At my company, the executives have been saying things like "AI will let us do more with less", so they preemptively encourage attrition. Now the people with the skills to potentially automate away work (including via AI) can't get to it because they are now backlogged by doing the manual work themselves that they might otherwise be automating away. What's more: the way they "force attrition" aren't directly via layoffs which might let them target the lowest performers, but rather they give shitty pay raises across the board, which means the top performers leave as they have the most incentive to leave (they're the most able to get higher paying jobs elsewhere).

I'm not one to invoke "incompetence" willy-nilly, but I'm having a hard time explaining these policies apart from it.

Anyway, I bring this up because it didn't quite fit into your 3.5 rubric.

I am seeing this first hand. A light year for layoffs (below 5 percent), a couple of months after a universally unpopular end of year comp, where exceeding expectations meant you get a raise right around inflation (3 ish percent).

Good people are leaving, people who can't, don't. It's hard not too see how it dilutes talent.

One of the consequences of having bean counters run tech companies.