ZipRecruiter Is Back, Mercor Hits $20B, and Seekout Musical Chairs

0:00Let me tell you what it's going to be. This is not a menage a trois. This is a foursome. Because me, Joel, Chad and Bites.

0:11Joel Cheesman: Too easy. I'm going to puke, but too easy. Okay, Cheesman's in the room. I get it. That better be a really dark room. That better be a really dark room. Holy shit. Honestly, no, do you know what? 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.

0:54Oh, yeah. Anxiously awaiting the refund on my Cybertruck deposit. Hey, kids, it's the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel, Chinese honeypot cheeseman. Ooh, and I'm Chad. Hey, I need a Guinness. So wash. And this is Emi Habibi Beradigo. Oh. And on this episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, more core raises, zip recruiter rages. And who'd you rather? Let's do this. Chad, I, I, I'm concerned. I'm really concerned. I'm concerned. So, so Jeremy came home yesterday. He had a, he had a, he had a pack of cigarettes and a subscription to hustler magazine. So, so I'm not sure. I'm not sure what your daughter is, is teaching him.

1:44she was his substitute teachers. Here's a, here's a picture of Jeremy with, with Kennedy. So, so I'm a little concerned. I don't know what's going on with Kennedy's teaching tactics, but a little, a little weird to see, to see Jeremy carrying a hustler.

2:01Joel Cheesman: I mean, she's, she's been in, she's been in Europe for a very long time. So, I mean, you know, it's much more lax. You're allowed to drink earlier, you know, you know, in nudity, that's nothing. That's not a big deal. So I think, you know, you know, that she, that, that, that's not a bad thing. And it's hilarious because when she, so she, she kind of took a break from the whole business landscape for a minute and she's doing some substitute teaching, kind of giving back to the community. She went back to Indiana, back to Indiana living with grandma and grandpa for a minute while she kind of like pulls things together and she wants to go to New York or who knows where she'll go, but she'll, she'll end up somewhere.

2:41Joel Cheesman: but i get a message from her julian i get a message from her yesterday and that picture and i'm like you got to be shitting he was he was the star of the class the star of the class because she was like my dad works with your dad on the podcast so it became like this whole thing like jeremy's dad is cool and he knows the substitute teacher so yeah he he uh he came home looking like jensen wong with the nvidia uh leather jackets and yeah if if kenny needs a job i think chinese needs spies so maybe she can um you know find opportunity there yeah i don't know i don't know that she could make that work uh can you imagine the army of women in silicon valley like Like if Jensen's getting honey potted, all these, all these engineers at AI companies are shagging Chinese chicks.

3:41Joel Cheesman: Well, and that's the thing is like, you know, we always, we always see the 007 kind of like spy movies. I mean, the, the, the espionage that generally happens. I mean, yes, there, there's definitely governmental espionage. And we actually talked to a CIA agent who was a part of that whole thing. But from a scheme standpoint, there's so much more corporate espionage. And these are, I mean, look at the rippling deal thing, right? That dude was more like Mr. Bean, right? I mean, you're looking for and you're literally just probing for the weak points. And so it's not always as sexy as it seems or sounds.

4:20Joel Cheesman: But in this case, you know, hey, Jensen got his own. I mean, these developers. Good God. Oh, my God.

4:34I mean, you know, these guys who are nerds their whole life, never got a date, are now being approached by sexy Asian women. Game over. Game over.

4:47So is Jensen too big to fire? What's your prediction?

4:52Joel Cheesman: OK, so in the U.S. right now, nothing is out of bounds. I mean, we already have companies who are hacking other companies, which is against the law, but they're just saying, well, it's AI, right? And if it's AI, then it's okay. And he is NVIDIA. Yeah, I think with this administration, he could do whatever the hell he wants. I mean, and I don't care how many chips he sells to China. I don't because these guys aren't going to do anything to him. So maybe the next administration might, you know, hold a little bit more of a corporate guardrail, put corporate guardrails in place. But these guys won't.

5:27They're weak. Man, this is an onion they're peeling. And I think it's going to get real stanky real fast. I think so. I mean, the whole thing, like Trump knew about this. I think he put it under the rug until the election was over because the stock market is the one thing that he's been able to raise his hand and go, I did that. Yeah. And NVIDIA is the cornerstone. If this came out before the election, it's like, OK, I don't even have AI to stand on. At least it was a risk. So I think I think Trump knew about this shit. I think he swept them under the rug. I think that whatever was the secrets that were traded, the deals that happened with chips and I mean, companies, you know, I just think it's going to get real stinky.

6:12I think it's really what does NVIDIA stock do? Because if this keeps getting bad and NVIDIA stock keeps, keeps tanking, like the board may have no choice, although the board is basically handpicked by Jensen. So like it's, yeah. And this is a huge company.

6:28Joel Cheesman: This is not, you know, some jelly bag of donuts. It's the cornerstone of the market. I mean, all the other AI companies are, are literally benching off of NVIDIA. So it's like, yeah, what do you do? Yeah. You go ahead and you tank this dude and the stock goes plummeting. What happens to the rest of the market? I'd fuck. I don't know. But again, it's the whole too big to fail scenario. And if, if this does go deep, get it. Then, then who knows what's going to happen? I mean, seriously. I mean, for now I think it's fine, but yeah. If only we had UFC's Dana White at press briefings telling us what was, Thank God we don't.

7:12Happy Veterans Day, Chad. I know you don't like to get hot highlighted for that, but we are recording on Veterans Day. And Remembrance Day, right, Emmy? That's going on-ish now. It is. Remember it's Sunday? Yeah, I was in a supermarket today, and I had my two minutes of silence. And I was like, I actually forgot, to be honest. I put my hands up, and I forgot until I walked in. But I did my two minutes of silence alongside everyone else. So, yeah. in the supermarket. What better way to honor those who have served than shout-outs.

