Nobody in their right mind fires brilliant people. And brilliant people are the ones who are fun and delight to work with. It may sound harsh, but leaving some ballast weight behind may be even healthy for a team.
Brilliant people are expensive. Bleeding companies need to cut costs. Layoffs are usually a mix of poor performers, high cost talent, and tenure ordering. Sometimes entire departments full of brilliant people go because the department isn't profitable.
Again, you have in your mind a spherical cow of a layoff.
