6 ms·

Even at the expense of sounding like a troll, it always amazes me, really it does, that Bill Gates and Paul Allen the two founders of the so called "evil" MS ha

by yumraj 16y ago

Even at the expense of sounding like a troll, it always amazes me, really it does, that Bill Gates and Paul Allen the two founders of the so called "evil" MS have given so much money to charity while we haven't seen any such moves from Jobs and Woz the founders of "think-different" Apple. Makes you wonder, doesn't it.

gscott 16y ago
Giving money away seems to be a full time job, so Jobs he is still working at Apple and doesn't have time yet. Woz, he cashed in a lot of his stock when it was $24 a share (much of it to give away). I am not sure how much he has left but I don't believe he truly has enough to just give any more away.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
burriko 16y ago
Woz is fairly well known as a philanthropist, and has been since the early 80s. I'd guess that he just hasn't drawn the same level of press attention that the Microsoft billionaires have. I'm also quite sure that he has nowhere near as much cash as them, despite how well Apple are doing now, they've had much harder times than MS. I've no idea about Jobs though. His personal life has always been very secretive, and I would imagine any involvement with charity would be just as secretive.
- sadapsi 16y ago
  You are plainly biased in favor of Apple inc! MS sold an O.S. while Apple tried to sell the whole bundle. Whatever B.S. reasons you have for user x, I can tell you that people can live with a 1 bsod per day if they are getting the machine at nearly half the price. Apple tried to become vertical monopoly, and made only enemies in the process.It is repeating same mistakes in mobile space as well. Jobs actions arent exactly better than Bill Gates, and as far as Woz is concerned he is a pariah and steve jobs doesnt gives a shit about him
andreyf 16y ago
Woz has spent decades teaching 5th graders. He donated most of his money to the school district he worked with. My bias might be showing, but this seems a lot better approach to education than throwing money at it like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Starting in 2000, the Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its first big project, trying to revitalize U.S. high schools by making them smaller, only to discover that student body size has little effect on achievement. [1] At the expense of sounding like a troll, it amazes me that throwing tons of money at problems is commonly accepted as a noble thing. What we're lacking isn't money, it's imagination - we need new ideas for measuring achievement and improving education, and while economic power can act as a catalyst to implementing such changes, it's in no way sufficient for making a lasting positive impact on its own. 1. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_30/b4188058281758.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_30/b41880582...
- parallax7d 16y ago
  Not only does gates throw lots of money at problems, they follow up the results with effectiveness studies.
  - andreyf 16y ago
    And what makes his definition of "effectiveness" any good? When goals are as clear as "maximize profit", I have no doubt Bill Gates is one of the most competent in the field. However, when it's as vague as "improve education", I have serious doubts. I'd trust a passionate fifth grade teacher to make good judgements of what's best for their students' education over a billionaire entrepreneur any day.
    - edanm 16y ago
      I'm guessing a portion of that money is going towards "passionate 5th grade teachers", giving them the chance to use their expertise and imagination to improve education. Bill Gates is, at the very least, very smart. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he's spending his considerable net worth in a way that helps.
dieterrams 16y ago
What they're doing is awesome, but it's not an excuse for the anti-competitive crap MS pulled, unless that was something they did for philanthropy's sake. But it does make up for it, I think.
wallflower 16y ago
I remember reading this great article about Woz back when I subscribed to Wired. > One of the great Woz quotes of all time is his half-apologetic explanation for his failure to be more aggressive about staying rich: "I don't feel attached to my money in normal ways." > Undaunted, Woz describes for this graduating class his original vision of a technological revolution. Although he no longer designs computers, he retains something of the distracted and childlike qualities of the übernerd, and his delivery is fast, disjointed, and extremely personal. "All of a sudden," Woz says, remembering his days at Hewlett-Packard, "affordable computers were coming! Computers that people could own! We could have them in our homes. There would be a revolution, and they'd be in every home. And we spoke in clubs, and we had a big club, and it grew to 500 members and it was huge and we just hung on every word. And the big computer companies, the ones that already existed, said, 'It's a little passing fad like ham radio. It will go away. It just doesn't matter. Nobody is going to want a computer in their home.' "Well, that's right. The computers were ugly and they were big monstrosities and they didn't look like anything you'd want in the home. They looked like some big commercial piece of equipment with switches and things that you'd have to have a technician working in your house to keep it maintained. Our idea was that these computers were going to free us and allow us to organize. They were going to empower us. We could sit down and write programs that did more than our company's programs on their big million-dollar computers did. And little fifth-graders would go into companies and write a better program than the top gurus being paid the top salary, and it was going to turn the tables over. We were excited by this revolutionary talk. "The club was all about giving, because back then there were no dollars in this business. It was: Give some knowledge. Write down a program you've got. Write down how to build a certain device. Offer some help. Offer some information. Offer some parts at a good price. Offer your own time." Revolutionary excitement is always sparked when powerful information is suddenly shared. But, he goes on, this is not the mood of the computer industry today... Wired 6.09: "The World According to Woz" http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.09/woz_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.09/woz_pr.html
- sadapsi 16y ago
  Sorry but Apple's approach of no-options and very high starting price have only hurt consumers. The near dominance of MS is due to the fact that it allowed really cheap machines, which lead to its adoptions in Industry and then in the whole world. I remeber Bill Gates even claiming that he does not cares about pirated version of Windows in India/China. I remember correctly, my first computer 9 years back had pirated version of windows. Also you can see Apple following similar strategy again: While Andorid is open source and allows product at multiple price points, iphone gives no options. Also finally Woz is pretty powerless guy now!
staunch 16y ago
Counter troll: Those guys have guilty consciouses :-)
Yaggo 16y ago
Selling (or donating) is about timing. MSFT‎ has seen its best days, while AAPL hasn't yet.
anigbrowl 16y ago
That's a bit unfair. Woz donates, Jobs has thrown money and time into improving organ donation, and in any case Jobs has only become super-rich in the last few years - Gates passed that point somewhere in the mid-90s, so he has had much more time to think about it. I imagine Jobs wants to groom a credible successor for the next few years, so that the company's price doesn't plummet when he retires.
- gwern 16y ago
  Organ donation, eh? How very selfless of him. Reminds me of an article I read once: http://exiledonline.com/memphis-where-the-oligarchs-eat-their-fellow-americans/ http://exiledonline.com/memphis-where-the-oligarchs-eat-thei...
  - exit 16y ago
    thanks for linking this. spot on.
- brianobush 16y ago
  Jobs has had quite a bit from his Disney holdings (which he got when Pixar was acquired; 138 million shares says fortune). http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/11/how-rich-is-steve-jobs-today/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/11/how-rich-is-steve-job...

