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Who is Your Hero, Gates or Jobs?
feranick writes "Wired and Ars Technica are both running articles comparing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, not for their business/technological achievements but for their humanitarian involvement. I am curious to see what you are thinking about the issue. What is more important, be a showmen technologist like Jobs or an humanitarian missionaire like Gates? And even more important: Is it important that donations from rich billionaires be public or should they remain private?"
He's very strange, but you can't deny that he was the brains behind Apple's beginnings.
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
You can see a mite made into jewelry here. I think it was like the equivalent of a penny- the smallest monetary unit of the time.
There are many Christians who are like Christ, unfortunately a lot of high profile people like to use Christianity as a means to a very different end.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
This spring I had the opportunity to hear Warren Buffett give a talk in Omaha. At the outset I wasn't too excited; I'm not really into business, but I learned some things that impressed me.
The most interesting thing that I learned is that while Buffett isn't a well philanthropist, when he dies, something like 1% of his wealth will go to his children as an inheritance, and the other 99% (currently about $39.6 billion) will go to a charatable foundation. He's told the administrator of that foundation that he wants him to try and "do something huge" with the money, not just spread it out to lots of smaller causes.
His justification for doing it this way instead of giving to charity right now is that the more money he has, the more money he can make, and the more money he puts into the foundation before he dies.
Now, it could be easily argued that he just likes making money, and doesn't want to give it away, but his impressively simple lifestyle argues that he certainly doesn't like spending money on himself.
I imagine that if I had billions of dollars, it would be much more fun to see that money go to work helping people while I was around to see it, but Buffett's plan makes sense from a practical standpoint.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
The logic of "He has alot so it's no big deal for him to donate alot." is dumb as fuck.
I'm extremely disappointed to see the slashdot crowd almost entirely bashing Gates becuase they don't care for microsofts software. This assumption that somehow Jobs is a better person because you like his software more is stupid, the companies are run with the same goals, Apple just has a different marketing strategy and alot less brute force to throw behind their decisions. I'm quite confident that if Apple had 96% of the OS market, and Microsoft had 4%, then peoples opinions would be exactly the opposite as they are now. It's the same old "Hate the big guy!" attitude, and its not exactly novel or interesting anymore.
Gates has helped millions of people by donating more money than most large countries. This is a wonderful thing and I applaud him for it. Jobs may or may not be donating money, as the article says that no documentation of this could be verified, but It really doesn't matter to me, it is completely up to him what he does with his money. And now that my rant is over, I'll throw my opinion out there.... I was more than a little disappointed when Apple ran their marketing campaign a few years ago using pictures of many famous civil rights people and other people like Einstien. The exploitation of good people for making money seemed awfully sickening to me. But this is likely a result of a powerful marketing team and not really the fault of Jobs.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
I interviewed with the Gates Foundation back in 1999. Unlike some other very flush charities in the greater Seattle area, they had every appearance of not overpaying for anything. They seemed very frugal (and their offer confirmed it). My conversations with them were all about how to cuts costs when delivering technologies for their library program. Linux was even being used in some cases. Sorry non-believers, but the Gates' side project is 100% legit and they certainly deserved Time magazine's praise.
People rarely have absolutely pure motives for doing good things. Still, there are many things that Gates could have done that would have reaped more publicity and goodwill among those who purchase his products. It appears that he is approaching philanthropy with the same single-mindedness he that he brought to making Microsoft preeminent. He seems to be genuinely targeting those areas where his money will do the most to help people, such as 3rd world diseases that tend to be neglected by government-funded research and industrial drug development.
I actually think Gates is giving away about as much as he thinks he can without spending it wastefully or risking his ownership stake of Microsoft. Trying to give away billions in a way that actually helps people rather than attracting lazy leeches is extremely hard. (Look at the people who ran scams like creating fake relatives who supposedly died in 9/11, or how some Iraq money is being spent for example.) That's why he has the foundation, and a person he trusts implicitly -- his father -- at its head. But yes, the older he gets, the less he'll care about his ownership stake in Microsoft.
I think you can classify a person's acts as good and bad, rather than tagging them as fundamentally good or bad. Gates has been a rapacious capitalist, and a generous philanthropist. Jobs has been a sleazeball (ripping off Woz very early in their relationship), but without him, Apple would be a shadow of what it is. In some ways, it's because Jobs is (from the sound of it) an a**h*** that Apple has contributed to the computer industry as much as it has.
What was the quote about you can still be moral and earn a million, but not a billion?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
You say "nepotistic" like that is always a bad thing.
There are several ways that he is the most extremely qualified for this position.
Chairs in family foundations are not open application positions, they are appointments by the benefactors. The benefactors appoint those that they trust. Bill and Melinda trust Bill Sr.
Then consider who was responsible for the starting of the Gates Center for Technology Access (the earlier foundation), it was Bill Sr. and Mary Gates that convinced Bill to start his philanthropy before he retired. Bill III was and still is working full time, so it was dad who offered to run things from the basement of his home. The ONLY reason reason that Bill III was willing to start the foundation when he did was because he truted his dad.
As for the 170K, you have to remember that it is III that is the billionaire, not Sr. While I am sure that he is quite generous with his dad, why not actually pay him a reasonable salary for the work that he is doing instead?
Basically, the one that I admire is not jobs (a showman), or gates (doing this to turn his reputation), but Paul Allen. Paul is investing in risky start-ups. Some make it big, others do not. He was the largest investor into internet over cable in 1994. He basically, created that market and all the jobs associated with it. Now he is investing into space. His invstment won the X-prize and I am guessing that he will make several other key investments that will create far more jobs and do more good than simply throwing a few dollars would ever do.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"What is more important, be a showmen technologist like Jobs or an humanitarian missionaire like Gates?
Perceptions can be wrong. And the media can supply plenty of incorrect perceptions.
I thank both men for giving us the computers we all have become so use to. And both men have had a huge influence on the computer market too, imho.
But to answer the question; Gates is a very shrewd business man who is known for creating a market for himself. My experience is these types of people generally are not of the humanitarian type until they are forced to be.(nothing wrong with that and nothing wrong with Gates having a good PR team and wife to making him look humanitarian). Jobs OTOH is a people driven person, even though he may drive them too hard. Because he understands the value of streaching folks to get their best. So he is more likely to be a real humanitarian under non-work conditions.
This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
Catahoula!
I notice a lot of quotes from the old testament. People who follow the old testament are known as Jews, not Christians. k'thanx
Let me rephrase that to more correctly reflect reality:
People who follow select parts of the old testament (ie. God Hates Fags) while ignoring others (ie. God Hates Blended Fabrics) are known as hypocrites. People who promote the legal enforcement of posting of the ten commandments on public buildings, while saying "Jesus Saves" are also hypocrites. People who say that paying taxes to support the poor on welfare is immoral, while ignoring Jesus's directives on charity, and rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, are also hypocrites.
Many of these hypocrites self-identify as "Evangelical Christians".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.