Fraud, French AI, and Boring Acquisitions: Joonko, Mistral, and Gem

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[00:00:53] 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

[00:01:04] breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark. Buckle up boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast. Oh, yeah. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese, HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad, Euro 2024 Sowash,

[00:01:24] and on today's show we're diving into AI washing drama with the SEC and Junco. ZipRecruiter is a great place to work, not. Mistral AI scored a big round and Gembot, who? Let's do this. Okay, listener, how can you help your employees become more productive? I have

[00:01:48] answers. How about automating manual and repetitive tasks, giving meaning to data, then allowing that data to actually drive decisions? And how about matching people to your jobs quicker? Well, wait, the Chad and Cheese has a new LLM? No, Cheeseman. I'm talking about text kernel.

[00:02:08] Ah, okay. That makes more sense. What I'm hearing is the groundbreaking concept of, wait for it, simplicity. Seriously though, seriously, text kernel cuts through the complexities like a tortilla chip through some hot nacho cheese. Really? Nacho references already. Anyways,

[00:02:30] text kernel brings efficiency and productivity to your operations. Text kernel seamlessly unifies your tools and data to drive efficiencies and success. Text kernel is creating new opportunities for your recruitment journey, kind of like adding guac to my barbacoa burrito.

[00:02:50] Oh my God. How about extracting meaningful insights from data? I mean, that's something. Swiftly matching people with jobs, automating repetitive tasks. Who knew such advanced concepts were even possible in the land of human resources? We did, Chad. We did. Dude,

[00:03:11] wrap it up. I'm a little hungry. Imagine that. Okay, listener, get ready to use today's tech to drive efficiencies and productivity. Visit texkernel.com. That's T-E-X-T-K-E-R-N-E-L.com. Mm, nachos. Well, welcome back kids. Yes, Joel's on a beach in Vietnam. Everybody knows that,

[00:03:39] but no, I'm not going to be alone this week because I wasn't hugged enough when I was a kid, so I need somebody on the show with us. So I have a special guest and give me a second. I've

[00:03:49] got to actually pull this up so that you can see the lovely website. That's right. We have Maureen Wiley-Clough, host of It Gets Late Early, the podcast. Welcome to the show, Moe. How's it

[00:04:03] going? It is going. Thank you so much for having me. I'll try to do my best to stand in for the inimitable Joel. So yeah, we'll work on it. Yeah, it won't be as hard as you think. I

[00:04:14] promise you. Don't tell him that. He's irreplaceable. Not to mention, we both have drinks. You have a Moe Mosa. We do. Moe Mosa, for sure. And I have what you called. We're rebranding. And I was very surprised that you know because not many people know

[00:04:29] the green Portuguese wine is... You're very cultured, Moe. I do. You're very cultured. I'm very cultured. I like alcohol. Does that make me cultured? Yeah, sure. Yeah, just smart. So anyway, do us a quick and dirty Twitter bio. Who is Moe? All those people

[00:04:48] who don't know you should know you. Tell them why. So I have been working in the tech industry for a while and at the ripe old age of 37 was referred to as a dino, at which point I had an

[00:04:58] obvious existential crisis. And I looked around and I was like, wait a minute. This is actually pretty accurate. I'm one of the oldest people at this company. And it was a smaller startup, but then I did a retrospective analysis and I was like, wait, throughout my corporate career,

[00:05:14] even at the likes of Bloomberg and SAP Concur, I was among the oldest people there. And I was like, dude, wait, people are living to literally 100 now and no one's saving enough for retirement. So how does this work out? And I realized I had this really intense pressure

[00:05:28] to feel like I had to make VP or something by age 40 to solidify my chance to have a seat at the table, especially as a woman, I felt like that too. So I started thinking why the

[00:05:39] hell is no one talking about this? This seems to be a very obvious problem with no very quick solution. And so I started the podcast, it gets laid early to have these conversations with experts, with thought leaders, one of my favorite terms with my peers.

[00:05:53] And it turns out like everybody's thinking about this too and just no one's talking about it. So I thought why not do it? So here I am. The maths weren't mathing and us growing,

[00:06:02] we were growing older for longer. And you're right. I mean, even if females get to a VP rank, it's not that they actually get the pay or the responsibility or what have you. So,

[00:06:15] you know, there's still a lot of work to happen there, let alone age, but also age and gender in many cases. Also, you know, race, all those things. And there is an under representation of older people, especially in the tech industry. But I think

[00:06:28] ageism extends across all different industries because humans are amazing. It's something that we have just left off the table from DEIB conversations when we know it to be a factor. And so I'm on a mission to ensure that we bring it into the conversation.

[00:06:43] And I firmly believe just like all other forms of diversity is going to add to the bottom line, which is frankly the only fucking reason anyone would ever give a shit about it in this

[00:06:51] capitalistic hellscape of a society. So there you go. So let's go research that. Let's go figure it out and get people to give a shit. All right. Well, I'm just going to, I'm gonna let you keep rolling and we're just going to go ahead and we're going to

[00:07:03] go straight into time for shout outs. And you have the first shout out. So who would you like to shout out? So I would like to shout out, first of all, it's kind of a movement I want to shout out. And it is the concept that your midlife

[00:07:18] is not the end. That it is in fact the beginning, which is encapsulated in some ways that I find to be really uplifting and fantastic. And in others that I find to be

[00:07:29] a little, I don't know, maybe concerning. And so I found this, this person is a rather large, for lack of a better term influencer. She's also a doctor. She's a psychologist. Yeah. Why don't you go ahead and roll this? Yeah. Gucci.

