What a double standard.
There is no double standard.
For the vast majority of CEOs, if they tried to start another company as a side-hustle then they'd also get fired (and potentially sued).
For the CEOs who can run multiple companies at once, there's several factors
- they founded the company, so they have a majority of voting rights so they can't get fired
- they're so valuable to the company that the shareholders are willing to put up with them running multiple companies at once (and shareholders will definitely grumble about it)
For you, you're not really valuable to the company so if you try to work multiple jobs at once then they have no qualms with replacing you.
If you were a valuable enough IC then you could definitely get into a situation where you're working with multiple companies at once.
People do this with consulting arrangements, where they create a consulting company and are able to work with multiple entities at once because they've given themselves enough leverage to do so.
The issue isn't a double standard. The issue is that you haven't put yourself in a situation where you have enough leverage over the company to work multiple jobs.
It sometimes seems that they aren’t as harsh with executives.
However, IMO, when companies dialog executives from working multiple jobs they use the same sort of rhetoric: “ceo is distracted, directionless, uncommunicative, unable to see past this conflict of interest, etc.” The board will paint the CEO as some dilettante fop.
Look at what happened to Altman, he’s been fired and they insinuated that he’s a lying, double dealing, dirtbag.
I know that sounds callous but it isn't rare at all for high level functionaries to hold positions in more than one entity, the board of directors of OpenAI is an excellent example of that. And some of those are arguably already conflicted.
Worker bees get paid to work, and companies would like to get a certain amount of time for their money because that what it says in your employment contract. You don't necessarily have to agree with that but then you have to carve your own path rather than to hitch your horse to someone else's wagon.
The exclusivity clause is fairly common but may not be enforceable depending on where you live, especially if it is for a part-time job (but in IT most jobs are full-time).
You are a resource. He is a point of connection to resources.
All I am getting is “you’re getting conned, he is the conman.”
What do you want to be?
Source: Been there, doing that
My point is not about relative contributions of value necessarily, which are difficult to compare, but about the structure of employment. The value of a CEO who is doing a good job is not measured by the number of hours they spend on a project. They cannot iterate on solutions the way an engineer can.
The skillset and behavior are different at the meta, macro and micro levels.
Personally I'd rather have a chiller life than try to juggle two jobs without each one finding out about the other.