I can't speak for how these particular executives were handled. I've never worked at a place where people were quickly fired for mistakes unless it was something extreme. It's usually based on track record rather than a single thing. Most employers understand that if they fired people for making mistakes they would run out of employees very fast. On the other hand, someone who learns from a mistake probably isn't going to do it again so you may have a better employee than a hypothetical replacement. It's also generally understood that people with a large scope of responsibilities have a large blast radius when things don't work out. It just comes with the territory and it's not exclusive to the executive suite.
This shows to me that you have a lot of faith in these companies that I can't share based on my own experiences.
My experience is more like: the defining characteristics of what gets you more opportunities is personal attachment to the boss. They like you? You get more. The whole performance review culture, as an example, is based around phony justifications around this. They get to re-define what "getting results" means to favor buddies. This is the only determining factor, period, and people come across to me as absurdly foolish when they believe something else.
Workers get fired when they are wrong at much smaller scale, why not these people? They are not special, they are simply lucky and connected.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42639566 ("Pharaoh must signal, to shareholders, to a board, and to their peers. There will be no consequences for failure to adhere to this proclamation.")
Salesforce will hire no more software engineers in 2025, says Marc Benioff - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42639417 - January 2025 (390 comments)
https://www.salesforce.com/company/careers/jobs/?search=soft... (724 results, as of this comment)