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Why do the executives still succeed when a company fails?

• Barrin92 8y ago
  possibly because the people who acquired the company saw some quality in the executives that they judged to be positive, even in the face of failure. Failure isn't really a great measure to judge individual performance or character. Companies can fail even with good executives and catch a lucky break with awful ones. In the technology space in particular were failure is very common, and to a degree encouraged.
• shoo 8y ago
  the failure of the company may have been largely unrelated to the performance and capability of the executives, and the value they may provide to an acquirer in the future (individually or part of the system of the company). e.g. the outcome is influenced by a variety of factors, the outcome can still be terrible due to factors outside of control even if the decisions and execution by the people involved were flawless. on the other hand, you can say a similar thing about non-executive employees. it is perhaps just a question of how essential or replaceable they are perceived as being. also, the executives will likely have a lot more power than employees when negotiating a deal with a possible acquirer and major investors, so it isn't terribly surprising that they cut a deal that favours the powerful parties involved in the negotiation, at the cost of less powerful parties such as employees. this isn't to argue it is the right thing to do, it is to argue that it isn't surprising when it happens.
• Johnny555 8y ago
  They don't always, at least not all of them.