7:45Joel Cheesman: Is it Titanfall? Shout-outs! All right, guys. I'm going to go first. I'm a little late on this one. I missed a couple October shows because my father and we went in that last week. But it's been a couple weeks since Halloween. But this one I came across really had me gobsmacked, as they say in the British Isles. So shout-out to Chevelle. Who the hell is Chevelle? I know that's what you're probably thinking. Yeah, it is. It is a rock. It's a rock. So Chevelle pulled up into a Burger King drive-thru, which who doesn't on occasion, and pulled up to this. Yo, I just asked this lady what she was today.

8:27Can you tell them what you told me? I'm just black. And I asked you what? You said, did I think it was okay? And what was your response? As long as you have a good heart. And so your intentions is good. So that means you what? Black lives matter. Well, no, I just want to be black. Why would you want to be black? Do you know the struggles that we go to as black people? Sorry, make me laugh. Sorry. No, yes, yes, I do. Or I mean, no, I don't. No, I don't. Oh, my God. Oh. Oh. Okay. So for those that are on audio only, that was a Burger King employee in blackface. In 2026. This was not the Deep South.

9:05This was Minnesota, not really known for a lot of racism. But I just did a manager not see this. Did someone at her home go, hey, no, what are you doing? I think you need to go back. What are we doing in 2026 that somebody can actually go to work and do this? It's just it's incredible. So I thought it was a deep fake. It was not. I did a little research on this. it was legit burger king burger king came out with a with a announcement denouncing this no word if she was fired if the manager was like reprimanded or how this was handled but they're they're educating everyone so that doesn't happen again but i just i couldn't believe in 2026 this shit happens like yeah and it wasn't even like she's an angry white person it was sort of I just don't know.

10:02How is our public school system failing so badly? They need Kennedy. They need Kennedy at the school system. She would have fixed her. Kennedy would have fixed that chick. Good God. I don't know. No word on what Chevelle ordered. Hopefully it was the new nuggets which are delicious, but shout out to her for capturing this and shedding a light on just ignorance. Stupidity.

10:27Joel Cheesman: Good God. Horrible. horrible all right let me get us out of this honestly yeah like we need to bring it back up we need to bring it back up so okay so i'll tell you who my shout out is it's actually to the fins and i say fins i'm talking about actually finish dating oh okay yeah now i'm not so surprised to me for americans that's people from finland the finish not dolphin fans yes no so apparently apparently if you are single now and if you're struggling because i know what it's like out there it's a hard hard hard girlfriend yeah thank god luckily i am sorted now fingers crossed any words of beyonce put a ring on it you know does he listen to this show he does listen to the show

11:21but listen if if if people are still struggling out there and you're finding that the pool is drying up apparently apparently finland is the place to go i had no idea so this is my little tip for everyone out there so have you got this is the government right this is the government uh yeah kitchen for for single folks here we go are you single good we are here to help you have tried tinder and you have tried bumble but have you tried helsinki yeah maybe the problem is not you Maybe it's your postcode. Now, here is an offer you can't beat. Single people can apply for all expenses paid round trip for dinner dates with locals.

12:08Foodies, pay attention. Still happy dating? We have almost 200 ,000 legs. World-class javelin throwers and heavy metal bands. And golden lights. What else? We like our coffee and sound spots And our people and culture Cool I think it's cool Would never But a fin would Take a risk Fall in love with a fin Do it people

12:37Joel Cheesman: That is seductive Your ex would never But a fin would That's a good one Honestly Yeah that is One tantalizing seductive video We got lakes We got lots of lakes They're not javelin throwers. So does Minnesota. They have blackface too. I'd rather go to Finland. Yeah, exactly.

13:05Joel Cheesman: Can you believe that? But I really want to know. I really, really want people to do this and just write into the show and just let us know. Go to Finland. Tell us what it's like. I need to know who works. Not right now, though. It's November in Finland. You might wait until spring or something like that. No, no, no. It's coughing season. This is the perfect season. Everyone wants to stay in and kind of get all snuggly. Yeah. I'm going to guess that Emmy has a lot more single friends than Chad and I do. So maybe you need to spread the word to your friends. Come on, single people. Get to Finland.

13:36Tell me about it. Have you guys been to Helsinki? Never. Never, ever, ever. It's nice. It's nice. Oh, really? I was there in the summer where it's daylight for like all but an hour. and it's a party and people are out. It's a good time. Yeah. Saunas and lots of drinks. Did you see a javelin throw? No javelin. A lot of mosquitoes. As you go to the countryside, I ate reindeer.

14:04Joel Cheesman: Oh, wow. Yeah. What's the drink there? I don't know. Moving on. Jesus Christ. Enough about Helsinki, you guys. Jeez. What you got, Chad? All right. So we don't have enough Stephen McGrath on this show, so I'm going to let him do the shout out real quick. Okay. Just pass the buck to Steve. Breaking news. If you want to make$300, simply go and recommend Noon AI on LinkedIn, or at least follow their official channels to make sure that you get paid. Yesterday, I wrote a post on LinkedIn about what I thought was really a clever marketing technique between Juicebox, MetaView, and Noon AI, thinking that the three companies are working together to kind of get T leaders to talk about them as competitors.

14:49commenting on those posts and really getting the discussion going. That might still be happening, that might still be the case, and if so, I applaud that, and I think that it's very clever. But what became apparent very shortly after that, I got a barrage of messages from both TA leaders and, let's call them, influencers in the space, saying that they were glad that I had called out on LinkedIn because they had been offered cash by noon in particular. In this instance, there might be others to basically write a post about them. They didn't even have to write that post themselves. It was a ghostwriting service that they could do it multiple times, I think.

15:25It's got an AI. And for a lot of people, they didn't feel comfortable doing that. That took a ton from being a really clever marketing campaign for me to being something that I was a bit upset about, to be honest with you. The fact that TA leaders are out there endorsing products that maybe they aren't even customers of or they've just finished a trial of and they're not going to sign, and doing that to other leaders in the space, in a world where it's really difficult to navigate tools and technology. So slightly disappointed in that. Clever marketing technique regardless, but yeah, there's some news for you.

