Giving a dollar vs earning one

A 29 year old Steve Jobs sounds off on philanthropy in an early interview with Playboy.

"I'm convinced that to give away a dollar effectively is harder than to make a dollar.

"There are some simple reasons for that. One is that in order to learn how to do something well, you have to fail sometimes. In order to fail, there has to be a measurement system. And that's the problem with most philanthropy--there's no measurement system. You give somebody some money to do something and most of the time you can really never measure whether you failed or succeeded in your judgment of that person or his ideas or their implementation. So if you can't succeed or fail, it's really hard to get better."

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For me the measurement is the difference you make to someones life. I don't believe in giving some rs to a roadside beggar, it only encourages beggary, and is no good. But yes following up on donation and making sure it does good involves whole lot of effort, perseverence and time.

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