10 Things I Didn’t Know About Steve Jobs
6) He doesn’t give any money to charity. And when he became Apple’s CEO he stopped all of their philanthropic programs. He said, “wait until we are profitable”. Now they are profitable, and sitting on $40bb cash, and still not corporate philanthropy. I actually think Jobs is probably the most charitable guy on the planet. Rather than focus on which mosquitoes to kill in Africa (Bill Gates is already focusing on that), Jobs has put his energy into massively improving quality of life with all of his inventions. People think that entrepreneurs have to some day “give back”. This is not true. They already gave at the office. Look at the entire ipod/Mac/iphone/Disney ecosystem and ask how many lives have benefited directly (because they’ve been hired) or indirectly (because they use the products to improve their quality of life). As far as I know, Jobs has never even commented about his thoughts on charity. Good for him. As one CEO of a (currently) Fortune 10 company once told me when I had my hand out for a charitable website, “Screw charity!”HT: Newmarks Door
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I can see both sides to this argument. On one hand Steve Jobs at Apple is able to do the same things charity does by increasing the quality of life with his products. On the other hand he could operate his business with a more philanthropic approach and possibly sacrifice the impact of his products. I, however,disagree with Job's logic with not providing funds for charity. Altough Apple may be able to produce technology that can make increase production possibilities I don't think the 18,000 children how die of starvation every day are concerned about how many apps are on their cells phones.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that providing new technology that people have to BUY to increase the quality of their life is equivalent to charity. Charity is free. If Jobs participated in charities, people may be more willing to buy his products which would increase his sales anyway.
ReplyDeleteSteve Jobs has donated to charities, but he doesn't do it often, and there is no "philanthropic division" in Apple anymore. I'd post a link, but apparently I'm not allowed to.
ReplyDeleteIf it happens, it happens. "Rarely" is still a lot more than "never" ever is.