US-based real estate platform Opendoor is entirely winding down its India operations and laying off its local team to move operational work back to America. Sharing an internal note on social media, the company’s CEO, Kaz Nejatian, said that because their core customer base is in the United States, that is where the operational roles truly belong. He clarified that the decision does not reflect the quality of the team's work and actively recommended the affected employees to other recruiters, calling them "excellent people."
“I shared this note earlier today with the entire team at Opendoor. Today we began to say goodbye to our colleagues in India as we wind down our India operations. Our customers are in America, and that's where our operational work belongs,” CEO Kaz Nejatian tweeted.
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He shared a screenshot of the note he sent to his entire team, informing them of the layoffs.
Read the full note:
Team,
I want to update you on a change we are making to Opendoor. When we launched Opendoor 2.0 a few months ago, Opendoor had nearly 250 employees in India. Over the last few months, some of these jobs have been relocated back to the United States.
Today, we are finalizing bringing these roles closer to our customers in America and beginning the process of winding down our India-based operations. This affects all of our colleagues in India who have done meaningful work for Opendoor.
{{/usCountry}}Today, we are finalizing bringing these roles closer to our customers in America and beginning the process of winding down our India-based operations. This affects all of our colleagues in India who have done meaningful work for Opendoor.
{{/usCountry}}I am grateful for their dedication and this decision is not a reflection of the quality of their work. Our colleagues in India are great people, and we recommend them to anyone hiring.
Why we are making this change
Our customers are in America, and the operational work we do for them is best done close to them. For years Opendoor built a large team in India to handle manual workflows across fragmented systems. As we've unified these systems and have hired small Al-native customer-facing teams throughout the US, we need all this operational work to be done in person and close to our customers.
After today, Opendoor 2.0 will be a much smaller company by headcount, but a much larger company by impact. Our people, aided by the tools we have built, will own more, build more, and have broader scope than ever before. Operationally, we will see these major changes as a result:
1. We will simplify: fewer tools, fewer steps, fewer workarounds.
2. We will build one platform, so anyone at Opendoor can see how a home moves through buy, reno, and sell.
3. We will stop stacking manual workflows on top of point-solution tools. Every new process will earn its place.
What this means for our colleagues in India
For the people affected, this is a significant and difficult change and we are providing transition packages including severance, outplacement services, and other resources. A small subset of team members will stay on to complete the transition of key workstreams.
What this means for the rest of the company
Our priorities and direction have not changed, and Opendoor is in a strong position and getting stronger.
Our colleagues in India helped get Opendoor to where it is today, and we're grateful for it. Our job now is to keep tilting the world in favor of homeowners. Let's fix America's housing problem.
Questions? Our next Open House with AMA is 6/16, and, as always, my DMs are open.
Social media reacts:
An individual asked, “Does this mean you’ll also scale down operations in Poland, or will that team be essential for the EU expansion?” Nejatian responded, “Very essential.”
Another commented, “Suddenly a virtuous pro-American workforce kinda guy, eh? Or just firing people to use AI and deciding to try to reframe your selling out of the American workforce for so many years?”
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A third posted, “Hahaha, you're acting like you're doing a good thing. You put operations there in the first place. You should lose your business and have to start from scratch.” A fourth wrote, “AI replaced the Indians. Is that the takeaway?”
“Reference letter”
In response to his own tweet, the CEO urged local companies in India to hire laid-off employees. He posted, “If you're hiring and have a presence in India, these are excellent people. Consider this my reference letter and hire them.”