The subject of Apple CEO (and Messiah) Steve Jobs has been in the news quite a bit lately. It’s nearly making me sick, the nonstop debate — not about his health, but rather, about whether or not it’s okay to discuss his health in the first place. I’m here to tell you: it’s perfectly fine. Long ago, Steve Jobs forfeited his right to any privacy on this matter. Read on and I’ll tell you why.
There is no real “right to privacy” in the US Constitution. It’s a concept with which we, as a nation, have become enamored, but ultimately, it’s not a guaranteed right. Yes, certain aspects of it are inferred, but it’s not an enumerated right. After all, we report on crimes and arrests, we publish non-flattering news articles. Nonetheless, it’s treated as though it’s an inalienable right by many, and I fear political correctness has gone amuck when people start backing down from discussing this situation. Anyone telling you that discussing Steve Jobs’ quite obvious sickness is out-of-bounds needs to get off their high horse and loosen up. There, I said it.
Let’s discuss this as fact: Steve Jobs is sick and everyone knows it. Just look at the dude at his last few keynotes. His gaunt frame looks sick. But it didn’t really make it much beyond engine puttering, largely because the main stream media largely ignored it and took the “he’s fine” line from Apple, so everyone decided to “respect his privacy” and not be too nosy. Beyond the first “Wow, Steve is thin” comments, there was nary a peep. Fast forward to now and people can still see that something is wrong with Mr. Jobs. People want to know what’s going on. Let’s rewind a little further.
When Steve Jobs resumed the helm as captain of the S.S. Apple in 1997, Apple began building a brand. Very intentionally, as they shifted their design of their hardware and software to futuristic and user friendly, they slowly began to paint Mr. Jobs as the savior of the company. And as Apple users grew increasingly satisfied with their devices, the image of Steve Jobs became merged with Apple. Soon, Jobs became the face of Apple itself, and people regularly discuss whether or not the company can survive his tenure. Of course we all know it can, but Jobs’ notorious tight-fisted control plays into the illusion that every decision is made expressly by him. He built this image, and he must live with the consequences. His followers see him as almost God-like, rumors swirl: he drives a car with no license plate and just pays the tickets as they come, he reads every single email sent to his account personally, he only permits features into OS X that he personally approves. Eventually, the company plays second fiddle to the man.
Apple has not helped the situation by intentionally playing coy with everyone, all the time. Why only release hardware upgrade at a trickle? Why have your CEO personally announce minor updates? Why lie and deceive people about stories regularly?
You don’t see that at Microsoft; in fact, Gates has left as all but Chairman of the Board. You don’t see this at Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, Dell, Budweiser, Sun, IBM, or even the American car companies. They all outlive and outshine their CEOs. But Apple, as they always do, thought different. And they’ve built an iconic image of their founder, and their cult-like following, me included, eat it up readily. We love our Macs and think those who don’t use them just don’t get it. It’s more than a simple tool, it’s a way of life. It’s why I have a stupid white Apple sticker on the back of my car.
Now, Mr. Jobs, it’s time to reap what you’ve sown. As your health appears to continue to decline, you owe us, as Mac users, as stockholders, as tech enthusiasts, an explanation. Not the details of your sickness, because those are private, but a revelation, or a confession, that you are, indeed, sick. You owe us the truth, because you are Apple, and for those of us that own Apple stock, we own Apple. And as brilliant as you are, if only evidenced by the team you’ve assembled to bring Apple back to the big time, you have failed us in a very large way: you have not defined a clear succession path. And that’s why it’s our business. Because neither Jonathan Ives nor Phil Schiller is Steve Jobs. Because you can’t just bring in an outside CEO like a Carly Fiorina and expect things to be peachy. Because Apple’s existence is tied to you and your existence. It may not be true, but that’s the gist of the mysticism you’ve played a key role in creating.
By not creating a celebrity leader to follow in your footsteps, there is no heir apparent to the Apple empire. So, when you drop 50 pounds and go very gray very fast, that, I’m afraid to say, is news. Especially for a site like OSNews.
