> I think there are also plenty of the the mythical 10x engineers that just checked out

I don't think that should be the real fear. The real fear is those 10x engineers still putting in equivalent effort, but now having to spend mental capacity on positioning themselves for future layoffs and worrying about getting fired.

I think we greatly underestimate the performance boost there is in security. When you don't have to worry about plan b, you can be so much more efficient at plan a.