For profit businesses aren't charities. When something doesn't line up with their objectives that something gets disappeared.
A little over 30 years ago, I co-founded a digital studio at Warner Bros, which became a new division. We started with 4 people and grew to about 140 over a three and a half year period.
During that period we were kept furiously busy working on a variety of feature projects, and high end commercials that featured WB IP's.
We created software as well, developing the toon shader that became part of Maya's rendering options, did pioneering work on stereoscopic 3D, producing the first all digital classically stereoscopic 3D Loony Tunes cartoon.
The group was firing on all cylinders. We weren't meant to be a profit center, but a way to reduce VFX costs on films by 20 to 30%. We met all of the metrics, exceeded some due to our software development, and were suddenly killed off because studio management decided that we no longer fit their new plans. 140 people instantly lost their jobs.
The division could have been sold. There were at least two very legitimate offers for the facility and staff. Warner said no. Had we continued and been successful away from Warner Bros it wouldn't have reflected well on the execs who had tried to kill us off, so better to make sure that there was no alternative.
Decisions get made and it's ultimately almost always about profitability. We make take it personally, but companies do not.
People way above Worzel made the decisions. He gave recommendations, knowing what their objectives were. Had he done anything differently it would have made no difference.