It’s not immoral for us to wonder what will happen to Apple. It’s not immoral for us to want to know what’s happening to Steve Jobs any more than it was for people to care about Kurt Cobain or Jerry Garcia or John Lennon. Jobs has affected many people’s lives via his company, and by creating a persona, he has people who feel tied to him. The danger of being king is that one day, your subjects will feel that you belong to them.
Yes, it’s perfectly okay to discuss Mr. Jobs and the state of his health. It’s not okay to call his doctor or bribe the orderlies at the clinic. But the future is unclear for Apple without Steve Jobs navigating the waters. So it’s completely normal discourse for us to wonder what’s up. I say if it looks like news and smells like news, let’s discuss it.
The above editorial is the opinion of the author and not necessarily those of OSNews, LLC or its staff
from a bussiness stand point if a health condition could be influancing the company (by, for example not disclosing it and having your stock price stay high) it is this simple: As a CEO of a publicly traded company, its the sareholders bussiness, the board of directors business, and the consumers bussiness. and this is from a legal stand point.
He didn’t suddenly just get really bad over a week and then go “what luck! good thing i brought tim cook in here and have been grooming him to take over in this event, i mean this event that might possibly happen, i mean nothing like this is going ot happen to me.”
here is a more likely scenario. “oh no its bad and its getting worse (6 months ago). if we discose this now, in a weak ecconomy, shares will drop ahead of our big product release. we need to mantain a confident face and figurehead over these tough times. lets put off the health thing as long as we can so as not to take a 12% dorp in share price and have Apple’s future in question in this current market.”
it is his job as CEO to disclose this kind of information that could have direct effect on shareholder interest and company outlook. As Thom has said, Job’s has set up the notion that Jobs = Apple and as such it becomes his responsibility to inform those who have a legal right to know about the matter at hand.
I read OSNews every day, but never post a comment because I usually don’t see a need. However, this topic pushes too many buttons with me.
Steve Jobs could die a car wreck, be shot in a drive by, stabbed in a mugging, or any number of other unforeseen events. Anyone who bases their stock trading & such on this is asking for trouble.
Further, regardless of anyone’s popularity or power, that does not give us the RIGHT to pry into it. The constitution may not explicitly guarantee privacy from the media, but neither does it guarantee the RIGHT to pry except in legal matters and then only certain conditions.
And even if the constitution did do so, does that still make it right? Princess Diana died due to the media. You can argue specifics, but she’d likely still be alive if not for the paparazzi. Mary Kate Olsen would likely not have such a big problem with anorexia if not for the media. Many other stars would likely not do some of the self-destructive things they do if not for media attention. The media is feeding a problem.
No, I don’t need to know, nor do I have a RIGHT to know, about Steve Jobs or any other CEO’s personal health. Regardless of what that would mean for the company’s future, none of us NEED that information, nor do we have a RIGHT to it.
Respecting people’s personal lives and such is more important than stocks or having something to gossip about. Disturbing that anyone in society would argue for the opposite!
A little off topic, but about self destructive behaviour in celebrities. I don’t think there are any more self destructive celebrities than “normal” people, we’re just so constantly bombarded with it that we see it more, and we look for a plausible thing to blame. Thousands of people drink themselves into the gutters every day, and they end up in the drunk-tank overnight. Thousands, if not millions, overdose on some drug or another and end up in hospital and/or die. I’m not saying there’s no blame for the media, but no matter what, a large portion of people will grow up (or maybe they won’t even wait that long) to descend into oblivion with drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, or whatever. The difference is, they’ll die nameless and faceless to all but those closest to them. I think the number of train-wreck celebrities we see is probably about the same as the ratio in the general population. We just see the train-wrecks more often because misery loves company – people, as strange as it sounds, almost seem to like to live vicariously through the misery of others, just to make their own not seem so bad (even if theirs is the misery of an emo kid bitching on Live Journal about how his parents bought him the wrong colour Ferrari).
What about the human right to privacy (isn’t this ratified by the UN as well as the EU)? Granted, famous people should probably expect that they’re going to get some media attention, but AFAIK Jobs’ only legal responsibility in this matter is to the board of directors at Apple. They may well know more than us but that’s as far as it should go IMHO.