16:03Joel Cheesman: Wow. Welcome to all things Scottish. Our slogan is, if it's no Scottish, it's crap. So when I first saw this, I thought, yeah, I mean, that maybe these companies are literally coming together to try to get above the noise because there are a lot of vendors that are out there and that's just three of them. No, no, no, no. It looks like it was just noon AI trying to get themselves into the same categories, Juicebox and MetaView because Juicebox and MetaView have a lot of money. So therefore it's like, let's try to go ahead and streamline behind these guys. But as Steven had said, There are a lot of TA leaders that are doing this without disclosure, and it seems to be to the tune of 300 bucks.

16:46Joel Cheesman: So is it worth it? You think? It's so underhand. It's like, it's just, I can't believe this is actually the way the TA world is actually going now. And people actually accepting that 300 and how they get in the way of it. Obviously, like, you know, corporate policy, you can't accept it. That's a bribe. I mean, if you're paying me direct, you don't know. Oh, yeah, it's true. I mean, they sound like they're going through my company. Chad and I do this, like we get paid to do this. Now it's an ad format. We do a bump thing where we talk about a company and it's all on the up and up where we disclose like, hey, they're paying for this.

17:24And like people know the rules of the road. I mean, that's more of just professionalism than it is we have to. Now, there are pretty strict rules around radio and traditional media about what is an ad and what isn't. There are less concrete, like what is an ad and what's okay and what isn't. And for what my understanding is social media, there's no law if Kim Kardashian goes on TikTok and says, this is the best face cleanser on the planet, that she has to disclose, hey, this is an ad. Should she? Yeah, she probably does just to be careful. But traditionally, companies go after influencers to talk about my product.

18:01So if Tim Sackett says, hey, this ATS, you kind of know that's Tim's thing. To go after TA leaders directly who aren't influencers or known for doing that stuff, it's sort of a really interesting way to do it, but also get them in trouble if they're representing a company. Because if you're representing a company endorsing a product, are they at risk for that? Cheers to the company because there's nothing illegal about it. But as a TA leader, should you be doing it? I think there's a ethical question. Yeah, that's the thing. The FTC just put something out, though.

18:36Joel Cheesman: The FTC put something out with regard to social media advertising and influencer endorsements where you have to provide disclosures. So it is something that can be. I mean, it's going to be hard to kind of like heard all of the influencer cats that are out there. No doubt. And for 300 bucks, is it really worth the FTC checking this out? No, I think from the standpoint of ethics and business ethics, that's the big question. And you can see it all over LinkedIn. So go to LinkedIn and literally just search on Juicebox, MetaView and Noon AI. All those together, grouped together, and you'll see posts that pop up that have shit tons of TA leaders that are actually doing this.

19:20Joel Cheesman: So I thought it was interesting. They're hurting their own personal brand because, you know, like the way the world is going now, you're like, you know, you go to any conference, you go to a webinar, you're also listening to a webinar. You want to hear from your peer. You want to hear from a practitioner. You're taking their word for it that the solution is actually solving their real world problems. But then when you start finding out, oh, you're actually getting paid to say this. Well, it's not just that they're getting paid. Many of these people aren't even using the product. They might have tried a pilot or something.

19:51Joel Cheesman: of that nature but they're not actually paying for the product so yeah yeah it's it's it is weird the amount of dollars that are going to go into influencers marketing products is only going to get more and there's a ton of articles and marketing public you know publications that write about this but this is only going to be more of a thing that businesses do approach people that have oh yeah a network and say promote our well and i'm telling you right now let's say q4 of this year starting in q4 of this year um we've had more incoming leads for the podcast than we had for the rest of the year and i think a lot of that has to do with midterms and companies literally have been kind of like saving up money waiting for the chaos to go to go away yeah but yeah there's going to be a lot more of this i mean there's gonna be a lot more of this yep a lot more uh flockity in our space we know uh basically get paid for promoting jobs and what's going on and you get so yeah this Yeah, it's only going to get more pervasive in our space.

20:51Almost as pervasive, Chad, as... Oh, yeah. I'm climbing the rankings, climbing the leaderboard in fantasy football. That's right. Week nine is in the books, people. Special thanks to our sponsor, Factory Fix, for sponsoring our unhealthy habit of fantasy football. We're going to do it differently this week. We're going to go from worst to first. We're going to end on a solid note. So down in the basement here, we have Desiree Gone Girl Goldie, who has yet to win. Who has yet to win. Maybe this week is the week. Followed by Molly the Marauder Sly. Nick, how are you living? Stunned. Mackenzie Mad Dog Maitland.

21:32Hang in Chad Sowash in the eighth spot. Just right in the middle, not showing off. Number seven, we got Bosco Booyah, Booyatovich, uh, region, Dejan Amari, great Scott Clark, St. Nicholas, tie shack, cheesy does it. Cheeseman breaking Benjamin Kuntz and still number one, Jarrett, the Joker, Joel Dersma. That's right. That is your fantasy football leaderboard sponsored by our friends at factory.

22:01Joel Cheesman: And you're welcome. Cause I, I knocked Scott, who was a number two down to number five. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. And I think I have him this week. So we'll see. We'll see how that goes. Any holiday travel, guys? I know business is over, but any holiday stuff? Not until Christmas. Not until Christmas slash New Year's Eve. Going to San Diego. Not until next year. I've got my cousin coming over from New York. Nice. Yeah. So she's spending Christmas with me. So that would be nice. So next year. Yeah. Very nice. Well, let's get to topic, shall we? Yes.

22:42As you know, our topics are sponsored by Proven Base. You love free bourbon? I know I do. How about two bottles instead of one? That's right. You get a bottle from Chad and one from me. You got to go to chadcheese.com slash free to get your bottle of bourbon. Special thanks to Proven Base for letting us share the cock. Oh, I love chicken cock. I do.

