Mike Wood:
I've been in the space for a long time, and my eyes are glazing over at all these different vendors. And yeah, the messaging is almost all the same. The technology is almost all the same, and it feels like we've flipped from having different vendors specialize in one key thing. Now everybody's trying to do everything.
Steve Smith:
Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Work Tech Weekly. I'm Steve Smith, Managing Director of Growth at Rep Cap. So this episode was recorded at Transform 2026 in Las Vegas, and if you spent any time on the expo floor this year, something sort of felt off. The booths looked different, but the pitches sounded the same.
Every vendor was leading with AI. Every product had been rebuilt, relaunched, and rebranded. And it was getting harder, not easier, to tell the players apart. That's the tension sitting at the center of this conversation. When the technology reaches parity, what actually differentiates one vendor from another?
What does it mean for buyers who are already paralyzed by too many choices and too much uncertainty? My guest today is Mike Wood. He's an analyst at HR.com and a seasoned podcast host behind shows like The Totally Talent Podcast. Mike covers the space from a practitioner-first perspective, watching where the money goes, how the messaging shifts, and what's actually working versus what's just vaporware.
In this conversation, we talk about the homogenization of work tech, the funding crunch pushing more companies toward acquisition or shutdown, and how AI is moving faster than most buyers are ready to move with it. We also get into the fracturing social contract and what it means for the workforce. It's a wide-ranging conversation, and I think it's worth your time.
So let's get into it. I'm joined by my friend Mike Wood from HR.com, and we ran into each other outside the expo, and it's just like, "Have you got time to record?" He's like, "I do." And so, of course —
Mike Wood:
With you, Steve.
Steve Smith:
Well, I'm a big fan of your work. I love what you do. I know that you are a keen watcher of the industry, and after, you know, way too many days in Vegas for you because you bookended this with Unleash and now you're at Transform. Where, what's, what's your read on the industry today?
Mike Wood:
So, you know, I do have this reputation as being kinda like the Lorax, where I'm like, okay, if we go too far, you know, this is what could happen. I stand on my stump and say, what... But I mean, I'm in the space. I've been in the space for a long time, and my eyes are glazing over at all these different vendors. And yeah, the messaging is almost all the same.
The technology is almost all the same, and it feels like we've flipped from having different vendors specialize in one key thing. Now everybody's trying to do everything. And it's almost like, okay... And so what I plan to write about this week is: who do you buy when all the tech is the same? And that hasn't been the case in a while.
But now, like when the tech's parity, you know, what do you look for? And so I would look at their internal organizations, how they are hiring and firing, where they are getting — if they seem like they're growing too fast, they may be growing too fast. I would look — I mean, make sure the tech works, obviously, but look at how their customer service is and implementation and hidden fees and that type of thing.
'Cause it's just like AI interviews alone. Right. Like, we were at HR Tech last fall, and the entire startup pavilion was almost these AI interviewers. We come here, and it's almost the same thing, but I swear AI interviews are gonna be part of everything in a year. So it's like everybody's scrambling to get that one pickup from one of the big vendors.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Well, and it's just, yeah, I mean, my read is very similar. It's just like, I think that there is a profound lack of differentiation in the space that has, you know — it's, this is not a new development. I think that, you know, there are peaks and valleys of that, but I think that right now we are close to peak non-differentiation in workplace technology.
And I think a lot of that is just driven by the fact that, you know, everyone's leading with AI, but they're not really talking, at the forefront, about what they do, why they're different, and how do you tell them apart. And so I've had several conversations over the past few days with people who are investors, keen observers of this entire space that are looking out at the expo hall, and they're like, "What? How is anybody different? What's going on here?" You know, just like, when some of the people who are watching the space the closest can't tell the players apart without a scorecard, how are buyers supposed to figure that out?
Mike Wood:
And it is so fast, too. So like I got my start in employee recognition, and I worked at a company called Global Force, which became Workhuman. And it's like, okay, employee recognition, Workhuman/Global Force — they did the social recognition wall and that type of thing. Achievers did something similar, but they had more gift cards. O.C. Tanner did more merchandise. That ended up collapsing on itself, and now they all do the same thing.
