5 ms·

> I think that his continuing to work is the most charitable act I've observed in my lifetime. Really? I doubt he did any of the stuff for our express benefit.

by tobtoh 15y ago

> I think that his continuing to work is the most charitable act I've observed in my lifetime. Really? I doubt he did any of the stuff for our express benefit. Steve had a personal drive to produce good products, to achieve his personal goals, and he did that really well and is rightly admired for pursuing his internal drive and making it such a success. Was his drive mainly for altruistic reasons? For the benefit of mankind? Come on - I'm all for admiring the guy, but let's not fawn over him. He's not a saint. If he is, I guess all those mega-rich CEOs of the Samsungs, Ford, General Electics of the world are also so admirable because they 'charitably' continue to work when they financially don't need to.

rayiner 15y ago
Look at it this way. With $140 million in 1985, Steve could've invested all of his money in a hedge fund and probably come out ahead of how he did investing in Pixar, Apple, etc. From $140 million to $7 billion over 26 years is about 16.5% return per year, which is less than the annual return of Berkshire Hathaway over the last 20 years (almost 19%). He's not a guy who took his millions and invested it in the questionably useful products of Wall Street. Instead, he built things that people loved. That doesn't make him a saint, but I think it makes him someone worthy of respect.
- tobtoh 15y ago
  > That doesn't make him a saint, but I think it makes him someone worthy of respect. I totally agree about respect - but respect is not charity. Charity refers to noble goals/intentions - Steve 'only' built great products - those products are great - but there is nothing inherently noble about them. If the OP had said Bill Gates is amazingly charitable - I would be more inclined to agree. Bill Gates has worked to make the world a better place and has self-sacrificed his wealth to help others. Steve did none of that - Steve is incredibly entrepreneurial and deserves boatloads of respect - but don't say his actions where charitable.
  - rayiner 15y ago
    I agree. I think charity is the wrong word. There is something between blind greed and charity, and that something is applicable here.
  - eftpotrm 15y ago
    I have real problems with declaring Bill Gates 'amazingly chartitable'. Yes, he's given away huge chunks of money to worthy causes, but how did he get that money? By operating a business in a way that twice got him convicted as an abusive monopoly. Microsoft's market position was hugely enhanced by them illegally using one captive market to create another. They forced up prices for their customers and forced competitors out of business by illegal means. So yeah, he's giving away lots of money, but to me it's stolen money. That's not charity.
    - spinchange 15y ago
      Wasn't the central reason for the US anti-trust action over bundling and distributing IE for free to undercut the paid stand-alone Netscape? Today this is Google's basic strategy for everything. I was very much "against" MS in those days, but looking back on it now, I feel like it was the beginning of a big part the modern web/software business model. It's not "stolen," just because we don't like how he earned it. Committing to give away one's entire fortune - and actually doing it - is hugely generous, our feelings about MS aside. It is very much charity.
      - eftpotrm 15y ago
        It seems the collective wisdom of HN disagrees with me, but.... Microsoft were barred from compulsory bundling with Windows after bundling that essentially gave away MS-DOS with Windows to try to undermine DR-DOS. There were recorded cases of them developing software specifically to sense a competitor title and induce incompatibilities that weren't necessarily there. Back when Microsoft Office still had significant commercial competition it was noted that it had substantially weaker copy protection than other Microsoft software, suggested to be on the basis that an illegal copy of Office was better for Microsoft than a legal copy of competitor software. Microsoft were recorded as saying they were giving away Internet Explorer to 'cut off Netscape's air supply'. Netscape were marketing their web server as a superior product running on NT Workstation to IIS on NT Server, so Microsoft bundled IIS with NT Server and changed the terms on NT Workstation to prevent its use as a server. Microsoft were specifically challenged that their line on IE being inextricably integrated with Windows was incorrect and produced false videos in testimony to back up their case. When they were ordered to produce an edition of Windows without IE they insisted they could then only produce either an obsolete or non-functional edition. Bill Gates' giving of his testimony was described as 'evasive and non-responsive' and many of his denials were directly undermined by his own emails. Bluntly, in trying