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A few days after Steve Jobs passed away, the adulation faded in some quarters and some critics began to note his poor track record in regard to charitable causes, especially when compared to his contemporary, Bill Gates.
When talking around the water cooler with colleagues at work, this topic arose often in the week or two following Mr. Jobs death. People were reading that not only did Jobs personally not donate to charity, but that he had eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs at Apple. However, since Jobs was quoted as saying he did all his charitable acts privately, one will never know without reviewing his personal income tax return how philanthropic he was or was not. In this Washington Post article , Bono of U2 supports Jobs’ when he is criticized for his poor philanthropic efforts.
Based on the above discussion, I found this article, taken from the Harvard Business Review, posted on Business Week.com by Maxwell Wessel extremely interesting. The premise of Mr. Wessel’s article is that although both leaders are highly admirable, and in fact Mr. Jobs may have been our generation’s most important leader in the world of business, Bill Gates has used his talents in ways that stretch beyond the business world.
Mr. Wessel states “As much as I love Apple, Inc., I would happily give up my iPhone to put food on the plates of starving children. Steve Jobs turned his company into a decade long leader in the truly new space of mobile computing. Bill Gates decided to eliminate malaria. Who do you think we should be putting up on a pedestal for our children to emulate?”
I must say that I tend to agree with Mr. Wessel. However, the Jobs philanthropic legacy is far from over, as supposedly his wife Laurene Powell Jobs, is very philanthropic in nature and the apple may turn :).
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