Still, what has that to do with personal beliefs? If he's a professional he will know to keep his personal beliefs out of his work. And if his beliefs interfere with his Mozilla's work, then I would agree on boycotting him and Mozilla. Until then, that's a private personal opinion which I absolutely don't care about.
It's fine that he has personal beliefs against gay marriage. As an LGBT person, it bothers me, but whatever, I probably bother him as well. It's mutual.
My problem is he has expressed he's willing to act on those views, by donating to a cause against gay marriage. While of course it's reasonable for him to act on his views if he wants to, that means I personally don't want to support him because I don't want to help him act on those views. Now that he's CEO, how do we know that LGBT people at Mozilla are getting fair treatment? Would he fairly consider a LGBT person for a promotion? What if two LGBT people get married and invite a bunch of their coworkers, or have a small celebration at work during break? Would he be OK with that? We don't know, but taking away from the fact that he's already acted on his anti-gay views, then I would lean towards that he wouldn't, and that bothers me enough that I don't want to support Mozilla.
There's also the fact that he designed Javascript, which is a perfectly valid reason to hate him :p
Every employee affects the direction of the company in some amount, commensurate with their hierarchical level, security clearance, expertise, etc.
In normal, day to day operations, the CEO tends to have a bigger share of influence than other employees, but he neither has sole influence, nor always the biggest influence.
One could very well argue that Jonathan Ives had a bigger influence than Steve Jobs on Apple's direction around the time of iPod's release, for example. That product singlehandedly changed Apple's market segment and consumer perception.
In short, a CEO is just an employee, often getting paid more than the average employee, and often having more influence than the average employee, but not always.
If an employee pulls in one direction, and the CEO pulls in the other, the employee loses. Period.
(If the majority of employees pull in that direction, then the CEO needs to rethink. But we're talking about individuals).
"In short, a CEO is just an employee, often getting paid more than the average employee, and often having more influence than the average employee, but not always."
Yes always. Your supposed company where the average employee out-influences the CEO simply does not exist.
