Vishal Garg, the founder and former chief executive of Better Home & Finance who drew widespread attention after dismissing roughly 900 employees during a Zoom call just before Christmas in 2021, is now attempting to regain control of the mortgage company he established.
Garg was removed as CEO on August 3, only days after Daniel Lewis joined Better’s board and subsequently replaced him. Now Garg says he believes the board made a mistake and that Lewis was not transparent about his intentions when the two worked together.
“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’s departure comes at a difficult moment for Better, which has undergone a dramatic reversal since the pandemic-era mortgage boom. The company was once valued at around $8 billion when mortgage rates fell below 3% and refinancing demand surged. Its fortunes changed sharply as rates climbed and the refinancing business collapsed.
Better’s annual sales fell from $1.5 billion in 2021 to $70 million in 2023. Garg now argues that the company was beginning to recover under his leadership, with revenue expected to reach about $200 million this year.
He credits the turnaround partly to Better’s use of artificial intelligence to speed up mortgage processing. According to Garg, the technology can handle work that would traditionally require dozens of employees over several days. Better also partnered with Neo Home Loans, which he says helped double productivity while cutting loan origination costs by 50%.
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The company has also attracted partnerships with Intuit, Coinbase and OpenAI this year to support mortgage-related services, while expanding its home equity line of credit business.
The comeback argument, however, comes against a long list of controversies surrounding Garg’s tenure.
His 2021 Zoom layoffs triggered widespread criticism and led to a leave of absence. Better also faced a whistleblower lawsuit that was later dropped and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission that did not result in action against the company. Its 2023 SPAC merger was followed by a steep collapse in the stock price, while the company continued to report losses.
Garg has acknowledged that his management style has been tough and that the mass layoffs badly damaged his reputation.
But he now believes the criticism has been turned around on him.
Garg says Lewis initially approached him about six months ago with suggestions on cutting costs and improving profitability. He says some of Lewis’ ideas were useful, but he disagreed with his approach to innovation.
“(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 joined Better’s board on July 27. Within a week, he had replaced Garg as CEO.
On August 4, Lewis posted on X, “There was never a $BETR without @vishal_better. That demands respect.”
Garg says he initially accepted the decision to step aside, arguing that his focus has always been on building the company rather than holding onto the title.
“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 is now attempting to reverse that decision.
He says investors began contacting him after his removal and urged him to return. Garg also claims he has enough Class B shares with special voting rights, including shares held by early investors who support him, to regain control.
The former CEO has hired high-profile attorney Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel and sent a letter to Better’s board demanding that he be reinstated. Garg has offered to work for $1 a year until the company becomes profitable, after which he says he would transition out of the CEO position.
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The company’s stock performance since his removal has also become part of Garg’s argument. Shares have dropped 45% since Lewis took over, while the stock was already down more than 16% this year before Garg’s departure was announced.
For Garg, the latest fight is less about reclaiming a title and more about proving that the company was finally turning a corner.
“It’s an acknowledgment that I’ve been doing this for 10 years, but execution hasn’t been perfect,” Garg said as cited by CNN. “I hope it gets resolved. I think the future still remains very bright for Better.”