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Some 900 people were laid off from an online mortgage company during a Zoom call started by the CEO. They were the ONLY employees invited to the Zoom call. Many are complaining that CEO Vishal Garg is making this about him. (He said that the last time he did this, he cried.)

That's about as bad as the way the Tom Landry firing was bungled....

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/onli ... 18120.html

Not happy for those let go, but anyone could see this coming. There are a lot of mortgage and real estate companies living on borrowed time.

89Hen wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:14 pm Not happy for those let go, but anyone could see this coming. There are a lot of mortgage and real estate companies living on borrowed time.

That's true, but one could do it in a better way. ESPECIALLY at a place called Better.com....

SuperHornet wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:18 pm

89Hen wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:14 pm Not happy for those let go, but anyone could see this coming. There are a lot of mortgage and real estate companies living on borrowed time.

That's true, but one could do it in a better way. ESPECIALLY at a place called Better.com....

My guess is that it's an online company with little or no office space (people working from home) with a flat structure (limited management). It's unfortunate but Garg isn't going to call 600 employees individually. He could have farmed it out to the managers that do work there but some of them were probably in that group and it would be difficult to lay someone off and then ask them to call their direct reports to lay them off.

SuperHornet wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:18 pm

89Hen wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 1:14 pm Not happy for those let go, but anyone could see this coming. There are a lot of mortgage and real estate companies living on borrowed time.

That's true, but one could do it in a better way. ESPECIALLY at a place called Better.com....

Again, not happy for those impacted, but very happy it DID go down this way. Clown company.

Not sure I even knew that company existed. A friend used to work for Guaranteed Rate - talk a bout a shit show. I expect them to be going down in flames soon.

I can think of a few worse Zoom disasters.......

More fallout. Garg has "apologized" for "bungling" this. But word is now out via TechCrunch of his horrible management style. This mass layoff comes on the heels of last year's hiring spree, trying to take advantage of a perceived bull market in their industry by hiring 1,000 people. Now, he's pushing for a "leaner, hungrier" workforce in a "Better 2.0." Word was leaked last year of a crazy mass email he sent to the entire company calling them "dumb dolphins" about to get caught in nets and eaten by sharks, and that they were "embarrassing" him. A more immediate fallout is the resignation of VPs of comms, PR, and marketing. Oddly, the mass layoff came a week after Better received a $750M influx from a Special Purpose Acquisition agreement, which is apparently a way to open on the stock market while avoiding a formal IPO process....

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/bett ... 21138.html

So the company is having financial and operational issues, but the solution is to fire employees, but the CEO/CFO still get to keep their jobs and huge salaries?

SMH

I think in this case there's the complication that the CEO is at least a co-founder. He makes the dumb decision to mass hire during a pandemic because he foresees a boom that doesn't happen, so he makes a correction. That's understandable, but the way he chose to execute that correction is NOT. These are people's lives he's dealing with, and he seems as if he doesn't care a rat's patoot about that. His management style is also a huge issue. It's such an issue that if he had a legitimate board (i.e. not just a group of sycophants), he'd probably be jettisoned as CEO for that reason alone. It's happening more and more in recent years, but it can't happen when an ego-driven founder is in charge. He SHOULD be the first one out the door, but it's hard to do that with a founder unless he does something that warrants jail time....

I'm not sure of too many better ways to do it.
Yes, having managers make calls would have been better but is that practical given the numbers?
Emails would not have been better. Some don't check their emails frequently enough or could overlook it.
Layoffs should be done in-person/verbal, and given the number of people, not sure if it wasn't the best way to ensure everyone gets the same message.

dbackjon wrote: ↑Wed Dec 08, 2021 10:39 am So the company is having financial and operational issues, but the solution is to fire employees, but the CEO/CFO still get to keep their jobs and huge salaries?

SMH

I haven't read everything about this company but from my understanding they paid their loan officers a salary instead of commission. That's great when business is booming. You have cheap labor. But when business slows down (refis drying up) you now have a big payroll compared to your income. Traditional mortgage companies often have big layoffs when things slow down, but it's usually only the operations staff (processors, underwriters, etc...). Better had to let everyone go.