The Death of HR: Why One CEO Fired Their Entire Team (And Why Both Sides Are Right)

When Ryan Breslow, CEO of the fintech startup Bolt, stood on stage at Fortune’s Workforce Innovation Summit and announced he had eliminated his entire HR department because they were “creating problems that didn’t exist,”, almost immediately, HR forums lit up, founders took sides, and a massive corporate debate was born.

To the critics, it looks like a glorious victory over bureaucracy—a giant “cancel” button pressed on defensive, seven-round interview loops and endless administrative red tape. To the HR defenders, it looks like a reckless, legally explosive stunt that leaves a company culturally fractured and utterly leaderless.

But here’s the real tea: both sides have a point.

The “death of HR” isn’t about getting rid of people operations. It’s a massive wake-up call about a system that’s broken for both the people running it and the people going through it.

The Clash: Risk vs. Results

For decades, traditional HR has been forced to play the role of corporate hall monitor—designed to protect the company from its own employees. Modern People Ops, however, is supposed to be a high-performance engine designed to help employees win.

And yes, there is hard data behind this shift. Study after study proves that when you tie smart hiring to solid training and fair motivation systems, you directly boost your market share and sales growth. But there is a massive disconnect: CEOs want these strategic results, yet they often treat HR like a low-budget compliance cost center.

Here is how the two worlds clash when the rubber meets the road:

1. The Recruiter’s Reality: Drowning in the Noise

Before we trash recruiters for sending robotic “rejection” emails at 2:00 AM, let’s look at the absolute pressure cooker they live in:

• The “Easy Apply” Avalanche: Thanks to AI resume builders, recruiters aren’t sorting through applicants; they are drowning in a digital tsunami of spam.
• The Consensus Trap: Recruiters rarely make the final call. Instead, they have to referee a chaotic committee of hiring managers who all want veto power, dragging the loop into a soul-crushing saga.

The Fix: Modern People Ops teams are ditching the copy-paste job descriptions that look like every other company in their industry (what academics call “points-of-relevance”). Instead, they focus on “points-of-difference”—what actually makes the job unique and challenging. By keeping the interview team small and using structured scorecards early, they make hiring fast, decisive, and respectful.

2. The Candidate’s Journey: Ditching Corporate Astrology

If you’ve looked for a job lately, you know it feels like a cold, algorithmic gauntlet. But the future of hiring treats candidates like equal partners, not raw material.

• Two-Way Auditions: A great interview is a two-way street. You aren’t just begging for a job; you are auditing their leadership and operational sanity.
• Say No to “Draw an Alien” Tests: Candidates absolutely despise pseudo-scientific personality tests and unpaid weekend homework. Research backs this up: job seekers react best to hiring tools that have obvious, real-world relevance to the actual job—like structured interviews and quick work samples.
• The “Spillover” Effect: When your hiring process feels fair and logical, candidates develop a massive crush on your brand. They are far more likely to accept your offer and recommend you to their network, even if they don’t get the job.

3. The Leadership Balance: Guarding the Brand

A broken hiring process is just a flashing neon sign pointing to a broken culture. And in the internet age, candidates talk.

• The Glassdoor Trap: Your hiring process is highly public. Job seekers exhibit a severe “negativity bias” online—they spend twice as much time obsessing over negative employee reviews as they do reading positive ones. A clumsy, disrespectful interview loop will trash a multi-million-dollar employer brand faster than any PR agency can save it.
• Cut the Fluff: To beat candidate skepticism, smart companies stop bragging about their “vibe” and start sharing verifiable facts—like clear career paths, structured onboarding, and transparent compensation. Verifiable claims build immediate trust.

The Verdict: You Decide

So, is HR actually dead, or is it just misunderstood?

• If you’re a CEO: Stop using your HR team as an administrative shield or a scapegoat. If you want them to drive strategic competitive advantage, you have to fund them, empower them, and stop letting your hiring managers drag out interview loops out of fear of making a decision.
• If you’re in HR: It’s time to call a ceasefire on candidates. Tear down the defensive roadblocks, throw out the corporate astrology, and build a fast, respectful talent engine built for mutual growth.

The companies that win the next decade won’t be the ones with the most bureaucratic rules. They’ll be the ones where leadership and People Ops actually talk to each other.The old playbook is dead. Who is ready to build what’s next?

A Quick Note on the Science of Hiring

If this sounds like highly opinionated “thought leadership,” think again. The arguments above aren’t just based on gut feelings—they are built on decades of peer-reviewed human resources and organizational psychology research. If you want to dive deeper into the data that proves these points, check out the key studies we referenced below:

References

• On Selection Validity and Candidate Reactions: Hausknecht, J. P., Day, D. V., & Thomas, S. C. (2004). Applicant reactions to selection: A meta-analysis of antecedents and outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology. This study analyzed decades of candidate data to prove that fair, job-related hiring loops lead to higher offer-acceptance rates.
• On Digital Employer Branding and Glassdoor Bias: Yu, M. C., Dineen, B. R., Allen, D. G., & Klotz, J. R. (2022). Employer branding on commercial review sites: The roles of information verifiability and negativity bias. Journal of Applied Psychology. This paper explores how modern job seekers process negative reviews and why verifiable facts in job ads beat generic “culture” speak.
• On Core HR Practices and Bottom-Line Success: Shammot, M. Y. (2014). The Role of Human Resources Management Practices in Enhancing Competitive Advantage. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. An empirical look at how tying recruitment directly to continuous training and fair motivation systems mathematically drives market share and sales growth.

Disclaimer: Just to be clear—I am not an HR expert. I’m simply an avid reader who loves diving into organizational trends and sharing interesting perspectives. The thoughts and opinions expressed in this article are entirely my own and do not reflect the official position or views of Strathmore Business School.

Article by Michael Nyabaige Nyairo