One of the problems with Google is that it doesn't fit in well with the American notion of 'reward and punish'. the place is full of over-achievers who believe that getting rewarded is all of what life is about but the sort of thing that you do that looks good in a review is not necessarily the sort of thing that is best either for you, or for Google. It becomes a matter of being able to play the political game of looking good as much as one of actually being good. the ones I have been talking to are not doing well at politicking, know it, and resent the hell out of people they consider less qualified who now earn more because they are better at it and because they sit on code and won't accept patches so they can control things. it means that lots of people I know at Google are not sure they are being properly rewarded. the people I know are not so pleased at 'we all got 10%', they wanted 'I got 15% when the other guy only got 5%, hah!' this is the cultural thing they have been trained to think rewards are about, about being better than the other guy.