“The death of Apple Inc. director Jerome York last week has left the company with fewer independent voices, putting it in conflict with its own board’s rules and renewing concerns about the board’s ability to oversee strong-willed Chairman and Chief Executive Steve Jobs,” Yukari Iwatani Kane and Joann S. Lublin report for The Wall Street Journal. “Mr. York, a former finance chief for Chrysler Corp. and International Business Machines Corp., headed the Apple board’s audit committee for more than 12 years. He died from a brain aneurysm at the age of 71.”
“At Apple, Mr. York was regarded as a relatively authoritative figure on audit and corporate governance matters but tended not to offer too many opinions, said people familiar with the board,” Kane and Lublin report. “But he had strong feelings about the way Mr. Jobs handled disclosures about his leave of absence for health reasons in January 2009. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, Mr. York said he almost resigned when told of the seriousness of Mr. Jobs’s illness. Mr. York felt Mr. Jobs should have publicly disclosed his health problem three weeks earlier in a news release that announced his decision not to appear at the Macworld trade conference.”
Kane and Lublin report, “Mr. York said the concealment “disgusted” him, adding that the only reason he didn’t quit at the time was because he wanted to avoid the uproar that would have occurred once he disclosed his reason. ‘Frankly, I wish I had resigned then,’ he said.”
Full article here.
he was probably scared that all his shares would be worthless if the guy died
What a horrible case of irony.
I’m disgusted that Mr. York did reveal his illness.
I’d like to believe that honesty is the best policy, but we know it simply isn’t. The shorts would have beat the stuffing out of Apple for his entire LOA, and the “Jobs near death” stock manipulation articles would have been a weekly feature.
These guys should just stfu and follow through with what they say ‘they should have done’. Either you quit or you don’t. You don’t come later like a fsking cry baby and whine about what you didn’t do.
This guy on this matter is a yellow belly coward.
Ron,
Best to wait until the blood turns brown before you make a funny.
Here’s to His Shadow and x! You summarized my feelings and beliefs in this matter perfectly. Thank you!
Mr. York told me personally that he liked to dress up in poodle skirts and get spanked by little boys he lured into his home with lolly pops. Too bad he’s not here to refute these accusations.
Actually I don’t think it would have made much difference to the stock had Jobs offered full disclosure. In the absence of solid information the rumor mill took over and people assumed the worst anyway. But I still believe Jobs had a moral, if not a legal, obligation to full disclosure.
Guys…
sometimes….
And now AAPL is at all-time highs. Sometimes it pays to be patient.
The quote is one snippet from a longer article mostly focused on whether the Apple board can provide sufficient governance and oversight. The main pitch is that it needs more and outsiders, a curious conclusion given the track record of prior boards which while meeting the WSJ implicit criteria nearly bankrupted the company. Steve J insisted they all resign before he would agree to return.
@ theloniousMac
Ah, once again the voice of reason. Never have so few words said so much.
Well, I think it is disgusting that Mr. York didn’t disclose that he was going to die. I want to announce my resignation from the Apple board due to creative differences effective immediately.
Yet another cheap shot drive-by article attacking Steve Jobs. I knew the scum weren’t done trying to exploit Steve’s illness. I’m certain their hedge fund masters are quite pleased.
some hit whore wrote this article. there is no way a dead man can come out and say that he was not disgusted by Steve.
Yeah, yeah, shoulda, coulda, woulda. I’m with “x”. Either resign or don’t badmouth your company. I’m not saying he shouldn’t make his views known to other Board members. But public criticism is only acceptable when you resign–and even then it’s a little disloyal unless there are criminal issues. I had assumed Apple had above average BOD members, guess not.
The timing of this article is totally consistent with the “Distort and Short” strategies and past attempts to knock Apple stock down just when a product launch is due or it’s breaking new highs …
Apple stock is “BREAKING OUT”.
Hopefully, that literally means also “breaking out of a crippling predictable slingshot pattern”, which has been tightly manipulated and relied upon by traders and hedge funds.
This could be where the shorts scramble to cover their bleeding asses because the stock stops doing what they expect it to ( pulling back ) and gets away from them to it’s called for value – where it’s fundamentals are just so dominant that it goes to it’s real (gap restricted in the past) valuation of 300-400 and breaks out of an artificially imposed 200 range.
Looks like finally the boy who cried wolf finally is being called – A LIAR.
The curse against Steve’s criticizers striked again! I hope Steve will carefully choose the next board members this time!
Kind of ironic that Steve Jobs outlived York…isn’t it?
How much proof do we need that short selling (essentially a bet that shares you don’t own will decrease in value before a certain date) should just be made illegal. Buy or sell what you own or want. The practice of short selling effectively creates phantom stock share that do not exist, have not been authorized to be issued by the company and dilute the value of shares held by actual owners. How can it possibly exist is a transparent and well regulated market? The stock market was never intended to be New Yorks’ largest casino.
Where was his comment back when it mattered ? That’s right. Nowhere to be found. Why ? Ummmm…maybe he was a chicken.
bawk, bawk, bawk…
Well…now he’s taking a dirtnap.
I don’t care how many member there are on the board, at this time if Steve say Apple is going to do something the board is not going to stop him.
“I don’t care how many member there are on the board, at this time if Steve say Apple is going to do something the board is not going to stop him.”
What an intelligent statement Jeff! You must teach graduate level business courses at Harvard with your fabulous understanding of corporations..
@theloniousmac
echo…
@lurker
Short sellers do not “dilute” the value of stocks—issuing more shares does that. They do not even “devalue” prices. Short sellers have no impact on the price of stocks. It’s the writers and analysts that spew out negative reports on companies that do the damage to share prices. Short sellers are traders simply betting on the direction of stock price, tomorrow they will bet on the price moving up.