Just days after Opendoor named a new CEO, it was in the news again on Sept. 12 when during an appearance on CNBC co-founder Keith Rabois, returning to the board of directors, slammed the current operation, saying the company is “bloated” and needs to slash its workforce by as much as 85% to fix its cost structure.
“There’s 1,400 employees at Opendoor and I don’t know what most of them do,” he said on the show Squawk on the Street. “We don’t need more than 200 of them.
“I haven’t yet dug into the financials, so I won’t opine about the financial future. I know the strategy of what can be improved, but the company is completely bloated and the culture is broken. These people are working remotely. That doesn’t work. The company was founded on the principles of innovation and working together in person. We’re going to restore that and return to our roots.”
Rabois’ opinions come after a period of significant losses for the iBuyer, with the company having already undertaken multiple layoffs since 2022, including cuts in November 2022 and November 2024.
On CNBC, Rabois also criticized the company’s remote work culture, saying it has undercut the company’s performance and calling for a return to in-person work.
Rabois also sharply criticized former CEO Carrie Wheeler shortly before she stepped down from that role last month.
Opendoor stock jumped 78% higher on September 11 after the company named Spotify executive Kaz Nejatian as CEO and Rabois as chairman, before sliding 12% the next day, having hit a 52-week high, with shares up more than 500%.
The company remains a darling of so-called “meme stocks” investors–amateur traders who congregate on social media platforms like Reddit–who have previously boosted other low-profile companies to sky-high valuations, at least temporarily.
