What The Funk?

0:01 What's up, Funkers? We're back on what the funk podcast late April recording with two of my dogs. Ooh, Nate dog. We got Nate, or listed all the stat out of Austin, Texas right now. And Mr.

0:18 David Clanche, who's building a little bit of a following with his own sort of mini podcast stuff out of the Seattle area right now This is going to be a good one. We got a couple of dudes who have

0:30 spent a lot of time in the recruiting space primarily outside of oil and gas, but more recently as partners of mine within oil and gas, we're going to talk about recruiting all sorts of things in

0:42 terms of building up companies, hiring the differences between SaaS, oil and gas tech, working in the oil and gas industry versus being in other industries. But before we get into that, I always

0:49 want to get into the.

0:58 And the people and who we actually are dealing with and talking to. So Nate Dogg, checking in from Austin, Texas, why don't you tell us who is Nate Olastad?

1:08 What's a funk?

1:11 So that's a, I mean, I guess that's a good question to ask, right? Oh, first and foremost, I'm a dad of four little Rugrats, but you know, I've been in

1:23 the recruiting space for many, many years, kind of started doing my thing straight out of college and fell into it like most recruiters do, since there's no degree for recruiting.

1:40 It's one of those. I'm a marketing major and I know that I don't want to just make money. So I figured I'll get into sales with some sort and ended up in recruiting So I've been doing it for long,

1:52 did the corporate thing for many, many years, worked at Google.

1:58 worked at Rackspace, went to a small cybersecurity startup and helped them scale and exit, then worked for a couple of other smaller companies in the Austin area and before started my own gig a

2:11 couple years ago. So that's a little bit of background on me. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, and we'll jump into even more. I'm curious about, I know you started at Robert Half, right? I think you went to

2:25 Clemson, you played soccer, but you're from Seattle, which is where David Clanche is checking in today.

2:33 Tell us a little bit about yourself, Mr. Clanche.

2:37 Yeah, so originally born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina.

2:44 You know, grew up with two older brothers, played soccer my whole life, sort of like Nate. So we connected on that for sure. But went to college a couple hours down the road to Chapel Hill.

2:59 And yeah, it didn't know what I wanted to do career-wise at all. No idea. I had an economics degree and a philosophy degree. And I was like, what do I do with that? But Oracle had a career day

3:12 on campus. And I went to talk with them. And they taught me a little bit about sales and overcame some of the objections I had. And so that's where I got my start. So I did the BDR program at

3:25 Oracle And it was great for a year and some change. I got a little bit

3:32 tired of the big company feel. I wanted to get more involved. So

3:39 recruiting agency called me

3:42 and taught me a little bit about recruiting. And it seemed like it had all the good things about sales that I liked. But it was a more interesting conversation. People's careers, people's lives

3:53 and the impact

3:55 rather than ones and zeros in technology. So immediately fell in love with it, was there for a couple of years,

4:02 left after a couple of years to start my own thing. Did that for four and a half years. And then recently at the beginning of 2023, joined up with an eight-dollar here. And yeah, we're rockin'

4:15 and rollin'. Love it. So I didn't know that you went to

4:21 UNC. My wife went to Duke I'm not sure if I told you that. Oh, well, hey, there's some respect there.

4:30 That area is all right. Oh, yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah. Do you even tell me your

4:40 wife was a dookie? Yeah, yeah, she was a dookie. She was there when, let's see, it was like, Mike Dunleavy and Elton Brand. Shane Batty A. Yeah. Who's your daddy, Batty A, right? Her

4:52 period of time so I think a little bit before clonch you were you were probably at UNC, but Yeah, that area is beautiful man. My little sister actually lives in Durham right now, and I don't get

5:03 back there enough But it's uh, it's an awesome awesome area So I didn't realize that so you guys were big company guys to start your career So Nate you you with Google clonch you at Oracle talk to me

5:16 about that a little bit So I don't know if you guys are aware of this I've never worked at a company that has more than a hundred and thirty people So I'm very comfortable really startups. Yeah,

5:25 both startups as well as small companies Which is kind of why I carved out funk futures to work with emerging and smaller oil and gas tech companies But I'm curious like what was that like you come

5:38 out? You're you're at a college and then you work for a Google or you work for an Oracle like what is that like you just? Do you get lost in the shuffle? Do you feel like the pace is slow? Is it

5:50 fast? 'Cause now you guys, obviously, you're working at a really small company. So talk to me a little bit about what is that like? Maybe you first, Nate, going into a Google and being on a

6:00 campus and being one of many tens of thousands of people to start your career.

