Based on my Google manger time and prior experience, the problem isn't necessarily the promo orientation - it was the emphasis on tech heroics to justify the pr

Based on my Google manger time and prior experience, the problem isn't necessarily the promo orientation - it was the emphasis on tech heroics to justify the promotion. Rumor I heard was that pre-IPO the only was to get a stock option/grant boost was to be prompted. I believe the first actual annual refresh was in '06. For several years after that it was 100% managed at the SVP level, so you needed to be known at the top of your management chain to get a refresh beyond the algorithmic minimum. Also there was top level compression because Google didn't have L8, 9, or 10s for a long time - if Jeff Dean is a L8, a new hire previous "Director level" engineer lands at 7 if they are lucky. Given that Google frequently hired at one or two job grades below typical Si Valley, promo was a MAJOR motivator, and you needed to seem as though you fit in at the next level up. Google's approach to the Peter Principle was that if you got promoted and then didn't meet expectations, they would manage you out. The question was always "Is that project really L6, L7, L8, L9 work?" I saw someone who changed the way a longstanding internet protocol was seen and replaced it based on their research stuck in the "only L6 level work" category. And of course the promo committees were filled with people who got promoted under these regimes. Corporate culture gets set and maintained in strange and interesting ways.