{"id":158360,"date":"2022-05-27T07:02:27","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T07:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=158360"},"modified":"2022-05-27T07:02:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T07:02:27","slug":"struggling-payments-start-up-bolt-fires-a-third-of-its-900-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/world-news\/struggling-payments-start-up-bolt-fires-a-third-of-its-900-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Struggling payments start-up Bolt fires a THIRD of its 900 staff"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Struggling payments start-up Bolt fires a THIRD of its 900 staff at San Francisco HQ just five months after it was lauded for moving to permanent four day week<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The company, which had a staff of about 900 in its San Francisco headquarters, made the announcement in a letter to employees\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8216;The leadership team and I made the decision to secure our financial position, and reach profitability with the money we have already raised&#8217; the CEO said<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>A total of over 250 employees, or approximately a third of the company, was laid off, according to a spokesperson\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Former CEO Ryan Breslow announced last September that the company would be moving to a four-day work week\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An ailing San Francisco start-up has fired 250 of its 900 staff just five months after it was hailed for moving to a permanent four day working week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Bolt, which manufactures payment software, announced the layoffs in an email sent to staffers on Wednesday\u00a0 by\u00a0new CEO\u00a0Maju Kuruvilla, according to SFGate.<\/p>\n<p>He was vague about the exact reasons for the layoffs, hinted that Bolt was losing money, and didn&#8217;t mention whether letting staff have a three day weekend was to blame.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;To laser focus on our core business and products, we will be prioritizing our roadmap and making several structural changes,&#8217; Kuruvilla wrote. &#8216;Unfortunately, this includes reducing the size of our workforce and parting ways with some incredibly talented people on our team as of today.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The leadership team and I have made the decision to secure our financial position, extend our runway, and reach profitability with the money we have already raised,&#8217; he added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2022\/05\/27\/03\/58342443-10859233-image-m-10_1653619080134.jpg\" height=\"893\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla, pictured, laid off 250 of his firm&#8217;s 900 staff Wednesday<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2022\/05\/27\/02\/58339971-10859233-image-a-2_1653613507056.jpg\" height=\"285\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Bolt, a Silicon Valley-based tech startup that made headlines for moving to a permanent four-day work week, announced Thursday they were laying off over 250 employees<\/p>\n<p>Many of those laid-off had just been given pay rises a few weeks ago. They watched their co-workers Slack accounts disappear over the course of the day the firings were announced to see who&#8217;d been culled.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Former CEO Ryan Breslow announced last September that the company would be moving to a four-day work week to keep staff happy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;What\u2019s the rationale? Work is changing and the biggest obstacle we have to face is burnout,&#8217; he wrote at the time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The four day workweek speaks to a shift in people\u2019s working styles &#8211; namely, that if you can get your work completed from Monday to Thursday, then there should be no latent expectation that Friday is time on,&#8217; he continued. &#8216;Instead, it can be time off &#8211; a period to rest, recover, engage with loved ones, think creatively and all the other things that enliven us.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Breslow, 27, stepped down in February to become its executive chairman and promoted Kuruvilla to replace him.<\/p>\n<p>The payments company, launched in 2014, secured over $963million in venture capital after a $355million funding round in mid-January put the company\u2019s valuation at $11billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2022\/05\/27\/02\/58339981-10859233-image-a-3_1653613514538.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Former CEO Ryan Breslow announced last September that the company would be moving to a four-day work week<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2022\/05\/27\/02\/58339975-10859233-image-a-4_1653613524004.jpg\" height=\"951\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Breslow, 27, stepped down in February to become its executive chairman and promoted Kuruvilla to replace him<\/p>\n<p>However, the company has run recent problems, as they are currently entangled in a lawsuit from its biggest customer, Authentic Brand Group &#8211; who own Brooks Brothers, Forever 21, and Reebok &#8211; which claimed Bolt&#8217;s tech doesn&#8217;t work as promised.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The company also recently provided loans to employees, allowing them to buy more shares in the company&#8217;s stock, Forbes\u00a0reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A Bolt spokesperson claims that the number of employees who did that and were laid off was &#8216;in the single digits&#8217; and the value of those loans was under $200,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Multiple firms have begun experimenting with a four day working week, after it was claimed doing so does not harm productivity, and that it can boost staff retention.<\/p>\n<p>Bolt was one of the highest-profile firms to make the move. Its bosses have yet to give any indication of whether they plan to reinstate a traditional Monday-to-Friday working week as the firm tightens its belt.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-10859233\/Struggling-payments-start-Bolt-fires-900-staff-San-Francisco-HQ.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Struggling payments start-up Bolt fires a THIRD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":158359,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23056],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Struggling payments start-up Bolt fires a THIRD of its 900 staff - Pre Coin News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/world-news\/struggling-payments-start-up-bolt-fires-a-third-of-its-900-staff\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Struggling payments start-up Bolt fires a THIRD of its 900 staff - 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