Is there a consensus on the value of leadership? I know there is some research for and against the idea that executive leadership has a meaningful impact on value creation.
Tom Brady did actual work for his team, a CEO does not do $500M worth of work. If there were no employees other than the CEO then the $500M doesn't get made.
The decision to make AWS created 100s of billions of dollars of value. CEO decisions can make and break companies.
> If there were no employees other than the CEO then the $500M doesn't get made.
Right, and if Tom Brady doesn't have receivers to throw to he doesn't win any super bowls. It is the leadership that can create massive amounts of value.
> The decision to make AWS created 100s of billions of dollars of value
I can make decisions to create something all day, none of it makes any money unless effort is put into it's creation. Product and engineering and design made AWS which allowed the company to make billions. The marketing team after that.
And who was leading that effort? When executing, hard decisions get propagated to the top and leaders like Jassy have to make the toughest decisions that result in moving the trajectory of the company/project. This can create or destroy a lot of value.
He isn't being paid for his work (which I assume you are conflating with labor); he is being paid for the perceived value he can bring to the company.
His decision-making can absolutely influence the bottom line far more than any single Amazon warehouse worker could.
Now, I'm not saying that warehouse workers are worthless or should be treated like shit, far from it, but if Amazon doesn't pay him this much, some other corporation will. That's the free market.