As I understand it, that money was the legitimate severance pay of Rubin (who, by the way, might have left the company for reasons completely unrelated to this sexual harassment accusation- the nyt article is written as to suggest a connection, without really stating it). There are plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations for Rubin leaving Google (dissatisfaction or other). Anyway, that was the money that the company felt was adequate for his contribution to its success. What is or should be the relationship between that sum and the claim of sexual harassment is frankly unclear to me.

How is his severance legitimate if a regular employee would never get this type of consideration? Regular people don’t get severance when they decide their job is boring and they want something new.