May 15, 2024 • 37 mins
#60: On the Frontline – How AI is Shaping the Future of High Volume Recruiting
This week we welcome Sean Behr to the podcast. Sean is a successful entrepreneur spanning multiple industries, including e-commerce, advertising and automotive. Before joining Fountain as an investor and CEO, Sean held a number of founding and senior leadership roles at STRATIM, Adap.tv, and Shopping.com. He is also an active investor and advisor for numerous early stage companies, including Nana, AntHill, and Kinectic Eye, among others.
Topics include: the unique challenges and opportunities of frontline recruiting, the limitations of applying recruiting tactics and technologies designed for corporate roles to frontline roles, how the labor market is forcing organizations to consider new approaches to frontline recruiting, technological innovation in recruiting as an agent for (and impediment to) change, the increasing demands for efficiency in HR/TA, strategy vs. technology, task-based automation vs. goal-based automation, and the iterative nature of advances in artificial intelligence
Sean Behr
CEO, Fountain
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Changing State of Talent
Acquisition, where your hosts,graham Thornton and Martin Credd
, share their unfiltered takeson what's happening in the world
of talent acquisition today.
Each week brings new guests whoshare their stories on the
tools, trends and technologiescurrently impacting the changing
state of talent acquisition.
Have feedback or want to jointhe show?
(00:21):
Head on over to changestateio.
And now on to this week'sepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
All right and we're back with another episode of the
Changing State of TownAcquisition Podcast.
Super excited for our nextguest, sean Baer.
Ceo of Fountain.
Sean, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Hey, graham, marty, it's great to be with you guys.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thanks for having me, of course, well we like to
start with a real softball.
We hope it's an easy one, butlove hearing about everyone's
journey.
We'd love to hear what led youto your current role as CEO of
Fountain and, you know, maybetalk about some of the
experiences along the way thathave impacted your perspective
in your current role over thereat Fountain.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, you know, obviously, by the way, this is
the first time I've ever workedin sort of the world of talent
acquisition and HR technology,so I'm fairly new to this world.
My career is generally beenfocused on sort of enterprise,
b2b software.
I've been fortunate to be partof four companies, fountain
being the fourth, but previouslyhelped build a really big
(01:20):
company in the e-commerce space,again doing B2B e-commerce,
built a big company in theadvertising technology space,
built a big company in thee-commerce space, again doing
B2B e-commerce, built a bigcompany in the advertising
technology space, built a bigcompany in the automotive
technology space and now in theHR technology talent acquisition
space.
But I've always been focused onsort of how big companies and
big industries adapt to newtechnology, and so that's kind
(01:42):
of where I've focused my career.
You know, with Fountain Iactually met the Fountain team
when it was a very, very smallteam it was three or four people
and I said you know what Ithink they might be on to
something.
I actually wound up investingin the business, wound up
joining and helping out thecompany along the way and then a
couple of years ago became theCEO and you know, it's been a
(02:04):
just been an incredibleexperience, great team, great
company in an industry, as youknow, when you guys talk about
often an industry that'sundergoing a lot of
transformation, a lot of newtechnology and a lot of new
opportunity for companies.
So it's been a great couple ofyears working in this space and
looking forward to what comesnext.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
We're thrilled to have you and thanks for sharing
the backstory.
I think that's probably thewell.
We've had a little pass, Iguess.
But that's a prettyunconventional path to get into
talent acquisition and I'mcurious.
You know what brought you totalent acquisition?
Was it just connecting withthese found folks or did you
have your eye on the spacebefore that?
And maybe what has surprisedyou most as an outsider coming
(02:44):
into this space?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, you know, look, I've always been, you know, my,
my third company, you know,dealt with a lot of frontline
workers, and so I've always beeninterested in the frontline
workforce, right, you know, ifyou, if you think about sort of
it's very easy when you, youknow, you, you listen to
podcasts and you you're on Zoomcalls or you sit behind a desk
(03:08):
or you kind of do hybrid work oryour company's fully remote,
it's very easy to kind of getvery deep into thinking this is
how everybody in the world is.
We all are on Zoom, we all workin Excel, we all deal with
Google Slides, and the realityis the vast majority of people
in the world don't go on Zoomcalls, they don't sit behind a
(03:30):
computer or at a desk.
They're doing things in thefront lines of our economy
they're delivering packages,they're working in a grocery
store, they're working at adrugstore, they're working in a
restaurant or a cafe, they workin a nursing home or a warehouse
or they drive a truck, and soI've been always focused on that
population.
I think the thing that reallyattracted me to Fountain was,
(03:52):
you know, the mission of openingopportunities for that
workforce.
This is billions of peoplearound the world who generally
are on the front line of theeconomy and generally do not
have great technology and greatproducts to help them in their
journey, in their work.
And so that's what reallyattracted me was this kind of
(04:12):
like very large population offrontline workers.
Now I'll say part of it isaltruistic.
You know our mission to openopportunities.
As I tell the team, I thinkit's a mission worth doing.
It's worthy of our effort hereas long as we are here on this
earth.
It's worthy of openingopportunities for this group of
billions of people who do needmore opportunity.
(04:35):
Also, we happen to think it's apretty good business.
We think the fact that there'sbillions of people who need to
get jobs, who need to besupported in their career and
people who are eventually goingto look for another job and need
to be retained in a companyopens up opportunities for
Fountain itself.
So that's what kind of drew meto it and I can say it's been
(04:56):
way better than I even expected.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, well, I think that's super interesting, sean,
and you know, obviously wefollowed, you know, fountain's
journey for a while, so veryexcited about this conversation.
You know, last week, maybe itwas two weeks ago, we were on
with one of our workforcepartners, lightcast, for an
episode.
And you know, one of the thingsI love about, you know,
lightcast is, I think they havea similar thought process on
(05:19):
these large populations that youknow arguably get, you know,
neglected right, for lack of abetter word in the talent
acquisition space, and you know,I think Fountain does.
I think what's arguably beenneeded in the talent acquisition
space is, you know, somedisruptors that want to think
about, you know we'll call ithigher volume hiring, you know,
with a different mindset, andyou know what that means is, you
(05:42):
know I'm not going to say I'mon TikTok much, but I'm on
TikTok enough to see, like allthese new you know memes and
videos coming up about.
You know, hey, what's the applyprocess, you know, and the 9000
questions that you need to gothrough just to submit your
application and your resume whenyou want to apply for a job
through a traditional ETS,through a traditional ETS.
Yeah, I'm just curious, like,have there been any sort of
(06:04):
triggers.
You know, or or maybe just youknow, wax poetic for me on.
Why do you think it's taken solong for you know HR systems or
processes to understand that,hey, there's not one blanket
approach to, you know,recruiting all populations?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, I would even say I'd even broaden your
question there, graham, which isyou know, why has it taken so
long?
Not only in the recruitingprocess, but in the retention
process?
You know, we've generally takena one-size-fits-all approach to
workers and to employees andthe reality is it is just, there
are just fundamentaldifferences when you're talking
(06:41):
about hiring, you know, three orfour finance people versus
hiring three or 4,000 warehouseworkers.
If you try to apply thetechnology or the product the
same to those two differentworlds, you will wind up with
very, very different experiences.
To give you an example in theworld of hiring a finance person
(07:03):
, you probably ought to collecta resume and you ought to have
multiple rounds of interviewsand you might want to check
references.
If you're hiring 3,000warehouse workers, I would not
recommend collecting a resume.
By the way, we can have a longerconversation in another podcast
about how valuable resumes arein general, but maybe that's
(07:23):
another whole episode.
But certainly in the frontlineworkforce it is demonstrably
less valuable.
Someone's ability to puttogether a Word document with a
couple of bullet points abouttheir experience, save it as a
PDF on their cell phone, whichis where they're typically
applying for these jobs, isprobably not a great indicator
(07:45):
that this is going to be areliable person who's going to
help me and help my warehouseoperation run?
