> The truth is that a majority of tech companies don't need 50%+ of their employees.
Totally agree. The problem is, nobody knows how to tell which ones.
On the ground it's obvious. I'm sure everyone here knows who on their team is crucial to their current production stack, and also knows others who would have no impact (or even positive impact!) if they left.
One level up - the direct EM - has most of that context too, but some is already lost. At the next level (Sr. EM or Director usually), almost all of it is gone. At that point, cutting 50% is just guessing. Keep going up and eventually the risk becomes too high that you'll sacrifice your key players along with the rest. Bath water, baby.
Totally agree. The problem is, nobody knows how to tell which ones.
On the ground it's obvious. I'm sure everyone here knows who on their team is crucial to their current production stack, and also knows others who would have no impact (or even positive impact!) if they left.
One level up - the direct EM - has most of that context too, but some is already lost. At the next level (Sr. EM or Director usually), almost all of it is gone. At that point, cutting 50% is just guessing. Keep going up and eventually the risk becomes too high that you'll sacrifice your key players along with the rest. Bath water, baby.