"Dumb dolphins"? Hey, dolphins are some of the smarter animals out there... That's an ignorant remark.
Dumb dolphins are not as smart as average dolphins though. They are dumb.
Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
231–240 of 480 posts
Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#232Earlier 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)
Office Space, anyone?
Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#233Earlier 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.
> It's not the virtual nature, it's the lazy mass group layoff that's objectionable and disrespectful. Is it? I can plausibly make the other argument that not having to do it yourself and offloading it to middle managers/HR is also "objectionable and disrespectful".
I've been on both sides, but yes, just my opinion. On the other hand, this is newsworthy because it's unusual. I suspect it's unusual for a reason.
Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Companies do massive layoffs all the time without large meetings to tell everyone at the meeting they are fired. It isn't that hard.
It can be done and it isn't hard for the company. I'm going to float a guess that you haven't experienced a mass layoff where they pop your coworkers one by one over the course of the workday. It's very painful and takes a very long time. Anybody who has been around for one would almost certainly take the mass layoff over 8+ hours of constant worry just to lose your job at the end anyway.
Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#235To anybody affected by this layoff, my company Placement.com created a Better.com Alumni Job Board [0] to help smooth the transition. We've seen over and over how much easier it is to get a job at a company where: 1. You have a connection (or can build one easily) 2. The company recognizes the companies you previously worked for Targeting companies that ex-colleagues work at is a powerful strategy! So we made this bo…
There seems to be a bit of a bug, or confusing element. It appears that Change Everything, Inc. and Facebook are linked together somehow. It says the company is Facebook, but the size and description appear to be for Change Everything, Inc.
Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#236To anybody affected by this layoff, my company Placement.com created a Better.com Alumni Job Board [0] to help smooth the transition. We've seen over and over how much easier it is to get a job at a company where: 1. You have a connection (or can build one easily) 2. The company recognizes the companies you previously worked for Targeting companies that ex-colleagues work at is a powerful strategy! So we made this bo…
Never let a tragedy go to waste > The lack of empathy shown in this situation is intense You're right! ;)
One of you is trying to help these people find their next job.
Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#237Earlier 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.
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.
Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Companies do massive layoffs all the time without large meetings to tell everyone at the meeting they are fired. It isn't that hard.
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Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#239Earlier 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…
I'm sorry, if you feel like you're not being paid enough, the solution is not to commit wage fraud against your employer. There are plenty of employee-owned companies out there that would fit your ideals, people can work for them if they want that ownership. Or start their own. Otherwise, no, they don't get to own the output of their work. That's the way it is.
> I'm sorry, if you feel like you're not being paid enough, the solution is not to commit wage fraud against your employer.
i'm pretty sure you did not read the second part of my comment as you did not engage with it's argument (that the definition of the word 'steal' is political). i don't think saying "I'm sorry" and then stating your opinion is an argument.
> There are plenty of employee-owned companies out there that would fit your ideals, people can work for them if they want that ownership. Or start their own. Otherwise, no, they don't get to own the output of their work. That's the way it is.
It's not about ideals, it's about the core logic of our current economic system: the accumulation of capital by one class.
Idealism or whatever can't do anything to fight back against coercive and alienating capitalist property relations where one class (property-owning) benefits at the expense of another class (the working class).
Re: Better.com CEO fires 900 employees on Zoom call
#240Everyone is focusing on HOW the news was delivered. To me, this is not relevant. What people should be focusing on is WHY. The company is set to go public via SPAC at a $6.9 billion valuation. It just got a $1.5 billion infusion of cash last week. Tell me again why the CEO and the executive team isn’t among the 900 people getting laid off? https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/01/better-com-lays-off-9-of-i... “On Nov. 30, T…
> To me, this is not relevant. What people should be focusing on is WHY.
Totally fair that to you it is not relevant. But that doesn't imply that people should be focusing on what you think is relevant instead of what they think is relevant.
The delivery of the message is super toxic from a labor relations POV and I think a lot of people care about that, as a lot of people sell labor to employers in order to survive.