You get that I'm using that a touch poetically, which is a common usage of "we" in this kind of context, right? I.e. "what changed such that this is now how society operates, even though it seems kinda worse than how it operated before?" I (obviously?) don't mean that we all got together and decided this, and that only a small set of probably-biased-by-their-own-interests people are the ones making the decisions is exactly one of the possible reasons for it that I highlighted, making it (surely?) even clearer what my post was about.

Cool story bro. You should just start your own company and get a CEO and pay her $40k.

> "Is there really no-one at the company who could do the job and would be happy to take a promotion and a "mere" $1M salary?"

I want to reserve my response until you clarify who 'we' refers to. I just do not want to assume.