[robocat]

> kickbacks seems incredibly rare and is definitely not part of 99% of projects

If kickbacks work, but are surreptitious, then the losing bidders might not be aware of kickbacks? I could easily imagine an ecology of vendors where some regularly use kickbacks/bribes for their bids, and some never do. Personally I haven’t seen kickbacks either: but I’m in NZ, and I haven’t been much involved with the sales process.

[atlasunshrugged]

Yeah, it's possible for sure, but salespeople like to talk and there's lots of turnover between firms so I think there would just be more rumors floating around if there was a lot of bribery going on. That said, good point mentioning location, I'm in the US and have mainly worked in the US and W. EU, no context on bribery and the like outside of there. That said, I'd still be skeptical about someone from a big company based in the U.S. that could be hit by the U.S. govt by fines like Microsoft having a lot of bribery going on anywhere in its operations