[00:07:46] All women are born with a magnetic energy inside of their souls. You too were born with that energy. When a woman radiates that energy, she is memorable. That magnetism is impossible to miss. You know that she is the main character in her life. You have that energy

[00:08:07] and that energy must be nurtured because over time with every heartbreak, with every life changing event, it becomes harder to see it in yourself. Okay. I got to stop this. I got

[00:08:21] to stop. This is, okay. It's not SNL. You got to give me a minute. This is a white cisgender straight dude. I don't understand females. I just don't ask my wife. She explains all the time. I don't understand first and foremost what that energy is. Right? I don't,

[00:08:44] can you help me with that? And also can you help me with the cultish, the cultish piece to this because it's all very cultish. Yeah. So I love that you called out that

[00:08:53] you are a white cisgender male because you are in fact that. And so in general, I would be like, yo, you don't get to opine on this, Chad. Like shut the fuck up. But in this case,

[00:09:03] I am right there with you where I see that and cult alarm bells go off at me. I mean, first of all, when I saw it, I literally was like, is this satire? Is this like SNL? Because

[00:09:13] what you didn't see in that clip, and I urge everybody to go watch it because you have to see it to believe it. It next becomes like scarf dancing on the beach and women like caressing one another's faces. That seems kind of sexy to some extent. I mean.

[00:09:28] Trust me, it is not. Please go look at it and tell me what you think afterwards. But I was like, what in the fresh hell is this? And like, I don't want to be a

[00:09:36] hater, but also like what is going on with this event that she's throwing? I got curious because I was like, you know, I want to be magnetic. I want to find my purpose.

[00:09:47] And I went to the website and again, this is a legitimate doctor. She's a psychologist. You know, she's amassed like a massive following and following is a great term for it because,

[00:09:56] again, super cult vibes there. But you go to the website and she's got this event coming up in, I think November of this year and I think it's in Arizona. And it's like at least

[00:10:06] a thousand dollars or some like angel number or something to attend. Like I don't know if you know angel numbers, Chad. I fortunately do not, but I was clued in that these dollar amounts like it's like 999 or 444 1111. What the fuck is this?

[00:10:23] Is that kind of like the Walmart 97 at the end of everything or 96? Yeah, it's like those online courses that are all like a weird number. Anyway, I was like, what is this? And I can't help but feel like everybody wants to be

[00:10:36] stepping into their power. Everyone wants to be feeling more confident. Like despite the fact that we do deal with a very ageist society. And so I get like, and some of the things that

[00:10:46] are said, they're not wrong. They're actually a hundred percent true. But it seems to me a little bit, it's got like cult MLM, like predatory vibes for me because I mean, I don't know if you're in a place where you are connecting to that and scarf dancing

[00:11:04] and facial grabbing and stuff and you're maybe not in your best moment. If Amway in yoga had a baby. Thank you. That is, you know what? That is actually a perfect encapsulation of what that

[00:11:15] feels like. It's got MLM vibes. It's got like preying on people who are at a low point who need inspiration. It's got all that like personal development. It's got that energy piece right? And you, you know.

[00:11:26] Yeah, like the mysticism and like the spirituality and there's so much, there was actually- I gotta stop this before I faint. This is just too much for me. Anyway, the point is like midlife is good and we're going into a great era. And like,

[00:11:40] I think that it's really awesome to see that kind of momentum and there have been more representation of women in film and in media. And I think women are collectively saying like,

[00:11:49] we are going to refuse to fade back into the, you know, recesses. We want to be front and center. We want to step in and have the confidence in our second halves of our lives.

[00:11:59] But like this vibe, it just, it feels off to me. Yeah. Main character energy. I love that she used that like Gen Z specific phrase. I was dying. I was like, I don't think that's what

[00:12:11] they mean. But anyway, it was very, yeah, I found that to be an interesting output from all of that collective good momentum. It was a thing. It was a thing. And we're going to pivot back to the industry stuff right now kids because I can't take any more

[00:12:26] of this. Shout out to our listeners, right? We love our listeners. I received a direct message this week from a listener that shared this post from zip recruiter. Here we go. We did it again. Zip recruiter is thrilled to announce that we have been certified as a great

[00:12:44] place to work for another year. Okay. Here's a listener response quote, how the fuck did zip win an award for being a great employer when they fire so many staff so regularly? What metrics are used when judging this award? And all I got to say is we have

[00:13:05] these smartest listeners because our listeners can spot bullshit from a mile away. So, you know, if you're watching on YouTube, I'm actually going to flash something up here, but it says, and this is no shit kids. It says that 92% of employees at Zip Recruiter say it's a great

[00:13:27] place to work. 92%. I guess my biggest question is right now, how many of these people are suffering from Stockholm syndrome? For the kids at home, Stockholm syndrome is basically when you fall in love with your character. But, you know, moving on big shout out to our listeners

[00:13:45] being able to call out bullshit on companies like Zip Recruiter who literally are kicking people out the door and people, again, Stockholm syndrome. Also, isn't that shit like pay to play? Like best places to work you like nominate yourself and like pay a submission. I mean,

[00:13:59] that shit's not real. Yeah, most of them are. I mean, it's kind of like a glass door and getting a higher rating when literally you're gaming your people. It's almost like the same kind of thing. So anyway, again, our listeners are smelling it. It's bullshit. Nobody cares. But

[00:14:13] what people do care about, and you should care about it Mo, is free stuff. That's right. We have t-shirts from Air & App, beer from Aspen Tech Labs, whiskey from our friends at Tex Colonel.

