1 in 343 job applicants is now a fake from North Korea, this security company says

His company has expanded beyond voice security to employee protection and verification. Even at Pindrop, a security startup generating more than $100 million in annual recurring revenue, they’re finding that 16.8% of job applicants are fake—and the number is growing fast. He noted one recent call where the interviewee forgot to disconnect from Zoom and asked his handler to send a fake resume referencing Texas where he was supposed to be living but didn’t know anything about. It’s taking up a big chunk of time for his human recruiters to catch such scammers.

Election interference and money scams, we get. Why create a deepfake job candidate?  Corporate espionage may be one factor: “We’re finding one in 343 applicants is from North Korea.” The biggest motivation is money. Balasubramaniyan points to candidate farms in places like Pakistan, India, and other spots where professional interviewers act on behalf of people who are just trying to get a job.

Balasubramaniyan estimates that in-person roles get about 100 applicants, hybrid roles attract 200 and fully remote jobs attract more than 800 applicants. Once those remote workers are on board, the challenge doesn’t stop. Deepfake coworkers—especially IT staff calling for a password reset—are becoming more common.

Of course, Pindrop is in the business of selling software to screen for such fakes, and  Balasubramaniyan himself has made fraud detection part of his daily activity. He advises watching how someone’s mouth moves—and says to be skeptical of anyone who uses a microphone to cover their mouth. I talk to other CEOs who now have code words they give friends and family to check whether a phone call is from them or a scammer. Expanding regulations like the recent Take It Down Act may make platforms more accountable for fraud, but in the meantime CEOs and everyone else—beware.

More news below.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]

Top news

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill faces trouble in the House

The Senate made so many amendments to the bill—many of which increase the federal deficit—that House Republicans are now balking at approving it. Republicans have vowed to pass the bill by July 4.

Israel agrees to ceasefire in Gaza, Trump says

In a post on Truth Social the president said “Israel has agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize the 60 Day CEASEFIRE” in Gaza but that Hamas has not yet agreed to the proposal. “I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” the president said. Neither Israel nor Hamas independently confirmed they had agreed to the deal, according to the BBC.

Thiel, Luckey fund Tolkein-themed replacement for Silicon Valley Bank 

Palmer Luckey, Peter Thiel and others have agreed to fund a new bank serving tech startup customers that would fill the hole left by Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in 2023.

Trump Administration gives Putin room to breathe in Ukraine

The U.S. Has stopped shipments of certain weapons systems to Ukraine, the WSJ reports. The weapons will instead be used to replenish U.S. Military supplies. “This decision was made to put America’s interests first,” the White House said. The move comes after Ukraine has slowly been losing ground in its war with Russia. At the same time, the Trump Administration has imposed no new sanctions on Russia, which has allowed Putin to work around existing sanctions and replenish his war supplies.

Powell: It's the tariffs that are the problem

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that if the Trump administration had not introduced its tariff plan, the Fed would have lowered interest rates already. “We went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs and where, and essentially all, all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs,” he said.

Trump-owned Bitcoin miner raised $220 million

The Trump family’s crypto-mining company American Bitcoin raised $220 million. With the new capital, the company, a subsidiary of Hut 8 and backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., is planning to buy more computer servers for crypto mining and to acquire more cryptocurrency.

Strategy’s Bitcoin gain will likely be $14 billion

The company formerly known as MicroStrategy is expected to post $112.8 million in Q2 revenue, according to analysts polled by Bloomberg. Its astonishing gains come from buying and holding Bitcoin.

Meta recruitment 

Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Meta is building a “Superintelligence” team by pulling talent from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google sent the company’s stock up to an all-time high yesterday. The move has reportedly shaken up execs at Sam Altman’s OpenAI.

Sean Combs jury continues to deliberate

They have agreed verdicts on four of five charges but are stuck debating the racketeering-conspiracy charge. The verdicts have not yet been revealed.

The markets

• S&P 500 futures were flat this morning, premarket. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.91% but the S&P 500 index slipped 0.11% yesterday. Bitcoin rose to above $107K. The Nasdaq 100 lost 0.89% yesterday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.62% this morning. Stoxx Europe 600 was up 0.40% in early trading. China’s CSI 300 was flat. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.56%.

From the analysts

• UBS on Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill: “Markets are not likely to react to squabbles over details—unsustainable US fiscal policy is well understood, and the economic effects of redistributing from lower income to higher income households will take time to emerge,” per Paul Donovan.
• Goldman Sachs on softness in the hotel sector: “We think the decline in consumer sentiment has weighed on hotel bookings, in line with recent management commentary, where soft demand in Q2 even after a partial recovery from April's poor levels was a recurring theme … Second, travel volume at large has cooled on the heels of rising geopolitical risk and negative sentiment around tariffs and immigration. Domestic travel has also moderated based on daily TSA checkpoint volumes,” per Vinay Viswanathan and team.
• Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report on Tesla: “Tesla’s brand positivity is broadly declining across partisan lines, with no clear recovery in sight. The “Trump-Musk feud” has specifically undermined Republican positivity for the brand, leaving Tesla with a -10 net positive view among all consumers, the lowest we’ve ever recorded. There is substantial public support for government intervention regarding Elon Musk’s companies and Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. Consumers support ending government contracts with Musk’s companies by 10 points, and there’s overwhelming support for stricter FSD advertising rules (net +58) and mandatory accident reporting to NHTSA (net +77).” Read the data here.

Around the watercooler

SPACs are back: This year’s crop of blank check companies lack celebrity sponsors, and that’s likely a good thing by Luisa Beltran

Home Depot’s $5 billion purchase of an unsexy building products distributor is a prime example of smart M&A by Phil Wahba

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says AI will probably mean fewer jobs after 27,000 people have already been cut from its workforce by Jim Edwards

Peter Thiel sold 20 million shares of Facebook just months after its IPO—but they’d be worth nearly $15 billion more if he had held on by Preston Fore

‘Shark Tank’ investor Kevin O’Leary says only a third of people can become successful entrepreneurs—and the rest will never be ‘free’ by Emma Burleigh

CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Nina Ajemian and Jim Edwards.