It just isn't, you know, and soI think one of the reasons it's
taken so long, though, is thelabor, and the job market has
not driven us to the point ofneeding to think differently.
You know, if you go back fouror five years, you know it was a
(08:08):
good labor market, certainly,but you could generally hire
these frontline workers withrelative ease.
So, even if you wereinefficient in your applicant
tracking system or in yourinternal processes, you still
got the people you needed.
That, I think, in 2020 and 2021,certainly post COVID has just
fundamentally changed.
(08:29):
You know, you have some lesslabor participation, you have
people working fewer hours andyou need more people to power
your business, and those oldprocesses just don't work
anymore, you know.
I think the old mantra of well,they're going to frontline
workers will quit and we'll justreplace them.
(08:49):
The problem is, frontlineworkers are still going to leave
you for better opportunities,but it's not so easy to replace
them anymore, and I think, whenyou run into that, what you see
is, all of a sudden, companiesthat have never been interested
in innovation on their hiringprocess are all of a sudden
companies that have never beeninterested in innovation on
their hiring process are all ofa sudden very open to innovation
(09:11):
in the hiring process, becauseif they don't, they're
understaffed and unlike aknowledge worker.
You said wax poetic, so I'mtaking your direction, but
unlike a knowledge worker, ifknow, if you're a finance person
, if your finance team is downone or two people, things still
work.
If your warehouse is down acouple of you know 40 workers
(09:36):
because you're failing to hirein this competitive labor market
, all of a sudden everybody'sgot to work overtime or the
packages go out late, or themorale of the warehouse goes
down because everybody'sshouldering a bigger burden due
to the lack of staffing, and sothere's real business impacts
and I think that's what'sdriving the innovation.
(09:56):
Long answer to a very goodquestion.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yeah, well, I want to double click on this word
innovation because well, we hearthat word a lot in our industry
and you know, from myperspective I would hate there's
some basic things that theindustry wasn't doing that I
would.
That are not new ideas, youknow, like, you pointed out this
idea of hey, maybe we shouldtreat warehouse workers and the
(10:21):
apply path a little bitdifferently than hiring an SVP
of finance or whatever the casemay be.
That seems obvious to me,having, you know, kind of grown
up in my career in consumermarketing.
It would be like saying, youknow, purchasing a high value,
durable good like a refrigerator, and applying the exact same
marketing strategy to a phone, aphone case sale, you know, like
(10:43):
you wouldn't expect those twoto have similar marketing
strategies and you would bydefault take a different
approach.
I think the point is well takenthat the industry or the labor
market has forced this.
But my bigger question, Isuppose, is any sense of why do
you think the industry had to beforced into this?
It just seems like a bestpractice.
Don't we want to be efficient?
(11:04):
Don't we want to treat peoplewell?
And I know it's a hard question.
So if you don't know, that'stotally fine, I'm trying to make
sense of it.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, it's a great question.
You know, what I would say isthat two things I think that are
interesting.
One I definitely think there'ssome sort of necessity is the
mother of invention, and so yousee more of this happening as a
result of sort of the need forinnovation.
But to your broader point aboutlike why now?
(11:30):
Right, basically their entirecareer in a world where there's
been rapid innovation insoftware writ large, you know,
(11:53):
like the people that startedtheir career in, say, 1990,
remember a time when most thingswere done with pen and paper
Right, the people that havestarted their career in 2000 or
2010 and have spent the last 15years moving up the ranks of the
HR team at a large organization, they don't know, they don't
(12:17):
even know the world before sortof real collaboration and real
technical innovation.
I mean, that's been their wholecareer.
I think some of today's CROsbasically got their role based
on their ability to adapt toinnovative technology along
their career path, and so Ithink some of it is this sort of
(12:39):
necessary because of the labormarket, but I think some of it
is today's leaders are justschooled in how do I deploy
technology across the HR techstack and the people that sort
of started 10 or 15 years ago assort of you know your HR
analyst or your benefitsadministration or your you know,
your director of talentacquisition.
(13:01):
All of a sudden those peopleare in the C-suite now, and the
way they got there was deployinginnovative technology.
So that's my sense of whyyou're seeing more of it.
But I would take your pointthat some of this stuff feels
pretty self-evident.
Asking a fast food worker toput a resume together feels
(13:23):
crazy.
But I can tell you right nowlots and lots of employers are
still stuck in that mindset.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, I think you know, on some level maybe we
kind of forget or, you know,undervalue just how quickly
things have moved over the lastcouple decades, I suppose.
And you know, I think you know,20 years ago I went to, you
know, iu and the first degreethat my parents made me sign up
for was an informatics degree.
(13:49):
It was the first everinformatics program.
No one knew what it was, soobviously I didn't graduate with
an informatics degree.
And then, 10 years later, youknow, hanging out with one of my
insurance clients were like weneed informatics.
People that studied informatics.
I'm like, well, I guess myparents are right.
Yeah, you know, there's thatwhole idea, is that you know,
hey?
the top 10 jobs that'll be indemand, that are in demand today
(14:10):
.
You know, arguably didn't exist10 years ago and the same is
going to be true, you know, 10years from now, yeah so you know
I've already like you know, hey, maybe that's just par for the
course and like we're just, youknow, our expectation is we
should always be moving faster,but maybe we actually, maybe we
are, when you zoom out a littlebit, thinking of that story of
(14:32):
where people were 15 years agoin their careers.
That's fair.
Well, I want to double click alittle bit into this idea of
where HR technology is going.
I think you touched on a fewthings, sean, that are super
important.
Right, we've got a lot ofuncertainty or change in the
broader labor market, you knowin the wider economy, you know I
(14:54):
think a lot of TA leaders arebeing tasked to you know for
this phrase a million times domore with us, right.
But I also think we've got anindustry where you know we've
had a lot of change in tools.
You know we have a lot of newtechnologies that you know are
being adopted.
People are more open to youknow changing their processes.
You know looking at bolt-ontools.
(15:15):
You know trying to figure outwhere there's less bloat.
And you know HR tech stacksfrom your conversations with
leaders, you know how are modern.
You know modern CHROs, forexample.
You know approaching some ofthese calls for you know
increased efficiencies, or whereare you seeing leaders thinking
about?
How do we identify smartinvestments?
(15:36):
You know, adopting emergingtechnology, generative AI and so
on.
What are you hearing in yourconversations with?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
leaders.
Yeah, it's a broad question,but a great one, graham.
A couple of things I'd say.
First of all, I think every HRleader today is being tasked
with becoming more efficient.
In fact, if you're not beingtasked with becoming more
efficient, you are the exceptionto the rule.
Majority of CHROs and VP of HRsand VP of talent acquisition are
(16:08):
being asked, to use your phrase, do more with less, or do the
same with less, or do the same,but do it better.
You know?
Look, hr has always been a callcenter from the beginning of
time.
Today, I think, it's even beingpressed further to find out can
(16:32):
we recruit the right people andstill spend 10% less?
Right the way that theirincentives and the incentives
specifically in the publiccompany realm right.
Being able to do more with lessis a ticket to a higher stock
price, which is what you'reseeing, I think, across C-suites
now is a focus on being evenmore efficient so we can become
(16:54):
even more profitable, so thatour stock can get bid up and
appreciated by more investors,both retail and institutional.
So it's always been a callcenter.
They are definitely feeling thepressure to do more with less.
Two things that I'd say inaddition to that one is they are
all being asked to look at howAI is going to impact the world
(17:21):
of talent acquisition and HRwrit large.
Talent acquisition and and andHR writ large.
Um, every single company isabsolutely looking at how it is
now.
Maybe they're not deploying it,you know, in in large scale,
maybe they're just experimenting, but there is absolutely a
mantra of we need to be thinkingabout how is AI going to make
(17:44):
us more efficient and bettergoing forward?
