Are some CEO's or C suite guys and gals rock stars who deserve the pay based on what they bring to the shareholders, customers, and employees? Yep for sure, and they are worth every damn penny whether they work 100 hours a week, or 30 minutes in between holes of golf.
Is every CEO or C suite dweller a rock star though? Nope. There are plenty of complete shitters who do a mediocre job at best, and a bad job at worst. In fact probably more turds than real performers out there. The methods of these turds are pretty easy to identify. Lacking the skills and vision to innovate, or even refine existing business operations to grow the business and better serve all parties involved; the turd CEO and C suite commonly resort to the low hanging fruit of cost cutting at the expense of everyone but themselves and their bonus to make PE ratios or operating ratios look pretty so the stock price goes up in the near term so they can pump and dump it on their way out the door. A really good recent example of this is any recent Class 1 RR CEO, or the last CEO of Stellantis (or whatever they're called this week).
It baffles me that corporate boards of directors don't do a better job of structuring CEO compensation that is more restrictive of things like exercising stock options. I wonder if better results would be had if some of these clowns were forced to sit on any stock they receive as compensation or bonus for say 10-15 even 20 years? Make them take a long term view of the health and financial position of the company they are leading, and force them to carefully consider the long term consequences of their decisions.
