Bury this. Jobs's medical condition, whatever it is or was, is a private matter about which he has elected to not speak. He's met all reasonable obligations by announcing when he was going to be out and when he expected to return. The rest is small-minded gossip.
Jobs is a figure of mythic proportions who is of keen interest to technologists, entrepreneurs, and the general public. He's been featured in movies; books have been written about him; he's granted the media many levels of access, from photos through interviews, to boost his products.
That attention can't be turned off like a spigot. Even if Jobs weren't still actively involved in Apple, people would be deeply interested (and concerned!) about his health, making it a legitimate area for reporters (and biographers!) to report about, as long as the information is obtained in a honest manner.
I believe it's a valid story (for both the WSJ and here) because we care about Jobs, we care about his creative output (including Apple), and we often best learn about things in life -- including dealing with health challenges -- by seeing how they affect prominent people.
The WSJ doesn't run "unsourced" news; they had confirmation of the key details from multiple sources (even if the exact sources aren't named) before running the story.
I understand if you hold the WSJ in very high regard, as do many people, myself included. But they have not published in which way they've obtained the information, not even in vague terms. As far as we know, it is completely unsourced.
How does Jobs being well-known imply that we don't have to respect his desire for privacy? I simply cannot see how our interest legitimates our prying.
And make no mistake: This is prying. You said that attention can't be turned off like a spigot, which may be true but isn't apropos. Water flows effortlessly from the spigot. Gossip like this is dug up and mongered at effort.
I am guessing it would also be reasonable to say it has a material affect on Apple as a publicly traded company, at least in the short term. And certainly the stock price.
But I wish him the best, it seems too soon for him to be leaving this, and I am sure he has more he wants to do.
Yeah, we know it has a material effect... but that's not why this is here. Apple's stock isn't interesting Hacker News.
This is here because it's really fun talking about Steve Jobs, love him or hate him, and because the man's the archetypal startup founder along with Woz. That's totally fine but let's not kid ourselves.
Out of curiousity, what are your examples of Jobs inviting people into his private life? From where I stand, he's always been very demanding about the need to keep his private life private.
Apple does not rely on Jobs' public profile for success. Yes, they do rely on his ability as a driver of innovation, but if Jobs were never to say a word in public again, it wouldn't seem to hurt Apple (at least, that's my opinion, having watched the last keynote without him). As such, I don't think Jobs has traded on publicity for his success, and can consequently reasonably request that we leave his private life alone.
I wouldn't say Jobs has been "inviting people into his private life". He has remained fairly private.
I did say "he's granted the media many levels of access, from photos through interviews, to boost his products." Just look at all the magazine covers he's had. The accompanying stories always mix a little of the personal biography -- the arc of his life -- with the product/business news of the day.
But also, consider the 2005 commencement speech he gave -- which I wouldn't attribute to simple PR machinations for Apple, but because a distinguished public person was invited to talk, and wanted to share his insights with the future. He talked about the circumstances of his birth and adoption as a baby; his college years; his exile from Apple; his pancreatic cancer diagnosis and surgery. That is, his life story, as it could help elucidate life choices for others.
The story continues; we're still curious. While it's wrong to pry illegally into private records, and it's wrong to hound him (or his non-public family) about these things, it's natural and keeping with the usual and fair treatment of a public figure to relay major new developments in his life story.
I agree. The fact that this took two months to come out tells me that Jobs does not want it to be public information. I think that his privacy should be respected.
Steve Jobs is a public figure and is perceived as the creative driving force behind Apple's success, and Apple is a publicly-traded company.
His health, thus, is of concern to Apple users and shareholders. And competitors too, but in a different, probably evil, way.
His health worries me too - and I am neither a heavy Apple user nor a shareholder, but I am deeply concerned about innovation in this market if he ever retires. Who would lead? Microsoft? Ewww.
And there is also the human factor. I wish him well for no other reason than him being a human being.
Put yourself in Jobs's shoes; would you so blithely assume that it's OK for the public to dig into your medical history? The only reasonable obligation on Jobs is to announce that he won't be performing his duties for some period. He did that.
You should care as much about his wishes for privacy as you do for his well-being because they are one and the same. There are a multitude of reasons someone might want to keep their health challenges private, including concerns over how young children will be able to deal with scary-sounding information (especially once it gets filtered through the rumor mill). There's no morality in rumor-mongering.
