This is somewhat simplified but basically it's variations on the Startup / MBA cycle: * Smart people make things that work. * Smart money helps make thing tha

This is somewhat simplified but basically it's variations on the Startup / MBA cycle: * Smart people make things that work. * Smart money helps make thing that works scale. * With money comes MBA's to manage budgets. * Thing that works eventually reaches natural scale. * MBA's only know money, not how to make new things that work and grow. * Investors need compounded returns so only fast future growth is interesting. * So given that profits are steady but fast growth has stopped and MBA's don't know how to create new growth there is now only one option to keep growth going: Cut costs. * First wave of cost cutting is company community participation. * Second wave are any project or product making less money than the most profitable product. * Then goes worker perks & treats. Finally, the only place left to cut costs is in the salary budget i.e. jobs. At this point the company goes into long-term maintenance mode and smart money starts looking around again at what everyone who left or got laid off has been doing with their spare time.