The “favorites” always get promotions; long work history with the company is no longer valued by new staff coming into senior leadership roles.
Toxic work environment and very poor morale in the newly-created AI Labs… this resulted in several people leaving their jobs (some newly hired) and over a dozen highly experienced others who were laid off due to job title changes (shifting to more experience with agile/scrum). Then some new people who were brought in to replace those who were let go had very little agile/scrum experience. NO opportunities for being put into a role that matched your experience and NO upskilling opportunities were given to those who needed to develop new skills to stay in the role they were in.