> It flies in the face of the traditional reasons given for the high pay of executives

The factors that influence pay include, on one side, every single characteristic an employer could potentially be looking for in an employee, how many people there are in the labor market who have those characteristics, and how much they’re willing to pay. On the other side it’s every single characteristic an employee could potentially be looking for in an employer, how many jobs are available in the market, and how much pay they’re willing to accept.

If a job pays highly, it’s not because of one single characteristic attributed to an employee, or that the characteristics of that employee have more intrinsic value, or that there’s something about that employee that just makes them more deserving of money than the janitor is. It’s simply because the demand for whatever labour it is that that employee is providing, exceeds the supply available in the market.

Talking about pay in this manner is only talking about averages in any case. Unless they work in a union shop, an employee has the ability the negotiate pay based on they value they personally provide to the organisation. There’s plenty of reasons why one person in particular may be more valuable to an organisation than any other person with equivalent skills would be.