23:05Joel Cheesman: My favorite thing to do. All right. Let's get to some. Let's get to some. I don't know where to go with that one. Let's get to the news, everybody. And money is flowing. Dollar, dollar bill, y 'all. AI training and evaluation company Mercore has just raised$750 million in a Series D at a$20 billion valuation. That doubles its valuation from the$10 billion it reached back in October of 2025. And for things I did not have on my bingo card, Chad, ZipRecruiter's Q3 revenue rose 8 % with 5.1 million net income and 70 % adjusted EBITDA. Pay employers grew 10 % and fill your guidance raised to 4 % to 5 % growth.

23:54The stock, get this, rocketed to a 50 % increase on the news. Cash rules everything around me. Chad, your thoughts on Mercor's raise and ZipRecruiter's rocket.

24:09Joel Cheesman: So Mercor, again, for me, this is literally people getting paid peanuts to train not only their replacement, but entire industries. And I totally get it. You know, somebody is going to do it. So why not take the money and run? Right. No matter how little the piece of that pie is, just go ahead and take what's there. But let me put this into perspective. On the site, it says a sales and marketing expert can be paid$60 to$70 per hour, which sounds great, but it's not a full-time job, which means you're not getting 40 hours a week at$70 an hour. And even if you did, that's only$11 ,200 a month. And any expert salesperson who's excited about$11 ,000 a month is not an expert salesperson at all.

24:56Joel Cheesman: Plus, how many do you think, you know, how long do you think the contract is actually going to last? It's not going to be a year. And when you have bestowed all of your knowledge into this model, what exactly are you good for then? You're not, right? And from a scale standpoint, you literally just made an industry of your fellow salespeople good for nothing. For a measly 11K a month, good for you, right? And we're going to talk about it more later, but you have to remember that CEOs all over the world are trying their damnedest to get rid of headcount by scaling AI. So will this happen in 2027?

25:37Joel Cheesman: I would say that, you know, it's going to take a couple of years. But at this rate and the rate that the models are actually traveling, which is much faster than what they're used to, could actually be months for some jobs and some tasks. But when it comes to AmeriCorps, I mean, I'm sure the AI models and the founders, bank accounts, are just going to enjoy the hell out of these cash infusions. Give me that money! When it comes to ZipRecruiter, I mean, Ian Siegel attributed the primary results to product improvements designed to increase conversations between employers and job seekers, which to me is just code for saying hiring companies want to do everything they possibly can not to use Indeed because they fucking hate Indeed.

26:22Joel Cheesman: And then they've got this this be seen thing, right, for job seekers. Well, we all know that everybody's using like AI to apply for jobs. So if you're not first, you're last, as Ricky Bobby would say. Right. So at this point, if you're not using be seen, you're probably not going to get any responses whatsoever. So nine percent of the job seekers are using it. I would say that you will see more of this and that's going to push revenues up just in desperate situations. ZipRecruiter is going to take advantage of job seekers. And that's what's happening. It's a cash grab. It's a cash grab all the way around for AI training in be seen job seeker cash grab.

27:05Joel Cheesman: You're not going to fall for the banana in the tailpipe? They are. Mercore is just fascinating. So Mercore, Handshake, these companies have pivoted from their original models to basically provide intelligence to all the LLMs and AI companies. It's the ultimate picks and shovels story. If you're not familiar with the 1849 gold rush in California, where people went to San Francisco to look for gold, The people who really benefited from it was like Levi's who made jeans for the gold miners and the people who made picks and shovels and sold them. And then when the gold was gone or not found, everyone went home and the people who had large bank accounts were these guys.

27:49Now, I don't know that Mercore is going to be that the big the big winner, but they are certainly benefiting from the gold rush that's going on. Anthropic is about to go public. They have decreased sort of their initial expectation for what they're going to raise in the public markets. I don't know if that'll drip down into everybody, including Mercor. It's also it's sort of like you look at Apple. Apple is really benefited by not getting knee deep into the race and spending a ton of money to compete. But they're they're benefiting from it because of their own technology and people filling those gaps.

28:27And so for now, it's a hell of a deal. As long as the AI money flows, as long as these companies keep spending tons of money, they need this data to be able to have a better model than everyone else. The interesting thing that Mercor is doing now, it seems like, is they want to take that model to the enterprise level. So they want to go to a large company and say, hey, we've already taken data from a PhD that knows forensics. Now let's take your customer or your employees. Let's take what they're doing, track that, learn from it, and then have your own sort of little Mercore LLM to benefit from.

29:09So we've seen companies start to get into the space. That could be a huge business for them. They got to go public at some point. Once Anthropic goes, the other big ones will go. And then these other businesses will go. But for now, the money is really good. I agree with Chad. there's it's going to run out at some point yeah at some point either we know everything that we can know from everybody or yeah at some point the the party ends and the lights go on and and the cockroaches scatter but until then it let the good times roll um and speaking of good times roll uh zip recruiter holy cow after hitting you know 200 like historic lows last year uh these guys have found out the recipe to get it done.

29:52Now, I want to remind you, Chad, of one of my 2026 predictions was that ZipRecruiter would hit$10 a share. I think it was around$3 when I made that prediction. So I'm well on my way to finally get a prediction right, which feels pretty good. I need to go full AMC and GameStop to really make that happen. But basically, a few things are happening here. One is like better search, which is they've put Phil to bed. They've gone back to basics. They've integrated AI tools to make the searches better, the recommended jobs better. They've cut their R &D. They've cut headcount on that end. ChatGPT has nearly doubled their traffic from advertising sources.

30:40Their cost discipline has really driven this. let's call it financial engineering. But to their credit, they've cut all the R &D stuff, the fill stuff. They've gone back to basics. They've cut headcount. They recently lost their CMO who had been there for a decade. So they're cutting the executive suite and cutting costs there. So is this a high growth story? Is this an innovation story where we should be in awe of ZipRecruiter. No, they've been able to engineer. They've plugged in AI. They've gotten rid of their own R &D. So they're relying on like open AI and that technology. And they've engineered to cut headcount and cut costs.

