Opinion: Examining Steve Jobs’s Public Giving, or Lack Thereof

As Steve Jobs makes his exit from Apple, a New York Times financial columnist examines the billionaire technology innovator’s absence from the ranks of prominent philanthropists.

Andrew Ross Sorkin writes that he is a “huge admirer” of Mr. Jobs and notes that the famously private Apple founder might have made extensive anonymous gifts or drafted a plan to donate his wealth after his death.

But the columnist writes that the dichotomy between Mr. Jobs’s standing as “perhaps the most beloved billionaire in the world” and his lack of public giving “raises some important questions about the way the public views business and business people at a time when some ‘millionaires and billionaires’ are criticized for not giving back enough while others like Mr. Jobs are lionized.”

From The Chronicle’s archive: Apple’s disdain for philanthropy is a problem for society, writes a Chronicle columnist.