DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Billionaire hedge fund boss Ken Griffin says remote working makes it easier for companies to fire people
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Tom Carter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Ken Griffin said that remote working was weakening the "social contract" of companies. Major US firms are pushing back against remote working and telling workers to return to the office. AdvertisementKen Griffin has warned that working from home will make it easier for companies to fire people. Griffin also warned that remote working was having a negative impact on corporate culture, pointing to the stories of so-called "Zoom firings" that became notorious during the pandemic. "We have all read about companies that are firing thousands of people on Zoom calls," Griffin said.

Persons: Ken Griffin, —, Griffin, Vishal Garg, Garg, Jane Organizations: Citadel, Bloomberg, Major, Service, Meta, TechCrunch Locations: America

☆ SPAC shell games will keep hiding the ball
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-05 | by ( Jeffrey Goldfarb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

It’s more or less how another 216 companies backed into public markets in 2021, according to SPAC Research. They’re on track to miss the mark by more than 40%, delivering only about $55 billion, according to recent forecasts compiled by LSEG. The electric-vehicle industry, for one, was a serial SPAC user whose exuberance sputtered badly. Dressing them up as acquisitions of private firms by listed shell companies enables the participants to play by looser rules. SPAC investors buy shares in the empty vessel before its sponsor and takeover target agree on a valuation.

Persons: Vishal Garg, Better’s, Breakingviews, SPACs, ”, Joel Rubinstein, Donald Trump’s, Spruce, Woodruff Sawyer, Gary Gensler, Ellis, Gensler, Lauren Silva Laughlin, Sharon Lam Organizations: Reuters, & Finance, Research, LSEG, Polestar Automotive, White, The Securities, Exchange Commission, XL Fleet, SEC, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Case, Kirkland, U.S . Securities, Financial Services, Thomson

☆ First the bubbly, then the layoffs. Inside Better's latest round of job cuts.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-22 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

(Excluding Aurora's stock price, shares of the Nasdaq-listed Better Home & Finance are down more than 59% from the opening day.) In an emailed statement, Schaefer said that the company plans to replace at least some of the laid-off employees. Employees were given 30 days of pay, and up to three months of company-provided COBRA coverage, according to two laid-off employees. The mortgage industry has been hit hard by rising rates, leading to revenue declines and layoffs across the industry. Both former employees told Insider that they were optimistic that the cash infusion might offer some relief after a year of what felt like constant layoffs.

Persons: Vishal Garg, Kevin Ryan, Jessica Schaefer, Schaefer, Jay Powell, Garg, Slack Organizations: Staff, Aurora Acquisition Corp, Aurora, Nasdaq, Finance, Employees Locations: India

☆ The CEO best known for firing 900 staff on a Zoom call now says he's 'worked really, really hard' to be 'more empathetic' and to treat people with 'kindness'
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( Kwan Wei Kevin Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Better.com CEO Vishal Garg is known for firing hundreds of staff on a Zoom call in 2021. Garg now says he has "worked really, really hard" to be a kinder boss. AdvertisementAdvertisementBetter.com CEO Vishal Garg says he's "worked really, really hard" to be a kinder boss after firing over 900 people on a Zoom call. Garg is best known for laying off hundreds of Better.com staff via a brutal Zoom call in 2021. "I think I was very mission-centric, customer centric, and really, really focused on what it took to drive growth," Garg added.

Persons: Vishal Garg, Garg, he's, I've, TechCrunch, Better.com Organizations: Morning, Nasdaq, Aurora Acquisition Corp

☆ Shares of Better.com — whose CEO fired 900 workers on a Zoom call — slumped as much as 95% on their first day of trade
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Shares of online mortgage lender Better.com slumped as much as 95% after its Nasdaq debut. They fell so quickly that trading was halted four times in the first 30 minutes. Better.com CEO Vishal Garg brutally laid off 900 employees via a Zoom call in 2021. Shares of the Softbank-backed online mortgage lender — which had merged with blank-check company Aurora Acquisition Corp. — plunged at the opening bell. Better.com's disastrous debut on the Nasdaq followed dramatic turns at the digital mortgage company since December 2021 when CEO Vishal Garg brutally laid off 900 employees on a Zoom call.

Persons: Better.com, Vishal Garg, Insider's Alex Nicoll, Better.com's, Fortune Organizations: Nasdaq, Service, & Finance, Aurora Acquisition Corp, —, Aurora Locations: Wall, Silicon

The company hit the headlines in December 2021 after it laid off 900 employees via Zoom, and has since seen its profit dented by high mortgage rates that have dampened demand for home loans. "Here is an example of the exact wrong company at the wrong time - SPACs are hated and anything related to mortgage lending is hated at the moment," said Thomas Hayes, chairman at Great Hill Capital. U.S. mortgage rates have extended their surge as government bond yields rally. The popular 30-year fixed rate hit its highest level since 2000 last week, causing mortgage applications to hit a 28-year low. Amid ultra-low interest rates, the SPAC market exploded in 2021, but has since sputtered amid rising interest rates, high redemption rates and increased regulatory scrutiny.

