EMERGENCY POD: Shaan Reacts to Better.com CEO Firing 900 Employees

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 dot com ceo firing over nine hundred employees i did a really poor job of it and it it was just really ugly and went super viral so sean recorded a quick reaction video to it and that's that's done well on youtube and on twitter so we wanted you who listened to the podcast to be able to hear 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 of sean's reaction video but otherwise you can just listen to the audio here enjoy i feel like i could rule the world i know i could be what i want to put at all in it like a day's off on a road travel never looking back emergency emergency podcast 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 the one of the most ridiculous things i've ever seen this guy is gonna be skewed for this that's my prediction this guy is gonna get he might get fired for this but he is definitely gonna 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 dot com they've raised like i don't know seven hundred fifty million dollars 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 let's just take a listen what's this take listen hi everyone thank you for joining already looks like a funeral i come to you with not great news the market has changed as you know and we have to move with it in order to survive so that hopefully we can continue to thrive and okay the market has moved well the market is moved what he 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 and 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 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 blow for 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 is moved and we've to move with it so we can survive what what is it is you're shutting down the company what's going on deliver on a mission lebron a mission what mission news that you're gonna wanna hear but ultimately it was my decision and i wanted you to hear from me look at his notes dude you still haven't said it it's in a really really challenging decision to make oh are you okay are you is it been hard for you i have this is the second time in my career i'm curious and i do not i do not wanna do this the last time i did it i cried this time i hope to be stronger like we are like 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 lost about fifteen percent of the company laying off the bars fucking the market you can hear a guy the guy who's okay the guy who's recording this by there this is not the screen this is a guy pointing his camera at the phone you heard are you effing serious efficiency and performances and productivity and peanut butter market market performances efficiency and peanut butter what is this guy doing first of all he said we're laying off fifteen percent the company he didn't say which fifteen percent yet now everybody is just thinking is it me is it not me they have no idea because he hasn't brought the sled hammer yet and look this is the scroll bar alright the this down here is where he should have set it we're now over here we're almost at inter tradition of the movie and you know he's still inside it so i can't believe what he just said why do 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 princess and productivity and peter if you're on this call you are part of the unlucky group fuck you dude been laid are i can't even help the laugh look 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 oh he thinks he's jeff probes he thinks he's a game show host and he's setting up this cliff hanger that actually is pushing them off the cliff and then they're they're falling down to their death so he comes in with you are one of the unlucky bunch unlike i thought you said his 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 your employment here is terminated effective immediately are you fucking kidding me what does this mean for what's next you're gonna get an email from hr ask hr at better dot com your personal email address at better accounting follow twitter severance and your benefits we're all us employees we're providing four weeks of seven much also you dressed up like a douche bag on the day you wore the douche bag uniform the blue colored shirt with the dark blue vest with the khaki that are a little too tight right around the crotch with the crotch face in the camera that is the douche bag that is the douche bag 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 there's like don't know lot thousand people in this call or something like that this is something crazy a lot of people hundred maybe hundreds of 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 of total benefits if we if you elect for cobra if you don't get a communication from ask hr at better dot com before the end of the day you can email ask hr at better dot kind if you don't get the email thank you for using everybody individual contributions to better i wish the news was different i wish we were thriving enthusiastically as we were at the beginning of this year thriving enthusiastically doesn't make sense you wish you were thriving of course we wish you're thriving maybe you didn't lose your tom ceo who mis managed during the 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 cry last time you probably don't give a shit to be honest with you maybe you feel bad i actually i take the back he feels bad he feels bad you should feel bad but he handled it bad you can feel bad but you gotta handle it good he felt bad and handled it bad peanut butter that's not the case and i am sure better finish leave us and be more successful where you go what what is this wedding speech in your drunk i'm sure you will leave us what is he saying fortunate and you'll be more here in your next endeavor i wish you all the best of luck thank you for everything you've done for better thank you it looks looks aggressively stage right didn't 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 is this guy i gotta look this up better ceo salary this might be public i feel like this guy so he laid off nine hundred people in that call we're not gonna pay for this pay by the way what is the stealing part i didn't hear this okay i don't know what i know what that's that wasn't in the video but 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 ten million dollar letters of compensation last year but that honestly is a private companies i i don't i don't know what's going on they have a spa of course they have a spa yeah raised seven hundred fifty million dollars from their spa backers letters they already had one point five billion from soft bank so this guy easily easily this guy is this guy the founder michelle ga google google at what company laid up on i her employees answer better dot com i think this guy was the founder yeah founder and ceo this guy easily this company valued multiple billions of dollars this guy clearly worth over five hundred million dollars probably over more than a billion dollars and he's talking about lunch in his douche bag outfit yeah i feel like i could rule word i know i could be what i want to put at all in it like a days on on a road travel never looking back