You're assuming it must be one OR the other. Why can't it be both? If you're rewarded for your good decisions, it seems normal to also be punished for the bad ones, in a proportional manner.
I wasn't making a normative claim, only disagreeing with OP's characterization that executives' pay packages are justified by the threat of going to jail.
>If you're rewarded for your good decisions, it seems normal to also be punished for the bad ones, in a proportional manner.
FAANG engineers are paid pretty well. Should they go to jail (or even fined 5-6 figure sums) for bugs they're responsible for?
Software bugs caused 900 miscarriages of justice and "at least four suicides"[1]. The Crowdstirke bug caused millions of machines to go down and bililons in damage[2]. Sure, that might not compare to crashing 2 planes, but it feels entirely arbitrary to exclude those two cases.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
[2] https://www.cio.com/article/3478068/counting-the-cost-of-cro...
>FAANG engineers have little impact on the org individually
Sounds like the "Responsibility will turn out to be so diffuse that no individuals will be found to be liable" excuse a few comments up. FAANG engineers are 100% responsible for memory corruption bugs that they introduce.
The diffuse nature of the after effects of faang engineers actions make them harder to prosecute, but potentially much more devastating than even the tragedy of two airline crashes.