In January 2025, Meta announced it would cut roughly 5% of its workforce — about 3,600 people — to, in Mark Zuckerberg's words, "raise the bar on performance management and move out low-performers faster." Microsoft followed weeks later, terminating around 2,000 "underperformers" without severance. The story being sold: decisive leaders prune. I've sat in enough leadership rooms to know that story is dangerous.
The myth: rigor looks like a forced curve
This isn't new thinking — it's stack ranking with better PR. Microsoft ran a forced 1-to-5 curve for years and killed it in 2013 because it poisoned collaboration; insiders blame it for helping cost the company the mobile decade. Meta framed its cut as performance management while planning to refill the same roles this year. That isn't discipline; it's churn wearing a "low performer" costume.
The data: the curve doesn't see straight
New modeling published in December 2025 simulated 994 engineers across 142 teams and found that even under idealized conditions, forced ranking misclassifies about a third of people — a 32% error rate on terminations and promotions. It systematically punishes employees on strong teams, and capped ratings push your best people out. A "low performer" label is usually a system problem wearing a name tag: unclear scope, weak onboarding, a manager who doesn't calibrate. Boards read the cut as backbone; Wall Street reads it as discipline. Neither is performance.
Lead the system, not the curve
Before you announce your own 5%, ask one question: have you built a process that makes performance legible — or are you renting the appearance of decisiveness? Fix role design and manager capability first. Calibrate outcomes, not individuals. The leaders I trust don't cut their way to rigor; they build it.