What makes you surmise he has not trained up a successor? If Apple is as secretive about its business strategy as it is about its products (and I suspect it will be more so about strategy) — which it has a right to be — then who’s to say there’s nobody to succeed Jobs?
You’re entitled to your opinions, but to be honest I don’t think it’s anyone’s business, except for Jobs, his family and the board of directors at Apple. I wish him luck with his recovery and that also everyone else would shut up about it and get on with reporting tech news (as in facts, and facts we have a right to know about).
the human right to privacy is lost when you are teh CEO of a publicly traded company and the issue could affect your shareholders/board of directors/investors/and the company as a whole. Its sad, but its the way it is. I do wish the best for his recovery though, but he should have been more forthwrite with all this from the get go.
Ermm… no. You can’t be made to give up a human right.
read this: http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/16/news/companies/parloff_disclosure.f…
here is part of the article you might find interesting:
“Doesn’t the Securities and Exchange Commission have rules about this kind of thing? Not rules specifically addressing CEO health, says Columbia law professor Jack Coffee. But two principles do apply, he says. One is that if a company does discuss a CEO’s health issues, its disclosures must be “full and accurate,” says Coffee. “In other words, you can’t lie.” (The company must also update that information as warranted.)
The other legal principle governs whether a company must address a key officer’s health at all. Every quarter, Coffee explains, a public company must disclose in SEC filings “any known risk, event, trend, or uncertainty” that could affect “future results of operations.” Whether a CEO’s medical problems rise to that level hinges on an analysis of, well, just about everything. How indispensable is the CEO? How likely is he to be incapacitated, and for how long?”
so as you see, since there as been much secrecy form the share holders about previous life threatening illnesses (read the first part of the article) this becomes an issue of “did jobs follow the precedures he was suposed to” the short answer is we don’t fully know, that will be for teh laywers to figure out. but the it certainly doesnt seem like it. Jobs and Apple actively kept these things (and previous issues) secret until they could no longer be. no quarterly fileing that is on record. long story short, this is a complex issue and will take time to sort out.
Edited 2009-01-16 23:12 UTC
You are absolutely correct. However, you can choose to waive any rights you wish. Celebrities do so in order to maintain the lifestyle they love so much. Some celebrities have attempted to step back out of the limelight to regain their long lost privacy, with various degrees of success.
It’s like the genie in the bottle: Once you let him out, you play hell getting him back in.
Really? They all sign a waiver when they become “famous”?
You’re either very stupid or very sarcastic. I’ll give you the benefit of doubt and say you’re just being snarky. My point was when you deliberately put yourself in the limelight, it tends to kill the shadows of your private life. Very few celebrities are able to keep their private lives in the dark, and most don’t really care anyway. The exposure itself will keep their 15 minutes going for years.
But I’m sure you already knew what I meant.
If it isn’t anyone else’s business, then maybe Jobs should have kept his mouth shut about it. Or for that matter, maybe he shouldn’t have paid Apple PR drones out-and-out lie about it.
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5029459/steve-jobs-admits-katie-cotton-…
Nope. What the UN declaration of human rights says is
that:
“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy”.
Note the word arbitrary. What we are seeing here is far from an arbitrary interference into someones privacy.
The health of Mr Jobs is of utmost interest to shareholders and as such it is a highly relevant. Also as soon as Apple started to comment publicly on the health of Mr Jobs it became a public matter. I don’t know the details of the SEC laws covering this, but they certainly exist.
If you actually learn something concrete about Steve Jobs’ health, or have a reliable source that does, by all means report it. It would be relevant because Jobs has been much more important to Apple than the average CEO is to his/her company. But if you’re just going to speculate or wild-ass guess about what could be ailing him or what might happen, I would say that that kind of thing is a waste of bits.
I agree, Joe.
By all means Adam, let us discuss it. Let us drool over all the little details of his sickness, let us protrude future with wild extrapolations of what’s to come out of it. Let us.
Oh, wait, there isn’t actually anything to discuss yet, is there? No public acknowledgements, no diagnosis, no set timeframes, or date of operation. No treatment is prescribed. Nothing.
