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El CEO que despidió a 900 personas por Zoom justo antes de Navidad quiere recuperar su trabajo

By CNN

Vishal Garg se siente engañado.

“Me embaucó”, dijo el recién destituido CEO de Better Home & Finance sobre Daniel Lewis, el hombre que lo reemplazó la semana pasada. “Dijo que le gustaba la estrategia de la empresa. Nos elogió en X y usó eso para entrar en nuestro consejo y ganarse nuestra confianza”.

Garg, que acaparó titulares por despedir a 900 empleados en un Zoom de la empresa justo antes de la temporada navideña de 2021, dice que fue despedido el 3 de agosto justo cuando llevó a la empresa al borde del éxito.

Better ha pasado por mucho con Garg al mando durante los últimos años. Durante el auge de refinanciación impulsado por la pandemia, cuando las tasas hipotecarias estaban por debajo del 3 %, la empresa tenía una valoración de US$ 8.000 millones. Hoy, con un negocio de refinanciación colapsado y tasas acercándose al 7 %, el valor de mercado de la empresa hipotecaria de IA se sitúa en apenas US$ 300 millones.

Súmese una licencia tras el bochornoso fiasco de los despidos por Zoom, una demanda de un denunciante (que se retiró), una investigación de la Comisión de Bolsa y Valores (que no llegó a nada), una desastrosa fusión SPAC en 2023 que hizo que las acciones de la empresa se desplomaran un 93 % y años de pérdidas crecientes… es un pequeño milagro que Garg haya durado tanto tiempo como CEO.

Pero Garg dice que estaba a punto de cumplir con el improbable giro de la empresa.

Después de que su negocio principal de refinanciación se fuera a pique, las ventas anuales de Better se desplomaron de US$ 1.500 millones en 2021 a US$ 70 millones en 2023. Este año, la empresa va de camino alcanzar US$ 200 millones en ventas, afirmó.

Cobró impulso entrenando modelos de IA para procesar hipotecas rápidamente, una tarea que normalmente requeriría a decenas de personas varios días para realizar. Se asoció con Neo Home Loans, lo que duplicó la productividad y redujo los costos de originación de préstamos en un 50 %, afirma Garg. Impresionados con los resultados, Intuit, Coinbase y OpenAI se asociaron con Better este año para impulsar sus servicios hipotecarios. La empresa también desarrolló un sólido negocio de líneas de crédito con garantía hipotecaria.

“Estamos ganando. Hemos triplicado el volumen de préstamos. Estamos cerca de la rentabilidad”, dijo Garg. “Estábamos en la yarda 5 después de llevar el balón por todo el campo desde el otro lado”.

Garg reconoce que es “duro” y que los famosos despidos por Zoom dañaron gravemente la reputación de la empresa, un error que sabe que seguirá persiguiéndolo. Pero por más que se haya criticado a Garg por imponer exigencias casi imposibles a la empresa y a sus empleados, dijo que Lewis convenció al consejo de que él no presionaba lo suficiente.

Better y Lewis no respondieron a una solicitud de comentarios. El 4 de agosto, Lewis publicó en X: “Nunca hubo un $BETR sin @vishal_better. Eso exige respeto”.

Lewis, un gestor de fondos de cobertura con un historial mixto de éxito, se acercó a Garg hace seis meses con ideas sobre ahorro de costos y buenas propuestas para lograr la rentabilidad, dice Garg.

“(Las) ideas de (Lewis) sobre ahorro de costos eran buenas. Sus ideas sobre innovación no lo eran”, argumentó Garg. “Es mucho más fácil cuando estamos tan cerca que alguien entre y diga que podría haberlo hecho mejor”.

Lewis fue incorporado al consejo el 27 de julio. Una semana después, había convencido a los demás directores de destituir a Garg como CEO y nombrarse a sí mismo como reemplazo de Garg.

“No se trata de mí”, dijo Garg. “Me importa generar ahorros para la gente y ayudarlos a vivir el Sueño Americano. Así que cuando los accionistas dijeron: ‘Necesitas pasar a un segundo plano’, cumplí”.

Pero Garg dice que cree que Lewis no había sido transparente sobre sus intenciones durante los últimos meses, mientras asesoraba a Garg y lo convencía de darle un puesto en el consejo.

“Sospecho que siempre quiso convertirse en CEO”, dijo Garg. “El consejo cometió un error”.

Los inversores parecen estar de acuerdo con Garg. La acción ha caído un 45 % desde que Lewis asumió como CEO. (La acción ya había bajado más de un 16 % este año antes de que se anunciara la salida de Garg.)

En la semana desde que Garg se hizo a un lado (pero permaneció en el consejo), dice que varios inversores horrorizados se pusieron en contacto para rogarle que retomara su puesto de CEO. Armado con acciones Clase B con poderes especiales de voto —las suyas y las de un grupo de inversores iniciales comprometidos— Garg dice que tiene los votos para ganar.

Ha contratado al abogado de alto perfil Alex Spiro, socio de Quinn Emanuel, para que lo represente, y el lunes envió una carta al consejo exigiendo que lo restituyera como CEO. Dice que trabajará por US$ 1 al año hasta que devuelva a la empresa a la rentabilidad, y que después hará la transición fuera del cargo de CEO.