6:07 Well, I didn't go straight to Google from college. I went to Robert Half, which was also another big, big company. Like it's like one of the big players in the recruiting space And we, I mean,

6:22 it was a sales environment, right? Like much like anything, new freshies out of college you're, in this cohort of people that are all extremely uncomfortable and thrown to the lines, right? It's

6:35 like, here's what you need to do. I literally had a stack of cards where they were like smiling dial. I was actually in Charlotte. I

6:45 wore Clonches. They gained, I was like, it was day one

6:50 and my. the branch managers a gal named Sarah Obius and Jason Flanders who was an ex-clench of football players to beat him like connected really quick

7:04 but they were like Open up a blank email. I'll type you a strip. Here's a stack of Piring managers at Bank of America. Walk. Oh, yeah Starts smiling down call. Mm-hmm. You know, I was him

7:17 staffing for temporary like off administrative and clarity So it was like something new. I didn't even know what recruited that recruiting was a thing like she used before that so Yeah, I mean it

7:29 was a good experience like working there I'm I actually met my wife there some of my best friends To this day that you know, we were part of that cohort of people that were just kind of thrown in

7:43 Then I went then I realized it like big company I wasn't crazy about it and I actually did my pretty at all after about it little over a year there. So I went, I went to a little startup, like a

7:54 golf marketing company in, in Charlotte. And we were like seven people, eight people selling, you know, getting new golf courses that help us sell discount around golf. And it was great. Money

8:08 wasn't there, but like, it was an awesome time. And then I moved back to Seattle. And I saw it, I actually worked for a smaller recruiting agency, um, and did really well So like I, it was a

8:20 few years before I got to the people. But like, when I got to the dude, it'd be like, yeah, like it was fun. Like I needed a break from the agency and the hustle and the bustle, you know, like

8:29 I was having my first kid. And I was like, I want to be present for my child. You don't want to be there. And so, um, it was, it was

8:42 a good fish fish you get, you know, like all the food you want, like all like nap pods and all the things, right? So I mean, I was a little a little bit later in my career. I don't know, like

8:49 six, seven years in my career, by my end. So I wasn't like all like big me, I'd when I walked in, like this is the end, I'll be all. But I was like, this is a cool thing. Like it's an easy

8:57 sell. You're finding engineers that are building similar and solving some of the most complex problems in the world. Like that for me was like really interesting. So, yeah, that was that. And

9:09 then I, then progressively just went smaller. Like went to the big Google, right? And then I realized, yeah, yep, yep People don't like the big capitals. I got, I want to have more of an

9:21 impact. I want to feel like my voice is heard. Not that you can't do that at Google, but for me, like I just, you know, I was one of like 400 people on the sourcing team, you know? And I was

9:34 like, you know, I think I want to go smaller. So, it's a rack space, love rack space. They probably like one of the highlights of my career on the corporate side, which is not an out company,

9:44 great culture, but there are about 5, 000 people

9:48 And then I went to duo and there were like 120 people that I was like, all right, this is my job. This is the size. This is the thing that I can like really kind of like get behind, solve

9:58 problems, if I really see what you were like, what you were doing in far being like, you get the immediate effects too, right? You get the, I implemented this thing on this was the immediate

10:13 result and there was financial implications to it That were awesome, you know? And like, so that really kind of filled my bucket and then I went smaller after that. And then I went smaller after

10:25 that. They ended up like at a company called Littorati in Austin. We were like 15 people and it was a killer opportunity. Like, so yeah, like, I don't know. I, for me, the big company thing

10:39 wasn't really like, for me, I like kind of being, I like being scrappy. And, you know, not being like, siloed or put in a box, right? Like, all right, we need you to help solve some of

10:53 these problems over here now. Like, how can you help, right? So, yeah, that's a little bit more deep dive into, into my story. And now I'm here with talent team. That's right. Crush it.

11:07 We're, yeah. Yeah, we're, we're working with like urban stage, like tech companies. And again, that helping them solve some of the challenging problems So they can generate revenue, build

11:19 product and grow and raise more money and hopefully exit, you know, so, um, that's been fun. Nice. So your clonch, your path, I guess, was a little bit, a little bit different. You

11:32 literally went right into one of the big brands, right? You went straight into Oracle. What was that like as a 23 year old kid? So honestly, it was great. I, you may hear my kitten playing in

11:49 the background, but it was, it was awesome. I think it was, I'm really grateful for the experience because what they did was hire a class of, so they went around to the universities around the

12:02 country and they strategically hired about 500 recent grads, put them all together, took them to California, put us up in a hotel, and during the day, just had, you know, eight hours of sales

12:16 training, getting uncomfortable, doing crazy pitches in front of all of your peers, and, you know, ultimately becoming friends with those people, so it was really cool to be able to have a lot

