After publishing the list of the highest-paid CEOs last week, The Australian Financial Review was once again swamped with readers rubbernecking at how much this country’s most senior corporates were trousering each year.

It’s a handy piece of work from the newspaper’s BOSS section, but there are limitations. Namely, this is just what we know from public documents. At private firms, many are earning as much, or far, far more than those on the list.