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Bolt announces layoffs

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#381

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

pevey wrote: post #371
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 have an ecommerce web site for a smallish regional coffee company I own. I heard about Bolt and was interested enough to go to their web site to learn more. Could not find a pricing page. Saw a form where you can request a demo. Realized it was one of those products. Left immediately. I don't have time for that song and dance. No wonder they can't grow market share.

> Realized it was one of those products.

A product not intended for an SMB, but instead one targeted at large enterprises?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#382

Post by bluedevilzn »

abraxas wrote: post #344
arturkane7 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that is very impressive in this climate may I ask what is the category of the business? I am guessing it is not in any of the fashionable current spaces (blockchain, retail logistics, fintech,…)

No, a much less sexy but profitable and still under-served market - industrial monitoring and process improvement.

How do you even go about going to a factory and convincing people that they need a certain piece of software?

Did you work in this space and already have connections?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#383

Post by pbreit »

wordnerd2022 wrote: post #210
kleinsch wrote: post #31

I 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…

Uber does not have a hiring freeze

"Uber freezes most hiring" https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-freezes-most-hiring-ceo...

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#384

Post by whatever_dude »

rlt wrote: post #351
upupandup wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 https://twitter.com/theryanking/status/1493390184897032201 HOLY CRAP. How is this even legal???

Honestly the dude seems a little unstable to me.

No post body was provided.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#385

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

Lapz wrote: post #2

The founder also encouraged employees to take on what was effectively personal debt at an ~11B valuation when they only did $5.2M in Q1…

OMG, I didn't know a whole lot about this company previously, but holy shit they are toast. From Ryan Breslow's tweets:

> At Bolt, we did it as a Series D company

> If your company has a strong growth trajectory, the benefits to your team from this program can be extraordinary.

https://mobile.twitter.com/theryanking/status/14933901919518...

This reminds me during the dot com crash, when employees exercised their options when the stock was sky high, so they had gigantic paper gains and big AMT bills. Then the stock crashed (like 99% and then some crash), so employees were not only left with near worthless stock, but they had huge tax bills with no money to pay them - and they were sometimes locked out of selling due to insider trading rules as the stock was crashing.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#386

Post by rrix2 »

ta988 wrote: post #352
snotrockets wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$300 won't cover the cost for a qualified advisor. Even if you'd get a tax professional to make the math for you for that money (the one I use charges $350 for a phone call, ymmv), getting a lawyer to go over the terms of the loan would be $1000 at minimum.

That's when you start an informal union with your colleagues, pool the $300 and get a real advice.

i guess they probably doled it out as "file an expense report" stipend rather than cash or some voucher, that could lead to some awkward conversations w/ management...

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#387

Post by boardwaalk »

Aeolun wrote: post #372
sparrc wrote: post #368

I'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?

Customers do not like paypal? At least I don’t like Paypal.

I don't either. On the other hand, it's more of a known quantity than one of these startups.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#388

Post by Semaphor »

Aeolun wrote: post #372
sparrc wrote: post #368

I'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?

Customers do not like paypal? At least I don’t like Paypal.

Curious, why? I could understand it as merchant, but as customer, PP has great customer protection (including partial chargebacks, free return shipping, etc.)

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#389

Post by anm89 »

bartread wrote: post #248

> This is one of the hardest messages I’ve ever had to send. Layoffs are something of a fact of life but, seriously, executives need to stop saying things like this when they announce them. Nobody gives a damn how company leaders feel in these situations, least of all the people receiving the message - nor should they.

Meh. If they did it the otherway then people would roast them for being cold or whatever.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#390

Post by anm89 »

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.

This is bordering on delusional. You think there are no meaningful fundamental factors to the world economy and the only thing likely to cause it to go down is sentiment? Not debt? Not liquidity? Not inflation. Not money supply? It just goes down because people woke up on the wrong side of the bed?

The people believe it's going to go down because they are doing things like looking at balance sheets and tracking the relevant data. It's like saying someone got killed because a bullet happened to be moving around towards them but that it definitely wasn't because they were shot.

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