As Elon Musk is proving yet again at Twitter, Big Tech has always had trouble with layoffs.

In fact, Big Tech has always had trouble accepting a reality in which it is not a deity basking under the glow of the California sun, somehow impervious to the ordinary plights of the common business.

But now, as the facade crumbles and the shortcomings of the industry are laid bare, it is ultimately the tech employees who are left to suffer the consequences. The rose-colored glasses are off, and workers can finally see past the rhetoric and marketing materials that drew them to the supposed promised land of Silicon Valley to the reality that, at the end of the day, even tech companies have just one audience to appease: Wall Street.

While there are, of course, some anomalies, the layoff strategies that Big Tech has taken to date seem to careen between two extremes: cringe-worthy or Disney-villain-level. Many have resisted even using the term layoffs to avoid sending a signal to investors that their business is in trouble — a reality that anyone would be able to see simply by taking a quick glance at the stock market.