If you look at erics linkedin profile he has the chops to handle what they are doing. My bet is they are growing too fast and attempting to do too much at once. It also doesn't help that people are buying tons of hashlets and probably leaving them as singles which adds to the db and increases the time needed to process payouts.
Sounds contradictory. How did they get into this mess if he has the "chops" ? Overnight account-system changes aren't SOP for "chops" either.
Also, if he had the "chops", he would've known how to build a scaling system from the start, or at least catch it before it got this bad.