At Google a large set of people seem generally upset that you have try hard to get promoted. There seems to be an idealism that the system should somehow drag t

At Google a large set of people seem generally upset that you have try hard to get promoted. There seems to be an idealism that the system should somehow drag the best people upward while they keep their focus on doing the best work. Well yeah, that would be nice. But it's both impossible and useless! Promotion is a game, you can't win if you don't play. You do not have to be a ruthless opportunist, but you have to be willing to spend some of your time advocating for yourself and making some allies. Compensation (in money or status) is only used for retention so unfortunately many of the people who are not wiling to play the promo game are not willing to play the job market and therefore the company has no rational reason to increase their compensation. The article is, imo, far too cynical about IC promotion. But it does have some good points about manager promotion. Manager incentives are very poorly aligned with good outcomes. An exceptional manager can get promoted without resorting to bad behavior but a mediocre manager has to do all of the things in the article (grow team too fast, steal credit, jump projects) to keep up.