Vishal Garg, the CEO of Better.com, appears to be aware that he has made a mistake. (As if, the deluge of the bad press is not proof enough.) A confirmed Better employee released a letter to existing workers on Blind today. “I failed to demonstrate the right degree of respect and appreciation for the individuals who were affected and for their efforts to Better,” Garg said in the letter, apologizing for how he (mis)handled the layoff news last week. I made the choice to lay people off, but I botched the execution in expressing it. I humiliated you by doing so.”
Some may claim that he humiliated himself as well. According to various reports, the company’s diversity and inclusion staff were among those affected. Patrick Lenihan, the firm’s VP of communications, Tanya Gillogley, the company’s head of public relations, Tanya Gillogley, and the business’s director of marketing, Melanie Hahn, all tendered their resignations earlier today, according to people knowledgeable with internal company occurrences. That revelation was also revealed by Insider earlier today.
The backlash over how CEO and co-founder Vishal Garg handled the layoffs of around 900 staff, as originally reported by TechCrunch, has been extensive, ranging from critiques of how it was handled through Zoom to accusations of Garg’s insincerity. People from all around the world have slammed Garg’s acts in memes about the video that have appeared on TikTok.
The action comes after the digital mortgage lender said last week that it had received a capital infusion of roughly $750 million as part of an update to its SPAC deal with Aurora Acquisition Corp. and SoftBank, and subsequently lay off around 9% of its 10,000 employees. The firm is anticipated being valued at $6.9 billion when it goes public. Bloomberg reported today that the business is (unsurprisingly) delaying the closing of its SPAC, which was initially scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year.
Garg also revealed to Fortune this week that the business accused “at least 250” fired employees of stealing from the company and consumers by working only two hours each day. Garg addressed the business in a live-streamed town hall shortly after announcing the layoffs. According to a leaked tape of the meeting shared with Insider, he sketched forth a vision of “Better 2.0,” with a “leaner, meaner, hungrier staff.” Better.com has been contacted for comment by TechCrunch, but no response has been received as of this writing. Employees who said to have quit have similarly failed to reply to demands for comment.
Better.com is not the first SoftBank-backed proptech whose senior executives have left before the company’s public debut. The insider also revealed in 2019 that more than a dozen of WeWork’s senior executives have departed the firm, citing internal grievances and uncertainty about the company’s IPO aspirations. The issue on everyone’s mind right now is whether investors and board members will accept Garg’s antics, or whether he will drive out like Adam Neumann.
Garg’s reputation as a jerk dates back to last year when Forbes published the contents of an email from Garg to his employees: “HELLO, BETTER TEAM. WAKE UP.” You are WAY TOO SLOW. You are a swarm of DUMB DOLPHINS, and… Sharks consume DUMB DOLPHINS that are entangled in nets. STOP IT NOW. STOP RIGHT NOW. IMMEDIATELY STOP IT. YOU ARE HUMILIATING ME.” In the same Forbes piece, it discovered that Garg had sued by PIMCO and Goldman Sachs for “improper and even fraudulent activities at two past company endeavors,” as well as misappropriating “tens of millions of dollars.”
Better.com’s decision to let off some of its staff is said to influence by the recent drop in refinancings. Better.com said in April 2020 that it was “hiring aggressively” as more customers sought to refinance their houses due to record low mortgage rates. At the time, I wrote for Crunchbase News that Garg had sent an internal message to staff stating that the mortgage lending business planned to hire 1,000 people in total in 2020 “when more and more homeowners come online for their requirements.”
