Taking Stock
Is remote working to blame for weak junior hiring, SpaceX & Anthropic IPOs and Robotaxis
05 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Taking stock with Susan Hayes Culleton. With Nifty Business, the fleet management specialists. Keeping your business fleet moving with service you can count on. This is Newstalk.
Well, hello and welcome to Taking Stock. I'm Susan Hayes-Culleton, and this is the show that looks at business and economics from a wider perspective. Coming up on today's show, what if remote working, not AI, is to blame for what's now being called career ladder erosion? How close are we really to a future where cars drive themselves? And what are the opportunities for Ireland and their risks?
Plus, three of the most valuable private companies in the world could soon make their stock market debut. But can the market absorb companies of that scale? You can email the show, takingstockatnewstalk.com or you can message me on socials at Susan Hayes Cullerton. Now, I want to start off by explaining to you what valuation metrics are.
As all week, we've been seeing that markets have been hitting higher highs. And with all the talk about the upcoming IPOs that I mentioned, valuation metrics are often used as a lens to make sense of it. So first of all, a valuation metric is simply a number that measures how valuable a company is. And a lot of the time we use relative valuation metrics.
And that basically means that rather than try to work out how much a company's stock is worth, we compare one number to another. And we do that for lots of companies. So then we can pick out who is most under or overvalued. So as an example, the P-E ratio is the price to earnings ratio. That's a valuation metric. And it's a simple price versus profit check.
So it just shows how much investors are willing to pay for every euro of the company's annual profit. And of course, it would be per dollar if it was in the States or per pound if it was in the UK, etc. So the higher the P.E., the more people are willing to pay for a company's profits. But of course, then the higher the risk is that the stock would be overvalued.
But for an IPO, for an initial public offering, people compare the P.E. to similar public companies to factor in how fast the company is growing its profits. But if profits are low or jumpy or negative because the company is in a loss, then the PE isn't very helpful at all.
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Chapter 2: Is remote working to blame for weak junior hiring?
So IPO pricing often focuses more on the PS ratio or the price to sales ratio and how the company plans to turn sales into profit. Now, I'm going to be delving further into this today, but I think you're going to be hearing a lot around valuation metrics in the week and weeks ahead as we see the SpaceX IPO come to life. So watch this space.
Now, if you were a recent graduate looking to take that first step on the career ladder, what or who might be the thing that would put that career choice on hold? In the tech sector, many of us think AI will do the tasks associated with entry-level employees. And while this might be true in some jobs, it's not the full picture.
Now, I came across a paper from the London School of Economics published last week, and that concludes that it's remote working rather than AI might be the culprit. The question is, how true is that in our own labour market? I'm joined now by Larissa Feeney, who is CEO of Canor Finance and Business Services. And most recently, she's also the Image CEO of the Year.
Larissa, you've made the very clear decision to have a remote native or remote first company. What led you to make that decision, first of all?
Yes, we made a decision to remain the remote first company. or intentionally remote. And we made that decision not long after the pandemic. You might remember there was a very robust discussion about returning to the office and whether a company should return to the office. And at that time I decided we were going to remain remote first.
And was it because what was going on as the business restructured during COVID that it really worked? Or was it due to where you wanted to hire from? Was it in response to what staff wanted? I get the timing of it, Larissa, for sure. But what led to the decision being embedded into the company long after COVID was in Ireland?
So we were remote before COVID, but we weren't 100% fully remote. I hired my first remote team member about nine years ago. So remote was very much part of our culture anyway. But what I found, Susan, was after the pandemic, that discussion created a lot of indecision within the company.
and a lot of uncertainty within the company around our future direction and how would we grow and would we grow in one location or in multiple locations would it be like a hub model and I felt that we were very effective remotely and we were very productive remotely and the company had grown strongly up until that point and I felt if we picked remote
And it could have been pick a remote or pick in person because there's consequences of both. And there's consequences of hybrid too, of course. But I felt that remote was right for us. It gave us access to the right talent nationwide. And that suited us and we needed access to that talent. And we were serving clients nationwide as well, Susan. So that was a huge part of my decision.