to defend the case they committed repeated perjury. From this, findings of fact were issued (which still stand) which stated that Microsoft's standing in the x86 operating system market constituted a monopoly and that they had taken actions to crush threats to this monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, Real Networks, Linux, and others. Microsoft's behaviour was illegal under US anti-trust law and had abused market positions to the detriment of competitors. Microsoft's business tactics were illegally stifling their new entrepreneurial challengers. Which is why, still, I consider Bill Gates' money to be tainted. He may well be doing a fantastic, dedicated job of his philanthropy at present. He may well have been somewhat similarly wealthy regardless. But, regardless, he still worked to obtain a dominant position for his company, at the expense of competitor software that could have promoted a more dynamic, diverse ecosystem, by means that were found to be illegal and anti-competitive.
- onemoreact 15y ago
  Berkshire Hathaway has outperformed that vast majority of stocks over that time period. Saying he could have used leverage and some good stocks to turn 140 million to 140 billion is also true, but when you don't know how companies are going to preform your not given the choice of a safe 19+% ROI for 20 years.
  - rayiner 15y ago
    I gave Berkshire just as an example of returns that are possible in the market. When you've got 140 million to invest you don't buy stocks like the little people. You put it in a hedge fund like Blackstone that has returned an average of 20% per year over the last two decades.
    - cjy 15y ago
      The average hedge fund averages something closer to 11% (Wikipedia_. It is easy to pick the winners after the fact. And, when you have too much money it is harder to get greater returns on it. It's a lot easier to find 10 million dollar opportunities than 1 billion dollar opportunities.
    - onemoreact 15y ago
      Your confusing historical returns with expected returns. There are types of investments only available to people or institutions with a lot of capital, but plenty of companies invest in them and you can buy a piece of them on the public stock market. Unfortunately, most of these investments carry a high risk of returning nothing. It's like noticing your friend went to Vegas and made 5,000$ in a few hours, the problem is he only did that by risking losses and your just happen to see the upside. PS: Or as my grandfather who made plenty of money in the stock market said, "Don't invest in banks they can look like their doing well and then die at any time."
delackner 15y ago
Please, altruism as defined your way does not exist. Altruism is at its core self-serving: We desire to feel better about ourselves, to feel we are good human beings. People admire different things, so their vision of how best to behave leads to different forms of self-satisfaction. Rather than focus on whether Steve did great things because of his passion for excellence, or because he wanted to have legions of fans, or for whatever other supposedly saintlike or selfish reason, focus on what he accomplished: bringing computing to the masses. That is an amazing thing.
- vinutheraj 15y ago
  The way you define altruism, would be the correct way to describe what Jobs did. Even though he was ousted from Apple he continued to work on his passion. His actions were at its core self-serving. The side-effects were the good things he added to humanity.
  - reddit_clone 15y ago
    Everyone is gushing about him like he cured cancer, abolished hunger or something. He ran a successful computer company and led the teams that produced some really nice gadgets. Get some perspective people !
- crag 15y ago
  "bringing computing to the masses." The masses in the West. You don't see to many Mac's running around Africa, India, China, or Russia. I'm not trying to belittle Steve Jobs at all. He was a visionary who had a stunning ability to spot and develop good products. It made him, and others VERY wealthy. And powerful. But don't think for a minute Mr Jobs did it out of the goodness of his heart. Profit and his vision motivated him. He wanted to push the industry he loved in a certain direction. And he succeded brilliantly. Oh and I admire him for doing what he loved to the bitter end. I can tell you, from personal experience (I lived though AIDS/Cancer) that was not easy for him. At all. I admire him a great deal for never giving in. //edited. changed the 1st line and added the last paragraph.
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
gizmo 15y ago
It doesn't matter if he worked for our express benefit or because he simply wanted to. Intent is nearly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The bottom line is that he contributed an enormous amount and he inspired a generation of technical people. Maybe it doesn't deserve the label "charitable" but it most certainly is hugely beneficial to mankind.

