Re: Vmw
"As far as EMC2, Good employees will be re-handcuffed, and dead weight will be left to drift off. I would expect stuff they have called out as hyper growth groups like extremeIO and VxRail to stay compensated enough to stick around."
This ignores the point of the acquisition. Slash costs. Fatten margins. Ride declining revenue streams into the ground. Slashing costs = a realization that strategic initiatives and the people need to drive them don't make sense when you are selling hardware in a declining market for that hardware. A Taco Bell franchise doesn't need a $300,000 a year manager. That doesn't mean that $300k workers are "dead weight", it just means that the business model doesn't support that level of value. The real question is, "Who *is* worth decent high-tech wages in a company focused on commoditizing hardware?' Certainly a small group of elites. The rest of the folks working to do things beyond commoditization will need to find new homes.
The XtremIO organization was dismantled, by the way. Rockstars are out kicking butt at other companies. So much for that part of your theory.