. Let's do this. Have you heard there's a big event in Indiana

[00:00:58] on Monday called the Solar Eclipse? Yeah, we've got a little town here, Clumps,

[00:01:03] Indiana, 40,000 people. And this weekend we're supposed to have 250,000 people because we are

[00:01:10] in the direct path. It's fucking crazy. Yeah, my aunt and little Seymour which is smaller than

[00:01:17] Columbus, they're expecting like 100,000 people. It'll be great for the economy, that's for sure.

[00:01:22] I hope the weather cooperates. Yeah, yeah. I mean no matter what it's not like people aren't

[00:01:28] gonna buy shit, right? It's the thing, it was funny. I was going through physical therapy

[00:01:33] this morning, the whole shoulder thing and everybody was talking about getting your

[00:01:38] groceries, almost like an apocalypse. Right? You gotta make sure you get your groceries,

[00:01:42] you gotta get your stuff, you gotta be like, why? I mean they're like, well you won't be able to

[00:01:46] get groceries, everybody's gonna buy everything out. Four minutes of night in the middle of the day

[00:01:52] is gonna destroy everything. As listeners know my wife is a scientist professor so we're having

[00:02:01] a get-together. You don't really have parties at our age, we're having a get-together.

[00:02:06] And Sun King, a popular brewery here in Central Indiana has an eclipse beer. They all do. I don't

[00:02:13] know what it's called. It's crazy. Yeah, we have two growlers ready to rock. For Tuesday we've got the

[00:02:18] glasses. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. I'm calling it the Joller Eclipse. That's so bad, so bad. So how was

[00:02:25] Easter real quick? All good? Easter was good. Easter was also Jeremy's birthday. Yes. I'm

[00:02:32] seven year old. So Easter was Godzilla vs. King Kong. That's awesome. They're actually teaming up to

[00:02:39] fights. Yeah, monsters killing each other, it's great. Love it. Easter egg hunt had my 84-year-old

[00:02:45] dad come over. We had by Jeremy's choice pizza sammies, select big grinders with pepperoni

[00:02:52] and pizza and cheese, which is fine with me. Calzone. And that was it. How about you?

[00:02:57] Yeah, I went down to Clarksville, Tennessee. My brother and sister-in-law are getting ready to move

[00:03:03] to Australia. I can't wait to go visit them. So we visit them and they're three young boys. So

[00:03:11] that was a good time. And literally on Easter we started drinking like at 10am and we didn't stop

[00:03:17] all through the day. Beer mosa's, I mean you name it. So other brother-in-law actually did a

[00:03:24] big-ass brisket and ribs. And so yeah, it was pretty awesome. It was a good send-off, let's just say

[00:03:31] that. Yeah. Well, I didn't hear from you on Monday. So I assumed that you were either hung over or

[00:03:36] recovering from brisket overdose. Traveling back and trying not to fall asleep at the wheel

[00:03:41] with all that fucking brisket on my stomach. Do you have a favorite Tennessee whiskey?

[00:03:47] No, I don't. I'm not a big Tennessee whiskey fan and there are so many bourbons in Kentucky.

[00:03:53] I just haven't pushed past it. Not to mention, I'm really looking forward to, we'll talk about this

[00:03:58] later kids, our trip to Scotland. Yeah, tease. I like Bibbon Tucker. Try it out if you have.

[00:04:04] Yeah. I feel like the whiskey is Bibbon Tucker and it's a cool bottle.

[00:04:07] Cool bottle as well. All right. Shout out. All right. We're going to go first shout out, kid,

[00:04:13] to Sebastian Detmers, the CEO over at Stepstone. So earlier this week he posted the following

[00:04:19] on LinkedIn quote, after much contemplation, I've decided to embark on a digital detox journey and

[00:04:25] we'll be going offline for the next three months. During my absence, all standard internal and

[00:04:32] external inquiries will be in the capable virtual hands of chat GPT courtesy of an

[00:04:38] innovative AI CEO partnership with open AI end quote. So the post goes on, but after reading

[00:04:44] this, I reached out to a couple of friends at state and I was still kind of loopy from

[00:04:50] Easter by the way at Stepstone and Appcast. I was like, dude, what the fuck? I got nothing but

[00:04:55] laughing emojis and he got you. Yes. It was an April Fools joke and yes Sebastian,

[00:05:01] you got me my friend. You got me. Good job. Good job on that one. I fucking hate April Fools.

[00:05:07] Maybe he's been listening to this show because we've talked about CEOs going away

[00:05:11] and being replaced by AI. So it wasn't that out of the norm for us to see something like that.

[00:05:18] But yeah, that's good. That's good. My first shout out, I'm sure you saw Taiwan had a big

[00:05:24] earthquake this week and I was amazed at how well the infrastructure handled it.

[00:05:34] They have a huge building that was fine, bridges. It was pretty well maintained. There are

[00:05:39] a few buildings, but the buildings that fell didn't collapse into dust. They kind of fell off

[00:05:46] the base. Most of the people were saved. Just shout out to Taiwan and their infrastructure.

[00:05:52] In contrast to us, it has one boat hit the base of a bridge and the whole thing falls down like

[00:05:58] a bridge of toothpicks. I don't know if it's too late for the infrastructure bill,

[00:06:03] but the USA is in dire need of some Taiwanese engineering.

[00:06:09] Yeah, I think any of those buildings that would have gotten hit by a container ship would have gone down.

[00:06:14] My shout out to Girl Power. That's right. The AP is reporting that women's Final Four tickets are

[00:06:22] on the resale market selling for an average of, get ready kids, $2,300 which is twice as much

[00:06:30] as the men's Final Four. You've got Caitlin Clark from Iowa to thank for that, Camilla,

[00:06:35] over at South Carolina. God, she is big and she's like the shack of NCAA basketball for women.

