The CEO of real estate finance portal Better.com, Vishal Garg, will be taking time-off effective immediately according to an email sent out by the company’s board of directors this Friday. Garg had already apologized earlier this week after firing approximately 900 employees in a Zoom conference.
The controversy comes at an uncomfortable moment for Better.com, LinkedIn’s top US start-up of 2020 and 2021, as it had been preparing to go public and had just received $750 million in financing from Aurora Acquisition Corp. and SoftBank.
“The Board has engaged an independent 3rd party firm to do a leadership and cultural assessment,” noted the email from the board of directors. “The recommendations of this assessment will be taken into account to build a long-term sustainable and positive culture at Better.”
Garg founded Better.com in 2014 and is a graduate of the NYU Stern School of Business.
“I want to apologize for the way I handled the layoffs last week,” wrote Garg to employees last week. “ I own the decision to do the layoffs, but in communicating it I blundered the execution. In doing so, I embarrassed you. I realize that the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse. I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from this situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be.”
By Staff
