The How, What, and Why of Changing It Up At Bolt

Bolt has never done things the way others do. We embrace fearless decisions and ignore conventional wisdom. In that vein, we are excited to announce yet another fearless, unconventional move: Maju Kuruvilla is Bolt’s new CEO.

Maju joined Bolt over a year ago, after an eight-year run at Amazon during its most substantial growth years. He was one of the key executives at Amazon who ran Amazon’s Worldwide Fulfillment tech and the Global Logistics business end to end—one of the most important business units within the company.

Maju was hired as Bolt’s CPO and CTO and drove so much impact that we promoted him to COO several months later. Maju’s superpowers are self-evident to anyone who works with him. He builds world-class teams, executes relentlessly, and scales globally. He is revered and respected internally.

Most importantly, no one knows how to scale commerce like Maju. He came in with a wealth of experience and was ready to carry forward our mission—to democratize commerce. Bolt has been leveling the playing field by extending network effects, data, and technical scale to every business on earth. By his own admission, Maju spent eight years centralizing commerce at Amazon. Now he’s fired up to decentralize commerce as the CEO of Bolt.

By stepping up as Executive Chairman, I will focus on my superpowers all day every day—driving culture, landing deals, and thinking big. This change will allow me to be even more involved in the parts of Bolt I care most about.

This is a shift for me, and it came about because I thought a lot about where Bolt was, where it is now, and where I want it to go. With a majority of the company already reporting into Maju, I asked myself the question: Why not 100 percent of the company? The only reason I could think of holding on was ego, attachment, and a fear of change.

So, what does an executive chairman do? It’s a role defined by the person, and here’s what I’ll be focused on:

1. 10X deals
2. Vision
3. Fundraising
4. Acquisitions
5. Culture

Most importantly, this change allows me to double down on my favorite thing: Creativity.

You might be asking: Who made this decision? Here’s the answer: I did! I’ve said this since day one: my job as a leader is to empower other leaders. Hire the best people in the world, and get out of the way. That has always been and will always be my motto.

Some news sources say I resigned. This couldn’t be further from the truth. You can hear it from me directly: I made this decision, and I am not going anywhere.

That’s because we are not stopping until Bolt completely and definitively democratizes all of commerce. So to all our competitors, a friendly warning: watch out. Maju has completely changed Bolt’s trajectory as its COO, CPO, and CTO. Now as CEO, we can’t wait to see him unleashed.

It’s going to be an epic ride. One-click internet, here we come!