[00:14:26] All this gets delivered to your front door, by the way. Birthday, a little rum from Plum, which everybody likes a little rum from Plum. The only way you can get registered for this, kids, Chadcheese.com slash free. Chadcheese.com slash free. Then moving quickly, we have a couple

[00:14:51] of back to back events. Number one is RecFest at Nebworth Park July 11th. Yes, that's just north of London, kids. And then we have RecFest September 12th and 13th in Nashville.

[00:15:03] These, I don't know, have you been to one of these? Did you go last year? I did not, but man, do I ever want to sign up for this year. Let me tell you. I'll make sure Jamie knows.

[00:15:12] So if you're listening and you don't know kids, RecFest is all-hand staff type of meeting. This is where you bring your staff to learn, bond, connect with peers, learn practical applications of process tech, AI, standardized procedures. Experts in the space are going to be there.

[00:15:30] Chad and Cheese will be there in London and also in Nashville. So go to RecFest, R-E-C-F-E-S-T.com, ASAP, and get those tickets. What have you heard about RecFest? I'm interested because you

[00:15:45] haven't been yet, but what have you heard? I have heard that it is rad and it's a lot of fun and they do things differently. And it's like a big outdoor festival vibe, which is very

[00:15:55] different from your typical conference. And so that speaks to me because, you know, hey, we're all getting together for the first time since COVID basically these days and like, why not do it outside in a fun festival vibe? Like I'd like Coachella with my business. Thank

[00:16:08] you. That sounds good. Amen. Amen. And you know, where it's held in Nebworth is amazing. Big field, but Nashville, again, this is year two in the U S it's more than likely going to double in size at about 1200 people last year, looking at probably going over 2500.

[00:16:25] It was amazing and we're pretty excited. Nashville's a great town too, as is obviously London. And you know what else is great? Topics! That's what's great. All right. The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC for short kids, charged the founder and

[00:16:46] former chief executive of now bankrupt AI recruitment startup, AI recruitment startup, Junco with defrauding investors out of at least $21 million. The SEC alleged Illit Raz, former CEO of Junco provided potential investors with, listen to this, false client lists, fake testimonials, false company earnings, false bank statements, forged contracts,

[00:17:15] falsified the number of job seekers using the platform and provided fake claims of how Junco's AI worked all in the intent to close more funding. And it worked as Junco closed a series B funding in September of 2022 for $25 million. Raz also faces parallel criminal

[00:17:38] charges of securities fraud and wire fraud from federal prosecutors in Manhattan. Each of the charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to the Justice Department. This sounds like a backstory for a character in Orange is the New Black. Does this have

[00:17:57] potential for a Netflix documentary maybe? It 100% does. I mean, this is the first I'm hearing of all of this, but I am sadly not very surprised. It sounds like a tale of Zelda's time. It sounds like what just happens in the VC funding world. Like these

[00:18:11] people are total charlatan assholes and they get the money. Don't fund women though, fund these guys. Great. Awesome. Like perfect. It's just like, how does this continue? How does this, it blows my mind. It boggles my mind, but yeah, it's sadly a tale of

[00:18:27] Zelda's time at this point. Well Junco also a diverse platform, a diversity platform, number one. Number two, the CEO, a female. So at the end, not good. I mean just not good all the way around. Not a good look. No that's like horrifying. I'm very disappointed in that.

[00:18:47] There likely will be some sort of documentary, especially because the CEO is a female because we love to tear female CEOs down. That's like our favorite thing to do. Oh yeah. I mean, Theranos right? We've got all these dudes who broke the entire fucking financial system, but

[00:19:02] how many of them? Let's focus on her. How many went in cuffs right? Yeah. Exactly. So true. So true. Such a thing, but yeah, we should definitely prepare ourselves to see that documentary. It's going to happen. There's going to be maybe a dramatization. Yeah. I mean,

[00:19:16] we just don't see. I mean there's We Crashed. Yeah, We Crashed. Super pumped. Also Dumb Money, which is about GameStop. The GameStop, or GameStop, Stock. Oh, GameStop. So good. So good. Yeah, I bet that's, I'm going to check that out. So good. Anyway,

[00:19:32] yes, this is In Our Space Kids, Junco. We've talked about them for years now and last year around this time last year we actually reported on the prospect of Junco going bankrupt. It's

[00:19:48] all done now. There's a lot happening here. We're going to keep you abreast of it. It's not good news. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you got to hear what's going on

[00:19:57] so that you don't do stupid shit like this. Moving on. Okay, so moving from bullshit AI to, I sure the hell hope this isn't bullshit AI as Paris based Mistral AI announces 600 million euros in Series B funding after only a year in operation, which brings total funding to

[00:20:21] 1.1 billion and a valuation of 6 billion. This new funding round will accelerate Mistral's roadmap and it continues to bring frontier AI into everyone's hands. The company is developing various generative AI models, co-founded by Meta and Google's DeepMind X-Workers.

[00:20:39] The firm will support foundational models and aim to compete with GoFigure, OpenAI, Anthropic and others. Some of Mistral's investors, including Lightspeed Ventures partners, Andreessen Horowitz, NVIDIA, love those guys, Samsung Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. OpenAI, Gemini, Cloud and now Mistral, not Minstral but Mistral. Have you tried them all?

