Anthropic IPO or BUST!

0:00You can check your stack, you can do all this stuff in TA Tech Finder. Is it free? Yes, absolutely. For anybody that's done with it. So you're not going to answer like you answered on WhatsApp? It's as free as your balls on a Friday night? That doesn't sound anything like I would say. That's strange. I don't even know where you've come up with that. Okay, sure. Moving on. robots you think a robot can replace me hide your kids lock the doors you're listening to hr's most dangerous podcast chad soash and joel cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts complete with breaking news rash opinion and loads of snark buckle up boys and girls it's time for the chad and cheese podcast

0:55Yeah, welcome to the podcast your top old dictator warned you about. It's the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm Chad. Check my stack, so wash. I'm Stephen. I've just about dried out, McGrath. And I'm leaving. I should have been working at TechWolf, Wanny Benhuysen. And on this week's show, we have Microsoft Buys Out, Skydance Mandates, Anthropic IPOs, Day Force got her groove back and who'd you rather? Let's do this. Woo-hoo! Welcome back. It's an all-European show. Look at this. Look at this, huh? I know you're all smirking because you don't see me as a European. If you do the rest of the podcast in Portuguese, I'll let you off.

1:43Oh, yeah. That would be very rough. Maybe you can try a Scottish accent. That would be even harder. I think people would understand me speaking Portuguese more than they would in a Scottish accent. What's up, McGrath? Man, last time we saw you was in Amsterdam at the Musica Bau. Yeah, no, good. As per my middle name, I've just about dried out my nickname. It's been horrible here. We have had towns across all of the west coast of Scotland flooding with knee and waist-deep water. Oh, wow, okay. We've had 80 to 90 mile per hour winds. We've been told to stay indoors, get three days worth of food.

2:28So you're drinking a lot. Well, three days worth of food for a fellow like me is a lot more than it is for somebody like you guys. So it's a challenge. So with a nine monster, there'll be lots of little Scots. Yeah, exactly. Not any from this house. I've had enough. so leaving you we've gotten a little a little uh you know distance from you know the music about from the e-recruitment congress so when's the next one do you have the next one scheduled because we're all we're all excited we want to get it on the on the books man when's it coming on i hope i can do the next one next year in brussels so i would like to alternate between amsterdam and brussels oh it's not sure yet so i'll keep you posted let's move this on all along.

3:14And shout-outs brought to you by Proven Base. Everyone loves free bourbon, and free bourbon is spreading the love with two bottles, not just one bottle, two bottles, one from Chad and one from Cheese of Chicken Cock. That's right. Oh, I love Chicken Cock. I do. I love it. You do. You can't win unless you play. You got to go to chadcheese.com slash free to get some bourbon brought to you by Proven Base. comes right to your front door. ProvenBase, the AI-powered deep search, which helps recruiting and sourcing teams uncover and engage specialized, hard-to-find talent beyond traditional platforms across thousands of sources at provenbase.com.

3:58Levin, you've got a shout-out that's close to home, one that's close to your heart and your pocketbook. Why don't you go ahead and talk about that that's right in fact so you've been talking about the recent acquisition by sap from the belgium company tech wolf yeah and it was even to international standards pretty big 500 million euros yeah not officially but that's something it's a number which is accepted but i'm not going to talk about actual the acquisition i'm not going to talk about what tech wolf is doing good to know is we were their first customer so the very first customer tech wolf had was house of hr so we know them pretty well that's a flex yeah we believed in them and um the founder of house of hr connie van andrisse uh also invested in tech wolf she was one of the first she actually was the first investor in tech wolf so wow okay we made tech wolf back just that's a flex and it's something i really liked and this is why my shout out goes to tech wolf is seven or eight years ago, the current CEO and the founder of TechWolf, Andreas Deneve, he said his big ambition was, of course, to become rich, but also to make all his employees rich.

5:10And he said, the moment we have an exit, I want all of my employees to be rich. And actually, eight years later, he succeeded. So 150 people got all option plans, and they all got a substantial amount of money and this is something i like it's about sharing the wealth you create as an entrepreneur as a and this is something i love and this is why i really really love this company not because of what they're doing there are plenty of companies doing great stuff but the way they treat their people it's just something you should admire admire give me that money yeah i mean what a great way to keep people on too it's like look i'm here to make you a millionaire yes i'm going to be a millionaire as well, but I'm here to make you a millionaire.