12:28 of people who are in the same boat, same age, you know, all experiencing something new, going through together, yeah, and we became friends, and it made some of the early career, cold calling,

12:44 you know, all that stuff, uh, uh, more fun. I would say, I was gonna say more easier, but it was just more fun. Well, before you go on, right? I do think in some ways it makes it a little

12:57 bit easier in that on your business card, it has a big brand. You don't have to explain to anybody if the company is going to survive. If you're gonna be around in a year or two, it's like, well,

13:09 yeah, just Google us, right? We're Oracle, people know who Larry Ellison is, right? So I think in some ways it makes it easier from that perspective where I could see it being challenging is if

13:22 you're in a group at Oracle that's selling something that people don't know about. Because maybe then you're put in a box of not being an innovator, right? And it can actually be to your detriment,

13:34 sometimes in selling where you're like, no, but we got this new cool thing. And it's like, well, you guys aren't as innovative as company XYZ, right?

13:46 Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was a good foot in the door and sales tactic to say, hey, we work with you on the database side. I was specifically in the marketing software division selling products

13:60 that Oracle acquired recently, like Ellequa or Responses, stuff like that. And yeah, I mean, like people know Oracle, right? They're like, oh, okay, you know, quote-unquote trusted brand,

14:14 but they speak so often to so many people from Oracle from different departments that I think they're a little bit, you know, tired of talking to an Oracle rep. So, you know, the familiarity is

14:28 there, but perhaps a little bit too much.

14:31 Yeah. Did you stay on the West Coast after

14:36 Oracle?

14:38 No, so they took us all out to the West Coast Redwood Shores for, I think, three weeks. but I specifically requested the Austin office, where a third of the people went, a third stayed in San

14:53 Francisco area, third came to Austin, and then a third was actually split between rest in Virginia and Burlington, Berlin game.

15:04 Yeah, so northeast, central, and then west. Nice. So I wanna talk a little bit, and Clunch, you're a little bit newer to this, but Nate, I brought you with me to nape. You've been to some of

15:19 these oil and gas-centric events, and you had some pretty candid feedback on this. Like, dude, if this were a SaaS-type conference, nobody's wearing suits, right? You got people wearing

15:30 flip-flaps, you got people wearing shorts, you got people wearing hats, and that's like an extreme outlier in oil and gas, not to mention, it's a little bit of an older industry from the average

15:41 age of the people that work in it. Talk to me about some of your experience and going to SaaS specific technology conferences and then me bringing you to a nape and seeing what that was like.

15:54 Yeah, I think, I mean, one of those things where like, you can kind of like, at a nape, you can kind of point out like who the big dogs are, right? Yeah. They kind of have that like executive

16:06 presence to them. There's like, the more buttoned up, maybe they have like the nicer Rolex or, right? Like the nice, nice pair of boots and cowboy hats, rather than cheap boots and cowboy hats,

16:22 right? And like it's an attack complex. And like there, you can't corn out the CEOs. Like you like, and what it looks the same. There's a good chance that actually the CEOs weren't a t-shirt and

16:33 some shorts. And so it's a little bit more like, like you've been sitting by on and. at the bar, one of the happy hours, and having a gig and talking to CEO of a hundred billion dollar tech

16:52 company, you'd be like, oh, oh, okay. Didn't realize that, you know?

16:58 But I mean, I knew what what a, like what Nate was gonna be, right? Like, I married into an oil and gas family. Like my wife's like, they are the South of Louisiana. They're in the oil and gas

17:12 Like most everybody in the family is affiliated with oil and gas at some point. That and crawfish, right? Oh yeah. Forman crawfish, so, you know, I'm,

17:22 it was something that was, that I expected. And honestly though, like the conversations on the oil and gas side of Nate, like were just as cool, just as like people were just as open. In fact,

17:36 they're a little bit more open, right? There was this, there was no pretentiousness.

17:42 Everyone was like, well, especially with a couple of beers and down the goal, like you were talking about, yeah, I was talking to founders of companies and like upstream operators. And I'm like,

17:57 oh, they have like billions of dollars in assets, that's pretty cool. You know, so it's just, you know, it's a different type of mentality or crowd, but still like I very much enjoyed I'm going

18:14 to go into that and I'd love to hear Clanche's experience because, you know, he obviously went up to Denver. Yeah, shout out for the Wildcat or stuff. Yeah, shout out Energy Tech Night. Clanche,

18:26 thanks for coming out here for that and the Social Octane opening day event. I would say though, and Clanche, I want you to talk about this. The Energy Tech Night is like nothing else in oil and

18:39 gas. is so much more like what you would have at a pitch competition in Austin, in Silicon Valley, right? Somewhere else. And Digital Logcatters, I think, is doing a great job to bring some of

18:53 those more mainstream tech-type events. But like, that was your kind of initiation clench into oil and gas. Tell me what you thought about Energy Tech Night.

