If it is were not Richard Fuld, Lehman Brother would go bankrupt during 2001/02 recession. If you look at the history, you will find out that LEH went into trouble since Robert Lehman died in 1969. It stumbled several times through various crisis mergered with several other big names like American Express, but it amazingly survived somehow. Till 2001, Richard Fuld took the lead it became running quite well for the first time in 50 years. I don't mean he is not guilty or not. I just want to say that maybe they were bad. But they are bad not because of taking huge pays. They are bad because they sail the ships to the bottom. Remember they are CEOs, which means they means to get huge pays when they took the position.