Nah, that's not true at all. The pinnacle of American/Western cultural achievement is a media celebrity who is famous just for being themselves, e.g. the "winner" of a reality TV show, an "it girl", a supermodel, etc. I don't think the average person is really even aware of CEOs.
Incidentally, a CEO has probably worked for longer to get to where they are than a given celebrity has even been alive, and probably makes a tenth as much money.
Really? CEOs have been doing pretty darn well recently.
Put it this way: in most cases it is probably a CEO deciding how much to pay that celebrity. I'm skeptical that the CEO is going to pay the celebrity more than he's paying himself.
ARod is rich. But he's not in the same league as George Steinbrenner.
I guess I should state that by CEO, I meant CEOs of large, established companies that were built by other people. I was thinking of Fortune 500 CEOs, not startup or small-business CEOs. In my mind were smooth-running companies so massive that advancement within the management and executive ranks has more to do with political play than anything else. These guys, in practice, can be described as both CEOs and celebrities; they're the celebs of the business world.
Incidentally, a CEO has probably worked for longer to get to where they are than a given celebrity has even been alive, and probably makes a tenth as much money.