And I'm seeing it now in TA. And what's also looming over this is that, you know, hiring has been down. And so I've seen the messaging change from last year to like frontline workforce. Everybody wants to be frontline workforce 'cause that's who's getting hired — the nurses of the world. And it's just really weird. I feel like everybody's scrambling not to run out of funds.
Steve Smith:
Well, yeah. I want to get to that in a second, 'cause that's another thing that's kind of come up. I think, you know, you brought up an interesting point around kind of the employee recognition space where, maybe if you look in the pre-2010 era, there was maybe more differentiation around the tech stack. By the time you got past 2015, the tech stacks were all pretty similar, but there was a lot of differentiation around brand.
You know, if you look at Workhuman versus Achievers versus O.C. Tanner, I think that they were all carving out very distinct positions as it related to brand and thought leadership that made it easier for buyers in that space to understand what the differences were.
And you know, another interesting thing, kind of going back to a point that you made not that long ago, is just sort of the equity runway environment. Like, I was talking to an executive in the space as I was coming in the door the other day, and I was like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "Well, I'm looking to make some acquisitions, and everybody's for sale." And then we kinda laughed about it. I was like, "They're for sale at prices and multiples you don't wanna pay."
Mike Wood:
Yeah, I'm also for sale. Everybody's got a price.
Steve Smith:
Well, and it's funny 'cause I was then talking to an investor this morning about it, and he's like, "Yeah, everybody's for sale." But people that were asking for absurd multiples not even that long ago are now getting — well, either your read is hungrier or more desperate.
And so I think that, you know, we're definitely in an environment where there are more companies that either want or need to get acquired than can get acquired. And at a certain point the music's gonna stop. They're gonna be out of runway, and we're gonna see a lot more companies just, I think, shutter.
Mike Wood:
And from the marketing standpoint, a lot of these vendors and stuff have cut way back on that. Like, the amount of money they're spending for basic awareness and stuff has gone way down.
And so we're in a position right now where everybody's holding onto their assets and whatnot. Time's ticking. And the other thing I'm looking forward to at HR Tech is, okay, now we have a year of promises that people have made. And who's gonna deliver on those promises? And because things are moving so fast, it's like, when I look at the startups, a lot of them are like, what they created would've been amazing six months ago. And now they're just lost.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Well, and I think that, you know, just the velocity of the market has become a challenge for everyone. You know, I guess someone was saying the other day that it used to be a 24-month release roadmap is now down to a three-month release roadmap, and that puts a lot of pressure on product teams, but it also puts a lot of pressure on sales teams and ultimately buyers.
And I think that, you know, we're coming on the heels of the SaaSpocalypse Now. And I think that one of the interesting things that kind of came out of that is another conversation I was having about how there is still a reckoning to be had.
So you look at the largest strategics — they're all having to rethink their models. And I heard that one big player that shall remain nameless has declared a moratorium on acquisitions for the next three years. We know that's BS at the end of the day. They won't wait three years. But the thing is, you're seeing a freak-out at the top end of the market, and it hasn't worked its way through the entire ecosystem yet. And so I would anticipate we're gonna see some interesting rumblings in the market over April and May.
Mike Wood:
I think we'll see a lot of acquisitions in HR tech in the fall.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Oh yeah. And I think that there's going to be a lot of people realizing that, "Okay, we were interested in an acquisition. Now we have to make an acquisition. We have to exit." So.
Mike Wood:
And well, and so you see, like, I mean, I follow the funding and that type of thing. I take note of it. I don't have a background in, you know, startups and getting the valuation stuff, but you see a lot of these tools that have a flashy booth or whatever that have taken, you know, three rounds of funding and stuff, and that bill's gonna be due at the end when you sell.
And so there are a few companies that have really been kind of quiet in building some of the best tech that's out there. I will give a shout-out to Jovi. I'm very impressed with their team and what they've done. It's funny — they're engineering first, and I know that their technology is probably used by a lot of the other vendors and stuff, but they don't need that marketing and sales engine. They'll let somebody else do it.