31:26And their stock is benefiting from it. They've gotten two or three upgrades from analysts. So this thing's going to run for a little bit throughout the end of the year. Congratulations to ZipRecruiter.

31:38Joel Cheesman: When you're in the toilet, getting an upgrade's not that big of an idea. 50 % increase. It's something. Yeah. It's be seen first. Apparently is paying dividends. That's right. Are you ready to buy some ZipRecruiter? No. No. Absolutely not. I mean, look, I agree with both of you. ZipRecruiter, they could only go up. They were so far down that that was the only way to actually go. And I'm with you. I never expected these earnings. I never expected them to turn things around. But I don't think, like you said, I don't think it's like, oh, an impressive story. It's a stabilizing story. They've done the right things.

32:30Obviously, I'm going to say that they've probably been listening to YouTube and hearing what YouTube has been saying about Zip Recruiting. No, of course. Like I said, industry veterans. You know, they probably sat there, took their notepad out and said, oh, what is Joe and Chad saying? I need we need to go back to basics. And they have and it has actually worked. How long will it work for? I don't know. Have they had they also spent a lot of money? Yeah, they spent a huge amount still on sales and marketing to kind of get where they are. So I think it's just a case of like, can they keep doing this quarter by quarter?

32:59Can they still maintain the kind of upward trajectory that they're on at the moment? I'm not massively convinced, but let's see. I think, Chad, your point of everyone hates Indeed is a good one. I think people are looking for alternatives. And I also think we've been talking about the programmatic and decline of the programmatic solutions for a while. And I think a lot of people that were soured on programmatic have said, let's try ZipRecruiter again. And ZipRecruiter has done a good job of luring those people back to ZipRecruiter, I think. So it's kind of a programmatic decline. ZipRecruiter benefits from that.

33:33Joel Cheesman: Yeah, we'll talk a little bit about that in the industry roundup later. You're such a tease, man. I just know. Such a tease. You're teasing me. All right, guys. We'll be right back. If you're not following us on your favorite podcast platform of choice, please do so and leave us a review. What's your problem? We'd love you long time if you did that. Now for something way less optimistic. The tale of two economies marches on, everybody. Amazon continues corporate cuts, nearly 1 ,300 in October and another 95 around the Seattle metro area. Canva is cutting over 1 ,200 people, representing 22 % of its staff.

34:14Virgin Media now plans to make thousands of job cuts for 800 million pounds in savings amid debt restructuring. PepsiCo is eliminating 1 ,000 people in North America to simplify amid soft demand. But wait, there's more. Recent U.S. grads face 42.5 % underemployment despite a 5.2 % unemployment rate. And U.K. job satisfaction, talking to you, Emmy, hit a record low of 74 % with less willingness to work. Ouch. Happy, happy, joy, joy, Chad. Your thoughts on the tale of two economies.

34:48Joel Cheesman: Let's go with my favorite company first, Amazon. So from the article, quote, the company has repeatedly said the restructuring is intended to reduce management layers, improve efficiency and allow teams to move faster. End quote. OK, so it's really hard for me to understand the management bloat that happens at some of these large organizations. I can see departmental bloat like sysadmin, let's say, getting laid off because we have stopped buying physical servers and we've moved to the cloud. But layered management bloat throughout the entire organization is purely mismanagement from the top. The CEO, CFO, and COO, they should be constantly managing how the company is organized and managed and saying, quote, improve efficiency and allow teams to move faster.

35:42Joel Cheesman: Isn't that your every fucking day job? Why did it take, how does it take this incredible bloat across the entire organization for to go? Oh yeah, I forgot our job was to be more efficient and allow teams to move faster so we can make fucking money. These guys drive me fucking crazy. Then you have Virgin media who in some cases in the UK are a monopoly because some Brits don't have a choice. They either have virgin broadband or they don't. And then guess what happens? The company feels like, you know, we don't need to upgrade anymore. And we're just going to start cutting jobs by, what, 30 % of its workforce.

36:26Joel Cheesman: That to me does not instill any confidence whatsoever in a company. And if I do have a choice, I'm not buying fucking virgin media. It's crazy. And last but not least, this is Joel's favorite. The get off my lawn piece. How can Gen Z not be pissed? I mean, seriously. They are. I mean, that's what I'm saying. How can they? That's what I'm saying. They have to be pissed. Yeah. I mean, when you go to college and you work a part time job at Starbucks and Walmart and you're still living with mom and dad. I mean, give me a fucking break, dude. To me, you can see if you take a look at the actual voting stats for the midterms in the U.S., every single state in the lower demographic voted blue.

37:13Joel Cheesman: They just want fucking change and they want it now. And I can understand that. I fucking get it. So, yeah, that's all I got, guys. I'm done. I'm going to breathe now. Are you okay? Can I get another? I need another Guinness. He needs a breather. He needs something to calm him down. I need another Guinness. Yeah. And the Gen Z serving Starbucks has a PhD in anthropology, right? So definitely doing what they should be doing. I mean, the formula seems to be basically geopolitically governmental insanity and chaos. We don't really know what we're going to do. So we're going to stand pat. We're not going to hire fire.

37:53We're going to create more efficiencies by investing in AI and capital to generate more output. with the existing staff as we continue to get leaner and leaner on the headcount because we're spending more on AI and can't afford all these people anymore. And that seems to be the recipe that companies are engaged in. They're cautious about permanent hiring because they know that, like Amazon, the bots are here, but more are coming. So how do you balance more bots, fewer people? because these layoffs aren't happening in one big chunk. They're happening in drips for a lot of these companies. And as the automation happens, we're going to light more people off.