Jon Rubenstein? I think the Palm Pre is of the same calibre in terms of innovation and ease of use as any Apple product. I'd like to see what Palm could do with Jon at the helm, and the same resources as Apple.
"If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"
this is a private matter for steve jobs, and it felt like the community was supportive of giving him his privacy. i'm surprised this is still alive tbh.
This sure sounds more serious than those "Hormone Imbalances" that we have been hearing. My dad suffered a long time because of Liver Cirrhosis before meeting his end last year. I know first hand how painful liver related problems can get.
They made the right choice in how they handled this. His personal medical issues would have completely overshadowed Apple's recent product announcements and completely derailed the carefully crafted Apple PR train. Instead of talking about Macbooks & iPhones we'd be talking about the details of liver transplants. That would not have been good for Apple or its investors -- some of which will surely be upset over how this was handled but they really need to consider the alternative before getting too worked up over it
"Apple has previously drawn criticism from some shareholders over what they have called limited disclosure of Mr. Jobs's health problems"
"once Mr. Jobs resumes work, the company will have to be "very careful" about what it says"
This strikes me as almost unbelievably cynical, that Jobs' health could be factored into the price of Apple shares. I understand why, of course, but still, I hate it and I wonder how SJ himself feels. "Don't die yet, Steve, I'm long AAPL!"
I think he should retire soon. He's had a good run. Apple will be fine.
It's insane not because it's cynical, but because we've now seen twice that when Steve Jobs is gone, Apple falls back on TimCookPhilSchillerEddyCueJonathanIve and every other one of its other brilliant, beauty-minded industrialists. Jobs once said that he views Apple as his lasting triumph, not the Mac or the iPod, because with Apple he took his ideals and embedded them within the company upon his return. The result is that any one of the people at Apple is as brilliant as Jobs is. Some would argue that Tim Cook is a better Jobs than Jobs himself.
Because it's basically placing monetary bets on another human being's health. Yeah, I know he's the key person, I know why they do it, I just think it's depressing that our society still hasn't risen above putting a dollar value on life.
If I have a widget that I'll sell to you for $4 then it's worth $4 to me. If you'll only pay $2 for it then it's worth $2 to you.
To whom is a human worth money? You can't own people, can't buy or sell them. Can't recreate them, can't even get an accurate clone.
You can talk about a sportsperson's value to their team in terms of how much money they bring in in ticket sales, how much sponsorship, how much media attention, how much another team will pay for them.
But the problem is when lots of money is involved, people care more for the money than the person. I don't have a problem with people trading on Apple stock and factoring in SJ's health at some level. I do have a problem when it pushes further and further towards SJ being treated as just another asset, some legal and medical details to be pried through, some news announcements to be analysed, some blood pressure and heart rate figures to be tracking.
Picking apart the Golden Goose to try and find where the Golden Eggs are hidden? Tearing up the Mona Lisa to find which brushstroke made it worth so much? Pulling down the Eiffel tower to see if an Operah Tower in the same place would have as much impact?
If he wasn't already a health fan, would the world be pushing him to alter his diet? His exercise regime? "In a bowel movement estimated to be worth half a million dollars this morning, SJ's saturated fat absorption levels were up 13% on last week (full analysis here), SJ didn't respond to a request for comment. Unusually, he looked in the mirror for 6% longer than average over the last three months, experts have raised concerns over his increasing vanity assessment index especially when taken into account his recent announcement "I had a great night's sleep last night" to his wife over breakfast, he didn't respond to 18 phonecalls for comment on that either". Would we be designing every part of his life and forcing him to live as we think will maximise AAPL profit, restricting and shaping like a human veal calf?
What's right with estimating somebody's worth in dollars? Why should you be able to profit from speculating on someone elses work? Why should people who have no choice where they are born be forced to be judged within the limits of someone elses monetary system?
For every million dollars the government puts into hospitals/medicare a bunch of lives are saved. There are diminishing returns, however, and at some point you have to say, okay, that's enough, let's put some money into education instead.
You have to find some kind of balance, and the more you put in education the fewer lives you can save in hospitals. The only sensible way (I can think of) to find the right balance is by crunching the numbers. Saving a life for $1000? That's only 20 text books, definitely a good deal. Saving a life for a million? That's 20 scholarships. A life isn't worth that much.
