“When you do a military coup, you're thinking, what are my exit options if this goes wrong? … But when you do a corporate coup, your exit options if they go wrong is a severance agreement. And so you better get yourself a severance agreement.”
Money Stuff: The Podcast · October 2026
Levine and Mary Childs were discussing a company whose leader was out of reach for about 33 hours, during which other executives took charge. Levine notes that in that window the finance chief, acting as interim CEO, and the chief legal officer signed each other's severance agreements.
Transcript
one other thing I want to say about automatic before we go on, unless you want to reminisce more about your favorite years at Burning Man.
With my 0% attendance, yeah.
So he was gone for 33 hours and 20 minutes. What did the company do in those 33 hours and 20 minutes? Well, one thing they did was that the chief financial officer, who is the interim CEO, and the chief legal officer, who presumably, you know, had to sign off and all that stuff, signed each other's severance agreements. Which is just like, when you do a coup, you know, you do a military coup, like you're thinking, like, what are my exit options if this goes wrong? And they're off and grim. But when you do a corporate coup, your exit options if they go wrong is a severance agreement. And so you better get yourself a severance agreement. I mean, 33 hours and you're in charge. You sign that agreement. I don't know if that's going to happen. They got right to it.
The most important part.
Right. Like, it's possible that he comes back. He's in a good mood from Burning Man. He's like, all right, have your severance. Goodbye. Better to have you leave without a dispute. But it's possible that not. I don't know what that
come down to. I think you come back from the playa less oriented towards confrontation and more towards love. That
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