No, you misunderstand. If the stock and advisory role were given to Netflix as part of the deal, it would have been fine. That's not what happened here.

The benefits went to the executive directly. He asked for personal bribes to sign contracts on behalf of Netflix. He enriched himself at the expense of his employer. This is illegal.

It's the individual advisor, not the company, that gets the fee.

The company would generally have no interest in that kind of setup.

When the advisory board is public, it appears to be 'above board' even though it might be a conflict of interest at least it's hiding in plain sight.

> Like, seriously, more than half of the companies funded by YC do this. I think this is the norm more than the outlier.

Then charge them all. That will put a halt to the practice pretty quickly.

Until YC funds a company that specializes in making shell company^2 to make sure your C suite side deals are undetectable.

In those instances, do the managers at BiggerCorp who initiate the deal get the equity or the company?

Usually, the manager.