19:06 Yeah, first word that comes to mind is, it was fun. I

19:11 think, you know, even the venue was in a night club. Yeah. Yeah, it was just really fun. I mean, like, that kind of sets the vibe for people to be relaxed and, you know, enjoy themselves,

19:25 talk to people. Yeah, like you said, I mean, I had a hint that this wasn't maybe a perfect indication of the rest of the industry. You know, maybe a unique event, It was cool, man. I mean,

19:40 like, it was really cool to like, I guess meet some of these founders and more very technical, technically intelligent folks there and kind of pick their brain and just see where they go down the

19:55 technical route. So that was really cool. Yeah, it was just a fun time. Yeah. I mean, that isn't a tech industry though. Yeah, it's true I mean, it's just building technology, so the gas,

20:09 it's the same thing, you know, the same engineers, the same product flow, the same designers, like better building scalable platforms for a specific industry.

20:20 So that's why, I mean, I don't necessarily just call out own gas. It's more, I think, about these companies like that we're working with as energy tech. You know, the building software

20:34 solutions solve problems in an industry that needs. that maybe a little bit further behind from the technology and the progression standpoint for that hasn't adopted it. Just like the other

20:49 industries have. Yeah, I've said this on this podcast and various other places too. The technology at the wellhead and subsurface is like the latest and greatest and just absolutely unbelievable

21:08 technology Where oil and gas has traditionally been a little bit behind is within the back office. And what we've seen really over the past, I'd call it maybe six years now, is just an explosion of

21:21 tech companies within the optimization, automation, kind of back office tech suite. And that's a lot of the recruiting that we're doing together, right? You guys have done an awesome job with

21:32 some of the companies that are going through their digital transformation within oil and gas. helping to sort of modernize that tech stack because it was a lot different, man. Like to be a

21:44 disruptor 10 years ago in oil and gas would not have been considered disruptive in the industries that you'd probably traditionally played in. But now it's really coming close. Like the field is

21:57 still super advanced, the back office is catching up and it's happening at an exponential pace. As far as recruiting itself though, and Nate, we've had some fun conversations about this where

22:09 you've said, Dude, that conversation we just had with that guy or that girl would never happen in the SaaS world. Talk a little bit about some of the differences I think that you've seen

22:24 some of the differences that you've seen recruiting last year in oil and gas versus recruiting in traditional SaaS Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm, you

22:35 know, take and choose my. call them on to your wives, Lee,

22:41 but I don't know. But I think there's just a lot. I feel like the tech side

22:50 cares a lot more about the sensitivities. And not to say that like oil and gas doesn't, but it's just a little bit more like this is what we want, this is what we need and like, whatever. Like,

23:04 right, you know? So there's a little bit more buttoned up conversations around about

23:13 talent and what we're looking for and on the tech side and like more openness to like diverse backgrounds and Canada pools and inclusion and all that, which is all important. And but on the one gas

23:30 side and over the energy tech side It's been more about let's just find like finding people and let's let's get going, like, like time is money. What's the first role, right? And so, but again,

23:44 I appreciate it. I guess I'm very much involved in that sort of world. I can, with my laws and just that side of my family. So it's not a shock to me. I can, I can roll with whatever. And how

23:59 about like remote versus in office? Because I feel like we do get a lot of these conversations and companies like, we need this person to be in our Dallas office, in our Houston office. And you

24:11 say, really, we can't find somebody that's remote? And I'm like, no, we can't, right? Is that something that you still see on the tech side or is that a little bit more unique to oil and gas?

24:23 Well, I think the tech side is starting to kind of come back to that in office, mentoring a little bit. Why there's, there's still like, you're like really strong opinions around remote work

24:35 quite honestly, it was true to work. You know, the pandemic really was that first moment where we were able to have a substantial amount of data that proved that remote work was fine as long as you

24:50 set it up and you created the culture and you can do it. So I'm still a huge supplier of remote work as I work remote from my house. But I think when, you know, you're talking about oil and gas

25:03 industry, which ultimately at the end of the day, what's the product in oil and gas? It's oil, right? Like where does oil come from? Like you can't remotely pull oil out of the ground, right?