We see it across our entirecustomer base.
So AI I think there was somefeeling that maybe smaller
companies would be faster toadopt AI and the larger
companies would be moreconservative and take their time
.
I actually think it might bereversed.
The larger companies areactually setting aside budgets,
(18:06):
even saying I'm going to setaside $50,000 or $100,000 this
year.
I want to do two or threeexperiments with AI, right, and
we're seeing that everywhere.
I think the second thing you'reseeing is just a real focus on
automation, right.
In order to do more with less,you've got to remove tasks that
(18:29):
are low value tasks.
So how do you automate tasks?
And sometimes you use AI, andsometimes you don't need AI to
automate a task, but sometimesyou do, and so I think those are
the things you're seeing.
I think you're being asked tobe more efficient, you're being
asked to invest in AI, or atleast experiment in AI, and then
you're being asked to deliverautomation in a way that enables
(18:53):
you to get the same kind ofwork done with far more
efficiently.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Yeah, well, there's a lot of interesting follow-ups
that I suppose.
But maybe, and I do want totalk about ai, but before we do
that, I kind of want to justzoom out a bit, um, and pick
your brain on something.
So you, you shared aninteresting insight earlier,
which is that many of the peoplewho are sitting in the c-suite
or the chro, uh, have undergonean enormous amount of
(19:20):
technological change in theircareers.
These are people who, as youpointed out you know, maybe you
started with a pen and paper anda rotary phone on their desk at
some point, and now we'retalking about AI.
So it has been a lot of change,I think.
But one trend and maybe you'lldisagree, I don't know in this
industry seems to be that wehaven't necessarily always been
(19:41):
good about the basic strategycomponents of this space.
For our conversation earlier,why are we treating frontline
workers the same as we'retreating people we're trying to
recruit for senior leadership?
Probably doesn't make a lot ofsense and the solution quote
unquote I think historically inthe last 20 years since the
(20:02):
internet came around, has beentechnology will be our savior.
There's.
There's always some new, bright, shiny object that people get
excited about.
You can understand why peopleget promoted for discovering new
technology and saying this isgoing to be the salvation for
whatever our woes are in theorganization.
And yet, after successive wavesof technology, there is a sense
(20:22):
that organizations are bloatedwith technology, and one of the
reasons may be that we didn'tactually start with the strategy
.
We just thought that thetechnology was somehow going to
fix everything.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Which is.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I guess a long way of asking, yeah, a long way of
asking.
Is AI going to be any different?
And maybe the bigger, broaderquestion is is there a way that
technology can encourage, if notdemand, that people take a
strategic view, so we can kindof grow as an industry while
we're also implementing thelatest technology?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Yeah, Marty, great, brilliant question.
Look, I'll answer your questionand give you some thoughts on
it.
But I think one thing that'svery clear and and, by the way,
Silicon Valley is probablydeserve some, some shade for
this Um, but we have this, thisshiny object.
(21:16):
You know this, this next thing,this next tool, this next
product, um, this next company,if we just buy this one piece of
technology, then all ourproblems will be solved.
I can tell you that thatnarrative, I think, has run its
course and I think mostcompanies are looking for less
(21:38):
tools, less products, lessinnovative shiny technologies,
less products, less innovativeshiny technologies, and I think
this is a sea change.
To be honest, I think there wasa time where I wanted the best,
absolute best piece of softwareto do this one minute thing for
(21:58):
me and I would buy it because itwas shiny and it was cool.
I think those days are over.
I think companies have realizedthat if I have, in order to run
my HR operation, if I have, 50different software shiny tools
that my team is using that's alot of different tools I got to
(22:20):
get those tools to talk to eachother.
I've got to make sure they'reall compliant.
I've got to make sure thatthey're all being used.
I got to make sure that theywork together in some way.
I got to make sure they'rebeing used at all.
Like those days are over.
I think your point of having astrategy and then seeing how
pieces of technology fit intothat strategy versus the reverse
(22:44):
, which is just sort of well, weprobably ought to buy a
performance review system.
This is the best performancereview system in the world.
Let's get it.
And, by the way, I love all theperformance review systems in
the world, so I'm not trying tosay anything bad about any of
them, but just using them as anexample of let's get the
shiniest thing.
That might not be the best ideagoing forward.
(23:07):
The reason why I think AI isdifferent and again we'll have
to see, you know, the three ofus will maybe hop back on in
December and we'll see how thistake translates, but or lasts
from now until then.
By the way, the reason why I'msaying six months is who knows,
things could dramatically changewith AI in six months.
(23:30):
But one thing that I do believethat's different about AI is
we've even seen it befundamental in terms of making
you more efficient.
Not as a product, Because ifit's a product, that's just
another thing I have to manage.
I'm talking about theunderlying technology.
Does it make me more efficient?
I'll give you a perfect example.
(23:50):
At Fountain, today, you know,we can take a job description
for a frontline worker.
Okay, let's say you're hiring awarehouse worker in Topeka or
in you know, Spokane, Washington.
Okay, we can put that into anAI tool at Fountain, Topeka.
Or in Spokane, Washington.
Okay, we can put that into anAI tool at Fountain, and the AI
(24:22):
will actually come up with afive, six, seven different ideas
for how to attract differentpeople to work at that job.
Okay, Not only that, it willwrite the advertising copy that
would appeal to each of thosedifferent personas and then it
will actually post those ads tothe right places with zero human
beings.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Like that is that process that I just described
would normally have five, six,team of five or six.
You know kind of thinking aboutwho would work here.
Okay, what should the ads say?
What kind of images should theads have?
Let's test five differentvariations of the copy.
You know, by the way, marty,you know this cause you, you
(25:05):
know you come from this, thisworld of of, uh, marketing stuff
, but you know that would be ateam of five or six people.
That was done in 10 minuteswith no human beings Today at
Fountain.
So that's where I see AI asmaybe a little bit different,
but we'll see how that takeslast in six months.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, this is an interestingthread here, though, ron, so I'd
like to spend a little moretime on it.
I just want to maybe restatewhat you said in my own words
and make sure that I'munderstanding how you think AI
is different.
So one of the challenges Ithink we have in this space is
that we've been AI has been longpromised and disappointing, and
(25:45):
it does seem like with thesechat, gpt and various models,
we're now seeing the real powerof this.
It's not just automation,there's some kind of thinking
going on, and is that really thekey difference here?
Because I think the drumbeatover the last, say, five to 10
years, which is about as long asI've been in the space, is
machine learning, yes, ai, butautomation, and you go to HR
(26:09):
tech.
Everyone is saying these terms,and the reality is, up until
recently, up until some of thesebig shifts we're seeing in big
advances with AI, it was reallyjust automation for the most
part, and I think the troublewith that is, if you don't have
a strategy or you have a badstrategy, then you're just
getting better at automatingnothing or a bad strategy, and
(26:34):
with AI, you know in, automation, of course, is about tasks
ultimately at least that's how Isee it and you're telling a
machine to do some specific taskover and over and over, and
maybe the difference here, oneway of talking about the
difference with AI, is that AIhas the promise, at least or
maybe it's already here of notoptimizing based on tasks, but
(26:56):
optimizing based on goals, andso the goal is to achieve this
outcome.
Hire these people, the bestpeople we can, that will be this
happy, and then you don'tactually have to worry about the
strategy in theory, because theAI will actually come up with
the strategy.
That was missing all along Isthat accurate.
I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I think it's exactly right.
I mean, look, one of thereasons why I'm again.
I am not yet sure about theproduct, so I wouldn't you know?
Do I know which AI product andwhich delivery mechanism is
going to work best?
I don't yet.
What I do know is that theunderlying power of the
(27:38):
technology somebody will havethe right delivery mechanism and
that company will be verysuccessful.
But the underlying technologyis incredibly powerful.
