You spin a good yarn, and maybe your theories do apply to someone, somewhere (and maybe to yourself, possibly only in your own head, as your ego attempts to reconcile congnitive dissonance), but in my own observations at Google, I have not found this alternative reality to match reality, ever, so I must conclude your explanation highly improbable. I think Occam's Razor would agree with me.
As an aside, I have found a large number of underperformers in every organization past a certain size. The reason is that hiring is inherently hard, and once employees have exhausted their immediate social circles, it is extremely error prone.
I've found that effectively weeding out non performers, who are inevitably hired, is one hallmark of a healthy organization. As mostly hire As but B players mostly hire Cs, and Cs put you out of business. This goes double for managers (who, incidentally, are continuously rated by their reports at Google).
I agree with you insofar as companies ultimately have to get rid of people who've ceased to contribute (or never were).
The problem is that "low performer" witch hunts rarely do anything about the actual problem employees. If you don't know that, you either have worked for less than 2 months in total, or you're completely fucking clueless. The true problem employees, who have a lifetime worth of experience at hiding their toxicity, stay. It's people who get unlucky (who don't have a whole career of underperformance to inform their strategies) that are swept out.
I'd rather companies just have an honest layoff, the way Wall Street does it. Layoffs have the Welch Effect, but that's not as bad as a system that actively selects for toxicity.
See, here's the impact distribution, where 1.0 is the average employee contribution:
'A' players : 1.5 to inf
'B+' players: 0.7 to 1.49
'B' players : 0.3 to 0.69
'C' players : -0.2 to 0.29
'D' players : -2.5 to -0.2
'F' players : -inf to -2.5
Okay, so the As and B+'s are usually fine (unless they are pre-emptively attacked by competing co-workers). B's are vulnerable and beholden to their bosses when a witch-hunt starts, but there's no good reason to fire them. C's need to shape up; those are the ones you need to improve or get rid of. D's and F's should probably be fired yesterday. It's too costly to keep them around.
It tends to be the B and C players (who could turn into A's, with better projects) who get smacked in a low-performer witch hunt. D's usually survive, and F's become managers in tough-culture systems because they tend to be the ones with severely toxic personalities who love the power.
As an aside, I have found a large number of underperformers in every organization past a certain size. The reason is that hiring is inherently hard, and once employees have exhausted their immediate social circles, it is extremely error prone.
I've found that effectively weeding out non performers, who are inevitably hired, is one hallmark of a healthy organization. As mostly hire As but B players mostly hire Cs, and Cs put you out of business. This goes double for managers (who, incidentally, are continuously rated by their reports at Google).