25:15 And so like everything

25:20 I think spurs off from that and it's the end office mentality of this is where we're at. We need the seeing you in person and to get things done So I think that's kind of the difference were the end

25:37 goal of the tech side is a piece of software, right? Like it's a piece of software that's solving it. And maybe it's marketing automation software or health tech software or whatever, right? And

25:51 yeah, that's just my thought. What do I use, Bart, on the dead? Yeah, I think you sort of hit the nail in the head. I mean, like in oil and gas, obviously I'm still getting used to it and

26:02 learning more by the day, but I feel like in oil and gas people are in that industry. And so, if they've been in the industry for five, 10, 15 years, they're kind of previously vetted because if

26:17 you're in that industry for that long, you kind of understand what's going on, right? I think in software, obviously you're still in the software, world, the deal cycle is similar, the talking

26:30 points are similar, but you could be in marketing software you could be and. database sales, we could be in basically anything that's a software. So, you know, I think it's sort of maybe a

26:41 tighter knit community in oil and gas because you're all, you know, dealing with the same thing at the end of the day. Mm-hmm. Totally, totally by all those points. And I have a good

26:53 conversation with one of my friends who's a VP of IT

26:57 in Denver with one of my clients just the other day And they were talking about how remote work is not a thing for them, and I was trying to distill down exactly why. And I think it's because it

27:10 actually can be culturally disruptive for oil and gas companies to allow some people to work from their house while other people are always on site out in the fields, right? Working from the dog

27:23 house, working from their field office, and not ever permitted to really work from home, right? So then you start to develop this, well that's not fair, right? I've got to be out here on site.

27:34 Why don't they have to be on site? I think it's a different balance that oil and gas companies have to have. And in some ways you see, okay, we're a technology company catering to that. Like

27:45 we're going to operate in a similar fashion where yes, we do allow - That's a good point. Right? So it's just a different industry because like you said, you don't pull oil out of the ground, you

27:55 don't drill 10, 000 feet down and 10, 000 feet across remotely. Somebody's got to be there to monitor that and make sure that you're not doing anything too crazy. So it's fundamentally, I get it

28:10 and it made sense during

28:16 COVID that a lot of the things that I had to do where people would come to me and ask 'cause I've worked remotely, I've worked from home since 2010, which is an outlier. That was like very early

28:25 for people in oil and gas, but I've been in sales, right? And I've been primarily an individual contributor where offices didn't exist. nearby at smaller companies. So I didn't have an office to

28:35 go into. So a lot of people who worked in the oil and gas industry that I'd been selling to for years and years would come to me and be like, so

28:44 like, how do you do this? Like, how do you work remote? And you might find this funny, but before doing demos, I would have some people come on and be like, can we do a test run of your Zoom

28:55 software, right? To make sure everybody can join and we don't have issues when we're joining because that wasn't never a thing, right? If I came in to meet with people to sell to somebody, I'm on

29:06 site, whether that's in Midland or Pittsburgh or Bakersfield or Downtown Denver or Dallas or Houston or wherever, it doesn't matter, right? And I love that old school kind of face-to-face business

29:19 approach that oil and gas is taken, but it's shifted, right? I think a lot of companies were forced to adapt and they realized, hey, there's some efficiencies that can be gained from this, I

29:30 don't think oil and gas will ever move to a completely remote environment. There's only one company that I know of that's EQT Corporation out of Pittsburgh, which is run by millennials that operates

29:43 in a fully remote manner.

29:46 Yeah,

29:48 it's funny though, because like, Francis, my brother-in-law would work in oil and gas, like for services companies for a while. And he's now in the land Lafayette area, but when he was in

30:01 Houston, he was up in the woodlands and his company was downtown. He used it. And he was like, every time I saw him or talked to him, he was just like agitated. He was like, What's going on?

30:16 And he's like, God, I hate that commute. I hate that commute to downtown Houston. It's like an hour or something each way. He's like, God, I hate it. You know, he since has gotten out of the

30:28 long guess industry, but that was kind of part of it, right, was, was that mental? I was like, I don't want to have to be in the office,

30:35 but, you know, like, you're still gonna have people that ate up and there's still going to be people that want to be in office. You know, like, that's just, then, when you think about it,

30:45 like, you're talking about sometimes two, two and a half hours of, uh, shaking in car, like, commuting Yeah, I guess it make that, you make that up being in the office, like, is it that much

30:57 more of a benefit, right? Um, but we, we're starting to see more companies on the long gas, the energy check side, punk that, that are more open, right, to, yeah, um, to remove people.