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Chapter 3: What are the upcoming IPOs and their significance?
Is that the way it works or would it be for non-technical roles?
Both actually. If we're talking about technical roles, you're talking about an accounting technician path. So that would be a pathway where the student would be working sometimes four days a week and then in college on the fifth day or working full time and in college in the evening time.
But then for non-technical roles like client service roles, for example, operations roles, they're also open to school leavers.
Because I don't know if I was interviewing somebody from one of the big four today, Larissa, and I don't know because I don't know, that they would be also having a policy around school leavers. Is that a way you have differentiated yourself in the market or how has that come about?
That actually wasn't an intentional decision. And I suppose, Susan, the attitude I take is that I have to be open to every pathway. And that is one of a few pathways that's open to us in terms of developing future talent.
And the challenge for us as a remote team is that if school leavers are obviously not as experienced or developed as graduates are, so it's just the added complexity of ensuring that they're working well remotely. It does make it more difficult for us in that area.
And that does bring us back then to the point that I had raised a couple of minutes ago around work from home showing to raise that cost. But again, if you're intentional, and as you say, the trainer needs to be equipped to do it. There's a second quote that I'd like to take out of the paper and put to you, and that is this. Is generative AI replacing junior workers?
A growing literature answers yes, citing large declines in early stage hiring concentrated in Gen-AI exposed occupations. The paper argues, however, this verdict is premature because Gen-AI exposure is strongly correlated with another post-pandemic shock, namely working from home. In other words, it makes the point that we conflate
The reason that fewer people are taking on is because we think it is down to AI, but it's actually because they're simply harder to manage in a work from home scenario. And therefore, we are taking on fewer people for that reason.
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Chapter 4: How does the market prepare for massive IPOs like SpaceX?
The same probably applies to professional services in general. If I can look to the US, there's loads of data on the US in this. The average qualified accountant in the US is almost six years of age. Most accountants are past retirement age and entrants to the sector are declining year on year. In 2025, entrants declined by almost 17%.
You have less of a talent pool and then you add to that the impact of AI and the impact of remote working. And you can see, first of all, how difficult it is for firms to find the right talent. And then are they balancing that out with increasing investment in technology so that they can increase capabilities around AI? And obviously remote working plays a part as well.
Ah, so you're actually dealing with an external factor as well, which is that fewer people are going into the profession in the first place.
Yes.
Okay. I think so, yeah. That's what the data would suggest. Is there also a question around the skill set of an accountant whereby they are very transferable skills and now I saw last year in 2025 was the first time that the big four sought out more AI experts than auditors. in terms of their recruitment.
Now, obviously, that is who they were recruiting last year is distinct to the composition of the workforce that's there. But is it now the case that the skills that are needed in order to be a successful, I'm going to say accountant, but I feel that that's Not even the correct term, because in some cases they also need to be salespeople. In some cases they now need to be AI literate, etc.
Is it that the skills in demand today are also now in demand by plenty of other sectors too? And therefore there is, while there might be fewer people going into the profession, more people are looking for the skills that they will get through their training.
Yes, exactly. The skills that they will get, even regardless of the degree that you've come from, Sue. So even if you take my own case with a degree in hospitality management and having become a qualified accountant, that foundation gave me huge skills in an area like customer service, which has given me a firm advantage in the years since in growing the business.
And that applies to graduates today. So, yes, your degree could be in any area. What the professional qualification gives you is a level of understanding and knowledge of business and a huge amount of trust between the business and the professional. I think the I think chartered accountants, qualified accountants are something like the second most trusted profession globally.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do companies face in hiring junior talent?
don't see in profitability gain, which is really interesting. And I think that's because firms are investing a huge amount in this area right now. And maybe that's something that we'll see in the future.
I've one last question and I'm going to ask your permission to ask it to you actually, because ordinarily I don't, but in this case I will. You're quite reflective on your own social media, Larissa, and I know that you have a son doing the Leaving Cert this year because you've been talking about this on your social media.