“Es un reconocimiento de que he estado haciendo esto durante 10 años, pero la ejecución no ha sido perfecta”, dijo Garg. “Espero que se resuelva. Creo que el futuro sigue siendo muy brillante para Better”.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

The world’s oldest president left for a ‘brief stay’ in Europe. He hasn’t returned in two months

By CNN
(CNN) — When Paul Biya won his first presidential election in Cameroon in 1984, Nformi Bime was 23 and still a student.Bime is now 65 and retired from teaching. Biya is 93 – and still president. Last year, he won a disputed eighth term that could keep him in office until he is nearly 100.“The best is yet to come,” Biya said before the election, which his opponents called fraudulent and was marred by deadly clashes between protesters and police.For the past two months, however, the man who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, when as prime minister he assumed power following the resignation of the sitting president, has been thousands of miles away. He left on June 7 for what his office called a “brief private stay in Europe” — now his longest uninterrupted absence from the Central African nation in years.Last week, government spokesman René Emmanuel Sadi told French radio RFI that Biya was in Geneva, Switzerland and was not hospitalized, but did not give more detail on his whereabouts.A president who is rarely seenBiya is Cameroon’s second president since independence in 1960 and one of the world’s longest-serving leaders. He first won office in 1984 under a one-party system, then won six more elections after multiparty politics was introduced.He has spent extended periods abroad during his presidency. But his latest absence has revived questions about his health and who is running the country while he is away.Rumors about Biya’s health and whereabouts have long been part of public life in Cameroon, where he is rarely seen in public. His office has repeatedly had to push back against speculation that he was seriously ill or had died. In 2024, the government banned media discussions about his health, calling them a national security matter.Biya’s long rule also reflects a wider contrast across Africa. The continent has the world’s youngest population, but several countries are still led by aging leaders whose political careers began decades ago, including former liberation figures now governing in a different era.For millions of Cameroonians, Biya is the only president they have ever known.Bime’s children are among them. His oldest is 32, and his youngest is 18.Abit Riassai Acha, a 26-year-old doctoral student and community youth leader at the University of Yaoundé II, belongs to the same generation.“Growing up, President Biya was the only president I knew, so his presidency has been part of my entire experience of Cameroon,” said Acha, who voted for the first time in last year’s presidential election, backing the youthful opposition candidate Samuel Hiram Iyodi, 38.After more than four decades under the same president, questions about his leadership have only grown.“Because this has happened repeatedly over the years, many Cameroonians have become used to it,” Acha said of Biya’s long absences. “But becoming accustomed to something does not necessarily mean that people should stop asking questions about how the country is being governed.”Iyodi, who finished eighth in last year’s presidential election, which several candidates, including one of Biya’s main challengers, were barred from contesting, has called on parliament to ask Cameroon’s Constitutional Council to consider whether Biya’s absence amounts to a vacancy in the presidency. But such a move is unlikely to succeed, given the dominance of Biya’s ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement.Despite being away, Biya has continued to make key decisions from abroad, including a major military reshuffle announced earlier this month. Yet questions about his prolonged stay overseas have left officials publicly assuring Cameroonians that their president is still alive.Government spokesman Sadi dismissed concerns about a power vacuum, telling RFI that “President Paul Biya is alive” and “will soon return.”From hope to frustrationBime is old enough to remember when Biya was the change. He first heard Biya’s name in the 1970s, when he served as secretary-general of the presidency under Cameroon’s first president after independence, Ahmadou Ahidjo. After Ahidjo resigned in 1982, Biya took over.When Biya first appeared on the ballot two years later, Bime saw him as a “representation of hope,” he said. “We believed he was young and dynamic – handsome too. He meant so much to Cameroonians.”Few imagined that the man they saw as a new beginning would remain in power for decades. For his critics, the disappointment is not just about how long Biya has stayed in office, but what they see as his failure to improve the lives of ordinary Cameroonians.Political analyst Collins Molua Ikome, a Cameroonian based in Germany, said he saw some of the country’s problems firsthand when he visited Cameroon in April.“Roads in Cameroon are extremely bad. I even witnessed a fatal accident,” he told CNN.Ikome also pointed to frequent power cuts, corruption and a lack of jobs for young people.Wilson Tamfuh, a public and international law professor at the University of Dschang in West Cameroon, said the country has institutions that can keep the government running when the president delegates responsibilities. Key duties, he said, can be handled by the prime minister, the secretary-general at the presidency and ministers.But the bigger question, Tamfuh said, is whether the government is solving the country’s longstanding problems.“People want the Anglophone crisis resolved, standards of living ameliorated, more good roads, fewer people on the streets with degrees, and more,” he told CNN, referring to the years-long separatist conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.Whenever Biya eventually leaves office, his successor will inherit a country also facing attacks by Boko Haram militants in the north and deep economic frustration among young people.Healthcare is another concern. Ikome said access to quality healthcare remains out of reach for many Cameroonians.“Life expectancy in the country is below 70 years. However, Biya has far outlived that due to access to medical healthcare abroad, which the ordinary Cameroonian cannot access due to poverty,” Ikome said.The divide is not unique to Cameroon. Across Africa, political elites have often sought healthcare or maintained homes abroad, even as public services at home struggle.For Bime, the question is more personal: Will he live to see another president?After decades of waiting for change, he worries he may not – and that Biya could outlive him and many others who are not part of the country’s elite.“Anytime they have a cold, they run overseas and are taken care of, but the other Cameroonians are dying because of lack of care,” he said.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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