Whenever some clueless line-toeing “executive” is asked to justify the absurd salaries that he and his peers vote one another, he usually wibbles on that you have to pay “the going rate” to attract the best talent or that huge “packages” are the only way to offset the risks inherent in working in today’s “entrepreneurial” management culture.

In the top ten of today’s Guardian Top 100 most influential figures in British media, three of the most talented and the only genuinely entrepreneurial members of that group—Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page—each receive salaries of $1 per annum.