I guess if he can figure out how to cut 1500 jobs without affecting the bottom line, that saves the company $150m a year (assuming $100k average salaries) and s

I guess if he can figure out how to cut 1500 jobs without affecting the bottom line, that saves the company $150m a year (assuming $100k average salaries) and so a few more million in CEO salary seems like a drop in the bucket. But I'm guessing you could find someone else able to cut 1,500 jobs for a little bit less than $29 million a year. What it really comes down to is sort of like the old "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM". A board of directors has no incentive to take a risk on an unknown leader when they can hire a "brand name" one for a mere $29m. Same reason a company pays millions of dollars for a simple rebranding logo update or why Google pays $500k for top engineering talent. There are plenty of cheaper options out there that might be just as good or even better. But when the new company logo is a flop, you want to be able to say you hired the best. Not, "Well we saved a ton of money by using 99designs."