[wnewman]

Remember that it's not a good idea to equate "didn't have thousands of times the taxable income [in the 1950s]" with "didn't make thousands of times more" except for the purpose of misleading people. Comparing taxable income then to taxable income now is a mistake, because it was a time of 90% tax rates and not coincidentally a time of people moving heaven and earth to get their compensation in any form other than taxable income.

[astrodust]

You'd still be hard pressed to find a CEO that was earning hundreds of millions a year, even adjusted for inflation.

Billionaires like Howard Huges made their fortunes through owning stock, but these shares were not part of their pay package.