Steve Smith:
Yeah, exactly. And so I mean, that's a great model. Great model to have. Yeah. Let someone else handle the sales part of it.
Mike Wood:
And then I did try out some solution last week. It was a startup-type AI interviewer. And whoever was giving me the demo shouldn't have given me the demo, because it was asking me — I was basically gonna be, they were hiring for an auditor at PwC, they asked me what my qualifications are, and I said, "I clean bathrooms at the local high school," and stuff. I'm like, "I'm a janitor," whatever. And it just completely ignored it. And so I'm like, "Okay, that's the number one problem: it can't..." So I'd advise buyers: take the AI interview yourself, try it out. Try these things out, because there are some solutions that are vaporware out there.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Well, and I mean, I think that there's — what I think is interesting right now is, when you're looking at, certainly, it seemed like there was the SaaSpocalypse rumbling, and then it seemed like there was a market sort of right-sizing and awareness that, "Oh, you know what? Enterprise software isn't going to go away because it deals with complexity on the regulatory side and the compliance side that is..." You can't vibe code your way through that.
And so there was, I think, a bit of a sigh of relief. But by the same token, I was talking to somebody who was mentioning a panel they were on with CHROs from big companies. They're like, "Oh yeah, we can develop, you know, with Claude Code or whatever. We can build whatever solution we need." And I was just like —
Mike Wood:
It's close though. So I will tell you, like, there are a couple big technological moments in my life that I will never forget. Like the first time I downloaded music as an MP3 off of Napster — I think I was in high school — and I remember I set it up overnight 'cause I had dial-up. And once I did that, and once that song came into my inbox, I'm like, "This is gonna change everything."
And so there is AI hype and stuff. Like, OpenAI when it first came out, I tried to use it for writing a little bit, but it feels kinda like a parlor trick — it will tell you kinda what you look like, but then it will forget things. It's very forgetful. It's the Eeyore of... But then I got into Claude this weekend because I've been reading a lot about Claude, and I'm amazed with what it can do.
Steve Smith:
Oh yeah. It really is pretty phenomenal. And especially if you're using the Enterprise Team edition, and you're really able to calibrate it to whatever the task is. If you have the amount of training data that allows it to really dial in, especially around writing, yeah, you can do some amazing things. That said, it still misses things that it shouldn't miss.
Mike Wood:
You still need to get in there. Yeah. And like it can do a good draft and a good starting point, but if you really wanna write in your voice, you have to go over it and can't just set it and forget it.
And it's funny, like I used to — I mean, probably like a lot of people in the past couple of years with what's going on in the US — I doom scroll a lot before I go to bed or whatever. I'm like looking at Reddit, I'm looking at all these things. Well, last night I'm like, "Maybe I'll try to vibe code something."
And so I had this idea where I would — I'm a huge history nerd, and I love like going to new places and pulling up the Wikipedia app and looking at the location, and it will tell me different articles around me. So I'm like, "What if I created a walking buddy that did that?" So I vibe coded it like in an hour or something last night. You know, like, it probably doesn't work. But like, if you are a small business owner or something like that, I would — and I sent a note to all my friends, I said, "You gotta learn Claude." Like, you gotta learn how to talk to systems like this, 'cause this is gonna be like learning how to use Google.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Well, and there's been just — I mean, the degree of my take going from like Enterprise OpenAI to Enterprise Claude, the difference was not insubstantial. It was a significant improvement in just quality, speed, capability, everything. I mean, to a shocking degree. And then when you kind of bring in the Claude Code element and some of the other things, it's so easy to basically spin up skills or artifacts to do any number of things.
And then all of a sudden it becomes, "Okay, I just need to spend some time thinking about what it is I need to do," and then just start kind of stitching all these things together. So it's exciting and frightening at the same time.
Mike Wood:
It's smart on Anthropic too, because now I don't ever wanna get rid of this tool now that I've used it. It is so great at — like, I had it read every old version of the stuff that I write and like, "Tell me what my voice is, tell me how to differentiate." And it was spot on. Whereas OpenAI would've been almost there.
