Of course people have to be smart about cutting, and things are not going to go right if the leaders are themselves unable to identify actual negative net influencers.

But in my own experience, I've worked at one specific place that was very very good about identifying people who plainly didn't help and letting them go. It helped immensely over time: the culture was really good (people were really invested in their job, and loved working as a team) and the retention rate was about 6x higher than most places in the same field.

They didn't use bogus metrics or anything, it was always a "feeling" kind of thing. If several people said someone was not helping, they were most likely right. It was arbitrary I admit, but rarely wrong.

There's books about it (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surv...) but personally haven't read them yet.

You're assuming that you have to be an asshole to get/make your results noticed. And yes, those who sit in a corner doing stuff nobody cares about will be fired, and rightfully so.

I think the implication was that those who sit in a corner doing stuff fundamental to the company's success, who don't present themselves well to the decision makers, will still get cut.