It awards people for being something that they cannot possibly be: worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year in compensation. Human excellence hasn't reached the point where this is the case.

They were not awarded hundreds of millions of dollars. They were awarded a number of shares or options, which may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars when and if they sell or excercise.

Either way, two entities came to a voluntary agreement on an exchange of services and compensation. I have not heard of a better model yet.

If the issue is income/wealth gaps in society, then that is better solved by implementing huge marginal income/wealth taxes such that the can be rewarded hundreds of millions of dollars, but they will only end up with a small portion of it.

So why do the owners of Apple decide to pay Tim Cook so much? Do they just not realize that they could come out ahead by only hiring CEOs willing to pay much less?