Indian-origin CEO Vishal Garg apologises for mass layoffs over Zoom call

New Delhi, Dec 8:  Better.com CEO Vishal Garg, who was massively trolled for laying off 900 employees over a Zoom meeting call last week, has finally issued an apology to his employees, for the embarrassing act that made headlines globally and hundreds of memes on social media platforms.

In a letter to employees that was leaked on Blind, an anonymous community app for the workplace, Garg said: "I failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the individuals who were affected and for their contributions to Better. I own the decision to do the layoffs, but in communicating it I blundered the execution. In doing so, I embarrassed you."

Among the affected employees was the company's diversity and inclusion team, according to reports.

A TechCrunch report said on Wednesday that the company's VP of communications, Patrick Lenihan, head of public relations, Tanya Gillogley, and head of marketing, Melanie Hahn, have all submitted their resignations after the Zoom layoff incident.

Garg laid off nearly 900 employees even after his company, which is a digital mortgage lender, had announced it received a cash infusion of about $750 million from Aurora Acquisition Corp and SoftBank.

The company is expected to go public at a $6.9 billion valuation.

"I realise 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," Garg said in his apology letter.

An earlier Forbes article had revealed that Garg was the subject of a number of lawsuits from the likes of PIMCO and Goldman Sachs for things like "improper and even fraudulent activity at two prior business ventures", and of misappropriating "tens of millions of dollars."