So, was all that about nothing, I take it? Just a sounding off of your thought indigestion, a “wouldn’t it be great if we had something to talk about in this thing?”
Guess what, you haven’t still. I call this trolling, and it is way out of the scope of OSNews target material, because it is not news.
And while I completely agree with the point of your editorial, I disagree deeply with it’s existence.
Do write more. I enjoyed it a lot.
Go ahead and focus all of your energy on me. I’m the one writing the thousands of editorials ACTUALLY DISCUSSING his health.
</sarcasm>
No. You’re not.
You’re discussing nothing. On my favourite computing development trends go-to outlet.
For which the chasms of Hell will devour you.
Love you dude.
In other words, you don’t want people to talk about anything that’s bad news for Apple.
Good luck with that. Maybe if you keep repeating “It’s not news, it’s not news, la la la la la I’m not listening” enough times, someone might start to believe it.
You’re missing the point dude. I’d love to know, or to get some news on what’s going on with Apple. It’s just that we’re not getting any.
Speculating whether or not Job’s departure is going to kill Apple is loads of fun, at least the first few times around. But we’ve been through that.
So there is no news.
Just hurting Apple. Which is as much fanboyism as just praising Apple.
Edit: Just noticed your nickname.
Basically what I’m saying is that this sort of editorial is diminishing the value of OSNews for myself. That’s executive-speak for you.
Edited 2009-01-17 20:28 UTC
Jobs sent out a letter saying that he’s taking a leave of absence for health reasons. How is that not newsworthy – because the full details aren’t known?
That’s not how journalism works – there’s a difference between journalists and historians, you known.
That’s funny, I thought the speculation was about Jobs’ death, not Apple’s.
Thanks, I was waiting for someone to take issue with the name. You have restored my faith in OSNews.
No, it isn’t unless you’re the executive type. Next time he takes a shit or sneezes – I also do not care.
New Intel architecture having a memory controller – I do care. Some guy inventing a mathematically rigorous method for reasoning about concurrent computational systems – I do care.
Unfounded speculation, or the discussion of the legitimacy of such speculation, in the context of one of Apple’s prime men – do not care, and never will.
My faith in OSNews (unlike your’s) is fading away.
Your lack of interest in this story doesn’t make it not a story. The sooner you get that, the more at peace, perhaps, you will be.
You can choose to make us the target of your wrath, but we’re not the only people talking about it, so it must be that some people think it’s worth discussing.
But how is that different from any other speculative ‘news’. Be it the specs of the next Mac Mini, whom Mr Obama will chose as Attorney General or the outcome of the current Gaza conflict.
While I agree the speculating on the exact ailments Mr Jobs may or may not have is somewhat ghoulish, speculating on the future of Apple post Steve Jobs is certainly relevant, or at least no less relevant than any other speculation on the future of the tech industry.
If this piece of poorly constructed and disrespectful commentary is the future direction for OSnews then I’m abandoning ship. Editors, do your work.
You’ve left one comment and joined today. That means you either aren’t a reader to begin with, or you’re not using your real user id, which is a bit cowardly, when you’re specifically chastising me, isn’t it?
Or he might be enraged enough to go out of his way of lurking. Could happen.
Do not dismiss the possibility.
Adam, not that I agree with his opinion, but you may want to check his Join Date again. It’s showing up for me as “2007-12-15”. This does seem to be his first comment though.
To mjmshaw: Take it from someone who’s been here since Eugenia brought it back from mediocrity. This site has changed direction so many times I don’t think anyone is qualified to judge its future, much less a short-time lurker like you.
I read OSNews every day. I like it a lot. I read my local newspaper (The Age, Melbourne) every day but have never written a letter to the editor. Does that make me a newspaper ‘lurker’? I think of, and read, OsNews as a quality news site; not a message board.
BTW, my first name is Michael.
“Lurker” is an internet-born term that I first heard back in the late 80s on Usenet. It describes someone who prefers to only read the comments and not join the conversations. Reading a newspaper is not a very good analogy as that medium is intended to be a one-way source of information. A better analogy would be someone who goes to a party to people-watch and never talks to anyone or dances or plays games, just sits on the sidelines.
