Not only that, but streamlining and trimming the bloat/fat during good times signals to investors that there must something wrong with the org (just look at Int

Not only that, but streamlining and trimming the bloat/fat during good times signals to investors that there must something wrong with the org (just look at Intel) which will cause the stock price to go down, so CEOs never do it during good times to signal that the org is "healthy and growing" even though everyone in the trenches knows there's tones of bloat piling up. The last bull run fueled by negative rates lasted far longer than it should, which lead to growth for the sake of growth without efficiency in mind, which lead bloat and inefficiencies to accumulate far more than normal, which nobody dared to address because "line goes up". Now that the line went down, CEOs feel pressured to remove all the ballast they accumulated, which causes the line to go back up.