It makes good sense what you say about volunteering. However I just look at the best talent in the world for some positions. Very talented CEOs don't come cheap. Imagine what a celebrity CEO could do for Steem?

At some future point, when the foundation is a rocking success, the board may choose to allow remuneration in order to attract some celebrity CEO. That would be a long way off in the future and definitely NOT in the startup phase that we're going to be in.

Yes, I know some of the proposals are not in favour of the legal entity being US based. They will have some hurdles to deal with when it comes to the major funding coming from the US, but that will be their wall to climb. :)

The reason here was pragmatic, major initial funding coming from the US, then establish the legal entity there to line up with legal requirements.