And in most US states that never changes. You can generally be fired without cause all the time.

I've got a 4 year record of bi annual performance reviews where I've gotten 120% of the available performance based bonus, but I dont have tenure or anything. If my boss decides he hates my shoes and fires me, Im gone.

In a weird way, getting 120% of the available bonus works against you, in terms of demonstrating you're an excellent worker. Clearly, there's more "available" than the stated amount, which demonstrates the whole thing is a fiction to make people feel good. I mean, in the real world, 100% is the maximum of any thing, then there are made-up phrases like "giving 110%" or "8 days a week" or "120% of the available bonus." And of course, if you got 120%, who's to say your co-worker didn't get 150%?

Not trying to bust your balls, but it's kind of weird you felt it was necessary to randomly humblebrag about your performance bonuses.

To be fair, I dont think it's a humblebrag. If they worked at the same company as all of us, it might make sense to call it a humblebrag but, there are enough people around here in much better positions than those that get bonuses like these for it to make sense to brag about. That is, I (and probably most people on yc) would feel embarrassed talking about my best accolades when there are people on here that were able to retire by 30, work with Freeman Dyson, or found some successful company.

I think they just used themselves as an example to provide the support that their argument wasn't coming from someone who values doing the bare minimum (which I've seen argued on yc a few times).

It's not a humblebrag in terms of dollars. The idea being conveyed is that he (she?) should be unfire-able due to excellent performance (that's the brag), but that at-will employment negates the unfire-ability. I'm expressing doubt that 120% bonus is actually evidence he's such a great employee.

I think you may be missing how the bonus system works at many companies. 100% is defined as the maximum contractual bonus for consistently excellent performance but there is a separate discretionary maximum for exceptional cases beyond the contracted bonus. This discretionary bonus cap is often on the order of 50% higher than the contractual bonus cap. It is for when the maximum bonus is insufficient to reflect individual performance. A 120% bonus typically denotes a discretionary bonus beyond the contracted maximum, which almost always implies you are doing amazing work beyond the scope of your role.

Details vary by company of course but the tiny percentage of people who earned >100% bonuses at companies I've worked at were exceptional performers.

If the cap is an extra 50%, why did this guy only get 20% extra? In fact, he had 8 chances to get the actual max, and failed every time.

That's not the point. The point is performance reviews are poorly correlated with actual job performance, they aren't designed to measure job performance.

Would you hire someone knowing nothing other than they got 120% bonus at their previous job?

Yeah, once I got on the management side I learned the whole "oh you got 100% of the bonus but our numbers feel off so the bonus pool is only 75% funded so you only get 75%". It's all made up and we have to balance a dozen situations and someone is always going to get screwed. To be honest I usually give bigger bonuses to the people who are already underpaid, which is what I suspect may have happened to GP.

It's also why VP and above bonuses are written into our employment contracts -- we know better.

Also yeah, definition of "weird flex but ok".