[00:21:05] Have you tried any of them? Tell me about your AI journey thus far. I have not tried them all. I have tried mostly OpenAI. It's pretty impressive. I know it's one of those things

[00:21:17] on my list. I really need to dive in much more than I have. That's very clear. But to me, I see this news and it's like, well, yeah, anything with AI in it, it gets funded to the

[00:21:27] hilt. If you don't have AI in your pitch deck, what are you even doing? It has to be there. It is interesting to see that they're going after this category is pretty crowded at this

[00:21:38] point. I wonder what the differentiation between their tool and the others will be and how much of a commodity it will be and ultimately who is going to win out. If there is going to be

[00:21:49] an aggregator of LLM models or how this is all going to play out. I love me a Paris-based startup though. Super into the fact they call it Le Chat. That's freaking rad. Le Chat,

[00:22:00] like I want to try it. Everything better comes from France. Well, it was funny because I always ask questions whenever I jump in. I ask fairly, I think that are hard questions, not too incredibly hard. I mean, I don't know enough about physics to ask those questions. So

[00:22:15] I ask what's the main problems with the US political system? Generally you'll get back some bullshit that's just kind of fluffy and whatnot. But I did this with Mistral and it outlined like 10 things and they were on point. Really? They were on point. Did you

[00:22:32] try the same prompt elsewhere or just on Mistral? The rest of them was a little bit more flowery. This one was not. I don't know if it's because it's out of Paris

[00:22:41] and they could be the euro thing. One of the things that Parisians can do is they can rebel and this might be the rebel large language model. They're also really good at shitting on

[00:22:52] Americans. Not that we don't deserve it, not that we don't deserve it, but I'm just saying. Although I did look on LinkedIn and the job openings that I saw were all based in San Francisco. So that was interesting. Go figure. So staying in the AI sector, new McKinsey

[00:23:09] research shows, quote, as generative AI adoption accelerate survey respondents report measurable benefits and increased mitigation of risk of inaccuracy. A small group of high performers lead the way, end quote. Well, no shit McKinsey. It's like saying in 1910,

[00:23:27] automobile adoption accelerated and survey respondents report getting to work faster and not smelling like horse shit when you're arriving in the morning. I mean, sometimes this research drives me crazy. I was reading through it. There were some good nuggets,

[00:23:42] but I mean, it was way too long to play this game. Yes, yes. I actually have to throw it into chat GPT and say, you know, get through the horse shit. Give me the nuggets. Let's

[00:23:51] talk about practical applications. So you said that you've played with them a little bit. I've played with them a lot. How are you using AI? How, where and how much time does

[00:24:01] it save you? So I will tell you that I am not using AI the way I should. Like I absolutely am not the person who should be the poster child for this. Why? Well, let's see,

[00:24:12] laziness slash ADHD. If you were lazy, you'd be using AI because it does. I know, I know. I know. It's like hypocritical in some ways. It's just like an order of operations issue for me.

[00:24:23] Like I know I need to be using it. I've used it just to kind of test, you know, what can I get out of this? Like, for example, I wanted to find a certain episode

[00:24:31] of Silicon Valley, HBS Silicon Valley, my all time favorite show. I mean, it's just the fucking best. Also, they like predicted so much of what happened in our world. It's a little scary,

[00:24:40] but it's terrifying. I'm like, God damn it. You guys were on something. I asked it to send me the episodes that had specific reference to age and like made fun of older people. And it categorized all the episodes like boom, this episode 10. And I'm like,

[00:24:53] thank you. I didn't have to watch the entire season and like get my notebook out, you know? So stuff like that can be helpful. And it's also, you know, I asked it, I just was

[00:25:01] curious, like write me a script for a show all about age bias on this. And it did it. Now, was it great? No, but it is a starting point. So I know that it could help someone like me with

[00:25:10] organizational tasks. And it's really, it's just a matter of me not actually sitting down and taking the time to do it. And it's my own fault. Like I'm an idiot. I should be using

[00:25:19] this stuff. And I know that I'm setting myself back by not. So I mean, even you, Chad, you've been like, yo Mo, why aren't you using AI for your podcast? And I'm like, you're right. You're right. You're right. Always right. But that, thank you. I'm sorry. Carry on.

[00:25:30] I stopped you at the right point. You're like, wait, one more time. Seriously. So I use chat GPT for titles and Dolly for cover art ideas. Riverside creates transcripts. I mean, this is our, this is the platform that we're using right now to actually

[00:25:45] record on. I use it too. It uses the transcripts to create overviews, takeaways, and short video clips. I use Opus clips for more video clips. Gemini daily for Google assistant and chat GPT for executive summary. So I have to say that. Yeah, you're doing it well.

[00:26:03] But the thing is like, let's say for instance, for Riverside, the platforms who are implementing AI into their system, like Riverside are what we should be using. And here's what I mean when we record this podcast and create an enormous amount of content

[00:26:18] through the text in the transcript, then audio, then video, the platform can then consume all of that content and then split it out into suggested video clips, podcast titles, audio clips, still captures, takeaways. So all the suggested content, all the suggested content comes together

[00:26:39] and it literally consumes it. And then it spits it out. It's not all great, but it is better than most stuff. Oh yeah. I've done the like magic clips things and I'm like,

[00:26:51] that did not encapsulate any sort of point and that was super random. Why did you pick that? It's still cool that it exists and it's going to get better and better. Which is why I use

[00:26:58] Opus. I use Opus because of that. And I'm hoping that, let's say for instance, Riverside buys an Opus and then that happens and they just get better tech inside of it. But I mean, the way that I can see something like this working is let's say for instance,

[00:27:14] like a sales co-pilot and advisor, AI listens to calls, transcribes, creates a summary of the call, provides advice. That's amazing. And then AI follow-ups with a prospect or client to provide additional information and or schedule follow-ups. Right? This to me is fucking magic

[00:27:34] and we're going to talk about in the next segment how we're going to be doing this, hopefully in recruiting. But until then before we get out of there, just give me your kind of

[00:27:45] overall of you were talking about who's going to win. Do you really think there's going to be an AI winner or do you just think there's going to be a small group who literally commands the space?

