I’m not the only Mac user and Apple follower to notice that Steve Jobs did not look healthy during his keynote presentation at WWDC ‘08. Jobs appeared gaunt, tired, listless, thin, and positively unhealthy; almost the opposite of the vibrant, self-assured chief executive of Silicon Valley’s hottest major tech company.
Steve Jobs is not a behind the scenes player. He’s a dynamic and engaging leader, co-founder and head of Apple, Inc.
Though he trots himself out for public viewing multiple times during the course of a year, Macworld and Apple’s WWDC are major public viewing events designed to inspire the Mac and Apple faithful, attract new customers, and launch new products.
In recent years, especially since the pancreatic cancer scare a few years ago, the vegan Steve Jobs has not looked, well, healthy during his diminished part of the typical two hour keynote presentations.
Relative to many CEO’s, Steve Jobs is young. He co-founded Apple in the 1970s barely out of his teenage years. Jobs eventually was forced out of Apple, started NeXT (the precursor to OS X) Computer, bought Pixar Studios, and nearly lost his fortune through the years.
Fate can be harsh. Fate can be kind. Fate smiled on Steve Jobs. Apple bought NeXT and brought Steve Jobs home. Though many people are involved in any major company turn around, Jobs gets the credit, and deservedly so.
Disney bought Pixar which made Jobs a billionaire. Along the way he was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas, often a fatal disease. Fate smiled again and Jobs survived. Apple survived. Both prospered.
What is a healthy Steve Jobs worth to Apple? Tens of billions of dollars in market value.
If Jobs dies or leaves the company, Apple will continue. The current leadership team is solid, dependable, smart, and has a measure of longevity that truly benefits Apple’s management, Apple’s customers, Apple’s stock price.
Therein is the rub.
Steve Jobs is tied up in the leadership role like no other chief executive of a major technology and consumer products company. Who misses Bill Gates at Microsoft? Who would miss CEO Steve Ballmer if he decided to retire?
But Steve Jobs?
He truly leads Apple’s 21st century revolution with his sense of design and style, his business acumen and discipline, his vision. It can be argued that wither Jobs goes, Apple goes. At least for awhile.
I do not wish to sound an alarm so much as to alert others to what I see—an unhealthy looking Steve Jobs, leading his company at a critical juncture in technogadget history.
I do not wish this missive to be a morbid view of Apple’s future life without Jobs, or the start of a vulture-like watch which agonizes over every public appearance of Apple’s co-founder and CEO.
I do wish to state the obvious. Steve Jobs does not look well and that is not good for Apple.
His brush with cancer should tell us that every beloved leader is vulnerable to the ravages of humanity, but that Apple’s fortunes are perhaps too intertwined with Jobs’ health.
A healthy Jobs means a healthy Apple. An unhealthy Jobs can, no, will have an adverse effect on Apple’s stock price, perhaps Apple’s future.
Apple, officially and unofficially, says Steve Jobs is fine and merely suffering from a ‘common bug’.
I suffered recently from an ‘uncommon bug’ for two weeks and still looked better than Steve during his recent presentation.
My official word is that I am healthy and doing well, recuperating a bit slowly, of course; I’m older, recover more slowly. But I’m not the head of a company worth billions of dollars with tens of millions of customers.
We wish Steve well. We want him to be healthy for all the humanitarian reasons we can muster.
For AAPL stockholders, though, and to an extent for the company’s customers and followers, Apple needs to ensure the accrued value of the company remains and prospers with an executive successor plan that is public, obvious, acceptable.
Copyright © 2005 - 2010 Kate MacKenzie, Brooklyn, NY. All Rights Reserved.
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Reader Comments (18)
Tom Gabriel said:
A comment after almost a year since this article first appeared:
The title of Kate’s article is to the point and in view of the circumstances, accurate.
I might say from experience that in many instances a vegan diet can cope with any threat to the immune system, from any source, not too well owing to the lack of iron, B-vitamins, and complex amino acids. Its ability to keep bad cholesterol at very low levels is excellent (if you aren’t sneaking in Ben & Jerry’s on the side).
Like the original Pritikin Diet, however, people who are very faithful to it tend to look anywhere from gaunt and ill to survivors of a concentration camp—as Steve Jobs did, particularly just before he announced his medical leave.
