Some public CEOs comp packages are defined by them exceeding $SPY so boards do expect more than just the economic cycle.

50% of SPY constituents are going to beat SPY. That in itself doesn't imply the CEO is a meaningful factor in company performance.

This isn’t true because of the weighting. If apple doubles in value SPY will be up 8% from that alone. It’s easy to see a scenario where one massive company has an incredible year and every other company returns below the average.

Or, alternatively, one massive company has a bad year, and everyone else comes out smelling like roses.

On average, 50/50 is a pretty decent benchmark here.

> but in general the CEO doesn’t really do much to the stock price

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Satya Nadella, etc.

> ceo pay is based on the economic cycle rather than how the company does

You can always start your own corporation, name yourself CEO (all you gotta do is file some paperwork and pay an annual fee) and rake in the dough for doing nothing!!

That is true. Elon Musk has greatly affected the stock price of the Company Formerly Known as Twitter.

Since Musk took it private, the stock price is not known.

It has public shareholders like Fidelity, so they do report what they value it at. I don't remember what it is, but it's at least 1/3 marked down.

Those are founders but this is an external hire at a later stage not really the same.

The story I linked is actually a cofounder.

Nobody is complaining about founder pay. The complaint is about publicly traded companies being subjected to elite capture by parasitical execs.

Satya Nadella is not a founder. But during his tenure the value of MSFT went up by 10x. I'd say he's well worth his compensation.