Your comment reminds me of how much the stock market (supposedly) used to rise and fall based upon the thickness of Alan Greenspan's briefcase.
If Steve dies or retires, that's a risk to Apple. If he lives and works, that's a benefit. And the stock market relentlessly uses all information they can. The kind of private stuff you're talking about? That's insider trading, and that's why it's illegal for, say, Steve's doctor to short Apple stock based upon his medical examinations of Steve.
I've written and deleted about 3 attempts at answering that question, not happy with any of them and obviously I have to get my thoughts in order. It's quite the "question for the ages" : D
Or it could mean that I have a lot of complex thoughts on the matter, and it will take some time to distil them into a pithy comment. That's the problem with rapid-fire sites like this, the pressure is on to respond quickly, before the thread sinks into oblivion - you have actually asked an interesting question and I would like to give it some thought.
Of course you can have complex thoughts on the matter. That's why I said "typically". I didn't make any kind of judgment. From my own experience I know that if I have an opinion but don't have the supporting arguments readily available my opinion is either wrong, or right only by coincidence. These arguments don't do well in sound-byte sized chunks though, I grant you that.
One explanation is that doing so means treating people as a means to your ends, rather than as ends in themselves. Which is somewhat frowned upon in certain ethical traditions.
Ultimately, it's just a bunch of guesses anyway. It's not a top-down pronouncement of the value of Steve Jobs's life. If you want the theoretical case for doing this, it's supposed to assist in efficient resource allocation, which helps all of society. In other words, if we ever really "rise above" this sort of thing we'll all be poorer.
The value of Steve's life is incalculable, even priceless, but the value of his continued tenure at Apple indeed has a dollar value. This is what the stock market is concerned about.
"One bowl of rice, two bowls of rice. One tatami mat, two tatami mats."
That's a Japanese aphorism I saw in translations of "Lone Wolf and Cub." It means, as a mortal creature, there's only so much of life you can enjoy, no matter how rich you are. You can only eat two large bowls of rice before you feel bloated, and you probably don't use more space to sleep than covered by a couple of tatami mats.
Read it. Time is the great equalizer. Warren Buffett is worth ten thousand times more than you are, assuming you are worth $5 million. But he is 78 years old. Not many people would want to trade places with him, one for one.
Steve Jobs is a better man than I'll ever be, but I'd rather be me than him, Is that strange? No! Because time treats humans like call options--decay is priced in, and hits zero at the set date. Steve Jobs is very, very close to zero, no matter his accomplishments.
Why? Because he is famous? Because he is rich? Because he, debatably, has 'made the world a better place'? Screw all those default judgements based on cultural indoctrination. Why is it Good to be famous, rich, innovative, an effective leader, ...? As far as I'm concerned, Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett are no better than you or me when I consider what I think is important in life. Stop pressing culturally correct expectations and judgements on others. Develop your own code of ethics.
I've developed my own code of ethics, which says... that Steve Jobs is a better man than most of us will ever be. He pursued the things he was curious in, made sophisticated pieces of technology readily available for consumers, was enough of an asshole not to have to conform much of his work to standards he couldn't bear to conform to, developed enough business acumen to deal with lots of people he probably didn't want to deal with, funded the most brilliant animator of this generation out of his own pocket, created not one but two companies with a greater reputation for excellence than any company that's existed before, and he did it all with a flair for the dramatic. In the meantime he got married and had kids and survived cancer and talked a lot to kids about loving life and survival.
When I use a computer or listen to an iPod, when I prepare to upload my music to iTunes practically hassle-free, when I look at the Mac-using companies that have developed beautiful products, I'm aware that Steve Jobs stands as a symbol for all of the things I love about this community. A lot of us have that feeling. It's not celebrity worship like gets slurred around a lot. It's more that Jobs was the first pro-aesthetic guy in computers, and he's remained an inspiration and a hero to those of us that like beautiful product, and revolutionary product, and annual dramatic revelations on-stage.
