It is true that CEO pay has gone up—top ones may make 300 times the pay of typical workers on average, and since the mid-1970s, CEO pay for large publicly traded American corporations has, by varying estimates, gone up by about 500%. The typical CEO of a top American corporation now makes about $18.9 million a year.

    The best model for understanding the growth of CEO pay is that of limited CEO talent in a world where business opportunities for the top firms are growing rapidly. The efforts of America’s highest-earning 1% have been one of the more dynamic elements of the global economy. It’s not popular to say, but one reason their pay has gone up so much is that CEOs really have upped their game relative to many other workers in the U.S. economy.

    Today’s CEO, at least for major American firms, must have many more skills than simply being able to “run the company”. CEOs must have a good sense of financial markets and maybe even how the company should trade in them. They also need better public relations skills than their predecessors, as the costs of even a minor slipup can be significant. Then there’s the fact that large American companies are much more globalized than ever before, with supply chains spread across a larger number of countries. To lead in that system requires knowledge that is fairly mind-boggling. Plus, virtually all major American companies are becoming tech companies, often with their own research and development. And beyond this, major CEOs still have to do all the day-to-day work they have always done.

    The common idea that high CEO pay is mainly about ripping people off doesn’t explain history very well. By most measures, corporate governance has become a lot tighter and more rigorous since the 1970s. Yet it is principally during this period of stronger governance that CEO pay has been high and rising. That suggests it is in the broader corporate interest to recruit top candidates for increasingly tough jobs.

    Furthermore, the highest CEO salaries are paid to outside candidates, not to the cozy insider picks, another sign that high CEO pay is not some kind of depredation at the expense of the rest of the company. And the stock market reacts positively when companies tie CEO pay to, say, stock prices, a sign that those practices build up corporate value not just for the CEO.

答案精析：本题为主旨题，需要结合全文大意进行作答。文章第一段通过描述CEO薪酬高、涨薪快这一现象引出文章主题，指出CEO的薪酬普遍很高这一现象。随后第二、三段通过分析竞争环境、人才能力和工作需要具体分析了CEO薪资高的原因。最后第四、五段通过反驳大众的惯有看法，指出CEO的巨额薪资是有其合理性的，因为他们能为企业带来更多价值。由此可推断，后者认为CEO的高薪是合理的，并没有过高，故正确答案为A。

错项排除：B项利用文章中出现的时间点since the mid-1970s和since the 1970s进行干扰，但它们只是描述时间的细节信息，文章并没有重点对过去和现在的CEO薪酬进行比较，而是主要讨论了CEO薪酬高、涨薪快的原因，故B项错误。C项利用原文在第三段首句提到的“如今的CEO必须要有更多的技能，而不单单只会经营公司”进行干扰，但这只是作者为了分析CEO获得高薪的原因，属于文章的一个论点，不能作为文章主旨，故C项错误。D项中的CEO Traits也只是文章中有关CEO能力的一些细节信息，同样不能作为文章主旨，故D项错误。