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Comment by rprasad | Hacker News Reader

Everyone remembers Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, and Stanfurd because of their generous acts. Nobody remembers their almost-as-successful, but far less generous competitors.

To date, Bill Gates has donated more money to charity than Steve Jobs was ever worth. Steve Jobs...has donated less money to charity than your average churchgoer.

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Malcolm did not assert this statement based on Gates financial contributions to charities. He says Bill Gates will be remembered, because he (almost has) will eliminate Malaria.

Yes, by donating a huge chunk of his wealth to funding malaria research, treatment, and prevention programs.

Everyone remembers Thomas Edison and Henry Ford too. And it doesn't have anything to do with "generous acts"

Good point. Check this list of the top hundred richest people in US history, ranked by their wealth as a portion of GNP:

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2006/07/29/the-wealthy-100...

A. T. Stewart, anybody? Frederick Weyerhaeuser? William Weightman? John I. Blair?

Mind you, you don't have to be a big-name philanthropist to be on that list and remembered. Rockefeller was so goddamn rich that he's famous just for being incredibly rich. Howard Hughes is remembered for his eccentricities. Samuel Colt is remembered because he invented something. And then there's George Washington...

Oh so you have Jobs' personal finance records? That's amazing! And you're breaking the news here on HN of all places!

Okay but seriously, you don't have a clue what Jobs did with his money and neither do I. So there's no point speculating.

We do know that Jobs made almost no charitable donations over the course of his life. He used to brag about it quite publicly in interviews, and it was only when he was rediagonised with cancer that he hinted that he might consider eventually changing his mind in the future. There are statements from friends and family supporting his lack of charity. It's not speculation. You can quibble over whether he donated a dollar or two to some bum somewhere, but ultimately, the reality is that Steve Jobs donated less to charity than either of us.

Steve Jobs may have been a genius salesman, but he was definitely not a philanthropist.

According to the NYT "there is no public record of Mr. Jobs giving money to charity" (http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/the-mystery-of-steve-...).

Giving publicly is important if you want to be remembered for your charitable work.

Right. Wanting to be remembered is just as selfish of an act as attaching your name to a donation.

Whether Jobs donated anonymously or didn't donate at all, I can respect him so much more for not chasing attention and approval.

So you're completely discounting the value of Gates attempting to inspire others to give- particularly other rich people?

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.

I have talked to directors of Bay Area charities that tell me that Jobs was a generous donator personally. In fact this just happened 2 weeks ago, and the person defended him vehemently.

So there's one anecdotal data point for you.

You can verify donations to public charities when they file their (publicly accessible) information returns for the tax year. If Steve Jobs was a generous donor, he will show up in their returns for 2011 or 2012 (which should become available in the next few months, or next year, respectively). A lot of research has been done by a lot of journalists looking for a Steve Jobs entry in the donor lists of many charities (in prior years, i.e., 2010 or earlier), and they haven't found any yet. (This doesn't mean that he never made any donations, it is however strong evidence that Steve Jobs did not donate much, if anything, until the last few months of his life.)

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