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Bolt announces layoffs

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#261

Post by YZF »

IMTDb wrote: post #158
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…

Both "we overhired" and "it's because of the market" can be true at the same time. You get a $335 million in Feb with a common understanding with current investors that you are going to raise $ XXX in roughly 24 month, depending on results compared to an agreed upon business plan. You thus plan for a roughly 24 month runway. 4 month later (now) you get a call from your investors that your planned next series is going…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2022/05/25/checkout-...

$355M is a lot of money... Nobody can tell today what the market will look like in 24 months and nobody could tell in February what the market will look like in 24 months. You need to include some uncertainty in your plans anyways.

If there's a downturn it's not all negative, the people you were going to hire in 6 months might now be better and cheaper.

Sounds to me more like the CEO feels there was over-hiring anyways and this is just an excuse. Also maybe this is a little about "after acquiring crypto startup Wyre in April" and the current outlook on crypto?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#262

Post by tschellenbach »

treyfitty wrote: post #177

Why do CEOs feel compelled to say “this is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.” Hoping a CEO can chime in here… is the decision really that hard? It seems like they are just trying to not seem like a dick, when we all know they’re just looking out for their own best interests (not saying this is wrong, but not saying this is right either). Just genuinely curious how much “fluff” that statement contains.

Chiming in. I tend to work day and night to ensure a good outcome for our team, investors, customers etc. At the end of the day the buck stops with the CEO. Definitely the last thing you want for your team members.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#263

Post by tempsy »

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…

they probably aren’t burning cash quite as quickly as Fast but product simply doesn’t seem that interesting or differentiated to me at all.

and similarly to Fast can’t recall a single merchant I’ve shopped from that actually uses it.

and with such a public brawl with their largest merchant/customer I don’t see how that really inspires much confidence in any other medium or large merchant that were even remotely considering using them. the risk of it not working very well seems far too high to switch to it if whatever a merchant is currently using is far from broken.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#264

Post by travisgriggs »

bko wrote: post #197
kodah wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this, it's one of the first things I investigate about a company. If the company does habitual layoffs or has done rather large ones in the past five years, I'll move on 90% of the time.

I disagree. I think it's healthy and more humane than firing people for cause. Hiring is hard and you mess up, or people grow out of their role. Everyone knows people at work that are incompetent. It's tough to get rid of them because they may not be grossly incompetent or malicious, but just not up to standard. The layoffs I've seen usually let people go that are not effective and frankly not very happy. They get a…

Ah. The trim the deadwood argument.

This makes lots of sense. But I never see it play out this way.

Because in a given company, if you ask people to identify “the deadwood” there will be a couple standouts, but otherwise quite a bit of variability. If nothing else because everyone has ego centric biases that over compensate their own contributions (or that of their function/department). And then it’s really just a mosh pit of politics that decides who stays and goes.

Or put more succinctly “one man’s deadwood is another’s diamond in the rough.”

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#265

Post by throwaabolt »

mizzao wrote: post #231
throwaabolt wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you. can my wife's boyfriend contact you too? he is part of the layoff as well.

How does this "wife's boyfriend" thing work?

We live seprated already and have our own lifes (and boyfriends, at least for her) but the divorce has not been finalized yet and so she technically is still my wife.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#266

Post by bogomipz »

johnzim wrote: post #98
lelandfe wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm awful at understanding company stock stuff. > if the common stock becomes less than exercise price, their personal assets are on the hook Can someone explain what that may mean for the >50% of employees at Bolt that bought into this program, now? I'm really struggling to grok what my quoted sentence entails... edit: thanks much for the quick explanations

By taking part in this program, you are essentially taking a personal loan, partially secured by your stock options which will vest later. If you don't happen to understand Stock options: At a later date you will have the OPTION to buy company stock at a set price (often referred to as a Strike price) So some entity is lending you money because they know you have Stock options and presumably will be good for the mone…

I was struggling to understand why someone would take a loan against options rather than just sell them on the secondary market like you mentioned and I think the key difference is that you can't sell an unvested option on the secondary market but with this Bolt program you could take a loan against an unvested option which is unique and kind of bizarre. Who would underwrite such a loan and how is the accounting for it done at the company level? Also wouldn't they be taxed as income?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#267

Post by xwowsersx »

tehlike wrote: post #166
phphphphp wrote: post #136

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.

This has details https://twitter.com/theryanking/status/1493390167461224451

Wow, everything about this thread -- from the kitschy, nearly condescending rara tone, to the exclamations about something never having been done before being a reason to it -- as well as his profile pic just screams to me that this is a company with a totally broken ethos buried in some weird SV startup pathology. It's all just so weird.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#268

Post by maxerickson »

bogomipz wrote: post #257
pfarrell wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't spend real money on fake money." Good advice I got from colleagues at a 2000 era company who took out loans to buy their options and cover the taxes when the stock was at $50/share and then watched it drop to <$1/share while they were in a lockout window. I worked with people who had 6 figure loans they owed on for worthless stock. Took years for the stock to recover.

Why would they have taken out a loan to buy their options? If the options are vested you can just sell them and pocket the difference between your strike price and the buy offer. If the options weren't vested you can't buy them anyway and you would still have the same strike price when they did vest.

They wanted to keep the rocket ship stock...

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#269

Post by datavirtue »

clpm4j wrote: post #242
IMTDb wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both "we overhired" and "it's because of the market" can be true at the same time. You get a $335 million in Feb with a common understanding with current investors that you are going to raise $ XXX in roughly 24 month, depending on results compared to an agreed upon business plan. You thus plan for a roughly 24 month runway. 4 month later (now) you get a call from your investors that your planned next series is going…

More broadly I've gotta believe that raising $335 million (after many more hundreds of millions previously), and still expecting to need to raise more down the road is just a seriously flawed approach to running a business.

Yeah, if they have $300MM and are laying off, something is seriously wrong.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#270

Post by datavirtue »

icelancer wrote: post #232
Rafert wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget they're getting sued by a large customer of theirs too, claiming their solution doesn't deliver what was promised: https://www.pymnts.com/legal/2022/authentic-brands-sues-bolt...

Bolt pitched us a ton (we do eight figures of revenue online using a WP-style checkout), we heard them out, did a small demo-type, and I spoke to a bunch of their customers... and we came to similar conclusions. It's overhyped "technology" that has very questionable marketing claims.

So, a silicon valley startup?
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