If you were around here back in the early 2000s, you would have seen a news site that had a very primitive commenting engine that made it difficult to carry on a conversation. Posts were top-down and not threaded or nested, and there was no comment rating system or user-level moderation. Despite this, OSNews has always had a vibrant and opinionated user base, and more often than not the comments were as good a read as the articles.
Now, we have a discussion system that rivals — and in some ways outshines — other major news sites like Slashdot and Engadget. Sure, OSNews is still a tech news site, but it has the same core community it always had and to say it’s just a news site would be more inaccurate today than ever before.
So, welcome to the party Michael, enjoy your stay, and may your discussions be lively and your OS bug-free.
I hate these disclaimers like “this is my opinion and not osnews.com” for God’s sake, it is featuring on OSNews.com…. why people always want to write these disclaimers to have their job tool going free from legal responsabilities… Let the man die on his comfortable bed if it’s the case.
I hate them to!
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Meee twoooo!
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You’re story attempts to address two completely different things as though they are one and the same. Firstly, freedom of speech provisions allow anyone to speculate and discuss information and rumours as we see fit, so from that perspective yes discussion about what we know about Steve’s health is fair game.
On the other hand, you suggest that he should be forthcoming with all the information about his health, and there you are very wrong to the point of being arrogant. If the board of Apple has any information that has been discussed within the bounds of board business that is relevant to stock holders then it has a duty to make that information available to the stock holders. However Steve, just like any other person on this planet, has the right to decide what he does and doesn’t discuss or make public about his life. It is certainly not up to the likes of you to tell him what he must tell everyone.
Unfortunately the media as a collective body seem to think that everyone’s lives are theirs to investigate and disclose – either legally or illegally – under the protection of freedom of the press or some such trash, when in reality those vulture seeking articles are purely about ratings and advertising revenue. Sadly over the years the constant hounding of some people along with blatant stalking and spying by sections of the media has lead to many tragic events. Isn’t it time they had some limitations imposed on them, or are at least held accountable for the results of the crap they publish?
> It’s nearly making me sick
It’s a good thing OSNews is not publicly traded then.
This strikes me as a pretty odd thing to day.
It’s fairly obvious that Steve Jobs is ill. Not only has he said so and talked at length about his illness of a few years ago but he has also requested several months’ medical leave of absence. That means he isn’t very well at all. It’s not exactly difficult to work out, is it? People get ill. Usually they recover but sometimes they don’t. Usually their illness is identified and runs a predictable course, but fairly often neither is the case. Precision is not really possible. That’s the nature of the thing. Calling for a “confession” from Mr Jobs is bizarre and tasteless. Should he make it from the top of a crucifix as well?
As for the other points, well it takes two to tango. It may well be difficult for Appleheads to adjust to a new reality but they should ask themselves why they put such obsessive faith in a delusion of their own creation to begin with.
Steve Jobs is just one guy. One guy, special or otherwise. He is surrounded by thousands of people – stockholders and Appleheads – who stood by when the good times rolled. This quote rather suggests they are still expecting to stand by and have someone else sort out whatever needs sorting out. Well guys, how about getting off your butts? You own the company. You appoint the board of directors. As stockholders, you have the power to hire and fire and change the company’s direction. Worried about a succession? As stockholders you could have insisted on a plan being put in place but you didn’t. For as long as the good times rolled, the stockholders didn’t do a great deal moe than collect the loot. Lots of loot, too. You all did fabulously well out of Steve Jobs but the gratitude seems in short supply now he’s down, I see.
So: if you think things aren’t presently right, how about using your stockholder power instead of kvetching?
You can pretend you have some right to speculate about and discuss the health of an absent third party in a public forum just like you have the right to discuss who the secretary is sleeping with at the water cooler at work. Either way, you’re gossiping and that’s simply rude. Period. No man is so important that the world will crumble into dust without him. Just take a walk through any cemetery; you’ll find plenty of graves of people who thought the same thing.