But what I wanna ask you is, you know, as you're working with clients and stuff — so my wife works for a large hospital system. She could get a voice screening agent that would save her so much time, but she can't get — like, the buying cycles and, you know, for some of this old technology — I don't know whether you partner with someone like Workday to try and get in there, or it's just tough to get people to change.
Steve Smith:
Well, and when you get into the regulatory environment, if you're in a highly regulated industry like healthcare, it's just like then there's a whole other level of risk that — you know, if you're an end user, it's super annoying. But when you look at the level of cyber threats that are coming at healthcare organizations, yeah, you have to be that paranoid.
And I think that one of the significant risks in vibe coding anything is that they are just fraught with holes and vulnerabilities.
Mike Wood:
Oh, you can just vibe code your way into that. You can vibe code a hack.
Steve Smith:
Oh yeah. And so a lot of the people who are much smarter than me who talk about how they're using vibe coding say it's a great way to get to a prototype that used to maybe would've taken you months previously. You can get there in a day or two, or sometimes even hours. And when you think about, for a $50,000 investment, you can get what would've been two or $3 million required minimum to get to the same level of product — I mean, that's a huge advantage if you're a startup. But do you get to a point where it's just like, "Okay, I got my rough draft. I have my MVP." But to have this ready to go public, you've gotta spend some serious time with it.
Mike Wood:
No, you can't trust it completely. And so a lot of HR tech is like a window into society, and to me, it's almost like the self-driving cars. Maybe I first started seeing them in like 2018 or something like that, but I still have not gotten into one of these self-driving cars, partially because I'm not a hundred percent sure it's gonna drop me off in one piece and alive.
But now we're at the point where you have like the driverless ones that are all over the place. So technology's moving fast. And it's tough because the technology is moving faster than people wanna hire.
Steve Smith:
Well, and the technology is just moving faster than the people are comfortable with adoption as well, you know. And I think that's one of the big tensions. I mean, I think it was present this week at the conference — here are vendors talking about agentic AI and how AI is gonna transform everything. And I think that at the buyer level and at the end user level, there's a lot of skepticism and fear, and their ability or willingness to adopt these solutions is not moving as fast as I think the market either wants or needs.
And so you kind of wonder at what point does that start to catch up with the market?
Mike Wood:
I wanted to pick your brain about pricing.
Steve Smith:
Okay.
Mike Wood:
Because there are a lot of the legacy vendors that have the enterprise level. And I feel like the tech is so good now that you might be able to save a fortune by going to a smaller vendor.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I think that we're gonna start to see a lot of cost compression really kind of come to bear. It's just like if you are — I don't know, if you are General Motors, you know, maybe you're not going to move as fast. But if you're a smaller organization and have the ability — I mean, just thinking about the cost savings on some of these things. The technical debt in legacy players is enormous, and it's not an easy solve.
And it's just like, if you can find the right innovative player, I think that there's the ability for forward-thinking organizations to really save tremendously on cost. But I also think that the biggest brands of 2030 maybe aren't even launched yet.
Mike Wood:
No. Yeah. I think the people who've gone AI native first are ahead — they've jumped the gun in terms of what's going on there. But the other thing I would look at is customer service. You know, if you go with one of these big vendors, you're a number. So if you can have someone that you can actually talk to on the phone to solve a problem — and maybe that becomes, maybe the bigger vendors do that with like a premium tier pricing for customer service, which is just insane.
But if you think about it — I mean, I remember when the touch-tone customer service options came out, they're like, "Oh yeah, this is gonna be great." But now everybody just, you know, rage hits zero to get to talk to a real person.
Steve Smith:
Well, and I think one of the things that's interesting that I'm picking up on is that, for the longest time in SaaS growth models, you didn't want to have any service revenue in there because it basically screwed up all your tables. And so there was this relentless tech purity that you wanted to have, and I think that you're starting to see that change.
You're starting to see some of these players that have some size and scale starting to spin up services support orgs because they realize that — guess what? — buyers actually want that, and they need that. And I think that especially as the buying environment changes and the market is changing rapidly, customers need more support. They need more hand-holding. And I think that if you're talking about differentiators, you're gonna be able to differentiate on your quality of service, whether it is excellent or poor.
