Who is Vishal Garg?

Vishal Garg is the founder and CEO of Better.com, a digital-first homeownership firm that offers mortgage, title, homeowners insurance services and real estate. The young CEO has lately been in the news for firing 900 employees of his company over a zoom call. 

Vishal, a serial entrepreneur, was simply looking for a home for his growing family on the day he came up with the idea for Better.com, as per Crunchbase report.  When Vishal’s attempt to purchase his family’s dream home was thwarted by an outmoded homeownership process, Better.com came into being. 

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Better.com, Vishal Garg’s all-in-one digital platform, guides customers through the entire home-buying process, from finding an agent to obtaining a mortgage (or refinancing a loan) to shopping for insurance.

Better.com has done over $46.9 billion in home loans and provided over $16 billion in total coverage through its insurance divisions, Better Cover and Better Settlement Services, under Vishal Garg’s leadership. L Catterton, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Kleiner Perkins, American Express Ventures, and other investors have backed Better.com, which has raised over $400 million in equity capital. 

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Vishal Garg received the “2019 Vanguard Award” from HousingWire in December, which honours business leaders who contribute to the housing economy’s growth. Furthermore, Comparably surveyed employees of colour in July 2020 to assess the top CEOs driving diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Garg was ranked 13th out of 25 people, placing him alongside executives from Microsoft and Google.

He was named one of the “100 People Transforming Business in 2020” by Business Insider in September of 2020. Garg was also a part of Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year 2020” list in October 2020. 

He is also reportedly the founding partner of 1/0 Capital, while he was previously the Co-Head and Managing Partner of ARAM ABS Group ($6 billion in assets) and the Founder, President, and CFO of MyRichUncle (NASDAQ IPO 2005), which he founded at the age of 21 and grew into the fourth largest private student loan originator in the United States. Vishal worked at Morgan Stanley as an analyst in the Mergers & Acquisitions department and as a frontier emerging markets portfolio manager for the Strategos Fund before joining MyRichUncle. He received the highest honours from NYU Stern.