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I think the assumption is that 80% of the workload can safely be dropped on the floor, that the resulting 80% of results is sufficient to survive. However goofy it is to apply that to Elon's haphazard cuts to SRE and administration etc, the premise is not crazy. There's certainly no suggestion of multiplying the workload of the remaining employees by 5.

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Losing 80% of employees is not the same as losing 80% of the workload.

Much of that workload isn't going away, even if they are ignoring it.

I'm inclined to agree for the non-eng parts of "the workload". But swe workload in a company that already pretty much does its job is a very flexible concept, and I'm not sure it has a firm existence apart from the workforce, firm enough to say there's something there that "isn't going away". And remember the standard for "the workload" that must be done is "survival", which is not a high bar.

I guess where I'm going is that the article states a roughly true thesis, but applies it in a situation where it's not terribly relevant.

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