38:40We're going to figure out if it works or not. Yeah, it works. So more and more people. And that's what we're seeing across more and more companies. And I think it's going to continue to filter down into the companies that aren't Amazon or high-tech companies. And we're going to see it more in blue-collar, maybe jobs going forward. what's really intriguing to me is the canva example because canva is a company if if we look in our own space it's like textio basically yes canva helps you make images well you know what else helps you make images and movies and logos and everything else well ai ai does that shit so now it's like our product is foobar because ai does everything that we do now what the hell do we do now well let's cut off let's cut a fourth of our staff and maybe try to figure it out.

39:27Textio, it was like, well, let's cut a bunch of people and then like, let's totally pivot and create a whole different company. I don't think that's going very well, but we haven't talked about them in a while. So, yeah. So, and then you have, you know, yeah, the kids are employed, but they're underemployed and they're working jobs that they're not, you know, trained to do because they need a job and they have to make money and yeah, they're pissed off. And the election was you know uh number one in terms of why they're pissed off and if uh you know the democrats don't fix it they'll swing again uh to the other side but that's that's kind of the world that we're let's keep our fingers crossed we're living in yeah the shit yes yeah i mean the thing is all of this is depressing i mean unfortunately this is not though look at this Oh, what is that Guinness?

40:14I mean, what I don't like about this. Oh, hello. It reminds me, well, it just kind of is a reminder for me that we're in a world where organizations are putting profit ahead of people. And I understand that, you know, to some extent, you know, obviously organizations are there. They're not charities. They're there to make money. They're there to like increase their bottom line. but I feel like it's the kind of humanity is actually disappearing. People are just forgetting about the people who are actually involved in this. So if you take obviously a company like Amazon, you know, yeah, you're right.

40:53This is Amazon. They should have their shit together, but they've been making redundancies upon redundancies upon redundancies. And at the moment, they're just announcing that they've got record margins. So you've got record margins. You're making a shitload of money, But yet at exactly the same time, you're getting rid of loads of people. So why is that? What is actually going wrong?

41:14Joel Cheesman: Good for the shareholders, not good for society. Yeah, not good for society. You know, they'll put a spin out some kind of like PR bullshit and say there's nothing to do with AI. But you're investing so much money into the AI side of things. So people know, people are not stupid. You know, you're replacing people's jobs. you know almost the same with virgin media that we obviously we just talked about i suppose the slight difference with virgin media is that they got a huge amount of debt that amazon doesn't have so maybe they're having to make the cuts for you know to be stable maybe they have no actual choice so but again it's a case of how did you get to this stage you're putting profit over people yeah and then we look at the grads grads like you said back in the day everyone's like especially in the UK, it was like, go to university, get a good job.

42:04You'll be set up for life. That hasn't been the case for ages. It hasn't been the case. And you graduate, you're in debt, you can't get a job that's actually degree worthy. Then you think, hold on, why did I just spend three, four years at university? And then even if they do manage to get a job, like I said, it might not be degree worthy, but then it's still hard to get those jobs because you've got organizations thinking short term and going, hey, we've got AI. We can just automate that job. So we don't need as many entry-level people. But the focus by doing that, what's going to happen in five years time?

42:40Where's your talent pipeline? Where's your middle managers who are going to go into a senior management role? They're not thinking like that. No, they're not. They're just thinking short term. Quarter by quarter. What they're thinking is how long before co-pilot becomes autopilot. Yeah. How long before the people that are left can train the AI to the point where they make themselves disposable? Yeah, exactly. And then, of course, you know, like, you know, like you said, you know, we talked about UK job satisfaction decreasing. Well, if you're in a situation where you're just having to take any old job just so you can pay the bills, then are you going to be happy in your job?

43:21No. Yeah. You have to pay the bills. You need to eat. You're staying in your parents' house for how many years? You know, so it's a whole kind of vicious circle, which, again, like I said, is all about organizations prioritizing profit over people, thinking too short-term, thinking that AI is going to solve everything. And it's like, well, let's see what's going to happen in five years' time. You know, 10 years' time. Time to get that$80 an hour from Mercore, Chad. Time to call Mercore for a little cash. There might be a wee problem, boys. All right, gang, let's get to some industry news. Some moving and shaking going on.

43:59Seek Out named co-founder John Tippett president to lead day-to-day ops with CEO Aravind Bala shifting toward AI coworkers. Talroo is moving its Austin headquarters to a 10 ,000 square foot space at one uptown in December of this year. Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor is looking to raise more money for his startup Boom Band after raising$4.6 million in seed. for its AI talent marketplace. Chad, what industry news this week stood out to you? All did.

44:31Joel Cheesman: But I mean, Seek Out, got to take a look at Seek Out's new leadership, which is really necessary. I hated to see a new go, but we're in a different era and some big changes need to be made quickly. And let me step back and set the table for the answer of why big changes are a necessity. So back in April of 2023, we had an episode entitled, you just talked about Textio is Toast, which pretty much laid out how big LLMs like ChatGBT were going to kill companies like Textio. Well, back in 2023, companies like Seekout were also in danger because more powerful platforms like ChatGBT, Claude and Gemini could provide new startups with more powerful models right off the shelf.

45:18Joel Cheesman: So Textio and Seekout, they were launched in 2014 and 2018, and their price points were high, very high, mainly because the tech was expensive, which was a great moat for those vendors. Now, to get into the game, you had to have tons of institutional knowledge in cash, but now younger competitors are coming in almost as powerful and cheaper, which puts vendors like seek out in a pinch? Do they use the new LLMs and re-engineer their product? Well, of course, yes. We'll seek out lower their prices. Well, that's the conundrum because if you have a portfolio of customers, which you built since 2018, you have an established ARR.

46:06Joel Cheesman: So are you going to cut that ARR in half? You can't go back to the board and say, ah, we're dropping prices so that we could stay competitive. Investors don't want to hear that. I gave you$100 million. I don't want to hear price cuts. But the newer platforms, if you don't do that, are going to eat your lunch. So you've got to drop prices and you've got to stay competitive. And that's only something that new leadership can do. So the question is, will they have the backbone to do it? Of course, they will try to implement different pricing models. But when the bill comes due, the new competitors are still going to be half the price of Seekout.