31:10 But we're still kind of seeing like, we're open to remote Like,

31:16 just in case, yeah,

31:21 yeah, just in case, it's like, well, what about somebody? next to an airport

31:29 because we do a lot of recruiting to go to market, right, and energy tech. And so it's like, they're gonna be on a client 50, 75 of the time, anyhow. Like there's a battery really up there in

31:40 that corridor, or can they be in New York, right? Well, we're seeing that, right? That specific challenge, right? Where it's like, wait a second. We got somebody who can really sell or

31:54 somebody who can really code, but they don't want to leave Los Angeles, right? They don't want to leave Kansas City. They don't want to leave New York or Philly or DC. It's like, can we still

32:03 figure out a way to make this manageable? And sometimes the answer is straight up, no. Which is one of the challenges that we have to deal with. Relocation packages are still very much a thing.

32:17 So you guys kind of traded places, Clunch. You lived in Austin and then moved up to Seattle. Nate, you're from Seattle You kind of ended up in Austin. Um, talk about that a little bit. Like,

32:29 do you guys like where you're at right now? Nate, you love living in Austin. Clonchy, love living in Seattle. You guys want to trade places? Like what's going on?

32:40 Well, it depends on you. Are you asking me or my wife? Because that, you have an answer. I, I love Austin. The Austin area that it is, it's a great place. Lots of fun things to do It's a

32:55 century, what I actually love about it is a century look. It's easy to get anywhere in the country. Like there's no flight that's over like three and a half hours, really. Oh, to get anywhere

33:05 you need to in the country. So that's, that's good. But, you know, I'm a Seattle. I, I'm born and raised in Seattle. I miss it, miss the mountains, almost snow. I miss the all the fresh

33:15 water and the salmon fishing and like all the things that come along with that. But again, it's a three and a half hour flight Pretty easy to get. get to and from. But

33:28 oddly enough, Kanch right now is sitting in my brother's arm. What?

33:37 He's writing my brother's barbers up. Anybody who's watching the podcast can see it. Like, I've been more conscious many, many times, right? Yeah. So it was kind of, he was like,

33:48 serendipitous, really kind of like she was moving up there. I'm like, I was like, wait, I think brother, his conscience. I knew each other. He worked with me on one of my clients here in

34:00 Austin. So we got to know each other. That's one of the big reasons why I wanted to hire was I knew like what

34:06 he was about. And he would add a ton of value to the company. So when he was talking about moving up to Seattle, I was like, I just shout out to my brother and I think his place might be right.

34:17 Where are you looking to to read? And he's like, I kind of want to be the Queen and I am like downtown Seattle. I was like, this condo's in Queen So I make it just all worked out, right? Yeah,

34:27 but. Serendipitous is definitely the right word to use. Yeah, it's just like perfect timing, exactly what we're really looking for. You know, it's like recruiter stuff, right? Like you know

34:41 somebody who's got an opportunity and you just, you know, make it happen. But yeah, I mean, I love Austin. I think that's where I became an adult I

34:53 think it was eight years. I spent in Austin right after college. It's an incredibly fun city. There's a lot of like-minded young people. Like-minded yet, you know, a decent amount of diversity

35:06 of thought. And you could drive outside the city for 30 minutes and just be, you know, in the country. And now I just, I love Austin. I got, you know, I could talk forever about it But yeah,

35:20 my girlfriend and I were, you know. No kids, just got a kitten. But we wanted to do something different while we could. And so we moved up to Seattle. We're big outdoor nerds, I guess you could

35:36 say. I mean, the mountains are just incredible. Just being able to go to three different national parks within an hour and a half drive every way it was immensely appealing to us. But yeah, I

35:49 love both cities, man. I don't know where we're gonna end up long term, but it's been great here It's been about a year that we've been in Seattle. You could always split the difference and just

35:59 end up here in Colorado, but that's a different conversation. Hey. It never done. In the middle, isn't it? Yeah. That could work. Plus with all the work you're doing in energy right now too,

36:09 you know, it's very centrally located. That's one of the things I do like about Austin too, Nate. Like there are some oil and gas companies that are based there, Green Lake Energy's one, Parsley

36:18 Energy's one that was acquired by Pioneer but traditionally it's not. in oil and gas hub, but you always have a few companies that are based there, usually 'cause it's someone that's like, I like

36:29 living here and I run the company, that's where we're gonna be.

36:33 Well, not only that, but you think about talent, right? Help them. Yeah, strategically, like welcome their headquarters around like where talent is, like there, like you wouldn't open a tech

36:44 company, I'm not gonna like try to like city-shane, but like a small town where there's just no technology talent there, or you couldn't get technology talent there. Right. It just makes it hard,

36:59 right? But if you're trying to be a tech company, selling it to whatever, there's a larger dent to the talent in Austin. We started seeing that, especially during pandemic, where people have the

37:13 freedom to kind of live wherever they want it to, they're like, I'm moving in Austin, I've always wanted to live there, my company never let me, but now I can, and let's go Yeah. and all the

37:24 people, all people were homeowners, like myself, we're happy about that, because now our properties work a lot, and so is our property tax. So is your taxes, yeah. No, no on the taxes, but.

