Well, had he been fired the whole thing would've ended up in Court as he tried to get the full amount of his contract period (so all contractually defined payments until the end of his contract) plus likely all bonuses, while the company would be trying to prove he was fired for cause, all of which would be quite a public display of dirty laundry, at the end of which one side would lose and quite likely and indirectly both sides would lose.

Meanwhile, he wouldn't just accept to leave by his own hand "for the good of the Company" without compensation.

So that's how you end up with him "retiring" (legally he's the one leaving) with a golden umbrella (his compensation for doing so rather than drag it through the courts).

I'm almost certain that the Board fucked-up and don't want to see themselves personally trashed in Court whilst the company tried to prove the CEO had severely mismanaged, hence went for the "give him money for leaving quietly and not involving the Courts" option.

Ultimatelly the ones that should be held to account are the Board who hired him and apparently were either directly behind that genious idea of screwing their relationship with their customers or were behind him when he pushed that idea out. This is why in another post I very clearly state that the Board needs to be kicked out to begin to start restoring the trust of the customers.

PS: That said, the system is broken, which is how the seriously incompetent Board members (as amply demonstrated by them hiring him and this whole thing going ahead on their watch) ended up in their cozy sinecures, risk-free with their backs covered using the company's money, and also why he was hired in the first place with the kind of contractual conditions he got.

that’s why I put the “choose” into air quotes.

Air quotes? heh.

I suspect openly being fired would make harder for his mates in the boards of other companies to convince the remaining board members to hire him.

It's not about competence, it's about not having quietly stepped out when asked to (only CEOs that don't quietly step out are fired, the rest "retire") - you could say that the deadly sin by a CEO for a Board is not incompetence, it's making a fuss when asked to leave.

At that level cronyism is rife and merit is secondary to connections.

As long as he doesn't have a big black spot on his CV, his mates can keep doing him favours using the resources of the companies in which they're board members or similar and he will keep on doing favours to them in the same way.

It's not by chance that in that environment there is a web were the CEOs of some companies are board members in other companies, whose CEOs are board members of the first company - or in other words "I scratch your back, you scratch my back".

They'd get paid severance if they were fired - it's likely them "retiring" saves the company money overall.

I do agree that CEO compensation is insane, due to perverse incentives, but this seems like harm reduction on the part of the board

I do apologize for missing your sarcasm as well.

It's advantageous to have someone quit from a severance/unemployment stance.

It's also why if you feel like you're about to get fired without cause and don't already have a job lined up you should absolutely wait for them to fire you so you can collect unemployment.

It really doesn't matter if they step down or are fired. The words are meaningless. They will still get hired to run another company.