But then came a wild extra, a one-time award, in the form of Apple stock. It was initially worth a staggering $376.2 million. As of the end of last week, it was valued at roughly $634 million, reflecting Apple’s soaring share price.

Many credit Mr. Cook, along with Mr. Jobs, for Apple’s recent success. And the company is quick to note that Mr. Cook’s pay package extends over 10 years. One-half of his stock is scheduled to vest in 2016, and the other in 2021, provided that Mr. Cook still works for Apple. And, at a time when some investors seethe over far smaller paychecks — a mere eight figures is relatively commonplace for top chief executives these days — Apple’s shareholders are hardly up in arms over the magnitude of Mr. Cook’s reward. To the contrary, a vast majority voted in favor of it.

Of course, most of us can’t begin to wrap our heads around pay figures like these. An American with a bachelor’s degree, after all, typically makes $2.3 million, not in a year, but over a lifetime, according to a recent study from Georgetown University.

Data on C.E.O. compensation in 2011, albeit preliminary, confirm what many of us already know: the top brass generally do much, much better than the rest of us, whether times are good or bad. After the ups and downs of the recent boom-bust years, pay among the 100 best-paid chief executives at big American corporations held fairly steady in 2011, according to Equilar, which reviewed C.E.O. compensation for The New York Times. Here are some numbers worth knowing:

• Among the 100 top-paid C.E.O.s, overall pay last year rose a scant 2 percent from 2010.

• The median chief executive in this group took home $14.4 million — compared with the average annual American salary of $45,230.

• In all, the combined compensation of these 100 C.E.O.s totaled $2.1 billion, the rough equivalent of the estimated annual economic output of Sierra Leone.