My suspicion is that the company is positioning itself to be acquired.
- New FTO plan. That will get the unused PTO off the liability side of the balance sheet. This also removes the benefit of being a longer tenured employee. Thus giving more reason for those to leave the company (who are incidentally are probably more expensive employees).
- A seemingly substantial decrease in equity grants during this Thrive cycle. Removal of future liabilities.
- More aggressive force fitting of employee rankings. The bottom tier is twice the size it was prior to Covid. Possibly with the goal of higher than normal voluntary workforce departures.
- Revenue has been generally flat for GK's entire run. If you factor in inflation, NetApp is going backwards. MB did an amazing job turning all of the other knobs could control: margins, expenses, etc. That drove up the stock price by making the bottom line look better. At this point, I don't think there are any other knobs to turn other than growing top line revenue. That seems to be the hill that can't be climbed.
All of this hints at making the books look better. For a company that has prided itself on going independently, a lot of the recent changes possibly signals a different direction in that regard.