No one is saying you can’t discuss his health. What you can’t do is sit there and say his medical records should be open on the table. That just won’t happen due to HIPAA regulations and Steve Jobs would have to make the information public himself. He is under no obligation to do that. So at most people can just speculate what is wrong with him and join the rumor mill.
Or at least, that’s what he may believe.
I have two friends with rather serious conditions, one digestive, the other one having to do with immunity.
They won’t admit they are sick!
Incidentally, both are long time vegetarians, and attribute their “drop in wellness” to not being strict enough in their diet. One is trying to become a better vegan.
The similarity with religious beliefs is striking, and might as I try, I can’t even suggest that they diversify their diet.
Just speculating, that may be just what Steve Jobs is thinking.
Bringing vegetarianism into this?
Me, most of my family and millions of other people across the world are happily long time vegetarian.. our family at least are perfectly healthy according to doctors and such
. If anything, I eat a bit too ‘well’ ( 
) and should exercise more, but at least my blood pressure and general fitness is good.
Conversely, some of the ones in my family who eat meat are pretty poorly most of the time and have been told to eat less meat by their doctors.
Perhaps your friends are undernourished. Diets can be bad whether vegetarian or not, it just so happens that quite a few vegetarians tend to be the sickly sort that do yoga and eat a few nuts a day at best. Generally the same kind that choose it because they associate it with some spiritual purging of bad vibes from their lower intestines…
Steve Jobs, I can’t say, but I assume he has good doctors, and he seems to have admitted quite publically that he’s not very well.
Only if you don’t consider constitutional amendments to be part of the Constitution.
Amendment 3: Quartering clause (the government cannot impede in the lives of private citizens even if it is expedient or cost-effective to do so).
Amendment 5: Due process clause (the government cannot infringe life, liberty, or property without due process).
Amendment 9: Broad rights clause (the Constitution is not an exhaustive listing of the rights of men).
Amendment 10: Restricted rights clause (the Constitution is an exhaustive listing of the rights of the government).
Amendment 14: State’s rights clause (state governments do not have the power to circumvent federal protections of the rights of men).
Sorry to nitpick, but it’s aggravating to see people get this one wrong. Carry on.
I’m *very* familiar with the bill of rights, and quoting them here in an attempt to be snarky did not prove anything. There is no right to privacy, only an inference to certain freedoms. In fact, 9 and 10 are often cited in privacy cases as arguments against sodomy and homosexuality laws. However, the right we’re talking about is not his right to keep us from intruding: no one breaking into his house, stealing his things, etc.
His health is a direct concern of stockholders and the followers of his celebrity. When he put himself in the spotlight, he invited that curiosity. When he tied his appearance to the introduction of all major products, he further bound Apple to his persona. Now he is pretending that it should suddenly cease.
Incidentally, you cited a bunch of amendments without even citing #4, which is probably most of called upon (along with 9) as a right to privacy: protection from unreasonable search and seizure. If there’s any right to privacy, it’s gotta be that one, the one that prevents the law from coming in and searching your stuff.
“he only permits features into OS X that he personally approves.”
I don’t have the knowledge that you work at Apple so that you can state that.
“You don’t see that at Microsoft; in fact, Gates has left as all but Chairman of the Board.”
Gates is not sick, Jobs is, you comparison makes zero sense.
“Why lie and deceive people about stories regularly?”
No one is lying for God sake. I mean why people does not listen what Jobs says instead of trying to guess what he did not say?
In his first letter (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/01/05/steve-jobs-missing-macworld-due…), he clearly indicated that neither him nor his doctors were understanding the reasons of his weight loss towards 2008 and that a beginning of explanation was found at the end of last year. What you expect in such a situation when the man himself does not know what he has and the cause of his decease? What do you expect from Apple to say? Please just think five minutes before to write non sense…
“your health appears to continue to decline, you owe us, as Mac users, as stockholders, as tech enthusiasts, an explanation.”
For Mac users, the CEO’s health is not their business as long as the company continues to deliver great products for its users. Mots of Apple users who just bought an Apple product because they like the product don’t know who’s the Apple’s CEO. The health of Jobs has nothing to do with Apple users, and no way that Jobs needs to share his health conditions with every Apple user.