Persons: SoftBank, Vishal Garg, Thomas Hayes, Bansari Mayur, Hannah Lang, Sriraj Kalluvila, Marguerita Choy Organizations: Home, Finance, Aurora, Corp, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, Great, Thomson Locations: Great Hill, Bengaluru, Washington

☆ SPACs can't be killed
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and CEO of Social Capital, presents during the 2018 Sohn Investment Conference in New York City, U.S., April 23, 2018. Although SPACs raised just $13 billion last year, this week produced a deal that looks like it could have happened during the heyday. From U.S. presidential hopefuls’ forays to a continued SPAC king’s virality, SPACs’ reach is a reminder that they are hard to kill. This week, one of those SPACs bought Better.com, a mortgage lender led by Vishal Garg and backed by SoftBank Group (9984.T). They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Persons: Chamath Palihapitiya, Brendan McDermid, SPACs, Vishal Garg, Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, lister Chamath Palihapitiya, Anita Ramaswamy, Lauren Silva Laughlin, Sharon Lam Organizations: Social Capital, Investment, REUTERS, Reuters, SoftBank Group, Securities and Exchange Commission, X, KKR, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S

☆ Better.com CEO Vishal Garg on going public: We're disrupting the U.S. housing market
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailBetter.com CEO Vishal Garg on going public: We're disrupting the U.S. housing marketVishal Garg, Better.com founder & CEO, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the company going public on the Nasdaq via a SPAC merger with Aurora Acquisition Corp., the mortgage lender's rough road to debut amidst layoffs, losses and SEC probe, the mortgage business at large, and more.

Persons: Vishal Garg Organizations: Nasdaq, Aurora Acquisition Corp, SEC

☆ The CEO who brutally fired hundreds of the people on Zoom is taking his startup public in a move that could make or break him
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Vishal Garg is taking Better, a mortgage startup, public through a long-delayed SPAC deal. Read what he said about making strategic acquisitions and the millions in company loans that stand to be forgiven. But CEO Vishal Garg, known for brutally laying off hundreds of employees via Zoom, insists he has a plan. One former employee told Insider that the move seems like a "Hail Mary," both for Garg personally and for the business more broadly. Here is what Garg said about his vision for the company and how he will spend the money Better receives from the IPO.

Persons: Vishal Garg, Garg, SPACs, Mary, refinancings, it's, SoftBank, indemnifying, —, It'll Organizations: & Finance, Aurora Acquisition Corp, Nasdaq, World Trade Center, Federal Reserve, Silicon, Better, Mortgage, SEC, Scotsman, Aurora, Insider Locations: Garg, refinancings, Queens , NY

Aug 24 (Reuters) - Shares in online mortgage lender Better's (BETR.O) new public listing plummeted on Thursday as investors fretted over record-high mortgage rates. In the interim, roughly 95% of Aurora shareholders redeemed their holdings, leaving the trust account with just about $24 million at the end of June from about $283 million. Aurora went public in March 2021. Better is going public as U.S. mortgage rates continue to surge, with the popular 30-year fixed rate last week hitting the highest level since December 2000, helping drive mortgage applications to a 28-year low, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday. Reporting by Hannah Lang and Lance Tupper in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter and Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Aurora, Vishal Garg, Hannah Lang, Lance Tupper, Mark Porter, Jonathan Oatis Organizations: Nasdaq, Aurora Acquisition Corp, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, Aurora, refinancings, Mortgage Bankers Association, Thomson Locations: SoftBank, Washington

The Nasdaq logo is displayed at the Nasdaq Market site in Times Square in New York City, U.S., December 3, 2021. U.S. home builder confidence weakened in August, as mortgage rates and stubbornly high housing prices discouraged prospective buyers. Better enjoyed huge growth during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when mortgage rates cratered, notching more than $850 million in revenue in 2020, filings show. When interest rates fall, Better expects huge demand for cash-out refinancings, which it says it will be able to deliver in one day. Earlier this year, Better.com launched a one-day mortgage product, allowing customers to get pre-approved, lock in a rate and get a mortgage commitment letter within 24 hours.

