a third (and fourth) possibility: management wants to incentive its people
.......... It is the people who work for the company who actually produce wealth using that capital, so giving them a piece of the action doesn't seem insane to me.

BRK paying Greg $25M in cash ... He's worth it

That´s how capitalism works, right. But while not insane it gets ever more immoral for me.

Latest example is what an SAP Insider just told me: The many IT oldtimers here are familiar with Hynix. He told me they have full order books for many years to come, using their power in a very thin market for longterm contracts with customers who need their chips.

What he then told me shocked me: Hynix totally depends on their very best developers, around 300 core employees. He asked what I think they earn per year. Me: "$10 Million?". He replied Hynix gave them 10-year contracts paying $650 Million. Me, shocked: "$650 Million over 10 years?". He: "$650 Million per year". That was 2 days ago and my mind now refuses to accept that he really said that, thinks I might have misunderstood (though it was in German, my mother tongue).

And he added that Google (or another company? I was too shocked to really listen to his words) followed with $450 pay packages for their core developers.

If even half true (I know that insider well, know that he doesn´t tend to joking when it comes to such) modern area capitalism is obscene beyond words.