Microsoft's review system sounds like an even more vicious variety of what Google has, which is more than bad enough to fell a great company.

Google has a bicameral system consisting of (a) manager-assigned "calibration scores" that are the outcome of stack-ranking nonsense and (b) annual peer reviews. It seems like a bicameral review system would be a good thing, by removing career SPOFs. If a bi- or multicameral system is well-designed, that's exactly what you get: multiple paths to success.

Where Google fails it is by making it an AND-gate rather than an OR-gate, even for lateral transfers, much less promotions. (Without good calibration scores, transfer is impossible.) At Google, people need managerial support AND peer support to advance, which means there's endless jockeying for visibility in addition to manager-as-SPOF. It really is the worst of both systems.

In a properly-run company, you have several review signals: peer review, extra-hierarchical work, demonstrated curiosity and will to self-improve, and managerial review. For firing (excluding people who do something outright wrong) the decision should be based an AND-gate. If someone does poorly by his manager AND can't get peer support AND can't find a transfer, then it's time to fire him. Not before. That's how decent companies do it. On the other hand, for title upgrades and pay raises and better projects, decent companies use an OR-gate. If he gets good managerial reviews OR good peer reviews OR has other managers interested in taking him, then treat the employee as successful: give him a decent raise and let him transfer as he wishes.

Now, managerial positions are a bit different. There, you actually want to see strength in several signals before you give someone power over other people. So there's justification for making selection into management be based on an AND-gate. You just really need to be sure that the person can lead. That's different. But title upgrades, pay raises, project allocation, autonomy and transfer opportunities should be based on an OR-gate; if one signal indicates potential for success, move forward. If you can't see this, then you're FAL and you should not be allowed to leave the house without assistance, much less make decisions that affect other people.

Google fucked up its bicameral system by making it an AND-gate for promotions and transfers and an OR-gate for adversity. That's the destruction of what was once a great company. It has cost the software industry billions of dollars worth of value. It sounds like a similar billion-dollar immolation occurred at Microsoft.

Microsoft's system, advanced half a decade or more further in necrosis, seems much the same but worse. It seems like these types of systems get worse over time because more people want to tack on their own shitty ideas as more people develop the system. They're not happy enough with other peoples' pre-existing shitty ideas; they need to make a personal mark on a shitty system by making it noticeably shittier, enough that they hear people complaining about their changes in the cafeteria (which they justify as a good thing because "those people are obviously no good, because good people have nothing to worry about come review time.")

I am glad the Vanity Fair article got published. I have no strong feeling about Microsoft either way, and I have a lot of respect for the great work coming out of Microsoft Research, but it's about time that we see bad HR policies leading to outright exposure and frank humiliation.