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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?"
I work for a charitable organization. My income is provided by people who believe in what I do and give money to support that work. In the time I've been doing this, one thing has been made clear to me over and over again.
It is a huge mistake to make assumptions and judge others when you really don't know anything about what is going on in their life, especially in regards to their finances.
I do admire that the authors of these articles are in favor of investing ones resources in ways that are intended to make the world a better place. I spend a good amount of my time trying to encourage people in the same way. But to criticize someone, even with the caveats about anonymous giving, is not really helpful. What a person does with their money, be it Steve Jobs or the kid grilling burgers at your local Jack in the Box, is their business. And we are in know place to judge them as human beings for what they do with their money, especially since we don't know what is going on in their lives.
When I approach people to support what I do, I try very hard to not develop preconceptions based on what I know about them, because I am almost always wrong when I do. People I think will give a lot, don't (often for very good reasons, whether I know those reasons or not) and people I think wont give at all, surprise me with their generosity. But judging one as better than the other without the whole picture would be a grave error.
Finally, when Christ wanted to give an example to his disciples of great giving, he pointed out the poor widow giving two mites. It was not the amount that mattered, but the attitude and the self-sacrafice. And from this distance who can judge those factors about Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?
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?
From the fine article, near the end, drawing a conclusion:
I respectfully disagree with the author's conclusion, unless by indicating "much more deserving", he is setting the bar incredibly low. Gates' fortune is every bit as obscene as the author claims Jobs' fortune is, and probably much more suspect in how Gates acquired it.
I get sick of the implied (or inferred by the masses) rags-to-riches yarn of Gates, college dropout made good. It's not true, Gates is of wealthy background, was a spoiled brat from the start and never had anything to lose, i.e., he was always destined to be rich and that would never have been in doubt. Unfortunately, he chose to become a goon and run roughshod over the technology world, amassing wealth unethically, and eventually (by DOJ judgement) illegally.
While I expect good to come of money Gates gives away, it's certainly less because Gates is a good guy and more that money can buy good things.
As for the slashdot question posed: Is it important that donations from rich billionaires be public or should they remain private?, probably yes. But probably more important is the motivation. I don't get any sense Bill's motivation is humanitarian, but do sense much of the work and generosity comes more from his wife Linda.
then may I choose Superman?
geek page at KY speaks
My father is my hero! Gates wouldn't even lend me money to buy my first car.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
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
By far, when it comes to character, the OTHER Steve from Apple beats those two all hollow. Yes, Jobs and Gates are more materially rich- but The Woz is rich in family and hacking ability, and as far as role models go, I'd much rather be the later.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I tend to view every move of Gates in terms of wondering if he's doing these things with the ulterior motive of helping his company, Microsoft
I really don't think that using $49 Billion of your own money to start a charitable foundation could *possibly* be out of a motive to help your company financially. Why on earth wouldn't he reinvest it if his motives were to help Microsoft?
That's messed up, man.
I'm sorry. The number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again.
Before Bill married Melinda I don't think he really though much about the world around him. Not to say that she hasn't changed him and now he does. But I think it more her and he just gets behind what she brings up.
As for the question, I favor Jobs.
-S
It is said that a child learns wisdom from the parent,
but the truly wise parent learns joy from the child
Without a doubt.
Which is why, I'd rather have Microsoft be a monopoly and make billions and use a chunk of that to help the world, rather than a lot of other companies and executives (Darth McBride, Larry Ellison) who just have all that money and do no good with it. Well, no good for the world that is.
For humanitarian things, definitely Gates.
If I wanted opinions on being stylish and wearing turtlenecks, I'd ask Jobs.
I'd say my hero is Bill Gates, because he showed the world, there is no reason to be afraid to be openly evil. I love him for paving the way for all of us villains to be. He shows us it is good to be evil :)
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Why? What has Torvalds done that even come close to camparing to Gates or Jobs? Seriously, I am curious...
As a creative sort of chap, I've always thought Jobs' heady mix of insanity, cunning and insight to be quite refreshing. Bill Gates is a nasty cold fish who seemingly knows nothing about humanity save that which he can buy.
Jobs makes things that are not just useful to me - they've helped bring out my artistic talents over the years - they've enabled me to create.
What has Bill Gates done for me and my world? Nothing, actually. He perpetuated some highly dysfunctional ways to interact with machines and generally works at dominating the distribution of information.
So he uses he obscene wealth (and it is obscene - and a bit of a fluke combined with Sam Walton-like business sense) for good. Well, that's great and I expect nothing less. Maybe he'll be considered another Andrew Carnegie someday, but I see very little to be interested by or admiring of about the man.
The things that Jobs and Co dream up bring pleasure and fun into my life.
neither of these men have risked their lives for belief in something that violent people around them did not believe.
