The world needs more CEOs like him. The CEOs of the largest companies of the world have the power to really change the world by just donating the money.
Not everyone "can" or "afford" to think of rest of the world because they are to0 helpless to give away the money instead of making ends meet.
It is really difficult to fill the shoes of Steve Jobs and get out of the shadow, and not only he has maintained the dignity of what apple is but Tim Cook has certainly made a name for himself and it is very nice to hear that we have such good people in this world.
It makes me fall in love with Apple more. #Respect
>The world needs more CEOs like him. It makes me fall in love with Apple more.
Did you read the article, or just the headline? There are more CEOs "like him".
"More than a hundred" have signed up to give away their wealth to charities, including Bill Gates, who started the pledge along with Warren Buffet. Of course, around here Bill Gates eats vitriol, because of some business practices in his history and despite his generosity and charity work. Meanwhile, Apple openly conspired to keep industry wages low and gets "#Respect"?
This is not to take away from what Mr. Cook has decided. It's great for the world. But let's not put him on a pedestal without at least acknowledging there are a slew of wealthy individuals doing this, some of them real pioneers of the idea.
I have to come to HN's defense here. This is an entirely unfair statement:
"Of course, around here Bill Gates eats vitriol, because of some business practices in his history and despite his generosity and charity work. Meanwhile, Apple openly conspired to keep industry wages low and gets '#Respect'?"
There are absolutely some individuals who engage in this hypocrisy, but I would not paint all of HN with that brush. Quite the opposite. I regularly see posts downvoted in to oblivion for failing to compartmentalize opinions about Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO and Bill Gates, Philanthropist.
>regularly see posts downvoted in to oblivion for failing to compartmentalize opinions about Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO and Bill Gates, Philanthropist.
This is probably true, but I can't recall seeing it in many threads I read. On the other hand, I've seen comments (albeit, downvoted), on these very forums, calling for Mr. Gates' death. I'm serious. That's unbelievable in what is otherwise a highly intelligent tech community.
My post probably comes off as "Who cares?", and that was not my intention. This is amazing of Mr. Cook. But let's not attach it to "Apple is so great!"
The comment bothers me beyond just the use of hashtag. You are mixing the ideologies of a person along with a company which to me is not very intelligent. While he may be the face of a company and direct their strategy he is ultimately answering to the shareholders. What he does in his personal life is mostly irrelevant as long as Apple is profitable.
Adding the hashtag at the end of what you are trying to communicate puts salt on the wound as lyke w tottally cud write like whateves and you'd understand but lyke its not cool, ya know? #whatisdecorum
To be fair, hash-tags are used to categorize and group content on social media. HN does not implement this functionality. Essentially, the '#' serves no purpose on HN. Therefore, it is easy to see why people get bothered by it.
What Gates did as the head of Microsoft had plenty of effects on industry wages, startup fortunes, and innovation in general--much of it negative. That's why he eats vitriol around here, where people care about those things.
What Gates is doing now as a philanthropist is great, and he gets plenty of credit for it here on HN, but it doesn't erase the past.
Yes I have read the whole article.. by the "The world needs more CEOs" I mean is that hundreds is not enough to change the world, There are more then 2 Billion people in the world who are below the poverty line and more and more CEOs like Tim Cook and Bill Gates etc. can contribute much more collectively.
its unbecoming to faun over the rich. they deserve no more respect for their giving than a poor man does when he gives. and yet, CNN will never run a story exalting a walmart cashier when she gives $5 to the Salvation army, and it will never run a story exalting a short order cook when he gives $20 to the Boys and Girls Club.
It's not about respect, it's about marketing to your target customer.
Consider the problem from the perspective of the global poor, who have a few different "target customers" from which they can solicit funds.
From this perspective, it's not particularly helpful for CNN to run a story about a walmart cashier giving $5 to the Salvation Army, because even in the best of all possible worlds (let's say 100% of walmart cashiers see the story, and there's a 100% conversion rate, so all of them donate $5!), it's just not that much money. Walmart employs about 2M people - best of all worlds, that $5/each amounts to $10M. That's nice and all, but it doesn't move the needle.
Conversely, if all the "fawning" over Tim Cook, Buffett, Gates etc. gets just one more billionaire to donate his/her wealth, the impact on global poverty is just thousands to millions of times larger than that.
It boils down to what it is that you're trying to accomplish: are you trying to get more money devoted to helping the poor, or are you trying to adjust allocation of social status so that it flows toward people who have altruistic attitudes (regardless of their ability to deliver)?
I'm fortunate not to be living at under $1/day, but if I were, I know which one I'd pick.
In an ideal situation the CEOs would not use complex tax structures to hoard wealth and instead pay taxes to fund social services. Perhaps they would even use some of the billions lying around to help reform government to work better for people.
True donating money is not the most effective way, but it is still better than not doing anything at all. The CEOs of companies like Apple are so busy to build wonderful products that they are forcefully not able to spend that much effort with charities.