[00:06:44] Paige Beckers, Angel Reese, but Friday matches are Iowa against Connecticut, South Carolina

[00:06:51] against North Carolina State. It's pretty awesome because I know that you remember

[00:06:56] going to girls basketball games and like the scores would be 35 to 12. It was excruciating

[00:07:06] watching girls basketball, but now I like watching the girls play more than I do the dudes.

[00:07:13] Yeah. It's amazing. To your point, that was a high-scoring affair if it was 35 to 12.

[00:07:20] That was a banger, maybe back in the day. Totally. I have friends in Cleveland

[00:07:27] with the Final Four is and I can confirm that they have reached out or tried to get some second

[00:07:32] market tickets, aftermarket tickets. The cheapest that they found was $800 a ticket. This is a

[00:07:39] professional arena. This isn't like a high school gym. This is legit. So huge and I'm going

[00:07:45] to mess up some of these, but the viewership of the Iowa LSU game topped I think the Grammys,

[00:07:52] like every award show, most of the NBA Playoff games, really big viewership.

[00:07:59] It was a rematch of last year's final.

[00:08:02] Rematch. Great characters, great story with those two. Caitlin Clark is very likely to be

[00:08:09] the first pick coming to Indiana next year. As an Indiana resident, I can't be more excited

[00:08:17] than to have her. They also had the first pick last year. So they could be a juggernaut of a WNBA

[00:08:21] team. They're going to sell out the arena, which is kind of amazing. They might outsell the Pacers

[00:08:27] on average for the game. Yeah. I mean, the Pacers are pretty good still. But yeah.

[00:08:32] So my shout-out piggybacks on that. I think this has been the most fun

[00:08:36] March madness that I can remember a long time. And a lot of it isn't even the NCAA.

[00:08:41] You mentioned the women's basketball, which I echo. The NIT is one of the most fun tournaments

[00:08:47] that I've seen in a while. Now Indiana State hasn't done anything since Larry Bird was there

[00:08:51] in the 70s. They're the number one seed. They should have been in the NCAA, but I'm kind

[00:08:56] of glad they're not because now they're playing in the final four, which is in Indiana.

[00:09:00] They're playing in Butler, which if you're a Midwester or Hoosier, this is like folklore.

[00:09:07] This is my land and the movie Hoosiers. Like this is a really old historic arena. Indiana

[00:09:12] State's basically going to be the home team in this thing. They beat Utah and they play

[00:09:20] Seton Hall I think for the championship. So it's like a biggie school playing Indiana

[00:09:24] State. That's so much fun. They have this guy. His name is Robbie Avila. And he wears these throwback

[00:09:32] goggles like Kareem used to wear and worthy. And he's about six, nine I think white guy.

[00:09:40] He's mixed. He's like half Hispanic, half white. And he has the best nicknames.

[00:09:45] His nicknames include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, not Kareem, but Kareem. Like Kareem Soda. Larry

[00:09:52] Nerd, Larry Bird and Milk Chamberlain is another one. So great nicknames there. And then you got

[00:10:01] DJ Horn at NC State. You mentioned the big folks in the middle. This guy, he's listed at 275.

[00:10:09] He hasn't seen 275 since eighth grade. I don't know where the hell they're getting that.

[00:10:14] But this dude, he's got personality. He's fun. NC State is an underdog,

[00:10:22] Purdue's in it. Purdue is like one all-American and a bunch of Indiana like Jim Ratz. So that's

[00:10:29] kind of fun to watch, kind of a throwback to teams of the 80s and 70s. But yeah,

[00:10:33] shout out to March Madness. If last month was Six Nations, this month has been March Madness

[00:10:40] and it's been a hell of a lot of fun. Amen. Well, a shout out, last shout out goes to

[00:10:45] Free Stuff. That's right. Free T-shirts from Aaron App, Free Beer in Whiskey

[00:10:50] that are coming to your front door. Beer from Aspen Tech Labs,

[00:10:55] Whiskey from Tex Colonel, one bottle from Joel, one bottle from me and if it's your birthday,

[00:11:01] you could win rum from our pals at...

[00:11:05] Rum.

[00:11:05] In the air right now. I know I can. I can feel it all the way down in my plums.

[00:11:12] All right. A few listeners are celebrating another trip around the sun,

[00:11:16] kind of eclipse, solar eclipse. I don't know if there's any tie in there. Todd Burns,

[00:11:22] Amy English, Arno Schaefer, Derek Christensen, Rob McIntosh, Louis Nobrek and Patrick York.

[00:11:30] Happy birthday!

[00:11:30] There we go. I'll celebrate a birthday this week. Happy birthday to you guys.

[00:11:36] Excellent. Well, I'm not going to be going anywhere for the eclipse because

[00:11:40] we're getting ready to go to Vegas my friend.

[00:11:43] We're getting ready to go to Vegas.

[00:11:44] Yes, we are.

[00:11:45] Unleash America is coming to Las Vegas again, May 7th through the 9th.

[00:11:52] The day before on March 6th, Joel and I are going to get high. No, not that kind of high.

[00:11:58] We're going to the top of the stratosphere and we're jumping over 800 feet to earth with our

[00:12:06] friend Matt Bauer, the CEO from OutHire. That's right, OutHire. What more is that

[00:12:14] OutHire is paying for our listeners to join us do the jump. If you want to register to win

[00:12:21] or nominate maybe your boss or a friend to jump with us, goodchatchies.com. It's right there in

[00:12:27] the hero header. Click the Jump With Us button right on the homepage. Register and come see us

[00:12:35] then. Yeah, come see us fall to earth. Then on Tuesday, May 7th, this is where Kibu comes in.

[00:12:45] We're heading to the minus five bar with Job Pixel and Great People. More details to come,

[00:12:52] but I'm telling you right now we're going to feel like we're in Finland. It's going to be cold.

[00:12:56] We're going to have the big puffy jackets. I guarantee you. And then last but not least

[00:13:02] on May 8th, we're joining our friends over at Plum at the Neon Boneyard. You love little neon.

