They had a quota to fill, and they didn't know or didn't like anyone on that team.

Not that that is a justification, but it's almost certainly the reason.

A quota of people who needed to be on PIPs? That's insane.

Just a few months ago it came to light that managers at Amazon hire new people they're planning to fire shortly after, so they don't have to fire people they're attached to in order to meet such a quota.

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-tracks-unregretted-at...

Just a few months ago? Wasn't that the case several years ago, or was than MS or one of the other FAANGs?

A few years ago there was a lot of noise about stack ranking at Microsoft, and there was also a lot about people crying at their desks at Amazon several years ago - perhaps you're remembering one of those. I believe the specific "hire to fire" press is pretty recent.

I remember hearing about "hire to fire" at Amazon as far back as 2014, though the claim was that it happened "merely" enough to have a cute name, not that it was endemic.

I think it was perhaps circulating in the professional networks and rumor mills before. I remember hearing about it a few years ago.

That is so fucked up

Keep the blood fresh. The slowest/oldest/worst 10% has to go! Stack ranking is the best!

Almost all casual retail jobs in my area operate like this. It is somewhat stunning when you compare them to national chains not using localized labor practices.

and if a mgr is not there to defend his team...

Imagine getting fired because your manager is on a leave and their manager sees you as free real estate.

Tells a lot about company politics. Often times I'm left wondering how come capitalism still survives.

Actually, writing this down made me think that big companies (like the FAANG mostly are) are quite anti-capitalistic. I'm not sure how to call them, because sure as hell they're not socialist or anything of the sorts, but it's reasonably clear that many of the theoretical capitalistic principles that many of us know in one way or another do not apply to these economic entities.

Maybe more medieval: building up fiefdoms, power, resources, etc

Needs a catchy name, Capitalist Feudalism? Feudal Capitalism?

Corporate Feudalism?

Most companies are authoritarian internally. The people at the top make decisions and push those down to their lieutenants who then enforce those rules on the masses.

They are totalitarian. It really is strange, these corporations theoretically battling in a marketplace, but these large orgs with 15 datacenters and IT departments from six mergers are just thrown together into a big hierarchy and the middle management Machiavellis do knife fights over budget.

These companies could make competing internal IT groups and datacenters competing for projects and services in the company.

But companies don't like free markets and competition, every company strives to establish monopoly control. Likewise, middle management doesn't like competition, it clouds their promotion paths.

Oligarchic. (Internal) Leaders who run successful businesses call the shots for everyone.

You might like Ronald Coase's "The Nature of the Firm". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm

A business is a socialist command economy embedded in a market economy, which has odd boundary effects at the interfaces.

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I had read about it and about Coase relatively recently but I had skipped the subject, mostly. I think it's a very interesting subject, especially for our field, to be honest I didn't expect for the consolidation at the top to happen so fast (~10-12 years) and at so grand a scale, 9 of the biggest 10 companies by market cap are tech companies (I'm including Tesla here).

Command economies are not necessarily socialist. In particular, businesses really don't fit the definition of socialism.

> Command economies are not necessarily socialist.

One counter-example comes immediately to mind, but mentioning that would cue a whole tedious discussion of "But that is socialism, it's even in the name!" vs "Just because it's in the name doesn't mean it actually is socialism!", so I won't spell it out.

> In particular, businesses really don't fit the definition of socialism.

No, true. As others have mentioned, feudalism ses a better fit.

Capitalism does not imply free (i.e. competitive) market, or the other way around. Capitalism is an economic system in which ownership of the means of production (aka capital, hence the name) is treated the same as any other property, and can thus be accumulated indefinitely. Large corporations monopolizing whole industries is a pinnacle of raw capitalism in that sense, and it's also extremely bad for free market.

Do you mean the fairy tales that rich capitalists have ingrained into the American public consciousness about the unassailable axiomatic good that are "free markets"?

Because actual capitalism is just the means of production being privately owned and operated for profit. It says nothing about how companies operate or what kind of dystopian politics they might have.

Hate to break it to you, but the word you’re looking for is “anti-competitive”. Capitalism is in fact designed to be anti-competitive, so in the absence of laws punishing anti-competitive behavior, capital accrues to those with the largest mass of capital.

Usually performance evaluations are done with managers of a certain level; if there is no manager to represent his/her direct reports, with stacked ranking they all get at the bottom. I personally had a direct report, ~ 10 years ago, with PIP because her previous direct manager was 3 months on paternity leave so she drew the short straw. The person was an average performer, so I fixed the PIP situation and she is still working there.