Indian-American CEO who fired 900 on Zoom is sacked. Garg claims he was 'hoodwinked' by successor, vows comeback, offers to work for $1 a year Last updated: August 16, 2026 | 06:01 Dubai: Indian-American entrepreneur Vishal Garg, who became infamous worldwide for firing 900 employees in a three-minute Zoom call, is now fighting to reverse his own dismissal as CEO of Better Home & Finance - claiming the man who replaced him "hoodwinked" his way into the top job. Garg was ousted on August 3 and replaced by hedge fund manager Daniel Lewis, who had joined Better's board just a week earlier. Now Garg wants his job back. "He hoodwinked me," Garg told CNN. "He said he liked the company's strategy. He praised us on X and used that to get on our board and win our confidences." Garg says he has hired prominent lawyer Alex Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel, and sent Better's board a letter demanding his reinstatement. SPONSORED LINKS BY PROJECT AGORA He is even offering to work for $1 a year until the company returns to profitability, after which he says he would transition out of the CEO role. From firing 900 to being fired. The irony of Garg's predicament is difficult to miss. In December 2021, he summoned more than 900 Better employees to a Zoom call just before the holiday season and abruptly told them they were being laid off. The episode went viral and turned Garg into a symbol of ruthless corporate management. He later took a leave of absence amid the backlash before returning to lead the company. Garg now acknowledges that the episode inflicted lasting damage on both his reputation and Better's. But five years later, he insists his own removal came at exactly the wrong moment. "We're winning. We've tripled loan volume. We're close to profitability," Garg told CNN. He compared Better's recovery to driving a football almost the entire length of the field, saying the company had reached the "5-yard line". From $8 billion to $300 million. Better's spectacular rise and fall forms the backdrop to the boardroom battle. During the pandemic refinancing boom, when mortgage rates fell below 3 per cent, the company was valued at around $8 billion. Today, with mortgage rates approaching 7 per cent and refinancing demand having collapsed, its market value stands at roughly $300 million. Annual sales plunged from $1.5 billion in 2021 to just $70 million in 2023. Better also endured a whistleblower lawsuit that was later dropped, an SEC investigation that resulted in no action, mounting losses and a disastrous 2023 SPAC merger after which its shares plunged 93 per cent. But Garg argues that the turnaround was finally taking hold. He says Better is on course for about $200 million in sales this year after increasingly using artificial intelligence to process mortgages more quickly and cheaply. The company has also expanded its home-equity line of credit business. 'I suspect he always wanted to become CEO' Garg says Lewis approached him about six months ago with ideas for cutting costs and improving profitability. Lewis joined Better's board on July 27. A week later, according to Garg, he had persuaded other directors to remove him and install Lewis as interim CEO. "I suspect he always wanted to become CEO," Garg said. "The board made a mistake." Better's board has presented a very different picture, citing concerns over Garg's "judgment, temperament and credibility", losses exceeding $1.5 billion since 2022 and the collapse in the company's share price. Lewis and Better did not respond to CNN's requests for comment. Lewis, however, posted on X after taking over: "There was never a $BETR without @vishal_better. That demands respect." Garg prepares his comeback. Garg remains on Better's board and believes he has enough shareholder support to reclaim the CEO position. He says his Class B shares, together with those held by supportive early investors, give his camp the voting power needed to prevail. Better's stock has fallen about 45 per cent since Lewis took over, after already being down more than 16 per cent this year before Garg's departure was announced. Garg says investors have contacted him urging him to return. "It's an acknowledgment that I've been doing this for 10 years, but execution hasn't been perfect," he said of his $1 salary offer. For the executive once remembered for telling hundreds of employees over a screen that they no longer had jobs, the corporate drama has come full circle. This time, Garg is the one who was fired - and he is determined to undo it. A Senior Associate Editor with more than 30 years in the media, Stephen N.R. curates, edits and publishes impactful stories for Gulf News - both in print and online - focusing on Middle East politics, student issues and explainers on global topics. Stephen has spent most of his career in journalism, working behind the scenes - shaping headlines, editing copy and putting together newspaper pages with precision. For the past many years, he has brought that same dedication to the Gulf News digital team, where he curates stories, crafts explainers and helps keep both the web and print editions sharp and engaging. Related Topics: Get updates on Topics You choose. You May Like

