Rigged Robotaxi?, EV Buses Charging The Grid, “Open To Work” Insights

Paul J Daly: 0:01

That's it. If you weren't sure, you're sure now, Labor Day is gone. The summer's officially over. It's September 3. Kyle is back in the studio. I'm so happy to see you. I love the guest host, but no one doesn't like we do it.Kyle Mountsier: 0:14

Yeah, the people really want to know summer is over, like that.

Paul J Daly: 0:19

It's over, bro,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:21

it's not over

Paul J Daly: 0:23

50 in Syracuse, it was like 50 degrees this morning, was it? And it's and it's summer's over, man,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:31

summer's over. It's over. We still get, like we had, like 85 degrees in sunny, have nice weather,

Paul J Daly: 0:37

but the summer's over, right? Like, I

Kyle Mountsier: 0:40

guess you know around well, around here, kids, nobody that doesn't go back to school by today. That's why it feels like that. For the drop dead, for it. Kids are going back. It's the thing. It's over. Hey, how

Paul J Daly: 0:51

was your vacation? Oh, you look tan. I was like, Man, I look extra pale today. I

Kyle Mountsier: 0:56

didn't change the lights. I promise. This is real tan. No, it was, it was amazing, you know, I like, as as a startup founder, you know, over the last three years, it has been totally different, like my approach toward vacation, and it's, it's honestly tougher, right? Because you got a smaller team. And, you know, there's always, it seems like there's just always something on semi burning fire, right? And it's always smoldering. It's always smoldering, yeah? So, you know, but getting away was super nice. We had a great week at the beach. Weather was perfection. Yeah, the kids had a great time. So we are, we're doing good. And honestly, we came back on Saturday, and when I planned the vacation, like, in my brain, I didn't, I didn't, like, reconcile the fact that it was Labor Day weekend, the weekend that we were coming. Oh,

Unknown: 1:51

so you had that, like, day was nuts.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:55

Blew my mind. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 1:56

I mean, there's something about labor day if you know, like, a lot of dealerships are open, so a lot of people are working, but most of the world, and most of the tech world and industry partner world, just like closures if you're not in retail, well, auto dealers are retail, right? If you're ever unsure whether or not you're in retail, ask yourself what you're doing on Labor Day. Check your holidays exactly, and yeah, there's so there's something special, like when, like, the inbound is not happening. Yes, because that's the thing when you're away. And you know, even if you're on vacation, you know that inbound is stacking up.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:28

That's right. On Labor Day, it's not but hey, I'm glad to be back, like you said at the beginning, like there's something about the regular rhythm of waking up, doing this pod, knowing that there's listeners and Watchers on the other side. Grateful for everybody that checks in every single day. Grateful for the guest hosts that come and support us while we do take vacation, but had some fun. Special about doing this every single day. Yeah, that's

Paul J Daly: 2:53

that's for sure. We do a lot of stuff every day. One of those things is make a lot of content. We have several podcasts. One of those is called in the dirt. We just have a new episode released with Janelle Ross, Bob Ross Auto Group. What a kind and wise woman. I think that's what I think of when I think of she is just so gracious with her experience, and it shows in the organization she's built. So we had a conversation right outside the wom breakfast, and we released that we have a lot of great content that came out of that event. So if you need something, listen to while you're running, while you're walking the dog, while you're upset, whatever, just go search asotu, as OTU on your favorite podcast platform, and you'll probably see a couple podcasts that exist that you didn't know existed. So check them out. Put them in the playlist. Listen along. We also have a webinar coming up on the 12th next week. What's holding your title department back? Beth Carroll and Erica Calderon. Let me just say these two are going to be amazing on this webinar. And talking about title like this could be one of the biggest annoyances to a customer. If the title work is wrong,

Kyle Mountsier: 3:59

it's really wild. It's like not a sexy topic, it's not digital retailing, it's not CDP or anything like that, but it is one of the highest like reasons for either great or poor net promoter score. So that's right, gotta pay attention. That's right. That's right. All right. Let's

Paul J Daly: 4:16

get into some news. Got some fun stuff? Tesla is set to unveil it's highly anticipated RoboTaxi at the iconic 110 acre Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California on October 10, little over a month from now. They've been talking about it forever. This event is a significant shift in Tesla's focus to autonomy and artificial intelligence. They basically going to demonstrate this purpose built RoboTaxi. It's made only for this highlighting a move away, or maybe a step aside from all of their traditional EV sales, it's going to be part of their proprietary ride hailing app, like an Uber competitor, Waymo competitor. We'll see it was initially planned for August 8, but we know we punted on that to go to October. So we'll see there is a Tesla hacker. He goes by the name green. He basically, when they do a software release, he gets into it, and he kind of looks for stuff that indicates other things. He basically revealed that Tesla is gathering a large amount of specific data around the Warner Brothers studio, raising concerns that the demonstration might be a little more staged than operating honestly. Speculation. You know, they might also just be preparing for a geo fenced RoboTaxi operation, kind of like Waymo saying, like, this is the area in which it operates, and so could go either way, but we'll see. It seems like we're going to see this thing on October 10.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:35

First of all, look, when you come out with the thing like Robo taxi, right? And it is fully like the way that Tesla's gonna do it. You're doing something like Steve Jobs did in 2004 with the iPhone, when my man literally had four iPhones under the desk to demonstrate three different capabilities. It's

Paul J Daly: 5:55

like, and let's, let's pivot over here to this capability. And the AB switcher. Guys like switch to HDMI two.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:01

That's it. That's exactly what was happening that entire time. So, you know, I think that this is really cool. I'm excited to watch it. I'm I'm sure it'll be something that we'll be covering as we go. You know, whether or not it actually happens on October 10, we keep pushing this thing back. It seems like they always get pushed back. But if you've locked down, you know the Warner Brothers lot, that's probably a little bit more difficult.

