‘I didn’t want anybody shooting me’: Five Guys CEO gave away $1.5 million bonus to employees over botched BOGO burger birthday celebration

When Five Guys’ 40th birthday promotion collapsed under its own weight, most CEOs would have issued a polished apology and moved on. Instead, Jerry Murrell wrote his employees a check—1,500 of them to be exact. Now, the 82-year-old longtime founder of the franchise joked it wasn’t altruism: he was worried about his safety. 

“I didn’t want anybody shooting me in the back or anything after the first day, because we really screwed it up. We had no idea that we were going to get that kind of response,” he joked.