The mortgage lending company that faced criticism late last year for summarily laying off 900 people over Zoom is "teaming up" with Palantir Technologies, the big-data software company co-founded by Peter Thiel, the companies announced Wednesday. 

The partnership will allow the mortgage company, Better, to quickly create a beefed-up mortgage platform that CEO Vishal Garg described to Insider as "Bloomberg for loans." The forthcoming digital mortgage product will help organizations make more loans to unconventional borrowers, but it will be marketed to investors and mortgage originators alike.