I work at a company with engineers mostly in the US and in an EU country, and my understanding is that, though our salaries in that EU country are top of the range, they are still meaningfully lower than for US engineers. The international talent pool is very good, and available at considerable savings. While I am glad I have my job, and that companies still seem willing to pay Bay Area salaries, I don't fully get why.
SF engineer salaries are still insane to these people. And they need to deal with the cost of living in SF.
Strangely, why aren't we doing the same for actors and sports stars?
How many movies do people attend solely based on the actors in the movie? Or sporting events due to a player on a team? Many
A lot bought it because of some decisions made by the CEO. They likely wouldn’t have bought it if he hadn’t made them (of course it varies a lot between industries).
By how much would you say a famous actor/athlete increases the revenue 10/20/50/100/1000%? A CEO can do that too.
The sporting events can't take place soley due to the star. Do you think the star built the stadium or did all the background work for a movie? By this logic, movies with novice actors should always do bad.
> How many people bought or used a tech product solely based on the CEO of the company?
Not explicitly.
What about founder CEOs who built v1 on their own?
Founder CEOs are founders of the company and of course they will receive large payouts. The gripe is with non-founder executive vp sliding into CEO jobs and going from making $1 million a year to tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a year practically guaranteed with all sorts of golden parachutes attached.
Certainly there’s a vast range of FIRE styles and even what constitutes retirement but at some level it’s a combination of keeping score, feeling valued relative to peers (see also sports), and the industry recognition.
Most people have egos. Some more than others. And public recognition via titles matters a lot for future opportunities. (Though maybe you don't care much about that so long as you make enough money.)
A lot of these people have ambitions that require a lot more money than that. Maybe they want to cure aging or explore space or something.
Another way of looking at it: if someone makes 100m a year and they are thinking about retiring, how much would you need to offer for them to choose to work another year instead? That's how much you need to pay them next year.