It's no surprise to me that the current system that drives CEO pay, most notably in the US, took off during the 1980s when the baby boomers were hitting their stride in their careers and looking to gain strong returns on their investments as interest rates in North America started to come down, kicking off a 30-year pattern that saw equity markets gaining favour over fixed income.   

And you can understand pay increases to a point, however, what has happened in some companies is head-scratching with pay packages that go well into the tens of millions, and sometimes into the hundrens of millions of USD.   It completely defies logic since a CEO is not an omniscient being and needs people in the company to do their jobs well, just as much, if not more, than the CEO does his/her own job.   The Wells Fargo situation with "fake accounts" illustrates the point well.