I don't think anybody is confused about the morality of "I will only sign this contract on behalf of my company if you give money to me personally". The problem is that this is never mentioned in the article. In fact at no point does the article say that the agreement was with the VP and not okayed by the decision makers at Netflix. It seems pretty clear to me why people are confused.
"Michael Kail will be sentenced Oct. 19 in San Jose for taking stock, cash and gifts from tech firms trying to do business with the streaming service."
If nothing else, the "gifts" part makes it clear its personal.
