One key problem here is that the business wasn't particularly reliable, so even if Pincus had a reasonable measure of employee performance, there was undeniable uncertainty in what realizable monetary value that performance actually had.
If you have an employee who is underperforming but you can't find cause to fire them, then you as a manager screwed up. You matched them with the wrong role, failed to develop them, or maybe you (or the employee) just got unlucky and it's really true that some unexpected event prevented healthy employment. Then execute a layoff if you really have to. Invoking a poorly understood clawback measure only further demonstrates managerial incompetence.
If you have an employee who is underperforming but you can't find cause to fire them, then you as a manager screwed up. You matched them with the wrong role, failed to develop them, or maybe you (or the employee) just got unlucky and it's really true that some unexpected event prevented healthy employment. Then execute a layoff if you really have to. Invoking a poorly understood clawback measure only further demonstrates managerial incompetence.