Not till they turn a profit. He still gets a more than adequate salary for his work. A bonus not linked to performance is no longer a bonus, but rather another way of paying wages.
Wait, are we talking about a real situation?
Looks to me like you declared something about what is "adequate salary" without knowing what that salary is, what the bonus model being speculated upon would be, or what the opportunity cost for that hypothetical CEO would be for taking on such a high-risk position.
Upon what information do you base even having an opinion on what salary is adequate?
My point was that a bonus taken in lieu of salary is no longer a bonus but a wage, and extra rewards should be commensurate with the company's performance, not taken for granted for people at the top, who ultimately should take responsibility for the wellbeing of their company and employees. That means taking a cut in bonuses and perks when the company is doing badly, whether it is their fault or not, just as employees may lose their job, even if they do a good job but the company is struggling.
Why would that person take a risk of going to RIM?
My point is that sideline "this is an adequate salary" ranks up there with saying, "that's an adequate temperature for boiling that liquid". Well what's the liquid? What's the ambient pressure?
http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2187-incompetent-people-...
Someone with the talent to take a 500M loss and reduce it to 10M certainly would command the same salary with more upside at a solvent company.
And on the flip side, if there was a large bonus for reducing debt by that much by year end, would that incentivize this person to do anything possible to reduce debt even at the cost of the companies long term survival?
Expanding on that it seems reasonable to consider the possibility that bonuses for some year end goal could be causing CEO's and others to do whatever it takes to get their bonus while damaging companies long term survival, because they put their bonus first not the company.
A turnaround isn't a success until the company is in the black. If the new CEO just ends up producing a smaller crater (no such thing as a "soft landing" in bankruptcy court), he still failed.