[asteroidbelt]

"Personal inconvenience/embarrassment" will hurt his ability to operate the company efficiently. Protecting CEO is (usually) in the best interest of minor shareholders.

This is why companies pay for personal security of CEOs or for their personal PR (most large companies, not just Facebook).

> spending unlimited amounts of company cash

This is clearly not the case here.

[lordlic]

$4.9B over what the fine would otherwise have been is pretty hefty. I don't think any human alive is worth $4.9B to their employer.

[asteroidbelt]

Perhaps damage to Z would result in damage to FB for more than 5B (company market cap would definitely fall for more than that, and it could result in large mismanagement in the following years), so he is worth it.

[lordlic]

I meant "really" worth, for some reasonable definition of "really." But I can't argue that market cap is a more pragmatic definition of worth, so your point is fair enough I guess.