Considering many of these people end up blacklisted from their industry, we as a society kind of owe it to them.

We owe that guy 104 million?

We definitely owe them enough money that they could comfortably fill the payment gap to their next job (which might be never, meaning enough money to pay for inflation-adjusted lost income during the entire remainder of their career).

But in the name of pragmatism, it is unlikely that whistleblowers would blow the whistle on a purely economical basis if the reward wasn't higher than that.

Then we should also pay whistleblowers who report environmental issues a lot of money. I don't think that's the case.

If someone saves you a billion, what's $100m?

What is society but our debts to eachother

Considering that money came out of the fine that their employer paid, I don't see a problem.

"Doing well by doing good."

you cannot be fired for being a whistleblower, so if you 'all the sudden' had performance problems and got fired shortly after whistleblowing, i imagine courts would side with you.

There are lots of things that you're not supposed to be fired for, that people get fired for. Unfortunately, the onus is on the employee, with almost no resources, to prove that the company was lying.

Sure, you can't be fired easily. But what about when it comes time for a raise or promotion? What about when you are interviewing for your next role? It's hard to imagine anyone getting punished for discriminating in these cases, since it's always easy to pin it on other things.

This is not how reality works at all. You're fantasizing.

They fire or sideline you for something else and you never get a job in that industry again.

And if you want to fight it, it's you vs. an army of corporation backed lawyers.

if you really can't be fired, you surely won't be doing any actual work ever, even if you still get paid.

What a strange story. He spent 40 months in prison for the things he blew the whistle on, and was the only person jailed for it.

Then he later received $104m, and yet still no one else went to prison.