[00:13:09] Here's a little chat and cheese neon where we're going to be drinking, eating, and basking in

[00:13:14] the evening glow of Las Vegas' iconic retired neon signs. You know those old neon signs that

[00:13:21] they got rid of? Oh, they didn't get rid of them kids. They're all in a neon Boneyard.

[00:13:29] Google Neon Boneyard. Check it out. It is freaking awesome. Us there with our friends from Plum,

[00:13:35] it's going to be a great unleash. It is going to be great. But I heard nothing after jumping toward

[00:13:42] death from your first segment. So there's a weight limit of 265, I think. I'm trying to,

[00:13:50] I'm going to see how many burritos it takes to get to a point where I get on the scale

[00:13:56] and they're like, it's dangerous to have it. Sorry. Sorry. And if not, I need to invest in some

[00:14:01] depends because I'm going to shit my pants when I jump off this thing. Oh God, is that it for

[00:14:08] announcements? That's it. All right. We got some red meat for the listeners this week. Indeed

[00:14:21] revamped its user profile page introducing an AI powered writer to enhance work experience

[00:14:26] descriptions and supporting multiple resumes. It also launched smart sourcing suites for

[00:14:32] recruiters including AI powered candidate summaries and custom messages aiming to reduce

[00:14:38] irrelevant outreach in streamline hiring processes. Chad, what are your thoughts

[00:14:43] from the latest upgrades at Indeed? This is nothing more than just window dressing

[00:14:47] at the top of the funnel. Why isn't Indeed making more of an effort to move down funnel? AI

[00:14:54] resumes full of hallucinations and easy applies. That's a recipe for fucking disaster. How does any

[00:15:01] of that help companies find the right candidates? Well, it just doesn't. So if Indeed wanted to

[00:15:06] make a real impact, they would move down funnel, partner with platforms like Tadio or

[00:15:12] Hacker Rank to start gathering skills and performance data that actually matters. Coding

[00:15:16] tests, performance tests, gather the data that employers actually fucking need. Also,

[00:15:23] from this article I thought was interesting, talent.com was mentioned in the story as a

[00:15:28] competitor. It was, yeah. I mean, come on man. So many of these aggregators are just Indeed

[00:15:33] pilot fish. They're collecting the crumbs. They're not innovating. They're not moving

[00:15:38] the needle and they're definitely not competitors. So if you, talent.com and quote

[00:15:43] unquote competitors, if you want to compete with Indeed, beat them to the punch. Go down funnel,

[00:15:49] collect the data that employers and LLMs, yes, large language models will use to make

[00:15:55] relevant matches better. The reason why I hate on Indeed so hard is because they have the means

[00:16:03] to change this industry and yet they're changing the drapes in the fucking basement.

[00:16:08] For example, interview scheduling. They talk about interview scheduling in this.

[00:16:11] In 2024, interview scheduling should be a fucking afterthought. When a candidate applies for a job,

[00:16:17] answer some pre-screening prequel questions. They should meet, if they meet the requirements,

[00:16:23] they should have an interview now button that pops up and it takes you directly to a

[00:16:28] qualify, a pillar or a vet for interview, right? I mean, we should be cutting corners as opposed

[00:16:35] to just playing the window dressing game and that's all Indeed's doing and I fucking hate that.

[00:16:40] 60% of the time it works every time.

[00:16:43] Tell us how you really feel, Chad.

[00:16:46] Both barrels.

[00:16:47] So I view this as Google came out and sort of struck out against the job board industry

[00:16:54] and job postings and that seems to be alleviated for the most point.

[00:16:59] Like Google has said, we're not getting into pay per click. We'll let you guys still

[00:17:02] put your job postings in our search. So now it's like what's the other front

[00:17:07] of Indeed's war that they need to think about and that's LinkedIn in my opinion. So to me,

[00:17:13] both of these updates are reactions to what LinkedIn is failing to do or has effectively

[00:17:22] crushed outside of its walled garden. So with job search, LinkedIn job search sucks.

[00:17:31] Like it's related searches or recommendations are awful. So if I'm Indeed, I already have

[00:17:37] a better job search than LinkedIn does. So what does LinkedIn do that I can do better? Well,

[00:17:42] on LinkedIn, I can have generally one profile and now Indeed comes out with, oh, now you can

[00:17:49] have five resumes. So if you want one to be focused on a specific skill you can,

[00:17:55] if you want another resume specific, personally this can go really bad,

[00:17:58] five resumes per person. But at least in theory, it's a strike against LinkedIn because

[00:18:03] LinkedIn only has one profile. So that is a differentiator, whether it's worthy or not

[00:18:10] of competing with LinkedIn, I guess we'll find out but it is a move to go after LinkedIn. I think the

[00:18:15] bigger product or upgrade is the sourcing tool which from at least one insider that I talked to

[00:18:24] at Indeed they're really focused on the sourcing stuff like they're really

[00:18:29] batting down the hatches, all hands on deck kind of thing.

[00:18:33] Like that's a LinkedIn thing. They want to take away recruiter seats.

[00:18:36] And that's exactly a LinkedIn thing. So we've talked about LinkedIn effectively crushing

[00:18:43] every other third party solution that uses its data, the seekouts of the world, the hire tools,

[00:18:50] the hirees like so Indeed has said look, we can't let LinkedIn just own this sourcing

[00:18:57] thing. We have a hell of a lot of resumes too. So how do we keep people in our ecosystem searching

[00:19:03] our resumes and then sourcing effectively messaging etc to those people? So this entire move for me

[00:19:10] from Indeed is a strike at LinkedIn. I think the sourcing is really interesting. I think the

[00:19:15] job search like you said is sort of lipstick on a pig but they've got LinkedIn in their sites

[00:19:22] clearly and I don't think this is the last strike that they're going to make on LinkedIn.

[00:19:27] How you make sourcing better is better data for better matches. We already know their

[00:19:33] matching is shit. It's probably not as bad as LinkedIn's but their matching is already shit.

