Well, that’s one point I meant, that the CEO is a Foundation employee, so the non-profit rules apply there. But the big one is that because the Corporation is wholly-owned by a non-profit, its only stakeholder where profits could get paid out to, is the non-profit which practically can’t take it. (“Profit” excludes wages.)

So, the legally for-profit subsidiary actually doesn’t have a profit motive to the same extent as traditional companies.
They do still want to make money, because contrary to the non-profit, they can save it up for bad times, and paying your workers at least industry-standard wages is also nice.

Which is also where the CEO salary comes from. Similar companies pay probably just as much or more. I fully agree that it’s stupidly too much money, but we also cannot expect anyone to perform as a CEO out of the goodness of their hearts, and to not take an equivalent job at a company which does pay them stupidly too much money.

As for people not understanding the distinction between Foundation and Corporation, I agree that it’s a bit of a problem, but I wouldn’t want them to rebrand one or the other. My mum is already confused between “Mozilla” and “Firefox”. I guess, they could call it “Firefox Company”, but I do think both benefit from the shared branding.