![]() ![]() Managers, investors and customers say they’re okay with his outspoken style. Before posting, he meditates on the thesis and asks his leadership-now made up of seasoned operators from Amazon, Twitter and Pinterest-for feedback. Aaron Kotowski for forbesīreslow says his tweetstorms are far from late-night Trumpian rants. ![]() It’s led to a lot of our breakthroughs as a business,” says Breslow, who practices yoga daily in his Miami yard. Palm Tree Pose: “The solitude here is powerful. A well-timed Twitter beef with well-known competitors is a cheap way to draw attention and build hype. Bolt, a wonky digital checkout startup that’s far from a household name, needs to sign up millions of users, fast. Of course, sharing the struggles makes for good marketing too. “I believe you should share the knowledge and also share the struggles, because the thing I hate most about Silicon Valley is everyone’s telling a Cinderella story.” ![]() If I’m not going to speak up about the darkness that I see in Silicon Valley, who is?” Breslow says. “I’m not afraid of bothering a few powerful people. Neither Stripe nor Shopify-nor Patrick Collison nor Tobias Lütke, their respective billionaire CEOs-has responded publicly to his provocations. In February, he wrote that Shopify, the $90 billion e-commerce company that offers high-tech tools to small businesses, eats its own ecosystem by stealing its developer community’s best ideas. It was both business and personal for him. In January, Breslow tweeted a multithread screed arguing that Stripe, the $95 billion (valuation) payment darling, and Y Combinator, the elite startup accelerator, are “mob bosses” that collude to crush fintech competition. If I’m not going to speak up about the darkness that I see in Silicon Valley, who is?” And he has recently taken to Twitter to throw 280-character haymakers at some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players. He’s publicly touting a controversial employee stock option loan plan that he calls radical but battle-scarred veterans of Web 1.0 say is just reckless. In January, he stepped down as Bolt’s CEO to become its executive chairman, an extremely unexpected move for a young entrepreneur who had just closed a $355 million funding round. He has also caused industry-wide confusion and controversy. Outside the company, Breslow has self-published two books ( Fundraising and Recruiting) and launched two nonprofits: spreads his “work like a lion” gospel, and Movement offers free dance classes in Miami, Los Angeles and New York. Insiders say Bolt has soon-to-be-announced deals with a major social network and one of America’s largest department stores. Breslow has signed deals with Adobe, Forever 21 and Fanatics. The number of shoppers who use Bolt’s software has exploded, from 800,000 at the start of 2020 to more than 12 million today. He has turbocharged Bolt’s valuation to $11 billion-a figure that has many in the investment world scratching their head, given that the company did just $40 million in 2021 sales. In all he has raised $1 billion from venture capitalists, $873 million of it just since 2020 from blue-chip shops like General Atlantic, BlackRock, WestCap and H.I.G. “I don’t want to be in their clubs, their groups, their parties.”įor a cloistered homebody who claims to disdain the Silicon Valley scene, Breslow seems to be everywhere in tech these days. I want nothing to do with it-I’m probably one of the only billionaires who has that feeling,” Breslow says with a smirk. “Most people who get rich want to be a part of an elite circle. ![]() Instead, he lights candles and plays a buffalo-skin drum (he made it himself with the help of a local indigenous tribe) to wind down before bed. After sunset, he avoids electric lights and screens because they disrupt his sleep. ![]()
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