[00:27:57] I'm not very good at predicting the future, but what I can tell you is I mean, you think about like the search functionality even just like Google killed that. Right? So there were all these different people vying for search functionality and then Google became the

[00:28:11] main star. So I could see that happening potentially. I think there has been such incredible adoption as you pointed out, like the whole Henry Ford car adoption thing too, right? In the McKinsey report. I get it. But there has been just this massive growth in

[00:28:26] the AI industry and people are testing it out. And some people are testing it out more than others, Chad versus me. However, I do use it. I realize now because I have an otter that

[00:28:35] transcribes all of my meetings and whatnot. It helps me as someone who has ADHD and found out at age 36. It's really helpful because then I can like really zone in to the conversation

[00:28:45] and know that I'm not going to miss anything. Like it's going to tell me what to do next, et cetera. But I think that it could very plausibly become kind of one winner out of all

[00:28:53] this. And it's just like an arms race hurtling through space towards something that's not necessarily known the outcome that potentially possible, which is a little scary when we're talking about like for-profit companies who don't actually give a shit

[00:29:07] about ethics or baked in bias or anything because they all just want to make money. So it's scary. I mean, like when the platforms start saying we won't even charge you because we want your fucking data so much that sends off alarm balls for me. Like I'm like,

[00:29:18] holy shit. But I do try to remain as optimistic as possible as someone who considers herself a bit of a realist slash verging on pessimism. Great point about Google. It's a long story. Great point about Google. I mean, you were 100% right. They own the fucking search

[00:29:34] market. It's all there is to it. And I think that's what scares the shit out of Google is they were leapfrogged by open AI and that in that 97, 95% ownership of search in the market

[00:29:48] that's that in itself could, I mean, next thing you know, could go away. I mean, that's a very great point. That's a great point. That's why we have you on the show, Mile, because you're smart. Yeah. What can I say? I know a couple things. Experience matters.

[00:30:02] My old age. Let's talk about now some, some tech in recruiting right after the break. We're going to pour ourselves a little bit more green wine, a little bit more momosa and we'll, we'll be right back. Human resources is supposed to be about humans.

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[00:31:10] doing what the computers can't. For more information on Pando IQ, go to pandologic.com. That's pandologic.com. All right, Mo, get ready. So we're going to start. Oh yeah, you're good. That's good. That's good show right there. Look at that. Good pour. Good

[00:31:31] pour. Good pour. So we're going to start the conversation about AI with a smart but rather boring acquisition. You cool with that, Mo? I'm in. Okay. Okay. So the following. Do I have a choice? No, the following is from Steve Bartle, co-founder and CEO over at GEM.

[00:31:49] Today we welcome interview planner to GEM. We acquired interview planners, intelligent scheduling automation to help teams fast track hiring and deliver exceptional candidate experiences with this new addition. We bring powerful scheduling automation to the rest of

[00:32:06] GEM's powered platform. End quote. Big startup, not so big acquisition. What do you think, Mo? I mean, my initial thought was like, do we really need this? Like, don't we have scheduling tools? Like, uh, I won't say that I've used GEM. So let's throw that out. Oh, reality.

[00:32:24] But it's, it's, it's the ever present, like build versus buy, right? Do you build it? Do you buy it? Do you have partner? It's just that always that question. I will say when I went through the rest of their beautifully worded article where they showed all these

[00:32:36] benefits and features, I thought, man, yeah, that actually sounds pretty good because let me tell you using an ATS is a shitty situation. Like it's a horrible experience. Interviewing at tech companies is abysmal and these panel interviews, it says allegedly that it's going to make

[00:32:51] everything easy to panel interview schedule, which obviously has a lot of complexity baked into it. And my initial thought was like, cool, that it's going to be easier. But does

[00:32:59] that mean I'm going to have to do more interviews because I'm out on that. If it's so simple that you just hit a button and then they're going to be like, oh, we're going to interview you with

[00:33:07] like 17,000 people at this company and make you take the process 10 times longer. Like I'm out. But it looked, the functionality looked good. I gotta say, it looked pretty nice. And I was like, you know, Hey, tech stack, you know, pulling it together and diminishing the

[00:33:22] number of different technical applications that you have to work in. Yeah, sure. I like that. That's nice. It's easier. But as a partnerships person, as my background in business development, I'm like, I love the whole plug into different APIs and bring the best of

[00:33:37] breed and whatnot. But perhaps that's what they think they've done by acquiring them. So yeah, well, I mean, so interview scheduling, not a big problem these days. It's the interview themselves, right? It's being able to conduct those, whether you have a third

[00:33:51] party doing them, you have, you know, video or audio doing them or whatever you might have doing. But interview scheduling seems to be the place everyone starts with process automation. Why? Because scheduling is time consuming. It's boring and it's a true pain

