Keith Rabois, cofounder and new chairman at Opendoor Technologies, says the company is so “bloated” it could cut the vast majority of its workforce.
Rabois, whose return to the company’s board of directors was announced Thursday, outlined several changes that are needed at Opendoor in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday.
“There’s 1,400 employees at Opendoor. I don’t know what most of them do. We don’t need more than 200 of them,” Rabois said, adding, “the company is completely bloated.”
Opendoor, which buys and sells homes, is currently making waves as the latest meme stock beloved by retail traders. The stock got another boost on Thursday when the company announced cofounders Rabois and Eric Wu were rejoining the board and that Kaz Nejatian, COO of Shopify, was appointed CEO. At market close on Friday, the stock was up 470% year-to-date.
Rabois, who is also managing director at the VC firm Khosla Ventures, told CNBC Opendoor’s culture was “broken,” citing remote work and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
“These people were working remotely. That doesn’t work,” he said, adding that the company also went down a “DEI path.”
“We’re going to fix all that. We’re back to merit and excellence,” Rabois said.
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Opendoor did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Rabois’s comments are part of a larger trend of tech leaders lamenting remote work and rolling out return-to-office mandates, which business leaders have also noted as a way to reduce headcounts without layoffs.
Several prominent tech companies have also rolled back DEI efforts, including Amazon, Google, and Meta.
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