A leaked video of Vishal Garg, CEO of better.com, a US based mortgage company, recently went viral in which he was seen firing 900 of the companies employees in one shot. He gave the sad news that the company was laying off about 9% of its workforce abruptly informing that employees on the call were being terminated just before the holidays.
“If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off,” Garg said on the call, in the recording. “Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.”
“I come to you with not great news,” CEO Vishal Garg said at the beginning of the meeting, according to a recording posted to TikTok.
“We are laying off about 15 percent of the company for a number of reasons — the market efficiency and performances, and productivity,” he said.
“If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off,” Garg continued. “Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.”
He told employees that the decision to let them go was “challenging.”
“This is the second time in my career I’m doing this, and I do not want to do this. The last time I did it I cried,” Garg said. “Um, this time, I hope to be stronger.”
He told the hundreds of former employees that they would get about month’s pay and three months of benefits — all of which would be detailed in an email sent to their personal email addresses from human resources.
The way Garg chose to fire hundreds of people was jarring is being criticized widely across social media platform.
Kevin Ryan, the company’s chief financial officer, framed the cash advance and the layoffs as a company win.
“Having to conduct layoffs is gut wrenching, especially this time of year, however a fortress balance sheet and a reduced and focused workforce together set us up to play offense going into a radically evolving homeownership market,” Ryan said in a statement.
Garg founded the company in 2014 “with the goal of re-engineering the mortgage process,” according to Better.com’s website. Garg wanted to make homebuying faster, easier and less expensive.
He has faced controversy before. In an email to employees obtained by Forbes last year, he 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.”
Garg refused to participate in the Forbes profile, and it’s unclear what prompted the email.
Better, which is based in New York, has offices in Charlotte, North Carolina; Oakland and Irvine, California; and Gurgaon, India.
