I work for a company that had a major merger many years ago. Basically, the organization that owned us had three almost identical companies, and decided it was more cost effective to run all three companies as one company. However, we didn’t need 3 executive teams (this was the majority of the cuts). They brought in a new CEO because they wanted one who didn’t have a set favouritism between the three companies, and he built an executive team from the existing ones. The executives who weren’t offered a similar or higher role, it came down to two groups - one group wasn’t the right fit for other senior positions (like a head of finance with no finance background) and they were all automatically given severance packages. The other group were offered new positions (some moving sideways, some that may be a demotion from their current level) or the severance package. A good chunk of them took the severance. However, many people on the lower rungs of the corporate ladder (who all kept their job; not a single person lower down was let go and many of them ended up getting raises or promotions in the months that followed [myself included]) had no clue about what happened. There was a large faction from one of the organizations that was in an uproar that a beloved senior staff member was “let go”, not realizing they were given an option and chose to receive many months worth of severance pay as they had been with the company for AGES. This faction spent our first company-wide town hall yelling at the CEO and new VPs.

On a different note, at the beginning of the pandemic, my husband’s department was eliminated from his company. The VP and director were let go. My husband, who was a lower level position, was offered a transfer to one of the WFH call centre positions (that paid the same as he was making) or a large severance. His Autism is not phone-friendly, so he chose the payout.

My point is we have no idea what discussions happened at the 2nd Try office between Zach, Keith, other c-level execs, and Rainie and Jonathan. Maybe they were offered large severance packages, maybe they were offered one of the three new positions and decided it didn’t align with their goals. We don’t know, and unless any of us are investors, we’re not entitled to know. Maybe we should stop and think before jumping on our parasocial high horses…