It's pretty much exactly this. superstars matter when management can properly direct them, which is almost never big companies (it's very often small companies/

It's pretty much exactly this. superstars matter when management can properly direct them, which is almost never big companies (it's very often small companies/startups though). The past decade of superstar hiring in tech was so obviously a raising rivals cost/ monopolizing talent so said talent won't go start a startup that unseats the large company from its excess oligopoly profits strategy. When interest rates got high enough to make yield matter and all of a sudden these big guys needed to actually perform quarter to quarter they started cutting all these excess, expensive people loose and this is just one of the ways to force that attrition. (consequently, I expect the company(ies) that will unseat the big tech guys has already/will be shortly created by some of these downsized staff and the next 10 years will be very interesting.