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Bolt announces layoffs

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#301

Post by _dark_matter_ »

neffy wrote: post #284
015a wrote: post #186

The funny thing about recessions, and macroeconomics as a whole; much of the time, we eat the food we cook. If there is an upcoming recession, the most likely root cause is that a bunch of people believed there will be an upcoming recession.

That's the convenient mythology. De facto - bear in mind the system that we´re talking about moves rather slowly - recessions always have real financial or economic system causes, and quite often are seen coming in advance by some people. People who are at the right points in the financial system, who for example can see bad debt starting to build up (takes months, but there's always a clear pattern of people startin…

Those same smart people are so prescient they predict 10 out of the next 2 recessions.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#302

Post by throwaway2037 »

nivenhuh wrote: post #297
urthor wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The way to do layoffs is simple. You get managers to stack rank the lot, then you get every single person with 30 or more reports under them in a room. Then you do the whole layoff in one 5 hour meeting. Swing the axe and get it done in 2 days.

You have to make sure that well-understood criteria is followed for layoffs, or else the action might be understood as a firing. [1] This is important, because a company can be held liable for wrongful termination. [2] [1] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/making-layoff-decisi... [2] https://www.employmentlawfirms.com/resources/employment/wron...

About wrongful termination: Does severance pay help to reduce risk for companies? I always assume the risk comes from insufficient severance pay. My point: Even if you have grotesque firing practices, enough money can pave over the problem.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#303

Post by alberth »

abraxas wrote: post #273
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?

~$20M in revenue from ~50 employees, equating to $400k in revenue/employee is extremely impressive for an early stage company.

What company is that?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#304

Post by scarface74 »

phphphphp wrote: post #130
ushakov wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they raised $355M this year and like $600M last year https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bolt-5/company_finan... how can a company burn money that quickly so they end up with only 12-18 months of runway?

very broad strokes: money is raised to be spent. each round gets you to the next, or you reach some measure of sustainability before the money runs out — layoffs like this should be expected, regardless of the amount raised, if there’s a shift in conditions that indicate raising again in 18 months isn’t going to be easy. You can burn any amount of money if you want to.

Neither the VCs nor the founders care about “sustainability” or profitability. They care about exiting and not being left holding the bag.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#305

Post by dexterdog »

alberth wrote: post #303
abraxas wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

~$20M in revenue from ~50 employees, equating to $400k in revenue/employee is extremely impressive for an early stage company. What company is that?

Does it matter if that revenue is unprofitable and there is not a real path to profitability?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#306

Post by abraxas »

alberth wrote: post #303
abraxas wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

~$20M in revenue from ~50 employees, equating to $400k in revenue/employee is extremely impressive for an early stage company. What company is that?

We aren't early stage. We have a growing revenue stream but have been at it for about 5 years with some ups and downs along the way. There is a product market fit but the product still needs a lot of work on being more scalable (in terms of process).

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#307

Post by dexterdog »

nrmitchi wrote: post #56
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

1) "Multiple rounds" is basically the worst possible way to do layoffs. 2) Based on their recent fundraise (and assuming that they had 0 dollars at that point), that's basically a burn rate of 25-30M/m. I'm not sure I can event comprehend what that company could be spending that much money on.

Even a single round is bad because it will cause some of your most hire-able people to look and then likely leave. When a second round comes too close to the first then everybody starts looking hard and the people that stick around are the ones nobody else wants. It would be cheaper to just close the doors.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#308

Post by scarface74 »

maxerickson wrote: post #268
bogomipz wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

More like Monopoly money.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#309

Post by abraxas »

altdataseller wrote: post #290
abraxas wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Congrats on building a company that is making money sustainably.

Thanks. We definitely want to take it to the next level, beyond a "good lifestyle business" stage but we'll do it on our terms growing the workforce at a rate that makes sense to us despite some pressure from the board to "hire more aggressively".

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#310

Post by abraxas »

version_five wrote: post #291
abraxas wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I've seen companies with less revenue and a bigger workforce growing at that rate. They call it blitz-scaling, and I don't know if it's actually ever worked, where I saw it first hand it was basically just setting a pile of money on fire.

Reminds me of my dotcom boom/bust experience of the late nineties where the dotcom was posting monthly "hiring targets" and celebrating that they met them. They were so screwed and tanked badly right after March 2000.
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