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. Opendoor also nominated Rabois as chairman and said Eric Wu, who served as 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 12% 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.
Since Jackson bought the shares in Opendor in July, there has been no fundamental improvement for the company. 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.
