The problem is that the best engineers are not necessarily working on some useful project. Also, I know a few who are just punching their time cards making $600k a year doing almost nothing. They too know it and admit it. They should have moved on to more useful tasks, but decided to park their as--s and relax.
Everyone knows that there's a ton of useless projects, legacy tools, old stuff being maintained that no one wants or uses, etc that needs to be culled. Not to mention the many useless hardware projects that seem to get cancelled every 6 months. How much have they cost, anyone knows?
I think a few will be looked at now. I think they'll do a reverse calculation on what the headcount needs to be for an operating margin that satisfies wall St. Maybe we can live with 50-60k employees max.