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Bolt announces layoffs

bolt.com

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Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#91

Post by fdgsdfogijq »

ushakov wrote: post #89
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

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?

No idea. Confirmed the layoff number is 33% as of today. Which is pretty aggressive, they must be hemorrhaging money.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#92

Post by mkozlows »

88913527 wrote: post #52
nrmitchi wrote: post #33

First 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.

That's always been true, and not just for unicorns. Big companies let people go in bad times, too; and small companies just fold.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#93

Post by pbreit »

librish wrote: post #19
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…

The founder pushing employees to take such a reckless financial decision while presumably their only insight into many key business metrics is the leaderships rosy portrayal of them is unethically irresponsible.

By "pushing" you mean "not pushing"?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#94

Post by pbreit »

scarface74 wrote: post #27
dburn1169 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when they only did $5.2M in Q1… This is insane to me. I work at a startup with a similar valuation and we bring in almost double that amount of revenue a week... and I think we're overvalued.

I never cease to be amazed at how people value companies based on revenue and not profit. Revenue without profit numbers tell you nothing about how well the company is doing.

It's easy to envision profit so towards the beginning revenue is much more important.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#95

Post by datalopers »

halfdan wrote: post #75
nrmitchi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bolt-com/

While not everyone has a linkedin, 900 employees seems like a reasonably safe pre-layyoffs estimate?

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#96

Post by [deleted] »

nrmitchi wrote: post #33

First 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…

[deleted]

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#97

Post by throwaway5752 »

88913527 wrote: post #52
nrmitchi wrote: post #33

First 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.

The more businesses do this, the more people will be out there who will just be happy for a paycheck and health insurance. Prospective employees will start to be less picky and have fewer options, sadly. It's not going to be a good time for a lot of people.

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#98

Post by johnzim »

lelandfe wrote: post #78
Solvitieg wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

By taking part in this program, you are essentially taking a personal loan, partially secured by your stock options which will vest later.

If you don't happen to understand Stock options: At a later date you will have the OPTION to buy company stock at a set price (often referred to as a Strike price)

So some entity is lending you money because they know you have Stock options and presumably will be good for the money when they vest/mature.

Of course, if the value of the Stock at the point of your options maturing is LOWER than your strike price, you essentially have earned yourself the option to buy $4 apples at the price of $50 an apple. Eg: your options are worthless (beyond their ability to purchase shares which might not be buyable on a public market)

So since you took out a _personal loan_ you now have to pay it back.

EDIT: I missed one thing - you actually get to exercise _now_ if you take out this loan... This has slightly more upside because it means that you could have in theory, sold those shares for immediate upside on the secondary market and thereby have de-risked yourself. If you didn't, then you got hosed. You could also have a capital gains advantage by spreading the gains I suppose

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#99

Post by Karrot_Kream »

lelandfe wrote: post #78
Solvitieg wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

These employees chose to take out a loan in order to exercise the options. These employees now own the shares that they exercised their option for _and_ a loan to pay back the amount of money spent to exercise. If the price of these shares becomes _less_ than the price spent to exercise the option to receive the share, then the value of the employees' shares is now _less_ than the price paid to exercise. This means that if an employee wants to pay off the loan, they first sell their shares, and then they're still on the hook for the remaining difference between the sale of the share price and the principal for the loan.

For the Bolt employees who took this deal, I feel bad...

Re: Bolt announces layoffs

#100

Post by trhway »

nrmitchi wrote: post #33

First 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…

>Bolt apparently raised $355 million 4 months ago. If they are having cash problems, or are concerned about not having enough runway

well, may be there is a connection :

"Earlier this month, Bolt announced it was purchasing crypto startup Wyre Payments in a deal worth reportedly worth roughly $1.5 billion."

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