As an entrepreneur, something about this statement bothers me... something about all the value I create getting skimmed off the top and taken away by someone el

As an entrepreneur, something about this statement bothers me... something about all the value I create getting skimmed off the top and taken away by someone else. Yeah, that's probably it. If your small, righ-risk start-up earns $300,000 in profit in one year, paying the CEO a $90,000 stipend doesn't seem unreasonably low, does it? Most of those profits are probably best invested into other parts of the company. Sure, you might still own that value in terms of stock, but that is high-risk stock as opposed to a company like Google, whose stock is much more stable. (And Google's internal investments include nap rooms and such).