Or perhaps giving publicly is what you do when you want to rehabilitate a tarnished public image. Regardless, Gladwell is taking the lazy columnist's approach

Or perhaps giving publicly is what you do when you want to rehabilitate a tarnished public image. Regardless, Gladwell is taking the lazy columnist's approach of irresponsible prediction, intending to provoke indignation. There's plenty of room in history books, and both Gates and Jobs will have significant entries. I'll submit Edison and Telsa as examples of contemporaries in the same general field who both remain widely known decades after they passed on.