CEO here (seriously). I would like to officially state that avoiding actions that would entice someone to assassinate me has not put an undue burden on my career. Just want to put that out there.
It is a C Corp. Ownership is split between the senior staff, and I am not a majority holder and I am nowhere near the highest paid employee. Every senior staff hire gets ownership.
CEO doesn't mean owner. In my case I am more of club coach managing a bunch of star athletes.
"bad shit' is relative. Who among us are without sin? I think conflating the CEO of a local retail business with CEO of a national company specializing in collecting medical debt is not healthy to increasing support for systemic change. Could the local ceo pay the cashier's more? probably.... But so could small business owners in general. Should we get mad at someone for choosing a repair person that charges less for a job? Why not pay someone else more for their labor? How much more? Pretty soon the finger pointing is so ubiquitous it's irrelevant.
In an ideal world (therefore not ruled by humans) the word CEO would just mean that someone has to take care of the "big picture" duties and(/or?) owns the company. Yes, they would have more income than the average cannon fodder, but nothing crazy.
Being a CEO shouldn't mean anything bad on its own. Too bad we're just humans, therefore inherently greedy and selfish to various extents, and obviously the most scummy, selfish, greedy pricks just get selected into the role more often (or born into it). Just be aware that CEO ≠ evil automatically.
I think people are pretty clear that it's not the ceo part that makes people evil, it's just that the behavior it normally takes to get to that position within a big company is basically never rainbows and Mr Rogers.
That 'financial responsibility to maximize shareholder profit' isn't a joke and it often takes people with very little empathy to do it. With maybe some exceptions for some small companies or people who built the business from the ground up, i can't think of a single person in a CEO role, or aspiring to one, that would make anything close to a good 'friend', or even what most people would consider a good person.
Thank god Trump is not a jealous nor envious type. Thank god the revenge seeking reprobate that got elected wouldn't be full of glee to see other rich people without SS protection feel scared.
Trump got liberals to hate on his enemies before he even took office again.