Persons: Vishal Garg, Garg, Better.com, Hannah Lang, Michelle Price, Mark Potter Organizations: Nasdaq, REUTERS, Federal, refinancings, Aurora Acquisition Corp, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, SEC, Better, Zoom, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, SoftBank, Aurora, Washington

☆ A housing downturn is causing a reckoning in the once-hot cluster of proptech startups that let homebuyers pay all cash and win bidding wars
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

In that market, all-cash offers were king to sellers because they ensured quicker, stress-free closings. According to Redfin, all-cash offers quadrupled the chances that a homebuyer would win a bidding war. Ribbon has since paused its all-cash offering, but some of the other firms that Insider featured last year are still making all-cash offers. FlyhomesFlyhomes is a real-estate brokerage that featured all-cash-offer services for years and distinguished itself in December 2021 with a free all-cash-offer product. "The value to the buyer is different than in a seller's market," Garg said in the email.

☆ Amazon is trying to fix employee frustration over plunging pay by letting them pledge stock for home loans in a deal with Better
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Amazon employees, even those who have left, can pledge their stock as collateral for home mortgages. Under the new program, Amazon employees will be able to use their vested stock as collateral in the home-buying process, Better said in a statement on Tuesday. The company's stock price hovered around $93.50 on Tuesday morning — a drop from more than $150 a year ago. The home loan benefit applies to both "current and former Amazon employees with vested equity in Amazon," per Better's statement. Amazon employees have flagged concerns about the company's compensation packages trailing those of its Big Tech peers.

☆ Too many companies botch mass layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Jeanne Sahadi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

When it comes to mass layoffs, there seems to be no end to the worst, most bungled ways in which some employees first learn they are being let go. “People have to feel they’re being treated with respect,” said Sarah Rodehorst, CEO of Onwards HR, an offboarding technology platform for human resources, legal and finance teams. (Google declined to comment, pointing instead to a blog post from the CEO on the day of the layoffs.) Employees should receive a communication from the CEO or from division leadership that informs them layoffs will occur and offers them the business reasons for the decision. By “small,” Lee means no more than 5 to 10 people, including a leader or manager they know who delivers the news.

☆ In 2022, UWM became the top US mortgage lender and its CEO bought an NBA team. Against the odds, it expects to grow more.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

United Wholesale Mortgage became the country's largest originator in 2022. Mortgage rates soared at their fastest rate in decades, halting refinances and slowing home purchases to a crawl. In a way, UWM's strategy is much more old-fashioned than other mortgage players, including Rocket Mortgage. "The idea that you can go on a computer, click a button, and there's your mortgage, that's foolish," he said. To Rocket Mortgage, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of its business.

Proptech customers, employees, and investors said they went from delighted to disillusioned. Proptech investors eager to capture these trends pumped $32 billion into the industry in 2021. As markets deteriorated, disillusionment set in among proptech customers, investors, and employees. Some customers say they were disappointed buying homes via proptech startupsReal-estate startups like Divvy Homes and Better launched under the auspices of helping customers afford quality homes. Investors in proptech firms are taking financial hitsYou don't need to ask proptech investors whether they're disappointed in the sector's performance — just look at share prices.

Pros Check mark icon A check mark. If you're a Bank of America Preferred Rewards customer, you can get discounts Check mark icon A check mark. Pros Check mark icon A check mark. Advanced tool for seeing personalized rates and payments Check mark icon A check mark. Variety of home loans, including a specialized buydown loan or I CAN loan Check mark icon A check mark.

☆ Vishal Garg wants you to understand why he's still Better's CEO, even after getting ridiculed for brutally laying off 900 people via Zoom
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-03 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Vishal Garg, the CEO of Better, spoke out nine months after laying off hundreds of people over Zoom. "I would regularly tell my team that I think I'm the right founder for this company," Garg said. For his younger employees, Queens might be known as a hip borough with diverse populations and menus. But to Garg, Queens was something to be embarrassed by, leading him to pour even more energy into his work. Now at the helm of a slimmed-down Better, Garg is firmly looking forward to the future, SPAC or no SPAC.

☆ HR pros conducting layoffs need to take these 4 steps to ensure job cuts don't go from difficult to disastrous
▼ + stars: | 2022-08-09 | by ( Ebony Flake | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Insider spoke with experts who constructed a tool kit for HR to facilitate layoffs the right way. But there is a better way — and a worse way — to tell workers you're laying them off. To help get it right, Insider pulled together a tool kit for HR professionals who carry the weight of conducting layoffs. Human resources professionals are responsible for managing layoffs under these difficult conditions and making sure they're done right. To avoid making cuts that can appear targeted, HR staff should review layoff rosters with the company's legal department.

Persons: That's, it's, Isabelle Kenyon, Slack, Kenyon, We're, Weeks, Vishal Garg, Rudhir Krishtel, Rudhir, Tara Hines, McCoy, Hines, doesn't, Mark Zuckerberg, Krishtel, what's Organizations: Apple, McCoy, Employers, Meta, Facebook, Employees, Netflix

Search resuls for: "Vishal Garg"

20 mentions found