I have heard vague stories of AWS paying the key engineers of S3 and other foundational services a big amount (and I hate Amazon, so it pains me to say that).

I have heard vague stories of AWS paying the key engineers of S3 and other foundational services a big amount (and I hate Amazon, so it pains me to say that). But engineers are employees, and management views them as a cost center unless they have compensation that very clearly is dependent on their output. Executives can demand compensation after the fact for "created value". Employees get a piece of paper that says "Thanks" in gold lettering.