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Bolt announces layoffs

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#271

Post by berberous »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #245
berberous wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was an option, not a requirement. There are pros/cons to doing it, but it was ultimately the employee’s decision. I’m sure the risks were well disclosed. The issue is >50% of employees don’t understand any of it, no matter how well explained and disclosed.

It is not enough to disclose the risks. You can not allow your employees to do this unless at the minimum you can demonstrate that they actually and fully understand those risks and you give them access to ALL the numbers you have

I would bet money Bolt disclosed financial statements and all material information as part of this offer.

The risks here are not rocket science. If the most recent round of preferred stock financing was $100, and your exercise price is $20, the risk is that if the stock ends up being worth less than $20, it's a mistake in hindsight. You can talk all day about the risks, the numbers, etc. What's currently happening is macroeconomic -- inflation, fed tightening, asset prices dropping across the board, etc. This was not some Bolt-specific issue. People assumed it was more likely that the stock would be worth at least their exercise price (which still may be the case). A full half of the people this was offered to declined, because they were prudent and the risks were probably clear. The other half was probably optimistic, and also gambling on crypto and other startups at the same time.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#272

Post by jimmytucson »

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…

This says it’s about 240 employees:

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

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#273

Post by abraxas »

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #49

Rumors going around on blind (posted by bolt employees) that over the course of a few rounds of layoffs it will be 30-50% of the total workforce. A lot of the initial layoff are software engineers. Apparently they only have 12-18 months of runway, and need to effectively double that. Current revenue is 40M. I guess this is the beginning of the tech washout. clings to large tech company job EDIT: 33% layoff today

40M in revenue for the year?!

Jesus, my startup is making about half that with a good sales pipeline for this year and we are 55 employees total. We might hire additional handful this year but that's it. How do you even onboard when you double your workforce every few months?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#274

Post by stocknoob »

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.

I think Russ Hanneman explained it well: https://youtu.be/BzAdXyPYKQo

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#275

Post by datavirtue »

colinmhayes wrote: post #147
puranjay wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mean the established big tech companies are sitting on mountains of cash. I suspect they’ll start ramping up buybacks even more aggressively due to what they see as undervalued equity.

Yep, blowing the cash on stock buybacks. And then layoffs when the cash gets uncomfortably low.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#276

Post by billylindeman »

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.

I also believe that it is flawed, but it is the model that most of valley is built on. It's frustrating. I wish more companies would just focus on building value and becoming profitable. VC funding for growth makes sense, but it shouldn't be in lieu of a profitable business model. If we keep funding unprofitable companies with unproven business models capitalism breaks, efficiency is lost, and someone ends up holding a bag - usually the mom and pop investor in the public markets.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#277

Post by tootie »

adrr wrote: post #259
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #49

Rumors going around on blind (posted by bolt employees) that over the course of a few rounds of layoffs it will be 30-50% of the total workforce. A lot of the initial layoff are software engineers. Apparently they only have 12-18 months of runway, and need to effectively double that. Current revenue is 40M. I guess this is the beginning of the tech washout. clings to large tech company job EDIT: 33% layoff today

I heard they had 900 employees. It's just a checkout page that plugs into your payment processor. I don't get why they need so many people. Most complicated thing they are probably doing is tokenizing the credit card themselves so the card info is portable across merchants with different processor.

I say the same about how Uber has thousands of engineers working on an app with 6 screens.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#278

Post by throwdbaaway »

scarface74 wrote: post #159
cecilpl2 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Amazon basically always had positive marginal revenue - unlike most of the startups. People like to cite the one case where it worked and seem to be forgetting that most of Amazon’s profit comes from AWS. What are the chances that any of these startups are going to pivot to a competent different vertical to shore up their main business? That’s just like saying all you have to do is rehire the former CEO after a 10 ye…

Indeed, I think the one (fictional) case is the main reason why we got so many perpetually unprofitable tech unicorn.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#279

Post by ethbr0 »

tempsy wrote: post #263
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 consi…

Underappreciated as to second order effects.

If I'm the buyer of a B2B product, am I going to start looking at startup competitors and asking "Will they be around in X months? Or should I just buy from MAMAA, who I know will survive?"

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#280

Post by ev1 »

nrmitchi wrote: post #178
aabhay wrote: post #157

I called it ages ago -- this company is an utter train wreck. I am honestly ashamed of the entire industry for birthing and fostering this basically fraudulent company. Its mistakes and lies are compounding on themselves, creating awful outcomes for its employees: - Company almost certainly juiced its usage numbers, potentially by buying users to inflate its customers revenues, so it could use those numbers to convin…

> I've never seen the technology used on any website, and I am a frequent online shopper. I went down this rabbit hole last month. While not directly related to the current topic, it might help explain why you've "never seen it": https://twitter.com/nrmitchi/status/1519174682863226880

Anecdotally, I keep a very tight list of domains that run with default third party blocked JS, and am very picky on uBlock. I have never seen a single site using Fast or Bolt.
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