[00:19:38] They need better data to be able to bump up against. Having five resumes is fucking stupid.

[00:19:43] I mean it's like back to the future. How many pieces of shit can we throw out there for

[00:19:49] people to actually look at? I don't care. What I care is do they meet the requirements

[00:19:55] and do they have the skills and can they perform? That's it. Then go ahead and get me right into

[00:20:01] the interview and at that point we can see if there's a match. That's it guys. It's that

[00:20:07] fucking simple but what they're doing is they're playing up top at the top of the funnel

[00:20:12] and that doesn't fucking matter. None of it matters. None of it matters. So go down funnel and again

[00:20:18] for all the talent.coms that are out there, the ad zunas I mean even companies who don't

[00:20:22] even look like Indeed competitors, go down funnel get that data because the market is all

[00:20:27] about the large language models and being able to grind that data pool, that new data that

[00:20:34] LinkedIn doesn't have, that Indeed doesn't have. Get that data so you win.

[00:20:40] I don't think Chad's impressed everybody. I don't think Chad is impressed at all.

[00:20:47] Let's get to LinkedIn's news and see if that impresses you. LinkedIn is testing TikTok style

[00:20:53] video options aiming to help users discover timely videos. The feature will appear next to the home

[00:21:00] button and resembles TikTok and Instagram reels. LinkedIn plans to provide more information about

[00:21:06] the new service very soon. So Chad, are you ready to karaoke and dance to LinkedIn's

[00:21:13] TikTok competitor? They had a version of Instagram reels at one time and then they just trashed that.

[00:21:19] Why are they doing this? I mean, is TikTok stealing stickiness from them? Do they see that TikTok

[00:21:25] has stickiness that they want? And we talked about last week, it feels like Indeed is going

[00:21:31] more toward trying to be sticky for advertising dollars, right? To be able to keep people

[00:21:37] on platform, to be able to get those advertising dollars. And one of the things that we also

[00:21:43] talked about was that LinkedIn doesn't stick with some of these big projects that they put in place.

[00:21:51] They need to hire someone with discipline focused and damned patience for God's sake. Some of the

[00:21:57] ideas actually do make sense if they're implemented well, but right now I put our videos on TikTok

[00:22:05] and then I put the same ones on LinkedIn already. So what's... I mean, I don't understand how

[00:22:10] this is going to change behavior at all. So a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I thought

[00:22:15] LinkedIn bailed on video too soon. They've already tried, like you said, reels. I would have called

[00:22:20] them sort of Snapchat stories that they quickly got rid of. And I feel like with our video

[00:22:28] experience, our shorts and you're seeing more and more shorts because every podcasting platform

[00:22:33] will create shorts for you. So we're going to see more of that in every industry. And

[00:22:38] bailing on that was a bad idea because you could have seen where the world was going and

[00:22:43] bailing on it was their own decision. It looks like now they're going to basically relaunch

[00:22:49] some sort of video short system. They'll probably have it more in the main feed. They won't just

[00:22:54] have it as circles at the top that are kind of out of the main feed area. It'll increase

[00:22:59] engagement, it'll increase sort of interest in advertising. Agencies love these videos.

[00:23:05] Small companies can make these videos really quickly. AI is going to make a lot more videos,

[00:23:10] some of these shorts. So I think it's a good move. They never should have got out of it,

[00:23:14] in my opinion. Now the second thing they need to do is the live video stuff because they're

[00:23:20] awful at it and they should be really good at it. By all accounts, you have to use a third

[00:23:24] party to even stream on LinkedIn. They should have their own thing. And by the way,

[00:23:29] X, which I know you love, is getting better at sort of the live video, live conversations.

[00:23:35] And that is going to be something that LinkedIn needs to do well. So this is the first step into

[00:23:40] video. They need to work out like having webinars and podcasts like this live streamed on LinkedIn.

[00:23:46] And I think they've got something that's pretty interesting. Otherwise, let's hope they don't

[00:23:50] bail on this like they did the stories that they had six months to a year ago.

[00:23:54] Yeah. Well, I see once again on the advertising side of the house, this gives

[00:23:59] another vehicle to be able to do ads, right? So not just for us to be able to do podcast snippets

[00:24:06] or shorts or what have you, but this is going to allow ads. Those guacamole ads

[00:24:14] we saw that were static guacamole ads, we're going to get a commercial on LinkedIn. So

[00:24:20] again, I really see this turning into more of an advertising platform and literally pivoting

[00:24:26] in some respects away from the recruitment space because there's a hell of a lot more money

[00:24:31] in advertising if they can hold on to those recruiter seats, right? Which we all know HR

[00:24:37] is really fucking slow to move in the first place. But then also go after that very quick

[00:24:41] hit of the marketing side of the house. Then that does make sense. We'll see if it works

[00:24:47] though. Look, historically, LinkedIn sucks at advertising. I mean, they still have those little

[00:24:52] like box ads on the rights like, come on. So yeah, like getting something video, something

[00:24:57] interactive, every agency will say, let's give LinkedIn another look where we haven't done anything

[00:25:03] on there in a long time. Take that Twitter money, that Twitter, we've seen reports where

[00:25:08] they have actually taken Twitter money and I say they, those are companies who used to spend

[00:25:13] money on Twitter and they want to spend it on platforms like LinkedIn. LinkedIn wants to give

[00:25:18] them the opportunity so that they can get that fucking Twitter cash. Yep. And integrating into

[00:25:24] advertising platforms, look, coming is going to want to make a single TikTok ad. And how do I put

[00:25:29] it on Twitter? How do I put it on LinkedIn? So like they want to be able to shotgun it

[00:25:33] everywhere and LinkedIn needs to have something that they can put their ad. All right, let's

[00:25:38] take a quick break. All right, Chad, it's buy or sell. You know how we play the game. We listen to

[00:25:48] three companies that have recently gotten money and we read a summary and then we either buy

[00:25:53] or sell the company. And for whatever reason, I can't find my boxer. Oh, there it is. Okay.