It's a crazy time we live in.
Mike Wood:
It is a very crazy time. Well, I know — it's fun though. It's very interesting. I do think that, you know, everybody — like, as hiring has gone down, which it has, I think that it's almost like they're ripping things down to the studs, and then they'll build back up from that. I think hiring will come back, but it is a complete transition period over the past two years maybe.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Well, I mean, there are just so many contradictory signals in the market. I think that the fact that unemployment has stayed pretty flat in the US has left a lot of people scratching their heads.
And when you see the level of workforce reductions that are going on just in the tech industry —
Mike Wood:
Yeah. Meta today got rid of a couple hundred people.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. So it's just like, when you see that kind of thing going on, you're like, "Okay," and the needle's not moving up on unemployment — what's going on? Are we just... And you know, healthcare has obviously offset some of that. But then what is also interesting is, what is the impact of the immigration strategy on the workforce? Have we been deporting workers and basically keeping unemployment low? Because RIFs with deportations keep, keep everything... And I know that that is really ugly, cynical math, but —
Mike Wood:
But it's true. I mean, you can't build up an entire industry over the past 30 years — like our country has run on that immigrant labor force that's on the bottom, that's working on the farms, that's doing service jobs — and you can't just rip that out.
And it's funny, like, look at California for example. They have the highest minimum wage or something like that. Look at what's happening to all the prices over there. And so it's like, they're like, "Oh, we gotta pay these people this much? Okay, we'll pass that on to the consumer." Like I'm a dad, I got two kids. I obviously go to McDonald's a lot 'cause one of my kids — it's one of the five things that she eats — is nuggets. And the price of everything has just gone through the roof. And now McDonald's is like, "We got this Arch Deluxe," and it's like $11 still. And I'm like, "I don't wanna pay $11 for McDonald's." I thought I've made right choices in my life to not pay $11 for McDonald's.
Steve Smith:
Well, and it's just like everything is more expensive. But from the labor market standpoint, I think the thing that has me scratching my head is, okay, so between tariffs and immigration and everything else going on, and now we've got war — at what point is this tsunami of factors that is potentially gonna drive up costs finally gonna hit the economy?
Mike Wood:
I think we're gonna hit a wall somewhere. I hope we don't, but I feel like we're gonna hit a wall because things have been — everything's been going up infrastructure-wise. Like my electric bill is insane. And I'm in the northeast, so I used to have some electric coming down from Canada, but not anymore. Thanks Donald for that. Yeah, let's piss off the nicest people in the world.
Steve Smith:
That's really some doing there, you know.
Mike Wood:
Exactly. And it's just, you know, there's the — and I feel like the US needs to adapt some sort of safety net, some Social Security safety net, whether that's universal basic income, which I don't necessarily believe will solve things, because we've seen — like I got checks from the government for having kids during COVID, and guess what? I got taxed up the wazoo. What those checks were was basically a loan on my tax return. And so it's not real money. And plus everybody sees, "Okay, if everybody's getting money, let's just raise the prices."
Steve Smith:
Right. And so I mean, I understand the argument behind UBI. I still don't understand, number one, how you would operationalize and stand it up, and two, how it would not just drive up inflation and make everything else more expensive. So I'm still skeptical there.
Another thing I'm skeptical about — one of the interesting things about AI that I don't think we talk about enough is, you know, we're talking about kinda the front end and how it's being used in the workplace, but then there is the data center and energy thing. And so one of the most interesting things I think going on in the country right now is somehow AI has managed to bring red and blue, left and right, together.
Mike Wood:
Nobody wants the data center.
Steve Smith:
Nobody wants a data center.
Mike Wood:
Yeah. It's like having a paper plant. So, like, my community at home, Westminster — we used to be a paper town and stuff, and I think Robert Kraft from the Patriots wants to put a plant there. Nobody wants a paper plant there. But a paper plant has to go somewhere to make paper. So yeah, nobody wants these data centers because they're just gonna leech off of whatever the local community is.
