>That's dumb and just an excuse. If it were true, why not keep the whole team and empower them and deliver 10x the existing value?

Because they don't need 10x the existing value, nor is the extra value they can actually use and benefit from that expandable.

And despite being quick to call this "dumb", you missed the most obvious reason: by not keeping the whole team they save money. Which makes their expenses lower and their VCs/shareholders happy. Keeping the team and "delivering 10x the existing value" doesn't leverage AI for reducing costs, and is hardly guaranteed to bring in much in the way of returns either.

Usable new value goes through a "pipe" so to speak, which constrains how much you can use or need. And that's the business and market and regulation realities.

If you're making Instagram for example you aren't going to change everything "just because you can", nor is there any reason to make 10x intrusive changes to the backend "to make it faster" or something with the danger of disrupting something, if it goes predictably well enough already.

Your marketing team, your engineering team (what's left of it), your business team, also need to understand and pace any changes, and have a specific vision, not just "anything possible, even 10x the things".