If all the CEOs could donate to for example Bill Gates foundation and Bill Gates lead the foundation in deciding where to focus the huge amount money, i think that would go a long way
I don't think that Tim Cook has the power to "really change the world" by donating money. He's not a billionaire, so presumably he'll be giving away less than $1 billion. That's certainly two, and maybe three, orders of magnitude less than is necessary to make really noticeable changes on the scale of the world or even a large country in the world -- even if his money can be used efficiently.
If you gave $1 billion to the bottom 10% of just Americans, they'd each get around $33.
This isn't to detract from charitable giving, or from Cook. It's admirable that he's doing it. But let's not underestimate the scale of the problems of the world, either.
What the world really needs is more people who figure out ways for the billions of us who do have a little extra time or money to help solve the big and small problems. It's cool that we can help kickstart the VR revolution or the future of wearables:
Its unclear why Steve was indifferent to charity. Maybe he did some stuff, but didnt brag about it? Maybe he felt too busy. His widow is tarting disperse money to educational charities.
On page 263 of my large-print edition of the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs, Jobs is quoted as saying about Bill Gates, "Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology".
I don't know about you, but I'd rather be unimaginative than fabulously, unimaginably rich but also selfish about it.
This is a false dichotomy. Bill Gates made his fortune and then retired before becoming a philantropist. Steve Jobs was still hard at work on building his company until a few months before he died. Who knows what he would have done if he had been able to live long enough to have a retirement.
In his statement, Jobs indicated that Gates's interest in philanthropy was because he had always been unimaginative.
Forget, for a moment, the hypothetical of what Jobs would have done. Maybe he would have grown into someone who gave a single fuck about the poor, but in this statement, he called out that caring as beneath him.
That's a value we should condemn, just as we should praise Cook for his stated intentions.
Sorry - you have made this up out of whole cloth. It's not what he said, and not a reasonable inference.
By calling Gates unimaginative Jobs was referring to the fact that he didn't have any more ideas about how to advance the computing industry which is why he had left to do philanthropy.
He wasn't criticizing Gates for caring, rather he was criticizing him for not having more to contribute to the industry.
The first two of those statements do seem to be implied by the quote from Jobs, but the third seems like something you made up. What part of the quote justifies it?
So, in Jobs's view, philanthropy is something that is done by a person who is lesser than Jobs, because he is lesser than jobs, but this isn't dismissive of philanthropy as a goal worthy of Jobs's attention?
I don't know what to say to you then. I guess we just disagree on how to read this sentence. I think 90% of readers would agree with me, and I assume you think 90% of readers would agree with you. We seem to be at an impasse.
Maybe you're right. I wanted to show the contrast in their values and highlight the fact that this is a noble act, and not one which everyone in Cook's shoes would take, but maybe I was just piling on Jobs.
Was Jobs selfish? Or did he just not use his charitable giving as a means of self promotion or legacy building? Fair question. We're assuming facts not in evidence.
I definitely don't see what Gates and Buffet are doing as "legacy building" - if they wanted to build a "legacy", they would create some self sustaining "family foundation" that acted more like a social club than a charity. Instead, they are explicitly stating they want to give most of their money away while they are alive and all of it shortly thereafter.
I don't know what Jobs did with his money. I'm criticising his values, as described in this statement that clearly paints philanthropy as beneath him, to those of Cook. Maybe he gave money away even though he thought it was beneath him, but it's still disgraceful and loathsome to paint philanthropy as a pursuit of the small-minded.
I like seeing these sorts of actions... I do wish that more corporations simply operated a bit more even handed to begin with though.
As an aside, I really wish there was a tag in the headline when auto-play video is in a link... I tend to open up several articles and the respective comments in tabs in the morning... the chrome indicator helps, but would be nice to know it was going to happen.
I think it's his actions in publicly "outing" himself that the parent is referring to rather than being gay itself. Dealing with prejudice like homophobia head-on is something most CEOs aren't well known for.
Why people believe it is something genetic? People are not animals, we're not controlled by our genes. The difference between a dog and a human just can't be counted. It is just psychiatrists pushing this idea that taking drugs, violence and perversions are natural.
It amused me that the 2nd-to-last paragraph of the article describes him as the only openly gay CEO in the top 700 companies, and the "Related" link headline just below it declares "Tim Cook isn't the only gay CEO!".
Yes but why THAT? Does that have any relevance at all? It doesn't affect the business or have anything to do with charitable giving. Might as well mentioned his favorite restaurant or his dietary habits. He's not a "gay CEO" he's a CEO who happens to be gay. It has zero news value.
Sorry, but favorite restaurants or dietary habits aren't likely a cause for discrimination or divisiveness in the corporate world, unlike sexuality. That's definitely a distinction of note. Yes, his sexual orientation is not strictly relevant to the issue at hand, but it provides context to his unique combination of position (head of a massively successful company) and personal story (sexuality). News articles generally try to toe the line between giving specific details for the informed reader, and giving general backdrop for those uninformed but seeking to learn more.
Isn't it interesting that it's seemingly only self-made millionaires/billionaires who are pledging the bulk of their self-made fortunes away? That despite them doing this, we're not seeing "old" money following suit?
There are discussions regarding how old money types who went to elite colleges prior to the 1960s had a sense of social responsibility. They were more likely to participate in military or public service.
