My goal as CEO (actually, at Overstock we eschew "C" titles as being egocentric, so technically I am just, "president") is to build with my colleagues a company that serves tens of millions of households by allowing them to stretch their budgets further and live better than they would have had we not come along.

My goal as a capitalist is, in the process of achieving the first goal, to build one of the great companies in the world, capable of earning an ungodly return on capital by generating billions of dollars of revenue and hundreds of millions in net income using capital as sparingly as possible.

My goal as a citizen are to fulfill my civic obligations, in which I include this: when I see that thugs are mugging old ladies in the street, to straighten out the thugs.

One could argue that it is necessary to have only one goal, but this is incorrect. The first two goals mentioned above are mutually dependent: we could not build a great company without a desire to serve other Americans, and we could not serve other Americans to the desire we wish were we not fanatic capitalists. Is the third antagonistic to either of the first two? I can see that it might be. On the other hand, it is also allied with the first two: it is impossible to desire to serve one's fellow citizens while being willing to turn one's back on an old lady getting mugged; and should we ever need to raise more capital, we will not be able to do so sparingly if our stock is artificially suppressed.

You have, however, put your finger on the issue: I can see that some would say I am betraying my obligations as a CEO to fulfill what I feel are obligations incumbent upon any good citizen

(...) if I had to choose, I would rank my duties as a citizen above m\y duties as a steward of other people's capital, but just one notch above."