by tobtoh 15y ago

rayiner 15y ago

Look at it this way. With $140 million in 1985, Steve could've invested all of his money in a hedge fund and probably come out ahead of how he did investing in Pixar, Apple, etc. From $140 million to $7 billion over 26 years is about 16.5% return per year, which is less than the annual return of Berkshire Hathaway over the last 20 years (almost 19%). He's not a guy who took his millions and invested it in the questionably useful products of Wall Street. Instead, he built things that people loved. That doesn't make him a saint, but I think it makes him someone worthy of respect.

tobtoh 15y ago
> That doesn't make him a saint, but I think it makes him someone worthy of respect. I totally agree about respect - but respect is not charity. Charity refers to noble goals/intentions - Steve 'only' built great products - those products are great - but there is nothing inherently noble about them. If the OP had said Bill Gates is amazingly charitable - I would be more inclined to agree. Bill Gates has worked to make the world a better place and has self-sacrificed his wealth to help others. Steve did none of that - Steve is incredibly entrepreneurial and deserves boatloads of respect - but don't say his actions where charitable.
- rayiner 15y ago
  I agree. I think charity is the wrong word. There is something between blind greed and charity, and that something is applicable here.
- eftpotrm 15y ago
  I have real problems with declaring Bill Gates 'amazingly chartitable'. Yes, he's given away huge chunks of money to worthy causes, but how did he get that money? By operating a business in a way that twice got him convicted as an abusive monopoly. Microsoft's market position was hugely enhanced by them illegally using one captive market to create another. They forced up prices for their customers and forced competitors out of business by illegal means. So yeah, he's giving away lots of money, but to me it's stolen money. That's not charity.
  - spinchange 15y ago
    Wasn't the central reason for the US anti-trust action over bundling and distributing IE for free to undercut the paid stand-alone Netscape? Today this is Google's basic strategy for everything. I was very much "against" MS in those days, but looking back on it now, I feel like it was the beginning of a big part the modern web/software business model. It's not "stolen," just because we don't like how he earned it. Committing to give away one's entire fortune - and actually doing it - is hugely generous, our feelings about MS aside. It is very much charity.
    - eftpotrm 15y ago
      It seems the collective wisdom of HN disagrees with me, but.... Microsoft were barred from compulsory bundling with Windows after bundling that essentially gave away MS-DOS with Windows to try to undermine DR-DOS. There were recorded cases of them developing software specifically to sense a competitor title and induce incompatibilities that weren't necessarily there. Back when Microsoft Office still had significant commercial competition it was noted that it had substantially weaker copy protection than other Microsoft software, suggested to be on the basis that an illegal copy of Office was better for Microsoft than a legal copy of competitor software. Microsoft were recorded as saying they were giving away Internet Explorer to 'cut off Netscape's air supply'. Netscape were marketing their web server as a superior product running on NT Workstation to IIS on NT Server, so Microsoft bundled IIS with NT Server and changed the terms on NT Workstation to prevent its use as a server. Microsoft were specifically challenged that their line on IE being inextricably integrated with Windows was incorrect and produced false videos in testimony to back up their case. When they were ordered to produce an edition of Windows without IE they insisted they could then only produce either an obsolete or non-functional edition. Bill Gates' giving of his testimony was described as 'evasive and non-responsive' and many of his denials were directly undermined by his own emails. Bluntly, in trying to defend the case they committed repeated perjury. From this, findings of fact were issued (which still stand) which stated that Microsoft's standing in the x86 operating system market constituted a monopoly and that they had taken actions to crush threats to this monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, Real Networks, Linux, and others. Microsoft's behaviour was illegal under US anti-trust law and had abused market positions to the detriment of competitors. Microsoft's business tactics were illegally stifling their new entrepreneurial challengers. Which is why, still, I consider Bill Gates' money to be tainted. He may well be doing a fantastic, dedicated job of his philanthropy at present. He may well have been somewhat similarly wealthy regardless. But, regardless, he still worked to obtain a dominant position for his company, at the expense of competitor software that could have promoted a more dynamic, diverse ecosystem, by means that were found to be illegal and anti-competitive.
onemoreact 15y ago
Berkshire Hathaway has outperformed that vast majority of stocks over that time period. Saying he could have used leverage and some good stocks to turn 140 million to 140 billion is also true, but when you don't know how companies are going to preform your not given the choice of a safe 19+% ROI for 20 years.
- rayiner 15y ago
  I gave Berkshire just as an example of returns that are possible in the market. When you've got 140 million to invest you don't buy stocks like the little people. You put it in a hedge fund like Blackstone that has returned an average of 20% per year over the last two decades.
  - cjy 15y ago
    The average hedge fund averages something closer to 11% (Wikipedia_. It is easy to pick the winners after the fact. And, when you have too much money it is harder to get greater returns on it. It's a lot easier to find 10 million dollar opportunities than 1 billion dollar opportunities.
  - onemoreact 15y ago
    Your confusing historical returns with expected returns. There are types of investments only available to people or institutions with a lot of capital, but plenty of companies invest in them and you can buy a piece of them on the public stock market. Unfortunately, most of these investments carry a high risk of returning nothing. It's like noticing your friend went to Vegas and made 5,000$ in a few hours, the problem is he only did that by risking losses and your just happen to see the upside. PS: Or as my grandfather who made plenty of money in the stock market said, "Don't invest in banks they can look like their doing well and then die at any time."

delackner 15y ago

Please, altruism as defined your way does not exist. Altruism is at its core self-serving: We desire to feel better about ourselves, to feel we are good human beings. People admire different things, so their vision of how best to behave leads to different forms of self-satisfaction. Rather than focus on whether Steve did great things because of his passion for excellence, or because he wanted to have legions of fans, or for whatever other supposedly saintlike or selfish reason, focus on what he accomplished: bringing computing to the masses. That is an amazing thing.

vinutheraj 15y ago
The way you define altruism, would be the correct way to describe what Jobs did. Even though he was ousted from Apple he continued to work on his passion. His actions were at its core self-serving. The side-effects were the good things he added to humanity.
- reddit_clone 15y ago
  Everyone is gushing about him like he cured cancer, abolished hunger or something. He ran a successful computer company and led the teams that produced some really nice gadgets. Get some perspective people !
crag 15y ago
"bringing computing to the masses." The masses in the West. You don't see to many Mac's running around Africa, India, China, or Russia. I'm not trying to belittle Steve Jobs at all. He was a visionary who had a stunning ability to spot and develop good products. It made him, and others VERY wealthy. And powerful. But don't think for a minute Mr Jobs did it out of the goodness of his heart. Profit and his vision motivated him. He wanted to push the industry he loved in a certain direction. And he succeded brilliantly. Oh and I admire him for doing what he loved to the bitter end. I can tell you, from personal experience (I lived though AIDS/Cancer) that was not easy for him. At all. I admire him a great deal for never giving in. //edited. changed the 1st line and added the last paragraph.
thaumaturgy 15y ago

gizmo 15y ago

It doesn't matter if he worked for our express benefit or because he simply wanted to. Intent is nearly meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The bottom line is that he contributed an enormous amount and he inspired a generation of technical people. Maybe it doesn't deserve the label "charitable" but it most certainly is hugely beneficial to mankind.