Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by sweezyjeezy » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

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…

This was horrendous optics, basically asking to get shared virally and draw more attention to the bad situation the company is in. The CEO made it about himself / the company, that's all people are going to get from Google searches for a time to come. Managers could give them the news en masse as efficiently and infinitely more humanely.

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

#282

Post by tshaddox » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #154

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.

The problem is that 900 people is a lot of people. Imagine all managers scheduling meetings with their reports to tell them, then the managers themselves are probably being let go, in the meantime it would create A LOT of stress not knowing whether you will be called in for a meeting or not, just sitting there seeing people being let go around you 1 by 1. The whole process would take a week just to have a proper meet…

> Imagine all managers scheduling meetings with their reports to tell them, then the managers themselves are probably being let go…

Yeah, I imagined all of this and it seemed like exactly what a competent company would do.

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

#283

Post by literallyWTF » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #154

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.

The problem is that 900 people is a lot of people. Imagine all managers scheduling meetings with their reports to tell them, then the managers themselves are probably being let go, in the meantime it would create A LOT of stress not knowing whether you will be called in for a meeting or not, just sitting there seeing people being let go around you 1 by 1. The whole process would take a week just to have a proper meet…

Leave it to HN to argue that having a shitty mass layoff through Zoom is better than having a 1 to 1

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

#284

Post by Laremere » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29437642

Copying my comment from there:

C suites tend to want to personalize messages by adding context to how they feel, but in cases of such severely negative news it's always going to come off badly. "Firing people hurts my feelings" is a moot point unless you've slashed your and the rest of leadership's paychecks.

I'm mixed on the method of putting a bunch of people in a meeting and the CEO telling them directly they're being laid off. In some ways, I think it's much better than slowly pulling employees in and letting them know 1:1. In those cases, word about the layoffs travel much quicker than the layoffs, and people will spend all day with dread about whether they are laid off or not.

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

#285

Post by wave_function » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

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.

I bet this dude talks a lot about alpha wolves too

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

#286

Post by sneak » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

manuelabeledo wrote: post #269

I find disgraceful that this guy is putting the blame on his employees. It is clear that: 1. There is no way competent managers would let 15% of the workforce slip so hard, that they are fired for "performance reasons", and 2. If these performance measurements were valid, most of the now fired employees would have been fired long time ago. Any normal company has quarterly performance reviews, and management has to fo…

> There is no way competent managers would let 15% of the workforce slip so hard

Possible, even likely, that 900 layoffs probably encompasses some less than competent managerial staff?

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

#287

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

djrogers wrote: post #165

chrisseaton wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

[deleted]

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

#288

Post by Tempest1981 » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

gbear605 wrote: post #237

mrits wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This was done at my previous company near the beginning of the pandemic, where half of the company (about 1200 people) were laid off, entirely with one-on-one calls. It worked well and I appreciated it personally.

But the anxiety of waiting all day, as you watch your coworkers slowly drop, and send their farewell emails... wondering if you'll be next... I'd rather find out all at once.

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

#289

Post by Zambyte » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

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…

What is there to believe? There is a video of it happening in the article

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

#290

Post by hintymad » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

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…

Isn't biggest issue in this debacle is that Better tracks its employee's activities? To quote the CEO: “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. Get educated,” "