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CEO who fired 900 people on Zoom just before Christmas wants his job back

114 points by pseudolus 2mo ago

mrhottakes 2mo ago
Leopard who eats faces surprised to find out other leopard ate his face.
jazzpush2 2mo ago
You read this from the outside and ask yourself, "how does this guy sleep at night?". He sleeps fine, of course, justifying his own actions/behaviors without thinking of others. Luigi Mangione spent months trying to contact someone at United Healthcare to no avail. Only when he pretended to be an investor managing a large number of assets did he hear a response.
- adastra22 2mo ago
  > how does this guy sleep at night? On a big pile of money, surrounded by beautiful women.
  - cyanydeez 2mo ago
    So people really underestimate (because of, the implication) the power of money to rewire the brand to excuse larger and larger immoral and unethical behaviors and to permanently not understand how the rest of the reality is being bent to the money bubble illusion.
    - adastra22 2mo ago
      Also selection effects. There have been some great leaders in business with a clear moral code. We lost Tony Hsieh way too young. But by and large those at the top got there for a reason.
      - cyanydeez 2mo ago
        yes, and to get into the billions of dollars of net worth, you need to both ignore more and more problematic things and believe more and more than you deserve all this.
        JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
        > to get into the billions of dollars of net worth, you need to both ignore more and more problematic things Need is too strong, especially if it’s just for becoming a billionaire. One can absolutely amble into that situation. Where I tend to agree is if you choose to keep those billions versus transitioning to charity.
        cyanydeez 2mo ago
        the "need" is POV the person gaining the money.
        lovich 2mo ago
        Come on man. No one is ambling into being a billionaire. There’s a little under 1000 billionaires in the US and the population is estimated at over 349 million. Rounding the billionaires up and the population down to those round numbers and it’s 0.000286532951% of the population getting resources that millions of others are trying to take.
        happytoexplain 2mo ago
        Why are you referring to rarity? "Ambling" refers to (RELATIVE) luck, not commonness.
        lovich 2mo ago
        Ambling refers to walking into a situation casually. If you think you can amble into being a billionaire in our environment then you’re conceding that capitalism as a system has broken down in the US because there’s no way to casually come into that much money in the presence of competition.
- coredog64 2mo ago
  Luigi was never a UHC customer per the news story today on his guilty plea.
- Aurornis 2mo ago
  > Luigi Mangione spent months trying to contact someone at United Healthcare to no avail. Only when he pretended to be an investor managing a large number of assets did he hear a response. Luigi Mangione was not a United Healthcare customer. This seems like an incredibly important detail that keeps being left out of this tidbit as it circulates social media. You’re trying to imply that he had some grievance with his insurance with the company, but he was not insured by them. He was trying to get in contact with anyone so he could murder someone high profile. He called the investor relations line as a way to social engineer that.
  - happytoexplain 2mo ago
    Why is it incredibly important? You said that, but didn't continue. Must grievances be only with employers/patrons to be valid?
    - Aurornis 2mo ago
      > Why is it "incredibly important"? You said that, but didn't continue. I explained it in the following sentence: Leaving it out is an underhanded way of implying that he was trying to get ahold of someone about his own medical conditions, which has been the narrative across social media. > Must grievances be only with employers/patrons to be valid? A company doesn’t have to field phone calls from non customers who are angry at their industry. If you’re trying to suggest that companies have an obligation to field complaints from angry non-customers, using an example where someone went on to murder an employee of that company isn't making a compelling case.
- derektank 2mo ago
  Well, that is one thing Vishal has going for him, he’s not a murderer. I hope he sleeps a lot better at night than Mangione does.
bdangubic 2mo ago
he should get his job back around black friday with enough time for another firing round at Christmas time
tolugenius 2mo ago
> Garg acknowledges he’s “hard-nosed” and the famous Zoom layoffs severely damaged the company’s reputation — a mistake he knows will continue to haunt him. But as criticized as Garg has been for placing near-impossible demands on the company and its employees, he said Lewis convinced the board he didn’t push hard enough. > So when shareholders said, ‘You need to take a back seat,’ I complied.” Man shocked to learn the evolution of shareholder value did not, in fact value him.
Ancalagon 2mo ago
wow I forgot about about this company and this fiasco time to forget about it again
nemomarx 2mo ago
> says he was fired on August 3 just as he brought the company to the precipice of success. > Today, with an imploded refi business and rates closing in on 7%, the AI mortgage company’s market value stands at just $300 million. Forgive the snipping here, but is the company actually turning around or on the brink of success now? Is there any sign the firings helped them 8 months later?
- jerlam 2mo ago
  The 900 person layoffs were in 2021.
- Billybrain 2mo ago
  The entire refinancing industry collapsed, its a miracle they didn't file for bankruptcy - they are not totally out of the woods but they do have a great product and great growth.
xyzelement 2mo ago
Former employee (though not part of that famous round of layoff) The noise around Zoom firing was ridiculous. We were a largely remote company with most people having never been to the office (I don't think I had, at that moment) so how exactly do you lay off people except remotely? VG didn't do a great job there but the idea of doing it remotely being evil or whatever was ridiculous - should the people be flown in to NY just to get fired? Overall I find VG a flawed but reasonable dude. He definitely put his ass on the line for the business, was generous with equity - and was a pretty engaged leader. I don't think much about my time at Better but it was fine.
- throwaway27448 2mo ago
  > He definitely put his ass on the line for the business Oh did he risk being homeless? Let's not be hyperbolic here—all he risked was minor embarrassment
  - xyzelement 2mo ago
    There was some dynamic with Softbank which required VG to put a lot of personal money on the line to keep going. I forget the dynamic exactly.