5:52That's a great retention plan. That's a great retention plan. Just stay on board. And the moment I exit, you all exit. Something like this. They're not exiting, they're staying, but they get the money. Stephen, he's exiting left and right as well. But before we get to that, your shout out, Stephen, what you got going on? My shout out is to all of the absolutely bamboozled ta leaders out there um that's a word crying out for help on linkedin um with stack help understanding of tools um i think we've seen the dust settle a little bit over the past kind of six months and there's just basically cries for help with people giving it hey i bought like five things the past two years and i don't know what i'm doing with any of them help me and i think Like that's a big thing.

6:42So, you know, I'm actively, really active on the platform, trying to like comment and kind of share my knowledge in that space and just try and kind of help people out. But it's big companies, you know, Fortune 500 company, leaders of TA that are just giving it, hey, what is better here and what can we get rid of and what am I using? And I'm just seeing that noise swell. I think I'm probably seeing it swell because I've engaged with a few of them and the algorithm's now rewarding me with all of them as a result of it. But, you know, it is what it is. I'm here for the discussion anyway. And Stephen, can I ask you something?

7:15You used the word bamboozled. And I have no clue what it means. But Eels, which is a band I really love, they just released a new album. And one of the hit singles, not a hit single yet, but one of the singles is called Bamboozled Again. And I took note, I need to check what bamboozled means. So now you can explain what does bamboozled mean. Bamboozled means to be confused. Yes. So confused again, bamboozled again. Yeah. Okay. Nice. And, or you've been bamboozled, which means kind of like in a sales stamp, I'd like you've been sold elixir, right? You've been sold something that really doesn't fit what your need is, or it's really not.

7:51So you've been bamboozled. So you can be confused being bamboozled or you can have been bamboozled. Yeah. One of the two. So when they're saying bamboozled again, they probably mean I've been screwed over again. Screwed over again. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Nice. Okay. Thanks a lot. Well, Stephen's, last week, JT and I actually talked about TATechFinder.com because there are so many platforms that are out there. And JT is on a tear right now, especially on the can't experience side of the house. And I totally get that. But at the end of the day, before an employer really can focus on one aspect of their process, they have to focus on the full process.

8:36And in most cases, they just, as you've said, they're bamboozled. They have no fucking clue what's going on. It's just crazy. You go to tatechfinder.com. And there it says, Stephen, it's a better way to discover TA technology. I know that because it says it on the website. Yeah. Yeah, right on the website. So why did you start it and how is it better? I guess that's the, how does it make things better? Okay. So really simply, I started it because I've sat on both sides of the house. So I've sat on committees that were responsible for buying things or being part of new tools, never responsible for the decision, but part of the wider discussion that was going to take place.

9:17All this tech. You know, a bit of vendor, right? I've been a vendor that has had to position themselves against other people and knowing fine well that they can't do that thing that they said that they can do, you know, or certainly that they can't do it well. and certainly that our product marketing, not necessarily, well, not at all at Poetry because we don't have a product marketing department, but certainly in others that our product marketing is 12 months ahead of what our capabilities are. And actually, you know, we need to know what we can do right now and what we're capable of. And I felt like I've seen a lot of posts of people being genuinely confused about what AI could do for them, what their current tech stack has in terms of that, where that lines up, what tools they need to buy.

9:59And going out there, like I just said, you know, two minutes ago, grabbing a whole bunch of things and seeing what sticks. So I decided to have this kind of like the sales methodology of what is the problem that your customer is trying to solve for? And then let's work backwards and then let's present how we can solve that problem to them. I just decided that it was time that TA technology as a whole displayed itself that way. So you just built it is what you're saying. Yes. Yeah. I just built it. But built it with people in mind that are going to go through the process. In process, in process in mind.

