[telemachos]

You seem to believe that 'hypocrisy' (and related words, I assume) can only apply to moral claims.

That isn't true to the best of my knowledge, and a check of a handful of good dictionaries (online and paper) confirms this.

Here's one link, for example: http://dictionaries.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=hypocrisy*1...

Although the charge of hypocrisy often comes up in moral contexts, that isn't a requirement.

[dasil003]

The older I get the more convinced I am that it's possible to define anyone as a hypocrite simply by repeatedly moving to a higher abstraction until you find a layer where what someone says and what they do are not in sync, and then you can righteously declare "hypocrite!", even though the actual conflict was generated by creative semantics (which all higher thought is).

Therefore in order for a hypocrisy to be a useful word I think it needs a more rigorous connotation. I'm not saying the moral angle is the correct one, but I certainly think that Jobs' letter is far from any reasonably useful definition hypocrisy.

[telemachos]

You're asking for a redefinition or sharpening of a word that is often used in a sloppy way. That's fine - and potentially very useful.

But my point was more limited: the parent poster writes as though vast numbers of people don't understand the simple concept of hypocrisy. That might be fine, too, except that it's his definition of 'hypocrisy' that is non-standard.