Opendoor fires all 250 Indian employees: What we know about the US firm and CEO Kaz Nejatian

A US firm that laid off all its Indian employees and shuttered its operation in the country is in the news.

Opendoor, a San Francisco-based real estate tech firm, on Thursday said that it would be closing its India operations and laying off all 250 employees. CEO Kaz Nejatian made the announcement on the social media platform X.

The company said that in the future it would be relying more on artificial intelligence (AI). The move comes two years after the company expanded its footprint by opening offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. "For years Opendoor built a large team in India to handle manual workflows across fragmented systems," Nejatian said. "As we've unified these systems and have hired small AI-native customer-facing teams throughout the US, we need all this operational work to be done in person and close to our customers."

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“After today, Opendoor 2.0 will be a much smaller company by headcount, but a much larger company by impact,” he added. But what do we know about Opendoor? Who is Nejatian?

Let’s take a closer look

What is Opendoor?

According to the company website, Opendoor is a real estate tech firm that purchases homes directly from owners and resells them. Rather than putting a property up for sale to buyers on the market and letting the entire process play out, sellers can choose to sell directly to Opendoor.

Opendoor was founded in 2014 by Eric Wu, Keith Rabois, Ian Wong and JD Ross. Wu was CEO of the company till 2022. He was succeeded by Carrie Wheeler, who was Nejatian’s predecessor.

Opendoor was founded in 2014 by Eric Wu, Keith Rabois, Ian Wong and JD Ross. Image courtesy; www.opendoor.com

The company describes this process as the instant buyer (iBuyer) model. The company makes cash offers on homes. It says it is listed in 50 markets across America, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas. It claimed to have completed over 250,000 customer transactions across dozens of US markets. Opendoor then repairs or upgrades the homes before reselling them. Opendoor was listed on the US stock exchange in 2020.

How it works

Sellers have to enter their address on Opendoor's website. Then, they have to undertake a survey about their property. They also have to complete a virtual assessment by uploading photos of their homes. This results in Opendoor making an offer, usually within 24 hours. The sellers can then accept or reject the offer, which remains valid for seven days. Opendoor then makes a final visit for due diligence.

The company buys and sells:

Once a seller has accepted Opendoor’s offer, they can choose their own closing date – the day the sale of the home is completed with keys and documents being handed over to the company and the cash being transferred. Sellers have a window of between 15 and 60 days after accepting the offer to choose their closing date. The company then sells the homes to buyers. It makes its money via service fees and the profits it makes from the sale.

Who is Nejatian?

According to his LinkedIn profile, Nejatian is a former lawyer. He began his career as Associate at Ropes & Gray LLP. He worked as the Director of Strategic Planning at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. According to The Economic Times, Nejatian helped develop Canada’s Startup Visa programme.

Nejatian then co-founded payment start-up Kash. Nejatian served as CEO of Kash until it was sold in 2017 to a publicly traded financial services firm. He then worked as the lead product manager at Facebook. According to the newspaper he worked on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Marketplace and Facebook's broader family of apps.

Nejatian in 2019 moved on to Shopify, one of the world’s largest ecommerce platforms, where he served in a variety of roles including VP & GM Shopify Money, Vice President of Merchant Services, and VP Product & Chief Operating Officer. He was at Shopify till 2025.

Nejatian was brought in by the Opendoor board as CEO, citing his experience as an "AI-native executive". The board said Nejatian’s experience in product development, operational efficiency, and AI was crucial in his selection as CEO.

Nejatian did his B.Com in business from Queen’s University. He then studied law at the University of Toronto, where he was Assistant Editor at the University of Toronto Law Review, Chair of the International Law Students Conference, and President of the Canadian Constitution Foundation. Nejatian is married and has four children, as per The Economic Times.

The development comes amid a wave of layoffs for tech workers in the US. Layoffs.fyi, a layoff tracker for tech workers, has tallied cuts at more than 103,000 so far ⁠this year. ​That's approaching the more than 124,000 reductions ​that Layoffs.fyi counted for the whole of 2025, according to the site.

FAQs

1. Why did Opendoor shut its India operations?

Opendoor said it plans to rely more on artificial intelligence and smaller, US-based teams. CEO Kaz Nejatian said operational work would now be done closer to customers rather than through large offshore teams.

2. What does Opendoor do?

Opendoor is a real estate technology company that buys homes directly from sellers, offers them cash, and later resells the properties after repairs or upgrades.

3. Who is Kaz Nejatian?

Kaz Nejatian is the CEO of Opendoor. A former lawyer, he has previously worked at Facebook and Shopify and co-founded payments start-up Kash.

With inputs from agencies