Facing a potential shutdown in 2019, Jeremy Allaire made the brutal decision to sell off non-core business units and reduce headcount from 450 to 59. This extreme focus on the core USDC product, despite the pain, saved the company and fueled its subsequent explosive growth.
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CEO Ryan Cohen revealed that GameStop went from over 1,400 corporate employees to just 400, yet became more productive. He argues large corporate teams create bloat, perverse incentives, and delegation of work. The radical downsizing improved focus and business results.
When facing the company's potential collapse, Jeremy Allaire mentally accepted the worst-case scenario. This practice of 'decatastrophizing'—imagining life after failure—freed him from paralyzing fear and enabled him to make the clear-headed, drastic decisions needed to save the business.
During its growth phase, SpeedSize made the counterintuitive decision to reduce its headcount by 50%. This pivot created a leaner, more efficient organization where the engineering team grew from less than 50% to 70% of the company, now supporting $6M in ARR.
After nearly failing, OpenGov adopted a frugal culture and discovered it grew faster. Less spending reduces system noise and inefficiency. A leaner, more focused sales team, for instance, can become more motivated and effective, leading to better results.
When faced with total collapse, Harvey Firestone didn't just cut prices. He used the crisis as a filter to identify employees who thrived under pressure and ruthlessly simplified the company, cutting the sales force by 75% and the ad department from 105 to 7.
Drawing from experience at big tech, Surge AI's founder believes large organizations slow down top performers with distractions. By building a super-small, elite team, companies can achieve more with less overhead, a principle proven by Surge's own success.
Jeremy Allaire is transparent with candidates about the industry's external skepticism and the job's difficulty. This filters for people motivated by the mission's hardness and the cognitive dissonance of building something revolutionary, ensuring a resilient, mission-aligned team.
When re-architecting the business, the new COO (now CEO) physically boxed up a major drone project to signal a radical shift. This forced the team to focus on doing one thing exceptionally well—building an autonomous platform—before expanding off of that solid base.
The public example of X operating with 85% fewer staff created a powerful meta-narrative influencing founders to build leaner. As a result, the median Series A company team size has dropped from 25 employees in 2021 to a projected 15, a significant shift toward capital efficiency over hiring.
After two major clinical trial failures caused Fibrogen's market cap to fall from $5.5B to under $200M, the CEO executed a radical survival plan. He reduced headcount from 325 to about 50 and negotiated out of a crippling $90M lease to secure the company's future.
