Bolt reduced headcount dramatically and eliminated its HR team, claiming the company performs better without HR. The shift reflects a move from peacetime staffing to a wartime footing. Cornerstone OnDemand’s CEO emphasizes that AI agents depend on employees to operate within an organization; without people, agents create disorder. AI platforms can assess, train, and mobilize employees, supporting talent development and deployment. Gen Z is described as highly skilled for AI work and should be included rather than dismissed. Knowledge workers may see their stored knowledge outpaced, but they can still create value and differentiation through how they apply and adapt knowledge.
"“We got rid of our HR team.” To be fair, Breslow eviscerated HR last year along with thousands of other employees when he returned to the CEO role. The fintech firm he'd cofounded in 2014 had dropped from an $11 billion valuation in 2022 when he first stepped down to a reported value of about $300 million two years later. It went from a “peacetime” headcount of 2,500 to what he now calls a “wartime” footing of around 100 people."
"“People will enable agents to take over the enterprise,” he told me at a customer event in New York. “If you lose your people, those agents aren't doing anything in your company-they're just creating chaos.” While Breslow reports his company is better off without HR, the human side of managing employees is presented as increasingly important as AI systems expand into enterprise operations."
"On Gen Z: “The greatest irony of our time is we are leaving out a generation that's most skilled to do AI. We have to make room for that generation if we want AI to thrive within a company. We dismiss them, like they've done something wrong. These are people we asked to grow up digitally different. We shoved an iPad in their hands at 3 and 4 years old.”"
"On 'knowledge' workers: “The corpus of knowledge that you have is going to be far outpaced, but you can use that to create value and differentia”"
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