A good friend of mine is an assistant professor of CS at MIT. He is among the most premier researchers in his field. I'm paid about three times what he is paid working in industry. My wife is a professor of history at a well respected R1 institution. I'm paid like nine times what she is paid. If we compare my salary to the adjuncts at her institution, I'm paid more than 10x what they are earning. All this after the pay cuts for remote work.

Paying Bjarne a lot of money is not remotely representative of the state of academic salaries.