During my 3-year at RIM, one of the first things I noticed was point #6. Anyone (almost) who had been at RIM for 5 years were likely to be Managers, 7-8 years,

During my 3-year at RIM, one of the first things I noticed was point #6. Anyone (almost) who had been at RIM for 5 years were likely to be Managers, 7-8 years, Directors, 10+, VPs. This was true regardless of competence. It came as a result of hyper-growth but it was never corrected once things began to slow down. If you started at RIM in mid-late 90s as an Analyst, you would proress to Intermediate 6 months later, then Senior within another 8-12 months. Within 2 years, you were a Supervisor/Team Lead and on and on it went. Very few talented people wanted to live or commute to Waterloo during that time. RIM hired who they could, gave away stock options, made employees wealthy and continued to promote them.As a result, the company is now top-heavy (VPs are almost numberless) primarily with people who had grown up in the system and have little external perspective.