10:33So how many vendors are currently in the platform? 1 ,510 at the last count. Holy shit. And how many of them are applicant tracking systems? There's going to be a nice core of applicant tracking systems. Well, I actually told you a number, I think, a couple of days ago. It's gone up since then. It's 277. Holy shit. have ATSs. Now, there's actually an additional piece of information to that. HRIS suites that have built-in ATSs, 326 is the total. So it goes from 277 to 326. So you weren't even counting those in the first place? No. Oh, that's why I thought you were counting those. And those are kind of like free, you know, gift with purchase when you buy an HCM.

11:16No, so there's an extra 50 of those. Yeah, there's an extra 50 of those. So the problem is usually bigger than just one platform, right? And you have your check my stack feature. Now, a couple of different things. First off, for all the TA people that are out there, you can check your stack, you can do all this stuff in TA Tech Finder. Is it free? Yes, absolutely. For anybody that's coming to use it. So you're not going to answer like you answered on WhatsApp? It's as free as your balls on a Friday night? That doesn't sound anything like I would say. That's strange. I don't even know where you've come up with that.

11:56Okay, sure. Moving on, moving on. So, Levin, quick question. I mean, you guys and your companies, because you guys at House of HR, you have 50-plus companies underneath the House of HR umbrella. But do you guys go through a process like that often to take a look at your stack, see how everything connects, process methodology, those types of things? Yeah, but thank God that's not my problem. It's a problem of our CIO. So I can come up with fancy new ideas and he has to figure out how to make it work for the whole company. It's beautiful to be able to hand that off. That's very beautiful to hand that off.

12:34I love it. But actually we do. We do have some kind of a program to make some things mandatory so we can all benefit from the scale. Nice. We're going to go ahead. We're going to jump into 60 % of the time. It works every time. And it's not working 60 % of the time for me. It's fantasy football time brought to you by our friends at Factory Fix, right? The number one recruiting platform for skilled trades and manufacturing talent. So there's lots of movement this week. Unfortunately, mine was down. Jarrett, I'm still number one, Jadorsman. Saginaw Scott Clark is up one spot to number two. Ben by six.

13:15Kuntz takes over the third position. Joel shut the front. Shador Cheeseman up four slots. He was eight. He went to fourth. Nicholas Go-Birds-Tyshack moves up by one. He beat my ass. Dijon better than pretty good. Amare plummets from second to sixth. Bosco Ballers moves from second to, or I'm sorry, up two to seven. McKenzie McAttack-Maitland moves up two spots. I got beat by Ty Shack, as I just said, so I'm down two spots to number nine. Nick laces out Livingston down from five to ten. That's a big move. That's a bad move. And rounding out the bottom two are the same. hail Molly Sly and any given Desiree Goldie that rounded up and it's it's kind of sad for those two it's kind of sad for those two I love Molly so it's sad to see her down at the bottom end of that not so keen on Joel so it's a real shame to see him rising to the top yet again yeah but he got knocked down a few slots last week and he's pinballing back and forth I was involved last year.

14:30I didn't think I'd miss it. I do, but it's just, I can't stay up until three of them all and watching games anymore. Dude, I don't do that. I watch the highlights and it's the most beautiful thing because they're like 12 minute cuts and it gets most of the good stuff and then I get to watch most of the games. Anyway, we're going to get on to the important stuff.

14:56So is it weird hearing your sound effect while you're on? Yeah, I don't like that at all. I actually hate that, but it's okay. You've got to have Levin doing some sound effects sometime soon. Can I? Yeah, of course. Don't try to take my job. That's for the AI, Levin. Anyway, we have how do you say you're prepping for layoffs without saying you're prepping for layoffs? Well, Microsoft just ordered 60 ,000, yes, that's a six with four zeros behind it, 60 ,000 employees, voluntary buyouts, while Skydance offered employee buyouts with a healthy helping of get your ass back to the office. That's right, a mandatory return to office and buyouts announced right after the Paramount and Warner brother's merger okay steven do you think ai had anything to do with this i think that microsoft is doing that thing i used to do when i was in my late teens and i wanted to break up with a girl and i was like i'm just gonna i'm just gonna annoy her a little bit more and hopes that she goes yeah i'll just leave the cupboard door open so she bangs her knees she's like oh goodness and then she don't don't open the car door and be like oh he's not chivalrous anymore i'm just kidding I'm just kidding.

