We Weren't Ready to Grow

In December 2021, Vishal Garg fired 900 of his employees on a Zoom call

- By Brit Morse

To make matters worse, the founder and CEO of New York City-based mortgage lender Better.com also called those employees "unproductive" thieves of company time. Public criticism of Garg went viral, and his board ordered him to take a month-long break from his role. Garg has since apologized, returned as CEO and fired thousands more employees. Here, Garg analyzes his errors.

In 2020, we grew 900 percent and made $500 million in cash profit. Low interest rates led to a surge of mortgage refinancings, and Covid meant customers didn't want to go to a physical location to get a loan, so they were all coming to us.