  - nickff 2mo ago
    "Minor embarrassment" is what politicians who 'take full responsibility' while not facing any consequences 'suffer'.[1] Getting canned for it is a bit more than that. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-19958739 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-19958739
    - happytoexplain 2mo ago
      >Getting canned for it is a bit more than that. No, in the C-suite, it is not. Yes, in other positions, it is.
      - SaltyBackendGuy 2mo ago
aleph_minus_one 2mo ago
Great irony: the names under which the company which Vishal Garg was CEO of (Better Home & Finance Holding Company) does business are Better and Better.com [1]. :-) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better.com
happytoexplain 2mo ago
In my humble opinion, he is representative of an evil that is creeping into corporate America. Don't get me wrong: It was always "evil" by some definition, but not like this. It's becoming a cartoon version of "American business". It's like the people in leadership positions increasingly think that running a business consists of yelling at your direct reports until things are done, and sucking up to your superiors, and that's the whole job description.
blitzar 2mo ago
It doesn't work like that bud. People (you) fired don't get their jobs back because they say "they were doing a great job".
la6479 2mo ago
Tough luck buddy. Every CEO job published in linked in have a 1000 applicants in 2 hours. /s
xyst 2mo ago
Pushes mass layoffs to appease board or investors. Then cries to news outlets when the same is done to him. He is nothing but a tool for the billionaires. Nothing else. What did he risk? Nothing. Public embarrassment at best. He gets a golden parachute like every other C-level asshole and lives the rest of his life without having to worry about anything.
catgary 2mo ago
> Garg acknowledges he’s “hard-nosed” and the famous Zoom layoffs severely damaged the company’s reputation — a mistake he knows will continue to haunt him. I really hope Garg is here reading this. It’s not just a mistake that will continue to haunt him, it’s all he’s ever going to be. It’s how he was introduced in this headline. It’s how he’ll be referred to when he starts his next venture. If newspapers publish his obituary someday, it’ll be in the first few sentences explaining why anyone knows his name.
- happytoexplain 2mo ago
  This is the closest thing to hope we have sometimes. Well said.
- wseqyrku 2mo ago
  Wondering why he's taking the heat out of literally everyone else, it's not like layoffs were rare to begin with and that this is the last poor bastard we will ever know to be responsible.
  - happytoexplain 2mo ago
    He's not. This is one article.
    - wseqyrku 2mo ago
      I'm asking because here everyone seems to be making a big deal out of this particular case. But it's hardly anything new. If you wanna make a comment on the person responsible or turn of events that leads here you gotta zoom out a little. It's the whole goddam system that allows this.
      - customguy 2mo ago
        Is someone remembered only for being shitty "new"? > It's the whole goddam system that allows this. It allows me and others the same things and yet we don't do them. This idea that you have to talk about everything at once first is just absolving individual doers of specific deeds, not to mention the idea that anyone would have stolen from a blind beggar, we need to heal blindness first etc. It sounds more cultured when you talk about "incentives" and even "incentive structures", but sometimes it really isn't more than "why was she wearing a short skirt in the bad part of town?"
BeetleB 2mo ago
> “He hoodwinked me,” the just-ousted Better Home & Finance CEO said about Daniel Lewis, the man who replaced him last week. “He said he liked the company’s strategy. He praised us on X and used that to get on our board and win our confidences.” I love SpaceX's strategy for getting us to AGI, the moon, and beyond! > just as he brought the company to the precipice of success. I love how success has a precipice.
- catgary 2mo ago
  This plus the zoom firing anecdote is basically confirming that Garg operates at a Cousin Greg level.
sota_pop 2mo ago
> It bounced back by training AI models to quickly process mortgages… Between the years of 2018-2025, I led very many professional discussions and educational presentations regarding the theory and application of AI/ML in the org I worked (a ~120 person org lacking in any substantive expertise or awareness of the field). One of the most important topics within those conversations was demystification. Several times I was asked (in earnest, by adults, in public fora) about “terminator/skynet scenarios”, sometimes intended metaphorically (related to the profession) and sometimes literally. My response every single time: I don’t fear “skynet”. My biggest fears surrounding the continued proliferation of AI are the mundane, boring, and nascent uses that completely bastardize the world as we know it. Uses like mortgage/loan approval, healthcare coverage approval, hiring, legal adjudications etc., etc. Uses where the decision outcomes have a direct, major, intimate impact on people’s lives. I am generally pro-AI/ML (when applied thoughtfully), but my greatest fears are and have ALWAYS been in knowing just how much easier it enables these kinds of decisions to inevitably be outsourced or made in an otherwise (more) thoughtless, dehumanizing way. While it’s easy (and at times cathartic) to criticize big corp leaders, the CEO and company described in the article gives me a visceral reaction deeply within the uncanny valley that is actually difficult to describe.
aws_ls 2mo ago
> “There was never a $BETR without @vishal_better. That demands respect.” and > “(Lewis’) thoughts about cost savings were good. His ideas about innovation were not,” Garg argued. “It’s so much easier when we’re this close for someone to come in and say that they could have done better.” The user of better for Better, had me chuckling in these parts. Overall, I think, we can safely say that Better has definitely seen some better times.
hiyer 2mo ago
Why is a layoff on zoom considered worse or more controversial than layoff by 4-6AM emails (which is what other companies like Meta, Oracle, Atlassian, etc did)?
- brazukadev 2mo ago
  it is only allowed to post the most controversial case? you can't comment in 2 threads simultaneously but that doesn't make this case the only one that got people upset. The Schrodinger's ragebait.
  - hiyer 2mo ago
    It's not about the post, but the fact that he's referred to as "ceo who fired 900 people on zoom". Nobody calls Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian ceo) as "ceo who fired 1600 people by 6am email", for example.

