The Chad & Cheese Podcast

Maureen sits down with Dan Lyons — bestselling author of Disrupted, former Newsweek and Forbes journalist, and writer for HBO’s hit series Silicon Valley.

At 52 years old, Dan made the jump from traditional media into a hyped tech startup… and quickly discovered he was suddenly “ancient” in an industry that worships youth. From bouncy ball chairs and candy walls to getting sized up as “someone’s parent” on day one, Dan delivers hilarious, painful, and brutally honest stories about ageism in tech.

He breaks down the infamous CEO quote that sparked a company-wide controversy (“Gray hair and experience are overrated”), his wild ride writing for Silicon Valley, and what he uncovered in his follow-up book Lab Rats about toxic work culture, psychological burnout, and why so many companies treat employees like disposable kids.

If you’re in recruiting, HR, or tech — and especially if you’re over 40 and wondering whether experience still has value — this conversation is equal parts laugh-out-loud funny and eye-opening. Needless to day, Dan Lyons doesn’t hold back.

Next on Chad & Cheese: Hired to Chair in 3 Days ✂️🔥

Chad and Joel are punching the recruiting industry right where it hurts with Gustavo Serbia, CHRO at Hair Cuttery Family of Brands. They dive into the wild, hyper-competitive world of managing 6,000 stylists where the barriers to entry are zero and the drama is real.

Quick Cuts:


Slashing Time-to-Hire: How they used Paradox to ditch their sluggish legacy ATS and compress a 17-day hiring process down to just 3 days.


Gamifying Commission: Inside the custom app that shows stylists exactly what they make in real time to incentivize higher earnings.


The "Polite Poach": Why recruiting in a fragmented industry means ditching traditional applications, hunting state board lists, and walking straight to the talent.


AI & Raw Data: How Gustavo bypassed pivot tables to build an entire funnel analysis in minutes using AI—and what's next on his tech wishlist.

"In this industry, you know to a tee when someone leaves. My CEO knows exactly what it's costing us right then and there." — Gustavo Serbia, CHRO

Want to know how to manage high-turnover talent, build a booming rehire pipeline, and make tech work for a fiercely human business?

Hit play on the AI series now.

On this week's episode:

The Football Flops: Portugal woke up, while England was lulled to sleep and Emi is losing her mind over corporate "hydration breaks".

The Hype Block: The hosts rip into Snapchat’s new $2,300 glasses (a chunky, $3 billion boat anchor that makes a good-looking CEO completely unfuckable). Meanwhile, Anthropic's CEO is treating his LLM like a "superweapon" that practically needs a gun license just to drive up valuation.

Who’d You Rather?: Emi tries to take home three startups (Sloneek, HeyMilo, and Orbio) for an HR foursome.

The New Indoor Malls: Oracle is slashing 21,000 jobs to build data centers, and Google is training blue-collar workers for $166 a pop. Chad serves a history lesson: we are overbuilding data centers just like 1980s indoor malls.

Ghostbusters in NY: New York is passing a bill to fine companies $2,500 for posting fake "ghost jobs" used for resume harvesting. Emi wants more guidance; Chad says stop making excuses.

Tune in, skip the scams, and Go Portugal!

The Shred is a weekly roundup of what’s making headlines in the world of employment. The Shred is brought to you today by Jobcase.

Face it, "The Resumes" is officially dead, and generative AI just blew it to pieces. With 86% of hiring managers admitting that AI makes it too easy to fake skills on paper, corporate hiring is facing a massive identity crisis. The old way is broken—so what comes next?

The Face-Off:
In this fast-paced episode of HR's most dangerous podcast, host Chad Sowash moderates a high-stakes debate between two tech founders reshaping talent acquisition:


Phuong Vu (CEO of Telexa): The advocate for the "skills-first" organization. Phuong argues that true skills-based hiring means moving away from static keyword libraries and focusing on real-world evidence, human adaptability, and transferable capabilities.


Dr. Maya Huber (CEO of Tadio): The champion of performance intelligence. Maya warns that "skills hiring" will become an empty buzzword if we keep relying on old, text-based data. Her radical fix? Ditch applications entirely and have candidates try out the job through live simulations before they ever talk to a recruiter.

Inside the Episode:


Are companies treating employees like "disposable heroes" instead of upskilling them?


Has "culture fit" just become a lazy excuse to hire people exactly like ourselves?


How do you screen for technical skills when the technology changes faster than the workforce?

The Bottom Line:
Stop asking candidates what they claim they can do. Learn how to evaluate how they actually think, adapt, and execute.

Listen now to find out who wins the duel.