[atemerev]

> Most of us COULD run a Fortune 500 company as well as the average CEO

I appreciate your optimism; at the same time, I think it is somewhat unwarranted.

Running a 10-person company is challenging enough to have your shrink on the speed dial. As for Fortune 500 CEOs, those are superhumans on steroids (or cocaine and alcohol), who bend reality by their very presence. You have about the same chance of approaching their attitude as becoming an Olympic athlete.

Thankfully, there are other ways to achieve happiness (or make money, if you want something more quantitative) without becoming a big company CEO. One thing I know for sure: I don't envy them.

[gnrlist]

My original statement was a bit over the top, but the idea I was getting at is how little impact most CEO's have on company performance (https://hbr.org/2015/11/are-successful-ceos-just-lucky), and how their pay does not correspond to their performance (https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/06/16/the-highe... ). Along the same lines as the original post where performance doesn't match up with compensation, CEOs are just on the other end of the spectrum.

[RodericDay]

this kind of absurd lionization of the wealthy is part of the problem.

I've met some extremely wealthy CEOs, and they warp nothing around them. It's an elite career track and old boys club, that's it.

[tormeh]

There is a substantial intersection between wealthy people and CEOs, but they're still employees, so they're not that wealthy.

I have no doubt that a lot of big-co CEOs are operating at the limit of human capacity, but that doesn't really have any effect on my opinion of trust fund kids.

[dragonwriter]

CEO's, as such, are employees, but lots of them are capitalists and derive as much or much more of their wealth from capital as from labor income.

[atemerev]

Trust fund kids do exist, of course, but those are usually not Fortune 500 CEOs (or at least not for long, unless they worked hard for that).

[atemerev]

I met them as well. What industry are you referring to?

[gue5t]

Extraordinary claims would do well to find some extraordinary evidence to support them, lest they collapse under the weight of their disproportionate grandeur.