Four top executives have apparently resigned from Better.com, over three months after a Zoom-based mass layoff went viral. TechCrunch broke the storey, citing various insiders acquainted with the company’s inner workings.
Clayton Carol, the company’s VP of finance; Paul Tyger, general manager of acquisition; Stephen Rosen, head of sales; and Christian Wallace, head of real estate, reportedly departed – Tech Crunch said.
In a three-minute Zoom call in early December, the online mortgage lender fired off 900 employees. According to a former employee, staff were told in a subsequent meeting that those let go were poor achievers.
The decision drew criticism for how the company and its CEO, Vishal Garg, handled the layoffs. Garg apologised in a letter addressed to all employees: “I own the decision to do the layoffs, but in communicating it I blundered the execution. In doing so, I embarrassed you.” According to an internal memo obtained by Insider, Garg declared days after the huge layoff that he was “taking time off effective immediately.”
The four executives and Better.com did not react promptly to Insider’s request for comment made after normal business hours. According to sources, more layoffs are expected for March, affecting 40 percent to 50 percent of the company’s workforce.
Better.com, according to Bloomberg, has been more aggressive in laying off US employees than Indian employees, which could be owing to the low cost of labour. Better.com did not reply promptly to Insider’s request for comment, which was issued outside of US business hours.Sindhu Sundar of Insider stated that Better’s investors claimed Garg misappropriated at least $1.6 million of their funds to fuel his own ventures.