[00:34:05] in the ass. So it's one of the most logical places to start. Plus, it's not just making it easier for the candidate. It's an easier process for the recruiter, hiring manager, and everybody involved. So I would have to imagine this very narrow point solution,

[00:34:21] let's call it a micro point solution, was a bargain basement aqua hire type of acquisition. In September of 2021, after receiving $100 million in funding, CEO Steve Bartle once again said, quote, it's time to accelerate and quote, and it's 2022. So Jim has added an

[00:34:40] ATS AI process automation. They're partnering with point solutions like happy dance to deliver dynamic career side experiences. And we're seeing very basic use of AI in gem thus far. So we just talked about practical application for the use of AI mainly around use cases on

[00:35:00] Riverside. So tell me your thought on how do we, how do we use AI, especially in systems like gem, knowing the kind of data that they have available, how do we use those systems to really advance the use of AI? Man, the use of AI around these systems,

[00:35:16] I would, I mean, hopefully there's a way to pull feedback from these interview loops, I would think like from different managers to get sort of, I mean, I would say here's one thing I actually applaud Amazon for is they have a hiring process that while arduous and miserable

[00:35:33] as an applicant actually seeks to reduce the bias internal candidates would face or excuse me, external candidates would face with all the different people looking at them. So perhaps there'd be a way to like pull in the information that was input by different managers and different

[00:35:49] people who are interviewing candidates. And I don't know, assimilate that data and pull some nuggets out or something. But I mean, I'm trying to think of how AI could also influence

[00:35:59] the, that sort of a tech piece. But that's the thing that comes to mind for me is I'm thinking about the biases that we all have when we look at different candidates and maybe

[00:36:09] there's also a way to standardize some of the interview process because the other thing I've seen in companies is, holy shit, like we don't teach people how to interview others. And it's just like, it's like really ridiculous. The difference between the experiences of interviewing

[00:36:26] with person A versus person B at a company and how much of it just goes back to like gut sense or who you know or who someone just like happened to like, it's affinity biased stuff.

[00:36:36] So I think that there is an opportunity for AI to come help democratize the hiring process a bit. Potentially it also has the chance to do really shitty things. Like for example, there was a company called iTutor Group out of China that was summarily rejecting,

[00:36:52] yeah, the EEOC nailed them because they were rejecting candidates who applied to the company who were 55 if they were female and 60 if they were men, because again, men are allowed to age more than women naturally in our shitty society. Even though we die earlier, our life expectancy.

[00:37:06] It's terrible. I know, right? It's crazy. So it was wild. So there are ways that ATS systems can be programmed for malevolence as well. But I think that there is also opportunity

[00:37:18] if you just get it in the right hands for it to level the playing field, make things better. It's all about whether it gets in the hands of bad actors or not, right? And whether we have the appropriate sort of regulatory arms to govern that.

[00:37:29] Yeah, I think first and foremost, you hit the nail on the head with regard to standardization and then also like you have high volume versus middle management versus executive, right? That's all entirely different. And interviewing is the hard part. So if you're in high volume

[00:37:45] and you have literally four knockout questions, do you have a heartbeat? Can you get to work? I mean, those types of things, right? And then right at the end of it, if you hit all those

[00:37:56] and you pass it, you go directly to an interview. That's all there is to it, right? You go directly to a fucking interview. That's the cheat code for that level. You can do that

[00:38:06] at middle management level as well. There's no question. So there's better ways of doing it. But I'm expecting core talent platforms, the applicant tracking systems, to start recording more information, much like I was talking about the sales example, then consuming that information

[00:38:21] and spitting out messages, rescheduling and fielding basic Q&A from job seekers, hiring managers and recruiters. So anyone with access, anybody with access, it could honestly anybody should be able to go into the system, ask for a situation report

[00:38:36] on the specific requisition or candidate. A VP should be able to go ask the system to pull together a report on how many interviews are rescheduled by managers and then ranks them

[00:38:47] best or worst, right? So I mean, there's so many different ways to apply this. I'm really excited to continue to see boring acquisitions fit a need, but we've got to get to the next step

[00:39:00] in the talent industry around advancing process methodology and AI. Joel is always talking about Facebook's year of efficiency. We're in fucking HR, okay? We're not following Facebook. Give me

[00:39:12] a goddamn break. But we need to. I mean, we need to. Not in the fact that we need to bloat and then throw 20,000 people away. We need to be more efficient. Yeah. And that could absolutely

[00:39:23] help get you there for sure. I think there's some really great applications you just threw out there that could actually democratize the playing field a bit, which I love. It's what we're trying to do. I'm all into that.

[00:39:33] Big surprise coming from the AAP, by the way. CEO pay? It's out of whack. Did you know that? The median pay package for CEOs for S&P 500 companies rose to $16.3 million, up 12.6% according to data analyzed from the AAP. Meanwhile, wages and benefits netted from private

[00:39:57] sector workers rose 4.1% through 2023. That's right. CEOs get a 12.6 bump and the people actually doing the work 4.1% bump. So for some perspective, back in 2021, EPI published a report which showed that since 1978, that's right, we have to extract this out so we

[00:40:19] can understand the actual trends, kids. Since 1978, CEO pay has risen over 1300%. And today, that's closer to 1500%. While normal American non-exec workers only saw a 13.5% raise from 1978 till fucking today. But hold on, kids. The government is here to help. A new proposed