[00:26:03] There it is. All right. There it is. There it is. Now I'm in the mood to play some buy

[00:26:06] or sell. All right, number one, we got, we got London based MetaView, one of your faves from a

[00:26:11] recent firing squad. They're an AI assistant for streamlining hiring processes. They've raised

[00:26:16] $7 million in funding. The funds will accelerate product development and the team growth.

[00:26:22] They say they're already saving teams at least 20 hours per hire. Chad, you weren't much of a

[00:26:28] fan, like I said, but they're giving you 7 million new reasons why you should change

[00:26:33] your mind. Buy or sell MetaView. Yeah, it's funny because we spoke with Jason Corsello earlier this

[00:26:40] week from Acadian Ventures and he was talking about on the seed side, there's a lot of,

[00:26:47] it's hot. There's a lot of money that's going to be spent on the seed side because

[00:26:52] people want to spend that money. You said the last week just on the IPO side, right? So

[00:26:56] people want to spend money. But in a world of generative AI platforms like Google, Microsoft,

[00:27:02] Anthropoc, Mistral and Meta are going to win unless, unless you have the secret sauce. And that

[00:27:09] secret sauce is years of data like for example, ATS and CRM companies, behavioral data. MetaView

[00:27:17] is way too late to the party. The beer's gone. All the chicks, all the hot chicks are passed out.

[00:27:22] The one thing MetaView has going for them is a great CEO and that's not enough for me.

[00:27:29] It's still, even with those 7 million reasons, it's still a sell for me.

[00:27:36] All right Chad, interview intelligence is hot. I don't know if you've heard it. I hang out with

[00:27:41] a lot of kids that are talking about interview intelligence a lot. Now I think some solutions

[00:27:46] that have been around a while, BrightHire, Full Disclosure, I'm an advisor, Honit

[00:27:52] have evolved this thing a lot longer and they are further along than MetaView is.

[00:27:58] But it's a wave that is going to get a lot of attention and funding and it's going to be an

[00:28:05] acquisition target for somebody in the next two to three years. So if the mission is sell this

[00:28:12] thing at 7 million, could they sell it for 50? I guess. We'll see if BrightHire will probably

[00:28:17] go off first. Honit, Honit's been around a while. Nick must just love running that business

[00:28:23] and not selling it. But for me, I think it's a buy. I think it's a wave that is easy to surf

[00:28:28] even though the surfer in this case is maybe not the best surfer in the world. But for me, yeah,

[00:28:33] I gotta buy it. I gotta buy it. All right. That is MetaView. Next up we have Modal.

[00:28:44] Modal learning, a startup founded by 2x Udemy executives has secured 25 million

[00:28:50] in series A funding, which brings their total to $32 million. Modal offers a platform focused on

[00:28:57] enhancing employees' technical skills with courses on generative AI, data management and analytics

[00:29:03] among others. Chad, buy or sell Modal. I can't stop myself. I've got to buy,

[00:29:09] buy, buy and let me tell you why all companies are tech companies. We just had a great conversation

[00:29:14] with Mark Chaffey, CEO over at Hackajob earlier this week and he said that Walmart is pretty much

[00:29:20] absorbing tech talent that guys like your buddy Zuck are cutting. And those tech people will need

[00:29:28] to keep their skills up-to-date. They will need to advance those skills because they need

[00:29:33] to stay with the velocity of today's tech. Plus there are all those other non-tech

[00:29:39] technical skills that all employees will have to get trained on. Last but never the least, you

[00:29:45] mentioned it, Shemkis and Yang, ex Udemy president and CEO are founders. This is too easy. This is

[00:29:54] exactly in the warehouse. They've sold something like this before. Buy, buy, buy. All right.

[00:30:01] Chad is a buy on Modal. Yeah, look, interview intelligence is hot. Upscaling is even hotter.

[00:30:10] There's going to be a lot of money flowing into this. Companies want to grow their own.

[00:30:14] They're tired of spending money on recruiting and recruiters and agencies like why can't we just

[00:30:21] educate our own folks and get them further up the corporate ladder? Look, this is an idea

[00:30:27] that's proven. You've got Gusto Glote, LinkedIn Learning, DeGreed, Coursera, like it's a proven model.

[00:30:36] The only the only risk of these guys is they just get crushed by whoever becomes Coke and

[00:30:41] Pepsi of the upskilling world and they just become a consolidation play. I think there's

[00:30:46] going to be a lot of room for companies. They do have a pricing model that is sort of unique.

[00:30:53] They only charge companies when employees successfully complete a course. So there's a

[00:30:58] little bit of like there's no risk. You're only going to pay when someone completes a course,

[00:31:02] which is going to be very favorable to a lot of companies. So yeah, for me as well, this is

[00:31:10] a winner. This is a winner. All right. Our last company, you're going to love these guys.

[00:31:15] Home from college. That's right. The name of the company is Home from College, a Los Angeles-based

[00:31:23] career platform. They've raised $5.4 million in seed funding. The platform caters to, you guessed

[00:31:30] it, Gen Z offering park time and full-time roles and serves clients like Poppy Aquifer

[00:31:37] and Steve Madden. Nothing says cool like a pair of Steve Madden's everybody with the cash.

[00:31:42] Home from college plans to expand the team and add more products for job seekers,

[00:31:48] Chad, buy or sell home for college. Wow man, 5.4 million in seed. That's a lot of cash.

[00:31:58] But the problem is college is transient. You're in college until you're not and then you stop

[00:32:04] using your old college job systems. Then you move on to LinkedIn, Indeed, Hack a Job or

[00:32:11] wherever the people in your industry gravitate. So that being said, you need to either partner

[00:32:18] closely with colleges and universities or spend shit tons of cash on marketing month after month

[00:32:24] after month to maintain market penetration. I personally have experience in building these

[00:32:30] types of college recruiting systems, nightmares, working directly with colleges, universities,

[00:32:35] career center directors and employers who have teams that are focused on hiring from the

[00:32:40] university. And I promised myself I would never fucking do that again. This is a sell very easily.

