This week's episode opens with a layoffs avalanche that could bury a small HR department. Nestlé slashes 16,000 jobs—mostly white-collar, as AI now crunches numbers faster than accountants can say “chocolate river.” Meta cuts 600 from its super-intelligence team (the irony writes itself), Paycom drops 500 engineers (guess the bots finally learned to code), Handshake axes over 100 (pivoting to “AI-centric tech” = fancy talk for “we’re toast”), and even programmatic darling Appcast trims 32. The hot acquisition pitch? JobGet should buy Handshake and rebrand it Handjob.com—because nothing screams “career move” like a domain that triggers every corporate filter.
The bullshit meter detonates. Facebook resurrects its job board after killing it in 2023—rumor has it Zuck’s prepping AR glasses where “Starbucks is hiring” beams directly into your latte-fueled daydreams. X quietly buries its LinkedIn-killer tab (Elon’s too busy monetizing outrage). Adzuna unveils a “revolutionary” search that’s basically ZipRecruiter’s Phil minus the creepy spokesperson—half-baked, no employer-side matching, and it begs for your email like a desperate Tinder bio. Metaview’s Chicago billboard (“Who says hiring has to be fair?”) gets flayed: four-second glance, logo smaller than a South Park punchline, and DEI messaging dumber than a rock. Fix? “Effective AI. Giant Logo. Metaview.com.” Done. Stop torching $35M on ego art.
Funding fireworks: Findem.ai pockets another $51M, hitting $105M total (Intello 2.0, now with agent spice—same data warehouse, new flavor packet). Deel raises $300M, pushing its war chest to $1.3B at a $17.3B valuation—enough to buy a mid-sized nation and still tip the barista. Armstrong grabs $12M for AI dish-washing robots (Taco Bell’s drive-thru is about to ghost human order-takers faster than you can say “Doritos Locos”). Jack & Jill scores $20M for conversational job alerts—talk to your laptop, get emailed Indeed links. Groundbreaking… if it’s 2001.
Economy’s a K-shaped tire fire: Hamburger Helper sales spike 14% (flashbacks to salty 70s trauma: “Dad tried to fix it with more salt—burned my mouth and my will to live”). Freight rates up 20%, subprime auto delinquencies worse than COVID, Great Recession, and dot-com bust combined. White Castle flips fully autonomous in Ohio—farewell, drive-thru jobs; hello, robot flipping your sliders while you doom-scroll in sweatpants.
Finale: OpenAI green-lights erotic ChatGPT for verified adults starting December (the internet was literally built on the promise of pixelated nipples—Sam Altman’s just cashing the OG check). Age-gating? Cute. Show me a 10-ft wall, I’ll show you an 11-ft ladder and a forged ID. They also launch ChatGPT Atlas, an AI browser with a sassy sidebar—because Chrome’s 2:38 median tab time and 11.4 open tabs (recruiters: double that, easy) needed a drunk-texting career coach. Google infused Gemini; OpenAI counters by making browsing feel like your browser just joined a group chat.Buckle up—2026 will be wilder than a Meta glasses app that undresses your LinkedIn connections in AR.
Chapters00:00 Introduction and Recap of Reckfest02:18 Reflections on MTV's Impact and Evolution04:57 The Changing Landscape of Job Platforms07:36 Layoffs and Industry Shifts10:09 The Future of Recruiting Technology13:08 Meta's Job Platform and Advertising Strategies15:42 Critique of Adzuna's New Search Features18:04 Closing Thoughts and Future Predictions26:35 The Power of AI in Recruiting30:44 Funding Frenzy in the Recruitment Tech Space34:59 The Impact of Automation on Fast Food Jobs42:49 Economic Indicators and Their Implications48:06 The Intersection of AI, Browsers, and Adult Content