The boss also said market efficiency, performance, and productivity were to blame for the firings, adding that it was necessary for the company to 'move in order to survive.' The firings came despite a $750 million cash infusion the mortgage company received last week. I believe in you, I believe in Better, and I believe that working together can make homeownership better together. We are also taking fast steps to make sure we are very transparent and aligned as a company on the goals for 2022, the metrics that matter most, and how we all can work together even better to serve our customers and achieve our mission. I hope you'll join me for the discussion. We will talk more at our upcoming All Hands meeting about what to expect for the year ahead. I couldn't be more grateful for all you are accomplishing for the customers we serve. I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from the situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be.Īt Better, your dedication, focus and expertise are essential in the vital work we are doing to unlock the value, joy and opportunity of homeownership for our customers across the country. I realize that the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse. I own the decision to do the layoffs, but in communicating I blundered the execution. I failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for individuals who are affected and for their contributions to Better.

What kind of boss fires 900 employees on Zoom right before Christmas? A bad one.I want to apologize for the way I handled the layoffs last week. And when you kill the culture, you lose any chance of accomplishing your mission.ī is now a damaged business due to the actions of another lousy boss. When you treat people like a problem and a nuisance, you destroy the culture.

Narcissistic bosses like Garg forget that leaders are responsible for both the mission AND the people. All they care about is filling their personal bank account. It’s about motivating people towards a goal, not harassing them to do your bidding.Īnd the heart of great leadership is treating people with respect. He failed to understand the basic principle I wrote about in I Have the Watch that leadership is a people business. Now, I don’t know much about Vishal Garg, but I know a lot about leadership. And Garg is not a leader. One worker told The Daily Beast that after the mass firing, “ company culture took a DEEP dive, and everyone I’ve spoken to is looking to leave.” Since the event, many high-ranking executives have fled the company, including the head of marketing, vice president of communications, and public relations director. His outbursts, put-downs, and insults caused problems for staffers and forced many good employees to quit.īut the mass firing seemed to be the final blow to the fractured culture. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and…DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. In one example, he wrote an abusive email to a group of employees that said, “You are TOO DAMN SLOW.

To Garg, these workers stood in the way of his goals, so he simply fired them all.Īnd this isn’t the first time the brash, impetuous, and often volatile Garg has shown a complete lack of care for his workers. According to former employees, Garg’s aggressive and insensitive behavior created a toxic work environment.

It didn’t matter that it was Christmas or that these 900 employees had helped build into a company worth more than $7 billion. People are a problem to a boss like him, whose personal net worth is over $4 billion. They are a nuisance, a bother, and an expense that needs to be eliminated. What’s even more strange is the week before the call, the company had received $750 million as part of their public offering. was rich with cash and had more than $1 billion on its balance sheet. In the call, he announced that all of their employment was “terminated effective immediately.” The 900 fired employees represented 9% of ’s workforce. On December 1, CEO of the mortgage company, Vishal Garg, hastily summoned 900 U.S. When you think you’ve seen the worst in corporate leadership behavior, a story comes along that is almost hard to believe. What kind of boss fires 900 employees on Zoom right before Christmas?

Zoom call fired 900 employees