For that, Jobs wins the Most Valuable Dollar award.

Now, 2009 was anything but an easy year for Jobs, as he missed a lot of time recovering from serious health problems. But it's clear that he's built a company that continues to fire on all cylinders from its iPhone, to its Mac lineup, to its dominant place in the music industry, to the massive disruption it has caused in the software industry with its App Store model.

Much credit for Apple's success during Jobs' absence goes to Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook, whose $800,000 salary (up from $700,000) and $800,000 bonus and $12.3 million in stock awards could be seen as reasonable given the fact that the company still grew by double digits in an down economy. Scott Forstall, who oversees Apple's iPhone operations, earned $500,000 in salary and $600,000 in bonus during 2009 -- or about 1.1 percent of what Microsoft spent on marketing for Bing.

Sure, Jobs' $1 compensation is more than offset by the $1.15 billion worth of Apple stock he holds. But much less valuable executives in American business have demanded much higher amounts of compensation.

When you read through Apple's proxy statement, and look at the compensation amounts, you'll find the story of people who appear to be driven by a lot more than money.

Consider that the next time you download a song from iTunes, which will cost the same or more than Apple paid its chief executive and visionary for all of last year.