For those who’ve seen layoffs first hand: do lower performers generally get laid off first, or is it more random?
Bolt announces layoffs
71–80 of 564 posts
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#72Waiting 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.
Thanks to him, I think he's a little bit unstable. His rants are a out there for sure.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#73First of all, there is no mention of what percentage of their workforce is being directly effected by this. I suspect it is not small. That aside, I fail to see this as anything other than this "company" taking advantage of the current environment to execute layoffs in a way that lets them blame "the market" rather than their own short-comings. We saw this in March 2020 as well. They overhired for the hype, and now a…
Don't forget they're getting sued by a large customer of theirs too, claiming their solution doesn't deliver what was promised: https://www.pymnts.com/legal/2022/authentic-brands-sues-bolt...
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#74First of all, there is no mention of what percentage of their workforce is being directly effected by this. I suspect it is not small. That aside, I fail to see this as anything other than this "company" taking advantage of the current environment to execute layoffs in a way that lets them blame "the market" rather than their own short-comings. We saw this in March 2020 as well. They overhired for the hype, and now a…
The more businesses do this, the more the hiring market becomes lemons for unicorn-type businesses. Prospective employees will wonder if they're an overhire and if question their expectations of job security.
Always ask about valuation and revenue. If the multiple is very high run the other way. A high multiple makes it less likely that your stock will be worth something, it also makes it more likely that the company will have to do layoffs in the future.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#75Rumors 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.
Having 5000 employees will do that quickly.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#76Rumors 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
Large technology companies won’t hesitate to layoff employees to protect their stock price.
Remember that debt fuelled stock buybacks were a huge reason for propping up stock prices for these companies as well.
Now that cheap debt is off the table, that buyback strategy will have diminishing impact as well, forcing companies to find other ways to keep stock up (such as cutting costs)
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> how people value companies based on revenue and not profit Profit is a closer abstraction to cash flows ( i.e. to the investor) than revenue, but it's still an abstraction. Investors looking at revenues and unit economics can sometimes--often--predict future profits and discount backwards, in the same way that a value investor can look at a company's profits and sometimes--less often, frankly--predict future cash f…
Profit isn’t an “abstraction”. If you bring in more money than you spend, it means that you don’t have to worry about a “runway”, nor do you have to worry about outside funding. How can you have a successful business that spends more money than you make?
In theory you outspend all of your competitors such that they go out of business or otherwise lose out on the some network effect. At that point you flick the profit switch on and start swimming in pools of money.
I wouldn't like to guess what the success rate of this game is though.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#78The founder also encouraged employees to take on what was effectively personal debt at an ~11B valuation when they only did $5.2M in Q1…
And "over half" of their employees apparently took on the debt. Source: https://twitter.com/theryanking/status/1493609864534315014
I'm awful at understanding company stock stuff.
> if the common stock becomes less than exercise price, their personal assets are on the hook
Can someone explain what that may mean for the >50% of employees at Bolt that bought into this program, now? I'm really struggling to grok what my quoted sentence entails...
edit: thanks much for the quick explanations
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#79The 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???
>HOLY CRAP. How is this even legal???
You missed the tweet directly under it:
> Therefore, we made sure to give every employee ample time to read about the pros and cons of this decision, including learning about all the risks in the business, and we gave every employee a $300 stipend to consult a financial advisor during the implementation process.
I understand making things illegal to protect people from being swindled because they don't know any better, but if you made decision even after consulting a financial advisor that's on you.
Re: Bolt announces layoffs
#80Between them and Treehouse, hope no one tries to spin this to attack companies experimenting with the four-day workweek.