16:20But like, there is that kind of thing of like, you know, the writing's been on the wall for quite a few years now, you know, with a lot of their employees. So much so that I'm now actively seeing people speak about that on LinkedIn as well. You know, saying like, listen, this looks like it's not going to go well for me, regardless of whether I say yes or no right now. and look AI of course has an influence on how all these large tech companies work and how they move I think over hiring during post COVID era has still a lot to do with that and I think that they'll live to regret it much like many of the other companies before them have as well so it's just it's unfortunate to see because it's a lot of lives it's a lot of lives being affected and you can't escape from that but but ai is definitely not all of the cause so what do you think on the skydance side of the house i mean i've not had a chance to really go into it in as much detail so i probably wouldn't add loads of value to that um to be honest with you so well i gotta tell you i tried watching a few episodes of an ai generated series on youtube this morning it was bad i mean it was it was really bad but it was bad because it was from a small studio it looked really good but the storyline line was total shit, right?

17:40And I think that this tech is evolving and getting better at a rate that we've never seen. So yes, Skydance will be betting on AI on the content side of the business, no doubt. And from a major standpoint is if they have storytellers, really damn good storytellers, they can actually get the AI to match the story in itself. What are your thoughts, Skydance and Microsoft they're leaving. The first association I made was a Skynet from Terminator. And that would probably be close to true, yes. Yeah, when it's about AI and you're called Sky, then people should start worrying. But I'm not sure if it's really their purpose to let people go and that's the reason why they make people going back to the office.

18:29Probably it is, but it's not official. It could be. but I think it's really risky because the people most likely to leave are those with the best alternatives those who are getting the opportunity to get in maybe even a better job and those you probably would like to let go are going to stay because they don't have those alternatives so if that's the case if that's the reason why they are calling people back to the office then they made a big big mistake I'm afraid I've worked at companies where they've done that right like that's I've worked to companies where they've mandated return to office for everybody but the ceo um and you know the the it's not worked out in their favor yeah it's not worked out in their favor um at that time right and they've moved on beyond beyond that now so um which is which is good they've really well since then so um but the thing is i would say from the creative standpoint and that you know remember when what 2022 every ai image that you generated had six fingers and like three eyes and you know all that kind of stuff not now we're only you know three and a bit years past when that was first a thing and now you cannot tell you know it is obviously you can tell because you see so much of it in our world but for people like my grandparents who are walking down the street or my parents who are not currently involved they don't they don't see it the same way that i see it um so ultimately it has just you know self-improved through learning um you know the design techniques that will come for for companies like this but i think that you're absolutely right chad in terms of like the if they get good storytellers in there then you know that's what's going to make the difference but then how long do those people last right and how much do they pay them i mean that's a lot of things once you've got to grips with that over For a year or two, do you really need them anymore?

20:20Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, on the Microsoft side, I see this happening for two main reasons. And this is just my thoughts. You know, the cost of AI. You know, we'll be talking about Anthropics IPO later in the show. But Microsoft is putting their chips all over the fucking board. They've invested$13 billion in open AI, about$5 billion in Anthropics, over a billion in inflection AI, 15 to 16 million in francis mistral and nearly 700 million in figure ai and and there's more trying to keep pace with ai while spreading your chips all over the place is burning cash and cutting head count uh apparently feels like it's going to stem some of the burn the second point um is more political i believe it is it is cost but it's also political this feels like a big old fuck you to the U.S.

21:14Department of Labor. Because remember, the Department of Labor called out Microsoft specifically to stop the use of H-1B visas to fill positions in the U.S., which impacts over 6 ,000 positions. So personally, this feels like the start of a massive global structuring for Microsoft. Yes, they did mention Canada and UK in the announcement as well. But to me, that felt more like a smokescreen. So to review, cost of AI is high, DOL shit themselves live on TV by forcing Microsoft to at least think of offshoring these positions. It's a two-pronged issue right now, I see. I'm sure there's many more than that.

21:57But from the guy outside looking in, that's what I'm saying. I certainly had a look at quite a lot of these large companies, and enterprise level companies all the way up to the Microsofts of the world, but starting much smaller than that. What you found quite often is big layoffs were announced and then silent hiring in offshore positions were happening at the same time and kind of like ushering people in the door at like a third of the cost. And that was never talked about. You know, it just kind of displaced each other. So that certainly wouldn't surprise me, you know, what you've just said there.