46:45Joel Cheesman: And that's the hard part for them. Are they going to switch? I mean, you're in a pricing model. You're stuck in that because you've been in it for almost a decade, for God's sakes. What are you going to do? Then you were talking about programmatic earlier. One of the things I love about what Tauru's done, and just to make sure we have disclosure here, sponsor the show, sponsor the show, Tauru. I love to see Bruce Gee and the town room team, you know, moving on up like the Jeffersons. I also love seeing vendors creating products that focus on asking questions to qualify candidates instead of just fucking clicks, instead of just sending candidates through.

47:30Joel Cheesman: Right. So to be able to provide qualified candidates versus kind of like separating the wheat from the chaff, which is exactly what they're doing. And they've been doing that very well in the front line side of the house. My two cents on boom band is that I love that Jeff Taylor is back in the game. He is such a character. And I think that he's a good character for, for the industry. But the game has changed so much. The old tricks just aren't going to work. I see he's going for an Airbnb kind of like experience with boom band, but Airbnb was launched in 2008. So the user experience feels like it's over-engineered for job search.

48:11Joel Cheesman: And he really has to think about a new wave of how you become a product in this space instead of trying to be a destination. Because I don't think that boom band can be a destination. So 60 % of the time, it works every time. Love you, Jeff. I just don't think that's the answer, man. Yeah, your comment about Jeff. Jeff, so first of all, speaking of listening to us, Emmy, I made a comment recently about Jeff having like headphones on in his LinkedIn profile picture. And I was like, what are you, podcast guy? Are you CEO? So I'm happy to say that maybe he listened and that picture is gone. He's got sort of a general picture.

48:50But yeah, he's like the fun guy. This is a picture from his LinkedIn profile. He's at a college talking for whatever reason. Kids have their shoes on. He's a good guy. He's a real good guy. Yeah, which can't smell great, but whatever. But to me, yeah, he just celebrated his 66th birthday. I think he talked about that on LinkedIn as well. When Trump, I hate to make this parallel with Jeff, but so when Trump made his final pitch to the American people, he went in front of the reflecting pool and he talked about cock and like how he how he's repaired and how he built this. saying. And what I noticed was like, you love the cock fell back into what he knew, what he was comfortable with, what, you know, it wasn't like all this other stuff.

49:41He fell back into what was, what was comfortable. And what I'm seeing with Jeff is a guy falling back into what he's comfortable with. He's, he's doing the new England thing. He's going to colleges. He's putting on the show, you know, and I think that he still wants to be part of the game, even though if we're being intellectually honest boom band is not the next thing right it's just it's just not but if it gives jeff the vehicle to be like at a red sox game when someone goes hey it's the monster guy or it's it's that crazy guy that took his shoe off on campus like that's what is probably going to make him you know happy he's raising more money yeah i don't know what you know like more new England stuff.

50:25I like, it's just weird today to launch something like it's Groupon and say, we're just in the Chicago Metro. Like you got to launch this shit big time. And it just feels like a lifestyle thing for Jeff that he can live the, the, you know, the final decade of his life and the workforce doing the thing and being in the spotlight. I hope you could, I hope you can make this boom, bam thing, uh, huge, but, uh, at present, I don't see it, but love that you found some new life. Talroo, they want to sugarcoat this as like, we're moving up, we're getting a cool new office space. It literally has a pool in this office built.

51:04That's what I'm talking about. Bruce, we're coming. We're coming, Bruce. It's like Austin, Texas. We got a pool. Somebody order some Whataburgers and Torchies and we're going to have a good time. So I think that's part of it. Obviously, recruiting folks. But honestly, a lot of these real estate deals come down to the lease was up the landlord's an asshole um look they were literally within walking distance of indeed's offices and headquarters for a long time so like yeah to get away from that probably was appealing like it could be as simple as we just needed a change of scenery and the lease was out but hey man it's got a pool uh it's next to some shopping we're gonna get us a hermes bag We're going to get us some some some papacitos and have a good time at the Tauru HQ.

51:52As far as seek out goes, nobody wanted this job like nobody. They could not recruit someone from the outside to take this job. Nope. They couldn't call Microsoft or Amazon like a new. Those guys are all connected. They landed on the people that were already there, which tells you, like, what do they do? What are we doing? What are we doing? I don't know. Seek out is a rudderless ship. they need to get somebody from the outside with a fresh vision because if they just if they're just pulling in people if they're just recycling the leaders that are already there like what are we doing they're fucked yeah what are we doing harsh do you not believe in internal mobility promote from within yeah

52:33no not in this case i mean like for my point of view like i think it's like your sports team and the head coach leaves and you just put the assistant coach in their place like what are we doing what's the assistant coach is supposed to be is the best are you inspired as if as as a player to be like oh we got rid of the coach which is the assistant coach now like what what inspiration all right maybe to work out i don't know go ahead yeah i mean to be honest i like out of the three like i said seek out is the one that kind of like kind of stood out a little bit more maybe it's because i used seek out for a little while when I came here, but we no longer use Seekout.

53:14And, you know, and there's a reason for it.

53:16Joel Cheesman: And there's a reason. Yeah, there is a reason for it. You know, there are better tools. But now that they've recycled some executives, we're back in. We're back in, baby. The executive was in a different role. And don't forget, he came from Microsoft as well. He was there for 18 years, you know? So maybe he can bring something new. But, you know, they do need to change because all these point solutions, like obviously you mentioned Tech CEO, they have to pivot. They're not going to be around forever. They have to be a more of a, I suppose, an enterprise wide destination platform, more than one feature because they won't survive in this market.

53:49So let's see, you know, maybe here's the breath of fresh air that, you know, Seekout needs. Maybe the investment that they're making into the agentic AI capabilities. Maybe he's the one who's going to drive it forward. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but it has to be something better than than what they currently have.

