How will these people mentally cope with the coming realities of having to trade their $300k comp (some of which didn't require a lot of work during their tenure) for making $80k writing CRUD apps and line of business software at some local shop 40hrs a week. The job market isn't great right now, not to mention oversaturated with programmers, it's not like they will all move over to Google tomorrow. Even if they have plenty of money, it's an ego hit to slash your comp by 2/3 just to stay employed. Not to mention they have the stink of layoff on them, even if you were a top performer it's the very first question recruiters ask incredulously. These people had a golden ticket but fell into the vat of chocolate.