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Bolt announces layoffs

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#131

Post by stu2b50 »

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…

According to Ryan Brewslow,

> There IS risk to the employee; they now have a real loan outstanding and 100% personal recourse, so if the common stock becomes less than exercise price, their personal assets are on the hook

So I suppose the bank will be after your personal assets?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#132

Post by dontreact »

So is this the competitor to Fast, which also had a big round of layoffs recently? (edit: ah yes I remember now it was a complete shutdown)

My current understanding is that both of these businesses were premised on the end of Amazon’s one-click checkout patent. Is this proving that to be a faulty premise?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#134

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

puranjay wrote: post #76
unicornmama wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large technology companies won’t hesitate to layoff employees to protect their stock price.

Remember that debt fuelled stock buybacks were a huge reason for propping up stock prices for these companies as well. Now that cheap debt is off the table, that buyback strategy will have diminishing impact as well, forcing companies to find other ways to keep stock up (such as cutting costs)

I don't think VC-backed startups typically do stock buybacks? That's more of a Fortune 500 thing, AFAIK. "Startups" (of whatever size) are always concerned about the next funding round; I don't think they're going to burn runway to prop up the share price. It's companies like GE and IBM that do that, AFAIK.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#135

Post by tootie »

dontreact wrote: post #132

So is this the competitor to Fast, which also had a big round of layoffs recently? (edit: ah yes I remember now it was a complete shutdown) My current understanding is that both of these businesses were premised on the end of Amazon’s one-click checkout patent. Is this proving that to be a faulty premise?

Fast shut down completely.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#136

Post by phphphphp »

Can you share more about the stock option loan program? If it is what it sounds like, that program is unconscionable insanity and whoever is encouraging employees to engage with it is setting employees up for a world of hurt.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#137

Post by berberous »

nemothekid wrote: post #87
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't see why it should be illegal Borrowing against one's shares shouldn't be illegal. Companies lining up recourse financing for their employees should. How were the terms of the loans chosen? Who knew who was and wasn't participating? How was it ensured this wouldn't factor into personnel decisions? How were/are the people setting the strike prices of options segregated from the people setting the terms of the l…

> Companies lining up recourse financing for their employees should. Wait the companies set these loans up? I thought they were just going to a bank and getting something akin to a personal loan or some other 3rd party collateralized loan. Might as well work for free at that point.

It's a cashless loan. If you have options that cost $10,000 to exercise, the company lets you pay with a promissory note (promising to pay the $10,000, plus minimal interest set at the IRS's AFR). This is effectively the same as the company loaning you $10k, and then you hand it back over to exercise, but the cash does not change hands.

If you were to get a private loan, the interest would be much higher.

The company does not want to be in the business of making loans, but this is a way to allow the employee to exercise upfront (and thus potentially get certain benefits, like in a good exit scenario, of having gains be subject to LTCG and not ordinary income), in the best way possible. But in a downside scenario, like the company folding, the person is on the hook for the loan just like if they had decided to exercise with their own money.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#138

Post by hintymad »

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…

For a small company, "over hiring" is always a sign of incompetency of the management. Think about the good companies in the early days. They can do so much with so few people, like one person evolving zookeeper into a beast to handle FB's scale, or two people having implemented LevelDB in a matter of months, or one person figuring out a way to increase the density of co-lo rack by 10 times.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#139

Post by rsstack »

dontreact wrote: post #132

So is this the competitor to Fast, which also had a big round of layoffs recently? (edit: ah yes I remember now it was a complete shutdown) My current understanding is that both of these businesses were premised on the end of Amazon’s one-click checkout patent. Is this proving that to be a faulty premise?

Fast didn't just do layoffs: Fast shut down completely.
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