Steve Smith:
Well, yeah. And it's just like, I think everyone's kind of wised up to the fact that yeah, this is actually having an impact on your utility bills and your electric prices, and at a certain point it's gonna impact water usage and lots of other things.
And so I think people — I mean, it's taking NIMBY to a whole new level. Nobody wants that in their backyard. But it has to go somewhere, and there's all of this money — more money than I think we've ever seen invested in anything in the history of American capitalism — going into building data centers. At what point does that basically cap out? Like, "Oh, you know what? We've over-invested and over-built in data centers." 'Cause it happens anytime there's an infrastructure investment. It happened with railroads, it happened with telecom. It's inevitable that it happens. And so what happens when that happens?
Mike Wood:
Well, and can't they make them solar powered? Like, I know that the government kind of turned its back on renewable stuff, but if I had to have one in my neighborhood or whatever, make it solar powered. Make it self-sustainable.
Steve Smith:
Well, yeah. And if you were in a European country, that's absolutely how they would handle it — that, or wind. And here I think they're all gonna be running off coal pretty soon.
Mike Wood:
That's smart.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Good, good, good clean American coal.
Mike Wood:
Good black lung coal. Exactly. Wait, didn't Trump say like, "Good clean American coal" a bunch of times?
Steve Smith:
Yeah.
Mike Wood:
It's just an interesting time to be alive. Like, when I was growing up in the nineties, I always kinda — like, I would learn about the sixties and be like, "I wonder what I would've done in the sixties. Would I have protested or whatever?" Like, this is the sixties now for this generation, this decade. And there's so much going on.
I mean, I'm gonna go to the airport later, and ICE is gonna be there. Hopefully I get to heckle them a little bit, because it's just, you know, the direction that we're going — pissing off the rest of the world in a global workplace is not good. And plus, like, my healthcare is tied to my work. And so when you are — now we essentially work in the global economy. There are these EOR companies that are springing up all over the place, whereas someone with my skills and whatever over in the Philippines or whatever — you don't have to pay them benefits, and you don't have to pay them the cost of living that living in Massachusetts is. And so now I'm at a disadvantage.
And so that's what I worry about for my kids in the future: are American jobs almost gonna be all service-oriented, or like where you need to be on the front lines?
Steve Smith:
Right. Well, and it's just, this is sort of like the last vestige of offshoring. It's just like, you know, great — we're not gonna hand out H-1B visas the way we used to. Well, you know what? If you've got an internet connection, you don't need to. You can work from anywhere in the world. The only restriction —
Mike Wood:
Right now is time zone. So it's like — like half my team is out in Southeast Asia and they're fantastic. And the only problem is that they're 12 hours ahead or whatever. And you can get used to that. But it's just like, I worry that, you know, salaries and everything are coming down. What's gonna happen?
And I think one of the reasons why we're not seeing a lot of spending in this space is you can't plan anymore. Like, do you remember how often we were talking about the future of work?
Steve Smith:
Yes.
Mike Wood:
Ever since I started in this industry in 2013, we were like, "Well, are you ready for the 2020 workplace? Steve, are you ready?" Turns out no one was ready for the 2020 workplace 'cause it was COVID. And so what I find that's really tough as a buyer right now is trying to make the decision to pull the trigger on one particular solution when you know six months down the line something better could be coming.
Steve Smith:
Right. Well, and I think that they're not, by and large, you know. I think that you're seeing a lot of paralysis. And buying cycles pretty much across the board are extending. You have more people on the buying committee, and I think it's just like everyone is trying to mitigate their risk.
And at a certain point you can't. You have to just — if you get to a point where you can't put off a decision any longer, you have to take a leap. But taking that leap — whether it's a software purchase or which AI model you're gonna go with — I mean, it's —
Mike Wood:
Yeah, 'cause if you get it wrong, that's your job.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Well, and I think — I think that's the other thing, like especially — I don't wanna... Yeah, actually I do. I wanna blame private equity for this. It's just like, you know, you've got basically all this PE money that is going into companies, and everybody is walking around worried: "I am one fuck-up away from losing my job." And it's just like, that's no way to run a company with that level of fear, you know?
