[arelangi]

>Is it really big news that 250 were laid off?

It is big to the 250 people being laid off.

> If he only saved the company thousands of dollars and did not generate new revenue, that explains why he was laid off.

It is not the job of the software engineer to generate revenue. A software engineer is a part of the process it's not his sole responsibility to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars. The point is to not get bogged down by the semantics of the performance review, the employee being laid off performed exceptionally well according to his supervisor despite which he is being laid off which the supervisor is not aware of.

> If he was really so skilled, why did he not find another position at Disney or elsewhere?

One reason could be the age old old-age problem in the tech industry. The article mentions he is 57 years old(which should be irrelevant when hiring).