the business world has been taken over by two big ideas in the last 30 years. The first is that companies should solely focus on increasing their stock prices, and the second is that, to make chief executives care more about this, and attract the kind of top-tier talent that could presumably do a better job of it, businesses should pay them bigger performance-based bonuses in the form of stock options and grants.
In the 1950s, the average chief executive made 20 times more than their employees; now, chief executives earn 361 times more — about $13 million per year at the country’s top corporations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/03/08/ceo-pay-is-out-control-theres-no-justification-it/