by yumraj 16y ago

gscott 16y ago

Giving money away seems to be a full time job, so Jobs he is still working at Apple and doesn't have time yet. Woz, he cashed in a lot of his stock when it was $24 a share (much of it to give away). I am not sure how much he has left but I don't believe he truly has enough to just give any more away.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

burriko 16y ago

Woz is fairly well known as a philanthropist, and has been since the early 80s. I'd guess that he just hasn't drawn the same level of press attention that the Microsoft billionaires have. I'm also quite sure that he has nowhere near as much cash as them, despite how well Apple are doing now, they've had much harder times than MS. I've no idea about Jobs though. His personal life has always been very secretive, and I would imagine any involvement with charity would be just as secretive.

sadapsi 16y ago
You are plainly biased in favor of Apple inc! MS sold an O.S. while Apple tried to sell the whole bundle. Whatever B.S. reasons you have for user x, I can tell you that people can live with a 1 bsod per day if they are getting the machine at nearly half the price. Apple tried to become vertical monopoly, and made only enemies in the process.It is repeating same mistakes in mobile space as well. Jobs actions arent exactly better than Bill Gates, and as far as Woz is concerned he is a pariah and steve jobs doesnt gives a shit about him

andreyf 16y ago

Woz has spent decades teaching 5th graders. He donated most of his money to the school district he worked with. My bias might be showing, but this seems a lot better approach to education than throwing money at it like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Starting in 2000, the Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its first big project, trying to revitalize U.S. high schools by making them smaller, only to discover that student body size has little effect on achievement. [1] At the expense of sounding like a troll, it amazes me that throwing tons of money at problems is commonly accepted as a noble thing. What we're lacking isn't money, it's imagination - we need new ideas for measuring achievement and improving education, and while economic power can act as a catalyst to implementing such changes, it's in no way sufficient for making a lasting positive impact on its own. 1. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_30/b4188058281758.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_30/b41880582...