54:08Joel Cheesman: Yes. Yes. And then maybe I'll try it again. You never know. Maybe I'll give Seekout another chance. Speaking of change, guys, let's take a quick break. We'll play a little Who'd You Rather. Now we're talking about some change. All right, guys. It's one of my favorite games. I don't know about you guys, but let's play a little Who'd You Rather. That's right. If you've never heard us play this before, we talk about two companies, startups that have recently gotten some cash. I read a summary and the coasts say who they'd rather out of the two companies. I'll let you figure out what who'd you rather actually means, baby.

54:47All right. First up, reality bites. That's right. Bites, an AI powered frontline employee training platform, has raised 40 million in a series. Hello. Bringing its total funding to fifty five million dollars. The platform delivers short video-based training directly to deskless workers through existing communication channels like WhatsApp, SMS, and Slack. That is Bytes. And in this corner, we have Rocker. Rocker has raised$12.85 million, founded last year by former Google and Stripe leaders. The startup builds a proactive AI work assistant to coordinate projects, decisions, and workflows across organizations.

55:33Investors include the likes of Anthropic and Stripe. That is Rocker. So, Joe. Rocker versus Bytes. So, 2 a.m.

55:48Joel Cheesman: in the morning at the bar, drinking my last Guinness. Who am I going home with? So rocker is just a basic bitch. I mean, there's so many, so many of these rockers around. There's so many assistants. They're a dime a dozen. They're all over the place. I totally get it. But bites, that's some sexy shit. We literally just talked to Dr. Stephanie Larson yesterday, a principal analyst over at Saramount about AI's value breakdown. And one of the biggest takeaways for me was how quickly AI was forcing hiring companies to evolve their learning and development programs. A vendor like Bytes could digest your training documents in PowerPoints, spit out snackable training videos.

56:31Joel Cheesman: So instead of throwing a training manual or a shitty PowerPoint at employees for onboarding or new product training, sales or whatever, you can send them a link to a series of short training videos. So whenever I need to learn how to do something, I don't go to Google to look for a manual. I don't search for manuals. No. No. I go to YouTube and I look for the videos and it might sound kinky, but I'm going home with bites. What are you doing, Stepbro? Reality bites again, baby. Bite me. Alright, so a little story here. Dare I say, it's a history lesson. Time for a history lesson. So in the 1980s, I worked for McDonald's.

57:23Fun fact about me. I made the McDLTs. If you're a deal, yeah, cold side, cold, side, cold, side, cold. So anyway, my training for McDonald's was they put me in the training room and I had two or three days of watching VHS tapes. They might've been like literally the manager comes in, pops, pops in the VHS tape and says, enjoy gives me a cheeseburger. And that was my training. And from that, from that few hours, I was supposed to be a professional burger flipper.

57:55Joel Cheesman: Uh, as a result, it sucked. It was awful. I didn't retain anything. It was like, I didn't have a question. It was like, just force feed me this shit. Fortunately, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just good at my job and eating. So fast forward Fast forward to today and whether it's AI making videos sort of on demand, any language on your mobile device, on the platforms you already use, like this is the future of training and onboarding and keeping employees current on what's going on in the marketplace. I talked to a startup recently that did this for interviewing. So they basically put you in a situation, maybe it's a bartender or something.

58:40And like, how would you respond? Sort of a choose your own adventure. Here's the video. What would you do? So this is sort of the future of where this is all going and training place. So I think I think bites is very cool. And you're going to see a lot more of this on the rocker site. There's not a whole lot there. It's a lot of like, you know, join and we'll let you know when we're ready for you kind of thing. So there's not a lot I can comment. But I always go back to, and we talk about this debate, this chat, is the future of agents going to be Jack and Jill, or is it going to be Gemini and Grok and others?

59:14And so to me, Rocker is this, do you want to have your own little enterprise AI that knows your company? Or are you just going to have like the anthropic contract that does everything, right? And I think more and more companies will gravitate toward we just have a big ass contract with OpenAI or whatever it is and not these sort of segmented solutions. So Rocker, some good DNA, some good leadership over there. But I just I just really like to take a bite out of out of bites. Actually, that's that's that's where I'm going. My who'd you rather two votes for bites? I mean, you're going to make it a clean sweep, a hat trip.

59:53Are you going to throw us up? We're making a menage a trois. Let me tell you what it's going to be. This is not a menage a trois. This is a foursome. Me, Joe, Chad, and Bites.

1:00:07Joel Cheesman: Too easy. I'm going to puke, but too easy. Okay. Cheeseman's in the room. That better be a really dark room. That better be a really dark room. Holy shit. Honestly, no, do you know what? I agree with you. I love the idea because, and I'll tell you why I love it, because this is a challenge that we're constantly trying to solve in my day job. Part of my job is to kind of give out, develop, deliver, recruiting, learn it, you know? But at the end of the day, people need to know how to use the tools. People need to understand the best practices. We need to upskill interviewers on how to cope with a candidate that's too chatty or just doesn't talk.

1:00:53Janine and we're sitting there all the time going well how do we make this fun how do we not make this a uni lecture when we're in a world of tiktok or insta reels where you just want to watch something for 30 seconds and know know you know what you need to do without reading a bible on it so for me this is perfect this is similar to something that we're doing at the moment where we're saying okay we're going to have this little one minute video where you actually interact with an avatar and you're going to role play how to interview a candidate you know that's something that we just came up with in the last two weeks we're like oh maybe this will work we've got good feedback on it so far so i love this idea it solves that solution people need to learn but they want to learn quickly they don't want to sit in the lecture

1:01:46all right let's close this thing out with a

1:01:48Joel Cheesman: bang who wants a dad joke nobody nobody nobody wants to die good what did the sushi say to the bee what did the sushi say to the bee what's up be what's up be oh lord yeah

1:02:10happy veterans day happy remembrance day we out we out we are

1:02:16Joel Cheesman: 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. And yet, you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese. Not one. Cheddar. Blue. Nacho. Pepper Jack. Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. 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.

1:03:06Joel Cheesman: Just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. So weird. We out.