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Hasn't made itself very popular with its employees:
According to Better.com CEO
Vishal Garg
, around 250 employees only worked an average of two hours a day
Photo: Better.com
The head of the New York online mortgage company Better.com fired more than 900 employees via the video conferencing platform Zoom. "If you take part in this call, you are part of the unfortunate group that is being laid off,"
Vishal Garg,
43
, told
his staff. The company's founder and CEO justified the move with the productivity and performance of the workforce. A laid-off employee filmed the call and posted the video on social networks, and the two-and-a-half minute recording has been going viral ever since.
As the US business magazine "Fortune" later reported, Garg had previously examined the productivity of his employees in an extensive data analysis: When they made calls and how often they came to meetings and customer talks. Based on this analysis, the CEO then decided who to fire and who not. "At least 250 employees worked an average of no more than two hours a day, even though they were paid for eight hours," wrote the CEO in an in-house email. With that they would have stolen from the company.
Better.com wants to simplify the sale of houses with its platform. The company is currently preparing an IPO via a so-called corporate shell (Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or Spac for short). For this, Garg has just raised $ 750 million in a financing round. According to Fortune, Better.com is rated at around 6.9 billion dollars. Investors include the Japanese Softbank Group. With the Zoom call, Garg fired around 9 percent of the workforce. Now 9,000 people still work for the institute, which operates in the USA, India and Great Britain.
Garg had already attracted attention once before with his leadership style.
As the US business magazine "Forbes" reported, an email was sent to employees last year in which he allegedly insulted his employees as "a bunch of stupid dolphins" who were too slow and drove him crazy.
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