Yeah, I agree with you totally. The promo culture is certainly broken, but the solution they propose seems....like startup worship at best, exploitation at worst (work harder without a payout and be happy).

I don't know what the solution is. I've been at amazon, and the number of abandoned promo projects are insane. Microsoft has like 7 billion levels, maybe they have it right, you can promo someone without it meaning a whole lot, but it still gives them greater pay and a sense of progression.