[capeterson]

Furthermore, it's unlikely that a company would simply drop X% of employees based on performance.

For example, one could be better than 90% of employees, but if they're highly specialized on a team/product that is getting phased out and they don't have transferable skills to move internally, they may get laid off even if they're not in the bottom % of whoever was getting laid off.

It definitely is an interesting thing to think about, but I agree that there are some holes to the logic.