114 points by pseudolus 2mo ago

Leopard who eats faces surprised to find out other leopard ate his face.

You read this from the outside and ask yourself, "how does this guy sleep at night?". He sleeps fine, of course, justifying his own actions/behaviors without thinking of others. Luigi Mangione spent months trying to contact someone at United Healthcare to no avail. Only when he pretended to be an investor managing a large number of assets did he hear a response.

adastra22 2mo ago
> how does this guy sleep at night? On a big pile of money, surrounded by beautiful women.
- cyanydeez 2mo ago
  So people really underestimate (because of, the implication) the power of money to rewire the brand to excuse larger and larger immoral and unethical behaviors and to permanently not understand how the rest of the reality is being bent to the money bubble illusion.
  - adastra22 2mo ago
    Also selection effects. There have been some great leaders in business with a clear moral code. We lost Tony Hsieh way too young. But by and large those at the top got there for a reason.
    - cyanydeez 2mo ago
      yes, and to get into the billions of dollars of net worth, you need to both ignore more and more problematic things and believe more and more than you deserve all this.
      - JumpCrisscross 2mo ago
        > to get into the billions of dollars of net worth, you need to both ignore more and more problematic things Need is too strong, especially if it’s just for becoming a billionaire. One can absolutely amble into that situation. Where I tend to agree is if you choose to keep those billions versus transitioning to charity.
        cyanydeez 2mo ago
        the "need" is POV the person gaining the money.
        lovich 2mo ago
        Come on man. No one is ambling into being a billionaire. There’s a little under 1000 billionaires in the US and the population is estimated at over 349 million. Rounding the billionaires up and the population down to those round numbers and it’s 0.000286532951% of the population getting resources that millions of others are trying to take.
        happytoexplain 2mo ago
        Why are you referring to rarity? "Ambling" refers to (RELATIVE) luck, not commonness.
        lovich 2mo ago
        Ambling refers to walking into a situation casually. If you think you can amble into being a billionaire in our environment then you’re conceding that capitalism as a system has broken down in the US because there’s no way to casually come into that much money in the presence of competition.
coredog64 2mo ago
Luigi was never a UHC customer per the news story today on his guilty plea.
Aurornis 2mo ago
> Luigi Mangione spent months trying to contact someone at United Healthcare to no avail. Only when he pretended to be an investor managing a large number of assets did he hear a response. Luigi Mangione was not a United Healthcare customer. This seems like an incredibly important detail that keeps being left out of this tidbit as it circulates social media. You’re trying to imply that he had some grievance with his insurance with the company, but he was not insured by them. He was trying to get in contact with anyone so he could murder someone high profile. He called the investor relations line as a way to social engineer that.
- happytoexplain 2mo ago
  Why is it incredibly important? You said that, but didn't continue. Must grievances be only with employers/patrons to be valid?
  - Aurornis 2mo ago
    > Why is it "incredibly important"? You said that, but didn't continue. I explained it in the following sentence: Leaving it out is an underhanded way of implying that he was trying to get ahold of someone about his own medical conditions, which has been the narrative across social media. > Must grievances be only with employers/patrons to be valid? A company doesn’t have to field phone calls from non customers who are angry at their industry. If you’re trying to suggest that companies have an obligation to field complaints from angry non-customers, using an example where someone went on to murder an employee of that company isn't making a compelling case.
derektank 2mo ago
Well, that is one thing Vishal has going for him, he’s not a murderer. I hope he sleeps a lot better at night than Mangione does.

