Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com, has spoken about his year 2021 Zoom call fiasco, in a new interview. Garg, who made headlines in 2021 for firing 900 employees over Zoom in a call, later apologised for his handling of the layoffs, and accepted that he failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the those impacted by the layoff.
In a recent interview with TechCrunch, Garg talked about the leadership lessons he has learned from the experience. He said that he has learned to be more empathetic towards his employees and treat them with kindness. He also said that he’s worked really hard to change the way that he shows up to the team every day.
“I think I was very mission-centric, customer centric, and really, really focused on what it took to drive growth,” Garg said. “I think I’ve learned now that in order for our customers to be delighted, our teammates also have to feel delight. So I’ve worked really, really hard to change the way that I show up to the team every day, and to be more empathetic and to treat them with the same level of kindness that I showed our customers.”
“And then the second thing is we’ve continued to innovate on our mission, which is to make homeownership more affordable and more accessible, and ultimately the 1,000 people that are at Better.com today are driven not just by me but really by our mission, which is to make homeownership more affordable and more accessible,” he added.
On being asked if the company could see more layoffs, Garg replied that it depends on the mortgage market. “But we think that we’re appropriately staffed and actually we’re adding headcount in a variety of areas to drive growth.”
Better.com has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons in the past few years. The company in 2021 fired 900 employees over a Zoom call. These layoffs continued in 2022 with company laying off employees in small groups. The company has also been accused by its employees for a toxic work culture.
Follow FE Tech Bytes on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