If you sort of step back andjust think about a think about a
company that has 10,000 workers, right, and let let's say
they're half of them work in theoffice and half of them are
(28:00):
frontline workers, I'm making upa company I don't even know, um
, but, but that's 10,000 people.
Just think about, in a givenyear, how much energy and time
those 5,000 office workers spendwriting documents, whether it
be presentations or emails orword documents or summaries of
(28:25):
meetings, and different versionsof one pagers and you know, and
different advertising copy fortheir booth, who knows, across
the whole board, across theboard, everywhere.
My instinct is that a lot ofthat work is going to get
replaced by an AI technology.
(28:48):
I won't say a product because Idon't know what the delivery
mechanism would be, but I thinkwe're pretty close to a place
where an AI an off-the-shelf AIproduct can deliver almost as
good of a one-pager summaryparagraph for an email as me and
(29:10):
the three of us sitting aroundfor a day wordsmithing every
word.
Now, maybe we'll be better.
Hopefully we are.
The three of us are working onit, but with no work.
In five minutes, if I can get80% as good, that's pretty
incredible.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Anyway, we'll see how that goes yeah, I think that's
great.
And like yeah, well, you knowwhat I what, what I think, more
anything sean's, like you know,I think what ai is, you know
what people are realizing, isthe the opportunity to what you
just described?
Right, and I think what?
Maybe there was a littlefrustration is not the word, but
I'll use it a little um, hopethat I think what people forget
(29:51):
is like ai is going to get maybe85 of the way they are using
your document examples orcreating videos or scripts or
social media posts.
We're still gonna have to checkit and like I think maybe there
are some unrealisticexpectations that you know we
want it to be 100 perfect andalso be better than what we
would have written out the gate.
And like okay, well, that's youknow, let's you know does not
(30:16):
let perfect be the enemy of goodhere.
Right, and like if we're 85% ofthe way there, is that better
than having to?
Your example, you know a hundredpeople that are working on
social media posts from scratch.
Is it better to have 10 workingwith you know, 85 half-baked
ideas out the gate?
And I think the answer is yes.
And like so I think there'sgoing to be some interesting
expectation setting and you know, I think there's going to be.
(30:38):
It's going to be an exercise ofreally thinking through.
You know what are the newskills that are required, what
are the new job categories thatyou know are going to exist.
You know what does theworkforce look like, knowing
that there will be some railsthat need to be put around,
utilizing AI for your differentcomponents.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Does that make sense, sean?
Well, it totally makes sense.
Look, I think the other thingthat would be interesting to see
is, I think we're in the earlydays of interacting with this
technology.
So, generally today, if youthink about, one of the biggest
shifts of the last 20 years hasbeen, you know, the birth and
(31:16):
growth of search Search.
You know just search enginesand by proxy search advertising.
But you know, there was a day,you know, two decades ago, when
people didn't type somethinginto the Google box.
You know, like, that's not howyou got information, and I can
imagine the first time peopleinteracted with it.
(31:37):
They may not have loved theresult, you know, they may have
been like well, I searched, Iwas trying to get information on
this and I didn't get what Iwanted.
You know, in fact, if you gobefore Google, many of them were
terrible, right, I think whatyou're seeing today.
I think one of the things that'sreally interesting about the
chat GPTs of the world, right,is, I think people are treating
(31:57):
the interaction of is it's a oneand done game, meaning like and
to take it to kind of a casinoanalogy, right, they're treating
chat GPT like it's roulette,like each role has no relation
to the role before it or therole to come after it.
It's a one shot deal.
I roll the ball and it comes ona number and then I start over
(32:20):
with another one.
One of the things that's reallypowerful about AI technology in
general is that it has a memory.
It's closer to blackjack thanit is to roulette, meaning that
I might ask it to write a firstversion of a one-pager opening
paragraph.
The first result I get is notthe final.
It's not like the game startsanew.
(32:40):
I can then interact with it andsay actually, I want to make it
more professional or lessprofessional.
Can you make it shorter?
Can you make it longer?
Can you use bigger words?
Can you make it sound like Iwent to a really fancy college?
Can you make it shorter?
Can you make it longer?
Can you use bigger words?
Can you make it sound like Iwent to a really fancy college?
Can you make it sound likeit'll appeal to people of all
walks of life?
Right.
(33:01):
So you have this like notion ofa history where you can continue
to improve on the product, andagain we see that with with job
descriptions right, help mewrite a job description.
Great, the first time it comeswith job descriptions.
Right, help me write a jobdescription.
Great the first time it comesout.
You know, hey, help me write ajob description for barista.
It's not, might not be perfect,it's missing a few things for
me, particularly for my company,but I can say hey, I need you
(33:24):
to add a couple more thingsabout.
You know how important it is touh to love working here in our
culture.
Okay, great, here's V2.
Okay, you needed to sound lessprofessional because we want to
be more welcoming to people.
Okay, great, I'll make it lessprofessional.
So that's where I think it'sheaded.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
Yeah, wow, this is such a fascinating topic.
I mean I'm trying to think howI want to ask this question.
It's a big question, but youknow, earlier we were talking
about strategy or the lackthereof.
That has been typical in HR andI think a strategy as well.
When we're being strategic,we're asking lots of why
questions.
So we have a problem that we'retrying to solve.
(34:06):
We don't want to just solve theproblem, we want to also
understand why that is thesolution, so we can take that
insight and hopefully apply itagain in the future.
So a client comes to us and says, hey, we need to hire a bunch
of wind turbine technicians.
Where should we hire them?
(34:27):
It can be anywhere in thecountry.
Currently, people hire us to dothat work.
We put a lot of effort into it,look at a lot of data and make
a recommendation us to do thatwork.
We've put a lot of effort intoit, look at a lot of data and
make a recommendation.
You're describing an AI futurewhere we can just ask AI or not
even ask it, just hey, we need athousand wind turbine type
machines, go find them, and itmay actually do that.
And this is an example toillustrate that.
The point, I guess, is do youthink that AI is going to cause
(34:50):
organizations to be more or lessstrategic going forward?
Are we going to stop caringabout the why Because,
ultimately, what does it matteras long as we have our 1,000
wind turbine technicians, whocares why?
It happens to be that Boise isthe best place for it?
Or do you think, asorganizations and as business
leaders, we're still going tothink about the why?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
I think we'll still think about the why.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
And AI will be able to tell us those answers.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Maybe Check back in.
December To bring it back to thefountain side.
Right, we use AI throughout ourhiring process, right.
So we have AI that writes textmessages to applicants and to
workers.
We use AI to ensure thatpeople's driver's license and
food safety handlingcertificates are valid and
(35:39):
unexpired and continue to bevalid and aren't fraudulent.
So we're using AI throughoutthe process.
I can tell you one place we'renot using AI In the actual
decision to whether to hire ahuman being or not.
That remains a human being, aunique human being experience.
No, ai is going to be able todo that, and I think you know, I
(36:01):
think we spend a lot of timeworried about will AI, you know,
lead to hiring mistakes AtFountain?
We're very clear on that.
We believe AI will help theprocess overall, but at the end
of the day, no one is going tobe able to determine whether
another human being is going tobe a good fit for the company
and the team other than anotherhuman being, and so, as much as
(36:24):
we deploy AI, we still rely onthat human being to make that
most critical decision shouldthis person join the team or not
.
We think that's going to remaina human activity for a very
long time.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
That's great.
I think that is the right placefor us to pause this episode,
Sean, and reinforce some of thatLike, yeah, is anybody going to
take all of our jobs?
No, the human element is stillgoing to exist.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
It's still going to be there for sure, that's great.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well, let's end with probably the easiest question of
all, and that's you know, wherecan people find you online?
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Sure, Really easy.
Obviously, you can learn a lotmore about Fountain at
fountaincom, but you can find meon LinkedIn and I guess it's
called Twitter now or X now,whatever it is, but LinkedIn and
fountaincom.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
We'll add all of the links in the show notes, sean.
