I honestly don't see what you're getting at.

Obviously he was competent enough to get a promotion by whatever metric they were using.

I perfectly see where he is getting at, having witnessed how "promotions" go at yahoo myself :P

How do "promotions" go at yahoo?

It's a rather clubby environment where social climbing is key.

And those people aren't getting let go

I've seen and heard of people getting promoted to get them out of somebody's hair. That may involve a in-organization horizontal or vertical promotion, or a glowing reference for another job. Promotion for incompetence is a thing.

I'm not saying this was the case, but don't assume just because he was promoted or because they gave him a leave of absence (!!) that it must mean he was great.

If working at Yahoo is really so Kafkaesque that getting a promotion is meaningless in determining how you're doing and the value you're providing the company, then they deserve to lose the lawsuit.

I suppose it would explain some other things about how Yahoo's been doing recently.