HR has no value in startups: Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow explains why, ‘When I let them go…’
Ryan Breslow founded Bolt in 2014 from his Stanford dorm room. Fintech company reaches $11 billion valuation in 2022. At the height of its success, it employed thousands of workers. However, soon after, fortune suddenly took a turn.
Breslow stepped down as CEO the same year. By 2024, Bolt’s valuation has reportedly fallen to around $300 million. This represented a drop of almost 97% from the peak.
Multiple layoffs have significantly reduced the company’s headcount. Breslow attributed the collapse to poor decision-making and excessive spending.
He returns as CEO in 2025 with one mission: to survive. Speaking at Fortune’s Workforce Innovation Summit on May 19, the 31-year-old described his approach as a “wartime” activity.
Breslow also completely eliminated the company’s HR team. He told Fortune editor-in-chief Kristin Stoller that the team was creating unnecessary problems.
“We had an HR team, and that HR team was creating problems that didn’t exist. When I let them go, those problems went away,” he said.
He said Bolt had gone into full “startup mode” again and the HR team had lost its value. The company has since retained about 100 employees. The recent layoff affected approximately 30% of the remaining workforce.
“We’re back in startup mode again, and these HR professionals have really important insights in peacetime and when you’re in a larger company,” he said.
He later replaced it with a smaller human operations team. HR represents “the wrong energy, format and approach,” he wrote on LinkedIn last year. He argued that human operations empowers managers and enables companies to move faster.
Culture Reset
Beyond the structural changes, Breslow identified a deeper cultural problem at Bolt. He said that the employees grew very easily during the company’s boom years. He argued that a sense of entitlement permeates the entire organization.
Workers felt empowered, but they were not actually producing results. “That was the number one thing I had to fight,” he said at the conference.
When he returned as CEO, he gave his current employees 60 days to adjust. The aim was to transform them into a leaner, startup-style work culture.
The result was very clear: 99% could not make this change. Breslow eventually replaced nearly the entire leadership team from scratch. He said the old guard was used to spending freely and avoiding difficult tasks.
The reset required abandoning many of the progressive workplace policies he once championed. Four-day work weeks were abolished. Unlimited paid leave was also abolished.
“As a pioneer of conscious leadership, I had to lead a company back into a very challenging situation,” he said.
Breslow now argues that this painful strategy is paying off. Bolt currently markets itself as a one-stop financial super app. It allows users to send money, earn rewards, and trade cryptocurrency. The company employs a team described as younger but significantly more driven.
“Our customers tell us, ‘We haven’t had this kind of attention in four years,'” Breslow said.
He acknowledged that experienced, credentialed professionals are no longer at the heart of Bolt’s model. Instead, he said, the company’s renewed momentum is being driven by a smaller, harder-working team.
