What Else Steve Jobs Knew

Apple's Fifth Ave. Store

I've been thinking about a way to present some facts that startled me in the wake of our national mourning for Steve Jobs - who was the embodiment of the American dream of personal enterprise leading to great wealth.  In the light of Occupy Wall Street and the growing national awareness that Houston, we have a problem, I think we can consider the whole truth about his wealth and Apple's obscene profitability.  For instance -

• Apple made $208 on every $499 iPad (Computer World)
• This year Apple's gross profit margin topped 40% (Bloomberg)
• After resuming control of Apple in 1997, Jobs eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs; they were never reinstated.(Wikipedia)
• He was widely (but quietly) known for not giving any of his $7-8 billion in wealth to philanthropy, ignoring the model of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. (New York Times)
• There have been numerous allegations of life-threatening sweatshop abuse in Foxconn, the factory in Taiwan that makes many Apple products.  (note: this is the outsourcing that has cost so many American jobs.)  I encourage you to scan this recent article in Time.  

To bring these figures home, what percent of your net income do you give to charity each year?  He didn't.  Your Mom-and-Pop pizza store, is it making 40% profit on every pizza sold?  No way.  Does the company you work for match your charitable donations?  Apple doesn't.

What Jobs knew was that we - not just Americans, but people everywhere - really like shiny new toys. That we can be scammed.  That a pitchman extraordinaire could get people to buy, buy.  That many of us would buy cool things on credit, that is, with money we didn't have (think about what that has contributed to the crisis of personal debt).  That we don't like to be inhibited by ethical considerations of products.  And, it seems, neither did he.