It&#x27;s an age old-question but I still don&#x27;t have a good sense of the answer:<p>When leaner economic times come around and tech companies downsize their work forces, they speak about culling &quot;nonessential&quot; employees and &quot;growing smarter&quot;. How do they deal with the political problems of admitting to having hired a sizable number of &quot;nonessential&quot; employees to begin with, and, moreover, the obvious implication that their previous growth strategy was indeed &quot;stupid&quot;?