In October 2003, Apple CEO Steve Jobs “found himself confronting a life-and-death decision,” Peter Elkind reports for Fortune Magazine.
“A biopsy revealed that Jobs had a rare – and treatable – form of [pancreatic cancer]… Yet to the horror of the tiny circle of intimates in whom he’d confided, Jobs… decided to employ alternative methods to treat his pancreatic cancer, hoping to avoid the operation through a special diet – a course of action that hasn’t been disclosed until now,” Elkind reports.
“For nine months Jobs pursued this approach, as Apple’s board of directors and executive team secretly agonized over the situation – and whether the company needed to disclose anything about its CEO’s health to investors,” Elkind reports.
“No less an authority than Jack Welch has called Jobs “the most successful CEO today.” Jobs, at age 53, has even become a global cultural guru, shaping what entertainment we watch, how we listen to music, and what sort of objects we use to work and play. He has changed the game for entire industries,” Elkind reports.
“Jobs is also among the most controversial figures in business. He oozes smug superiority, lacing his public comments with ridicule of Apple’s rivals, which he casts as mediocre, evil, and – worst of all – lacking taste,” Elkind reports.
MacDailyNews Take: It isn’t bragging if you can back it up and there’s nothing wrong with telling the truth.
Elkind continues, “Says Palo Alto venture capitalist Jean-Louis Gasse, a former Apple executive who once worked with Jobs: ‘Democracies don’t make great products. You need a competent tyrant.'”
“Fair enough,” Elkind writes. “But it is also important to understand the ways in which Jobs’ attempts to manipulate his world pose risks for Apple – and thus its investors… It is Steve Jobs himself who is the wonder – as well as the worry.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Marc” for the heads up.]
Owen Thomas writes for Valleywag, “The author, Peter Elkind, has long been rumored to be working on a damning profile of Jobs, centering on backdated stock options. That Fortune is now leading off its story with Jobs’s cancer, not the options scandal, tells us what happened to that story: Elkind couldn’t get the goods. This is a cover story in more sense than one.”
Full article here.
[UPDATE: March 5, 2008, 8:15am EST: Added Valleywag excerpt and link as per MDN reader TReid below.]
Wait for the stock to go down now…
Considering that he recovered from his illness, I’d say that his course of action turned out to be a good choice.
There are many different forms of treatment available–Some work for some, but none work for all. It turns out that he chose the one that worked for him.
Is this even a story? :/
Peter Elkind oozes the same smug superiority that he accuses SJ of. Yet he fails to understand that SJ made his own life or death decisions for himself and that in so doing he owed nothing to AAPL shareholders, employees, the public and whomever else Elkind thinks he should have. SJ had that absolute right. If you take Elkind’s argument to its final extreme then a corporation might at some future time feel that its interests would be best served not by keeping its CEO alive, but by his death. Then where would we be.
Elkind should not write so authoritatively about being the CEO of a Global marketmaker facing a personal decision such as SJ did, unless he (Elkind) has actually been there.
I might not have agreed with SJ’s decision at that time but I absolutely defend his right to make it as he personally sees fit. Last I looked it was still guaranteed under the US Constitution.
@fenman Check out the backstory according to Valleywag, which explains why Fortune is dredging this up:
The author, Peter Elkind, has long been rumored to be working on a damning profile of Jobs, centering on backdated stock options. That Fortune is now leading off its story with Jobs’s cancer, not the options scandal, tells us what happened to that story: Elkind couldn’t get the goods. This is a cover story in more sense than one.
http://valleywag.com/363816/fortunes-cover-story-steve-jobs-hid-cancer-for-nine-months
@TReid…
Nice bit of Sherlock Holmes-ing there!
It seems nothing is as it seems any more.. there is always a hidden agenda!
Oh for the days!
Yeah right – as in when?
Thanks for the link.
/rant
I respect Jobs for his lifestyle choices – it means he will be healthy for a long time. A vegan diet is good but I would miss too much.
More power to him and yes, these choices were his and his family’s – not the board or stockholders and most especially some slimeballed journo!
/end rant
This is all bungCRAPulous! I am the Governor of the greatest state in ALL of HIStory. I will crush Peter ELFkind like a puny little BUG man, but listen to me … I am aware of things of this nature … Steve Jobs is anti-canceriFIC. His cocky traits will come back to haunt him, just like I haunted Danny DeVito and his pathetic, puny frame with his bald head AND his king size backside. I AM THE GOVERNATOR. Peter ELFling and Steve JOBS-o-licious are NOTHING without my mandates and KaliFORNia is actually just a swamp of MEXicans and people who don\’t know how to have FUN or do fun things … like lifting 900 lbs. over your head 37 times in a row, or by renting my all-time hit holiday smash JINGLE ALL DE VAAAAYYYYYYY ! ! ! ! !
This is yet another hit piece attempt by the bankers to rein Steve Jobs in. Interesting how it is done, so transparent that it will persuade few other than wannabe bankers so who is it aimed at?
More people should take the red pill.
/more rant
I just read the entire piece and found it to have many pseudo-facts, similar to Obama being a Muslim (no he isn’t) and makes innuendo-like statements that to the non-Mac Head seem like real facts. As in the iPod market appears to be saturated. Oh, really. Funny, the sales just keep climbing. And that there are iPhone killers out there!
FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD – FUD
How can this a$$whole get away with fictional journalism?
Yes, I am pi$$ed. I am so tired of these tall poppy syndrome diçkwads!
