Eh - having had to do these myself at Google for large orgs over the past few years, i would not assume it was based on merit.

The cost disparities can be huge between team members and locations, and a lot of time it's being done to hit some EOY or mid-year budget number. They are also slowly trying to clean up location strategy.

So it's entirely possible it was based on cost and location, and not merit.

It would still be merit "under the covers" if everyone was the same cost/location, but they aren't.