Has our conversation today shaped or been shaped by the fact that you're a mother of a teenager going into this world?
Yes, and I'm also the mother of a 20-year-old as well who is in university. And so my current thought process and opinion on this is very much impacted by my worry over their progress through their career and their own personal development. And where will they go? And what are the paths that are open to them if we're working, if we're shifting toward the remote model?
And I say that as a CEO of a remote company, right? Which I think the remote model is very much right for Knorr. Is it right for everybody though? And I think what I would advocate for is An in-person model is not right for everybody and a remote model is not right for everybody.
But for my kids, for example, I'll be advising them on what I think is right for their personality and for their development. But what I do notice about a remote working environment, Susan, is that there's personalities that thrive in a remote world that don't thrive in an in-person world.
We'll leave it there, Larissa, but I'm delighted that I got the chance to go full circle with you because as you say, certain personalities are conducive to it, certain work environments are conducive to it and certain companies are, that's not to say all are. Really appreciate your time today, Larissa Feeney, CEO of Canor, Finance and Business Services and more recently, Image CEO of the Year.
This is Susan Hayes-Cullerton here on Taking Stock on News Talk. After the break, just how significant would SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs be relative to previous blockbuster listings? You're very welcome to Newstalk's Taking Stock. I'm Susan Hayes-Cullerton. Now, for this week's trivia, I have a tough one for you. Well, I have a tough one for you every week or so. I try to make them anyway.
Where in the world, more specifically, where on earth, might I find the longest mountain range, 37 critical minerals and the world's largest living structure? Have a think and I'll give you the answer at the end of the show. Now three of the most valuable private companies in the world could soon make their stock market debut.
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Chapter 6: How does remote work impact training and development?
It's estimated around $5 billion a year it's losing on AI.
And so Goldman Sachs, a piece of breaking news came out on Thursday afternoon, I believe, that Goldman Sachs, now it's the lead investment bank for the IPO. They believe that the AI, sorry, SpaceX's AI revenue could serve 100 times by 2030. Does IPO also stand for it's probably overpriced?
Yeah, I think it could be certainly. And it was interesting, other parts of Goldman Sachs talked down the market because they saw the draw that this is going to have on liquidity. And as you mentioned earlier, passive funds could end up buying it because they are being fast-tracked into the index.
You used to have to trade for a year or whatever it was for a period of time, and then you'd be allowed into the index. Now there's fast-tracking into the index. And a market has radically changed from times when you would invest to get a spread of securities, dividend income, and other things, to essentially five stocks.
I mean, it'll be lower capitalized than the other five stocks straight away, like everything from NVIDIA which I think is about $6 billion, all the way down to Amazon at number five. I think it's Amazon at number five, or Alphabet, which are about $2 billion. So people are estimating the market cap of it will be about $2 trillion.
Right, but there's a difference between market cap and free float. And at the risk of getting technical here, can you differentiate the difference between the two of them?
Very simple. What's the overall value of the company? And then how many shares are in existence that you can trade? So it's free float will be small, the amount it can trade. That can be tradable or the amount of shares released. And yet its market cap is what contributes to the index. It gets adjusted, but it contributes to the index.
So if it ranks in the top 10 stocks, passive funds will have to buy that amount of the index and there's less supply. So it'll drive up the value. There are no sellers. The only sellers, I suspect, into the IPO will be those that invested in the last round, all the private equity players and all the others, all the other insiders who will sell to the public and passive funds will chase it up.
It's reckoned that they'll need to buy about 20 billion of stock.
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Chapter 7: What advancements are being made in autonomous vehicle technology?
That's new shares. And then insiders will make up a lot of the excess demand I expect on the other side, which is the likes of index funds. And they're not just ETFs. I mean, if you took, I think in Ireland, the largest asset manager is Irish Life. a large percentage of its funds will be passive funds. So it's generally, it has become the norm in markets as such.
So I would imagine that insiders will provide that secondary liquidity and sell some of their shares and new monies raised is around the level of around 60 billion is what's rumored now.
