I think a lot of that is the unofficial stack ranking all the FAANGs are using. It always pays to self-promote since the marginal difference between you and ano

I think a lot of that is the unofficial stack ranking all the FAANGs are using. It always pays to self-promote since the marginal difference between you and another person on the team might be zero. But if you've been promoting yourself to your manager and the other team member hasn't, you get RSUs/bonus while they get a PIP. You can even have lower actual performance but if your self-promotion is better than their output you get rewards while they get a PIP.