Employment Hero v Seek is heading to trial — and investors will be watching
A federal court judge this week ruled that the dispute between the HR startup and ASX jobs giant will proceed to trial - as a top ASX analyst weighed in on the fight.
Almost exactly a year ago, Employment Hero founder and chief executive Ben Thompson used an address at the company's annual Global Gathering event in Bali to rally the troops behind his vision for becoming the world's first "employment operating system".
Behind him, Thompson displayed a slide that showed other HR companies like CultureAmp, G01, Deputy and Linkedin whose core functions he hoped to disrupt.
But Thompson's most ambitious comments were reserved for Seek, the $10 billion ASX jobs platform which has been a major player in Australia's recruitment landscape for two decades, and which awkwardly, is also an investor in Employment Hero through its growth fund.
Thompson told staff that Employment Hero had "a couple of million jobs" on its platform compared to Seek's "250-300,000 jobs" and could "match you with 10 times more jobs than what Seek can." He repeatedly described his own company as a "honey badger" that would aggressively "take on" Seek, and others in the market.
