Intel did this years ago and ended up laying off a principal engineer in-charge of a major chip project. Stupid^3.

If a company hates its employees that much, it's probably a sign to find more stable employment elsewhere. If there don't appear to be such candidate organizations, this is a sign to found a worker-owned co-op.

His manager may have told him that was how he was selected but no sane company would do a random layoff lottery. It was a cop-out by his management chain.

Don’t know if this is real or not but if the person was hired in 2000 they likely received stock at $35/sh worst case. And follow on grants. It’s $450 now so I assume, at least financially, the arrangement worked well?

Companies have no loyalty towards employees, especially large companies, with only the people who sacrifice the most having a semblance of job security. If you want to limit your hours every day, or draw lines around your role, then you inevitably are filtered out. This is the subtle way that companies exploit individuals.

I don't know what the fix is, but it probably has something to do with not letting companies have double standards. If they demand loyalty and sacrifice, then employees should demand that back.