The sharply rising interest rates are a problem if you have a short runway that makes you reliant on debt or investor money, in which case yes you very well may need to cut costs just to keep the lights on.

But if you're Microsoft or Google? You're profitable. You're bringing in money hand over fist. Technically the high interest rates might benefit you because now you have more options of what to do with that giant pile of cash: you can lend it out and get a decent return!

So high interest rates maybe does justify layoffs in some cases. And even perhaps for GitHub specifically, though I'm not sure I understand the complex dynamics of how it generates value for Microsoft anyway...