I agree that "well, you drew the short straw in getting a pandemic" is a fair reason to explain an executive's failure socially, but I've never known investors to be this kind and charitable. In my experience investors want to extract value right now, and they're more than happy to chuck executives away if they think someone else could do better no matter what the underlying cause was.
Secondly, while this behavior is galling in the current context, it's hardly new. The 2005 law banning executive bonuses during bankruptcy wouldn't be put in place if it wasn't already a problem. Under the general case you laid out above, investors appear happy to hand out bonuses for executives that crashed the company after rolling a 3.
I agree that "well, you drew the short straw in getting a pandemic" is a fair reason to explain an executive's failure socially, but I've never known investors to be this kind and charitable. In my experience investors want to extract value right now, and they're more than happy to chuck executives away if they think someone else could do better no matter what the underlying cause was.
Secondly, while this behavior is galling in the current context, it's hardly new. The 2005 law banning executive bonuses during bankruptcy wouldn't be put in place if it wasn't already a problem. Under the general case you laid out above, investors appear happy to hand out bonuses for executives that crashed the company after rolling a 3.