Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow Eliminates HR Function, Citing Culture of Entitlement and Manufactured Dysfunction
Ryan Breslow, the 31-year-old chief executive of US fintech firm Bolt, has dissolved the company’s entire human resources department and cut roughly 30% of its workforce, arguing that HR professionals were “creating problems that didn’t exist” — problems he says vanished the moment they were dismissed.
Speaking at Fortune’s Workforce Innovation Summit, Breslow defended the sweeping restructuring as essential to reviving a company that had suffered one of Silicon Valley’s more spectacular valuation collapses.
From $11 Billion to $300 Million
Bolt, which Breslow co-founded in 2014 from his Stanford dormitory, reached a peak valuation of $11 billion in 2022. By 2024, that figure had reportedly fallen to approximately $300 million — a decline of nearly 97%.
Breslow stepped down as CEO in 2022 as the company’s fortunes deteriorated. On returning to the role, he found a business he described as mired in complacency and a leadership structure ill-suited to a turnaround.
“There’s a sense of entitlement that had festered across the company,” he told Fortune editorial director Kristin Stoller. “People who felt empowered, felt entitled — but weren’t actually working hard. And this is the number one thing that I had to battle.”
A 60-Day Ultimatum and Near-Total Leadership Overhaul
Upon his return, Breslow gave employees hired under the previous leadership structure 60 days to adapt to a leaner, startup-style operating model. He says 99% failed to make the transition, prompting him to replace almost the entire leadership team.
The company now employs roughly 100 people — a fraction of its former headcount — and has replaced its HR function with a slimmed-down people operations team focused on training and basic employee support.
Breslow has been explicit about the distinction. Writing on LinkedIn, he argued that “HR is the wrong energy, format, and approach”, favouring instead a structure that, in his view, empowers line managers and accelerates decision-making.
Allegations of Unpaid Staff Denied
The restructuring has not been without controversy. Bolt has faced persistent reports that employees had pay withheld and that some contractors went unpaid. Breslow denied that the company withheld funds from staff.
In an internal Slack message earlier this year, he told remaining employees: “Going forward, Bolt will be operating as a much leaner organisation and leveraging AI at our core.”
The Case Against Credentialism
Breslow has been unapologetic in his rejection of what he calls “big credentialed, pedigreed professionals”, claiming that a smaller, more junior workforce is outperforming its predecessor.
“We have a team a quarter of the size, who are much more junior, who work a lot harder, who have better energy,” he said. “And our customers are telling us, ‘We haven’t had this type of attention in four years.'”
Bolt currently markets itself as a consumer “SuperApp” — offering money transfers, rewards, and cryptocurrency trading — positioning the leaner structure as integral to its renewed commercial focus.