On the topic of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, Chenault says it would be a mistake to discredit them.
"I think it's easy to be dismissive, to be angry and to say they don't really have a coherent approach in strategy," he says. "But I think what you can say is there is a level of helplessness and anxiety and frustration about what's going on. Generally when you have that in a country or a company it means people don't have an understanding of where they fit."
Though Chenault might sound unexpectedly sympathetic to the OWS movement, he doesn't see CEO pay as the main problem. "Everyone talks about the tremendous contributions of Steve Jobs. The reality is that 10 years ago when the board bought his plane people said that was incredibly excessive. Was that excessive? Maybe. But the question is what was the contribution, how do you balance that off? I think it's very hard to legislate what happens from a compensation standpoint."
Chenault, it's worth noting, took home $16.3 million in 2010, down just slightly from his 2009 payday of $16.6 million.
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