The problem is, before the layoffs, the employee may have felt they had an obligation to do right by the company. Once they're fired, it may no longer be the case. Some may very well become spiteful, act on their vengeance, & seek immediate retribution.
The risk posed by an employee going rouge is what most CEOs are playing for, especially as in GP's case, for a company as large as Google, where they need to plan for all possible failures and scenarios, some of which may or may not have happened before hand.
Maybe in US laid off employees can go rogue because they're treated like shit in the process?
> It is a genuinely terrible idea by the CEO though.
This is the culture where I am from. Nevertheless I absolutely believe that work relationships should be professional relationships, based on the employer paying for the employees time. Mutating that into "trust" will only create problems. The only thing I trust my employer with is him fulfilling his legal obligations towards me and I will fulfill my legal obligations towards him.