So hertz, which was leveraged with a decision maybe (maybe!)outside and preceding the CEOs tenure, in a low margin industry, should shoot the (maybe good, maybe bad) CEO just because?

Would you join a company in a 363 process without even knowing who the new owner would be, or if you could compete on emergence, or if you could emerge in a commercially viable way? Where are these amazing industry turning executives that are willing to take market comp for way above market risk for their career? Where are these self sacrificing martyrs?

Would you have joined RIMM versus Apple in 2013 at the same (or likely lower) level of compensation? If no, then why would someone want to be part of a BK turnaround.

If a C level exec joins a failing company accepting stock compensation presumably they understood the risks. Having lost a bet, they could renegotiate a higher salary for future work but hardly need to be compensated for a lost bet on past work.

Exactly! They’re not being paid-back for their past losses. They’re being paid to stay on and do future work to try to salvage things.

These bonuses are pre paid, not compensation for future work.

Have you ever accepted a signing bonus? Did it have a requirement to be paid back if you quit before a certain date? If these bonuses have no requirement that the recipient "not quit before XYZ date", then I agree they're improper. I strongly suspect they have such a requirement.

If you interview with us for 4 hours and get a job offer with a $12K signing bonus and a requirement that it's paid back pro-rated if you leave within 12 months, are you being paid that $12K for the 4 hours of interviewing, out of the goodness of our heart, or $1K/month for each of the next 12 months of work?

The issue is the executives keep the bonus even if fired in bankruptcy. Further, because the money has technically already been paid out, the bankruptcy court can’t claw it back. It’s therefore not pay for work done.

At best executives get leverage in their job search and a fallback option should their job search fail to find better options. So, it’s not even an effective means to maintain someone actually talented.

As multiple people wrote: you don't need new execs to join the company, you can promote from withing directors or VPs that already know the business and have all the knowledge on how to run it. If you don't have such people in the company then it's a C level error and the company is doomed anyways.

Five months ago, those people were judged less competent to hold the top spots than the incumbents, as evidenced by the org chart at the time. What’s changed?

Filling the top spots in most listed companies is a matter of politics and relationships, not competence. There are many companies known in the market for hiring and promoting based on criteria other than competence, for example political influence, diversity or political stance. Not everybody is FAANG hiring experts, these are exceptions in a big world.

In an ideal, meritocratic world, sure, but people get promoted to positions for all sorts of reasons that have very little to do with their competence.