'We Probably Pissed Away $200 Million,' Better.com CEO Told Employees In Layoffs Meeting (techcrunch.com) 69
When Better.com CEO Vishal Garg laid off 900 employees, or about 9% of the company's staff, in early December, the startup world was shocked with his callous delivery. Now a video of Garg and CFO Kevin Ryan addressing the remaining employees right after the chief executive performed those layoffs has emerged, confirming many reports of his brash style and harsh words about those affected. TechCrunch reports: In a video obtained by TechCrunch, Garg is seen addressing the layoffs and in the process, admitting to making a number of mistakes. We chose not to publish the video in an effort to protect the identity of the source, but we've picked out the most relevant bits based on a transcription of the 12-minute meeting. About two minutes into the meeting, Garg says: "Make no mistake we did also eliminate redundant roles -- who might be strong performers but were in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong task, and weren't mission critical."
After about four minutes, Garg also acknowledged that the company was continuing to hire, including some interns, in the midst of the layoffs, while at the time making a thinly veiled threat: "...It's because we expect those people to be super productive and add value, and if they don't we will exit them too." He added: "We are going to be leaner, meaner and hungrier going forward. We will not be spending time trying to raise capital. We will not be spending time focused on what investors think. We will be spending time grinding this business forward in what will likely be a bloodbath in the mortgage industry in the next year or two."
In the video at around the 8-minute mark, Garg admits to not being disciplined in managing the company's cash and in its hiring strategy, which helps explain the company's second mass layoff of over 3,000 people just three months later. It also helps support multiple sources' claims that the company is currently "losing $50 million per month." "Today we acknowledge that we overhired, and hired the wrong people. And in doing that we failed. I failed. I was not disciplined over the past 18 months. We made $250 million last year, and you know what, we probably pissed away $200 million. We probably could have made more money last year and been leaner, meaner and hungrier." He also explicitly says that the company lost $100 million in the previous quarter, saying it was his "mistake" for not laying off staff earlier.
After about four minutes, Garg also acknowledged that the company was continuing to hire, including some interns, in the midst of the layoffs, while at the time making a thinly veiled threat: "...It's because we expect those people to be super productive and add value, and if they don't we will exit them too." He added: "We are going to be leaner, meaner and hungrier going forward. We will not be spending time trying to raise capital. We will not be spending time focused on what investors think. We will be spending time grinding this business forward in what will likely be a bloodbath in the mortgage industry in the next year or two."
In the video at around the 8-minute mark, Garg admits to not being disciplined in managing the company's cash and in its hiring strategy, which helps explain the company's second mass layoff of over 3,000 people just three months later. It also helps support multiple sources' claims that the company is currently "losing $50 million per month." "Today we acknowledge that we overhired, and hired the wrong people. And in doing that we failed. I failed. I was not disciplined over the past 18 months. We made $250 million last year, and you know what, we probably pissed away $200 million. We probably could have made more money last year and been leaner, meaner and hungrier." He also explicitly says that the company lost $100 million in the previous quarter, saying it was his "mistake" for not laying off staff earlier.
The CEO has the answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like the CEO just identified himself as someone who should be "exited".
Re:The CEO has the answer: (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, he did generate $200 million worth of pissin' away money here.
Fire him? Hell, he's the life of the party.
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At least he tells the truth and gets straight to the point.
Uh, straight to the point would have been firing himself for this monumental fuck-up.
Tact and euphemisms are overrated.
Yeah. I agree. Which is why the fucking board should have ousted that executive leadership, a few thousand firings ago. Now it's time to fire management and the worthless board. I think we should stop trying to make 21st Century excuses for the obvious failures of a company, especially when we know who caused that failure. Corporation design has mechanisms in place to at least try and prevent something this. Every one
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An exit THROUGH the CEO would probably be the best use of said CEO.
Or any CEO, to be frank.
Re: The CEO has the answer: (Score:2)
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You are hired for a job. You expect doing it for paychecks. Instead, you meet this kind of manager, who regularly gets on Slashdot in that exotic light. Frankly, he should count himself in that turnover of thousands, this startup constantly produces.
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Re: The CEO has the answer: (Score:5, Informative)
Unlike many startups however, this CEO is actively being sued for cheating the investors and partners in his previous startups.
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Capitalism according to Google:
"an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."
Are you proposing that it would be better if the system were owned by the state?
Or are you confusing "capitalism" with "neo-liberalism" or with "free market economy"?
They aren't the same thing you know.
Re:The CEO has the answer: (Score:5, Funny)
"we will exit them too."
