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Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

maggrand.com

101–110 of 480 posts

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

#101
post #54

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…

The Zoom call part isn't really the issue, although individual Zoom meetings would have been better. > In another email obtained by Forbes last year, Garg wrote: > > ‘You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and…DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.”

This is what seems right to me. It's not the virtual nature, it's the lazy mass group layoff that's objectionable and disrespectful.

If you're being laid off, you probably have a lot of questions. A 1:1 meeting would allow for that.

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

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1: stealing wages why is Better.com using that language? all that workers can do is sell their labor time, while the property-owners they work for do not (since they earn rents from ownership). in this case, the workers create and develop some intellectual property (software), yet do not own the fruits of their own labor and are instead paid a wage. in other words: workers work on things that are not democratically…

If an employee is selling their time to answer customer inquiries and is not, in fact, answering available customer inquiries, what else would you call it?

Incompetence? Slacking off? Lazy?

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

#103
post #91
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Zoom call part isn't really the issue, although individual Zoom meetings would have been better. > In another email obtained by Forbes last year, Garg wrote: > > ‘You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and…DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.”

Is there a link to this?

It's in the posted article.

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

#104
post #91
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Zoom call part isn't really the issue, although individual Zoom meetings would have been better. > In another email obtained by Forbes last year, Garg wrote: > > ‘You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and…DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.”

Is there a link to this?

At the end of the article

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

#105

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…

> in the days of covid and working from home

I don't see how covid plays into this, unless this is suggesting that, pre-pandemic, it was common practice for CEOs to call 900 people into a single auditorium just to tell them that they're all fired. That sounds like a great way to end up hanged from the rafters on your own necktie.

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

#106
post #44

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’ve been in mass layoffs. Having bosses arbitrarily come up to desks and then having that person return fifteen minutes later and repeating that for the entire morning is much worse. It’s anxiety inducing, even if you didn’t get the ax. I’d rather have an all-hands and get it over with quickly.

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

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought that the worst thing about a plane crash would be the 30 seconds before you hit the ground when you know what's coming, but it hasn't happened yet. In other words: if you ever have to do this, get on with it . He wastes like 9 weasily hedge sentences before dropping the news everyone on the call could already have guessed was coming. Just get on with it. None of that preamble was necessary.

I don’t want to micro-diagnose his intro, but I think about half of his intro was needed. I don’t need to hear about how this is the second time or how hard it was last time, but I do think a few sentences of context serves as a “hey, pay attention!” intro to the news. It needs to never be about the manager (CEO in this case) doing the termination, but a few sentences of intro is standard and appropriate I think.

I almost deleted my comment after I wrote it, because, like, I get that he's probably also nervous and it's not an easy thing to do. You're probably right that some kind of "pay attention!" intro is necessary, but, yes, I'd definitely advise skipping over all the stuff about how hard this is for him.

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

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the issue is that this is right after a funding round. https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/30/better-com-gets-750m-cash-...

Probably a condition of the deal

That would probably be the case. Its not unknown for companies to get funding on those sorts of conditions.

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

#109
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming it's true... 900 employees: 1: stealing wages 2: being able to do so 3: doing that rather than their jobs Is a systemic issue. It had to start long before almost a thousand people decided to commit a crime. Assuming it's true. I tend to not trust framing that comes from the top end of a power imbalance. edit: This isn't Twitter. Don't stop at 1 and decide you read enough to go off on someone. Read the entire…

> 1: stealing wages why is Better.com using that language? all that workers can do is sell their labor time, while the property-owners they work for do not (since they earn rents from ownership). in this case, the workers create and develop some intellectual property (software), yet do not own the fruits of their own labor and are instead paid a wage. in other words: workers work on things that are not democratically…

Thanks for calling this out, moreover that’s not what wage theft means:

> Wage theft is the denial of wages or employee benefits rightfully owed to an employee.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft

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

#110

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…

IMO the issue is that this is right after a funding round. https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/30/better-com-gets-750m-cash-...

Right, sounds like an attempt to do a PR stunt.
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