You don't think you could find a competent software engineer for $80k?

Sure can.

A race to the bottom for engineers at the same time there’s ever-increasing CEO pay is gross. That’s the point.

No chance if the competitor next door pays $300k

Depending on the field: No. Depends also on the definition of "competent."

Well the whole argument here by a big section of comments -- if not the majority -- including Googlers is "they haven't found one in Sundar."

I think finding a great CEO for the particular strategy and company is harder than we all think. (Yes I know the fault of the previous sentence -- it was on purpose.)

They probably could find "a competent CEO", but that's not the bar, and it doesn't make sense to do so, because of the oversized impact and risks. If you're 99% certain that a person is as competent as the current CEO and 1% they're a dud like Carly Fiorina, then saving a measly $100m is not worth the enormous risk. And if you've got a candidate that makes you certain that they're even slightly more competent than Pichai, then it would be worth paying an extra $100m to get them.

You can't be certain of any of this, though, without a time machine to do some A/B testing.