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Bolt announces layoffs

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#111

Post by hm8 »

librish wrote: post #19
Lapz wrote: post #2

The founder also encouraged employees to take on what was effectively personal debt at an ~11B valuation when they only did $5.2M in Q1…

The founder pushing employees to take such a reckless financial decision while presumably their only insight into many key business metrics is the leaderships rosy portrayal of them is unethically irresponsible.

At this scale/valuation of the company, it's probably a bad idea but hard to know at the time. My understanding of US tax laws and options is that this sort of behavior is what you want for early stage startups. You allow early exercise, restricted vesting with the upside of paying no income tax now, only LTCG on vesting (+liquidity event), and potentially QSBS tax exemption if you joined early enough and the startup does well.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#113

Post by firebaze »

88913527 wrote: post #52
nrmitchi wrote: post #33

First of all, there is no mention of what percentage of their workforce is being directly effected by this. I suspect it is not small. That aside, I fail to see this as anything other than this "company" taking advantage of the current environment to execute layoffs in a way that lets them blame "the market" rather than their own short-comings. We saw this in March 2020 as well. They overhired for the hype, and now a…

The more businesses do this, the more the hiring market becomes lemons for unicorn-type businesses. Prospective employees will wonder if they're an overhire and if question their expectations of job security.

It's just about the opposite. Know and play your cards.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#114

Post by DevToRecruiter »

throwaabolt wrote: post #81

I am one of those let go today. It's especially bad, because they seem to have messed up the invite templates. I received one to the Town Hall meeting, even before Majus letter was published, only to get the invitation cancelled and receive and invitation to "Bolt Restructuring". What an emotional rollercoaster. Extremely anxious about the future, as this is my first time being laid off, especially in the current mar…

I'm sorry you're going through this. I don't know what your position is but I may be able to help you with the "finding a new job" part of your anxiety. Please feel free to reach out to me on twitter @devetorecruiter. Good luck with everything!

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#115

Post by beambot »

scarface74 wrote: post #27
dburn1169 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when they only did $5.2M in Q1… This is insane to me. I work at a startup with a similar valuation and we bring in almost double that amount of revenue a week... and I think we're overvalued.

I never cease to be amazed at how people value companies based on revenue and not profit. Revenue without profit numbers tell you nothing about how well the company is doing.

To do a proper net-present value calculation, you need more than just revenue & profit. You also want to know growth rate, gross margin, and capital efficiency.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#116

Post by nso95 »

throwaabolt wrote: post #81

I am one of those let go today. It's especially bad, because they seem to have messed up the invite templates. I received one to the Town Hall meeting, even before Majus letter was published, only to get the invitation cancelled and receive and invitation to "Bolt Restructuring". What an emotional rollercoaster. Extremely anxious about the future, as this is my first time being laid off, especially in the current mar…

best of luck my friend

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#117

Post by kodah »

upupandup wrote: post #14
kadomony wrote: post #3

Waiting for Ryan’s tweet storm eagerly to see how blame is shifted to VC and Stripe.

Thanks to him, lot of people in the industry are now a bit wiser and more careful while others simp for the establishment because they seek to benefit, are benefiting (maybe in the minds of some, they think they are reading this board and looking at profiles of users who simp or attack them?) When he outed YC, Sequoia Capital and New York Times, I felt uneasy because I knew there would be blowbacks.

I was on that thread, I have no idea what Bolt did at the time and I don't use Stripe.

Ryan didn't even look at the timestamps for the posts he was referencing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30069359 Everything else he said was pure speculation and story-telling.

Anecdotally, most people on HN hate the NYT; it should give you pause if even these people did not buy Ryan's story-telling.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#118

Post by sibeliuss »

throwaabolt wrote: post #81

I am one of those let go today. It's especially bad, because they seem to have messed up the invite templates. I received one to the Town Hall meeting, even before Majus letter was published, only to get the invitation cancelled and receive and invitation to "Bolt Restructuring". What an emotional rollercoaster. Extremely anxious about the future, as this is my first time being laid off, especially in the current mar…

I'm sorry to hear this. Did they offer severance pay?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#120

Post by cecilpl2 »

scarface74 wrote: post #57
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how people value companies based on revenue and not profit Profit is a closer abstraction to cash flows ( i.e. to the investor) than revenue, but it's still an abstraction. Investors looking at revenues and unit economics can sometimes--often--predict future profits and discount backwards, in the same way that a value investor can look at a company's profits and sometimes--less often, frankly--predict future cash f…

Profit isn’t an “abstraction”. If you bring in more money than you spend, it means that you don’t have to worry about a “runway”, nor do you have to worry about outside funding. How can you have a successful business that spends more money than you make?

Amazon famously turned no profit for nearly 15 years. When you run a large business you can do things like reinvest what would have been profit into new projects. This is the whole point of a growth company.

Recognize that, simplistically, Profit = Revenue - Expenses, and that expenses is a dial which can be turned somewhat arbitrarily.

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