Open door Co-founder and newly built board chair Keith Labois said remote areas and “bloated” workforce are dragged by the company’s culture as he vowed to cut staff.
“Opendoor has 1,400 employees. I don’t know what most of them are doing. We don’t need more than 200 employees,” Rabois told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday.
Wednesday’s online real estate platform appointed former Shopify Executive Kaznejatian, as new CEO after investor pressure, forced his predecessor, Carrie Wheeler, to step down last month. San Francisco-based Opendoor said Rabois was also appointed as chairman and Eric Wu, the company’s first CEO before resigning in 2023, will return to the board.
The announcement led to Opendor shares rising 78% on Thursday, with shares slipping over 13% on Friday. It’s still up almost 500% this year after a military of retail investors pushed stock prices up when hedge fund manager Eric Jackson began to promote the company.
Opendoor ~ Date stock price chart.
Opendoor’s business uses technology to buy and sell homes and pocket profits.
Nothing has improved fundamentally for the company since Jackson bought Opendor shares in July. Opendoor remains a low cash burning margin business with a small short-term growth outlook.
Rabois said there is a “high-level view of strategy” needed to transform Opendoor, and it would require staff cuts to resolve the company’s cash burning.
“The culture has broken,” Labois said. “These people worked remotely. That doesn’t work. This company was founded on the principles of innovation and worked directly on them. We’re going back to our roots.”
He added that Opendoor “has gone down this DEI path,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.
“We’re going to fix it all,” Labois said.
In a post on X on Friday, Nejatian said he is ready to start in person early next week.
“Yes. I’m in the office first thing on a Monday morning and it’s the first one every Monday morning,” he wrote.