Exclusive | Better.com's new CEO vacations in France as company's ousted founder plots boardroom coup: sources. By News Room 14 August 2026 5 Mins Read Better.com's new interim chief executive flew to the South of France for vacation during his first full week on the job - even as the mortgage lender's founder was busy orchestrating a coup to unseat him, The Post has learned. Ousted founder Vishal Garg, who made headlines in 2021 when he fired 900 workers on a Zoom call, has lined up investors representing 52% of the embattled company's voting shares in a bid to boot interim CEO Daniel Lewis and five board members, according to well-placed sources. Lewis had told numerous people inside the company that he planned to spend the week in the South of France, sources said. One source said Lewis subsequently appeared on a Zoom call from what looked like a vacation setting in a different time zone. His planned trip had been openly discussed inside Better and was not a secret, sources said. The getaway comes amid an escalating battle for control of Better, with dissident shareholders already sending demands to the company's lawyers and preparing to forcibly remove Lewis and the directors through a shareholder vote if they refuse to resign, according to sources. The insurgent group has retained powerhouse law firm Quinn Emanuel, which has compiled shareholder consents representing the voting bloc, the sources said. The process of forcing a shareholder vote could take as little as 10 days - although other avenues could stretch the showdown to 35 days, according to sources familiar with the plans. The revolt comes less than two weeks after Better abruptly dumped Garg as CEO and replaced him with Lewis, an investor who had joined the company's board only about a week earlier, according to sources. Lewis also pleaded guilty last year to a 2022 drunken-driving charge in East Hampton, according to a background investigation obtained by The Post that cited public court records. He received a conditional discharge, was ordered to use an ignition-interlock device for a year, had his license revoked for six months and was fined $1,000. Garg was informed around 1 p.m. on Aug. 3 that he was being fired, and his company email was shut off roughly 30 minutes later while Better shares were still trading, sources said. He was given no specific rationale beyond being told the board believed Lewis could do a better job, according to the sources. Better subsequently offered Garg a vice-chair position with a hefty compensation package, sources said. The company presented a sharply different account in a press release on Friday, saying every director other than Garg had unanimously voted to terminate him following "a series of decisions and actions that raised serious concerns regarding his judgment, temperament and credibility." That statement marked a dramatic shift from Better's Aug. 3 announcement, which said Garg and the board had "mutually agreed" that he would transition out of the top job. The board also blamed Garg for delaying Better's quarterly filing, saying his refusal to timely execute required representation letters was the "sole cause" of the delay. Sources close to the situation disputed that account, saying Garg repeatedly sought a final version of the 42-page filing and did not receive it until 5:37 p.m. on the day it was due - seven minutes after the filing deadline. Garg reviewed the document that evening and told the company he was prepared to sign it, the sources said. The board on Friday also accused Garg of presiding over more than $1.5 billion in cumulative net losses since 2022 and a stock-price decline of more than 90%. Sources did not dispute the losses but argued that the bulk of them were incurred earlier in the mortgage downturn and that Better has since dramatically improved its financial performance. Better reported second-quarter revenue of $54.7 million and a net loss of $30.6 million. The board additionally said it had reviewed communications that, according to its lawyers, showed Garg's involvement in conduct that "may constitute violations of US securities laws." Sources close to Garg denied any securities-law violations and said neither Garg nor his attorneys had been shown the communications referenced by the board. Meanwhile, the turmoil has spread beyond the CEO suite. Better co-founder and chief legal officer Nicholas Calamari was placed on administrative leave Sunday night and told that his position would be made redundant and terminated, according to sources familiar with the situation. His company email access was cut off, and he was instructed not to report to the office or represent Better, the sources said. The boardroom war follows years of upheaval at Better, which slashed its workforce after the pandemic-era mortgage boom evaporated as interest rates surged. Garg drew widespread criticism in December 2021 after firing roughly 900 employees during a Zoom call. He subsequently apologized for the way the layoffs were handled and temporarily stepped away from the company before returning as CEO. Better went public through its long-delayed merger with Aurora Acquisition Corp. in August 2023. The company's board is now urging shareholders not to act while Garg's allies are preparing to use their claimed voting majority to overhaul its leadership. If Lewis and the directors refuse to step down, the dissident shareholders intend to proceed with their removal, sources said.

