Not OP, but I know my manager was let go because he didn’t agree with his manager (VP) in the new re-org structure. I’m glad he didn’t agree because we are customer facing engineers and under the new re-org, we would be under a person who had no desire to think about issues from an external client perspective. It would have made the entire team miserable and less efficient but the VP had an attitude of “why don’t you just do as you’re told”.

Sometimes it’s just poor leadership, but leaders have power.

I could say that my project was orthogonal to his interests, but also not optional (from higher ups). I made it painless but I expect that as much as anything, he didn’t like my face.

And, what was rough was that he oversaw our division for about 60 days. I know for a fact I wasn’t on the cut list from my manager or his manager.

Is this capitalist-rational? It is what it is. Is it about optimal organizational outcomes? I don’t see how it could be. Layoffs are about something, but righting ships? I don’t accept that.