"Self made" defies precise definition. If you start with $999,999 and earn $1 by your own efforts, a strictly precise definition for "self made" would imply you were a "self made" millionaire. However it would also apply to somebody who started with $1 and earned $999,999 by his own efforts. Hence using "self made" in both cases renders the phrase so broad as to be empty of meaning.
It doesn't need a precise definition. I think most people will understand what you mean when calling someone a self-made millionaire. That's all that matters: the phrase conveys a meaning.
I'm sure it has a meaning, just probably not one you'd agree with?
I've had this debate with others before, and "self-made" overall tends to mean that an individual did something in isolation. I.e. It plays into the narrative that "no man is an island" and that we all owe our gratitude to the society we were part of, as if the society had some direct doing in it.
I am surprised that he isn't over a billion already. I guess the extreme wealth of a few founders makes me assume "CEO of largest company in the world worth 600B should be worth over a billion himself"
Actually, the world needs more people who think beyond their own family legacy and consider what the world needs. Its interesting how you can look at people today (via the media) and size them up as far as if they feel they are a citizen of the world. Tim Cook clearly sees himself that way. The Koch Brothers...not so much.
Exactly. Familial legacy is a pretty lousy use of fortunes that are better thought of as power rather than wealth (quantity has a quality of its own). To squander that kind of power on mere inheritance is at best myopic.
This post says Entire which doesn't make any sense unless he means when he dies. But upon reading the actual article it doesn't mention anywhere "entire".
CNN made a story out of something from Forbes, but what exactly isn't cited. Nor does it appear to be available online. Maybe it's print only.
Suffice to say there's not enough information to say anything definitively. It's not like Tim is paying for his nephew's college next week and then donating everything to charity. One could reasonable expect this to be in reference to his fortune when he dies. Not what happens next week.
But we don't know because all we have is a blog spam re-write of something we can't see.
The Trevor Project, as an example, aims to reduce suicide in LGBT youth. If "encouraging kids not to kill themselves" is a "political" act to you, I really don't like your politics.
Sorry if this is politically incorrect. I say this respectfully and with the hope that it would be useful to someone who reads it:
People typically save money for their kids. The 'mothering' or 'fathering' instincts are so strong that we protect resources for our progenys.
It appears that Tim Cook may never have a real progency. So what will he do with all this money? He could give it to his nephew. Maybe. He gets a thank you card from them. But his 'parenting' instincts are not triggered by it. So he has to do something else with it, like donating it to Charity.
Are you insinuating that he won't be having kids because of a weak correlator (his sexual orientation)? Why not use a better correlator, that he's the type of person that doesn't want kids?
I don't understand the psychology of making billions of the backs of the grotesquely underpaid and over-worked masses (Foxconn suicides [1] and illegally mined tin [2] for example) and then turning around and saying 'oh, this is too much for one person - here, you have it.' If you want to help people or even just preserve the environment, why not start with what you have direct control and responsibility over in the first place.
OK I will play. Current geopolitical climate being what it is, the labor market wont work they way that you would like. An ideal world is a great target, but not current reality. Say what you want about Bill Gates or Tim Cook or any other billionaire giving away their wealth, but curing disease, building basic infrastructure and solving hunger are great ways to fix the world so that such horrid conditions cease to exist in the labor market. When that happens, the "slave labor" that you (and any reasonable person) dont like wont exist and the world will be more "fair". The world isnt going to fix itself...
> The suicide rate at Foxconn during 2010 remained lower than that of the general Chinese population at the time,[6] as well as all 50 states of the United States (U.S.).[37]
People will suicide if their families get money for doing that that. Stupid? Sure. There is no slavery on Foxconn plants, anyone can go away and grow some rice peacefully.
While it's not slavery in the traditional way, it sure is when you pay workers virtually nothing for a product that's overpriced.
Think a situtation where you'd be an administrator for Amazon and you're getting $10/day just because you live in <x> country, while your other _only_ option is to - as you said - "go away and grow some rice".
While this is a completely legal action, would you say that it's also ethical?
But no, whenever a f*cked up situation is not near our own precious asses, it doesn't matter. They can go out and grow some rice.
The workers who manufacture the iPhones aren't Apple employees. They're Foxconn employees, and Apple doesn't really have much control over how much they get paid. I mean sure, they could say "here's an extra Billion, make sure that the workers who build the iPhones get these"; I'm sure Foxconn would take it, but who knows where it would go from there.
If the average salary in my country would be $1 I would be happy to get that $10 from Amazon. I live in a country where average salary is about $500, I know what I'm talking about. And yes, if things will become really bad I will prefer to live in the village with my mother and grow potatoes rather than committing a suicide. :D
Not everyone "can" or "afford" to think of rest of the world because they are to0 helpless to give away the money instead of making ends meet.
It is really difficult to fill the shoes of Steve Jobs and get out of the shadow, and not only he has maintained the dignity of what apple is but Tim Cook has certainly made a name for himself and it is very nice to hear that we have such good people in this world.
It makes me fall in love with Apple more. #Respect