But if I was to follow that thread then, if it's going to raise $60 billion, where is that $60 billion going to come from? Is it funds like, as you say, Irish Life or other passive funds? Are they going to have to trim their positions in other tech stocks then? So are you expecting share prices to fall of the MAG7 as a result, including, ironically, Tesla?
Yeah, ironically, Tesla. But the amount of money raised, I mean, for context, the S&P index is $68 trillion in value. So it'll have some impact, but not a massive impact. I mean, the appreciation of stock markets over the last 10 or 15 years has been enormous. So that's $68 trillion, and I think the top four or five tech stocks account for about 25% of the indexes.
So there'll be some impact in terms of liquidity and markets moving around, but I don't expect it to be excessive. The issue, I think, is a broader issue in AI, which is that a lot of the revenue numbers talked about, the annual recurring revenues and others, are all some of the tech companies trading between themselves.
Somebody might buy equipment from NVIDIA, and NVIDIA might buy other services from the other tech companies. It's the nature of it. And there won't be like multiple winners. Eventually, somebody wins out. So there's massive investment going into AI. Whether it all generates a return over time will be interesting to see.
Well, what do you think of so far? Because there was a big criticism, particularly last year, I would say, around is AI in a bubble? But yet, like we're almost through earning season now for Q2.
The reality is an awful lot of these companies are delivering actual revenue in contrast to back in 1999 and 2000 when companies were buying and selling things from each other, but no money was really transferring hands. So could we question that or challenge the assumption that was being made last year? Then are we seeing returns?
But I think when you still look at it in terms of broader participation, there isn't a broader impact on the economy. If it was really impacting and there was broad usage of AI, we would have more like, you know, job losses and other things because that's what AI does. Like, you know, it effectively automates activities. There hasn't been the same extent of it.
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Chapter 8: What are the potential risks and opportunities of robotaxis?
So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out in terms of the absolute level of capital investment.
What do you think about the fact that the three companies we're talking about are going down the equity route, but several of the Mag7 are going down the debt route? They're raising money from the bond market in order to fund their investment in the infrastructure. Is there anything you read into that?
Yeah, I think there is. I mean, we've already seen constraints, private credit constraints, Credit markets have tightened up. Interest rates are higher. I'm surprised because this is high risk, as what you said earlier, and you raise equity for high risk. You don't raise debt. And interest rates are an awful lot higher. And on a bad day for Trump politics, you can have interest rates.
Five-year U.S. Treasury yields have hit some of their highest that they've seen. Gold has been a high price. So that's a nervous time to raise money in debt markets. Very nervous when you don't have predictable markets cash flows at the end of the day.
Well, it's been intriguing to talk to you, Ronan, and it'll be very interesting to watch what happens Thursday and Friday and September and October. And it'll be when we get to the end of the year, what the 2026 stories really will be. Thank you very much for joining me here in studio. Ronan Reid, non-executive director of the Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland Group.
This is Susan Hayes-Cullerton here on Taking Stock on Newstalk. And after the break, the government is developing a national strategy to prepare for autonomous vehicles on our roads. But what will that future look like? What are the risks? And what are the possible opportunities? Come back to us. This is Susan Hayes-Cullerton here on Taking Stock on Newstalk.
Now, driverless taxis are already carrying paying passengers in cities like San Francisco, Phoenix, Arizona and parts of China. Tesla is pushing ahead with its robotaxi ambitions and Waymo is expanding across the United States. And here in Ireland, the government is developing a national strategy to prepare for autonomous vehicles on our roads.
But how close are we really to a future where cars can drive themselves? And what are the opportunities for Ireland, but also what are the risks? So to discuss this, I'm joined by Russell Vickers, co-founder and CEO of Future Mobility Campus Ireland. First off, Russell, can you tell us how do you prepare a car to drive autonomously?
Essentially, you need to build a robot that does all the functions that a human does. So essentially, you need a lot of sensors to be able to replicate what we can see with our eyes. So you need those sensors to work in all types of weather conditions. So not just cameras, you need things like LiDAR and radar.
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