[aleph_minus_one]

> CEOs are rich so they are successful.

"Successful" in which sense?

The most reasonable definition "Successful in convincing other people to give them money" is rather a tautology. :-)

A very related problem concerning your argument is well-known for decades: the Principal–agent problem:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...

It says that the self-interest of an agent (e.g. the CEO) is not identical to the interests of the principal (e.g. the shareholders).

Why do I mention this? The CEO being rich is a measurement of the financial success of the agent, but not of the principal. You are rather interested in measuring the success of the principal.

[utopiah]

As you might see in other comments the tautology is the joke.