“In Becoming Steve Jobs, a new biography by veteran technology reporter Brent Schlender and Fast Company executuve editor Rick Tetzeli (due out March 24), it’s revealed that current Apple CEO Tim Cook once offered an ailing Jobs a portion of his liver,” Chris Gayomali reports for Fast Company.
“After going through a series of tests to determine whether a partial transplant was even feasible — it was — he stopped by Jobs’s home in Palo Alto to tell him the good news; Jobs refused,” Gayomali reports. “‘He cut me off at the legs, almost before the words were out of my mouth,’ said Cook. ”No,’ he said. ‘I’ll never let you do that. I’ll never do that.””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Finally, an interesting Steve Jobs biography!
It’s not secret that we regard Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography as a major disappointment:
Isaacson’s book has an unparalleled ability to omit the interesting. – MacDailyNews, May 20, 2014
Anyone who can take a raging ball of fire like Steve Jobs and reduce his life to a bland cardboard cutout harbors some, er… special skills. As with passionate, interesting writing, judging companies’ levels of innovation isn’t one of Isaacson’s talents, either.
Go back to your day job, Walter. You know, churning out mind-numbing, by-the-numbers pablum that nobody* can finish without massive amounts of willpower and Red Bull.
Stop posing on TV as an Apple expert, or any sort of tech business expert, because totally blowing it by squatting out an interminable doorstop after being handed the biography subject of the century only makes you an expert in one thing: Failure.
After 630-pages that we never thought would end, we know you love facts, so here are a couple: You’re as much of an Apple/technology expert as any random fscktard off the street, you insipid milker, and your book was only a bestseller because it had Steve Jobs’ name and face on the cover, not because of you, Mr. Soporific.
*Having a bit more than a passing interest in Steve Jobs, even we could barely make it though Walter’s God-awful “Steve Jobs” textbook! No wonder Sorkin promptly threw it in the trash and started over from scratch. – MacDailyNews, January 15, 2014
Wow…..not too many people that will sacrifice part of their liver for someone…..
Character defined by what you do when no one is around to see it……
Kudos to Tim Cook……
Oh Smithers…
The temptation to psychoanalyze this decision is overwhelming. What does it MEAN? In the end he refused to acknowledge his need for the kindness of others? In the end he would take responsibility for his own illness and never let it cause another harm? Sociopath? Exemplar? What do you see?
Me I see a guy I loved but never knew. I’m sad he’s gone. And I’m grateful for his fierce, beautiful humanity.
Because of the medical problems experienced by Steve Jobs and the liver offer from Tim Cook I suspect a great deal of time was spent on medical research and how to find cures FASTER and more efficiently.
The Watch iResearch app is part of that process……too late for Steve but rest assured lives will be saved in the future because of this technological data acquisition and participatory shift.
The medical aspects of the Watch are in the “First Inning”,,,,,,,
Is Research Kit only for the watch? Or for iOS as well (and Android – since Cook announced (and reiterated at the shareholder meeting) that it’s going to be completely open source….
Just wondering…
Research Kit is an iOS thing. The watch is not directly a part of it, though of course for some purposes the watch’s measurements can help.
RK is also open source, meaning Android and others can incorporate it if they choose. It’s one of those “not everything is about the bloody ROI” things.
Tim offered a small part of his liver to Steve.
A Life and death difference from offering his whole liver.
Frankly, given the current contamination NIGHTMARES in most hospitals the risks of invasive surgery are HUGE!!!
Going under the knife to have your liver cut out, in part or in whole, is the definition of a life or death situation. You do not ever know what will happen. Steve did not want that path for Tim. Makes me want to tear up.
I doubt a self important ignoramus like you can appreciate that level of freindship, loyalty, care, dedication and devotion.
This should silence all doubters for ever.
Shown equally by Tim for caring enough to offer and Steve for refusing to put Tim at risk.
The thought occurs to me that Steve was protecting Apples future by avoiding risk to Tim. That’s pretty high regard for Tims abilities, IMHO. But we cannot know why he chose to refuse.
Was talking about Tim, but yes, applicable to both…
While partial liver transplants are not as dangerous as they used to be, it would certainly have been major surgery for both Tim and Steve. (Yes, it would have grown back.)
A tremendously selfless offer from Tim, which deserves respect from everyone. He certainly has mine.
Walter Isaacson really did a piss poor job with the official Steve Jobs biography. He either phoned it in or lacks the talent to ferret out interesting facts and to write compellingly.
I finally tossed my copy into the trash can. It’s pretty bad.
He was used to writing biographies of people so long gone (Franklin, Einstein) that contemporaries were either dead or too old to bother challenging his constructions. But that was decidedly not the case with his Steve Jobs book. How might have the resulting controversy have surprised Mr. Isaacson? – it may have inspired him to perform further research into Computing, culminating in his latest book, one that treats innovators more generously, and as a bonus, exposes the existence of women in their ranks—shock of shocks!
Walter Isaacson’s book was boring and a huge disappointment!
For a book on the life of the fascinating Steve Jobs, moderately decent would have been good enough to capture my attention. Isaacson’s book was such a piss-poor utter failure, which said NOTHING about what made Steve exceptional. It could have been the biography of any one of a million utterly average middle-management types. I kept trying and trying and trying, and finally had to admit, “No… it really isn’t going to get any better”. I stopped reading maybe 1/3 of the way through.
Ditto. I got a third of the way through as well and then put it down.
Jacobson’s book was dead-on accurate. You fantasy world dwelling fan boys want things rosy and cotton-soft to fit your cozy hero worshiping view. Here was an SOB of the first order, it’s documented. in courts, board notes. Twasn’t cancer that killed the king, he starved
himself to death. Slow suicide is the control freak setting the
pace of his demise; and it fits the brief. How many instances are documented of close associates assuring that some conditions
are survivable…granted that you take in enough nutrition. No, you
stop reading and declare the narrative too rough for your palate.
More comforting to pretend the basilisk was a teddy bear.
WTF are you to judge or know?
I read the whole book. I didn’t stop when it got unpleasant.
You should consider having someone honest inform you of the faultiness of your presumptions. Yes, presumptions, because you already have a narrative you want everything to fit into, and this is another case of the same. Not one person here said they wanted things rosy and cotton-soft. Isaacson’s book is being panned for being BORING. We all know about Steve’s temper, we know far more than you do, because we know more than one side of him. You only know what you think fits into your preconceived view that he was some kind of monster. You’re a bad judge of character, at best.
If Steve handed you a cup of kool aid, you’d drink it.
I thought the book was quite good, as did the person
who the book is about (SJ commissioned Isaacson to
write it and approved the final draft). You stopped
reading it (claiming it to be ‘boring’) when it became
clear it was revealing aspects of character that differ
radically from the perception that makes you feel
good to believe. You drank the kool aid.
I think Isaacson’s main problem was that he didn’t have the technical background to even know what to ask or investigate.
Nor did he have the business background to ask the right questions.
The book was a total and utter failure!
Not according to sales figures…and pesky things
like best seller lists. So by your way of thinking
Apple is a total and utter failure because it sells
so many gizmos.
That’s true friendship, in both directions.
I am really looking forward to the new bio and will buy it on ibooks as soon as it comes out. But, in all fairness, I didn’t really dislike Isaacson’s biography and it wasn’t that bad. I learned alot that I didn’t know about Steve and did find interesting tidbits in it, especially his private life. And, don’t forget, Steve personally picked him to be his biographer.
And Steve approved the final draft.
Steve refused the offer because Tim neglected to include a side of fava beans and a nice chianti.