Relative company stock performance dominates executive compensation (iirc, 80% of Alphabet CEO pay is relative outperformance of S&P500), so copying other large public tech companies is an outcome of the incentives.
For-hire CEOs often are also paid in equity, not just stock options. But even with just call options (Which have no downside risk), there is the risk of the professional reputation of the CEO, if you just do middling for a few years and leave, still plenty of job opportunitiess. If you crash and burn the company down... Very tough to find another good exec position again.