Better.com CEO Fires 900 People at Once Over Zoom 3 Weeks Before Christmas

If you’re looking for an example of the worst possible way to terminate employees, look no further than the CEO of personal loan company Better.com. 

Less than three weeks before Christmas, Vishal Garg used a company Zoom meeting to inform 900 employees that they were all being fired, effective immediately. 

“I come to you with not great news,” Garg opened the call.

Better.com, a popular online mortgage lender, is worth an estimated $8 billion, and employs more than 6,500 people. Forbes Magazine recently ranked the company first on its Best Place to Work list. 

As Garg relayed the news, you can hear the reaction of one woman who recorded the meeting.

“This is not real. Oh my god. I cannot believe this! After all we did,” she said.

Garg attempted to express sympathy, saying, “It's been a really, really challenging decision to make, and I do not, do not want to do this.”

But in a posting to a professional networking site he wrote: “You guys know that at least 250 of the people terminated were working an average of 2 hours a day while clocking 8 hours+ a day in the payroll system? They were stealing from you....Get educated."

HR expert Deb Muller told Inside Edition the way the employees were fired was “atrocious.”

“Talk to your employees about what’s going on. Give them the information. Be transparent about why the decisions were made and how the selections were made as well. Tell them what to expect going forward, and then make sure that is that personal touch afterwards,” Muller said.

Related Stories