[00:32:48] Fair enough. All right, I'll make it quick because we got a lot of show left to go. I hate the

[00:32:52] name. I hate the college. I hate the college environment. You're right. Like every few years

[00:32:58] there's a new player handshake. Go back and yeah like monster track or whatever the fuck that

[00:33:04] like that's it. It's just bad business. I hate targeting like generationally. It just

[00:33:12] it's kind of silly to me. Look, there's already a resume builder out there. It's called LinkedIn

[00:33:17] and it already has all the people who are going to hire you on it. So don't mess around with

[00:33:22] some work or home from college site to build your resume. Go to LinkedIn and build your

[00:33:29] resume there and keep it updated and connect with people like it's such a much better product.

[00:33:34] Do you remember Visual CV from back in the day? Oh yeah. I mean, this thing has been tried and

[00:33:39] tried again. So for this like yeah, you can guess I'm a big sell on home from college. At

[00:33:47] least it's a dot com so you can remember that. That's right kids. Grandpa says get your

[00:33:53] profile on LinkedIn. That's right. Alright, let's talk a little food. Shall we little fast food?

[00:34:00] A little quick serve action. First up we have a Waffle House. The union of Southern

[00:34:06] service workers has filed a petition against Waffle House alleging the chain deducts mandatory

[00:34:12] meal costs from workers paychecks even if the meals aren't eaten. Workers are charged at

[00:34:18] least $3 per on shift meal impacting those on a tipped sub minimum wage. Chad, your thoughts

[00:34:26] and what's your go to meal at Waffle House? Because I know there's about 10. Yeah, there's

[00:34:31] a there's splattered and scattered and splattered and all that other fun stuff. This is from the

[00:34:36] Waffle House employee manual quote meals must be consumed at the restaurant and no food can

[00:34:42] be taken home under the meal policy. Any food actually taken home by such an associate will

[00:34:49] be considered a to go order and must be paid full price end quotes. Number one any company that says

[00:34:57] that stupid shit right out of the gate, it's like fuck off but then the union of Southern

[00:35:02] services workers called it especially alarming since as you said these workers make a sub

[00:35:09] minimum wage. What is a sub minimum wage kids? It's $2 and 90 cents an hour. Yes, Europe. Yes,

[00:35:17] Europe. You think you get fucked sometimes $2 and 90 cents an hour plus tips but it's a Waffle House.

[00:35:24] We're talking tips at a Waffle House. This is not this is not upscale. Okay, no one's ordering

[00:35:32] $200 worth of food at the Waffle House. No, no, this to me is is just fucking ridiculous.

[00:35:39] The the center of gravity for where these Waffle Houses are Georgia has 381 South Carolina 144

[00:35:47] North Carolina 142 Florida 133 in Alabama 128 it's in the south. It's in the south. The

[00:35:55] impoverished if you take a look at where most poverty is in the US, it's in the south and

[00:36:01] Waffle House you're not helping. You're not helping. Doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like

[00:36:06] I'm taking crazy pills. These numbers right here. So Waffle House is a $4 billion a year company.

[00:36:14] It's a chair. A guy named Joe Rogers Jr. Is worth $1.7 billion. If this is true,

[00:36:24] Waffle House earns the douchebag company of the year award because Chad's right these

[00:36:31] if you haven't been to Waffle House, you're missing out kids. It is it is it's good people.

[00:36:38] Yes, a lot of times this is the only company will hire them. I've never had a bad experience

[00:36:43] from an employee at Waffle House. Well, okay, it's usually at 2am in the morning.

[00:36:48] The right answer is the the biscuits and gravy by the way in terms of best thing at

[00:36:53] Waffle House. But yeah, look if it's true, Waffle House didn't come out and say this is not true.

[00:36:57] They didn't say this is why or we make it up. So like so all by all accounts,

[00:37:02] this is true. Waffle House hasn't come and they have a PR department I'm sure. So

[00:37:08] yeah, this is bullshit. I hope the union gets what they deserve. I hope this practice stops

[00:37:14] because inevitably it's wage theft. Oh, yeah. At worst and maybe at best it's corporate

[00:37:19] greed. But it's a practice that's really stupid to stop. It's both. Let's be honest,

[00:37:26] making making a pile of pancakes at Waffle House probably costs them 30 cents, right? And and to

[00:37:32] like three bucks, I just it's just I don't it's just really it's really bad. It's really bad.

[00:37:39] God damn it, Waffle House. I got to go to IHOP now. Let's go to the other side of the

[00:37:42] pendulum. Let's talk about California. Yeah, I got to go to Cracker Barrel now. God damn it.

[00:37:48] All right. In California, about half a million fast food workers are now making at least $20 per hour

[00:37:55] thanks to a new law that raises wages for restaurant change with more than 60 nationwide

[00:38:00] locations. The law also establishes a fast food council of first in the US to annually adjust

[00:38:06] wages in line with inflation or up to 3.5% and to address worker safety and other issues.

[00:38:13] Owners of some fast food franchise locations have already increased prices or cut worker hours

[00:38:19] in response to the higher wages. Chad, does this drive you to californication or is it just a little

[00:38:26] california dreamin? Yeah, so over the years we've been told a bunch of lies, a lot of myths.

[00:38:33] If we pay these people living wages, we're going to have to go out of business.

[00:38:38] We're going to have to raise the food rates, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Well,

[00:38:42] in November of 2013, yes, over 10 years ago, C-TAC passed Prop 1 which authorized a $15 minimum wage

[00:38:50] policy which was phased in over several years. The policy went into effect in January of 2014.

[00:38:56] Six months later, the larger Seattle City Council expanded a similar $15 minimum wage

[00:39:04] policy to nearly 20,000 workers. So this is a great model to look at as we look at predicting

[00:39:11] outcomes because this took place more than 10 years ago. Did that kill restaurants? No. Since

[00:39:17] 2015, the number of restaurants is actually up in Seattle 5%. That's over 3,200 restaurants.

