I feel culture is emotional manipulation (e.g. the Cameo "Fameo" [1] or family). This works until layoffs need to happen, and then any justification for removing those same family members are justified.

So as an employee (not necessarily you, though), if you're angry that you got laid off, it's because you drank management's gas lighting kool-aid. And further, you shouldn't be amazed at how far the C-staff will go to protect their bonuses. Even if it means reducing your "Fameo" to 1/10th of what it was.

I'm also sure they made a calculation. If they want to get rid of 1/2 the company, lay off about 1/3. The rest will be through attrition.

But in all honesty if management just said, "Thanks for you hard work. The company is doing really well. We're fortunate enough to be growing instead of shrinking..." -- I think that level of honesty would do wonders for employees when it came time to do a layoff.

[1] https://archive.ph/2023.10.23-081817/https://www.nytimes.com...