Sonos laid off the people who built its reputation.

Sonos laid off senior design, product, and research leaders earlier this year. VPs, heads of UX research, people with a decade or more of tenure. About 3 percent of staff.

The CEO called it a push for speed and fewer management layers. He denied any AI connection, despite his own comments elsewhere about AI transforming internal operations.

Here is what nobody at Sonos will say out loud. The premium reputation that let them charge more than a bluetooth speaker maker was built by exactly the people who just left. Not the roadmap. Not the app. The taste calls those people made for a decade, the ones too subtle to show up in a quarterly report.

You can replace execution speed with a tool. You cannot replace the person who remembers why a decision was made five years ago and would catch you repeating the same mistake.

Cut speed if you must. Just be honest about what you are actually cutting.

What's the last decision at your company that only made sense because someone remembered the last time you got it wrong?