Maybe they should be guest speakers at this years LinuxWorld Expo then?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Why not look up to those who do good works every day without worrying about bottom lines or shareholder value. Do we really want our business leaders to also be our moral leaders?
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
I think charity is a great idea, and it's great that Gates is being so open with his endorsement of charity. But I think Gates & Jobs (along with many others) have created far more value for the world by creating an entire new field in which millions of people have gained employment, and been able to feed & shelter their own families without the need for charity. Not to take anything away from volunteers or philanthropists, but from that perspective, they have probably been far more helpful to the world than somebody like Mother Theresa.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
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.
I know a family practitioner who gave up his lucrative practice to work in Sudan under horrific conditions. He has no plans to return, I guess when the money runs out.
IMO, people like him are the real heroes.
Sigs cause cancer.
Does Ballmer donate anything?
funny internet videos for our entertainment
The question seems too simplistic. If you want to ask the question -- who has done more for humanity: Gates or Jobs? Then you can look at acts of charity or whatever. If you want to ask who is the "most capitalist", then look at net worth. If you want to know whose actions illustrate the values one wants to live up to, look at their respective actions. If you want to ask who is the most selfless humanitarian, the answer is probably neither, as the parent indicates:
> It was not the amount that mattered, but the attitude and the self-sacrifice
The poster's submission makes it sound like all four of those are the same type of thing (hero).
It's really easy for a billionaire to donate a million dollars to charity. It's a lot harder for someone making $20k a year to donate a dime to charity. But the latter qualifies more as a humanitarian because of the self sacrifice, at least from a Christian perspective. When the billionaire does it, it's often for tax purposes or for PR. If they do it anonymously, at least they're not trying to secure favorable impressions in the history books.
I read the Wired article, and it was basically an author baiting Jobs to try to one-up Gates and his highly-publicized public giving. The author at least admitted that Jobs might be giving money anonymously, which is probably more in Jobs' character -- I'm thinking about Jobs meeting with a young man through the Make a Wish foundation. As far as I know, the meeting didn't appear on Apple Hot News for publicity.
As for a more riveting personal/business story, Jobs wins hands down. Gates used ruthless tactics to build his empire and then showed nothing but contempt for the justice system. Now that he's rich, he can through a few crumbs (albeit, crumbs to him are billions to the rest of us) to build his PR.
Jobs' story is more compelling to me: Apple's founding, buying Pixar from Lucas and turning it into a billion dollar business, failing at NeXT, but selling it back to Apple, and then rebuilding Apple with the iPod to chagrin of the loud protests from critics:
Founding a successful company is some skill and a lot of luck. Doing it three times (Apple, Pixar, Apple again) is more skill than luck.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
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...
Well, then, stick it to Microsoft. Kill yourself now.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
A parent suggested Gate's charity gave away close to fifty-billion dollars. If I was hiring a team to manage that amount of money I'd want to ensure they were paid very well too, for two key reasons:
1) Paying well ensures you get good-quality people skilled in managing this much money
2) The motivation for embezzlement is reduced if you are well-paid. (This is one of the reason that judges are well-paid in many jurisdictions - They're less susceptible to bribes).
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'm going to assume that a fair amount of Gates' giving does some good. It saves some lives in the third world, it helps some people. Probably a lot of people, given the amount of money involved.
So, from a pragmatic point of view, I don't care whether it's anonymous or not. He wants the credit? Fine. Let him have it. I mean, imagine that you're some dude living in the third world, and some rich American is willing to spend a few bucks so that you don't die from some easily-preventable disease. He's doing it because he wants to be considered a good guy, rather than because he really cares about you, poor third world person that you are. Do you care? Or are you grateful that he did it, for whatever reason? You bet you're grateful. What's more, you probably consider him to be a pretty good guy.
It's like the actor who, immediately after Katrina, went down to New Orleans, rented a boat with his own money, and started pulling people out of houses. So he had a video crew with him. So? If I'm one of the people he saved, do I care that he wanted some publicity? Not at all. In fact, if I ever wound up talking to a reporter, I'd be sure to mention how this wonderful guy spent his own money to rescue me (thereby giving him some publicity).
I'm no Bill Gates fanboy. I despise his business ethics. But I appreciate his charity work.
Don't require the motives to be perfectly pure. Just be glad that he's doing something, for whatever reason.
I'm extremely disappointed to see the slashdot crowd almost entirely bashing Gates becuase they don't care for microsofts software.
It's not neccesarily because they don't care for microsofts software.
Perhaps it is because microsoft is a convicted monopolist and Bill Gates is the worst of the bunch. They have been found guilty in court of illegally crushing their competition in the name of profits. Had they not done that, there would have been more competition and prices would have been driven down. Gates and microsoft would not be so rich in the first place and the money would instead distributed in the rest of society where it should have been in the first place.
Gates gestures are nothing IMO compared to the harm he and others have caused society with their monopolistic practices.
