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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

#161

Post by dkarl »

castis wrote: post #70
dilap wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think I agree with this. For one thing, if it's 900 1:1 meetings, the job of coordinating their loss of access with IT would be impossible. Mistakes would be made, you'd have people with access to chat and email after they were fired, people realizing they were fired because they lost access, rumors flying around, in some ways it would be just a more chaotic version of what actually happened. At least in the Zoom call everybody could see that nine hundred other people were sharing their fate.

On the other hand, the CEO sounds like an asshole and seems to have been using some kind of intrusive work surveillance technology to blame employees for the layoffs:

> “You guys know that at least 250 of the people terminated were working an average of 2 hours a day while clocking 8 hours+ a day in the payroll system? They were stealing from you and stealing from our customers who pay the bills that pay our bills"

A fine point if true, but how does he know which people were working two hours per day? And who else should be blamed if it was such a widespread practice? The answers to those questions won't reflect well on him.

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

#162

Post by fourseventy »

post-it wrote: post #54
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…

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.”

assuming they did a 20 minute meeting for each employee thats 233 hours or 29 business days to fire all 700 of them...

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

#163

Post by omnicognate »

mrits wrote: post #160
post-it wrote: 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.”

You can't really fire 900 people on individual Zoom calls. After the first 10 minutes everyone will know what their meeting is about and it makes the problem worse. People will be texting their managers begging for information and the manager will have to lie for a day or two until they are authorized to say in the meeting.

Those logistics are no worse than the equivalent in person.

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

#164

Post by AutumnCurtain »

nradov wrote: post #148
post-it wrote: 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.”

The funny thing is that sharks are more likely to be eaten by dolphins (especially orcas) than vice versa. And sharks also get caught in nets. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/killer-wh... I guess Garg is just as weak on marine biology as he is on leadership and business ethics.

Perhaps he's got some breakdown on how dolphin intelligence impacts those stats given his emphasis on them being dumb dolphins

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

#165

Post by djrogers »

chrisseaton wrote: post #155
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this looks bad but I generally appreciate manage giving clear warnings like this before firing. I have seen firings in companies where employee had no clue that the manager was not happy with him. I know this type of warning is the thing that would get published in the press by disgruntled employee and so managers couldn't give negative feedback and in the firing speech managers just tell that someone is not a…

I think you can warn people about their performance without using abuse.

Abuse? Really? Is a single email where someone vents frustration for 2 lines actually abuse?

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

#166

Post by buitreVirtual »

baby wrote: post #144
tyingq wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Disagree. Why make the HR team go through 900 individual calls? At the same time this will leak and other employees will learn that they might get fired before they get their own call. Recipe for disaster. Just rip off the band aid.

Each manager would have to make that call to their laid-off reports, or the next manager in line if the manager is being laid off too. Maybe after that it would be ok for HR to have larger meetings with those affected to sort out the details.

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

#167

Post by metamet »

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.

> If you are a CEO, you have to rehearse the delivery for something like this.

Yup. This video has a "Oh hey, didn't see you come in. Welcome to my personal cafeteria. Since I have you here, just wanted to let you know you're fired" vibe.

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

#168

Post by fhd2 »

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.

I thought the same. So say you are in a situation where you can't offer people 1:1s to understand what happened - which sounds to me like the people laid off were more or less chosen at random - but let's say you literally have to do it like this.

At least don't do it so disrespectful. He talks about his feelings but he seems mildly awkward and a bit bored at best, seems like all the preparation he put into this is to remember a few talking points. Makes me think laying off 900 people took him a grand total of 90 minutes (from decision to announcement).

I don't know anything about the company, but looks like one going down to me. Very few companies can get away with treating people like that at a large scale.

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

#169

Post by karmasimida »

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…

This CEO has the audacity to de-anonymized himself from a toxic comment on Blind, imagine that.

He is made to be controversial

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