Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call

maggrand.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 480 posts

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

#351

Post by hannasanarion »

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...

Your unspoken assumption: A company of 6000 employees only has 1 manager/HR rep capable of talking to pink slip recipients.

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

#352

Post by colinmhayes »

Panther34543 wrote: post #244
ragnot wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Better is operating at a loss in order to give rates that are unmatched by the market. Rising rates means that less people will be refinancing since the markets rates are comparable to what they already have. Better has signaled they want to go public which means they're going to have to at least not lose as much money. This points to needing less support staff since they'll have much fewer customers.

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

#353

Post by zild3d »

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…

doing it over zoom isn't the problem. see airbnb https://news.airbnb.com/a-message-from-co-founder-and-ceo-br...

overall just more thoughtful, 1:1 with their senior leader, made an employee job board to help get hired, severance, equity, etc.

```

Here is what will happen next

I want to provide clarity to all of you as soon as possible. We have employees in 24 countries, and the time it will take to provide clarity will vary based on local laws and practices. Some countries require notifications about employment to be received in a very specific way. While our process may differ by country, we have tried to be thoughtful in planning for every employee.

In the US and Canada, I can provide immediate clarity. Within the next few hours, those of you leaving Airbnb will receive a calendar invite to a departure meeting with a senior leader in your department. It was important to us that wherever we legally could, people were informed in a personal, 1:1 conversation. The final working day for departing employees based in the US and Canada will be Monday, May 11. We felt Monday would give people time to begin taking next steps and say goodbye — we understand and respect how important this is.

```

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

#354

Post by froggertoaster »

0des wrote: post #226
froggertoaster wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really glad that there are people in this world who are able to watch a 3-4 minute video and make a judgment call about the person in the video from that. I appreciate all the value that smart people like yourself add to the world.

Are you the person in the video?

You probably wouldn't believe this since you're asking - but no, I'm not. I'm not at all involved in Better in any way.

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

#355

Post by nulbyte »

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...

Just over 233 person-hours of work isn't 233 hours of work. Assuming team sizes average 20, that work can be spread across 35 managers, requiring less than a business day to complete. Even assuming 900 people as mentioned in the headline, that's still less than a day's work. Larger-than-average teams may require more time, but this could still be easily accomplished over two business days.

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

stormcode wrote: post #213
djrogers wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, in my opinion it is. Think about abuse in other contexts to put it in perspective. If a teacher in the middle of giving a homework assignment had said the same thing, would that be okay? What about a police officer who pulled someone over during a traffic stop? What about a customer at a drive thru saying this into the speaker? This is not a random person on the street corner shouting at other random passers by.…

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by lkrubner »

“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.”

That last part, “you are embarrassing me,” suggests an element of narcissism. It personalizes the feedback, something every leader should avoid doing.

Also, all caps suggests shouting, which suggests a lack of emotional control, something leaders sometimes pretend to do strategically, but a good leader never does this accidentally. (I give an example here: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/the-hearts-of-men-american-... )

Good feedback is specific and individual. What Gary said, in this example, is almost scientific in how precisely bad it is. He is emotional and non-specific. If a worker has made a good-faith effort and failed, this kind of ranting doesn’t help the worker, and if the worker is operating in bad-faith, then you’ve encouraged them to continue because you are shouting at the room rather than singling them out, a fact which convinces them you don’t know which workers are operating in bad-faith.

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

#358

Post by [deleted] »

darkwater wrote: post #296
trulyme wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't watch the video myself, but as a general advice this is a very bad idea. People you give the bad news to shouldn't be caught unaware by it, they should at least suspect it and have some time to get used to the idea. There is nothing worse than expecting a good news (raise?) and then learning the possibly devastating one instead. My experience at least.

I'm sorry if that happened to you but entering a meeting hoping for a raise and getting fired instead means there were several big communication issues with your manager.

[deleted]

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

#359

Post by wheels »

jerf wrote: post #329
tshaddox wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After the first 10 minutes everyone will know what their meeting is about and it makes the problem worse. Huh? It’s not a surprise birthday party. I’m not sure why a key goal would be that each fired person is taken completely by surprise.

The reasons why may not be obvious if you're not a manager or haven't run a large organization before, but the simple truth is, "employees" are not a magically ethical bunch of people simply by virtue of being the underdog and poor and downtrodden and being all fired and stuff. You do not want a significant number of employees running around who are either uncertain they are going to be fired for a significant period…

This is one of those things that seems to be an institutional part of Americans quitting or being fired from jobs, but it's far from universal.

In Germany (and I believe most of Europe) several months notice is usual (three months minimum), and typically people keep working until the end of that time (aside from taking unused vacation). Sure, motivation suffers in that time, but don't think the cases of employees taking revenge on their employers is any higher here than in the US (in fact, I suspect it's less).

Post reply on HN