22:34Yeah. And as we look at politicians who prospectively have never been in business before, they might be attorneys, they might have been in politics for most of their lives. They don't understand the levers that companies actually use to win against countries, right? That give them tax breaks, that do all these different things. So it's really weird. Now, leaving in and around your area and in Belgium and in Dock and those types of areas, Do you see companies moving that much at all just for tax breaks? Actually, yes. Yeah? Yeah. And it's a problem. Belgium is becoming too expensive concerning taxes.

23:15So they're leaving their headquarters to, for example, Luxembourg, where it's much cheaper. And they don't actually do anything there, but they just have some kind of a postal office. And then suddenly they have to pay less taxes. We have the same thing with Ireland, for example. Everything in Ireland is concerning taxes much cheaper. Yeah. Yeah, it happens. Island Man is the UK's version, isn't it? Things like that. It's just tiny little islands that have flat rates of 10, 15, 20%. Well, all I can say is, Shall we play a game? We will be right back. All right, kids. Oh, it's time to play our favorite show, Who'd You Rather?

23:54For the audience out there, here's how we play. Stephen and Levin, they're going to imagine themselves in a bar at 2 a.m. You're a little tipsy. And you have two choices. You can only go home with one of these. Okay, we have contestant number one. Town, an AI assistant startup. Town nabs unicorn valuation four months after launch. A two-year-old San Francisco-based startup developing AI assistants. Town targets businesses giving each employee an AI assistant called a townie. That's so bad. That helps with tasks by connecting to tools such as email and calendars, as well as other core work systems.

24:39Employees, townies, can talk to each other and share approved information. I don't know if that's good. They can also now work with customers and others outside the company. Town nabbed a unicorn valuation announcing a$108 million Series B. That is Town. Now, contestant number two, we have Zenzap. Yes, I have another Guinness, please. Zenzap. I don't know where these names come from, okay? I don't know where they come from, but I don't know that I'll forget it. So maybe it's good. But ZemZap, a private messenger with AI that wants to help companies communicate with their staff and arm them with their organization's context.

25:31That is it doesn't seem like you're arming them with much. You're arming them with your organization's context. OK, while staying in line with I.T. and security rules. I do like that. The company has raised forty four million in funding. One of the founders said, quote, ZenZap is not focused on developers like Slack, but on the other 99 % of employees using personal messaging apps and waiting for an agent of their own. People desperately want a clear separation of work and their personal lives and the adoption of personal and work agents make it imperative that separation happen now. That's right, kids.

26:13So that's. That's Zenzap and that is town. Stephen, it's who'd you rather. It's two in the morning. Yeah. Who are you going home with? Going home with town simply because I would say that Zenzap had me. I love company context in products. I think it's really important that guardrails are set. I think it's really important that AI is used safely and in context and all that kind of stuff. But does giving all your employees really not blur the lines between home and company life, giving them all access to this AI kind of like widget that's going to be live 24-7? Does that give you a hard stop? So for me, how is that tool going to be used?

26:58Is it going to have clear boundaries of time being on and off? Is it only going to be on when you open up your laptop? Is it going to be on your phone? Like I understand the process of it, right? But if that's the point of the tool existing, it feels like it blurs those lines more than makes them steadfast to me. I like the concept. I like the idea of it. But I'm going with Town, although I really wish we could change names of both if possible. But yeah. I'm leaving. Town or Zenzap? Same here. Same here. I'm going home with Town. Yeah, because Zenzap is asking me to move my team into some kind of a new chat app, which they will not be using because they have plenty of other apps and they'll forget about it.

27:43And Dawn promises me to give everyone an assistant that's going to work across the tools they already use. So I bet on the assistant. And the interesting part to me is that one assistant can talk to the other. So we basically don't have to do anything, which is a great thing. I have my assistant talk to your assistant and go to the beach or something. Then I don't have to talk to you. That escalated quickly. That escalated quickly and that's beautiful. So a couple of different things. So I think on the Zenzap side, I think it's really smart to pull together a newer version of Slack that was built in an age of AI agents.

