A judge is also unlikely to assume the randos on a board are better at upholding fiduciary duty than the company executive. The case that created this BS is one where Henry Ford said literally nothing in his defense and lost.

No doubt he's done a good job, but he also inherited a great company which was obviously already full of great people.

He has done surprisingly well during his time there, but Apple has shifted more into a monopolistic, protectionist company with declining software/hardware quality compared to when Steve Jobs was running it.

From an investor standpoint, he's done quite well. And since his reward is based on stock value, I'd say he's earned it. But I wouldn't say he's 100X or more talented than an average experienced business leader.

Probably not just this one guy?

Likely hundreds of thousands of people. The burden of proof ought to be on him/his proponents. From the rather scant publicly available material, I've never heard the man say anything profound, original, nor any other sign of exceptional competence. That's not bad in and of itself, not everyone has to be a controversial thinker, especially not a CEO of an established company that's minting gold every day. But we have no evidence that his level of ability is somehow beyond the reach of mere mortals.

Yes, Apple has ballooned in valuation. The question is how much of this is attributable to Tim Cook, how much to other Apple employees, how much to external factors (e.g. tech bubble) and how much of it is just sheer inertia.

We have absolutely no idea since only a truly tiny fraction will ever have the chance to try.

I'm not arguing for or against his payment amount, but I find it hard to believe someone would work less hard if they were told, "You'll only receive an extra $200 million in 10 years, in addition to your normal salary, instead of an extra $750 million."

Who would say, "Nah, sounds like a lot of work for only $200 million extra. I'll just coast, thank you."