Why don't you start an activist private equity firm / hedge fund, it seems you should be able to make massive returns by exploiting this inefficiency in the market.
I'm not sure how knowing that there are qualified CEO candidates who would accept such a contract leads to a way to exploit it. Can you elaborate?
Well it seems as if he is saying he can save tons of money for the company by hiring much cheaper candidates for CEO, and by extension of his logic I presume for the entire C-suite.
But the savings only apply if the money can actually be clawed back, so massive returns shouldn't be expected. However, it could lead to reduced risk by damping the loss caused by the CEO's malfeasance.