This has been fantastic and,yeah, super, super interesting
discussion, so really appreciateyou joining us today.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Thanks so much, graham.
Thanks, marty, reallyappreciate it and fun to do it.
Thanks, Sean.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
All right, thanks for tuning in.
As always, head on over tochangestateio or shoot us a note
on all the social media.
We'd love to hear from you andwe'll check you guys next week.
Welcome to the Changing State of Talent
Acquisition, where your hosts,graham Thornton and Martin Credd
, share their unfiltered takeson what's happening in the world
of talent acquisition today.
Each week brings new guests whoshare their stories on the
tools, trends and technologiescurrently impacting the changing
state of talent acquisition.
Have feedback or want to jointhe show?
(00:21):
Head on over to changestateio.
And now on to this week'sepisode.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
All right and we're back with another episode of the
Changing State of TownAcquisition Podcast.
Super excited for our nextguest, sean Baer.
Ceo of Fountain.
Sean, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Hey, graham, marty, it's great to be with you guys.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thanks for having me, of course, well we like to
start with a real softball.
We hope it's an easy one, butlove hearing about everyone's
journey.
We'd love to hear what led youto your current role as CEO of
Fountain and, you know, maybetalk about some of the
experiences along the way thathave impacted your perspective
in your current role over thereat Fountain.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, you know, obviously, by the way, this is
the first time I've ever workedin sort of the world of talent
acquisition and HR technology,so I'm fairly new to this world.
My career is generally beenfocused on sort of enterprise,
b2b software.
I've been fortunate to be partof four companies, fountain
being the fourth, but previouslyhelped build a really big
(01:20):
company in the e-commerce space,again doing B2B e-commerce,
built a big company in theadvertising technology space,
built a big company in thee-commerce space, again doing
B2B e-commerce, built a bigcompany in the advertising
technology space, built a bigcompany in the automotive
technology space and now in theHR technology talent acquisition
space.
But I've always been focused onsort of how big companies and
big industries adapt to newtechnology, and so that's kind
(01:42):
of where I've focused my career.
You know, with Fountain Iactually met the Fountain team
when it was a very, very smallteam it was three or four people
and I said you know what Ithink they might be on to
something.
I actually wound up investingin the business, wound up
joining and helping out thecompany along the way and then a
couple of years ago became theCEO and you know, it's been a
(02:04):
just been an incredibleexperience, great team, great
company in an industry, as youknow, when you guys talk about
often an industry that'sundergoing a lot of
transformation, a lot of newtechnology and a lot of new
opportunity for companies.
So it's been a great couple ofyears working in this space and
looking forward to what comesnext.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
We're thrilled to have you and thanks for sharing
the backstory.
I think that's probably thewell.
We've had a little pass, Iguess.
But that's a prettyunconventional path to get into
talent acquisition and I'mcurious.
You know what brought you totalent acquisition?
Was it just connecting withthese found folks or did you
have your eye on the spacebefore that?
And maybe what has surprisedyou most as an outsider coming
(02:44):
into this space?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, you know, look, I've always been, you know, my,
my third company, you know,dealt with a lot of frontline
workers, and so I've always beeninterested in the frontline
workforce, right, you know, ifyou, if you think about sort of
it's very easy when you, youknow, you, you listen to
podcasts and you you're on Zoomcalls or you sit behind a desk
(03:08):
or you kind of do hybrid work oryour company's fully remote,
it's very easy to kind of getvery deep into thinking this is
how everybody in the world is.
We all are on Zoom, we all workin Excel, we all deal with
Google Slides, and the realityis the vast majority of people
in the world don't go on Zoomcalls, they don't sit behind a
(03:30):
computer or at a desk.
They're doing things in thefront lines of our economy
they're delivering packages,they're working in a grocery
store, they're working at adrugstore, they're working in a
restaurant or a cafe, they workin a nursing home or a warehouse
or they drive a truck, and soI've been always focused on that
population.
I think the thing that reallyattracted me to Fountain was,
(03:52):
you know, the mission of openingopportunities for that
workforce.
This is billions of peoplearound the world who generally
are on the front line of theeconomy and generally do not
have great technology and greatproducts to help them in their
journey, in their work.
And so that's what reallyattracted me was this kind of
(04:12):
like very large population offrontline workers.
Now I'll say part of it isaltruistic.
You know our mission to openopportunities.
As I tell the team, I thinkit's a mission worth doing.
It's worthy of our effort hereas long as we are here on this
earth.
It's worthy of openingopportunities for this group of
billions of people who do needmore opportunity.
(04:35):
Also, we happen to think it's apretty good business.
We think the fact that there'sbillions of people who need to
get jobs, who need to besupported in their career and
people who are eventually goingto look for another job and need
to be retained in a companyopens up opportunities for
Fountain itself.
So that's what kind of drew meto it and I can say it's been
(04:56):
way better than I even expected.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, well, I think that's super interesting, sean,
and you know, obviously wefollowed, you know, fountain's
journey for a while, so veryexcited about this conversation.
You know, last week, maybe itwas two weeks ago, we were on
with one of our workforcepartners, lightcast, for an
episode.
And you know, one of the thingsI love about, you know,
lightcast is, I think they havea similar thought process on
(05:19):
these large populations that youknow arguably get, you know,
neglected right, for lack of abetter word in the talent
acquisition space, and you know,I think Fountain does.
I think what's arguably beenneeded in the talent acquisition
space is, you know, somedisruptors that want to think
about, you know we'll call ithigher volume hiring, you know,
with a different mindset, andyou know what that means is, you
(05:42):
know I'm not going to say I'mon TikTok much, but I'm on
TikTok enough to see, like allthese new you know memes and
videos coming up about.
You know, hey, what's the applyprocess, you know, and the 9000
questions that you need to gothrough just to submit your
application and your resume whenyou want to apply for a job
through a traditional ETS,through a traditional ETS.
Yeah, I'm just curious, like,have there been any sort of
(06:04):
triggers.
You know, or or maybe just youknow, wax poetic for me on.
Why do you think it's taken solong for you know HR systems or
processes to understand that,hey, there's not one blanket
approach to, you know,recruiting all populations?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, I would even say I'd even broaden your
question there, graham, which isyou know, why has it taken so
long?
Not only in the recruitingprocess, but in the retention
process?
You know, we've generally takena one-size-fits-all approach to
workers and to employees andthe reality is it is just, there
are just fundamentaldifferences when you're talking
(06:41):
about hiring, you know, three orfour finance people versus
hiring three or 4,000 warehouseworkers.
If you try to apply thetechnology or the product the
same to those two differentworlds, you will wind up with
very, very different experiences.
To give you an example in theworld of hiring a finance person
(07:03):
, you probably ought to collecta resume and you ought to have
multiple rounds of interviewsand you might want to check
references.
If you're hiring 3,000warehouse workers, I would not
recommend collecting a resume.
By the way, we can have a longerconversation in another podcast
about how valuable resumes arein general, but maybe that's
(07:23):
another whole episode.
But certainly in the frontlineworkforce it is demonstrably
less valuable.
Someone's ability to puttogether a Word document with a
couple of bullet points abouttheir experience, save it as a
PDF on their cell phone, whichis where they're typically
applying for these jobs, isprobably not a great indicator
(07:45):
that this is going to be areliable person who's going to
help me and help my warehouseoperation run?
It just isn't, you know, and soI think one of the reasons it's
taken so long, though, is thelabor, and the job market has
not driven us to the point ofneeding to think differently.
You know, if you go back fouror five years, you know it was a
(08:08):
good labor market, certainly,but you could generally hire
these frontline workers withrelative ease.
So, even if you wereinefficient in your applicant
tracking system or in yourinternal processes, you still
got the people you needed.
