[gearhart]

Well, sort of - it was a really good start, but given that was his incentive structure he should have been slowly and steadily building a sustainable business and instead he went and blew what could have been the opportunity of a lifetime by not being able to say no to bad strategy pressure from overly-aggressive VCs. Good negotiator. Bad CEO.

You could also say that it was really good negotiation by the other side; if you're a board member of a startup during the bubble and all you get to control is CEO pay, then you did everything you could to incentivise him to behave sensibly, and the rest unfortunately was on him.