28:17Totally get that. It feels really like a smart play to get acquired. And that's exactly what they're looking to do, much like Slack did with Salesforce a few years ago. So many huge platforms need new tech and smart people to keep them ahead of the competition. Now, Town, dude, their domain is town.com, a four-letter.com. I mean, come on. That's fucking crazy. Plus, they have an agent that's a paperclip called Cliff, an homage to Microsoft's 1997 Clippy. Remember Clippy? Yeah, yeah. I hate this Clippy. I hate this Clippy. I love Clippy. I was giving him an eight at the time. Clippy's back? Well, it's not Clippy.

28:59It's Clippy's nephew. or nephew, Cliff. Is a townie not... Are they from Boston? Is a townie not something? A townie is known as somebody who never really leaves a town. I mean, they just stay in that town their entire life, which is all good. Here in a Boston, I mean, shit, Boston's fucking huge. It's usually like small town America. It's like when you're in a small town, you stay there your whole life. So you have a townie. Now, what I do like about this the most is there if you if you saw their videos and how they've actually marketed is their dr seuss like storytelling around the product which makes it easy to understand it's comfortable and hell tell me a company that's not shopping agents right now right so it doesn't have it for me it doesn't have to be 2 a.m in the morning i don't have to be in the bar and or drunk i would stone cold sober in the middle of the day.

30:01Pick up a townie. Take home a townie. Take home a townie, baby. Now, we'll do another segment on this another day, which is who wins out of all of us to get the townie. But that's for another day. There's more than one townie, so I think they can spread them around. I think they can spread it around. We're moving to Dayforce, which we don't talk about enough around here. Dayforce announced that it has agreed to acquire Ribbon, an AI-native recruiting technology company that helps organizations source, screen, and engage qualified talent more quickly and efficiently. The acquisition will add specialized agentic recruiting capabilities to Dayforce, including Ribbon's conversational voice and video AI technology, helping organizations conduct high-quality candidate interviews at scale.

30:53So, Stephen, you're all over this. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, the first thing is I thought I was having a bit of Dave Javu when I seen the news. Thank you very much. Anybody that knows Ribbon knows that one of the co-founders is called Dave Vu. And I just had to get that in there. Barely good. But I love it, right? What did we speak about at the start, which was recruitment leaders being lost in this kind of like myriad of like, what does my tools do? There's too many things to choose from. Through TA Tech Finder, I'm seeing this massive kind of tools are spreading across multiple categories, right?

31:33So before, in 2005, one thing did one thing, and that was it. It did the thing. We still did that thing 10, 15 years later, right? We still were, okay, no, no, we're the really good people at recruitment marketing or sourcing or this or that. Now, and I'll just use my own stats again, not that this is all about me, but now the average company on that website has 5.2 categories that it covers across all 1 ,500 vendors. So a platform has five plus categories? They could fit into five different categories. So like Dayforce, by acquiring something like Ribbon, adds a really useful tool to their arsenal, puts it under the Dayforce umbrella, gives their customers instant access to it, and means that they start to play against the bigger players that are already doing the same thing, or the more well-known players rather than the bigger players in their space.

32:29So I think, for me, I'm always a fan of this. I'm always a fan of streamlining, bringing in more tools to one belt and giving people that option. So, Lieben, do you guys, have you dealt with Dayforce at all? No, I didn't even know them, to be honest. Okay, talk about that. Because you obviously did a little research around them. Ribbon, obviously a startup. They were bought, not Ribbon, but Dayforce was bought by Tom Abrava earlier this year. I really don't know Dayforce. I, of course, didn't know Ribbon AI. Right. And the thing is, if they're focusing on the staffing industry, which is our business, then I think they're too late because what they are trying to integrate now is something we already have.

33:11Automated job interviewing, transcribing from audio to written text and parsing it to the ATS. If you don't have it as a staffing company, by now you're far too late. So you're probably going out of business because of the market getting smaller and consolidation is coming up. but um i don't know dayforce maybe they uh are aiming to the multinationals which probably don't have this kind of technology yet and then could be this might be a very good addition to their portfolio i don't know yeah i mean dayforce are so we we did a little bit of work with dayforce isems um for kind of joint customers they're in like almost 200 countries they have uh like 50 000 customers or something like that so that's the people that's the base that i'm speaking to is like that kind of global base of if it's going to be really helpful for your people to have access to something that is infinitely better than the experience that you give them today, then great.

