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.
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