When I was 'downsized' from Putnam Investments back in 2003, I was caught in the 5th wave of terminations. The 6th, just a couple of weeks later, got a friend of mine who I thought would be one who would turn out the lights.

During the early rounds, the effective CEO of Putnam (as we were owned by Marsh McClennan) was given a $26M bonus. All for improving the bottom line that year. I calculated that, based on average salaries, the people laid off before me could have kept their jobs for a couple of years on that bonus. Of course the following year there were indictments for illegal "front running" and protecting high-value clients (by processing their trades before a fall in price, then processing 'ordinary people's trades - even if the ordinary people made them first). He destroyed work teams that were some of the best I've ever seen in my 30 years in software. It's no surprise that Putnam lost more than half it's assets under management in subsequent years - to the point where MMC had to sell Putnam to a Canadian firm.