AFAIK, that's not really how Google's system works. Yes, managers will give numeric performance scores to people on their team. And yes, those raw scores will almost certainly be adjusted. But it's not as crude as simply normalizing the scores to fit a given curve. Instead there's a process to try to make sure that one manager's 3.5 is the same as a 3.5 of the other managers in the same area and the same office, by looking at what they actually accomplished. Then the scores would be calibrated across progressively bigger and bigger units, until everyone is more or less on the same scale.

If it turns out that one manager is giving consistently higher scores than another and can't support it, then it seems quite reasonable and fair for there to be an adjustment down.

This is just my understanding of the process, based on comments by people involved in various stages of it, many years ago. Maybe I misunderstood, or maybe things have changed. It wasn't a perfect system either, people with a bad manager who can't argue their case could still get screwed. But despite all that, the calibration scores never felt like an adversarial process. Certainly nothing like some of the MS stack ranking horror stories.

Most of us don't. The practice is largely confined to Silicon Valley, and there are plenty of other places for any variety of technologist to work. Why anyone wants to work for Google is beyond me.

It's not at all largely confined to Silicon Valley - GE and Microsoft were the places that really popularized stack ranking, back in the 80s, and it's all over Wall Street and consulting. It may be largely confined to the United States - I don't have enough international work experience to know whether other countries do it, but just judging by cultural differences, it seems somewhat unlikely.

As for why anyone works for Google - as a recently ex-Googler, I can answer that. Most of us don't think about it at all. The calibration scores are hidden from us, and they only have observable effects once a year when bonuses and raises come out. And most Googlers are paid ridiculously well anyway (don't we have an article on HN about Bay Area gentrification every few days?), and typically would be working in finance if they cared about maximizing financial payout. So people work for Google because they want the other things Google can provide - challenging technical problems, smart coworkers, the chance to impact millions of users even in a tiny way - and it doesn't particularly matter what management thinks of us.

Compensation was a small part of my decision to leave. I left because I felt that I had learned everything I could learn at Google, and the stuff that I did want to explore and learn about could only be done outside of the company.

I don't know about "largely", but it certainly is also highly dependent on the management in place. One place I worked one of the managers basically implemented an unofficial "stack ranking" within his group of 4-6 employees so that he could always have a scapegoat.

I'm not sure how much it is a case of Americans tolerating it, rather than Americans lacking decent labour legislation to challenge this sort of nonsense. Luckily in Ireland we have pretty good labour law that gives us better protection than our colleagues in the US.

Because we're afraid of having something like the post office in the private sector.

It is really hard to fire federal employees, even if they are drunk on the job, make racist comments about customers, call their supervisors degenerates, refuse to sell stamps that are in-stock, or just hang out in the corner chatting while a line of people stretches out the door.

> I'm not sure how much it is a case of Americans tolerating it, rather than Americans lacking decent labour legislation to challenge this sort of nonsense.

Not having "decent labour legislation" is a result of "Americans tolerating it". If Americans didn't tolerate it, they'd have legal protection against it.

It has been my experience that, whenever labour laws that are favourable to the employees/designed to protect the employees, someone will protest it because it can be abused by employees. Of course, laws that protect people can be abused; I don't doubt that there are people who are out to game the system for all it's worth. But how come they never consider the flip side of employee protection laws; that the employer has more opportunity to screw the employee over when there are little to no laws protecting the employee. Aren't employers just as corruptible as employees? And they're in a position of power, to boot. An example? One of the replies you got.

I suspect such attitudes are part of the whole mindset; corporations first, then the rest of us mooching, non-job-creators.

I think by labor law you mean socialism, maybe communism.

No, I don't. I mean laws governing the relationship between workers and employees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_law Do you think that placing legal reins on employers' ability to do whatever they want with their employees is akin to socialism?

I had hoped that adding communism made the intention of my maybe too subtle post more obvious.

Regardless of whether you're mocking the American Political Right or you're a member, the post is at best a weak firebrand. I still don't think I understand what were you attempting to add to the discussion.

It is, of course, not communism unless there are communes involved. But I suspect you don't actually know what either "socialism" or "communism" means.

Edit: Unless you're being sarcastic, in which case I remind you of Poe's Law.

I suspect executives like it because it produces data that looks like an example from an MBA textbook and is easy to act on. It's also easy to defend for the same reasons. In the same way that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, nobody ever got fired for stack ranking.

Well, there's the theory it clears out deadwood.

Of course, its intensely and inextricably political nature means it's doing something else, and the true insanity comes when it's done indefinitely and fundamentally changes the corporate culture.

Hard to imagine Google staying competitive if it really takes hold....

(As for the "nobody ever got fired, Steve Ballmer or more likely the board that fired him might disagree....)