How many of those $10B companies are actually really
worth that, not just an inflated result of funding
rounds?
The parent is talking about S&P 500 companies, which means publicly traded ones. The thing where private companies have inflated valuations [1][2] doesn't apply here.[1] https://www.benkuhn.net/terms
[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2955455
The 420 or so players in the NBA can largely be considered to be the best 420 players in the world.
NBA teams also have a pretty high revenue to value ratio.
Points to you too for ignoring that in many cases the salary of a Fortune 500 CEO is, in many to most cases a much smaller fraction of their compensation packages. In many cases bonuses and other compensation is between 3 and 10 or more times the salary, so not exactly equitable, though it makes for a better sound bite.