The CEO who fired 900 people on Zoom just before Christmas wants his job back. Updated 1 hr 9 min ago Vishal Garg, founder and now former CEO of Better.com, speaks at the Semafor World Economy Summit during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring meetings in Washington, DC, on April 15, 2026. Vishal Garg feels duped. "He hoodwinked me," the just-ousted Better Home & Finance CEO said about Daniel Lewis, the man who replaced him last week. "He said he liked the company's strategy. He praised us on X and used that to get on our board and win our confidences." Garg, who made headlines for laying off 900 employees on a company Zoom just before the 2021 holiday season, says he was fired on August 3 just as he brought the company to the precipice of success. Better has been through a lot with Garg at the helm over the past several years. During the pandemic-fueled refinancing boom when mortgage rates were below 3%, the company held an $8 billion valuation. Today, with an imploded refi business and rates closing in on 7%, the AI mortgage company's market value stands at just $300 million. Toss in a leave of absence after the embarrassing Zoom layoff fiasco, a whistleblower lawsuit (it was dropped), an investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission (nothing came of it), a disastrous 2023 SPAC merger that sent the company's stock cratering 93% and years of mounting losses... it's a minor miracle that Garg lasted this long as CEO. But Garg says he was just about to deliver on the company's unlikely turnaround. After its core refinancing business went belly up, Better's annual sales plummeted from $1.5 billion in 2021 to $70 million in 2023. This year, the company is on pace to deliver $200 million in sales, he said. It bounced back by training AI models to quickly process mortgages - a task that would normally take dozens of people several days to accomplish. It partnered with Neo Home Loans, which doubled productivity and reduced loan origination costs by 50%, Garg claims. Impressed with the results, Intuit, Coinbase and OpenAI partnered with Better this year to power their mortgage services. The company also developed a strong home equity line of credit business. "We're winning. We've tripled loan volume. We're close to profitability," Garg said. "We were at the 5-yard line after taking the ball all the way down the field from the other side." Garg acknowledges he's "hard-nosed" and the famous Zoom layoffs severely damaged the company's reputation - a mistake he knows will continue to haunt him. But as criticized as Garg has been for placing near-impossible demands on the company and its employees, he said Lewis convinced the board he didn't push hard enough. Better and Lewis did not respond to a request for comment. On August 4, Lewis posted on X, "There was never a $BETR without @vishal_better. That demands respect." 'It's not about me' Lewis, a hedge fund manager with a mixed track record of success, approached Garg six months ago with thoughts about cost savings and good ideas about delivering profitability, Garg says. "(Lewis') thoughts about cost savings were good. His ideas about innovation were not," Garg argued. "It's so much easier when we're this close for someone to come in and say that they could have done better." Lewis was brought on to the board on July 27. A week later, he had convinced the other directors to oust Garg as CEO and name himself as Garg's replacement. "It's not about me," Garg said. "I care about delivering savings to people and helping them live the American Dream. So when shareholders said, 'You need to take a back seat,' I complied." But Garg says he believes Lewis hadn't been forthcoming about his intentions over the past several months, as he advised Garg and convinced him to give him a board seat. "I suspect he always wanted to become CEO," said Garg. "The board made a mistake." Investors appear to agree with Garg. The stock has fallen 45% since Lewis took over as CEO. (The stock had been down more than 16% this year before Garg's departure was announced.) In the week since Garg stepped aside (but remained on the board) he says a number of horrified investors reached out to plead with him to take his CEO job back. Armed with Class B shares with special voting powers - his own and from a group of committed early investors - Garg says he has the votes to win. He has retained high-powered lawyer Alex Spiro, partner at Quinn Emanuel, to represent him, and he sent a letter to the board on Monday demanding it return him as CEO. He says he'll work for $1 a year until he returns the company to profitability, and he'll transition out of the CEO role afterward. "It's an acknowledgment that I've been doing this for 10 years, but execution hasn't been perfect," Garg said. "I hope it gets resolved. I think the future still remains very bright for Better."