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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

#241

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

devy wrote: post #121
agrippanux wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re letting go of 900 people, for the average person their manager is also being let go. In a good amount of cases, probably their manager’s manager. I think it was a good call for the CEO to do it instead of outsourcing to HR or a COO. He didn’t try to hide behind another exec. Anyone being let go - especially at the holidays - is going to be pretty pissed about it, and it was the right thing for the CEO to ta…

> I think it was a good call for the CEO to do it instead of outsourcing to HR or a COO. There was actually a movie about these outsourced "downziser" organizations/consultants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_in_the_Air_(2009_film)

Yes, but even there the consultant made a point about making the transition as smooth for the fired person as possible. The whole point was not to stir up negative emotions, which by their very nature are unpredictable.

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

#242

Post by bstpierre »

jdavis703 wrote: post #106
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’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.

Same here. Never as big as 900 people, but I've been both laid-off and still-employed following maybe a dozen events. I have been laid off four times, both done as part of an en masse event and as a series of 1:1s. It's probably just a personal preference but I think the impersonal nature of the mass layoff is TONS less stressful. Just rip off the bandaid.

One time I was in a meeting during a "series of 1:1s" event, and a colleague opened the door and said "It's all done." and left. We weren't sure for a minute if he meant the whole company was all done, and we should pack up and go home, or if they were done with the layoffs and we weren't getting let go. It could have realistically been either one, but we ended up still having another couple years worth of paychecks.

My first time was at a startup; maybe 80 people. We had an all-hands meeting on a Friday afternoon, and everybody got an envelope on the way out. Some people's envelopes were fatter than the others. Friday afternoon was perfect timing -- most of us ended up at the brewery across the street. Fortunately in 1998 everything in tech in the area was super hot so we all landed on our feet pretty quickly.

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

#243

Post by GrinningFool »

fourseventy wrote: post #162
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.”

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

This reads like a solution to a twisted elementary school math problem, but:

Assuming 1 manager for 10 employees, that's 90 managers each doing a 3h20 minute block of 20 minute meetings, allowing all to be fired in one morning.

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

#244

Post by Panther34543 »

ragnot wrote: post #211
Panther34543 wrote: post #206

Many folks here are talking about the CEO and how the termination process was carried out, but I'd like to know if this is any sort of indicator for where the housing market is going. Zillow was just in the news for suddenly laying off about %25 of its employees and taking a ~$500m loss. Do any of you believe these companies have insight into the near feature that indicates a notable downturn in the market?

They probably just see that the Fed going to raise rates and realize that there are going to be less mortgages handed out which means less customers.

It's seems clear the Fed is going to raise rates at some point, but the question is "by how much".

I doubt the market will be affected too much if rates are increased yet stay below 4%. Many houses in my local market are selling in under a day; a small increase in mortgage rates won't tamper that demand to any great degree.

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

#246

Post by VRay »

fourseventy wrote: post #162
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.”

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

That's the cost of doing business, you keep the profits and in exchange you don't treat your employees like fucking garbage.

He didn't even need to lay them off, according to the article. He just wanted "a fortress balance sheet going into the holidays"

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

#247

Post by [deleted] »

sdfghderwg wrote: post #139
wedowhatwedo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fac…

Lets think it through. Even if each person is given 5 minutes of personal time with the person doing the firing, at 8 hours per day assuming no breaks, that's 5 * 900 / 60 / 8 = 9 days. Almost two business weeks. That means that 900 people will have a zoom meeting scheduled two weeks ahead of time, and while they wait they see that everyone who goes into that meeting is fired. Does this sounds like a better way of do…

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by contravariant »

darkandbrooding wrote: post #141
castis wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 was curious and did some math. A five minute zoom call is not realistic; you probably need 15 minutes per person. If my math is correct, and if no one was even a minute late, it would take 225 hours to lay those people off sequentially, assuming 24/7 meetings. If you had 15 managers making those calls, it would still take 15 hours to complete all calls. Let's call that three business days, during which no other wor…

Is it realistic to have just 15 managers for a 6000 employee company? That would mean 400 employees per manager.

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

#249

Post by yummybear »

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…

If you can hire 900 people with personal interviews, you can lay them off with one too.

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

#250

Post by 2fast4you »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #196
SkittyDog wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, they only started reviewong employee data ONE MONTH ago?? Thats some serious management incompetence. What's with this weaselly language, too... "At least 250 employees" also means "No more than 250 employees". If it was more, they would have just said the bigger number to prove their point. Which means the other 650 employees they fired did not have productivity problems, and they're just trying to blame their…

250 were 2 hours per day. This leaves a lot of room for workers <8 hours.

Can you find one employee that truly works 8 hours a day?
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