bdangubic 2mo ago

he should get his job back around black friday with enough time for another firing round at Christmas time

tolugenius 2mo ago

> Garg acknowledges he’s “hard-nosed” and the famous Zoom layoffs severely damaged the company’s reputation — a mistake he knows will continue to haunt him. But as criticized as Garg has been for placing near-impossible demands on the company and its employees, he said Lewis convinced the board he didn’t push hard enough. > So when shareholders said, ‘You need to take a back seat,’ I complied.” Man shocked to learn the evolution of shareholder value did not, in fact value him.

Ancalagon 2mo ago

wow I forgot about about this company and this fiasco time to forget about it again

nemomarx 2mo ago

> says he was fired on August 3 just as he brought the company to the precipice of success. > Today, with an imploded refi business and rates closing in on 7%, the AI mortgage company’s market value stands at just $300 million. Forgive the snipping here, but is the company actually turning around or on the brink of success now? Is there any sign the firings helped them 8 months later?

jerlam 2mo ago
The 900 person layoffs were in 2021.
Billybrain 2mo ago
The entire refinancing industry collapsed, its a miracle they didn't file for bankruptcy - they are not totally out of the woods but they do have a great product and great growth.

xyzelement 2mo ago

Former employee (though not part of that famous round of layoff) The noise around Zoom firing was ridiculous. We were a largely remote company with most people having never been to the office (I don't think I had, at that moment) so how exactly do you lay off people except remotely? VG didn't do a great job there but the idea of doing it remotely being evil or whatever was ridiculous - should the people be flown in to NY just to get fired? Overall I find VG a flawed but reasonable dude. He definitely put his ass on the line for the business, was generous with equity - and was a pretty engaged leader. I don't think much about my time at Better but it was fine.

throwaway27448 2mo ago
> He definitely put his ass on the line for the business Oh did he risk being homeless? Let's not be hyperbolic here—all he risked was minor embarrassment
- xyzelement 2mo ago
  There was some dynamic with Softbank which required VG to put a lot of personal money on the line to keep going. I forget the dynamic exactly.
- nickff 2mo ago
  "Minor embarrassment" is what politicians who 'take full responsibility' while not facing any consequences 'suffer'.[1] Getting canned for it is a bit more than that. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-19958739 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-19958739
  - happytoexplain 2mo ago
    >Getting canned for it is a bit more than that. No, in the C-suite, it is not. Yes, in other positions, it is.
    - SaltyBackendGuy 2mo ago

aleph_minus_one 2mo ago

Great irony: the names under which the company which Vishal Garg was CEO of (Better Home & Finance Holding Company) does business are Better and Better.com [1]. :-) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better.com

happytoexplain 2mo ago

In my humble opinion, he is representative of an evil that is creeping into corporate America. Don't get me wrong: It was always "evil" by some definition, but not like this. It's becoming a cartoon version of "American business". It's like the people in leadership positions increasingly think that running a business consists of yelling at your direct reports until things are done, and sucking up to your superiors, and that's the whole job description.

blitzar 2mo ago

It doesn't work like that bud. People (you) fired don't get their jobs back because they say "they were doing a great job".

