yes, you're right, if you distributed john's height across his 6 friends, they'd all still be normal height, and nothing would really change for them, except th

yes, you're right, if you distributed john's height across his 6 friends, they'd all still be normal height, and nothing would really change for them, except that john would no longer be abnormally tall. you've taken a situation where there's something noteworthy, and made that noteworthiness disappear. the same logic applies to CEO pay. you can either pay the CEO a lot, or you can pay everybody else an amount so slightly different that it's unnoticeable. there's value in paying a CEO a lot, or you can not pay them a lot, and not pay anybody else any more either. surely you can see how there might be value in offering a high salary for a role that can have a big impact on the company, and how simply not doing that and essentially erasing that money instead would be a bad decision?