If "quite a few" non-directors make more than average American cardiologists either:
A) your company is engaged in disturbing monopolism;
B) your company is engaged in disturbing labor exploitation and arbitrage; or
C) your company is engaged in disturbing environmental destruction.
Would love to be proven wrong. Am I?
Edit: option D) is that American cardiologists are not as exclusive and skilled a labor force as I would prefer to believe ;)
People are paid to create value. If they work at a company that reaches a billion people, then writing some software that adds $0.1 revenue per user per year is worth a lot.
But people do brag about it on Blind such that the compensation bands are well known. People also complain about cliffs when it turns out the company didn't want to pay them at a certain level.