‘Default to A.I. or Else,’ Says New Opendoor CEO in a Companywide Email. It’s a Lesson in Emotional Intelligence

New Opendoor CEO Kas Nejatian has only been on the job for a couple of weeks, but his recent companywide email is getting attention for all the wrong reasons.

Nejatian, who previously led Shopify before taking the Opendoor job, shared the email on social media late last week. It starts off good, with the new executive thanking everyone for helping him to get onboard, and acknowledging that “the last few days have not been calm or easy.”

But then, the tone shifts drastically.

Just check out some of the lines from this email:

• “There will be no ‘change management’ here.”
• “We are back at the office and that’s mostly the last time we are going to talk about this.”
• “So starting today the first line in everyone’s job expectation is simply this: Default to Al.”
• “Starting with the next performance review, in addition to asking how much impact each employee delivered we will also ask ourselves how frequently does each person default to Al.”
• “If you reach for Google Doc or Sheets before you reach for an Al tool, you are not defaulting to Al.”
• “If the prototype for a project is not built in Cursor or Claude Code, you are not defaulting to Al.”
• “If you have not used chat.opendoor.com and started thinking about how you can build your own agents and save your prompts, you are not defaulting to Al.”

To be clear, Nejatian seems to be a very smart guy with good intentions. But what I’m seeing with this email is something I often see with very smart people with good intentions—their communication style detracts, rather than enhances, the message.

Here are a few emotional intelligence lessons business leaders everywhere can learn.

It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it

When you speak down to people or threaten them, this will provoke an emotional reaction. It springs their amygdala into overdrive, so they enter fight, flight, or freeze mode.

All of this works against your ability to get your people on board with what you’re trying to do.

What’s better?

Alejandra Ramirez Wells, founder of internal communications consultancy Ready Cultures, shared some great tips on LinkedIn:

“’Default to AI’ sounds like a test people are already failing,” Wells wrote. She suggests trying something like: “AI is new for all of us. Let’s learn it together.”

“You want adoption, not anxiety,” she continues.

“The memo says, ‘figure it out by performance review.’ Translation: we don’t have a plan, but we’ll blame you when it goes sideways.”

Instead, Wells advises giving your people a roadmap. Her recommendations included providing a 30-day learning path with clear milestones as a start, pairing up people to learn together, dedicated time for experimentation, and regular office hours for questions.

“Every company is different,” Wells says. “So, consider these broad strokes to be refined for your specific circumstances.”

Check your self-awareness and social awareness

Self-awareness includes the ability to know how you and your messaging is perceived by others. Social awareness includes knowing how that messaging will affect them and your relationship with them.

With messaging like this, Nejatian risks sounding like a tech bro who doesn’t care much about his people. I haven’t spoken directly to Nejatian, but my bet is he either (1) doesn’t realize this or (2) doesn’t understand the impact that’s going to have on his relationships.

This is why it’s important to have trusted confidants and mentors, both inside and outside the company, who can give you candid but helpful feedback.

The dark side of EQ

To preface repeatedly telling employees they need to start “defaulting to AI,” Nejatian tried to explain why this is so necessary, citing Opendoor’s mission to make the process of selling, buying, and owning a home as delightful as possible.

“Every week we don’t make immense progress against this mission is a bad week for the world,” writes Nejatian. “The world is objectively worse and families are worse off if we don’t make an insane amount of progress every single week.”

It’s for this reason, Nejatian says, the company must be “AI obsessed.”

The problem with this is it leans into what we call the “dark side” of emotional intelligence—trying to push buttons or manipulate others using the power of emotions.

Opendoor’s mission is admirable, but using that mission to pressure employees isn’t.

In contrast, ethical emotional intelligence in the workplace is about supporting your people, and that support starts at the top. If Nejatian can provide employees with the resources, training, and help they need to start leveraging AI effectively, Opendoor has a great shot at accomplishing its mission.

Because in the end, artificial intelligence isn’t the enemy. But you’ll find it’s much more useful when you combine it with emotional intelligence, too.