Leverage. The CEO has control over more resources than a front line employee, so their decisions have more weight behind them. Front line employee makes a sligh

Leverage. The CEO has control over more resources than a front line employee, so their decisions have more weight behind them. Front line employee makes a slightly less optimal decision while performing their job? One customer has a slightly worse experience, skips disneyland next year and Disney loses like $500. Iger buys the wrong company or the right company at the wrong price and Disney loses a billion bucks. Because of how much impact their decisions have, you really really want to have the best possible person making them. The best person is someone with experience making those decisions, which means they're rich too. So the person you want needs truckloads of money waved at them to be motivated to do the job, and you're quite willing to pay the truckloads to get the best, therefore the compensation ends up being truckloads.