I hope this is the answer to all this. I don’t want this visionary with the sense of decency to insist on the best his company can provide, leave us this early. I don’t want to see the company he created suffer. I don’t want us to be without the benefit of his genius.
I hope for the best for Steve Jobs and Apple.
And that’s it.
Rupert said:
Really, Matt Connors? “That ‘look’ has caused Apple’s stock to drop about $20-billion in value in a week.”?
The stock is now $12 lower than it was at the presentation on June 9th. It’s usual for stock to drop after good news. It’s called profit taking. It had surely built up enough in anticipation of the news. It may be $12 lower than it was 5 weeks ago, but it’s a full $50 higher than it was 5 months ago. That’s a 42% increase. In 5 months. Death watch, my [censored]. Good linkbait, though, if a bit icky.
Editor’s Note: Analysts attributed AAPL’s $20-billion drop to rumors of Steve Jobs’ poor health.
Matt Connors said:
OMG. WTF? I’m sorry, but I had to laugh. Are you people serious? A ‘death watch’ is what happens when someone of public significance is publicly ill. Steve Jobs looks ill to me. That ‘look’ has caused Apple’s stock to drop about $20-billion in value in a week. Imagine how much worse it would be if Apple announced that his cancer was back and terminal.
I read Margo’s seemingly heated response and I have to admit that I could not understand most of what she wrote, other than some of it was harshly undue criticism and some of it more than a little over the top, and some of it grammar and clarity impaired. Would publicly traded Apple lie about Steve Jobs’ health? Yes. Steve himself withheld public knowledge of his cancer for 9 months. He lied about Apple’s interest in an iPod with video capability. People in high positions lie all the time.
Margo doesn’t seem to think so but there is plenty of evidence suggesting health problems. Steve’s gaunt and frail look. The so-called ‘Whipple’ procedure and the after effects. The beating the stock took after his minimal keynote performance. Like it or not, it’s pretty much a death watch, huh?
Somehow I don’t think Steve Jobs’ children read web sites with articles about Steve Jobs.
acker bilker said:
I fail to see all the hub bub and noise over the title of your missive, Kate. It looks to me as though you were one of the first of many to identify the exact same issue—Steve Jobs looks like death warmed over. His physical condition, possibly explained by the longer term effects of his pancreatic cancer operation, is of major concern to investors of AAPL stock, me included. Look at Apple’s stock price since the keynote presentation. It’s being hammered. Not because of the iPhone, but more likely because of worries about Steve Jobs’ health and the impact at Apple should he step down, or, I hate to say it but it’s accurate—die.
Anyone complaining about your rather direct but accurately considered headline is not paying attention to the facts and concern you presented. People, many people, stock analysts and pundits, and Apple fans are watching Steve Jobs’ very closely.
That smacks of a ‘death watch’ to me.
Margo Esquandolas said:
This is simply hilarious. Setting aside any questions of rights, you can absolutely express concern without dredging the depths of this sensationalist garbage, as you did. You can editorialize the question of health without stomping on his feelings or the feelings of his family and friends.
I question the public statement of the company—a company whose stock trades on public statements—as a huge projection of one’s trustworthiness or lack thereof. You’re accusing them in advance, with no evidence, of lying to their stockholders, not by omission but out-and-out lying.
Suggesting that stockholders get to judge a successor acceptable, is only dwarfed by the absolutely unacceptable editorial…. and of course the headline calling all vultures and non-vultures alike to watch. Well done.
Editor’s Note: Edited to remove abusive content, improve grammar, add clarity.
David Charles said:
A ‘Death Watch’ is appropriate if there is concern about the health of someone in question. Steve Jobs’ health is in question. While I hope he doesn’t die, at least any time soon, I am glad that someone is paying attention to his health and how he looks and the effects his absence will have on Apple. Apple is a business. I bought Apple stock to make money. If Jobs’ health impacts Apple’s business and my stock value, then I’m concerned. It is NOT ghoulish, it is NOT offensive, it’s business. Keep an eye on Jobs and I’ll keep an eye on my stock.
Love your site, Kate. Keep up the good work.
Chris said:
How could anyone in their right mind author a headline as insensitive and dumb as this? It boggles the imagination.
Dave Goldstein said:
I was there and fairly up close. He looks like someone on chemo or radiation or both. Really not good. I was at the WWDC last year and looked like someone in the best of health.