parallax7d 16y ago
Not only does gates throw lots of money at problems, they follow up the results with effectiveness studies.
- andreyf 16y ago
  And what makes his definition of "effectiveness" any good? When goals are as clear as "maximize profit", I have no doubt Bill Gates is one of the most competent in the field. However, when it's as vague as "improve education", I have serious doubts. I'd trust a passionate fifth grade teacher to make good judgements of what's best for their students' education over a billionaire entrepreneur any day.
  - edanm 16y ago
    I'm guessing a portion of that money is going towards "passionate 5th grade teachers", giving them the chance to use their expertise and imagination to improve education. Bill Gates is, at the very least, very smart. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he's spending his considerable net worth in a way that helps.

dieterrams 16y ago

What they're doing is awesome, but it's not an excuse for the anti-competitive crap MS pulled, unless that was something they did for philanthropy's sake. But it does make up for it, I think.

wallflower 16y ago

I remember reading this great article about Woz back when I subscribed to Wired. > One of the great Woz quotes of all time is his half-apologetic explanation for his failure to be more aggressive about staying rich: "I don't feel attached to my money in normal ways." > Undaunted, Woz describes for this graduating class his original vision of a technological revolution. Although he no longer designs computers, he retains something of the distracted and childlike qualities of the übernerd, and his delivery is fast, disjointed, and extremely personal. "All of a sudden," Woz says, remembering his days at Hewlett-Packard, "affordable computers were coming! Computers that people could own! We could have them in our homes. There would be a revolution, and they'd be in every home. And we spoke in clubs, and we had a big club, and it grew to 500 members and it was huge and we just hung on every word. And the big computer companies, the ones that already existed, said, 'It's a little passing fad like ham radio. It will go away. It just doesn't matter. Nobody is going to want a computer in their home.' "Well, that's right. The computers were ugly and they were big monstrosities and they didn't look like anything you'd want in the home. They looked like some big commercial piece of equipment with switches and things that you'd have to have a technician working in your house to keep it maintained. Our idea was that these computers were going to free us and allow us to organize. They were going to empower us. We could sit down and write programs that did more than our company's programs on their big million-dollar computers did. And little fifth-graders would go into companies and write a better program than the top gurus being paid the top salary, and it was going to turn the tables over. We were excited by this revolutionary talk. "The club was all about giving, because back then there were no dollars in this business. It was: Give some knowledge. Write down a program you've got. Write down how to build a certain device. Offer some help. Offer some information. Offer some parts at a good price. Offer your own time." Revolutionary excitement is always sparked when powerful information is suddenly shared. But, he goes on, this is not the mood of the computer industry today... Wired 6.09: "The World According to Woz" http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.09/woz_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.09/woz_pr.html

sadapsi 16y ago
Sorry but Apple's approach of no-options and very high starting price have only hurt consumers. The near dominance of MS is due to the fact that it allowed really cheap machines, which lead to its adoptions in Industry and then in the whole world. I remeber Bill Gates even claiming that he does not cares about pirated version of Windows in India/China. I remember correctly, my first computer 9 years back had pirated version of windows. Also you can see Apple following similar strategy again: While Andorid is open source and allows product at multiple price points, iphone gives no options. Also finally Woz is pretty powerless guy now!

staunch 16y ago

Counter troll: Those guys have guilty consciouses :-)

Yaggo 16y ago

Selling (or donating) is about timing. MSFT‎ has seen its best days, while AAPL hasn't yet.

anigbrowl 16y ago

That's a bit unfair. Woz donates, Jobs has thrown money and time into improving organ donation, and in any case Jobs has only become super-rich in the last few years - Gates passed that point somewhere in the mid-90s, so he has had much more time to think about it. I imagine Jobs wants to groom a credible successor for the next few years, so that the company's price doesn't plummet when he retires.

gwern 16y ago
Organ donation, eh? How very selfless of him. Reminds me of an article I read once: http://exiledonline.com/memphis-where-the-oligarchs-eat-their-fellow-americans/ http://exiledonline.com/memphis-where-the-oligarchs-eat-thei...
- exit 16y ago
  thanks for linking this. spot on.
brianobush 16y ago
Jobs has had quite a bit from his Disney holdings (which he got when Pixar was acquired; 138 million shares says fortune). http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/11/how-rich-is-steve-jobs-today/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/11/how-rich-is-steve-job...