[00:39:26] Annual sales increased by 20%. Seattle's job growth have outpaced the rest of Washington state.

[00:39:34] So now let's go back to Cali. Cali, Cali. The new Cali $20 per hour minimum wage.

[00:39:42] The last time California raised the minimum wage to $16, guess what happened? Prophets went up.

[00:39:50] Where do you think these people buy food? When you put money in people's pockets,

[00:39:56] they fucking spend it. They can buy more. So owners should stop balling up in the fetal

[00:40:02] position and start researching these models. Many Seattle restaurants are experiencing much lower

[00:40:08] turnover in higher profits because of this. This is not the shit that Milton Freeman talked about.

[00:40:14] He had fear in, oh, you're going to lose people and all the money has to go to the top.

[00:40:20] Fuck off, Milton. I hope you're turning over into goddamn grave right now because you were

[00:40:24] wrong. We need to pay the people. He's with Jack Welch and not very happy about your words

[00:40:30] coming out of your mouth. There are a couple things I don't like about this. I don't like that

[00:40:34] there's a rule that if you serve just bread alone, you're immune to that, which means

[00:40:39] Panera bread gets a pass from this and apparently Newsom and the Panera. So there's

[00:40:46] some politics here that I don't like particularly, but everything else you should like. Look,

[00:40:53] you have to have 60 plus locations. So that means it's not killing the mom and pop barbecue

[00:41:00] down the street. It's not killing the Taco Rito, Taco Ria favorite downtown, whatever.

[00:41:07] These are mainly big companies with a lot of money, a lot of resources.

[00:41:12] The fear of mongering was the prices are going to go insane. You're not going to be able

[00:41:16] to afford it. We have our first indication of what price increases mean. There was an

[00:41:22] in and out burger pre-April first and post-April first in terms of prices. So I think I'm paying

[00:41:28] 10 cents more for a cheeseburger. I'm paying like five cents more for a hamburger, maybe 20 cents

[00:41:36] more for a shake. Fries didn't go up. So potatoes must be doing very well growing wise. So it's

[00:41:41] not like my cheeseburger went from $3.99 to $10.99. So the price increases are negligible.

[00:41:49] These folks that have a hard time making a living will now be able to do so.

[00:41:54] By the way, we know that when poor people get money, more money, they spend it. They spend it on

[00:42:00] food and gas and consumables and iPads. So most of this is going to come back into the cycle.

[00:42:12] When you give rich people a lot of money, they put it in a bank or they store it.

[00:42:17] They don't just spend it. So giving money to people without means is usually a good thing to

[00:42:22] keep the economy robust. Now, what will be interesting to see... So I don't think there's

[00:42:27] any Armageddon. I don't think the sky is falling. I think everything is going to be fine. Frankly,

[00:42:32] $20 should be 25. We've talked about that a few times on this show, but 20 is not enough.

[00:42:38] It's not quite enough, especially in California. I do think they should use this as a recruiting

[00:42:42] tool to get people to move to California because of the higher minimum wage. Get people leaving Texas

[00:42:48] and Florida. So who's going to serve your Barbacoa Bowl if they're all in California making more money?

[00:42:53] I think that's interesting. This is being politicized big time, The New York Post,

[00:42:58] right wing entertaining publication and the less. Their headline was California Fast Food Minimum

[00:43:04] Wage Laws Already a Disaster and New York wants some of it too. So this is going to be

[00:43:09] politicized, but there's no sky is falling situation in California. No one is going to...

[00:43:15] Now, will some people lose their job? Probably. I think the best people will

[00:43:20] stay and maybe some of the worst will be let go. There'll be some people that are sacrificed

[00:43:26] for this. Prices don't blow up like I think people have been fearful of. I do think it

[00:43:33] will increase or accelerate the investment in robots. I think that's inevitable no matter

[00:43:37] where we are. People just hate employing people no matter how much they're paying them.

[00:43:41] The interesting thing will be in 10 years when we're hopefully not doing the show anymore,

[00:43:45] but what do fast food places look like? Is it like a really small group of

[00:43:49] professionals that make really good salaries and they're managing the robots and the customer

[00:43:53] service? Restaurants will probably look much different than they do today.

[00:43:57] Probably. Whether we're doing the show to talk about it, I don't know. But this is a good

[00:44:01] thing people. This is a good thing. Yeah. I'll be on the beach in Portugal where we

[00:44:06] don't have fast food, so I won't give a fuck no matter what.

[00:44:12] Listening to Keeboo. Yeah. I do enjoy the occasional Burger King when I'm in Europe though and five guys.

[00:44:24] All right, Chad. Amazon is removing just walk out technology from its Amazon fresh stores and

[00:44:30] replacing them with smart carts that allow customers to skip the checkout line but see their spending

[00:44:37] in real time. The change comes after customer feedback and as part of a revamp of the grocery

[00:44:42] chain, just walk out technology will be available in Amazon Go stores and some smaller Amazon

[00:44:49] fresh stores in the UK as well as two third party retailers. But by all accounts, this

[00:44:55] program is on the ropes. Chad, your thoughts on Amazon's latest move?

[00:45:00] Yeah. I think the smart carts are incredibly smart. I just hope it's not like enemy of the state where

[00:45:06] they have cameras all over the place watching and that's just it gets a little bit too dystopian

[00:45:13] for me. But yeah, to be able to see innovation come to grocery shopping, the only thing that

[00:45:22] we've seen in innovation for grocery shopping, obviously the back office stuff and then also

[00:45:28] inventory those types of things that makes a lot of sense. But the self-checkouts which they're

[00:45:34] going to be scaling back on. So will this be the replacement for a self-checkout possibly in the

[00:45:40] future? I don't know but it'll be interesting to watch. That's for damn sure. Yeah. Clearly

[00:45:47] self-serve is in flux. The panacea of let people check themselves out, no cashiers or just walk

[00:45:57] out the door is not really built for human beings. Human beings are like just stand and

[00:46:04] stand at your local self-serve checkout area when you have some spare time. People are like,

[00:46:11] they don't scan it right. They take it off the way thing and they're going to start over.