37:37 Well, so one of the things we like to do here on what the funk here before we wrap up is we play a little lightning round, okay? So I'm gonna say a name or a thing. You guys have to say the first

37:50 thing that comes to mind, right? Very, very minimal thought, okay. So the first one we're gonna do is in Clanche you can go first on this one. Marshawn Lynch.

38:06 Seahawks.

38:09 Nate, do you want my reaction on that? Yeah.

38:14 Fuck you, boy.

38:18 Actually, I'm bad, but just hand up with the ball. The oxygen spills. See, oxygen spills. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I peek my own. Yeah.

38:33 I'll throw another one at you. Silicon Valley Bank, Nate, you first.

38:40 Ooh Ahh

38:46 debacle.

38:48 That's the first thing that runs around my life. Yeah, it was an interesting one. Out of nowhere, but I think really that showed some of the weaknesses that we have in our financial market here

39:04 and how quickly something that big could tumble, you know So debacle scary. I think it's actually really scary. Do you see that?

39:17 Yeah, I mean, it didn't act a lot of my clients on the tech side and

39:23 it's people are scared now. Yeah, I was very fortunate to be shielded from that a little bit within oil and gas I was worried about that within the oil and gas tech community, but most of them

39:38 weren't involved with SVB, but I saw it firsthand with certainly with what you dealt with a lot of your clients. Um, not fun. How about you, Clonch SVB? Well, I got it. I was driving up.

39:50 Yeah, first word that comes to mind is hubris. Uh, yeah, I think it was just over-inflated chat. We'll work right there. Yeah, that's a big word.

40:03 I had an economics professor in college. He would just randomly go hubris. Uh, as a, as an excuse for any sort of type of economic collapse. So, uh, I suppose that stamped in my mind, um, for

40:20 eternity, but yeah, I, you know, I don't know. Um, I'm not extremely educated in the area, but it just seemed like, you know, the principal of, of, you know, thinking about all, like

40:33 future value and inflating value, um, over time with so many companies, uh, catches up with you. So.

40:43 Yes. I think this could be a whole different podcast. This could be a whole different podcast, 'cause I - It could, you know. But I have lots of thoughts on that. Well, you know, and I guess

40:53 like the merging of the tech world and the oil and gas world, one of the craziest things, if you think back to it, during the pandemic, the market cap for Zoom was higher than that of ExxonMobil.

41:07 And it seems so insane to think about, but it really just was a reflection of the time. At that point in time, having communication was more important than having oil, as crazy as that sounds.

41:22 That was the one brief moment in time when those market caps were where they are. And I'm not gonna Google it right now, but I promise you, it's not anywhere close. ExxonMobil is certainly worth a

41:32 lot more than Zoom. Well, yeah, I mean, it's funny you mention that, 'cause I know a ton of people that work in Zoom, like actually a buddy mine was one of their. the leaders on the recruiting

41:44 team. And when they're ramping up during that period, like, I was like, why are they ramping? Like, they, I think they hired, I don't know, like, 40, 50 recruiters or something on the team.

41:55 It was so crazy. Wow. Yeah, don't call me on the number of, I know it was a ton of people 'cause I just kept seeing new announcements, like new tech recruiter, new tech recruiter, new tech

42:05 recruiter. And I was like, what are they building? It's like a Zoom, it's a video-computing platform that already works pretty damn good. Like, what else are they building? And so I think that

42:17 was part of like, you're gonna get into a little deeper conversation around like the macroeconomic problem of what happened and why we're seeing so many contractions now in layoffs. It was just like,

42:29 there was major bloke, lots of recruiting, lots of growth. And

42:36 you look back, like, okay, well, they have the money and they're worth a hell of a lot of money. And they're growing and scaling, but like, what are they? Like, I just, you know, I couldn't

42:47 run my head around it, but now you look back and they since have contracted it, a good day. Big time. Yeah, and so like, that's part of the whole SBB thing, right? Where the, what David will

43:02 into it, while on over,

43:07 over growth, evaluations, that crazy out of control, et cetera,

43:15 so. I mean, similar things, some of the things like that. Go ahead, David.

43:19 Yeah I, was gonna say, I mean, like that, that's the challenge of it, right? It's like, if something is intangible, like a Zoom, it doesn't mean it's not valuable. So who is to determine the

43:31 value of something like this? It's a tough question, right? I think with oil and gas, it's maybe it's.