[00:40:45] bill. I know, I have to laugh when I say that too. A government bill, proposed bill in January of this year would mean that under the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, tax penalties would begin at 0.5% points, percentage points for companies that pay their top executives between 50 and 100

[00:41:04] times more than their typical workers. Companies that pay top executives over 500 times more than typical workers, they're going to get hit with a 5 percentage points. And we just, I tell, I just talked about two companies last week that do that. Walmart and fucking

[00:41:22] American Airlines. Anyway, all private and publicly held US corporations with average annual sales for the three preceding years of at least 100 million would be subject to this tax. The bill would raise an estimated $150 billion over 10 years that could be used to

[00:41:43] support working families and reduce inequality. Is this the right way to go at this problem, Mo? I mean, we have to do something. Clearly companies aren't doing any of this work on themselves. They're just continuing to, you know, what blew my mind about that article too

[00:42:01] was that there is an active mention of boards being concerned that if they don't keep on inflating the pay of their executives, that they will walk. And I'm like, well, why the fuck

[00:42:09] why don't they do that for employees? We're the ones making the money. We're the ones doing the work. It was like that Spotify CEO who's like we let, we let 1500 people go and like, oh my God, it like had an impact on our operations. Like, hello. It's just,

[00:42:22] I think we've reached a level of corporate greed in this country that is just like unconscionable. I mean, you have Boeing out there just stuffing the pockets of the shareholders at the risk of the flying public and actually in some cases like maybe killing whistleblowers.

[00:42:38] I don't know not to be a conspiracy theorist, but like what the fuck. Yes. And then you have like, I mean, honestly it looks so bad. I was like guys, can you make it like more plausibly deniable that you didn't do this?

[00:42:47] This looks like Putin's Russia to some extent. Exactly. That is literally what I said. I'm like, what happened? So that happened. I mean, you had like, gosh, there was the surge pricing incident for hamburgers and Wendy's. There was

[00:43:00] the McDonald's or no, it wasn't McDonald's. It was the Kellogg CEO who said, hey guys, why don't you just eat cereal for breakfast? If you're struggling American. It's just has your family eaten cereal recently? Kellogg CEO. It's just disgusting and despicable.

[00:43:15] So we got to do something. They're not going to do this themselves. They're in the self-dealing. They're interested in fattening their pockets. I am grossed out by it. I think Americans have had enough of it. And so I think that the fact that there's regulation

[00:43:27] that's being proposed is indicative of that. And so it's reached like a bit of a fever pitch. People just, they're done in tech. So many of us have been laid off and we were the ones who

[00:43:36] made the profits for these companies happen. And it used to be, we're laying people off because of the economic environment. Then we're doing well getting record profits. Oh, we're still laying you off. It's like, there's no loyalty. There's no career trajectory.

[00:43:47] There's no longevity. And I think people are just pissed. So yeah, I'm for it. I would love to know exactly what they think they're going to do with those funds, you know, in general

[00:43:57] with the funds they collect. I'd love to see the plan for that and I hope it's a good one. But yeah, hell yeah. I'm into it. I feel like it's a good call. Yeah. I got to say one thing. I want to see something happen, but

[00:44:11] you done messed up. So the problem with Democrats and I actually grew up probably about 40 years of my life. Don't hold this against me as a Republican. And I am, I am. Oh really? Yes. And I am totally not that today. But the problem with Democrats

[00:44:27] is that most of them play small ball. 150 billion in 10 years, even a tax for those companies. When you're talking about Walmart, who Walmart by themselves make $158 billion a year in profit. That's fucking bull. That's bullshit money. So it's chump change. It's not

[00:44:45] enough to make a difference. It's just performative. I'm not just going to shit on this. I'm going to have a proposal. I've been thinking about this. I've been listening to podcasts. I've been playing the whole economics thing game. I could be a hundred percent wrong. First and

[00:44:56] foremost, you tie CEO compensation directly to the base number. For example, a CEO cannot receive compensation over 30 times that of their lowest paid worker. In that scenario, the CEO would need to raise the lower paid workers' wages to receive an incentive themselves.

[00:45:13] If the CEO's bonus then exceeds that of the base number, in this case 30 times, they and the company would be fined at a 6% of overall global revenue. The fine has to be stringent enough to ensure compliance. This would give companies a reason to rein in the

[00:45:33] out-of-control CEO comp, raise workers' wages, and have a stiff enough fine that would make any board member wake up in night sweats. That's what Jeff Bezos wants his employees to do, wake up with their sheets drenched in sweat. Being nervous. Sure, let's do that. Let's get the

[00:45:49] board sweaty too. The guy who can afford a fucking super yacht. It's a yacht with another yacht. Yeah, it's like five on top of one another. But that's the thing to me. The egos

[00:45:58] are so big. I don't understand how someone like that wouldn't want to just go and some people will probably hate me for this conversation. But why don't you just go save the world? Then you're the man, right? If you can just go eradicate poverty or help people from

[00:46:14] facing homelessness or stop people from starving, you are the man. I will sing your praises all day, everyone on planet Earth would. So stop building some stupid dick-shaped spaceship and do that. Jesus. Well, I can't do any better than that. Dick-shaped spaceship. Penis rocket. That's what

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[00:47:27] All right. Well, we are back. We're going to finish up with, guess what? We're going to finish up with some some mo, right? Because there's no such thing as less. There's only mo. Here we go. I'm here for all the puns today, man. They're just killing it.

