Heroes and Zeros

Former CEO, Lehman Brothers

"With the benefit of hindsight, I can now say that I and many others were wrong." -- Testimony before House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Oct. 6, 2008

He wasn't the highest-paid chief executive in the U.S. (he ranked No. 11 on Forbes's CEO compensation list in 2007), but Fuld became the poster boy for Wall Street greed when he testified before Congress in October and defended the mammoth $484 million he received in salary, bonuses and stock options since 2000.

Fuld got little sympathy when he pointed out that Lehman's collapse rendered his stock options worthless, noting that his actual compensation was less than $300 million. He did concede, "That's still a lot of money."

Um, yeah. --D.R.

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