Who ever thought good employees don't get laid off? I've never spoken to anyone who believed that.
That aside, it's common sense that the people laid off are skewed towards those that the company doesn't want, so people at the bottom of what the company defines as performance. Companies don't just arbitrarily dump those who are making great contribution to what the company considers important, whatever they may tell you
If you have aggressively negotiated your cash compensation very high based on high performance during an economic boom you are at a high risk of getting laid off when the economy turns around. Imagine a graph with performance and compensation as axises, anyone below some slope is a layoff candidate.
This is transparently false. Expectations are relative to comp.
Now maybe behind the scenes there were discussions about which devs were "worth more", but I wasn't a manager, so wasn't privy to any of that.
Oftentimes explicitly became managers look like rank-and-file employees to the executives above them just the same way that developers look like rank-and-file workers to their managers.
A former employer was hit with ~10% layoffs during January. A shockingly high number of people that were let go were middle and senior management, up to VPs and even an SVP that I'm aware of.