[00:47:42] So you had a TikTok that I really enjoyed and we actually changed this entire topic because I saw this TikTok. I'm like, fuck this. We've got to talk about this. So we're

[00:47:52] So if you're watching on YouTube, here it comes. If not, you'll you'll hear the audio. Here we go. Restaurant put out an age ban and people are pretty pissed. Take a look. You cannot eat here

[00:48:04] if you are under 30 years old. So this restaurant in St. Louis decided they wanted to keep the vibes grown and sexy. And so they decided they could have nobody under the age of 30 in

[00:48:14] there in order to achieve that. And the owners are getting a lot of heat on social media and otherwise. But their answer to this is like, sorry, this is what we need to do in order

[00:48:21] to keep the vibes we want. And we don't want any sort of rowdiness that comes with like younger people eating at our restaurant. Now, some people are rightly pointing out that your age does not

[00:48:28] dictate your behavior. But other people are like, dude, no, this is great. Like we really want to just have a chill time and we don't want the drama that quote younger people bring. Right.

[00:48:36] So I'm curious. Like, do you guys think this is offensive or do you think this is something that you would like? Are you over 35? Do you want to eat with only people who are over 35? Like, I really want to know your thoughts. Well, you're going to get my

[00:48:46] thoughts whether you like them or not. OK, so first and foremost, I couldn't get into a bar until I was 21, even though I was in the military and shot at when I was 18 years old.

[00:48:57] And I still couldn't get into a bar when I was 18 or 19. So insane. Upsetting. I kind of have that. And that's a personal thing that I've got to deal with. I agree with you wholeheartedly. There are resorts that are adults only. Some are couples only.

[00:49:11] And then there are others that are just family friendly. Right. So just as long, I believe, just as long as they aren't discriminating on race, gender, sexual orientation or religion, I'm not seeing a problem. But again, I don't know. I need to

[00:49:23] say this again. I'm a white cisgendered straight guy. So what the fuck am I missing here? Help me out. I mean, yes, it is an ageist policy, obviously, on its face. I also understand

[00:49:35] some people are like, well, hell yeah, I don't want any kids here. Like, get them out of here. And I'm thinking more like literal children than people in their 20s. But I think that there

[00:49:43] are other ways than expressly calling out, like we don't want your kind if you're under 30 or 30 for guys or no, excuse me, 30 for women and 35 for guys, which made me laugh. Yeah. It's like a different sliding scale based on your gender. So there is gender

[00:49:57] discrimination in there too. But I was like, there were other ways to just attract the demographic that you are hoping to have at your restaurant than like overtly saying, thou shalt not come. Right? Like, so you can have the vibe that maybe wouldn't appeal to

[00:50:09] someone who you would stereotype as like younger than 30, right? Or 35 as a dude. So I think that there are ways of doing it. I think, you know, there's no such thing as bad

[00:50:17] press. This could easily have been a PR ploy for them to get more people in the door. The comments on my post are really hilarious. Some of them were like, hell yeah, get those kids off planes too. And then other people were like, dude, the worst behaved people

[00:50:30] are the boomer Karens at these restaurants. Like what are they even talking about? So there's just a lot of stereotyping going on. And this is like classic media shit because they love to pit generation against generation. We've been doing it like since the beginning

[00:50:44] of time and it's clickbait coverage. Like I know what's going on here. And I think that restaurant probably was like, we're going to get some free press out of this. We're going

[00:50:53] to get some like hate. We're going to get a lot of love. And yeah, I find it more than anything amusing, honestly. And technically it's legal for companies to do something like this because it's within their own right. It's not an employment situation. They're not saying we

[00:51:07] won't hire people under age 30. Although however, that would be federally legal to say because the protection only is for those over 40. So you can actually actively discriminate against younger people at the federal level in some states and different cities. That's

[00:51:23] illegal. But anyway, that's kind of a side note. But yeah, I mean, would I do it? No. But like they're technically allowed to and it is getting the most shitload of press. Some love some hate. Which they might love. Not everybody loves the Chad and Cheese podcast,

[00:51:40] but it doesn't matter. But more of them love the Chad and Cheese podcast. Why? Because Moe has been on it. So Moe, if somebody wants to find out more about you, maybe listen to the

[00:51:47] podcast or something like that, where would you send them? I would send them to either my website, itgetslateearly.com or on Apple podcasts. It's just type in it gets late early. You will find me. I'm also on the socials. I'm Maureen W. Clough. That's C-L-O-U-G-H

[00:52:05] on both Instagram and on TikTok. Yes, I am on TikTok. I am 41 and I am on TikTok. People up there exist on TikTok. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Chad, I wasn't going to call you out,

[00:52:18] but yeah, you're beyond me and yours. I'm on TikTok. I don't give a fuck. Where's the bar? Moe? We out. Thank you for listening to what's it called? A podcast. The Chad. The Cheese. Brilliant! They

[00:52:35] 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, but one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss.

[00:52:56] So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anywho, 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.

[00:53:12] And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com. Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. It's so weird. We out! You've got questions, we've got answers. Business leadership, ownership and sales can be challenging. Tune into the Accelerate Your Business Growth podcast

[00:53:36] to learn from the world's experts. Join me, your host, Diane Helbig, as I chat with people who have expertise in various areas of business. You'll enjoy the lively conversations that are focused on providing you with the ideas, tips and suggestions you need to realize greater

[00:53:55] success. Get what you need for your business when you need it from the people who have the answers. Accelerate Your Business Growth is part of the Evergreen Podcast Network and is available on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.