Mike Wood:
No, and you're gonna see — so what I think is gonna happen, and it's already happened to people like you and me, is that you end up becoming your own entrepreneur type, working solo with a bunch of different — I think there's gonna be more of these fractional people that are out there, because nobody wants to invest in benefits and whatnot. So we're all gonna be in this fractional economy where I have like five different jobs.
Steve Smith:
Yeah, yeah. The gig economy's come to the white collar workforce. And yeah, I think that that's very much gonna be the case. And I mean, I think that, you know, where this kind of ties back to is just like — and this hasn't been resolved, and it's not gonna resolve quickly — is what is the social contract? You know, what are the presumptions that we are bringing into, "If I do this, then I will have a relative amount of stability or security."
And so I think that, you know, you look at the entire post-World War II era — that was one particular social contract, and that has pretty much come to an end at this point. You know, it used to be: great, if I am middle class and I go to college, I know that I can get employment and do well, and my kids will be okay, and they can go to good schools, and I can retire, and I can buy a home and all that. And it's just like, not anymore. All that's frayed.
Mike Wood:
So my dad worked at the same company for 50 years. I can't talk to him about this stuff 'cause he just doesn't get it. But he's got a pension, and he knew that if he worked hard, they would develop him. Companies now, I'm not sure if they wanna develop people anymore. They just get rid of them and bring someone else in.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I think there was a Wall Street Journal article the other day about companies that are doing it right from a hiring and training and career development standpoint. And most companies aren't doing anything at all. A lot of companies do one or two or three things well. But by and large, the companies that are hitting on all cylinders are all legacy, huge companies — they're Boeing, they are Hewlett-Packard. They are not small companies, and that's just not the reality for most people. Having that level of support and development just doesn't exist.
Mike Wood:
So I graduated college in 2005, and I was told, "If you get a computer science degree" — that was the number one degree, followed by like accountants and, you know, those people were safe, and that was the way to go.
But now — and you always wanted to work for the Googles, the Metas of the world. I wonder if there's gonna be a backlash where you don't wanna work for that giant, faceless corporation that's just gonna cut your job and your life when Mark Zuckerberg wants another doomsday bunker.
Steve Smith:
Well, I think we're already there. Yeah. I think that, you know — look, no one is going to cry for the tech industry, and nor should they. When you think about how, in a zero interest rate environment, tech jobs were plentiful and cushy, and there were ping pong tables and the kombucha bars and all that stuff. And it's just like you could change jobs every 18 months and see a 25, 35% bump in pay and a better title, and you felt like you were kinda working your way up the ladder. And then all of that has completely changed.
And I think it's a hard individual reckoning both for the industry and for the people we know in this industry. But, you know, no one's gonna cry for the tech industry.
Mike Wood:
No. And it's also like, we've hollowed out the middle class. I was probably mostly middle class if I didn't live in Massachusetts. But it's like everything is paycheck to paycheck.
You used to be able to, like, "Okay, if I have a job, I can have a house, two kids, decent car, and be able to go on vacation once a year." Now you're watching your groceries, you're watching everything, and you're trying to get creative with vacation trips. Like, I took my kids instead of Disney World — 'cause Disney World is like $7,000 — I took them to this knockoff type of place up in New Hampshire called Storyland, which if you're from New England, it's the exact same that it always has been. When I walked in there, it was the exact same thing.
And yeah, my poor kids had to meet a Cinderella, and they found out — I think it was maybe like a week later — they saw a picture of the real Cinderella Castle, and she's like, "But I had tea with Cinderella." I'm like, "I'm sorry. That was someone playing the role of Cinderella." And she's like, "You lied to me."
Steve Smith:
Yeah, you're gonna have to pay for that therapy eventually.
Mike Wood:
But even if you look at Vegas, like the stuff on the Strip is all marketed towards the highest of the high now. And whereas I'm staying at the South Point Hotel, which is great for the average guy — it's a lot more of that old fun vibe. Like, I'm not having fun when I'm spending $25 at a table game or something. Or I'm paying $8 for a Gatorade. That's not fun.