Does that mean they are currently inside these employees?
CEO repairs errors. Not common! (Score:2)
Most arrogant bosses never recognize their errors, and never learn from them.
This CEO just recognized and corrected a mistake.
That is exactly why you should not fire him.
Ladies and Gentlemen (Score:2, Insightful)
Along with the notion of "Fake News" rebranding trickle down economics as "Job Creators" was one of the most brilliant lies mega corps ever fooled us with.
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"Job creators" is the same lie as "Employers" and "Employees".
Correct terms are "Owners" and "Workers", respectively.
Or if you want to scare some folks shitless - "Capitalists" and "The proletariat".
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Correct terms are "Owners" and "Workers", respectively..
Oh, you mean because the wokists purged "master" and "slave" from computer terminology, I get it. Very meta given those are the types likely cut by better.com.
Re:Ladies and Gentlemen (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, what he's pointing out is that the owner class have done a great job of teaching idiots like you to hate the wrong people.
The wokists are tools of the "owner class," if you followed any of the actual news on them you'd see all their leaders are children of the "owner class."
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Re: Ladies and Gentlemen (Score:3)
As his former boss, Obama, liked to say: Never underestimate Joes ability to fuck things up.
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WHAT LOCKDOWNS? There hasn't been a lockdown in the US at any point in this pandemic. There hasn't been anything close to a lockdown since early 2020.
That's a huge part of why this pandemic killed a million Americans. If we'd just shut down indoor dining, enforced mask mandates, and mandated vaccines and boosters for the entire eligible population half of them would still be alive. If we'd had REAL lockdowns 90% of them would be.
There are more Americans employed now than at any point in the tiny-fingere
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Draconian lockdowns worked really well in Europe - which have finally exited their lockdowns after two years and now have the highest case loads and death counts they've had of the entire pandemic. Ditto in China, where they are suffering their worst outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic despite their ruthless lockdowns they've instituted for two years.
Seems like for the most part lockdowns just delay the inevitable, they don't prevent it. Everyone on Earth is going to get this virus eventually. The
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Seems like for the most part lockdowns just delay the inevitable, they don't prevent it.
Nope. The reason for lockdowns is to delay things and stretch them out over a longer time to reduce the impact. And that works nicely, because what happens at the moment in Europe is that people get the far less deadly Omicron variant, hospital ICUs are not overloaded and the non-morons are fully vaccinated.
Yes, everybody will get Covid. But what that means has changed dramatically and that is in part due to the lockdowns.
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While the US had 4-5 massive waves of covid, in some countries in Latin America where they had early decisive measures they basically only had 2 waves and saved a huge number of lives. Even without the vaccine.
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Indeed. Even only preventing the medical system from overload saves a lot of lives. Non-availability of ICU beds or not enough Oxygen for everybody is a real killer with COVID.
Biden tried more than a little (Score:1)
I've got a center/right friend of mine who keeps gravitating to Fox News. I know why. It's fun. Entertaining. He thinks he can watch it for a laugh.
He also looks fondly back at Reagan, despite working for the Rail road back then and seeing his wages plummet
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Read 3 news sites you disagree with every day. For instance - I read HuffPo and Daily Beast and Reddit. All three are hard left, but I read them all the same. This does two things for me:
1. I hear the people I disagree with in their own words.
2. I become aware of blinds spots in the reporting of sites / groups I agree with.
This is the only way to become a better, more informed citizen. You have to grow into the adulthood of reading and really considering idea
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Re: Ladies and Gentlemen (Score:2)
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New York Times is barely left of center? Tell me your chart is broken, without telling me your chart is broken.
Honestly (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you want your mortgage to be beholden to a company headed by this guy?
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Hell, yeah! I definitely want to be deeply in debt to a company that is liable to just poof disappear, well before I have to pay any large proportion of it back!
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Re: Honestly (Score:1)
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Not to worry, the debt of peons always manages to survive. It'll be sold off to someone who doesn't have to do things like make the loan offer "attractive" to you in any way. It's the corporate debt and the CEO's personal debt that gets loaded onto a sinking ship so it can disappear never to be seen again, leaving only assets in it's wake.
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Hell, yeah! I definitely want to be deeply in debt to a company that is liable to just poof disappear, well before I have to pay any large proportion of it back!
The banks of the world have made sure that the governments they control passed laws making debt an asset which can be sold on when a company dies. Similarly, they have made sure that if they lend money recklessly then that poor business decision never has any chance to affect them (see: sub-prime mortgages, Greek debt crisis, and many other examples through history; also the coming house price collapse of 2022).
