steve jobs and giving

for the last couple months, the occupy movement has been all over the news. and for a few weeks, so was steve jobs' death. what i find interesting about the occupy movement is that no individuals in the 1% have really been called out. and seeing how i just mentioned steve jobs, i think you know where this is going...
jobs had an estimated net worth of over $7billion at the time of this death. but did you know that "there is no public record of Mr. Jobs giving money to charity" (source)?

did you also know that apple has more cash holdings than the u.s. government? and what are they doing with that money? not giving back to investors, that's for sure. nor, under jobs, were they giving to charities. within weeks of jobs returning to the helm at apple, he cut all philanthropic giving. the justification at the time was to save money since apple wasn't terribly profitable. but how come he never reinstated them? they're certainly profitable now. (tho tim cook did reinstate charitable giving at apple just a short time after taking over ::applause::)

i think it's incredibly weird that certain billionaires (gates, buffett, zuckerberg, walton...) get tons of flack for lack of generosity. yet, for whatever reason, society has given jobs a pass.

a lot of people say that jobs has already given a lot back to society in the form of technology and jobs (as in, work, not his name). and that's great, but just because you've done some great stuff for technology and job creation, that doesn't mean you can't go help others. tons of the extremely rich have manged to run their empires and think about others at the same time: rockefeller, gates, carnegie, winfrey, buffett, bloomberg, knight, koch... and these people have also contributed to society in general in no way less than jobs. to say jobs has already given back enough through his work trivializes what others have done.

also, if jobs' big concern was making great tech stuff for the general public, why didn't he price stuff cheaper? istuff aside, most mac stuff is really expensive! more people would then be able to buy his products and apple still would have been able to make a profit.

jacobs brings up a good point in her article for forbes that maybe jobs did donate, just anonymously. people donate anonymously for a ton of reasons, a major one being that they don't want to be badgered for more money later. and as one of the richest people on the planet, i can see why jobs would already be a target! another problem with donating, especially if you're giving away a lot, if that you want to make sure the receivers are actually worthy. otherwise you could be giving it to someone else who can enact more positive change. but how do you even decide who's going to do a better job? (tho lots of people create their own charities to make sure their money gets allocated to their liking) and some people just don't want the recognition. ...but how come jobs didn't reinstate apple's philanthropy?

(btw, i totally get why people don't want the credit. i do my drives and post about the results and my locks of love stuff, but i have declined to be put in the organization newsletters and stuff. i find that stuff embarrassing. [i realize that i more and more dislike being the center of attention. i won't shy away from doing things because of the attention, but i certainly never do anything for the sake of recognition.] but for all the lack of wanting credit, i still do stuff!)

the rich are certainly entitled to do what they want with their own money. but we, as consumers, are also entitled to our decision on where to spend our money. camping out and protesting the 1% is great and all, but maybe we should also look at how they became so rich -- we made them that way.

jobs said in a 1993 interview with the wall street journal that “being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful … that’s what matters to me." well, steve, you definitely did do something wonderful, but you could've been someone really wonderful too.