One thing you also have to understand here (other than the replies I've read) is that you can in fact lay off people and yet increase the percentage investment you are making in something.
You have to cut your budget by 30% -- you can do this as a haircut everyone takes, or you can be selective, and ask one group to take less of a cut and other groups to take more. Your overall spend will be more heavily weighted towards groups that take less of a cut, obviously.
You can also leave your overall budget for one team unchanged, or even grow it, and simply change your focus by putting more emphasis (and budget) on one set of activities vs another.
In the Cruise case either scenario is possible. They can have decided that 3rd party LIDAR is good enough, and not strategic enough, that they should cut there. That could be the sum of it, while other groups like HR, Marketing, etc takes bigger cuts. Alternatively they could use the same logic to cut the LIDAR team and then take the savings generated to invest more heavily in (made up example) route planning or something.
You have to cut your budget by 30% -- you can do this as a haircut everyone takes, or you can be selective, and ask one group to take less of a cut and other groups to take more. Your overall spend will be more heavily weighted towards groups that take less of a cut, obviously.
You can also leave your overall budget for one team unchanged, or even grow it, and simply change your focus by putting more emphasis (and budget) on one set of activities vs another.
In the Cruise case either scenario is possible. They can have decided that 3rd party LIDAR is good enough, and not strategic enough, that they should cut there. That could be the sum of it, while other groups like HR, Marketing, etc takes bigger cuts. Alternatively they could use the same logic to cut the LIDAR team and then take the savings generated to invest more heavily in (made up example) route planning or something.