[00:46:16] Like it's six people checking out. There's one person that has to handle six people. Two of them

[00:46:22] don't know what the hell they're doing. The third is like needs age verification because

[00:46:27] they're buying alcohol. You end up being in this infinite loop of waiting for the person to check

[00:46:33] you out and waiting for them and then people just aren't meant for self-service. And so you

[00:46:42] see dollar store, Target, Walmart or like we're phasing some of this out. And I think this has been

[00:46:50] an experiment by Amazon that probably hasn't gone the way that they hoped. Look, Amazon did a lot

[00:46:55] of crazy stuff when Bezos was at the helm whether it was like Whole Foods, MGM Studios,

[00:47:03] why I guess they're getting into Media More, the Firephone, remember nobody bought.

[00:47:11] And fortunately under Jassy, they focused on three things that are really successful for them.

[00:47:19] E-commerce, AWS and advertising. People don't understand Amazon is like the third largest

[00:47:26] advertising platform out there. Those are really good profitable businesses that aren't a pain in

[00:47:32] the ass. So like this Whole Foods checkout thing has got to be a pain in the ass that they don't

[00:47:38] want to deal with. But they have to because they spent how many billions on Whole Foods?

[00:47:42] So they have to think about this. I don't know if this will work. I'm not hopeful for humanity

[00:47:48] to get a, I'm going to take a cart and it's going to track what I put in the cart and then

[00:47:53] I can just walk out. Like we're not putting my credit card. Like you've seen videos of the

[00:47:57] just walk out where people are like, what do I do? Like just walk out.

[00:48:02] There was a comment about some black people. They were like, wait, no, no, no, I'm not just

[00:48:06] walking out. Where do I pay for this? Yeah, no shit. Historically, I'm not walking out with

[00:48:12] shit. Right. Yeah, I'm not doing that. Where's the camera? I'm getting pumped here. So I think

[00:48:18] Amazon needs to focus on what they do well, get rid of these hubris inducing side projects

[00:48:25] and get back to basics. But they're not the only big company having a little bit of an image,

[00:48:32] image problem or what the hell they're going to be when they grow up problem. Apple,

[00:48:36] the largest company on the planet is exploring the development of a mobile robot that can follow

[00:48:42] users around their homes and a robotic smart display for homes. But it is still in the early

[00:48:48] stages and not yet committed to releasing these products. The company has been under pressure

[00:48:52] to find new sources of revenue and sees robotics as a potential opportunity to expand its presence in

[00:48:58] the home market. The focus on AI and machine learning is part of Apple's strategy for future growth,

[00:49:04] but the company has yet not committed to either project Chad. Are you ready for Apple robots

[00:49:12] following you around in your house? And more than that, are your dogs ready for a robot to

[00:49:17] follow you around in your house? Yeah. The only thing I could think of is the Jetsons and Rosie,

[00:49:24] their robot that followed them around. I thought that was really cool. Now I have my own place,

[00:49:30] my own dogs. And yeah, I don't need that. I've got robots that vacuum my carpet and can possibly

[00:49:38] mark my floor, but I don't need any of that other shit. Sometimes I want to unplug my

[00:49:44] Google Home just because the fucker listens to me all the time. So I think, yeah, this is literally

[00:49:51] a bridge too far for me at least. I'm just not sure how long it's going to take for society

[00:50:00] to start. Well, first and foremost, the cost, right? So the cost is going to be a factor,

[00:50:07] but will society be comfortable with having something like that in the house all the time?

[00:50:14] I don't know. I just know that I won't. Can I have sex with the robot and does it look like

[00:50:20] Jennifer Aniston is the question, I guess, that I have for this thing? Obviously, it's not

[00:50:25] connect with your only fans. Look, part of me feels bad for these big companies that have

[00:50:31] to make these huge swings. They can't just dabble in stuff and Apple is post Steve Jobs.

[00:50:38] Really, it's like AirPods and technically the watch that have been successful, which are really

[00:50:44] extensions of the iPhone. Look, they've they've dabbled in TVs. They're rumored to get into that.

[00:50:51] They were rumored to have cars. Apple Home was a thing. Car play should be a thing.

[00:50:59] They just can't get it right. Nope. And this ain't it. Look, vision, the Vision Pro's

[00:51:05] dead on arrival. I haven't heard anything about them since they launched.

[00:51:10] I wear glasses, Chad. And my latest pair is the Meta Ray band glasses, which are great because

[00:51:17] you don't really know their smart glasses. I can I can listen to music or my podcasts as

[00:51:23] my wife yells at me about how I didn't mow the yard right. I'm just listening to that.

[00:51:28] I can take pictures and video like that's the kind of thing Apple needs to develop. They need

[00:51:33] to buy Warby Parker or partner with Prada or Dolce Gabbana and create like smart glasses that are

[00:51:40] like that that are cool. You don't really know they're there. These big swings are are messing,

[00:51:46] messing them up. I guess as a final thought, maybe Amazon and Apple could partner

[00:51:52] and create a penis rocket that can follow me around my house. That my friends sounds like

[00:52:01] a home run. And with that, we out. Wow. Look at you. You made it through an entire episode of

[00:52:11] the chat and chase podcast. Or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end. Either way,

[00:52:17] there's no doubt you wish you had that time back. Valuable time you could have used to buy

[00:52:23] a nutritious meal at Taco Bell. Enjoy a pour of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty

[00:52:31] Latinas and bug fights on TikTok. No, you hung out with these two chuggle heads in stand.

[00:52:39] Now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt. But save some soap because you'll be back.

[00:52:45] Like an awful train wreck. You can't look away. And like Chad's favorite Western,

[00:52:53] you can't quit them either. We out.