From a class perspective, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, they are all equally guilty of exploitation. Board of directors agree pay their CEOs excessive salary, and the CEO in turns keeps this money away from the workers and away from the customers. Stock prices remain high, bank accounts in Panama fill up, workers gets fired, bosses get rich.

For me “Market rate” is just something the owning class tells us to gaslight us into accepting our exploitation. They created this market, they control this market, and exploiters go on exploiting.

Well under your definition the whole capitalist system is just masked exploitation. If that’s the case then I don’t think this is any more egregious an instance of exploitation than the every day income disparities already happening.

What benefit does a board of directors have over helping out the CEO (an employee as well) vs customers and employees?

You are not wrong. Books have been written about how the whole capitalist system is just masked exploitation—including a very famous one by one Karl Marx in 1867. But you must see the scale at play here. When bosses are getting millions upon millions of dollars, hundreds of millions even, and shareholders are in the billions, this is capitalism turned to eleven (and don’t get me wrong capitalism turned to 1 is still bad for workers).

> What benefit does a board of directors have over helping out the CEO (an employee as well) vs customers and employees?

Note I say workers. Even though a CEO is technically “employed” by the company, they are still very much a boss, a part of the owning class, and part of the problem. When the pitchforks come up, they will very much be directed at CEOs. This is why CEOs help out their fellow bosses and shareholders. Class solidarity is very much a reality for the owning and ruling classes.