34:06If you're adding technology to try and take market share, then that's an entirely different thing. The land and expand, you know, you want to land a customer, you want to keep the customer, you want to expand the customer within. And if you've bought a human capital management system, for God's sakes, you don't want to choose another one. And I don't think Dayforce has made an acquisition since 2024. And after being acquired by Tom and Bravo, which I'd said earlier this year, it's about fucking time. I mean, it feels like Dayforce really needs this. I mean, being the fun and quirky human capital system, management system only goes so far.

34:44Adding specialized agentic recruiting capabilities to an HCM, or wait a minute, they're an HCM platform. they're not even known for recruiting so what are they doing buying high volume top of funnel technology oh wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute time out workday bought paradox yeah sap bought smart recruiters okay okay it's this is feel it so it's kind of like a me too buy but it's pretty amazing to see recruitment tech and top of the funnel get some attention around this this freaking joint and believe it's getting the most attention because it's low risk compared to talent management payroll and any of the perceived boring yet essential shit so the question is will day force follow behind workday and sap by elevating ribbons ceo to lead all their recruitment tech because that's exactly what uh sap and workforce did and i guess time will tell Yeah, they flirted with that world.

35:45They have for a while. You know, when I say we were involved in deals with them, like it wasn't from them being the HGM. It was from them providing recruitment technology that they had acquired or partnered with. So it was not like they've been standing completely on the outskirts. They have been and they've dipped a toe in, they've dipped a foot in. This looks like we're maybe going to jump in in the near future. That'll be interesting to see how that pans out. Well, I'll tell you who is jumping in. Oh, my God. It's Anthropic. We'll be right back. All right. Joel is creaming his jeans right now because Anthropic is going IPO, and that's initial public offering for you non-acronym users out there.

36:32Anthropic's first half of 2025 revenues was$1.16 billion. dollars. First half of 2025 compared to 2026, which was$16.3 billion. So they went from about$1.2 to over$16 billion. Now that is amazing revenue growth. But what's even more amazing is Anthropics net loss of over 80 billion. That's eight zero billion in the first half of 2026. So I'll say that again, 80 billion in losses. Okay. Are we finally at the point of the AI bubble bursting? McGrath, what's going on here? Yeah. I mean, I saw Anthropic files come up on my phone because I have the text a bit big because I've got eye issues these days.

37:32And I was like, no way. And I was expecting to click on it and say for bankruptcy as the next few words. And I thought, oh, no, the whole house of cards is falling down and this is just the start of it. But, you know, obviously, it's not that. That's not the news. I mean, look, I probably don't understand enough about top level business to know how companies like Anthropic and OpenAI can consistently publish country wealth defining losses and still operate for years and years and years. That's a great way to put it country wealth defining losses. Yes. And I think it's just interesting to me that like, you know, it's just sit back, get the popcorn.

38:17Let's see how all kind of works out but um i i i just don't see a world where it's going to work out that great to be honest with you um it's like my my immediate feelings and and that great for anybody that is involved you know involved with it yeah i mean we can sit back and watch but i mean we're all mired up in this right i think it's like seven companies that are driving the stock market right now seven and if this one topples it's a it's it's fucking house of cards dude i mean welcome to the upside down we are literally in bizarro world not only is ai going to bring us to an extinction level event which how many of these ceos have actually said we are actually going to buy stock in that extinction level yeah this gets this gets filed under humans are really stupid Back to the math, okay, and the business model, because that's what humans obviously believe in.

39:16Roughly 80 % of Anthropics revenue comes from businesses paying for use of processed information, aka tokens, right? Those prices have been at bargain basement levels. We're talking end cap prices. The question is now, now that they're moving public, everything is public, including this crazy$80 billion in losses that I mentioned. That's$80 billion in losses. What's going to happen from the standpoint of driving revenue? So I actually dug into it. And this is what their current base is and what their current market opportunity is. So they have 50 % of Fortune 500 companies currently paying as currently paying customers.