43:41 It's definitely more tangible and you can see the benefits. It keeps the lights on, it keeps things going. At the end of the day, you have something that has inherent value, I don't know. Like

43:52 with some software, you could just copy it and do something similar with a little iteration that's different. Oil and gas at the end of the day, it's gonna turn the lights on, it's gonna do

44:04 something tangible and valuable. Yeah, true, but at the same time, there's been an element of hubris that's been learned in oil and gas. Also, when shale initially became a thing, and US

44:19 production soared, as did prices, companies didn't need to think about being as efficient. And then you have a downturn, you have a couple downturns, well, all of a sudden you see lifting costs

44:32 go down significantly, right? You don't need as many people in the field, maybe you need technology, Maybe you need to. become more efficient and create and optimize your asset so that you can

44:45 look at what is my cost per barrel, not just how close is it to the price of oil or the price of my hedge. So I mean, this is what the tech industry is seeing now is something that the oil and gas

44:56 industry has gone through before. So it didn't totally come as a shock to me. Last piece of the lightning round, I'm curious about chat GPT Your quick thoughts.

45:15 I'm going to go scary again. Same thing as this VB then.

45:24 It's scary, but it's also really damn cool, right? Like, I now integrated it with Siri on my phone. I've integrated it with my company's Google, Google Sheets and Docs. I've integrated, I use

45:40 it for candidate and I'll reach to, like, refine messaging. I use it for writing stupid poems that nobody cares about.

45:53 There's endless possibilities and it's just scratching the surface, but it's one of those things for me, judging it is learn how to use it to increase efficiencies and learn how to use it to make

46:06 you better at what you do and remove the remedial tasks and stuff that take that time. Or else it's

46:16 gonna take you over. You're gonna get passed up by other people that are. So that's why I'm not on it. Learn to harness it, or else you're gonna be less than dust.

46:30 Yeah, I think the first word that comes to mind for me is opportunity. There's just, you know, I think so many smarter people than me, I think I'm going to be more of an observer for the chat,

46:42 GPT, you know, proliferation, but I don't know. Every time I, you know, talk to somebody about it, I learned something new about it. I didn't even know you could integrate it with Siri It's

46:54 like, there's just so much stuff that can happen. Yeah, I think there's a certain element of fear, but when I think about Nate and I were on a call with Brian earlier this week and he was talking

47:07 about how to pull a list of specific people at specific companies with their name. So like that part of it is just very largely appealing, could help eliminate a lot of busy work also be a major

47:23 threat to. companies like Zoom info, potentially, right? And others who are selling data as a service and an expensive service at that, if you can just say, Hey Chad GBT,

47:36 what's the current rig count? Who's operating rigs in North America? Well, if you can bring me back that information real quickly, that may eliminate my need for a subscription to a site that

47:47 tells me that information. But there's still a little bit of waste time. That's a really good point The accuracy is it may not be all the way there. And personally, I'm a sales guy, right? I'm a

47:59 sales guy. I'm a recruiter. You guys are sales guys. You're recruiters. In conversations I've had with more technical resources, I think that it could be more of a threat on the development side

48:10 of things. There's still a human element that's always going to be there, regardless of how far something like chat, GPT or AI in general goes. We're dealing with people, right? Someone leaving

48:23 a new job, someone's hiring, somebody's moving. These are very personal decisions. I don't see how you fully automate that. If you can tell me how to write a SQL script or you can even write it

48:34 for me, that might eliminate my need for a specific type of coder. And now we're moving toward the skills away from having development skills, having more of a data science understanding and what

48:47 do I make of that code once I have it. So I think that it probably has more of an impact even in the short term on the technology side of things. But anyways, we're going to wrap it up here. This

48:57 was super fun. I appreciate you guys coming on to wrap. Where can people find you guys, Nate? Where can people find your company, Clanche? Where can people find you?

49:08 I mean, talent

49:12 dot team is our website, wwwt-a-l-n-t-n-o-e dot team.

49:18 We call me L-linked in, name Olstad, O-L-L-E-S-D.

49:27 Yes, sir. Same thing for me. You know, I think one of the things I'm beginning to do in this role is have a little bit more of a presence on LinkedIn. So doing a little bit of a podcast, as you

49:41 alluded to earlier, just having cool conversations with cool people and posting some clips and maybe a full episode of people are interested Well, Clanche, I look forward to coming on yours and

49:52 appreciate you coming on mine. Just want to say from a personal standpoint, it's been an honor working with you guys to this point. I think you're tremendous at recruiting. You've helped me a ton.

50:04 And I truly admire the work you put in your work ethic and the partnership that we've started to form and the potential that we have to really bring, continue to bring top tier talent into the oil

50:15 and gas and energy tech spaces spaces. So much love for me. We out.