My First Million - EMERGENCY POD: Shaan Reacts to Better.com CEO Firing 900 Employees

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) reacts to the Better.com CEO firing 900 employees on Zoom and explains what went wrong and how the CEO could have done better. To see Shaan's reaction vid on YouTube, click here: https://youtu.be/9NRMaZ_nGw0

Hey everyone, this is Ben. Just wanted to let you know that today's podcast is a little bit different. You may have seen the video come out, went viral on Twitter of the better.com CEO, firing over 900 employees. I did a really poor job of it, and it was just really ugly and went super viral. So Sean recorded a quick reaction video to it, and that's done well on YouTube and on Twitter. So we wanted you who listened to the podcast to be able to hear it as well. He makes a couple references to visuals from the video.

So if you want to see what he's talking about, just click on the link in the show notes. That will take you to the YouTube of Sean's reaction video. Otherwise, you can just listen to the audio here. Enjoy. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On a road, let's travel, never looking back.

Emergency, emergency podcast had to do this. Saw this video the other day. I was scrolling TikTok late in the last. the night, as I do, saw this TikTok, couldn't believe it. I almost got out of bed right then to come record this. But we're doing it now. Okay, this is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. This guy is going to be skewered for this.

That's my prediction. This guy is going to get, he might get fired for this. But he is definitely going to get wrecked on all of social media for this. Let's just, let's listen to this. So this is the CEO of a company called Better.com. they've raised like, I don't know, $750 million. It's a big company. They do, I don't know, mortgages or some shit like that on the internet.

So here's the CEO. Let's just take a listen. No, no, what's this? Take a listen. Already looks like a funeral. I come to you with not great news. It has changed, as you know. And we have to move with it in order to survive so that hopefully we can continue to thrive.

Okay. the market has moved. The market has moved. What are you talking about? You have all your employees on a Zoom call right now. Obviously, you have some, quote, not great news to share. Lesson number one. And by the way, how does this guy become a CEO of such a big company and not know rule number one?

If you're letting someone go or you're laying them off and you go into the meeting, you got to rip the bandaid off in the first minute. And the first three things you say, one of them has. to be we're going to be letting you go today and then you start to explain everything when you do this you do this long-winded build-up people are a confused and b they get really pissed off and it's just self-serving you're trying to buffer the blow you're trying to prevent the the the blow from hitting you you can't even say it you're not even willing to say it so ridiculous okay let's so the market has moved and we have to move with it so we can survive

What is it? Is you showing down the company? What's going on? Remember on a mission? What mission? This was my decision. Looks at his notes. Dude, you still haven't said it?

It's been a really, really challenging decision to make. Oh, are you okay? Are you, is it been hard for you? This is the second time in my... Oh my God. What are you thinking, dude? I get what he's thinking. He's thinking, I want them to know that this is hard for me.

But, dude, you don't understand. What people are feeling right now. They don't, first of all, they don't know what you're saying. You haven't said it. Secondly, you're talking about how hard this is for you. And last time I cried, no one gives a flying fuck if you cried or not. Because you still haven't said it. That's also, that's the main problem.

The second problem is you're talking about yourself and no one cares about you in this moment. 15% laying off 50%. The market. You can hear a guy. The guy who's, okay, the guy who's recording this, by the way, this is not the screen. This is a guy pointing his camera at the phone. You heard him. Are you f-fing serious?

Efficiency. And Peter Butter. Market, market performances, efficiency, and Peter Butter. What is this guy doing? First of all, he said, we're laying off 15% of the company. He didn't say which 15% yet. Now, everybody is just thinking, is it me? Is it not me?

They have no idea because he hasn't brought the sledgehammer yet. And look, this is the, scroll bar. All right. This down here is where he should have said it. We're now over here. We're almost at intermission of the movie. And, uh, you know, he still hasn't said it.

So I can't believe what he just said. Why do you say performances, by the way? He's talking about the market has turned. So, oh, is it my performance or is it the market? Francis. And Peter Lerner. If you're on this call, you are. Fuck you, dude.

I can't even help but laugh. Fuck you, dude. That is the... See, that guy is saying what he's supposed to say in this moment. Because of this fucked up hype trailer teaser strategy that the CEO took, if you're on this call, you are. You're not a game show. He thinks he's Jeff Probst. He thinks he's a game show host.

And he's setting up this cliffhanger that actually is pushing them off the cliff and then they're falling down to their down. So he comes in with you are one of the unlucky bunch. I thought you said it's performance. Is it performance or is it unlucky or is it the market or is it peanut butter? Which one is it? We don't know yet. Is terminated. Are you fucking kidding me?

What does this mean for what's next? You're going to get an email from HR. Ask H.R. at better.com to your personal email address. At better.com. Follow us on Twitter. And your benefits. All U.S. employees.

We're providing four weeks of severance. Also, you dressed up like a douchebag on this day. You wore the douchebag uniform. The blue-collared shirt with the dark blue vest, with the khakis that are a little too tight, right around the crotch, with the crotch face on the camera. That is the douchebag. That is the douchebag armor that you wore into this.

And then you're reading it really slow off your piece of paper, and you just have a bunch of people enraged at you right now. I think there's like, I don't know, a thousand people on this call or something like that. This is something crazy. A lot of people, 100 people, maybe hundreds of people. people on this call insane one month of full benefits and two months of cobra for which we will pay the premium so three months total benefits if we um if you elect for cobra if you don't get a communication from ask hr and better.com before the end of today you can email ask hr better

dot com if you don't get the email thank you for each and every one of yours individual contributions to better i wish the news was different i wish we were enthusiastic as we were at the beginning of this year. Thriving enthusiastically? Doesn't make sense. You wish you were thriving. Of course you wish you were thriving. You didn't lose your job.

CEO who mismanaged during this time. You didn't lose your job. They lost their job. And you're talking about you were crying last time, but you weren't crying this time. And you probably didn't even cry last time. You probably don't give a shit, to be honest with you. Maybe you feel bad.

Actually, I take the back. He feels bad. He feels bad. He should feel bad. but he handled it bad. You can feel bad, but you got to handle it good. He felt bad and handled it bad. Pid butter.

That's not the case. You better finish strong. There you go. What is this wedding speech and you're drunk? I'm sure you will leave us. What is he saying? You'll be more fortunate. You'll be more fortunate.

I'm here in the best of luck. Thank you for everything you've done. Looks aggressively staged right. Did I do it? Can we end it? Can I go to lunch? Do we have my lunch? Did someone get my lunch?

And this guy, this guy, I got to look this up. Better CEO salary. This might be public. I feel like this guy, so he laid off 900 people in that call. We're not going to pay for this paywall, by the way. What is the stealing part? I didn't hear this. Okay, I don't know what that's about.

That wasn't in the video. But, yeah, I feel like I read somewhere in a tweet. Now, this might be total bullshit. But I've read somewhere that this guy, you know, whatever, something like $10 million of compensation last year. But that, honestly, he's a private company. So I don't know what's going on. They have a SPAC.

Of course, they have a SPAC. Yeah, raised $750 million from their SPAC backers. They already had $1.5 billion from SoftBank. So this guy easily, easily this guy is this guy the founder Vishal Garg Google Google said what company laid off 900 employees answer better.com

I think this guy was the founder yeah founder and CEO so this guy easily this company's valued multiple billions of dollars this guy is clearly worth over 500 million dollars probably over more than a billion dollars and he's talking about lunch in his douchebag outfit I feel like I can rule the world.

I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On a road, let's travel, never looking back.