I've worked under people who are on public boards. I can tell you that in their cases it was very easy money. Even more so since I did a lot of their work for them. Not everyone treats it that way, but it's cushy for a lot of them.

That's what O & D insurance is for. The company pays for that.

Not to be pedantic but I've only heard it referred as D&O insurance. The directors come first and its relatively expensive: google quotes $5k a year per million of coverage.

Also not all things are covered and it can be litigated (in my limited experience) to force the insurer to pay. Plus you can still do something that gets you personally in trouble even with coverage.

Obviously, a sweet gig and incredibly hard to get. But everything has some hair around it.

Insurance can cover judgments but can’t get you out of being repeatedly deposed.

> easy money

Kind of a strange thing to say 350k to work as a board member is easy money, when the requirement to become a board member in the first place is to be a CEO who was previously being paid tens of millions of dollars a year.

There is no requirement to have formerly been a CEO. There are no requirements at all for sitting on a board.

Still being paid millions to be CEO. Being on a board is nowhere near a full time commitment.

This is not true at all. There is zero requirement that sitting on board requires prior experience as a CEO.

I can imagine that the knowledge one gathers from being on the board is worth much more than that.