The Chad & Cheese Podcast

Grab your pastel shorts and a cold drink because Chad is broadcasting live from Portugal, celebrating his birthday alongside a local bar owner while Joel prepares for a milestone anniversary trip to Italy. 

In this high-energy, unfiltered episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, the boys take a sledgehammer to the current AI hype cycle, contrasting Workday’s massive earnings and $500 million agentic AI run rate against the harsh reality of Microsoft and Uber scaling back their tech due to exploding compute costs.

From Stepstone’s new EU compliance push to Indeed’s automated features, Chad drops a massive hot take on how over-engineered recruiting tools create dangerous compliance risks and automation bias.

They tie up the loose ends of the global economy by breaking down everything from the historic Indy 500 finish and a comedic eulogy for Schlitz beer, to the Pope's latest tech warnings and the EU's pivot to renewable energy as a national security weapon.

It is the perfect, loose, and brutally honest mix of global geopolitics, HR tech consolidation, and birthday banter that you absolutely cannot miss.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction and Personal Milestones

02:08 - Joel and Chad's Birthdays and Anniversaries

04:27 - Industry Conference Insights: Old Dogs vs. Disruptors

08:34 - Shoutouts and Personal Highlights

11:28 - Indy 500 Race Highlights and Experience

16:28 - Workday's Earnings and AI Investment

20:04 - AI Market Race: Google, OpenAI, and Industry Disruption

23:06 - Historical Perspective: Netscape and Microsoft's Browser War

27:39 - Top Tall's Acquisition Strategy and Market Position

30:02 - EU and US AI Regulations and Industry Impact

40:05 - AI's Cost Challenges and Economic Realities

44:23 - Public Perception and Future of AI

47:50 - Global Energy Transition and Geopolitical Implications

54:38 - US Dollar, Oil, and Global Power Dynamics

55:23 - Humorous Close and Birthday Wishes

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.

Joel and Chad catch up with Patti Tabris, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at ResultsCX, to discuss the massive impact of AI on global, high-volume hiring.

The Highlights:


The Power of "Olivia": The AI assistant that answered 1.8 million questions and scheduled over 100,000 interviews in just 12 months.


From Friction to Flow: Patti boosted assessment completion rates from 30% to 90%.


Chat-First Applications: An impressive 80% conversion rate!


The Funding Hack: A how-to on funding new tech.


More Than a Bot: Beyond hiring, the team is now implementing AI for onboarding to handle first-day FAQs and pre-boarding care.

"Recruiting is all about getting to meet as many people to see if they're qualified... if we can implement AI to do the administrative work, recruiters can spend more time with candidates." — Patti Tabris

What happens when HR tech giants crush earnings while the rest of the industry faces massive layoffs? In this special episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast, Joel Cheesman is joined by guest co-host J.T. O'Donnell to deliver a dose of optimistic realism on the chaotic state of the 2026 job market.

Before diving into the heavy-hitting industry news, the duo kicks things off with plenty of humor, swapping banter over deviled egg recipes, Memorial Day cookout plans, upcoming European travel, and why Southwest Airlines is making headlines with a strict new ban on humanoid robots.

They also share a quick streaming recommendation for Apple TV's Your Friends and Neighbors and give a nod to the Crime Junkies podcast before getting down to business.The core of the episode spotlights a deeply divided job market where massive tech layoffs collide with explosive corporate growth.

Joel and J.T. break down the staggering down-sizing trends hitting Meta and LinkedIn, contrasting those cuts with the massive, expectation-shattering earnings report just released by Recruit Holdings, the parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor.

J.T. lends her expertise to LinkedIn’s aggressive new strategy to launch thousands of gated, paid creator-led virtual events to combat generic platform "slop."

Finally, the hosts look at the changing face of automation, analyzing how artificial intelligence is shifting call center dynamics abroad, and exploring Amazon’s eerie new Alexa capability that generates fully synthetic podcasts on demand.

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.