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Comment by allochthon | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious why these practices continue despite what seem to be obvious deficiencies.

hard to say. probably the people who are high enough to make any change are too removed from the action to see the problems. maybe stories like this going viral will change things (companies do anything these days to avoid bad PR).

As soon as the C Suite has the same PIP / stack rank / % attrition forced, the policy will be ended.

Why stop at C suite? Stack rank the board of directors too for good measure, and do it by shareholder vote of confidence.

Stack rank the board of directors too for good measure

The only time stack ranking was a force for good was when the French applied it to their ruling elite in the 1790s.

I guess this was meant as a joke, but you may want to read about the reign of Terror and how it led people from all social classes to rat each other out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

See also how people had to get a "certificate of civism" lest them be considered suspect by default: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_civism

I honestly had never even thought about where in the org it stops... But seriously, no CEO team would cut 10% of their executive committee each year. It would be a sign that they don't know how to properly vet candidates, and be terrible for morale and turnover...

VP level often has fairly high turnover, maybe that's where this originates from.

In my experience at the VP level you have many highly skilled reports who are gunning for your job. Once you get the VP job then there may be many more enticing opportunities at other companies with just tough competition in the current position.

It continues because we live under capitalism and the upper class wants to divide working people amongst themselves at all levels, because it keeps them on top. It really is that simple.

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