You can form "customer advisory boards" which basically pay small percentages of common to early users to use the product.
Like, seriously, more than half of the companies funded by YC do this. I think this is the norm more than the outlier.
The benefits went to the executive directly. He asked for personal bribes to sign contracts on behalf of Netflix. He enriched himself at the expense of his employer. This is illegal.
The company would generally have no interest in that kind of setup.
When the advisory board is public, it appears to be 'above board' even though it might be a conflict of interest at least it's hiding in plain sight.
Then charge them all. That will put a halt to the practice pretty quickly.