Most of the time, if you are a good contributor to steem, he leaves you alone. And if he doesn't, there are many members of the community that will come upvote you to counteract his downvotes. I don't like that he has that much power, and sometimes it doesn't end well, but most of the time the community overrides him if he is really doing something wrong.

In other words, get the good whales to like you, and avoid the bad whales at all cost. :)