It can be shock to discover how little the company as an entity, and its upper management in particular, actually values you (or any other employee.) Employees are indeed cogs in a megacorp, and the relationship is transactional. The company demands loyalty because it can and because it is profitable, not because it will be reciprocated.
When it comes down to it everyone has their own interests as a priority so if a manager is told to let folks go they will gladly do it to keep their own job.
Even those in “upper management” are cogs.
Everybody responds to incentives. Not everyone is competent. And, the higher you go the less accountability there seems to be.
We pay a lot because we need these people who are capable of making tough decisions (copying everyone else by overhiring at a premium during low interest rates), they can't be kept accountable for their own mistakes like the rest of us (fired myopically as a sacrificial lamb during a down-market because investors demand executives copy everyone else (they're invested in everyone else))