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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Josh Salisbury

Vishal Garg: Executives ‘resign’ after Better.com boss fires 900 employees in Zoom call

Senior executives at an online mortgage company have reportedly resigned after its boss fired 900 of its employees in a brutal Zoom call.

Footage of Better.com CEO Vishal Garg, 43, sacking nine per cent of his workforce in the weeks before Christmas went viral after he spoke of needing the strength to hold back tears.

Now senior staff including head of public relations, head of marketing, and vice president of communications have resigned - reports Insider.

A source told the Daily Beast: “This is a first wave of resignations, and the company expects more.”

Mr Garg, chief executive of mortgage lender startup Better.com, told employees “I come to you with not great news” at the beginning of an awkward video call made on Wednesday last week.

Despite the $7bn unicorn company receiving a $750m (£564m) cash infusion from investors last week, Garg broke the news: “If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group being laid off.”

An unidentified employee can be heard in footage of the call saying: “’F**k you dude. Are you f**king kidding me?”

After widespread controversy, the company boss later apologised to his remaining employees but said he “owned” the decision to make the lay-offs.

“I realise that the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse,” he wrote in an email.

“I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from the situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be.”

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