Pod Insights My First Million EMERGENCY POD: Shaan Reacts to Better.com CEO Firing 900 Employees About this episode 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
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 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 listen to the podcast to be able to hear it as well. He makes a couple of 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.
0:52 Shaan Puri? Emergency, emergency podcast. I had to do this. Saw this video the other day. I was scrolling TikTok late into 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 gonna 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
1:34 Shaan Puri? know, mortgages or some shit like that on the internet. So here's the CEO. Let's just, let's just take a listen. No, no, what's this? Take a listen.
1:44 Speaker 02 Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining.
1:51 Shaan Puri? Already looks like a funeral.
1:53 Speaker 02 I come to you with not great news. The market has changed, as you know, and we
2:03 Speaker 02 Have to move with it in order to survive so that hopefully we can continue to thrive and.
2:09 Shaan Puri? 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 gotta rip the Band-Aid off in the first minute. The first three things you say, one of them has to be, we're gonna be letting you go today. And then you start to explain everything. When you do this, you do this long-winded buildup.
2:50 Shaan Puri? 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 blow from hitting you. You can't even say it. You're not even 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 shutting down the company? What's going on?
3:12 Speaker 02 Deliver on a mission.
3:14 Shaan Puri? Deliver on a mission? What mission?
3:16 Speaker 02 This is news that you're gonna want to hear.
3:19 Speaker 02 But ultimately, it was my decision. And I wanted you to hear from me.
3:28 Shaan Puri? Looks at his notes. Dude, you still haven't said it?
3:31 Speaker 02 It's been a really, really challenging decision to make.
3:34 Shaan Puri? Oh, are you okay? Are you? Has it been hard for you?
3:40 Speaker 02 I've, this is the second time in my career I'm doing this and I do not, do not want to do this. The last time I did it, I cried.
3:49 Speaker 02 This time I hope to be stronger. But we are late.
3:53 Shaan Puri? 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 the last time I cried, no one gives a flying fuck if you cried or not. Cause you still haven't said it. That's also, that's the bane problem. The second problem is you're talking about yourself and no one cares about you in this moment.
4:29 Speaker 02 Laying off about 15% of the company.
4:34 Shaan Puri? Laying off 15%?
4:36 Speaker 02 The market.
4:38 Shaan Puri? 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 and you heard him. Are you fucking serious?
4:46 Speaker 02 Efficiency and performances and productivity.
4:56 Shaan Puri? And peanut butter. Market, market performances, efficiency and peanut butter.
5:05 Shaan Puri? 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. The, 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 did he say performances? By the way, he's talking about the market has turned. So, oh, is it my performance or is it the market?
5:38 Speaker 02 Performances and productivity.
5:43 Shaan Puri? And peanut butter.
5:45 Speaker 02 If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group.
5:51 Shaan Puri? Fuck you, dude.
5:56 Shaan Puri? I can't even help but laugh. Fuck you, dude. That is, 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.
6:24 Shaan Puri? That actually is pushing them off the cliff and then they're, they're falling down to their death. So he, he comes in with, you are one of the unlucky bunch. Unlucky, 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.
6:39 Speaker 02 Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.
6:43 Shaan Puri? Are you fucking kidding me?
6:47 Speaker 02 What does this mean for what's next? You're gonna get an email from HR, [email protected] to your personal email address.
6:54 Shaan Puri? At better.com, follow us on Twitter.
6:57 Speaker 02 And your benefits.
7:01 Speaker 02 For all US employees, we're providing four weeks of severance.
7:06 Shaan Puri? Also, you dressed up like a douchebag on this day. You wore the douchebag uniform, the blue collar shirt with the dark blue vest with the khakis that are a little too tight right around the crotch with the crotch facing 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.
7:34 Shaan Puri? A lot of people, a hundred people, maybe hundreds of people on this call. Insane.
7:38 Speaker 02 One month of full benefits and two months of Cobra for which we will pay the premium. So three months total benefits if we, if you elect for Cobra.
7:50 Speaker 02 If you don't get a communication from [email protected] before the end of the day, you can email [email protected] .
7:57 Shaan Puri? If you don't get the email, you're really fucked.
8:00 Speaker 02 Individual contributions to better.
8:05 Speaker 02 I wish the news was different. I wish we were thriving enthusiastically as we were at the beginning of this year.
8:15 Shaan Puri? 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. I actually, I take them back. He feels bad. He feels bad. He should feel bad.
8:43 Shaan Puri? But he handled it bad. You can feel bad, but you gotta handle it good. He felt bad and handled it bad.
8:52 Shaan Puri? Peanut butter.
8:53 Speaker 02 That's not the case. And I am sure.
8:58 Shaan Puri? You better finish strong.
9:01 Speaker 02 And be more successful.
9:04 Shaan Puri? Where are you go? What is this wedding speech and you're drunk? We I'm sure you will leave us. What is he saying?
9:09 Speaker 02 More fortunate and.
9:12 Shaan Puri? You'll be more fortunate.
9:12 Speaker 02 Here in your next endeavor. I wish you all the best of luck. Thank you for everything you've done for better. Thank you.
9:24 Shaan Puri? Looks looks aggressively stage 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 gotta 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.
9:51 Shaan Puri? What is this stealing part? I didn't hear this. Okay. I don't know. I don't know what that's about. That wasn't in the video. But, uh, yeah, I feel like I've 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, I don't know what's going on. They have a SPAC?
10:16 Shaan Puri? Of course they have a SPAC. Yeah, raised $750 million from their SPAC backers. They already had 1.5 billion from SoftBank.
10:28 Shaan Puri? So this guy easily, easily this guy, is this guy the founder? Michelle Garg?
10:37 Shaan Puri? 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, probably over more than a billion dollars. And, uh, he's talking about lunch in his douchebag outfit.
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