40:0370%, 7-0 % of Fortune 100 companies who have bought into Claude Business Ops. Of the global 2 ,000, over 30 % of the global 2 ,000 high-value customers. Now, Anthropic has over 14 ,000 enterprise customers, nearly 12 ,000 clients. They're spending about$100 ,000 a year. You have close to 2 ,000 spending a million, and then you have like 250. clients spending 10 million a year so anthropic has to unseat major competitors to gain market share and expand spending from clients plus at the start of 2026 open ai's developer share was below 25 percent by the end of q3 2026 it was back up to 50 percent with their launch of their new tools So open AI ain't having all of that.

41:04So during a single week in September of 2026, China's deep seek captured over 24 percent of all text requests on open router, actively pulling budget away from Anthropic and Google. this i mean this is a hell of a fight right but the thing is are are they tearing the house down around us leaving this is a lot of information i'm gonna sit back and breathe a minute and maybe go in the fetal position uh go ahead and tell me what you think first of all the growth and revenue is impressive and it's going to grow much faster the coming years and i know i can't project on my own company but if i look at the spending we do at antropic at claude yeah the last months compared to the last year it's growing very fast everyone is starting to use it do you think it's going to continue at that level though at that yeah hockey stick okay it'll be exponential i think even wow because those um tokens are becoming more expensive i mean yeah we just keep using more and it's addictive yeah so and that's a problem and they they get us hooked up That's one thing.

42:12And then you were talking about a loss of 80 billion. That's not exactly what's happening. I mean, in the books, it's a loss of 80 billion, but in fact, it's investments. It's 72 billion out of the 80 billion is some kind of, it's a financial thing, but it's not cash burn, totally not. so this is something they'll carry on the coming years and it will make them financially stronger i remember when tesla went ipo the shares were overvalued and i looked at it and i'm never going to invest in something like this it's a crazy idea and one guy is going to okay and each year the shares only got more expensive more expensive so i never bought them and our private banker invested in them and my funds or what's it called uh four percent was tesla and in the end now they're pretty much making money.

42:59So it's possible. And this is what's going to happen with Antropic. It's going to be extremely overvalued and it's going to stay overvalued for years and years to come. But shares will only get more expensive. I believe in it. And I think Microsoft, you just were talking about Microsoft investing in all these tools. They were first investors. So they'll get rich from this IPO, even richer. Do you think it's one of those things we're like we're almost as a human race we're not going to be given the choice whether these companies succeed or not right like essentially we're we are kind of being forced down an alleyway which is this is the way the world just works now and you're going to contribute to to our exponential growth um as a result of that to your point right i i use these tools at a very small scale i'm leaving for for the stuff that i do my subscriptions a year ago were worth 30 dollars they're now 150 dollars you know 200 300 and that's just one guy you know in a room doing it that's and it's you know but but it's it's funny how it's like you just don't mind doing it because the results are better than they were the last time that you did it right you know it becomes that kind of so you put that ask a company scale at an enterprise scale then you know that's that's a lot of money going out the door.

44:24I think for me, the only thing that could potentially slow anything like that down would be a real environmental impact assessment that comes from the government down. And when I say slow it down, I mean like trip it up for about five seconds and then it just gets back up and starts running again. But there is maybe something around that that's kind of capped from either a country level or a global level where we say that you can't exceed X, Y, or Z. Yeah, but as we speak, it's an American company. The current government won't give a shit about environmental issues. Yeah, yeah. But that's the only thing I can see slowing it down.

45:06Yep. And again, we've been told there's a possibility of extinction-level events, and we're buying stock in extinction level events. There's no dad joke to get us out of this. Shall we play a game? Great job. Thanks, guys. Appreciate you coming on. I'm going to go in the fetal position over here in the bar, finish my Guinness. But thanks for joining. We out. We out. Thank you for listening to what's it called? A podcast. The Chad. The Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology. But most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of shout-outs of people you don't even know.

45:52And yet, you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese. Not one. Cheddar. Blue. Nacho. Pepper Jack. Swiss. There's 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. 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.