So it's — I think the whole society's going through a big change right now. I hope we find our footing. I hope we stop pissing off the rest of the world. I always hate having to apologize for the US when I go to other countries.
Steve Smith:
Well, we're kind of ending on a down note here, man. Doom and gloom. I thought we were supposed to strike an optimistic tone.
Mike Wood:
Well, I think we'll find our footing. And I don't think — I think society and everything, like, they have to get down to the bad to see what good to change. You have to like — so I think, you know, things hopefully can't get worse.
And I mean, honestly, using some of these AI tools — use them personally. I used Gemini to — I was walking by some booth and I was like, "Who do I know from this booth?" 'Cause there are so many vendors and stuff. So I asked Gemini, it goes into all my files and everything 'cause we're a Google shop. And it's like, "You know this person. By the way, your coworker talked to them about this and this." And I'm like, just basic organization was like just great.
Steve Smith:
Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, to try to stick the landing on an optimistic note — I think that one of the things that encourages me is that I've always been bullish on the HR tech, work tech industry, because I know that there are a lot of founders who come in here that want to build a better mousetrap regardless of category, because they want to make work better for people.
And I had enough conversations with startup founders, AI founders, that feel that same sense of mission and aspiration. And so I think that I'm optimistic because I think that the DNA of what really makes this entire industry great hasn't changed, and if anything is maybe amplified by the opportunity for one individual now to have more velocity and computing power and capability than ever before in the history of technology.
And so I'm encouraged. There's enough good that I saw this week that I can stand in my three-hour security line at the airport and be encouraged.
Mike Wood:
Well, and there are enough logical decisions too. Like, 10 years ago maybe it was all like, "We have to get mobile optimized." It's like, of course you do, 'cause that's where your workforce is. Nobody has the money for a personal computer. And now it's, yes, AI interviews are here, and they are gonna be for the better.
Because everyone will get a chance to interview. Right. Like, you won't be waiting to get that call, and then you won't be fooled into thinking that first call is an actual interview when it's just a screening thing. And I know from recruiters that I've talked to, nobody wants to do the screening. Just get it done. So like, nobody wants to schedule that hiring manager interview either, and there's all that scheduling tech. There are still good solutions out there for huge pain-in-the-butt things.
Steve Smith:
And I think that, especially on the hiring side, it comes down to good communication. I think that in some ways having these steps automated is desirable on the candidate side if there's good communication and people know where they are in the process. And they trust it.
Mike Wood:
And they trust it. Because if you're pulling up my credit scores and all this other proprietary information, I have to know about it. Like I can't have this scarlet letter on me. You know, it's the same thing with age discrimination and stuff. You don't want to set a certain class lower than everybody else. And so the promise with AI interviews is everybody starts at the same level. So I mean, that at least is good.
Steve Smith:
Well, let's stop there, because I think that was probably as much optimism as we can muster.
Mike Wood:
I worry. I just worry 'cause I read too much. I really need to just put my head in the sand and go off into the mountains in Vermont and just hang out.
Steve Smith:
Well, you know, to quote Journey, "Don't stop believing." All right. Well, Mike, thanks for joining me. It's good getting to talk to you and break this down. I hope you had a good show, and I hope you have safe travels home.
Mike Wood:
Yes, me too. I love the folks at Rep Cap. Thanks.
Steve Smith:
Somewhere out there right now, a work tech startup is running out of runway. The booth looked great. The demo was polished. The deck told a good story. But the clock is ticking. And when the music stops, a lot of companies are going to find out that they never really answered the most basic question of all: why you?
And that's what Mike and I kept circling back to. When the technology reaches parity — and in a lot of categories, it already has — the differentiator isn't the product anymore. It's thought leadership. It's customer service. It's whether you built a real point of view or just a rebrand. Those things are harder to build than any feature. They take longer. They don't show up on a pitch deck. But they're what buyers remember. And right now, in a market where everyone is short of time and patience and budget, that might be the only thing that actually moves the needle.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to Work Tech Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and I'll see you next time.
