Everything was left up in the air when Bitwise Industries went quiet.
Tenants were getting ready to pay rent. Local governments were anticipating new trainees. Stria LLC, the Bakersfield business services company Bitwise acquired last year, was busy with customers.
Then came the announcement Memorial Day night that all 900 employees were furloughed immediately, including some of Kern's most promising business professionals. With that, all official communication ceased.
What was everyone supposed to do now? With no word from headquarters in Fresno, Bakersfield staff started looking for work elsewhere. Tenants worried about security and deliveries with no one to receive them, wondering whether they should pay June rent. Executives at Stria didn't know what to think.
"The silence is deafening," Stria founder and CEO Jim Damian said in an email Friday. He noted payment for his company was to be rendered over two years starting in August 2022, adding he wants to get back to serving customers.
"We are all in shock," he wrote, "and have been given no direction from our employer."
The assumption among some staff is that Bitwise is finished. There has been no indication either way from the company's two CEOs, who in an interview with The Fresno Bee late Monday vaguely cited deals gone bad and growth pressures from venture capital. The company has not responded to The Californian's requests for comment.
An assessment has begun locally, in the absence of any word from leadership, about what the company accomplished in Bakersfield, apart from the other eight cities it was expanding into. The consensus is bittersweet.
A senior local employee voiced no regrets as she held to the beauty of the Bitwise dream. Civic and business leaders who came into contact with the company spoke appreciatively of the investments and entrepreneurial energy the company appears to have left behind. Tenants liked it fine until Tuesday.
"It's an unfortunate blessing," said Heather Laganelli, owner of Locale Farm to Table, the restaurant next door to the company's downtown hub. She hopes an engineering or law firm will move in to help keep downtown bustling, and that a boutique hotel will fill the now-vacant apartment building sandwiched between Bitwise's chic office buildings on the southwest corner of 18th and H street.
Too bad because Bitwise did great work building a tech startup hub in Fresno, Laganelli said.
"The intention was good," she added.
Among business left unfinished are workforce development contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Local government officials, left in the dark by Bitwise, noted financial protections built into the contracts will ensure the company only gets taxpayer dollars for work already performed.
The downside is that badly needed workforce development won't be done, and federal stimulus money that was set aside for it will have to find a new home before its spending deadline.
Kern County contributed about $150,000 as part of a partnership with the city of Bakersfield to fund an innovation lab housed at Bitwise. The focus was on building an entrepreneurship and technology hub that could help bring up disadvantaged youth with six-month, paid training programs targeting specific industries.
One eight-person entrepreneurship cohort has already graduated, and another with six people was being trained when the furloughs hit. A separate web development program graduated seven trainees, and 15 more were in training.
The county's chief administrative officer, Ryan Alsop, said he has heard nothing from Bitwise leadership but he looks forward to speaking with top executives about the company's future in Kern.
The city, having given the company two $50,000 grants to pay for office equipment and furniture on 18th Street, authorized a contract capped at $750,000 in December 2020 to cover apprenticeships and part of the innovation lab.
Spokesman Joe Conroy said by email several apprenticeship cohorts had been completed but that more money remains available for additional training. He noted the city agreed in June 2021 to an additional $640,000 for the apprenticeship program.
Bitwise has been good to Bakersfield, he said, and the city appreciates its contributions to downtown's redevelopment.
"They have strengthened our workforce and economic development ecosystem," Conroy wrote.
Ward 2 City Councilman Andrae Gonzales said he remains worried for his friends at Bitwise, many of whom looked to the company as an upward path to developing new skills.
There was talk of future partnerships between the city and the company, he said, adding the relationship was positive because contracts were being fulfilled, with at least $300,000 yet to be paid for upcoming work.
The city won't be deterred by the setback, Gonzales said, nor does he think the company's performance reflects on Bakersfield's potential.
"I think the issues that Bitwise had are unrelated to what is happening in Bakersfield — what opportunities still exist in Bakersfield," he said.
Bakersfield real estate company Sage Equities represented Bitwise in its building purchases downtown, and co-owner Anna Smith said the firm's principals watched the company's investments with excitement.
She said in an email Sage believed in Bitwise's vision for capitalizing on the potential of overlooked cities like Bakersfield. When it became clear the space wasn't living up to its potential, Sage figured it was either the pandemic, a softening economy or changes in the office market — until the Fresno Bee interview came out and it looked like other forces were at play.
Smith wrote that downtown Bakersfield holds promise regardless.
"Any mismanagement or unsustainable growth models behind Bitwise's distress do not detract from this reality," she added.
Local businessman JP Lake, who helped recruit Bitwise to Bakersfield, said although he has found the company's news troubling, he continues to be inspired by its mission and vision.
"It's really unfortunate," he said, "and I hope they can manage through the situation."
A tenant of Bitwise in downtown Bakersfield, Nikka Avila, owner of In the Waiting Doula Services, said she worries that, with no contact from the company, vandals might break in through the company's glass doors.
She noted the building's wifi still works but that she was unable to pay her June rent through an app Bitwise uses to collect lease payments.
"Everyone's moving, panicking and they (Bitwise officials) have nothing to say," Avila said.
President and CEO Edward Robinson of The Social Servant said he and other tenants of Bitwise on 18th Street have decided to deploy motion sensors for when delivery people arrive.
"We're just going to share the load," he said.
Meanwhile, it's a little nerve-racking not having any information or knowing about the company's sustainability, he said, adding some tenants he has spoken with are planning to withhold rent for fear they'll be evicted before June ends.
Bitwise Senior Vice President Amy Thelen, still confident the company was on the right path, said she and other employees have questions but no answers from top leadership.
Thelen recalled being hopeful when the company shifted late last year to a focus on business software she said had the potential to lead to promising apprenticeship pathways. But now things appear to have changed.
"We couldn't control our own fate in this situation," she said.