Paul J Daly: 6:24

Why not? Let's go speaking of going and back to school and post Labor Day. The story's got on the field. Whoa, the Oakland, California Unified School District has made history by developed deploying the nation's first fully electric school bus fleet equipped with vehicle to grid bi directional charging technology. So these things are batteries as well. 74 busses are going to bring return 2.1 gigawatt hours of energy to the grid annually via an AI managed virtual power plant. What could possibly go wrong? The initiative is expected to eliminate 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gasses, addressing decades of toxic diesel emissions, also say it's going to improve student health. All that idle time while students are hanging around, talking to their friends, sucking in all the fumes, student transportation is the largest mass transit system in the US that makes 27 million students a day are moved around by that. Here's a quote from Dr Kyle Johnson Trammell, superintendent of the district. She says, quote, this is a landmark achievement, especially in Oakland, where families are disproportionately impacted by exposure to air pollution and high rates of asthma. Story,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:35

you know, it is a nice story, I think I you know, obviously, like, if you were like in Topeka, Kansas, I would have been like, I would have thrown my chair back, been blown away. Makes total sense as coming from Oakland again, we've gone back to this idea that commercial electrification as the priority is definitely the way to go, right. There's, there's a great use case, the charging network, the ability to, kind of like the bi directional thing. And then you know, when you look at student transportation, be the largest mass, mass transit system in the US, right? That is a massive impact. And when it's all diesel full, when it's a ton of idle time, right? These, these busses get to the school half an hour, 45 minutes prior to pick up, even in the afternoon, and they're just idling there, right? It feels

Paul J Daly: 8:22

like this. Feels like the school district now I'm thinking of it as the most, as the highest volume. This is like the perfect use case for this, and no matter where you live, because, like, even if you have 200 mile range on these things, like, they're not driving 200 miles a day. I don't even care where you live. A school bus is not driving 200 miles, not a chance. And the fact that you can take advantage of all of that stored energy, right? And these are public but, or these are, you know, publicly owned busses that can be deployed here and there. Like, I love this one. I love one. I think this is probably one of the best use cases I've seen a long time for, uh, a fully electrifying a fleet. So, yep, we'll see. Okay, speaking of yes or open to work, we're both. I'm curious, from what your opinion is on this, I

Kyle Mountsier: 9:07

have All right, so here you go, if you, if you haven't noticed, job seekers are now facing a tough choice with LinkedIn open to work banner. It was launched in 2020 but the banner is coming under some criticism. What it does is it aims to increase visibility to specifically recruiters. But the debate is that it could signal weakness or desperation from job seekers, where, instead of like pursuing your your waiting on recruiters to come to you. Here's the real data, though, despite the mixed feelings, LinkedIn data shows the banner increases recruiter engagement nearly threefold, meaning you're getting the three recruiters as opposed to one if you simply got the banner out there. Aki Ito, chief correspondent of business, insider shared. But when the stakes are as high as your career, the potential upsides are worth whatever embarrassment it might cause.

Paul J Daly: 9:59

So I. Yeah, I get, I get the both sides of this thought, right? Because you are putting yourself in sometimes, you know, they were saying, like, even seeing that green open, the workflow could trigger a little bit of trauma in some people, right? Obviously, that comes from somewhat of a life change, changing jobs one of the most stressful things that humans can do. They say having a child, changing jobs or moving are the top three stress inducing things. So, you know, things happen, employment changes. I personally, when I see that and I'm hiring, I like it because that that means, you know, and everybody's got a story, right? There's a reason that the job has changed. A lot of times it's just completely out of the person's hands, like a big company downsize, or whatever I like it, because it means that person's on the hunt and that they're going to be very attentive and responsive. If you have the open, the work thing on your profile, by the way, and you're not responsive, it's game over for me.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:51

That's the problem, right? Like, if you've just gone in there and checked the box and you're not actively messaging, actively responding, that's that's when you come up against it. The weird thing for me is, like, the only hesitation that I get is open to work, signals that you are not currently employed, right, which kind of have to do the inspection of like, were you released and let go little more scrutiny? Or were you, you know, under like, a large layoff or something like that, or did you move?

Paul J Daly: 11:22

There's a story, right? Maybe, maybe you had a baby. You're coming back into the workforce. Maybe, you know, you're trying something new. It definitely merits, like, a little bit more investigation. But again, like I said, if someone's like that, and the stories add up, and they're great, and they're responsive, I'm super excited. Why? Because it's like, When can you start? And it's like, How about tomorrow, right? And you know, when you're hiring like, everybody needs that person, which

Kyle Mountsier: 11:45

is, you just always need the person. You always want to hire ahead, but you always need the person yesterday.

Paul J Daly: 11:49

And you know, we, we've always done this no matter, you know, whether it's this company or the other ones. Like, look, if you're hiring somebody and they say, Hey, I need this amount of time to treat my last employer. Well, yep, like, as much as you want that person right now, it's like, that's a great indicator of how you're going to be treated one day. Because, let's face it, the reality of somebody being at your company for their entire career is, like, pretty close to zero,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:13

pretty close to 00. It's

Paul J Daly: 12:15

Kyle's Good to have you back. It's good to have everybody else back. It's Tuesday, not Monday. So you have four days left in this week to make a difference. Go do it. Love some people sell some cars and listen to some podcasts. You.

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