I used to work for a defense contractor where layoffs were pretty regular. If the company wasn't winning new contracts, they couldn't afford to keep paying all the staff. It's a pretty simple arrangement, and when layoffs happened, you didn't expect any heartfelt message from leadership about how unexpected it was and how hard they tried to avoid it. It's just the reality of that business and everyone knew that.

In a way, most tech companies are similar. The main thing they try to demonstrate to investors is growth. One aspect of this is hiring as many people as possible when times are good, knowing full well that when the market has a downturn, they'll be overstaffed and forced to lay people off. This seems to be how tech companies work, and investors seem to prefer for tech companies to be run this way. Mass layoffs are pretty much inevitable unless the market stays rosy forever.

So it's a bit patronizing to see a CEO write about how hard of a decision it was, or how they really tried to avoid this at all costs. They might not have predicted COVID, but they absolutely knew they were steering the ship in a direction where this was going to happen eventually.

To be fair, the messaging in this Plaid announcement is about as good as you can do IMO. They chose to hire at a rate that is only sustainable in an environment of infinite growth and they now have to reconcile with that. There isn't much mention of how heartbreaking this for the CEO, how much they love every member of the Plaid family, or how this is an absolute last resort they tried to avoid at all costs. It's just the result of how they chose to run the business. I think that's about all you can really say.