I worked for a toxic CEO roughly three years ago, and, to answer the article's rhetorical question - he/she has to behave badly enough to hurt long time investo

I worked for a toxic CEO roughly three years ago, and, to answer the article's rhetorical question - he/she has to behave badly enough to hurt long time investors' pockets. I only made it a year under a micromanaged, 'everything is urgent' environment. It all stemmed from the CEO. He was in every meeting, including dev initiatives. Not only did he have no significant technical knowledge -- he also lacked in areas where I would expect most CEOs to excel: market strategy, branding, and finance management. My exit was a large blow to the company, as a lot of co-workers saw me as the unicorn who would 'fight the good fights' for everyone else. And, I did -- until my health started to decline from the stress. The story ends with me perusing LinkedIn one day, after five+ former co-workers had left, with him stepping down as CEO. He would have never made this decision on his own (pride, control), so I know that external investors definitely dictated this. So, I would say pay gets clawed back when CEO's consistently make poor business decisions and over promise/ under deliver to investors in order to obtain more funding.