> Garnish some large cut of any future earnings. That already happens. People usually hear about the exceptions where someone has such good connections they fa

> Garnish some large cut of any future earnings. That already happens. People usually hear about the exceptions where someone has such good connections they fail upwards or sideways, but mostly if you fail at being CEO that's the last job you'll ever have. You can't really drop back down to being an IC at that level, and if you get fired from the CEO role then it's very hard to get another one. You're basically self employed or retired from that point on, which is why CEOs demand such high compensation. Examples of CEOs who failed and then never got another real job: - Marissa Mayer. Not even clear Yahoo!'s failure was her fault, but after she stopped being their CEO she had to make her own no-name startup and has been there ever since. - Carly Fiorina. Fired from HP in 2005, never worked in a corporate executive role again. Had a few board memberships but switched into non-profit and politics. - Steve Ballmer. Early retirement in 2013 aged 58 after saying he planned to stay until at least 2018. Post-MS he did some philanthropy but hasn't worked. - John Sculley. Fired from Apple in 1993, never worked as a corporate executive again although he did have a good career as a tech investor, board member and the like. - Ellen Pao. After being exited from Reddit she never worked as a corporate executive again, instead spending time on non-profit feminist advocacy. - Tony Hayward. After the Deepwater Horizon disaster he was fired from BP and has had no executive positions since. There are lots more examples like this. Failure at the CEO level is usually failure for life, so like in professional sports that pushes up the comp people demand to take the job, as if they get booted out they need enough saved resources to last a long time.