For the famously work-focussed CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, to take leave on health grounds, especially in the context of his previous medical problems, suggests a serious situation.

However, we should not write him off yet. The man has already survived two near-death experiences – one metaphorical, one far more literal. The latter is the more recent: his recovery after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and subsequent liver transplant, astonished many and gave hope to other sufferers. At one point, he had actually read his own obituary, which had been published by mistake but which was readily believed.

Almost as remarkable was his business comeback in 1997 – although in some ways his story is a familiar one.

A college drop-out, he became one of the first of the new generation of young computer millionaires in the 1970s, co-founding Apple. Still in his 20s, he felt too young and inexperienced to manage his rapidly expanding empire, so he head-hunted a senior executive from Pepsi to serve as CEO. The new management turned Apple into a Pepsi-style corporation – in which there was no room for a loose cannon innovator like Mr Jobs himself. The fact that the company owed everything to him meant nothing in the board room battle that followed. Lacking his CEO’s familiarity with the dark arts of corporate warfare, Jobs was forced out of his own company.

He was soon missed. The vision and enterprise that had made Apple such a success left with the founder. Old-fashioned corporate executives are singularly ill-equipped to cope with the ever-changing IT sector, which puts a premium on constant innovation and long-term vision. Microsoft was left as the computer giant in the strongest position to exploit the Internet Revolution (something MS rather bungled) just as it was really getting started. Apple was sustained only by extraordinary brand loyalty built up under Jobs.

However, Jobs himself was not idle. A successful stint as CEO of Pixar, where his willingness to let original thinkers do things their own way generated a string of artistic and commercial triumphs, led to a seat on the main board of Disney. Meanwhile, he also founded another computer company, which eventually sold out to Apple – bringing him back to the main board of his old company.

By this time, Jobs had himself become an experienced executive and master of the dark arts – which he perfected dealing with Michael Eisner at Disney. The year after his return to Apple, the existing CEO was removed in another board room coup, but this time Jobs himself took the post, which he has held ever since. Almost immediately, Apple returned to profitability. The last decade – which has seen Microsoft under constant pressure – has seen a series of successful Apple product launches, most notably the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad.

The moral of the story is that, no matter how big a successful new business becomes, even when it needs more professional management, there is no substitute for the enterprise and vision of its founder. Get well soon, Steve.

This is a good time of year to reflect on charitable giving. Contrary to the stereotype of the hard hearted capitalist, most businesses and businessmen like to “put something back”. The huge donations of the wealthy, the Gates and the Buffetts, are well publicised, but rare is the entrepreneur who has never put his hand in his pocket for someone worse off than himself.

America’s philanthropic tradition is more developed than Europe’s. Research shows that this is due to America’s religious culture, but even irreligious Americans, like Gates and Buffett, are more likely to see charity as a duty.

There is another difference between American and European, or British, thinking. Toby Ord, a British researcher on a fixed income, has pledged himself to give a million pounds to charity over his lifetime by living frugally.

Commendable, certainly, but an American would probably do things differently. Given the task of giving a million to charity, an American would probably identify Ord’s fixed salary as the real problem. Instead of working for someone else for a pittance, an American Ord would set up his own business. If things went reasonably well, the business might yield a few million in the course of a decade, sufficient for the million– and more – to charity, with enough left over for a comfortable lifestyle.

This way of doing things has two advantages, in addition to the probability of a greater yield for charity. First, it adds value to the economy, while living off a fixed salary subsidised by the taxpayer does not. Second, a reasonably comfortable lifestyle – so long as it is not excessively self-indulgent – is more likely to increase your productivity than grim frugality. Even saints are motivated by the prospect of reward.

Of course, all this misses the point. Most of us do not set ourselves the arbitrary objective of donating a specific sum. Charity is about giving according to one’s means, whether it be the widow’s mite or the loudly trumpeted benefactions of a Gates or a Buffett. The poor are always with us and we can do good to them whenever we want.

Charity – from the Greek word for “love” – is not just a matter of giving from our surplus income. It is about how we treat people generally. It is the complete opposite of charity to behave unscrupulously in business and then hope that a large public donation to a good cause out of ill-gotten gains will put everything right. Honesty and decency – and sometimes, when the opportunity is given, a little compassion – in our everyday business and personal lives would do more good than a million to charity.