> Performance and compensation were completely separate, which was also nice.

Huh? How is that nice? Does performance and compensation not correlate in your ideal world, or am I misunderstanding it?

In my ideal world, no they do not. Pay equals what it would cost to rehire me today. Performance should always be great for what you are expected to do.

Where the two correlate is that if you're hiring a mid-level person they get mid-level pay, and if they are top performing mid-level, they get promoted to senior and get commensurate pay.

So performance leads to promotions which leads to better pay. But pay is not directly correlated with performance. I expect everyone in the same level to have equal performance (over the long term, of course there will be short term variations).

I read that as compensation wasn't correlated to your performance relative to peers. Which is I think what most people would appreciate in an ideal world. I don't think they meant absolute performance and compensation weren't linked.