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The difference between Bezos and Gates reminds me a lot of the difference between Jobs and Gates, in terms of philanthropy. Gates has been very public about th

The difference between Bezos and Gates reminds me a lot of the difference between Jobs and Gates, in terms of philanthropy. Gates has been very public about the plans for his wealth since at least the mid 90s, famously saying that his kids would only inherit a few million. He's regularly committed very large amounts of his capital and time to his philanthropic organization since it was started in 95. I admired him back then, and even more-so now that he's followed through on his commitments and his encouragement for other billionaires to do the same. I get the impression that he understands that hoarding huge amounts of wealth commits you to using that wealth for the public good more than most other billionaires. Jobs was never publicly philanthropic (and actually shut down a lot of Apple's internal philanthropic work himself when re-instated as chief), and the best that we've gotten from Bezos so far is the nebulous message that philanthropy is in his future, but not now. Even Zuckerberg is doing better on that front. Bezos may turn it around and surprise us, but right now we don't really have much data to support that.

erikpukinskis 8y ago
I think Steve Jobs though, moreso than Gates, drove Apple to produce the kind of products he thought the world needed. Regardless of whether Jobs was delusional on this point, I think it’s clear that he put his values ahead of the profitability of the company, and ahead of his own career at Apple. His ouster is evidence of that. He was not protecting the throne. Gates did. He was no Larry Ellison, but he was a raw competitor. He wanted Microsoft to win. And his vision of what a computer could be was limited to “whatever the best thing Microsoft could come up with is.” Jobs didn’t care what Apple the company was capable of, he was driven by an external vision of what the world needed and he shaped Apple to match that. Gates killed a lot of good companies out of sheer competitive ferocity, and we suffered because of it. Computers are less good today because Netscape and Word Perfect and Samba were mercilessly fucked with. And we’ll never know how many products were delayed by decades because of the chilling effect Gates deliberately created. I think in a real sense he owes us for that. Jobs did what he thought was best for computer users. We can debate whether he knew what was best, but I think his approach comes with less karmic debt.

erikpukinskis 8y ago

I think Steve Jobs though, moreso than Gates, drove Apple to produce the kind of products he thought the world needed. Regardless of whether Jobs was delusional on this point, I think it’s clear that he put his values ahead of the profitability of the company, and ahead of his own career at Apple. His ouster is evidence of that. He was not protecting the throne. Gates did. He was no Larry Ellison, but he was a raw competitor. He wanted Microsoft to win. And his vision of what a computer could be was limited to “whatever the best thing Microsoft could come up with is.” Jobs didn’t care what Apple the company was capable of, he was driven by an external vision of what the world needed and he shaped Apple to match that. Gates killed a lot of good companies out of sheer competitive ferocity, and we suffered because of it. Computers are less good today because Netscape and Word Perfect and Samba were mercilessly fucked with. And we’ll never know how many products were delayed by decades because of the chilling effect Gates deliberately created. I think in a real sense he owes us for that. Jobs did what he thought was best for computer users. We can debate whether he knew what was best, but I think his approach comes with less karmic debt.