There's cultural differences here depending on where the employer is based. I believe the employee-CEO pay gap is substantially less for many European companies (excluding UK).

So do the shareholders make a lot more then? Or are companies just less productive?

It's probably true that in software, there are fewer companies that make silly revenue per employee. I work in "traditional" industry, meaning the revenue we make is for saying widgets we make in factories. Having 10% profit margins or 5% yearly growth is fantastic in our industry. In the US my feeling is that a larger fraction of developers work in the type of tech that has higher room for growth. And more importantly, the entire industry has to compete pay wise with these tech companies that can pay based on exponential growth and almost unlimmited properties (like FAANG). Since I don't have people across the street making twice my pay because they work at a FAANG, there is less of that.

The markets might be more competitive, which means less profits.

Right, they only own one Porsche here and a few houses.

I was actually surprised by how shitty of a car our CEO had (it was an Opel). Well, not sure if it was his, but it was the one I saw him in during a company outing.

It’s not altruism, it’s just that I’d need to actively chase more pay to get it. And I’m not in a position where I want to (don’t want to switch jobs etc). Marginal taxes are also quite high (over 50%) so there are diminishing returns.

For reference I make around $70k as a senior type eng. Not huge but the “ceiling” (for cash comp) if I switched jobs 10 times and ended up at a very well paying job in the end would be 20-40% more - which is 10-20% net!

And by switching to a better paying job you end up working somewhere that produces more value per engineer, which in turns makes the world wealthier.. which overall is good :)

That said, I don't think it's just a matter of culture.

Also just because capitalism likely makes the world better on average, doesn't mean we all have to go ferengi and dedicate our lives to pursuit of maximum profit :D (Perhaps there is a balance)

Huh? If he earns more at Pornhub he makes the world better? Even FAANG is debatable.

Defining “better” isn’t easy, but “more valuable” is a falsifiable measure. I hate Facebook and Google but they do provide a lot of value to their customers (advertisers)

Facebook's effect on society is still being studied, the jury is still out. It may very well be more damaging than doing good. Just because people are paying for something doesn't mean its doing anything good. Tobacco is a good example.

Like it or not, there is also a huge amount of legitimate interactions on facebook.

My dad didn't use internet forums before.. now he's on facebook groups about wood working -- I doubt the projects and reviews people in those groups share are fake news :)

Fact is: without facebook my dad probably wouldn't participate in any online community.

Right, thats why uber recently discovered that massive fraud in ad spending did not affect their sales

Hehehe, on average maybe? That said you probably shouldn't live your life by statistics.

Also note: I did advice against going all Ferengi :)