A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
他在一场 Zoom 会议上开掉了九百个人。今年他自己被开掉了，现在他想回去。
CEO Who Fired 900 on Zoom Now Wants Job Back
About this story
CEO Who Fired 900 on Zoom Now Wants Job Back. HSK 5-6 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 5-6 Chinese listening episode that runs about 3 minutes. The full Mandarin script is shown with tap-for-pinyin and a line-by-line English translation, so you can listen and read at once — comprehensible input in the sense of Stephen Krashen's i+1 theory. It teaches 12 key vocabulary words such as 铺垫、失控、舆论 and walks through 3 grammar patterns, each explained in English with examples. The same news story is retold at 4 difficulty levels — use the level selector above to find the version that is challenging but still understandable for you.
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原文Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
English transcript reference
Put this man in front of you and you will probably place him at once.
He is the boss who laid off nine hundred people in a single video call.
His name is Garg, the company is Better, and the business is arranging mortgages online.
It happened in December 2021, a few days before Christmas.
That day he opened a video meeting with nine hundred people sitting on the screen at the same time.
He spoke very briefly — so briefly there was barely any preamble.
He said: you are the group being laid off.
And with that, the meeting was over.
Employees later said they only worked it out by opening their bank card and seeing no wages had arrived.
There was one more thing that pushed it past the point of recovery.
It was reported afterwards that he had described his own staff, elsewhere, as "dumb dolphins".
Nine hundred people out of work, plus a phrase like that, and public feeling could no longer be held down.
Once the recording reached the internet, the whole world knew who he was.
In the years since, his reputation has never washed clean.
In a lot of management courses this became a case study in the wrong direction: how the same necessary task can be done in the ugliest possible way.
At the time he apologised publicly, announced he was "taking some time off", and after a while returned to the company.
But the recording did not fade with time. It stayed online, ready to be pulled up at any moment.
Right — now this year.
On the third of August, Better’s board replaced him.
The boss who laid off nine hundred people had himself been laid off.
The company brought in a new boss.
What happened next is what makes this genuinely complicated.
After the new boss took over, the company’s share price fell by nearly half.
To be fair about it: the stock had already dropped some way this year before he was replaced.
But it fell more sharply after the change, and that fact is not easy to get around.
Garg looked at that number and began wanting to go back.
He said publicly that this is the company he built, and that this is precisely the moment results are due.
He credits the company’s recent efficiency gains to heavy use of AI in the mortgage process: a workflow that used to need dozens of people over several days can now be handled by a machine.
In other words, what he is telling the board is: the numbers will prove me right.
He also said something quite direct — that the new boss had hoodwinked him.
Then he offered a condition that is hard to ignore.
He said the salary can go — one dollar a year is enough; once the company truly starts making money, he will step aside himself.
Whether the board will let him back, there is as yet no answer.
The genuinely hard part of this is not whether he wins.
It is that if he does win, we have to decide what that meeting meant.
A man did something that is still being used as a case study five years later. Can he take his old seat back?
Does a company want a good name, or someone who can pull the share price back up?
Think about it: if one of those nine hundred people were your friend, how would you want the board to choose?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇短到几乎没有铺垫 = so brief there was barely any preamble.
让事情彻底失控的，还有另一件 = one more thing pushed it past recovery.
舆论，就再也压不住了 = public feeling could no longer be held down.
这件事成了一个反面教材 = this became a case study in the wrong direction.
归功于在房贷流程里大量使用人工智能 = credits it to heavy use of AI.
这个事实不好绕过去 = that fact is not easy to get around.
同样一件必须做的事 = layoffs, the thing being done.
贝特的董事会把他换掉了 = Better’s board replaced him.
在房贷流程里 = in the mortgage process.
他的名声，一直没有洗干净 = his reputation never washed clean.
他自己让位 = he will step aside himself.
仍然被当成教材的事 = still used as a case study.
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法换句话说
"in other words". Restates a claim in its blunt form.
换句话说，他给董事会的说法是：数字会证明我是对的。
不在于……，而在于……
Moves the question from the obvious one to the real one.
这件事真正难办的地方，其实不在于他会不会赢。
而在于假如他赢了，我们该怎么理解那场会议。
假如……
"supposing that X". Sets up a hypothetical the listener has to sit with.
假如他赢了，我们该怎么理解那场会议。
Proper nouns
专有名词Sources
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