Around 900 employees of a digital mortgage company were laid off in a three-minute group Zoom meeting weeks before Christmas. “I come to you with not great news. We are laying off about 15 percent of the company for a number of reasons — the market efficiency and performances, and productivity,” CEO Vishal Garg states at the beginning of the meeting on Wednesday, December 1. Garg continued, “If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated effective immediately.” The laid-off employees will receive a month’s pay and three months’ worth of benefits, which will be detailed in an email from human resources sent to their personal email accounts.

A laid-off employee from the Zoom call shared that Garg’s procedure of firing hundreds of workers was “jarring.” “It seemed like he could have had a better way to go about it,” he said. “Maybe in individual rooms with HR people.” The firm received a $750 million cash inflow from its investors the day before the layoffs. Kevin Ryan, the company’s chief financial officer, presented the cash advance and layoffs as a “win” for the company. The termination, according to the laid-off employee, was a hint that the company needed “capital urgently.”