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When Ryan Breslow\u2019s fintech company Bolt lost $10.7 billion in value, he had a radical diagnosis: HR needed to go. \u201cThey were creating problems that didn\u2019t exist,\u201d Breslow, 31, said at Fortune\u2019s Workforce Innovation Summit<\/a>. \u201cThose problems disappeared when I let them go.\u201d<\/p>\n Breslow, who stepped down as CEO in 2022 but returned in 2025, cut 30% of the workforce in April and replaced HR with a smaller \u201cpeople operations\u201d team focused on training.<\/p>\n But HR wasn\u2019t the only group to lose their jobs. Breslow said employees had grown complacent during the boom years, when Bolt\u2019s valuation hit $11 billion in 2022 before crashing to $300 million. He gave workers 60 days to adapt to a leaner culture but said 99% couldn\u2019t make the shift. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of entitlement that had festered across the company,\u201d he said. He fired nearly the entire leadership team and eliminated four-day workweeks and unlimited PTO.<\/p>\n Bolt now operates with about 100 employees, down from thousands. \u201cWe have a team a quarter of the size, who are much more junior, who work a lot harder, who have better energy,\u201d Breslow said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n When Ryan Breslow\u2019s fintech company Bolt lost $10.7 billion in value, he had a radical diagnosis: HR needed to go. \u201cThey were creating problems that didn\u2019t exist,\u201d Breslow, 31, said at Fortune\u2019s Workforce Innovation Summit<\/a>. \u201cThose problems disappeared when I let them go.\u201d<\/p>\n Breslow, who stepped down as CEO in 2022 but returned in 2025, cut 30% of the workforce in April and replaced HR with a smaller \u201cpeople operations\u201d team focused on training.<\/p>\n But HR wasn\u2019t the only group to lose their jobs. Breslow said employees had grown complacent during the boom years, when Bolt\u2019s valuation hit $11 billion in 2022 before crashing to $300 million. He gave workers 60 days to adapt to a leaner culture but said 99% couldn\u2019t make the shift. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of entitlement that had festered across the company,\u201d he said. He fired nearly the entire leadership team and eliminated four-day workweeks and unlimited PTO.<\/p>\n Bolt now operates with about 100 employees, down from thousands. \u201cWe have a team a quarter of the size, who are much more junior, who work a lot harder, who have better energy,\u201d Breslow said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n