They were threatened with dismissal for not doing so. I was threatened with dismissal for not doing so.
I worked from early morning until early the next morning. I saved the core business on multiple occasions, my manager was working 14 hours a day 7 days a week at a minimum.
The CEO went home at 5pm every night, when I still had a full shift ahead of me, and had weekends off with his kids, when I was working at home. He was paid three times what I was paid, and 50% more than my boss.
You speak of ideology, not reality.
But I would like to believe that for every terrible CEO, there's one that actually gives his all in growing the business.
I speak of idealism and not reality, yeah. This doesn't invalidate what happened to you, which I agree is awful. But if someone is legitimately putting work into their company, as many CEOs do, they deserve to be paid.
They should be paid accordingly. (Although I won't disagree with the fact that some CEOs are indeed overpaid.)