I think stack ranking sucks ass and I agree that it's prevalent but even stack ranking isn't well-modeled by an executive team looking to squeeze every penny out of each employee. Some of the most notorious stack rankers also have some of the most notoriously generous comp packages.

I'm not seeing TC having gone up over the last 7-8 years with those "notoriously generous comp packages" places. Your typical senior eng at FAANG is still getting $350-450k/yr TC. Yet, inflation has changed a lot and the stocks at these companies have skyrocketed. They're only raising the bar in terms of competition for employees to stick with the company and not with their compensation.