That, I think, in 2020 and 2021,certainly post COVID has just
fundamentally changed.
(08:29):
You know, you have some lesslabor participation, you have
people working fewer hours andyou need more people to power
your business, and those oldprocesses just don't work
anymore, you know.
I think the old mantra of well,they're going to frontline
workers will quit and we'll justreplace them.
(08:49):
The problem is, frontlineworkers are still going to leave
you for better opportunities,but it's not so easy to replace
them anymore, and I think, whenyou run into that, what you see
is, all of a sudden, companiesthat have never been interested
in innovation on their hiringprocess are all of a sudden
companies that have never beeninterested in innovation on
their hiring process are all ofa sudden very open to innovation
(09:11):
in the hiring process, becauseif they don't, they're
understaffed and unlike aknowledge worker.
You said wax poetic, so I'mtaking your direction, but
unlike a knowledge worker, ifknow, if you're a finance person
, if your finance team is downone or two people, things still
work.
If your warehouse is down acouple of you know 40 workers
(09:36):
because you're failing to hirein this competitive labor market
, all of a sudden everybody'sgot to work overtime or the
packages go out late, or themorale of the warehouse goes
down because everybody'sshouldering a bigger burden due
to the lack of staffing, and sothere's real business impacts
and I think that's what'sdriving the innovation.
(09:56):
Long answer to a very goodquestion.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Yeah, well, I want to double click on this word
innovation because well, we hearthat word a lot in our industry
and you know, from myperspective I would hate there's
some basic things that theindustry wasn't doing that I
would.
That are not new ideas, youknow, like, you pointed out this
idea of hey, maybe we shouldtreat warehouse workers and the
(10:21):
apply path a little bitdifferently than hiring an SVP
of finance or whatever the casemay be.
That seems obvious to me,having, you know, kind of grown
up in my career in consumermarketing.
It would be like saying, youknow, purchasing a high value,
durable good like a refrigerator, and applying the exact same
marketing strategy to a phone, aphone case sale, you know, like
(10:43):
you wouldn't expect those twoto have similar marketing
strategies and you would bydefault take a different
approach.
I think the point is well takenthat the industry or the labor
market has forced this.
But my bigger question, Isuppose, is any sense of why do
you think the industry had to beforced into this?
It just seems like a bestpractice.
Don't we want to be efficient?
(11:04):
Don't we want to treat peoplewell?
And I know it's a hard question.
So if you don't know, that'stotally fine, I'm trying to make
sense of it.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah, yeah, it's a great question.
You know, what I would say isthat two things I think that are
interesting.
One I definitely think there'ssome sort of necessity is the
mother of invention, and so yousee more of this happening as a
result of sort of the need forinnovation.
But to your broader point aboutlike why now?
(11:30):
Right, basically their entirecareer in a world where there's
been rapid innovation insoftware writ large, you know,
(11:53):
like the people that startedtheir career in, say, 1990,
remember a time when most thingswere done with pen and paper
Right, the people that havestarted their career in 2000 or
2010 and have spent the last 15years moving up the ranks of the
HR team at a large organization, they don't know, they don't
(12:17):
even know the world before sortof real collaboration and real
technical innovation.
I mean, that's been their wholecareer.
I think some of today's CROsbasically got their role based
on their ability to adapt toinnovative technology along
their career path, and so Ithink some of it is this sort of
(12:39):
necessary because of the labormarket, but I think some of it
is today's leaders are justschooled in how do I deploy
technology across the HR techstack and the people that sort
of started 10 or 15 years ago assort of you know your HR
analyst or your benefitsadministration or your you know,
your director of talentacquisition.
(13:01):
All of a sudden those peopleare in the C-suite now, and the
way they got there was deployinginnovative technology.
So that's my sense of whyyou're seeing more of it.
But I would take your pointthat some of this stuff feels
pretty self-evident.
Asking a fast food worker toput a resume together feels
(13:23):
crazy.
But I can tell you right nowlots and lots of employers are
still stuck in that mindset.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, I think you know, on some level maybe we
kind of forget or, you know,undervalue just how quickly
things have moved over the lastcouple decades, I suppose.
And you know, I think you know,20 years ago I went to, you
know, iu and the first degreethat my parents made me sign up
for was an informatics degree.
(13:49):
It was the first everinformatics program.
No one knew what it was, soobviously I didn't graduate with
an informatics degree.
And then, 10 years later, youknow, hanging out with one of my
insurance clients were like weneed informatics.
People that studied informatics.
I'm like, well, I guess myparents are right.
Yeah, you know, there's thatwhole idea, is that you know,
hey?
the top 10 jobs that'll be indemand, that are in demand today
(14:10):
.
You know, arguably didn't exist10 years ago and the same is
going to be true, you know, 10years from now, yeah so you know
I've already like you know, hey, maybe that's just par for the
course and like we're just, youknow, our expectation is we
should always be moving faster,but maybe we actually, maybe we
are, when you zoom out a littlebit, thinking of that story of
(14:32):
where people were 15 years agoin their careers.
That's fair.
Well, I want to double click alittle bit into this idea of
where HR technology is going.
I think you touched on a fewthings, sean, that are super
important.
Right, we've got a lot ofuncertainty or change in the
broader labor market, you knowin the wider economy, you know I
(14:54):
think a lot of TA leaders arebeing tasked to you know for
this phrase a million times domore with us, right.
But I also think we've got anindustry where you know we've
had a lot of change in tools.
You know we have a lot of newtechnologies that you know are
being adopted.
People are more open to youknow changing their processes.
You know looking at bolt-ontools.
(15:15):
You know trying to figure outwhere there's less bloat.
And you know HR tech stacksfrom your conversations with
leaders, you know how are modern.
You know modern CHROs, forexample.
You know approaching some ofthese calls for you know
increased efficiencies, or whereare you seeing leaders thinking
about?
How do we identify smartinvestments?
(15:36):
You know, adopting emergingtechnology, generative AI and so
on.
What are you hearing in yourconversations with?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
leaders.
Yeah, it's a broad question,but a great one, graham.
A couple of things I'd say.
First of all, I think every HRleader today is being tasked
with becoming more efficient.
In fact, if you're not beingtasked with becoming more
efficient, you are the exceptionto the rule.
Majority of CHROs and VP of HRsand VP of talent acquisition are
(16:08):
being asked, to use your phrase, do more with less, or do the
same with less, or do the same,but do it better.
You know?
Look, hr has always been a callcenter from the beginning of
time.
Today, I think, it's even beingpressed further to find out can
(16:32):
we recruit the right people andstill spend 10% less?
Right the way that theirincentives and the incentives
specifically in the publiccompany realm right.
Being able to do more with lessis a ticket to a higher stock
price, which is what you'reseeing, I think, across C-suites
now is a focus on being evenmore efficient so we can become
(16:54):
even more profitable, so thatour stock can get bid up and
appreciated by more investors,both retail and institutional.
So it's always been a callcenter.
They are definitely feeling thepressure to do more with less.
Two things that I'd say inaddition to that one is they are
all being asked to look at howAI is going to impact the world
(17:21):
of talent acquisition and HRwrit large.
Talent acquisition and and andHR writ large.
Um, every single company isabsolutely looking at how it is
now.
Maybe they're not deploying it,you know, in in large scale,
maybe they're just experimenting, but there is absolutely a
mantra of we need to be thinkingabout how is AI going to make
(17:44):
us more efficient and bettergoing forward?
We see it across our entirecustomer base.
So AI I think there was somefeeling that maybe smaller
companies would be faster toadopt AI and the larger
companies would be moreconservative and take their time
.
I actually think it might bereversed.
The larger companies areactually setting aside budgets,
(18:06):
even saying I'm going to setaside $50,000 or $100,000 this
year.
I want to do two or threeexperiments with AI, right, and
we're seeing that everywhere.
I think the second thing you'reseeing is just a real focus on
automation, right.
