It would be negligent on the booking.com executives behalf if they did not take this money when it was available. If there's an issue, it's in the relief program itself.
If they retained their employees and didn't take bonuses as promised, I might agree. But they didn't. They made empty promises, took the money, sacked their employees, and divvied the loot. This isn't even good for shareholders. It's pure narcissistic greed
Plenty of companies did not take government money even though it was available out of solidarity with those companies that did need that money. Booking.com taking that money when they could but didn't need it led to (1) less money available for other companies and (2) a higher deficit.
Since the proper behavior here (sociopathically maximize private profit from socialized care) is so easy to know, the execs should be outsourced or automated.
Also, let them write good documentation up to spec so that the next guy can pick up where they left. Surely some long ago shelved away business logic framework gathering dust some place would be a good place to start.
My joke was that we should write an application called a Manager so that (like with calculators and computers) we can tell future generations the story how a Manager use to be a person.
And while we are at it we might as well build a robot to represent the company. A hundred million customers could talk with the boss simultaneously and it could take proper action instantly.
