[hansvm]

> or they didn't in which case they're negligent

I think some care should be taken in being too reductive here. If a CEO oversees just 50 people (maybe companies should be capped at smaller sizes?) then there will be at least a 50:1 information reduction even if they spend all their working hours in 100% efficient information transfer. Moreover, in many cases I would expect the bulk of that missing information to be the more negative aspects of the business -- who wants to look bad to their superiors?

Adding to that, defaults matter. If by default a CEO is culpable then it's suddenly possible to force them into jail by simply joining as a malicious employee.

> The risk of criminal liability is also the only possible justification for the high current level of CEO pay relative to average salaries at most big name companies.

Not necessarily (I think the idea is that they're paid a lot because they bring in proportionally more profits/cashflow/etc?), but I agree it's a little fishy that a CEO can take credit for large gains and be handed a golden parachute when a company's fraud sees the light of day.