Executives cashing out their stock right before their company fails seems pretty self-evidently bad. Captains go down with their ships, they shouldn’t be the first people on the lifeboat.
But even the bonuses were on a scheduled calendar.
That said, it's possible they kept the ship afloat just a little longer, to make sure those payments occurred first. /Then/ they took on the risk of a cap raise. I'm not saying that happened. I haven't studied it closely enough.
For me what's more worrisome is the incestuous relationships.
"The sale of 12,451 shares on Feb. 27 was the first time in more than a year that Becker had sold shares in parent company SVB Financial Group, according to regulatory filings. He filed the plan that allowed him to sell the shares on Jan. 26." [1]
[1] https://fortune.com/2023/03/10/silicon-valley-bank-ceo-greg-...