/end rant
So now investors should be involved in our medical decisions regarding our own bodies?
I don’t think so. There are some things investors should not control, and take a level of responsibility themselves or their money elsewhere.
“So now investors should be involved in our medical decisions regarding our own bodies?”
No, but CEOs do have a duty to act in the interests of shareholders, and companies do have a duty to disclose things they know of which may material affect the company’s operations.
Therefore in this case it seems like things worked out OK in the end, but as with many things at Apple were perhaps not handled as honestly and transparently as they should be along the way.
Given how secretive he is, do we really know that Steve has fully recovered?
SJ may have tried or considered alternative treatments for his rare form of treatable pancreatic cancer, but in the end he underwent surgical excision of the tumor — that’s how he got well. Surgical treatment for his type of cancer is the recommended treatment today in mainstream medicine.
Unfortunately, the business school types are always going to despise people like Jobs and Iacocca because they do not have a Wharton’s/Yale/Havard pedigree. This Apple and Job’s bashing is pure business school snobbery. Unfortunately they hurt real stockholders with their unsubstantiated/whacko predictions and analysis. They keep predicting and the numbers keep proving them wrong. Unfortunately the courts have felt that purposely inaccurate reporting should be protected by the same laws that protect real reporting. The only thing the stockholders can hope for is that one of these idiots goes a little too far and open the door for a stockholder driven libel case.
Just my $0.02
PS. Has anyone been watching the series on the Science channel about the internet? I saw the browser wars show. Gates was not very honest.
@HolyMackerel, read Robert Heinlein’s short story “Requiem.” The board wouldn’t let “golden goose” Harriman fly because it might kill him. Then his relatives tried to lock him up in a looney bin for risking his own money.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_(short_story)
“Gates was not very honest.”
Color me shocked. Check out his DOJ trial testimony under oath some time. He won the biggest fixed lottery of all time and will always lie, cheat and steal to keep it.
This Misfortune piece is hit whoring. Nothing more and a lot less.
Man! Someone at Forbes is bitter with Apple. Maybe they were shorting instead of going long and recently have been going long instead of shorting? Who knows, but somebody definitely pissed in this guy’s Wheaties today.
Business by its very definition is risk.
I saw Karl Rove on Fox News last night with a MacBook Air. Good going, Karl!
Happy 33rd Birthday to Jolene Blalock! One hot mama in anybody’s galaxy!
Steve Jobs has a lot in common with Bill Bellachek and that is that a lot of people are willing to give them both a pass on their morals and ethics because of their performance. To take handicapped spots and call everyone else in the industry “idiots” reaks of a superiority complex second to none. The belittle employees to the point of tears is because only because you have a small penis is indicative of Jobs personality disorder. Yes he put Apple back on the Map…Yes Apple has been doing well but as a CEO you have a responsibility to lead by example. Let’s not forget that Leopard was late because of the lack of resources and 10.5.2 was what many people believe the REAL version of Leopard.
How many black mock shirts does Steve have and when will he acknowledge that many people are growing tired of his “I am a rock star act”? With iPod sales starting to decline and nothing new this year Apple may have a falling back to earth reality party. I love Apple products but this continued worship of Steve and everything Apple event when they screw up is annoying and as much as I despise Microsoft to underestimate them would be a huge mistake.
Sorry, meant to type Fortune.
I know God could probably zap me for this thought, but I can’t help think it. Why Steve Jobs and not Balmer or Gates. No one would miss either of them.
Hit-piece aside, this is a delicate balancing act for someone in his position.
On the one hand, what goes on with his body is his own damn business, and his family’s. Beyond, that, it’s up to his discression. And I think nobody would want full and public disclosure of all their health problems.
On the other hand….Apple has been portrayed to the public mind and the financial community as a “one-man band”, that it was Steve Job’s who single-handedly pulled Apple out of tail-spin, invented the iPod, iPhone, iMac, moved to Intel, etc, etc, etc. Not to mention the fact that the MacWorld highlight is….the Steve Keynote.
Given how much is invested in the “Cult of Steve” as a public face of Apple, it is somewhat irresponsible that when he is faced with a grave health crisis, that they do not make some credible assurances to the stockholders and investors that there is a plan of succession and that it will take place in an orderly fashion if something were to remove him from the position of Maximum Pontiff at Appple.
This guy should STFU. It’s only BECAUSE of Steve that the company even exists today, one because he started it and two because he saved it from certain death in 1997.
You live by the sword, and die by it.
How do you know God hasn’t got something much worse stored up for Bill and Ballmer?
Like watching their empire crumble and die as Apple blossoms?
Ok, who violated HEPA. How Steve decide to treat his illness is his problem and should remain private, no matter what position he holds in the company. Someone should go to jail for this one.
I think that we forget at times, what is the purpose of a company.
The purpose of a company is to stay healthy, sell product /services, and make money for its investors. LONG TERM MONEY, not the kind of fast buck for me now, then you can kill the cash cow kind.
Investors used to be people who believed in a company and its people and invested for the long term. Today its mostly money management people looking for a fast return so they can make a bonus.
So this second type of investor, or better stock market shark benefits when companies make quick gains, even if it hurts the company long term, cause they are only in it for the short blip profit taking. ” KILL THE COMPANY is fine, as long as I get to make a few bucks along the way. ” This is shark mentality not investor mentality.
So, just for the record, The sharks could care less about a company, real investors want good steady long term growth.
Just a thought.
en