As a VP you have visibility into a wide section of the organization, you know where it is strong and where it is weak. As people get more senior they become more loyal to individuals rather than companies, so when a VP leaves, even without trying, they will often pull away other critical employees who follow the person not the company. Then there is the ability to disrupt without getting your hands dirty, an anonymous tip to TechCrunch to "watch this garage at 5AM on Fridays" or "You might want to dig into that unexplained event last October." which can put journalists on the trail of damaging information the company covered up (previously successfully).
If you are mad, and you feel like they have impeded your ability to get re-hired or funded at a later date, then you are more inclined to take some of these actions. If they say, "Look you have to go, but we'll make it comfortable for you and we'll just call it a day." then you might feel more charitable to them and forego starting processes that will cause them pain.
A technique I was told was used on an executive at Sun was to give them a stock grant that would only be "vested" in 5 years. The purpose was to keep it in that person's best interest to insure the Company was not damaged in order to reap the maximum reward down the line. To be clear, they got the stock in 5 years no matter what, it was just in their interest to have it be worth as much as possible at that time.
It also makes it look like it was condoned at higher levels if it gets out and can give ammo for lawsuit settlements at lower levels for other dirt-bags.
If you are mad, and you feel like they have impeded your ability to get re-hired or funded at a later date, then you are more inclined to take some of these actions. If they say, "Look you have to go, but we'll make it comfortable for you and we'll just call it a day." then you might feel more charitable to them and forego starting processes that will cause them pain.
A technique I was told was used on an executive at Sun was to give them a stock grant that would only be "vested" in 5 years. The purpose was to keep it in that person's best interest to insure the Company was not damaged in order to reap the maximum reward down the line. To be clear, they got the stock in 5 years no matter what, it was just in their interest to have it be worth as much as possible at that time.