Re: Honestly (Score:3)
You Do Not Want to work with assholes like this.
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Would you want your mortgage to be beholden to a company headed by this guy?
If it's beholden to anyone but yourself you're fucking up hard. Corporate loyalty to employees hasn't existing the lives of most people alive today. If you're putting all your eggs in one basket you're wrong, full stop.
Hiring (Score:3)
Are they able to hire anyone now? I wouldn't work there for anything less than $300k, and I'm not sure about that.
Could someone please explain this? (Score:2)
âoeWe will be spending time grinding this business forward in what will likely be a bloodbath in the mortgage industry in the next year or two."
Given that the low interest rates of the past year and a half have caused a housing speculation boom, (the mortgage fee revenue included) are they basically saying that they expect the housing market to crash in the next year or two? Or just be massively reduced from COVID levels (a la Peloton demand)?
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are they basically saying that they expect the housing market to crash in the next year or two?
I suspect what he is referring to here is the idea that newer and leaner online based lenders are going to come in and eat the traditional banks (and other mortgage lenders) lunches, and that they're going to be on the vanguard of that change.
Yaz,
Really fuck this clown (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope everybody is getting careers elseware lined up.
The big moron still thinks life is like high school, and being a complete asshole makes him edgy and cool.
Except in the real world, he's only an asshole and resented by all. And one day some employee in his company may flake out and gun down his work chums. Hopefully, this CEO is one of the victims.
Message not clear (Score:2)
Re: Message not clear (Score:2)
"Going postal" was a popular term in the 1990s long before Columbine.
There is virtually no age limit on a mass shooting.
Better.com (Score:1)
So for anyone else wondering, it looks like Better.com is some kind of real-estate loan company's website.
What a shitty company (Score:3)
Initially he had (Score:2)
But then he casually admits that he was sloppy and undisciplined, and was largely to blame for wasting a cool 200mil of the companies money. Ah. In other words, his high standards stop at the door
Translation (Score:2)
Some of you were poor workers, so we had to let you go.
On the other hand, I screwed up to the tune of $200 million, but I get to keep my job and stick around. In fact, I think I'll give myself a bonus and take a month off. Huzzah!
Yaz
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The board should be showing this guy the exit... Or it may be he is just a really honest straight talking CEO. Others would piss away 200mill and say it was a needed expense for the growth of the company where as he can Identify it as a mistake and correct it. If the board doesn't fire him I would say they like his honesty. Although I think he will have trouble hiring now that this is out.
in my humble experience... (Score:3)
The whole reason a complete moron like this even IS the CEO is that the board is composed of even dimmer bulbs, and THEY hired him.
This clown reeks of complete incompetence, and as proof of the complete idiocy of his board, he was not fired at the same time as, or even before, the layoffs. Funny thing is that companies like this would immediately fire, and then call the police to arrest, any average employee if he/she stole $5000 from the company, but this lunatic blows $200,000,000 and he is still employed
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He owns more than 50% of the company. He can't be fired.
Don't blame me, I voted for Bleeg (Score:3)
GARG: For this next phase of our glorious expansion, I encourage you all to welcome our new vice president of operations, VORG! ALL HAIL VORG!
CEO did right (Score:1)
But wait, there's more (Score:2)
The company is bleeding money so quickly due to the ineptitude of their dear leader, they're firing an addtional 3,000 people [cnn.com].
No, that's not a misprint. 3,000 more people will lose their jobs, which is about a third of their entire complement. So congratulations to Vishal Garg for being another in a long line of overpaid hack CEOs to drive a company into the ground while raking in the big bucks.
Incompetence (Score:3)
So, the CEO gets to be utterly incompetent, and other people lose their jobs? If he and his cronies are responsible for "pissing away $200 million", it's pretty clear who ought to be fired. Or hang their heads in shame and resign.
It's also one of those mysteries: this is a freaking web platform. Ok, they need employees to do data entry and stuff, but still: WTF? Why do they need nearly 10,000 employees? What do they all do? I could ask the same question of companies like Twitter - what do those thousands of employees do all day?
Good news (Score:1)
Where to begin... (Score:1)
We Probably Pissed Away $200 Million
There is so much wrong with this I don't know where to begin.
First of all the use of the word "probably" is a giant red flag. So, you are saying you don't know for sure? Who does? Anyone?
Second is the use of the word "we".
Forget about the touch-feely aspects of his delivery, how does this bozo still have a job given that he doesn't have the slightest clue how to manage his business?