Indian-American CEO who fired 900 on Zoom is sacked
Garg claims he was ‘hoodwinked’ by successor, vows comeback, offers to work for $1 a year
Dubai: Indian-American entrepreneur Vishal Garg, who became infamous worldwide for firing 900 employees in a three-minute Zoom call, is now fighting to reverse his own dismissal as CEO of Better Home & Finance — claiming the man who replaced him “hoodwinked” his way into the top job.
Garg was ousted on August 3 and replaced by hedge fund manager Daniel Lewis, who had joined Better’s board just a week earlier.
Now Garg wants his job back.
“He hoodwinked me,” Garg told CNN. “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.”
Garg says he has hired prominent lawyer Alex Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel, and sent Better’s board a letter demanding his reinstatement.
He is even offering to work for $1 a year until the company returns to profitability, after which he says he would transition out of the CEO role.
From firing 900 to being fired
The irony of Garg’s predicament is difficult to miss.
In December 2021, he summoned more than 900 Better employees to a Zoom call just before the holiday season and abruptly told them they were being laid off.
The episode went viral and turned Garg into a symbol of ruthless corporate management. He later took a leave of absence amid the backlash before returning to lead the company.
Garg now acknowledges that the episode inflicted lasting damage on both his reputation and Better’s.
But five years later, he insists his own removal came at exactly the wrong moment.
“We’re winning. We’ve tripled loan volume. We’re close to profitability,” Garg told CNN.
He compared Better’s recovery to driving a football almost the entire length of the field, saying the company had reached the “5-yard line”.
From $8 billion to $300 million
Better’s spectacular rise and fall forms the backdrop to the boardroom battle.
During the pandemic refinancing boom, when mortgage rates fell below 3 per cent, the company was valued at around $8 billion.
Today, with mortgage rates approaching 7 per cent and refinancing demand having collapsed, its market value stands at roughly $300 million.
Annual sales plunged from $1.5 billion in 2021 to just $70 million in 2023.
Better also endured a whistleblower lawsuit that was later dropped, an SEC investigation that resulted in no action, mounting losses and a disastrous 2023 SPAC merger after which its shares plunged 93 per cent.
But Garg argues that the turnaround was finally taking hold.
He says Better is on course for about $200 million in sales this year after increasingly using artificial intelligence to process mortgages more quickly and cheaply.
The company has also expanded its home-equity line of credit business.
‘I suspect he always wanted to become CEO’
Garg says Lewis approached him about six months ago with ideas for cutting costs and improving profitability.
Lewis joined Better’s board on July 27. A week later, according to Garg, he had persuaded other directors to remove him and install Lewis as interim CEO.
“I suspect he always wanted to become CEO,” Garg said. “The board made a mistake.”
Better’s board has presented a very different picture, citing concerns over Garg’s “judgment, temperament and credibility”, losses exceeding $1.5 billion since 2022 and the collapse in the company’s share price.
Lewis and Better did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment. Lewis, however, posted on X after taking over: “There was never a $BETR without @vishal_better. That demands respect.”
Garg prepares his comeback
Garg remains on Better’s board and believes he has enough shareholder support to reclaim the CEO position.
He says his Class B shares, together with those held by supportive early investors, give his camp the voting power needed to prevail.
Better’s stock has fallen about 45 per cent since Lewis took over, after already being down more than 16 per cent this year before Garg’s departure was announced.
Garg says investors have contacted him urging him to return.
“It’s an acknowledgment that I’ve been doing this for 10 years, but execution hasn’t been perfect,” he said of his $1 salary offer.
For the executive once remembered for telling hundreds of employees over a screen that they no longer had jobs, the corporate drama has come full circle.
This time, Garg is the one who was fired — and he is determined to undo it.
