It's not easy to tell which people are really pulling their weight, particularly when you have people in operations who are doing things that are essential but not flashy and people in development and marketing who are doing things that are flashy but not essential.

When there are mass layoffs often the best people jump ship early figuring they'll have an easy time getting work elsewhere and an even easier time if they are the first to go. Some of the people who stay are the people who don't feel they have a choice.

I am not a fan of OKRs, stack ranking, and other practices that create arcane and "high stakes" processes for measuring value because a pathological narcissists core competence is to convince management that their glass is 70% full and that your glass is 30% empty.