The survivors will always suffer survivors bias. "Good things happened to me and bad things happened to you because"... I am better, stronger, faster... luckier...better lineage...have a guardian angel..whatever. We want to deny randomness. We can't live with the guilt of undeserved wealth or survival. Most people feel bad about the fallen but they need to believe there is meaning in their own lives.
There is no meaning. You will die and the survivors will write history to explain why it is all part of some grand plan.
The corporation, THIS corporation, exists solely to make the insiders rich. Insiders become insiders by making the pie bigger for other insiders and by expressing loyalty. The key insider is RAW. He is the one the gatekeepers, the board, turned over the keys to the kingdom...to make the board even richer.
This is an upstream oil company. We sell an undifferentiated and unbranded commodity. Our real product is our stock, differentiated by our financing and at one time our ability to find oil better and produce oil with competitive lift costs. We found and produced oil better by being the employer of choice.
Then the keys were given to RAW. We are no longer the employer of choice. Much of our talent has been driven out, replaced by algorithms. So much cheaper, more tribute to rise to the top to make RAW one of Houston's highest paid execs. So now our stock is differentiated by our newly reshuffled asset base and our financing. No future, no upside. We're at an inflection point. Time to unload the undifferentiated commodity. Quickly!
The corporation has served its purpose. RAW and the board are even richer. Another success story for their resumes. On to other boards.
If you were treated badly when you were laid off, it is the amoral insiders who saw you and see me as fodder, and as fertilizer, and as a cost. Most of us felt badly for you, eventually succumbing to our natural survivors bias. I gave donations to the fallen in 2016. I'd like to think I am not a bad person. I need to work every day for many years to buy food, put my kids through college, support my elderly parents. I am not an insider. Don't resent me. I can't live with it.
The insider won't have to keep working. They made money on the Wes IPO. They got the raises and bonuses and RSUs. The takover will be a big payday for them. Their good fortune is random distribution of benefits. But they see themselves as deserving.
I am not one of them.