[basseq]

I guess my point is that they still got hit by the steamroller: they lost their jobs and future earnings, they lost any equity (which certainly was part of aforementioned bonus), etc.

Earning a nice bonus last year is a reasonable consolation prize, but I'd wager most execs would rather have had a lower bonus and the ability to continue to manage an operational bank through 2023.

[cronix]

They cashed in millions in stock just before they announced they needed to raise $2B in capital to offset losses on their bond sales, which led to a crash, on top of their bonuses. If that's getting hit with a steamroller, sign me up.

[digitaltrees]

So far as I have seen, every equity sale was part of standard, pre-cleared and disclosed plans. And all those executives had significantly more equity they probably would have loved to sell but couldn't.

[jjoonathan]

No, the investors got hit by the steamroller. Management, who knew exactly what they were doing, did not lose their earnings. Future earnings? Some of these were Lehman execs -- their ability to land a position in SVB is proof that they probably did not sacrifice future earnings.

> Earning a nice bonus last year

Why do you think this was limited to last year? I suspect they made risky moves again and again and again and got paid out again and again and again.

[digitaltrees]

This is so out of touch with the reality of people. No one is knowingly taking risk that will bankrupt their company for a few million dollars in bonus when they can instead have a 10 or 20 year career where even 25% of that bonus with accrue to much more value. Further, their bonus were stock, and every single executive at SVB lost most of their equity which was paid over years and locked up as options.

Edit: after reading this article posted by lordfrito below I stand corrected. SVB executives knew the risk and took it anyway. But not for personal gain but to maximize firm value as it allowed higher profit which increased the valuation (so yes they benefited personally, but to a greater extent than just a few million in bonuses).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-13/svb-failu...