The driving force for higher salaries is not how 'hard' one works, however that may be defined. Nor should it be, as a greater degree of toil does not imply or even correlate with a greater degree of productivity. The degree of compensation one receives for one's labours is a multi variable function of skills scarcity, productivity and profitability as well as a host of minor, ephemeral factors. So you are a programmer. Consider: how many programmers are produced by colleges in the United States each year? What proportion of these are talented enough to perform with similar competence in a role as vital, challenging and difficult as yours? What is the lead time required for your replacement to become as profitable as you are in this role? Tis issue alone, replacing a single programmer, seems complex, which indeed it is. But this is in fact a routine operation, conducted in all businesses and for all professions. Now consider the same problem applied to a CEO. Precisely what skillset do we look for? Degree of experience? Age and maturity? Proven track record? How trustworthy are the candidates? How do we get a person for a position on which the entire operation may depend? Upon whom your job depends? I, sir, am not competent to compute these things. I am aware of no single man who is capable of computing these things. A complex problem of this kind, it appears, can only be solved by a complex method. The method which has been selected, it would seem, is that known as the labour market. In its outward appearance it appears an evil thing, designed to depress the price of labour and secure riches for a few by the exploitation of many. But consider, with what ought it to be replaced? This market for labour drives the prices at which labour is bought and sold. As a programmer your labour has an average value based on your experience and qualifications. It may vary from time to time as the demand and supply of your skills move out of equilibrium. Now, it is your privilege as a human to resist the labour market, for you are a creature of action. But you cannot hope to defeat the labour market. There is no lever long enough about which to turn so monolithic an edifice. Ultimately, your first powers is over yourself. If you believe you work too hard, then select another profession. If you have not the means to do so, then work to acquire a surplus. If the price of your labour is too low, migrate to where it is higher. But it is unsound to begrudge your CEO his salary. As a cog within a watch ought not to decry that all of man's attention is directed to the watch face and not to the internal mechanisms that cause the face to tell the time, a man ought not to complain when his superior is afforded more liberal compensation. For just as the cog would want utility were it not for the for ability of the watch face to render his lucubrations intelligible to man, the labour of an employee would lack value if he were not part of some enterprise from which its value is derived. Now, the purpose of a company being to generate profits by the provision of value-added services, we must inquire: why would such an entity liberally diffuse its revenue into the private accounts of employees who do not contribute a proportional quantity to that revenue? Would you happily work unpaid hours? Would you not quit your employment at one firm if another offered you a significantly greater salary under more satisfactory conditions? The same principles are at work, invisibly, in the selection of CEOs. Clearly, from the salaries which are paid to them, the CEO is presently in greater demand, and is considered a more important investment for the firm, than a programmer is.