[imperfect_light]

Anyone have examples of companies that were in trouble and cut employees and spending heavily and that led them back to success?

My personal experience with working for such companies is that it leads to a death spiral, but I recognize my sample size is small.

[bfrog]

Intel is absolutely in a death spiral. Not much else to say. They are cutting cost with no real plan on growth if they are saying they won't invest in the foundry anymore. Foundry was a solid play by Pat, really their only play. Instead Intel seems set to lose whatever remaining relevance they have to their Arm, TSM, Nvidia, and AMD competitors which have a lead in both design and manufacturing a decade in the making.

[jonnycoder]

Apple but only because of Steve

[Jensson]

Most big companies has done that at some point, why would it lead to a death spiral? Death spiral happens when you cut too late, so you are forced to cut but you are still running a deficit and just has to cut and cut and cut without thinking.

[imperfect_light]

I'm not arguing that layoffs lead to a death spiral.

I'm arguing that if you're on a downward trajectory and your primary strategy is layoffs and cutting expenses, rather than investing, you're not going to recover.