"At some point there's nothing left to cut from the hollow shell." at which point the CEO sells the company and rides off into the sunset with all the millions

"At some point there's nothing left to cut from the hollow shell." at which point the CEO sells the company and rides off into the sunset with all the millions from his stock options, or , worst case is let go with a multi million dollar parachute. e.g: Fiorina got 21 million $ when she was fired from HP, after essentially gutting it. [1] With a bit of luck she'll be Senator and then she can apply her skills to governance! [1] To compare, at 50,000 $/startup, one million dollars invested YC style would seed 20 startups. (EDIT: corrected calculation, Thanks niyazpk/barrkel. That should teach me not to write quick comments while build/tests run)