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Bolt announces layoffs

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#511

Post by matwood »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #199
matwood wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 But that doesn't answer his question. Was it worth it? You get tech debt a little at a time, but it can be hugely valuable to leverage it for growth.

Of course there is more nuance than my short story implies. Just like tech debt, it's always tradeoffs.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#512

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

ta988 wrote: post #345
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's usually quite rare for startups to offer good equity. HOPEFULLY this loan isn't a lot more than OP's salary. And theoretically, they can be sold for a decent percentage of the principal.

Ain't gonna happen they will be worthless.

They shouldn't be worthless yet. And OP should be able to sell them.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#513

Post by danrocks »

puranjay wrote: post #212
pastor_bob wrote: post #22

They still hiring though? Lots of positions listed. 4 day work week sounds tempting...

Damn, I’ve been out of the startup loop. I remember when startup used to be extra work. Are four day work weeks becoming common now?

Only in fantasyland, where Amazon and Chinese companies don’t exist.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#514

Post by kareemm »

hef19898 wrote: post #479
ryanSrich wrote: post #467

With YC, Craft, and Sequoia all urging their portfolio companies to operate at a When you’re small, and have revenue, it might only take a handful of layoffs to get to “default alive” as a startup. But once you go beyond a series A and start dumping gasoline on every part of your business to scale faster, the risk starts to grow exponentially. These companies with hundreds of employees are insanely inefficient, but t…

Couldn't agree more! Being at now-puplic start-up that needs somewhere north of, IMHO, 500 million to become somewhat profitable (industry specific, some hardware products simply cost a shit ton of money to develop) that is something I think a lot about lately. Especially the, up until now, habbit of inefficiently thtowing money and people at a problem hoping something sticks. In hardware, so nothing that can be grow…

> Being at now-puplic start-up that needs somewhere north of, IMHO, 500 million to become somewhat profitable

Maybe it’s just me. But I don’t consider publicly traded companies to be anywhere near a startup.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#515

Post by sgt101 »

kasey_junk wrote: post #329
ethbr0 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was always curious about that from an outcome perspective. It seemed like a company could go "manager-lean" (ax manager count, retain employees) for awhile, easier than vice versus. I'd imagine a lot of paperwork got back up, but presumably the company business roughly kept going. True or false?

I think the overriding lesson I learned from my time doing that job was that people dramatically overestimate their value to a firm. That’s true of ninja rockstar developers and vp directors of business dev. Largely the world keeps turning no matter who leaves a firm no matter the circumstances.

There is a lot of confirmation bias in this observation. Frankly, the dead have no voices and the missing value and / or damage is often simply unobserved by those who are left.

It's rare that the damage is surfaced. I did see an event once though when a fairly senior manager made repeated attempts to hand over some data collection and reporting when they were made redundant but were rebuffed by colleagues and their manager alike. Essentially this person was seen as a bit of a third wheel, and many comments were hurled around during the lay off process along the lines of "not clear what his real contribution is".

Well, it turned out that the data that he was collecting, analysising and reporting on was fundamental to the running of a strategic investment. Some months after he left the said project tanked, and because the data was not available a lot of money that potentially should have been recoverable wasn't.

So, it cuts both ways.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#516

Post by laserlight »

nrmitchi wrote: post #315
dexterdog wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it’s known it’s a single round, it’s easier for everyone remaining to not look around. When a second round breaks that trust though, all bets are off.

Leaving things to trust is not an option IMHO. Unless a company can guarantee that there won't be another round, they can always change their mind. I'm not sure if any company can give any such guarantee.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#517

Post by specialist »

lkrubner wrote: post #441
icelancer wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

I'd like to see a Gini coefficient type analysis for businesses.

Knowing nothing about nothing, I wonder about the role of financialization and tax policy in driving this transition. Stuff like the preference for growth stocks over value stocks, replacing pensions with individual retirement accounts, and cutting capital gains taxes.

However we got here, my belief (hope) is our economies would be more resilient with more small to mid-size companies. Ditto more fair.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#518

Post by kleinsch »

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…

Yea, your thesis makes no sense. Refining that thesis into what Bolt/Fast/etc actually believe:

- Conversion rates on the checkout page will be higher when user info is prefilled bc of less friction

- This means conversion rates will be highest for the one click checkout product with the largest market share

- This will lead to merchants choosing the one click checkout product with the largest market share, bc they want the best conversion rates

- This leads to VCs lighting money on fire trying to capture the market, since largest user network will be the main objective

This is assuming, of course, that checkout page UX and optimization is something all these companies will be able to do so it'll be a level playing field there. Given how much research and experimentation has gone into optimizing checkout pages, if these players all have buckets of VC money, that seems safe to me.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#519

Post by pfarrell »

dominotw wrote: post #356
pfarrell wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't spend real money on fake money." Good advice I got from colleagues at a 2000 era company who took out loans to buy their options and cover the taxes when the stock was at $50/share and then watched it drop to <$1/share while they were in a lockout window. I worked with people who had 6 figure loans they owed on for worthless stock. Took years for the stock to recover.

This is me currently. Bought my options before IPO markets went bust. Gives me anxiety when i think about it. Just reading this comment made my heart rate go up :(.

I am not a finance person, but maybe you should talk to a tax attorney or tax planner. That kind of person may be able to offer some guidance on what you can do. Good luck and remember at the end of the day, it's just money and you can recover no matter what.
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