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Bolt announces layoffs

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#441

Post by lkrubner »

icelancer wrote: post #374
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?

Yeah Bolt's numbers are just nonsense. We do 1/3 of what you do with a slightly less workforce than you, same hiring strategy. There have to be tons of businesses like ours. No one cares about small business success though. I'd love to read more books and stories about "small" businesses making $5-40MM and how they go about their day and running the company. Would make for far better reading than all the vaporware an…

At its peak during the 1980s and 1990s this is exactly what Inc magazine focused on, businesses making between $10 million and $100 million, the vast middle section of American business, the tens of thousands of medium sized businesses that make up the bulk of the economy. And Inc was very popular, because at that time it was a very popular idea for an entrepreneur to build a business on that scale.

After 2000 that particular ideal faded away, and also the market for what Inc magazine offered faded away. Slowly, but increasingly, the focus shifted to "unicorns." There were a few contributing factors:

1. In the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s it was still possible to start a business and grow it to $20 million, and then remain relatively stable at that level. However, the creation of new businesses has been in decline since the 1970s, a trend partly offset by the explosion of software startups, but still the trend is downwards.

2. Consolidation. In 1999 there were 8,000 businesses listed on all of the USA's stock markets (NYSE, Nasdaq, etc). In 2022, there are only 3,400 businesses listed. These last 20 years have seen the fastest consolidation in the history of the USA.

As such, the middle zone of American business is under pressure. Much more now than before 2000, a business has to get big, or get bought, or go under. So the dream that Inc magazine was selling in the 1980s and 1990s simply isn't realistic any more.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#442

Post by DantesKite »

dralley wrote: post #426
DantesKite wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading a blog post about how to do lay offs once. I can’t find it anymore but it was essentially don’t make it about yourself. It leaves a bitter taste in their mouth. Wish I could find it.

https://a16z.com/2020/03/31/planning-and-managing-layoffs/

!

Thank you so very much. This is what I've been searching for.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#443

Post by throwaway5371 »

tootie wrote: post #277
adrr wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

google is an app with 1 screen

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#444

Post by DeathArrow »

mrcwinn wrote: post #353
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

Similar. It's wild to realize when I was CEO of our startup, we had significantly less name recognition, dramatically less capital raised (by orders of magnitude), a much smaller team. ...and yet apparently significantly more revenue per employee than Bolt. Oh, and we were profitable, infinite runway, good growth, solid unit economics, LTVs we understood. Imagine!

Many CEOs and even investors care less about profits as long as the valuation is sky high. I think Yahoo was never profitable.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#445

Post by Patrol8394 »

Thaxll wrote: post #200
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?

Engineers are expensive.

California is expensive

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#446

Post by unicornmama »

scarface74 wrote: post #300
tuckerpo wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any other options? Have a compelling product that generates revenue. Unless your workforce is 100% saturated and you don't really _need_ that many engineers, lay-offs are one step above cutting free snacks on the usefulness scale when it comes to trying to stop bleeding.

Have a compelling product that generates profit . Any product is compelling when subsidized heavily enough by VCs.

VC money is there until it isn’t. See the YC message from last week.

Packaged dreams and hopes as a product ceases to be investible with high interest rate / high inflation.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#447

Post by hackernewds »

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…

Can only prop up the scam for so long.

Here are some good reads: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/10/business/bolt-start-up-ry...

and ICYMI the infamous "Stripe and YCombinator, the Mob Bosses of Silicon Valley" thread from the soon-to-be-former CEO:

https://twitter.com/theryanking/status/1485784823641755648

if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#448

Post by rtpg »

koreth1 wrote: post #398
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that a central 1-click checkout provider will store your payment information, shipping address, and other details after the first time you use a site with their checkout. The next time you checkout on any website that uses the same 1-click checkout provider, they already have your information for “1-click” checkout. The investment thesis is that if 1-click checkout were to take off, it would become a winn…

> The investment thesis is that if 1-click checkout were to take off, it would become a winner-take-all market where every shop wants to use the 1-click provider with the largest customer base. Not saying you're wrong about that being the thesis, but the thesis makes no sense to me. It assumes that consumers are selecting shopping sites based on which payment service the sites use rather than on, say, price or select…

The "makes sense" idea is for low effort purchases.

Simple example is itch.io. Games on there are a couple of bucks. I have my payment information saved. People link a game to me, and I'll maybe impulse buy cuz I don't have to deal with making an account or setting up payment info.

It's silly, but I think it works in a certain sweet spot! But honestly I think the bigger thing than payment details is actual account creation. I'll go over to Amazon to buy a thing just to not deal with some product's bespoke checkout page, unless I really want to support the product's creator.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#449

Post by DeathArrow »

scarface74 wrote: post #298
unicornmama wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large technology companies won’t hesitate to layoff employees to protect their stock price.

Large profitable tech companies don’t lay off staff when they see opportunities to grow. I know that three of the Big 5 tech companies (FAANG - Netflix + Microsoft) are throwing money and headcount at cloud just from the aggressive recruitment I’m seeing - I work for one of the big 3 in the consulting department and I’m constantly getting solicitations from the other two. Apple also is still hiring where it sees grow…

FAANG - Netflix + Microsoft started development centers in my Eastern European country. Apart from Google which is about the decent level, the rest aren't offering very good salaries or work conditions compared to competition so they aren't attracting the top talent.

Their strategy here is not the same as in US. They came here for cheap workforce, but cheap for them means REALLY cheap.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#450

Post by hackernewds »

upupandup wrote: post #18
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…

> 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???

legal? yes. ethical? no

Conveniently the CEO has bailed the sinking ship and publishes daily tirades against the "establishment" that is victimizing Bolt specifically every day.

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