his contract to sell w uber had a significant earn out, the 680m was based on hitting different tech milestones. He hit none of them before he was fired.
Why would you ever “sell” a company under such conditions? “We pay you $1T if you write a simple loop in the next two days.” Next day when you come to work: “Fired LOL. Do not cross Start, do not collect $1T.”
While this is a crazy example, I have been in very similar kind of position (not $1T for a loop, though) and been worried about the strong motivation to get rid of me on certain N+364 day timelines. It didn't happen and I was treated quite honorably. I think if you want your acquisitions to go well, you don't do cheesy stuff like firing people to save money (when the integration is otherwise going quite well) or else your future acquisitions will be harder. People talk.
Usually you don't agree to contracts that let you be fired for the sorts of things that don't end up with you in court. Buyers, being reasonable, refuse to sign contracts where they can't fire you for being a criminal.
The difference between a court and a contract like that is that the court is impartial and has a clear bar of criminality ("innocent until proven guilty" to some standard of proof), whereas it's always in the company's interest to fire you at a mere accusation of a potential crime (or non-criminal wrongdoing)...
Which is why, when you're selling a company for hundreds of millions of dollars in unvested stock, you don't sign a deal where the buyer can fire you for "mere accusations of a potential crime". Uber lost the lawsuit with Google and had to pay a quarter of a billion dollars. I'm sure their contract said something like "if you have materially misrepresented information to us that results in us getting sued for a quarter of a billion dollars, we can fire you".
Because that's a trick that only works once for the buyer so you know they're not going to pull it. It may not even work that one time because you'll tie them up in court.
