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Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

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Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#61

Post by pixelgeek »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #11
bronco21016 wrote: post #7

I know it’s just an anecdote but as a customer I kind of believe this. I just completed a transaction with them that had to be extended beyond the rate lock window. For about 10 days there was a daily back and forth where they asked me to provide some documentation. I would provide the requested documentation and about 12 hours later I would receive a task of uploading the same required documentation. The document wa…

Back office (paperwork reviews and processing) was/is done in India, hence the time zone latency. They tried to make up for it with the web app, but mortgage banking relies on too many people processes (title, survey, appraisal, underwriting [even with automated underwriting and “Day One Certainty”] etc) to wring enough efficiencies to scale in a SaaSy sort of way. I was in the middle of a refi with them during this…

It is also heavily automated. I used to work for a company that sold a document management package that was integrated with a variety of high speed scanners with OCR and for a time almost all of the new business was with US banks wanting to speed up the processing of mortgage documents.

After talking with one of the customers we were all very sure that the US mortgage business was in trouble. Not 'crashing and destroying the economy' bad but on unstable ground.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#62

Post by jonathankoren »

bronco21016 wrote: post #7

I know it’s just an anecdote but as a customer I kind of believe this. I just completed a transaction with them that had to be extended beyond the rate lock window. For about 10 days there was a daily back and forth where they asked me to provide some documentation. I would provide the requested documentation and about 12 hours later I would receive a task of uploading the same required documentation. The document wa…

Garg is documented in this article as abusive. This is a fact. Now given that he has a track record of abusive behavior, I wouldn’t believe anything negative he’d say about the layed off employees.

The CEO is in charge. He mishandled scaling the company, and so the blame for the failures of the company fall to him. Even if there was massive fraud inside the company, that’s still the CEO’s fault for letting it get so bad. Abusive failures always blame everyone else.

If I want to charitable, maybe he thinks by trashing a bunch of people that lost their jobs, will stem the loss of morale by the remaining employees.

Either way, it’s gross.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#63

Post by fatbird »

DangerousPie wrote: post #20

I know this sounds horrible but in the days of covid and working from home, what are companies supposed to do if they have to lay off large amounts of people? Make them all risk their health to come to an in-person event, only to be fired? Drive to every employee's house to fire them in person? It obviously sucks but I don't see how, in 2021, this is any different from the kind of thing that would happen all the time…

Do it the way AirBnB (or most other companies) did it: announce that large scale layoffs will be happening due to X and Y reasons, and that the individuals losing their jobs will be contacted over the next week. Then someone phones/zooms them individually and answers questions and lets them know right away what'll happen.

This isn't about Covid, this is about the CEO making this easier on himself. I'm guessing he expected that if the video leaked, he would look sympathetic because he did it personally and talked about how hard it was for him.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#64

Post by contravariant »

dilap wrote: post #44
DangerousPie wrote: post #20

I know this sounds horrible but in the days of covid and working from home, what are companies supposed to do if they have to lay off large amounts of people? Make them all risk their health to come to an in-person event, only to be fired? Drive to every employee's house to fire them in person? It obviously sucks but I don't see how, in 2021, this is any different from the kind of thing that would happen all the time…

I was wondering that too. I think ideally you would have a 1-1 video chat with someone. But at such a big, 900 employee, layoff, maybe that wasn't easy to do. I think the CEOs affect on the call made it worse. It was very strange to hear him say stuff like "last time I had to do this, I cried. I hope to be stronger this time." It felt like his focus when laying off 900 people was too much on how it made him personall…

Off topic but this might be the first time I've seen someone use the noun affect correctly.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#65

Post by wedowhatwedo »

DangerousPie wrote: post #20

I know this sounds horrible but in the days of covid and working from home, what are companies supposed to do if they have to lay off large amounts of people? Make them all risk their health to come to an in-person event, only to be fired? Drive to every employee's house to fire them in person? It obviously sucks but I don't see how, in 2021, this is any different from the kind of thing that would happen all the time…

Each person being laid off deserves a private meeting with their manager where they are told this. The fact that they hired 900 people they now no longer need is a failing of the CEO by itself. If they work remotely, it can be a zoom meeting.

Being told in a meeting with 900 people by someone you don't know is rude and tells me that anyone in leadership in this company are people I would not like to work for. The fact that he was more concerned about his feelings than the feelings of the 900 is even more evidence that this person has absolutely no empathy and managing people is the wrong job for them.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#67

Post by unicornfinder »

diego wrote: post #23

If you are a CEO, you have to rehearse the delivery for something like this. Even more now that these videos are certain to become public. To me, this video says that he's a mediocre leader. If I were on the board I would seek to replace him.

Indeed. I don't think the company should be slammed for this but his delivery was really poor here.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#68

Post by setgree »

DangerousPie wrote: post #20

I know this sounds horrible but in the days of covid and working from home, what are companies supposed to do if they have to lay off large amounts of people? Make them all risk their health to come to an in-person event, only to be fired? Drive to every employee's house to fire them in person? It obviously sucks but I don't see how, in 2021, this is any different from the kind of thing that would happen all the time…

I think the virality of it comes from this guy's general tone, e.g. a prior email in which he wrote:

> You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS...SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.

but I agree that there's nothing obviously good about being fired in person. I prefer my difficult conversations to be as impersonal and private as possible. I remember being flabbergasted when a firm once scheduled a call with me to tell me about the outcome of my interviews -- the outcome was that I did not get the job! -- and wondering why it couldn't have just been an email. Ditto with a part-time job for which, on my final day, I was called into the office for a morning meeting in which I was let go; this which happened to take on 03/02/2020 in midtown Manhattan.

Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

#70

Post by castis »

dilap wrote: post #44
DangerousPie wrote: post #20

I know this sounds horrible but in the days of covid and working from home, what are companies supposed to do if they have to lay off large amounts of people? Make them all risk their health to come to an in-person event, only to be fired? Drive to every employee's house to fire them in person? It obviously sucks but I don't see how, in 2021, this is any different from the kind of thing that would happen all the time…

I was wondering that too. I think ideally you would have a 1-1 video chat with someone. But at such a big, 900 employee, layoff, maybe that wasn't easy to do. I think the CEOs affect on the call made it worse. It was very strange to hear him say stuff like "last time I had to do this, I cried. I hope to be stronger this time." It felt like his focus when laying off 900 people was too much on how it made him personall…

I imagine 900 1-on-1s could not be done quickly and word would spread very fast that firings were ramping up around the company. This would cause a whole lot of stress for those not being fired, just waiting for a call.

Given the alternatives, the 900-wide bandaid-ripping-off method seems best.

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