In order to do more with less,you've got to remove tasks that
(18:29):
are low value tasks.
So how do you automate tasks?
And sometimes you use AI, andsometimes you don't need AI to
automate a task, but sometimesyou do, and so I think those are
the things you're seeing.
I think you're being asked tobe more efficient, you're being
asked to invest in AI, or atleast experiment in AI, and then
you're being asked to deliverautomation in a way that enables
(18:53):
you to get the same kind ofwork done with far more
efficiently.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Yeah, well, there's a lot of interesting follow-ups
that I suppose.
But maybe, and I do want totalk about ai, but before we do
that, I kind of want to justzoom out a bit, um, and pick
your brain on something.
So you, you shared aninteresting insight earlier,
which is that many of the peoplewho are sitting in the c-suite
or the chro, uh, have undergonean enormous amount of
(19:20):
technological change in theircareers.
These are people who, as youpointed out you know, maybe you
started with a pen and paper anda rotary phone on their desk at
some point, and now we'retalking about AI.
So it has been a lot of change,I think.
But one trend and maybe you'lldisagree, I don't know in this
industry seems to be that wehaven't necessarily always been
(19:41):
good about the basic strategycomponents of this space.
For our conversation earlier,why are we treating frontline
workers the same as we'retreating people we're trying to
recruit for senior leadership?
Probably doesn't make a lot ofsense and the solution quote
unquote I think historically inthe last 20 years since the
(20:02):
internet came around, has beentechnology will be our savior.
There's.
There's always some new, bright, shiny object that people get
excited about.
You can understand why peopleget promoted for discovering new
technology and saying this isgoing to be the salvation for
whatever our woes are in theorganization.
And yet, after successive wavesof technology, there is a sense
(20:22):
that organizations are bloatedwith technology, and one of the
reasons may be that we didn'tactually start with the strategy
.
We just thought that thetechnology was somehow going to
fix everything.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Which is.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I guess a long way of asking, yeah, a long way of
asking.
Is AI going to be any different?
And maybe the bigger, broaderquestion is is there a way that
technology can encourage, if notdemand, that people take a
strategic view, so we can kindof grow as an industry while
we're also implementing thelatest technology?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Yeah, Marty, great, brilliant question.
Look, I'll answer your questionand give you some thoughts on
it.
But I think one thing that'svery clear and and, by the way,
Silicon Valley is probablydeserve some, some shade for
this Um, but we have this, thisshiny object.
(21:16):
You know this, this next thing,this next tool, this next
product, um, this next company,if we just buy this one piece of
technology, then all ourproblems will be solved.
I can tell you that thatnarrative, I think, has run its
course and I think mostcompanies are looking for less
(21:38):
tools, less products, lessinnovative shiny technologies,
less products, less innovativeshiny technologies, and I think
this is a sea change.
To be honest, I think there wasa time where I wanted the best,
absolute best piece of softwareto do this one minute thing for
(21:58):
me and I would buy it because itwas shiny and it was cool.
I think those days are over.
I think companies have realizedthat if I have, in order to run
my HR operation, if I have, 50different software shiny tools
that my team is using that's alot of different tools I got to
(22:20):
get those tools to talk to eachother.
I've got to make sure they'reall compliant.
I've got to make sure thatthey're all being used.
I got to make sure that theywork together in some way.
I got to make sure they'rebeing used at all.
Like those days are over.
I think your point of having astrategy and then seeing how
pieces of technology fit intothat strategy versus the reverse
(22:44):
, which is just sort of well, weprobably ought to buy a
performance review system.
This is the best performancereview system in the world.
Let's get it.
And, by the way, I love all theperformance review systems in
the world, so I'm not trying tosay anything bad about any of
them, but just using them as anexample of let's get the
shiniest thing.
That might not be the best ideagoing forward.
(23:07):
The reason why I think AI isdifferent and again we'll have
to see, you know, the three ofus will maybe hop back on in
December and we'll see how thistake translates, but or lasts
from now until then.
By the way, the reason why I'msaying six months is who knows,
things could dramatically changewith AI in six months.
(23:30):
But one thing that I do believethat's different about AI is
we've even seen it befundamental in terms of making
you more efficient.
Not as a product, Because ifit's a product, that's just
another thing I have to manage.
I'm talking about theunderlying technology.
Does it make me more efficient?
I'll give you a perfect example.
(23:50):
At Fountain, today, you know,we can take a job description
for a frontline worker.
Okay, let's say you're hiring awarehouse worker in Topeka or
in you know, Spokane, Washington.
Okay, we can put that into anAI tool at Fountain, Topeka.
Or in Spokane, Washington.
Okay, we can put that into anAI tool at Fountain, and the AI
(24:22):
will actually come up with afive, six, seven different ideas
for how to attract differentpeople to work at that job.
Okay, Not only that, it willwrite the advertising copy that
would appeal to each of thosedifferent personas and then it
will actually post those ads tothe right places with zero human
beings.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Like that is that process that I just described
would normally have five, six,team of five or six.
You know kind of thinking aboutwho would work here.
Okay, what should the ads say?
What kind of images should theads have?
Let's test five differentvariations of the copy.
You know, by the way, marty,you know this cause you, you
(25:05):
know you come from this, thisworld of of, uh, marketing stuff
, but you know that would be ateam of five or six people.
That was done in 10 minuteswith no human beings Today at
Fountain.
So that's where I see AI asmaybe a little bit different,
but we'll see how that takeslast in six months.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, this is an interestingthread here, though, ron, so I'd
like to spend a little moretime on it.
I just want to maybe restatewhat you said in my own words
and make sure that I'munderstanding how you think AI
is different.
So one of the challenges Ithink we have in this space is
that we've been AI has been longpromised and disappointing, and
(25:45):
it does seem like with thesechat, gpt and various models,
we're now seeing the real powerof this.
It's not just automation,there's some kind of thinking
going on, and is that really thekey difference here?
Because I think the drumbeatover the last, say, five to 10
years, which is about as long asI've been in the space, is
machine learning, yes, ai, butautomation, and you go to HR
(26:09):
tech.
Everyone is saying these terms,and the reality is, up until
recently, up until some of thesebig shifts we're seeing in big
advances with AI, it was reallyjust automation for the most
part, and I think the troublewith that is, if you don't have
a strategy or you have a badstrategy, then you're just
getting better at automatingnothing or a bad strategy, and
(26:34):
with AI, you know in, automation, of course, is about tasks
ultimately at least that's how Isee it and you're telling a
machine to do some specific taskover and over and over, and
maybe the difference here, oneway of talking about the
difference with AI, is that AIhas the promise, at least or
maybe it's already here of notoptimizing based on tasks, but
(26:56):
optimizing based on goals, andso the goal is to achieve this
outcome.
Hire these people, the bestpeople we can, that will be this
happy, and then you don'tactually have to worry about the
strategy in theory, because theAI will actually come up with
the strategy.
That was missing all along Isthat accurate.
I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I think it's exactly right.
I mean, look, one of thereasons why I'm again.
I am not yet sure about theproduct, so I wouldn't you know?
Do I know which AI product andwhich delivery mechanism is
going to work best?
I don't yet.
What I do know is that theunderlying power of the
(27:38):
technology somebody will havethe right delivery mechanism and
that company will be verysuccessful.
But the underlying technologyis incredibly powerful.
If you sort of step back andjust think about a think about a
company that has 10,000 workers, right, and let let's say
they're half of them work in theoffice and half of them are
(28:00):
frontline workers, I'm making upa company I don't even know, um
, but, but that's 10,000 people.
Just think about, in a givenyear, how much energy and time
those 5,000 office workers spendwriting documents, whether it
be presentations or emails orword documents or summaries of
(28:25):
meetings, and different versionsof one pagers and you know, and
different advertising copy fortheir booth, who knows, across
the whole board, across theboard, everywhere.
