I just accepted an offer (contract is signed) 1 month ago. I guess I need to start again looking for a job.
yea i would bolt even if you still have the offer.
Bolt announces layoffs
361–370 of 564 posts
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#362I was in the middle of an interview loop with Bolt mid-Apr, they canceled my onsite so they could (supposedly) prioritize onboarding people they'd already hired. Dodged a bullet there. Also did calls with Coinbase, Uber, and Twitter, who all now have hiring freezes. Boggles my mind how companies flip on a dime between "hire as fast as possible" and "the sky is falling, we're laying people off." In the case of Bolt an…
In theory, Elon Musk maybe buying Twitter shouldn't change any of its management decisions yet.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#363Waiting 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.
“Establishment Simp” would be a great name for a punk band.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#364Earlier 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.
In a way it seems like SWE jobs in tech hubs are subsidized by VCs. We can see it as some huge redistribution of wealth.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#365Ugh. I have a bunch of money saved up but I am terrified this is going to be the great depression 2.
This tech pullback is tricky. One one hand, there are real businesses with revenue behind a lot of the tech companies (unlike 2000), and these companies have actually changed consumer habits. There are also a lot of crypto businesses that are mostly still private and have invented a electronic trading cards that are losing value. Tech is also a lot bigger than it was in 2000 and 2008, a lot more people got into the industry, and it's not clear how overgrown it is.
Bolt seems like it managed cash flow poorly, and it's in a tough space, effectively competing with your browser, your phone's wallet, Paypal, Amazon, and (eventually?) Shopify. The question is how bad are second-order effects, and how much does a pullback hurt well-run players.
> great depression 2
You must be a Ray Dalio fan.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
With the preference stack it could take much more than a $20 price to break even.
It may not be rocket science, but this isn’t obvious unless you’re really savvy about startup deal structure, and all of the preference stack is disclosed.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#367One of the things that I would consider before joining any startups is just how good sane (or humane or whatever appropriate word) the founders are. Don't go behind all the PRs. Just try to find whether the people who founded are actually good people. What are their ethics. All these are subjective qualities so it's difficult to weigh but that's where the money is. edited (I understand I might not have described what…
How do you go about doing this exactly?
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#368I'm a bit naive on this space so forgive if this is an ignorant question;
Can anyone explain how any of these companies (Bolt, Fast, 1o) are doing anything different than "checkout with paypal"? What exactly is wrong with paypal that would make a merchant want to use Bolt instead?
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#369I'm a bit naive on this space so forgive if this is an ignorant question; Can anyone explain how any of these companies (Bolt, Fast, 1o) are doing anything different than "checkout with paypal"? What exactly is wrong with paypal that would make a merchant want to use Bolt instead?
Is Pepsi not just Coke?
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#370Earlier 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?
I shaved a bit off our AWS bill and my CFO at the time asked if it was worth my time. I asked him if he knew how you get a huge AWS bill with no idea how to fix? A little bit at a time. People get lazy because things seem good and let questionable hires and other expenses slide by because why not, there's plenty of money.
Oh gosh… I feel this.