So you get busted doing something illegal and walk away with a 2.5Billion in your pocket and 0 jail time. How do you expect execs to not do this all the time?
My guess is the executives who orchestrated this got a big bonus as a result. And why wouldn't they? They optimized for the corporation's good. How do we collectively start incentivizing not being evil like this?
1. Sure it's only one data point to extrapolate off of but anecdotally hearing that people were paid $100-150k in SF while this was going on is a substantial amount of wage suppression given that those same people employed now would be making $300-500k at those same companies without blinking an eye.
Also you are conflating base salary with total comp in your example.
Of course my math is back of the envelope and nothing to go by but it definitely hints at the massive discrepancy.
To your point about salary/comp, Netflix is at least one example of a company that allows (allowed?) comp in the form of 100% salary.