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Bolt’s Founder Hands Over CEO Responsibilities to Become Exec Chair

By George Paul

Last updated: Feb 15, 2023

Bolt's founder and CEO Ryan Breslow has announced his decision to become the one-click online checkout enabler's Executive Chairman, effective immediately. In his place, Breslow has tapped Bolt's COO, Maju Kuruvilla, as the eight-year-old fintech startup's new CEO.

Ryan Breslow. Image courtesy of Bolt
Ryan Breslow. Image courtesy of Bolt

Bolt's founder and CEO Ryan Breslow has announced his decision to become the one-click online checkout enabler's Executive Chairman, effective immediately. In his place, Breslow has tapped Bolt's COO, Maju Kuruvilla, as the eight-year-old fintech startup's new CEO.

The split leaves Kuruvilla in charge of the California-based company's day-to-day operations, while Breslow focuses on the big picture.

In a Twitter thread, Breslow explained, "By stepping UP as Executive Chairman, I will focus on my superpowers all day every day — like driving culture, landing deals, and thinking big. This change will allow me to be even more involved in the areas I care most about." In a short list, he expanded on this, saying he will focus on the company's vision, fundraising, acquisitions, culture and growing deals tenfold.

Kuruvilla is a newcomer to the company and first joined Bolt in January 2021 as the commerce disruptor's Chief Product and Technology Officer. After just seven months on the job, he was promoted to COO. In his Twitter thread, Breslow said Kuruvilla is "revered and respected internally" and added that "with already a majority of the company reporting in to him, I asked myself the question: Why not 100% of the company?"

Before Bolt, Kuruvilla spent eight years at Amazon as the Director of Software Development and later as a VP and GM in charge of its core Prime logistics tech and fulfillment operations. Prior to that, he was the CTO and VP of Product at consulting firm Milliman.

On LinkedIn, Kuruvilla stated, "Thank you Ryan Breslow for trusting me and giving me an opportunity to be part of the amazing Bolt story. So excited about the future. Let's decentralize commerce."

Kuruvilla takes the helm at Bolt just after Breslow’s headline-grabbing tweets accusing rival Stripe and startup accelerator YCombinator of being the “mob bosses of Silicon Valley.” He also steps up on the back of the company’s $355 million Series E funding round, which gave Bolt an $11 billion valuation. The company said that the latest funding will be used to hire more product and engineering talent, scale to more international markets, and implement more "Conscious Culture" initiatives like its four-day workweek.

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