Better CEO Vishal Garg taking 'time off effective immediately' after he 'blundered' Zoom call firing of 900 staff

Better.com CEO Vishal Garg, who is under fire for sacking 900 employees on a Zoom call recently, is taking time off from the company with immediate effect, an email sent out by the board of directors said.

According to a report in Vice, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Kevin Ryan will be managing the day-to-day decisions of the company and will be reporting to the board.

As per the letter sent out to the employees of the company, the board has hired an independent third party firm to handle the leadership and cultural assessment.


"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," Vice reported quoting the letter.

Earlier this week, Garg apologised to everyone for the way he handled the lay offs at the mortgage company while taking full ownership of the decision.

Garg was slammed massively on the Internet and called insensitive after the video of him sacking a group of 900 people on a Zoom call that didn't even last three minutes went viral on social media.

In his apology, the Better CEO said he "blundered the execution" on the video call.

"In doing so, I embarrassed you. I realize that the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse. I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from this situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be," he had said in his apology.

The SoftBank-backed company fired 9% of its workforce through a Zoom video call without any prior warning, just weeks after it received $750 million in funding.

Garg had cited the market, performance and productivity as reasons behind the decision to lay off employees.

The CEO called the people on the Zoom call an "unlucky group".


"This isn't news that you're going to want to hear...If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated effective immediately," Garg had said. He also added that this was the second time he had to fire people in his entire career.

Better.com, which was founded in 2016 and headquartered in New York, offers mortgage and insurance products to homeowners through its online platform.

In May this year, the company said it would go public through a merger with blank-check firm Aurora Acquisition Corp, in a deal that valued it at $7.7 billion.