Yes, start-ups die if they are not meritocratic. Big companies are only prepared to give you X% of your annual salary as a bonus if you're good (with X < 15%).

Yes, start-ups die if they are not meritocratic. Big companies are only prepared to give you X% of your annual salary as a bonus if you're good (with X < 15%). So the bigger the upside of your "innovation", the more you will find the company and its reward model unfair and leave. So big companies lose the best employees and so have to buy back innovation by buying start-ups.