I don't think focusing on Mayer is helpful. It is one of the more egregious cases but it shows just how badly c-level compensation, accountability and agency is

I don't think focusing on Mayer is helpful. It is one of the more egregious cases but it shows just how badly c-level compensation, accountability and agency is broken. It also shows how some economic theories that sound good don't remotely work in the real world. And sometimes economic theories are designed to sound good. There are real world consequences of skyrocketing executive pay disconnected from performance and accountability. Bad or short term strategies can result in losses of thousands of qualified and experienced people, plummeting productivity and revenue, mid and long term setbacks and serious harm to future prospects. Golden parachutes usually mean no consequence to the implementing c-level teams. They usually end up easily soft landing at a consultancy or another gig. Carly Fiorina and Stephen Elop come to mind. Robert Nardelli and Home Depot also come to mind. You can't be hand waving around this for 2 decades counting.