My instinct is that a lot ofthat work is going to get
replaced by an AI technology.
(28:48):
I won't say a product because Idon't know what the delivery
mechanism would be, but I thinkwe're pretty close to a place
where an AI an off-the-shelf AIproduct can deliver almost as
good of a one-pager summaryparagraph for an email as me and
(29:10):
the three of us sitting aroundfor a day wordsmithing every
word.
Now, maybe we'll be better.
Hopefully we are.
The three of us are working onit, but with no work.
In five minutes, if I can get80% as good, that's pretty
incredible.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Anyway, we'll see how that goes yeah, I think that's
great.
And like yeah, well, you knowwhat I what, what I think, more
anything sean's, like you know,I think what ai is, you know
what people are realizing, isthe the opportunity to what you
just described?
Right, and I think what?
Maybe there was a littlefrustration is not the word, but
I'll use it a little um, hopethat I think what people forget
(29:51):
is like ai is going to get maybe85 of the way they are using
your document examples orcreating videos or scripts or
social media posts.
We're still gonna have to checkit and like I think maybe there
are some unrealisticexpectations that you know we
want it to be 100 perfect andalso be better than what we
would have written out the gate.
And like okay, well, that's youknow, let's you know does not
(30:16):
let perfect be the enemy of goodhere.
Right, and like if we're 85% ofthe way there, is that better
than having to?
Your example, you know a hundredpeople that are working on
social media posts from scratch.
Is it better to have 10 workingwith you know, 85 half-baked
ideas out the gate?
And I think the answer is yes.
And like so I think there'sgoing to be some interesting
expectation setting and you know, I think there's going to be.
(30:38):
It's going to be an exercise ofreally thinking through.
You know what are the newskills that are required, what
are the new job categories thatyou know are going to exist.
You know what does theworkforce look like, knowing
that there will be some railsthat need to be put around,
utilizing AI for your differentcomponents.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Does that make sense, sean?
Well, it totally makes sense.
Look, I think the other thingthat would be interesting to see
is, I think we're in the earlydays of interacting with this
technology.
So, generally today, if youthink about, one of the biggest
shifts of the last 20 years hasbeen, you know, the birth and
(31:16):
growth of search Search.
You know just search enginesand by proxy search advertising.
But you know, there was a day,you know, two decades ago, when
people didn't type somethinginto the Google box.
You know, like, that's not howyou got information, and I can
imagine the first time peopleinteracted with it.
(31:37):
They may not have loved theresult, you know, they may have
been like well, I searched, Iwas trying to get information on
this and I didn't get what Iwanted.
You know, in fact, if you gobefore Google, many of them were
terrible, right, I think whatyou're seeing today.
I think one of the things that'sreally interesting about the
chat GPTs of the world, right,is, I think people are treating
(31:57):
the interaction of is it's a oneand done game, meaning like and
to take it to kind of a casinoanalogy, right, they're treating
chat GPT like it's roulette,like each role has no relation
to the role before it or therole to come after it.
It's a one shot deal.
I roll the ball and it comes ona number and then I start over
(32:20):
with another one.
One of the things that's reallypowerful about AI technology in
general is that it has a memory.
It's closer to blackjack thanit is to roulette, meaning that
I might ask it to write a firstversion of a one-pager opening
paragraph.
The first result I get is notthe final.
It's not like the game startsanew.
(32:40):
I can then interact with it andsay actually, I want to make it
more professional or lessprofessional.
Can you make it shorter?
Can you make it longer?
Can you use bigger words?
Can you make it sound like Iwent to a really fancy college?
Can you make it shorter?
Can you make it longer?
Can you use bigger words?
Can you make it sound like Iwent to a really fancy college?
Can you make it sound likeit'll appeal to people of all
walks of life?
Right.
(33:01):
So you have this like notion ofa history where you can continue
to improve on the product, andagain we see that with with job
descriptions right, help mewrite a job description.
Great, the first time it comeswith job descriptions.
Right, help me write a jobdescription.
Great the first time it comesout.
You know, hey, help me write ajob description for barista.
It's not, might not be perfect,it's missing a few things for
me, particularly for my company,but I can say hey, I need you
(33:24):
to add a couple more thingsabout.
You know how important it is touh to love working here in our
culture.
Okay, great, here's V2.
Okay, you needed to sound lessprofessional because we want to
be more welcoming to people.
Okay, great, I'll make it lessprofessional.
So that's where I think it'sheaded.
Speaker 4 (33:45):
Yeah, wow, this is such a fascinating topic.
I mean I'm trying to think howI want to ask this question.
It's a big question, but youknow, earlier we were talking
about strategy or the lackthereof.
That has been typical in HR andI think a strategy as well.
When we're being strategic,we're asking lots of why
questions.
So we have a problem that we'retrying to solve.
(34:06):
We don't want to just solve theproblem, we want to also
understand why that is thesolution, so we can take that
insight and hopefully apply itagain in the future.
So a client comes to us and says, hey, we need to hire a bunch
of wind turbine technicians.
Where should we hire them?
(34:27):
It can be anywhere in thecountry.
Currently, people hire us to dothat work.
We put a lot of effort into it,look at a lot of data and make
a recommendation us to do thatwork.
We've put a lot of effort intoit, look at a lot of data and
make a recommendation.
You're describing an AI futurewhere we can just ask AI or not
even ask it, just hey, we need athousand wind turbine type
machines, go find them, and itmay actually do that.
And this is an example toillustrate that.
The point, I guess, is do youthink that AI is going to cause
(34:50):
organizations to be more or lessstrategic going forward?
Are we going to stop caringabout the why Because,
ultimately, what does it matteras long as we have our 1,000
wind turbine technicians, whocares why?
It happens to be that Boise isthe best place for it?
Or do you think, asorganizations and as business
leaders, we're still going tothink about the why?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
I think we'll still think about the why.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
And AI will be able to tell us those answers.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Maybe Check back in.
December To bring it back to thefountain side.
Right, we use AI throughout ourhiring process, right.
So we have AI that writes textmessages to applicants and to
workers.
We use AI to ensure thatpeople's driver's license and
food safety handlingcertificates are valid and
(35:39):
unexpired and continue to bevalid and aren't fraudulent.
So we're using AI throughoutthe process.
I can tell you one place we'renot using AI In the actual
decision to whether to hire ahuman being or not.
That remains a human being, aunique human being experience.
No, ai is going to be able todo that, and I think you know, I
(36:01):
think we spend a lot of timeworried about will AI, you know,
lead to hiring mistakes AtFountain?
We're very clear on that.
We believe AI will help theprocess overall, but at the end
of the day, no one is going tobe able to determine whether
another human being is going tobe a good fit for the company
and the team other than anotherhuman being, and so, as much as
(36:24):
we deploy AI, we still rely onthat human being to make that
most critical decision shouldthis person join the team or not
.
We think that's going to remaina human activity for a very
long time.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
That's great.
I think that is the right placefor us to pause this episode,
Sean, and reinforce some of thatLike, yeah, is anybody going to
take all of our jobs?
No, the human element is stillgoing to exist.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
It's still going to be there for sure, that's great.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well, let's end with probably the easiest question of
all, and that's you know, wherecan people find you online?
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Sure, Really easy.
Obviously, you can learn a lotmore about Fountain at
fountaincom, but you can find meon LinkedIn and I guess it's
called Twitter now or X now,whatever it is, but LinkedIn and
fountaincom.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
We'll add all of the links in the show notes, sean.
This has been fantastic and,yeah, super, super interesting
discussion, so really appreciateyou joining us today.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Thanks so much, graham.
Thanks, marty, reallyappreciate it and fun to do it.
Thanks, Sean.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
All right, thanks for tuning in.
As always, head on over tochangestateio or shoot us a note
on all the social media.
We'd love to hear from you andwe'll check you guys next week.
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