Who holds the ceo responsible? The board. If the board themselves would have made the same hiring calls, it's unlikely they could fault the ceo for making those calls as well.

By extension -- who doesn't hold the ceo responsible? The court of public opinion, which is what all of these comments and articles spilling barrels of ink on this issue think should be the case, but is not actually the case (and for obviously good reasons). A company is not a democracy (again, for obviously good reasons).

Who holds you responsible for your actions?... For me personally, I don't have a board of directors I can deflect to. I self regulate.

But they operate in a democracy, and part of a healthy democracy is having policy debates in public, exactly like this.

Sure, not going to argue with that.

On the other hand, these debates seem quite one sided. The boards of these companies aren't firing their CEOs. Why aren't any of the op-ed authors curious enough to ask about this? This author literally links to another one of his own op-eds in order to dismiss any such arguments about whether or not this is pertinent! They've clearly already made up their minds on this point.

Or is the real point not to have a debate, but to get people riled up and indignant about something that will always have bad optics (even when it's necessary)?