They got sucked into the "new normal" that never was, and was never going to be.

We are seeing a massive return to the old normal, which means people are going back to offices (not WFH) people are going back to shopping in person not online, people are going back to eating in restaurants not using Grub Hub or ordering online. etc etc etc

I think you are wrong. Not completely, but I think you missed the massive change in attitudes that took place the past few years. WFH is likely going to stay in some shape or form since it is clear it can work ( and heavens know emplopyers full remote positions have their pick of qualified candidates ) and likely some RTO will follow ( with another round of - likely muted due to recession - resignations ), but I would hesitate to conclude that good old days are here again. I am not going back.

WFH and ft remote was always a thing. It was not invented for COVID.

So of course some WFH positions will still exist but based on my alerts for different roles the number of full time WFH jobs have dropped off the cliff back down to what I would consider precovid levels

Can they beat the Dow Jones also?

No company has the slightest clue what the economic environment will look like in 3 years, much less 5.

So true. Which company predicted there would be a global pandemic starting at the end of 2019? None. Impossible to predict. Which company predicted 9/11? None. Shit happens, and nobody is a prophet.

It’s a good thing the only cost of their prediction capabilities is human welfare and security, small potatoes in the end.

Hence the layoffs. They still have to try though

Do they really need to "try" by laying peole off? Why is this the standard move despite the business and finances are still booming? It's a weird MBA monkey mimicry game.

How many layoff announcements have you seen where the company says "We'd love to keep pursuing this but we flat out can't afford to pay you, we are out of money"? I've seen zero. I understand some of this is prudent financial planning, especially for SMBs, but SFDC and AMZN.. they must be using different calculus.

Amazon appears less dependent on the nearly-free-money-gravy-train compared to most businesses, especially VC and startups.

Edit: dkrich's comment said it better than I can: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34254450

Companies, especially tech companies, invest in their future. Sometimes those bets don’t pay off, sometimes it’s because of external factors. That doesn’t mean those were bad bets necessarily, they just got unlucky. It does mean investors want them to move on to something else though, even if the company as a whole isn’t in a crisis.

If your best guess for what the market is going to be in 3-5 years is now half what you were guessing last week, surely that means you make some changes, and past a certain point you want to make a bigger change than what's going to happen by just freezing hiring and waiting for natural attrition. I'm no fan of companies doing this, but the logic makes sense.