Why would any company hire a CEO and pay him millions to warm a seat? Why would the stockholders put up with that?

I don't know, but half of them are below average by definition.

Take a scan down the Fortune 500 and put a star next to each one you think has had 'exemplary leadership' rather than 'competent administration' or 're-arranging deck chairs while the titanic burns'.

The CEO of eBay got busted sending bloody pig masks to people who left bad reviews on the internet, for god's sake. These people aren't a higher plane of being.

Stockholders are increasingly not putting up with it. Votes against are still kind of rare, but they do happen: https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/starbucks...

But also, the board makes CEO decisions, and it's not totally uncommon for board members to also be CEOs of other companies, so they buy the kool-aid because they also benefit from it.

Plus, CEOs and boards don't exist in a vacuum. You've got to keep up with the Joneses if you think you're letting a good candidate get away.

The stockholders can revolt. If they don't, and it's their money being handed to the CEO, is it reasonable for non-stockholders to gripe about it?

Almost everyone owns stock in all the major companies - indirectly via their 401k or index fund.

To a first approximation, there are no non-stockholders.

One real question is why, when stockholders vote on CEO compensation, fund managers are allowed to cast the votes of fund investors. If you invest money on behalf of other people, there are all sorts of fiduciary duties to keep the money separate, but that money gets you votes, and you get to vote them according to your personal preferences, not according to the preferences of your investors.

We're all stockholders, and anyone with a 401k is, by way of Vanguard and Blackrock.

So don't invest in corporations who you believe overpay their CEO.

1) The CEO compensation, while grotesque, is a drop in the bucket. Would I avoid eBay because they've employed a revolving door of terrible CEOs? No, I avoid them because they're a bum opportunity. The CEOs know this, better ones go elsewhere, yet somehow they still pay top dollar for the leftovers they can get.

Good company, bad company, the CEO compensation won't drive the stock price. It's still grotesque and unnecessary, you could pay half or less and get the same mediocre result in most cases.

2) I lied, I don't avoid eBay. I buy the same index funds as everyone else. Shareholder activism is a myth right now unless you're one of a very few people controlling in actuality a very small % of the market.

Tim Cook.

Compared to Steve Jobs, Cook is milquetoast. He's fantastic at supply chain management, and milking existing products/services. He's exactly what stockholders have wanted for a CEO after the Jobs died. Someone to basically do the same thing for decades. Milk the iPhone for all it's worth.

Yes, I know he's introduce the Watch and AirPods. But he also introduced the HomePod. He's no tech visionary, and eventually his value will drop and Apple will need a new leader. But for now, he's warming the seat.

Do you really believe Cook is just warming a seat? There's a lot more to running Apple than being a visionary.

I'm an Apple shareholder since before Cook, and admit I was skeptical about Cook. But as a shareholder I'm very happy with Cook's leadership. If his compensation is $$$$, that's cool with me.

BTW, Jobs was a visionary, sure. But that wasn't enough - he nearly wrecked Apple through mismanagement. Next Inc. bombed due to his mismanagement as well. But Jobs learned how to run a company with his management of Pixar, and then returned to Apple as still a visionary, but with management competence.

But hey, I might be wrong. Let us know how your shorts on Apple are working out.

I don't own any stocks directly, I prefer index funds. But I've owned Apple hardware since 1984, so perhaps I've invested in Apple through side channels.

I'm sure Apple shareholders are happy with Cook's leadership. AAPL has done very very well in the last 20 years. But is that due to Cook, or is that inherent in being CEO of a company that created the iPhone? Would Scott Forstall have been as effective in driving the stock price higher had Tim stayed as COO?

Imagine Apple today without the iPhone. It would still be a 2nd tier personal computer manufacturer with a recognizable design aesthetic. But everything that makes Apple the trillion dollar gorilla stems from the iPhone. Not only the outsized profits from selling 200m units a year, but without the iPhone, there's no iPad. No watch (same cpu designs). And no M1 Macs to boost sales to 2x the previous year. All stemming from a bet Apple made in 2004.