Does Steve Jobs deserve all the accolades he's received?
By Leo Gormon
Western Sun staff writer
Steve Jobs, the innovative and visionary force behind Apple products, lost the fight to pancreatic cancer on October 5. His life is now celebrated by many and his successes have been placed in the halls of fame in ways usually reserved for heroes and saviors. What people fail to realize is how misguided and misplaced their sentiments are and how money and popularity have consumed their lives.
Jobs is heralded as the greatest inventor of our time, an incredible thinker and a great inspiration. Jobs, however, was only great at one thing: making money. No doubt he was an extraordinary businessman but the masses’ attempts to put him on the pedestal of greatness are doing an immense disservice to the countless inventors, philanthropists, and revolutionaries that were truly great.
Jobs is responsible for inflated prices and his showmanship made people go crazy at the thought of the next Apple product; even when they’re just trendy modifications of already existing products. People say he made the world a better place. Did he?
Virtually everyone uses Apple products, so in a sense yes, Apple has revolutionized music-listening and provided simple everyday-living solutions but, what has he done to truly help humankind? Very little.
Jobs suspended Apple’s philanthropic and charity efforts until the company became profitable and now it is hard to imagine a more profitable company.
Compare that to Bill Gates who set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that sends hundreds of millions of dollars to poverty and hunger stricken nations in Africa.
And Apple’s involvement in the Product(red) campaign, which donates to the Global Fund for AIDS in Africa?
With some research, you’ll see how the campaign works. Each company develops a product, with the Product(red) logo on it, and a percentage of the profits are go to the fund. Product(red)’s funding ultimately comes from the consumer while the company profits.
Apple has also taken initiatives to donate iPads and iPods to war amputees, teachers, and victims of California wildfires. Donating iPads to war amputees is not charity and merely a petty gift. How about donating artificial limbs so that person can walk again? Any philanthropic efforts are wrongfully allocated with the arrogance that people need these products to enrich their damaged lives when Apple is well within their means of giving more than just mobile devices.
Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine for polio and refused to patent the vaccine, not wanting to profit on human life. On Sept. 30, Ralph Steinman also died because of pancreatic cancer.
Yet, I’m willing to bet those praising Jobs have never heard the name. Steinman received the Nobel Prize three days after his death for the discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity helping others live longer, better lives. Yet young Americans aren’t posting about his greatness on Facebook.
Jobs was an entrepreneur, a visionary, a great businessman and an inspiration in the tech industry, but to compare him to inventors, doctors and philanthropists that use their craft to help the world with little or no profit is an insult. It is a travesty to say that Jobs made the world a better place; he just made it an easier place for those that could afford whatever he sold.
A man died and condolences are in order, but perspective must be considered, stop wasting your time and tears for the death of a rich man. He didn’t make you, you made him. This is why so much of the world hates America.