This is nothing to do with software, and everything to do with a bunch of over powerful, greedy, damaging people who will stop at nothing to "stay ahead" in their industry.
Forgive me for not falling at their feet when they give a few percent of their immorally gained wealth back to society in some way.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
I know this can sound weird, but Jobs is my hero. Not because what he did for all the people, but because something he said.
I was on my deepest depression crisis ever and I was already planning my suicide. I was sure that day would be my last day when I came across his speech at Stanford University. And his words made me rethink everything I was going through at that moment, and gave me enough strength to give up the plan and keep going.
So yeah, Jobs is my personal hero. No matter how great amount of money Gates throw at projects, Jobs is the guy who said the right thing at the right moment.
[And I tried to send him my story, but I'm almost sure he would never see it]
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I don't know about Steve Jobs, but Bill Gates has, in fact, donated quite a substantial sum of money to charity. The problem I continue to have (and this isn't against Bill Gates per se), is that so many super-rich people make bold statements about how much money they have given. At the end of the day, however, they are still super-rich. Bill Gates for example has enough money to last him several lifetimes.
Why do they need so much money? I respect the fact they worked bloody hard to get it, but you reach a point where having $1 Billion vs having $10 Billion really doesn't make that much off a difference! Now, imagine what that $9 Billion could do for humanity.
Most donations I see from celebrities and other wealthy individuals represent less than 1% of their net worth. This makes me sick.
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?
Fundamentalists read the Bible, look at the actual black-and-white text and do what it says: hate gays, hate other religions, hate sex, hate the darkies and try and save everyone else's soul. Progressives simply pretend that those parts of the Bible don't exist and pay attention only to Jesus (who never explicitly said that the Old Testament was wrong, in error or should be ignored).
You are so ridiculously incorrect that it's not even amusing. I know, this is Slashdot, and we've become used to this sort of thing. The Bible doesn't say a single thing about "hate gays, hate other religions, hate sex, hate the darkies". Not once. Sorry, bub. Jesus repeatedly demonstrated that it was more important to love than it was to enforce the law. An example of this is when the pharisees looked to condemn him for healing a man on the sabbath (in the OT, it is unlawful to perform any work on the sabbath). At no point was the message to "hate" anyone for anything. Regardless of whether homosexuality is a sin or not, we are told to love each other (friends and enemies both).
I'm sorry, but reasonable Christians have to simply accept that there are some real atrocities in their religion's history and that there was valid grounding in their holy scriptures for them.Must the muslims accept what happen to the World Trade Center? I don't see either as needing acceptance. If I bomb fundamentalist Christians in the name of Durandal64, is it your problem? You clearly seem to not like them and I took it to mean that you thought the world would be a better place without them. Please accept my actions as they were done in your name.
Those people had unquestioning faith. Saying that they weren't Christians belies a staggering ignorance of history.
Was Ptolemy not a scientist? Did he not get the whole solar system completely wrong? Does that invalidate all of science? No, but you learn from it that sometimes scientists are wrong. The same goes for Christians. Big whoop.
But what's bad is pretending that their take on Christianity is the only valid one. They start from the assumption that Christianity must be tolerant and loving and interpret the Bible from that framework, completely disregarding history and the text on the page.
You really don't get the Bible or the religion. Sure, you can pull out one liners and short stories, but when you take them out of the context of the entire thing, they're useless. It's not surprising that you don't get it. I don't, either. Jesus three times told his disciples (who followed him around constantly and heard everything he said) that they didn't get it.
I'll give credence to this "true Christianity" claim when major churches start putting their money where their mouths are and declare the racist, sexist, morally abhorrent parts of the Bible invalid.
Won't ever happen. It's part of the story of God's relationship with man. It's a part that you don't seem to understand, but that doesn't make it wrong or morally abhorrent. It's neither of those things.
Because $640K should be enough for everyone.
My other first post is car post.
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.
Sophistry. Being a flawed human being and being a good person are not mutually exclusive. As for you thinking you deserve the wrath of a God who apparently impulsively flooded the entire planet and killed everything ... that is unfortunate. You're probably a decent person in real life.
Wait, so the atrocities in the Old Testament are humanity's fault? God ordered most of them! Hell, he committed a few himself!
That's very poetic, but it makes no sense. God comes down to Earth to lift a curse that he himself put on us? Why not just snap his fingers and make it all better? Isn't he omnipotent? Why all the theatrics? Could it be because Jesus was ripped off of earlier Messiah stories?
Yes, when we try to live by the laws of the Old Testament, everything gets fucked up. But God himself gave those laws to us, and they are clear as day. He himself ordered many massive slaughters in the Old Testament. He even created a slave class out of the Sons of Ham. Humanity isn't perfect, but we're nothing near the monster the Judeo-Christian God is.
...is still a robber barron if he gives away 10% of the booty to the poor.
"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.