From everything I've heard of him that's right. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I rarely judge people on their personality. I know nice guys that are absolute shits, just as I know one or two nice guys that are incredible people. Similarly, most assholes are just assholes, but some are very brilliant people with short fuses. I've found that of the people I associate with, the least consistent variable is personality, and I find that as I grow older I lose ties more and more with the people I only liked because of how they acted. Those cliques dissolve to make way for groups of people united by interest and motivation, where personality's got less to do with it.
(I also find, incidentally, that the more ambitious your goals the more likely you are to be an asshole. Jobs is certainly the archetype again. But on the other hand you've got great people like Jeff Bezos, so I don't agree with the folk that think assholery leads automatically to greatness.)
Unfortunately, lots of individualist philosophies are used by people to justify their own asshole behavior. Note that this doesn't necessarily diminish the validity of the philosophy itself.
How often is it necessary to bruise the feelings of others to be true to yourself? Just about never, in my experience. There are lots of occasions in The Fountainhead where others feelings are bruised, but this is their jealousy causing self-inflicted distress. You can often be true to yourself by discreetly keeping your own counsel, so long as you are not dissuaded from your own true desires.
If you are the boss of others, you should be able to do this honestly and without cruelty, even if you are a hard taskmaster and blunt in your opinions.
Citing The Fountainhead - not exactly the best way to make an argument. I'm a supporter of Rand and her ideals but her writing regarding human relationships is detached from reality.
I'm not making an argument. I'm making hazy observations based on feelings.
Everyone knows people who are their own people, but who do not impose on others. If asked, they will tell you. If pressed, they will stand up for themselves. But they sometimes show restraint where others might take the opportunity to "count coup."
It's also possible to be your own person and stand up for yourself while being abrasive, suffering no fools, and keeping everyone around you on edge. There's also a whole spectrum in between.
If my observations about certain subscribers to individualist philosophy bothers you, I suggest that might be salient data. You have far better access to additional data than I for evaluating that.
I find Objectivism, from what I know of it, to be remarkably self-consistent. It is an admirable product of its time. Some of what Ayn Rand said needs to be modified in the face of new evidence from evolutionary biology and neuroscience. (Humans clearly do have instincts.) A sign of a healthy philosophy is its ability to incorporate such new data.
Objectivism is terrific in a few ways. I still reread The Fountainhead once or twice a year. But the more you learn of it the shallower it becomes. The Fountainhead works because it's an incredibly contained world; Roark is essentially a loner. But Rand makes that out to be some ideal in and of itself. In truth, lots of brilliant people are radically social, and have had convoluted lives entirely unlike the straight path Roark takes. If you ignore that, and ignore the biological imperatives that explain it, then you're creating a fantastic type of human that doesn't really exist, and in some ways you belittle the people that Rand drew inspiration from to create Roark.
I just realized -- I never really criticize Objectivism in this thread. (That the founder's world view is eventually superseded by advancing knowledge is just a fact of life, not a criticism.)
What I do criticize is the way some people apply "Objectivism." This is certainly not unique. I also find the attitudes of many Christians to be distinctly not Christ-like.
What I do criticize is the way some people apply "Objectivism." This is certainly not unique. I also find the attitudes of many Christians to be distinctly not Christ-like.
That's actually a really apt comparison! I think I'll borrow that in the future.
I am not concerned about AAPL or any cool products it makes. To me, Jobs is a visionary, and embodies what the company preaches "Think Different"! And agree with someone said here, his medical condition is his private matter, and we should respect that.
I find it odd that disclosing a liver transplant and not disclosing the condition that precipitated it is the way they chose to go here. I would think that once the transplant cat is out of the bag, you might as well be open about the condition. After all none of the reasons for needing a new liver are good and people will probably assume the worst as it is.
It wasn't very clear... the fact that they cited an Apple spokeperson made me think there was some official disclosure, because they usually just not comment at all on something they haven't released.
Whether or not it was official, I don't think we need to know the exact condition. What would that change? I can't help him, and the one who can have probably been working on it for some time now.
I hate to break it to you, but real liver problems can follow any serious course of hard core pharmaceuticals. The man had cancer. He took chemo drugs, which likely destroyed his liver.
Smart that this comes out today. Yesterday, Apple's stocks jumped up 53% with the release of the new iPhone and it proved that investor's feel good about the prospects of an Apple without Jobs at its helm day-in, day-out.
If this article had come out before, I think Apple would've taken a hit.
