Jeff Bezos isn't a a billion times more productive than an average person. He's leeching off the productivity of amazon's workers.
Also I’m pretty sure Bezos doesn’t collect much salary. His wealth is tied to how much Amazon is worth. He’s essentially taking nothing from his workers because his net worth is based pretty much entirely on how much someone else is willing to pay for his shares.
To use a metaphor, a slave owner having the "vision" for a palaestra including all its designs does not mean that he does not exploit the slaves (who, remember, wouldn't have a job if it weren't for him, nor would the palaestra exist). In the philosophy of exploitation, exploitation can occur even in mutually beneficial relationships.
Also your metaphor sucks. If you think that wage workers are on par with slaves, I suggest you look a bit more into what slavery actually is.
You metaphor still sucks because it doesn’t say anything useful. It’s purely an emotional appeal. You could apply your metaphor to literally any employment relationship and it’s no different. The CEO is (over)compensated for vision and so everyone else is exploited, from the Executive Vice Presidents down to the receptionists.
The argument is not that employees are exploited because the CEO is over-compensated for vision, but rather that it follows naturally for such relationships to work at scale. Nevertheless, it's useful as a thought experiment, since it ought to make people consider the nature of modern work and life in capitalism. Indeed, some philosophers do apply this to all employment relationships[0], the most extreme argue that they are exploitative, the less extreme only inquire to the nature of our desires in the employment relationship[1].
If that's where the argument leads then that's where it goes.
[0] John Roemer, Yoshihara and Veneziani, Marx
[1] Frederic Lordon's Spinozist anthropology
I'm a bit confused by your statement that "it [exploitation] follows naturally for such relationships to work at scale". If this is how it naturally works, then is there a viable alternative? I also don't agree that this is (necessarily) exploitative. Perhaps we have differing opinions of what "exploitation" means. If we have a business partnership that is mutually beneficial, but you profit from it more than me, is that exploitative?
I think that exploitation can, in general, be defined as when A exploits B, A takes "unfair" advantage of B. In order for this to be the case, there must be some mechanism by which A has the ability to exploit B, which I see as defined by the distribution of productive assets necessary to live. It gets more complex speaking of how we define productive assets, and whether exploitation exists as a matter of class (neo-Marxian sense) or as a matter of profit (the Marxian sense).
More people have become millionaires by being Microsoft employees than by any other mechanism. Via stock options, Microsoft very much shared the gains with their employees.
Instead, he kept all those shares and has more money than he could ever spend and many warehouse workers have worked incredibly hard and been unable to build any wealth over the years.
It's not true. He uses his money to fund space flight initiatives, and many other things besides.
Billionaires use their billions to make more billions. If it was wasted on unproductive spending, the future would be poorer than the present.
The board of directors can allocate stock to warehouse workers and/or pay them more. For that matter, you could send your money to these warehouse workers and yet you don't. This idea that Bezos should personally give up his fortune to increase warehouse worker compensation is a bit absurd. Amazon isn't a charity and its employees are not a registered 503c, either.
For profit companies can pay their workers better and still prosper. No one is suggesting Amazon should have been a non-profit. The suggestion is just that their CEO could have shared the wealth more with his workers. Workers who helped him build his fortune.
Net worth is a terrible measure of anything. You have a networth 100s times a person in a developing country but you're not "100x" anything.
Jeff Bezos can invest the rewards of his lifetime effort, yes, billions of times better than you can.
Elon musk invested his paypal-productivity into making space/car/etc. companies. His actions here eclipse yours.
Jeff Bezos takes a salary and his income isn't tied to stock.