[ProfessorLayton]

This is under the presumption that most/all of the people being let go are actually low performers, and that leadership is able to correctly identify them.

The same leadership that thought those people met the caliber for working there in the first place.

I won't deny that there's low performers at any organization, but this is giving the people making the cuts too much credit imo. Double-digit cuts say more about leadership than the people being let go.

[Firmwarrior]

Microsoft ruthlessly fired tons of "low performers" for over a decade, which gave them the organizational efficiency they needed to ship such resoundingly successful products as Bing Search, Windows Mobile, and Windows 8

[sfvegandude]

Performance isn’t static. Hiring is hard. Organizational priorities shift, people lose interest, etc. It’s often better for both parities if one just moves on.