CEO defends decision to fire entire HR team because they 'created problems that didn't exist'

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The US company let go of roughly 30 per cent of its staff in April alone, which was its fourth round of job cuts in as many years.

Head of the firm Ryan Breslow, 32, defended the decision, telling a Fortune summit: "We had an HR team, and that HR team was creating problems that didn’t exist.

"Those problems disappeared when I let them go."

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Mr Breslow said his decision was motivated by a desire to return Bolt to its culture as a start-up.

He added that HR professionals were better suited to "peacetime" conditions at larger companies instead of a start-up environment focused on rapid growth and efficiency.

Bolt, which makes software to speed up online checkouts, has set up a smaller “people operations team” to oversee employee training and serve as a resource for employees.

The job losses come after the company endured a challenging few years which saw its valuation fall from a peak of $11 billion to $300 million in 2024, The Information reports.

Mr Breslow left the company in 2022 but returned in 2025 to address its fall-off.

He said: "There’s a sense of entitlement that had festered across the company, and people who felt empowered, felt entitled — but weren’t actually working hard.

"This is the number one thing that I had to battle. Ultimately, most of those people just had to be let go."

"They had gotten used to working at a company where they didn’t have to get their hands dirty and could spend a lot of money.

"We just didn’t have that money to spend anymore, and we didn’t have that luxury."