CEO Who Laid Off 900 Employees Over Zoom Call Takes Time Off With Immediate Effect

After Better.com chief executive officer caused outrage for laying off 900 employees over a zoom call, Vishal Garg is now taking time off with immediate effect.

The email from board of directors

The Indian-American CEO cited an email from the digital mortgage company's board, Vice reported on Friday. ¡°Vishal and the Board wanted to provide Better employees an update given the very regrettable events over the last week. Vishal will be taking time off effective immediately,¡± the email from the board of directors said, according to Vice.

Zoom

The email also said chief financial officer Kevin Ryan will be managing the day-to-day decisions of the company and will be reporting to the board during the interim period. Better.com's board has also engaged an independent third party firm to do "a leadership and cultural assessment", according to the report.

"A leadership cultural and cultural assessment"

¡°The recommendations of this assessment will be taken into account to build a long-term sustainable and positive culture at Better. We have much work to do and we hope that everyone can refocus on our customers and support each other to continue to build a great company and a company we can be proud of,¡± the board of directors said.

Garg apologised earlier this week for his manner of handling layoffs at the company after a video of him firing 900 people via a Zoom call went viral on social media. Garg, who has come under fire following his actions at the SoftBank-backed company, said earlier this week he had "blundered the execution" of communicating the layoffs.

better.com logo

"I realize that the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse," Garg said in a letter dated Tuesday.

Market, performance cited as lay off reasons

While firing about 9 per cent of its workforce through the video call, Garg cited the market, performance and productivity as reasons behind the decision to lay off employees in the United States and India.

Better.com

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in New York, Better.com offers mortgage and insurance products to homeowners through its online platform. The company said in May it would go public through a merger with blank-check firm Aurora Acquisition Corp, in a deal that valued it at $7.7 billion.

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