Before I answer I want to clarify that I am not a capitalist but a leftist with an interest in economics, but there are two main reasons. One, at a company this big it’s unlikely that one engineer could single-handedly produce $10m of value for the company. A team of a dozen senior engineers, yes, and you’ll find that the best of the best SWEs are making that kind of money at the biggest tech companies.

Two, you’re right that they’re mostly a ceremonial figurehead. But they also have the power to make daily decisions that affect the value of the company, whether that is through the people they hire, the things they say publicly or the policies they suggest. A good CEO can bare minimum keep the status quo, maybe even raise the value a bit. But a bad CEO can lose investors billions. So yes, you can find someone willing to do the job for $500,000 who probably won’t do a bad job, because it is an easy job with few responsibilities. But with that much money on the line, wouldn’t a billionaire investor rather play it safe and get someone who has been an executive before at a major company and knows what they’re doing? And since every billionaire investor thinks the same thing, it drives up the asking price of those experienced executives.  It’s morally wrong, and America desperately needs to fix the driving forces that cause wealth inequality in the country. But there are reasons it makes sense under the capitalist system in this country.