Well, if he stole enough to buy an iPad, that's a large chunk of the missing money from the card right there.
I'm willing to bet most of the other people stealing from the card aren't rich and successful YC graduate entrepreneurs either but somehow that makes what he did much worse in my opinion. He's also a rich guy lecturing people on how they should be donating every little bit of their excess money to charity. I'm sorry but something about this whole constellation is making my blood boil.
You aren't the only one. Stomping on other people's fun because you'd prefer they donate is deeply irritating. I haven't been able to read the article, yet, due to a 500 error, but whatever charity is receiving this should be upset that they're being associated with this asininity.
That'd be way disproportional. And there could be a totally unrelated people who might suffer from the result of that experiment. Just get the money back on the card.
As a side effect he can claim the karma points for the entire good deed he described, on his own account. Then his experiment would get a much nicer feel.
No, I really don't think that it is disproportional. Sam Odio hasn't apologized let alone returned the money. In fact, he just tries to justify his actions. I would say it is likely that this is symptomatic of his ethical and moral attitude in general.
Seriously tho, it seems like this backlash is getting a bit out of hand. There was a silly, whimsical social experiment, and this guy had a silly, whimsical hack on it, now people are calling to destroy his business and run him out of town on a rail. So it wasn't the best decision, so what? Let's keep things in perspective here, friends.
Excuse me if I don't find statement made after the fact by him such as "is pursuing art (or whatsver) admitting to yourself that you value art more than world hunger? After all, that's how you're allocating your resources." to be "silly" or "whimsical", but rather condescending and pretentious.
Nobody is saying that we should destroy his business. People are saying that we should avoid supporting it.
As for running him out of town on a rail? Well actions like this are not exactly acts of good community building...
Even though I don't agree with what this guy is saying I don't think this comment should have been downvoted, if you don't agree say so, downvoting is not for that!
Downvotes are "supposed to" be for comments that don't contribute to the conversation, not for a view that you disagree with. The only problem with this rule is that it is universally ignored. :p I got a billion upvotes on my original comment because people agreed with me more than because I was particularly insightful. I reflected upon this phenomenon here: http://twitter.com/#!/_sequoia/status/102066922274832384
I'm betting most of the people abusing the card aren't sending the proceeds to charity...