la6479 2mo ago

Tough luck buddy. Every CEO job published in linked in have a 1000 applicants in 2 hours. /s

xyst 2mo ago

Pushes mass layoffs to appease board or investors. Then cries to news outlets when the same is done to him. He is nothing but a tool for the billionaires. Nothing else. What did he risk? Nothing. Public embarrassment at best. He gets a golden parachute like every other C-level asshole and lives the rest of his life without having to worry about anything.

catgary 2mo ago

> Garg acknowledges he’s “hard-nosed” and the famous Zoom layoffs severely damaged the company’s reputation — a mistake he knows will continue to haunt him. I really hope Garg is here reading this. It’s not just a mistake that will continue to haunt him, it’s all he’s ever going to be. It’s how he was introduced in this headline. It’s how he’ll be referred to when he starts his next venture. If newspapers publish his obituary someday, it’ll be in the first few sentences explaining why anyone knows his name.

happytoexplain 2mo ago
This is the closest thing to hope we have sometimes. Well said.
wseqyrku 2mo ago
Wondering why he's taking the heat out of literally everyone else, it's not like layoffs were rare to begin with and that this is the last poor bastard we will ever know to be responsible.
- happytoexplain 2mo ago
  He's not. This is one article.
  - wseqyrku 2mo ago
    I'm asking because here everyone seems to be making a big deal out of this particular case. But it's hardly anything new. If you wanna make a comment on the person responsible or turn of events that leads here you gotta zoom out a little. It's the whole goddam system that allows this.
    - customguy 2mo ago
      Is someone remembered only for being shitty "new"? > It's the whole goddam system that allows this. It allows me and others the same things and yet we don't do them. This idea that you have to talk about everything at once first is just absolving individual doers of specific deeds, not to mention the idea that anyone would have stolen from a blind beggar, we need to heal blindness first etc. It sounds more cultured when you talk about "incentives" and even "incentive structures", but sometimes it really isn't more than "why was she wearing a short skirt in the bad part of town?"

BeetleB 2mo ago

> “He hoodwinked me,” the just-ousted Better Home & Finance CEO said about Daniel Lewis, the man who replaced him last week. “He said he liked the company’s strategy. He praised us on X and used that to get on our board and win our confidences.” I love SpaceX's strategy for getting us to AGI, the moon, and beyond! > just as he brought the company to the precipice of success. I love how success has a precipice.

catgary 2mo ago
This plus the zoom firing anecdote is basically confirming that Garg operates at a Cousin Greg level.

sota_pop 2mo ago

> It bounced back by training AI models to quickly process mortgages… Between the years of 2018-2025, I led very many professional discussions and educational presentations regarding the theory and application of AI/ML in the org I worked (a ~120 person org lacking in any substantive expertise or awareness of the field). One of the most important topics within those conversations was demystification. Several times I was asked (in earnest, by adults, in public fora) about “terminator/skynet scenarios”, sometimes intended metaphorically (related to the profession) and sometimes literally. My response every single time: I don’t fear “skynet”. My biggest fears surrounding the continued proliferation of AI are the mundane, boring, and nascent uses that completely bastardize the world as we know it. Uses like mortgage/loan approval, healthcare coverage approval, hiring, legal adjudications etc., etc. Uses where the decision outcomes have a direct, major, intimate impact on people’s lives. I am generally pro-AI/ML (when applied thoughtfully), but my greatest fears are and have ALWAYS been in knowing just how much easier it enables these kinds of decisions to inevitably be outsourced or made in an otherwise (more) thoughtless, dehumanizing way. While it’s easy (and at times cathartic) to criticize big corp leaders, the CEO and company described in the article gives me a visceral reaction deeply within the uncanny valley that is actually difficult to describe.

aws_ls 2mo ago

> “There was never a $BETR without @vishal_better. That demands respect.” and > “(Lewis’) thoughts about cost savings were good. His ideas about innovation were not,” Garg argued. “It’s so much easier when we’re this close for someone to come in and say that they could have done better.” The user of better for Better, had me chuckling in these parts. Overall, I think, we can safely say that Better has definitely seen some better times.

hiyer 2mo ago

Why is a layoff on zoom considered worse or more controversial than layoff by 4-6AM emails (which is what other companies like Meta, Oracle, Atlassian, etc did)?

brazukadev 2mo ago
it is only allowed to post the most controversial case? you can't comment in 2 threads simultaneously but that doesn't make this case the only one that got people upset. The Schrodinger's ragebait.
- hiyer 2mo ago
  It's not about the post, but the fact that he's referred to as "ceo who fired 900 people on zoom". Nobody calls Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian ceo) as "ceo who fired 1600 people by 6am email", for example.