Sure, but Jobs himself says this and invites comparisons in the very article that this HN post points to:
>“Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology
That does seem like a cheap dig to me against someone that is doing very important work in the third world. I guess Bill Gates gets a bigger thrill saving a hundred thousand of the poorest 10% of the world from suffering with AIDS or dying from malaria or starvation rather than sell an extra ten million phones or tablets to the richest 10% of the world.
http://www.newser.com/story/130728/bill-gates-aids-program-s...
>Am I to think more of him if he gave away more money than Steve Jobs? What a ridiculous notion. If you buy that argument, I ask you to think less of him because he spent fewer of the limited number of hours of his lifetime on philanthropy than some of the people who inherited a fortune and spend their lives on charitable causes. Or less of him because he didn’t minister to the sick and needy in Calcutta’s slums.
I think that when it comes to a human quality like selflessness and empathy there's nothing wrong with thinking more of people like Mother Teresa, and next billionaires who contribute a lot of their money or time to charitable contributions. You don't need to think of less of anyone to respect good qualities in others.
Even Jobs took the help of philanthropic causes like the Hare Rama Hare Krishna temple's free meals to the poor.
From his Standford commencement address:
>It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it.
--
>Stanford Commencement Address, 12 Jun 2005
Anyway my personal theory is that Bill Gates had enough being on top of the world in the late 1990s and early 2000s that me moved on to bigger things, eradicating preventable diseases like malaria/AIDS and helping the poorest of the poor and felt it was a better use of his time and money for a higher ideal in life.
Jobs had to prove himself after coming back to Apple and Apple is just now taking off under his stewardship and he's still too involved in Apple's day to day operations. I definitely believe he would have had the time and inclination to do better for the third world in his later years after leading success to Apple if he had survived his totally unfortunate cancer that cut his life short. He simply didn't have enough time.