For stockholders, the Apple board of directors is made for that. Several times, it has been made clear that the board has completely approved the decision made by Apple and Jobs concerning his health. For stockholders who have really an interest in the company, that’s more than enough, for the ones who only speculate on the company, f… them.
For tech enthusiasts, Jobs needs to say nothing about his health. Tech enthusiasts talk about technology not about someone’s health, no way that this can change because it is Jobs
“Not the details of your sickness, because those are private, but a revelation, or a confession, that you are, indeed”
He said just that, he said just that in both letters that he published. What else you want? That he says you things that he does not know himself?
“You owe us the truth, because you are Apple, and for those of us that own Apple stock, we own Apple.”
He is telling the truth, the truth that he himself thinks it is. Why is it so difficult for people to understand that Jobs is in a situation where lot of things can change in few days. Anyone having a little of medical culture knows that in such cases where a decease’s causes are not clear to the doctors, then it is expected that the doctors may change their thinking of the treatment in few days, and so changing totally the way Jobs will live the next 6 months.
“you have not defined a clear succession path. And that’s why it’s our business. Because neither Jonathan Ives and Phil Schiller is Steve Jobs.”
BS, yo are talking crap. You are no idea of the succession path that Apple had put in place, you don’t work at Apple. Plus, there are a lot of talents at Apple, and surely there is not two Jobs, saying that neither Jonathan Ives and Phil Schiller is Steve Jobs is totally stupid.
“Because you can’t just bring in an outside CEO like a Carly Fiorina and expect things to be peachy. Because Apple’s existence is tied to you and your existence. It may not be true, but that’s the gist of the mysticism you’ve played a key role in creating.”
No he did not, what he did since his return to Apple is doing his job. Guys like you have created the mysticism of his personality. And be in peace, Apple won’t have to bring a CEO from outside.
“So, when you drop 50 pounds and go very gray very fast, that, I’m afraid to say, is news. Especially for a site like OSNews.”
No OSNews talks about technology, not spreading fud about someone’s health.
“It’s not immoral for us to wonder what will happen to Apple. It’s not immoral for us to want to know what’s happening to Steve Jobs any more than it was for people to care about Kurt Cobain or Jerry Garcia or John Lennon. Jobs has affected many people’s lives via his company, and by creating a persona, he has people who feel tied to him. The danger of being king is that one day, your subjects will feel that you belong to them.”
It is not immoral, but it is if you start to speculate about someone’s health and to get the facts wrong.
“Yes, it’s perfectly okay to discuss Mr. Jobs and the state of his health.”
No if you don’t have any idea of what is going on besides what Jobs made public. If you don’t know, then for the God sake shut up!!!
“The above editorial is the opinion of the author and not necessarily those of OSNews, LLC or its staff”
Why it is then published as a main news on this web site? Why? As a OSNews reader, i don’t need this garbage…
The fact is that Jobs’s health has been treated as a tabloid spectacle and OSNews unfortunately is trying to join the trend or even to defend this utter mess. So please then follow this link, write your own Steve Jobs story!
http://macjournals.com/news/writeyourownjobsstory
Edited 2009-01-17 06:01 UTC
I’d be glad to carry this on offline, but the fact is, you’re all over the place. And I don’t think you read very clearly either. In fact, I think you were composing your response in your head before you got halfway through it.
I stopped lending any credibility to your response when you said this:
WHOOSH! That’s the sounds of the point going over your head. Read it again. I said no responsible CEO has allowed their celebrity to eclipse their company’s business. Nobody thinks Coke will cease to exist when their CEO passes. But certainly, people regularly discuss if Apple can survive without Steve Jobs. You get it?
Also, you don’t understand the relationship between stockholders and a board. The board is obligated to share certain information with stockholders. If the board doesn’t convince me, as a stockholder, that they are prepared to succeed in a post-Jobs world, I may sell my Apple stock. Many other may do that too. If enough people do that, the company’s value will go down. That is why responsible leadership and communication is important.
I should’ve expected rapid, stream-of-consciousness responses, though, when I posted an article about Apple in the first place. People rarely stop to think before they post inflammatory responses.
Adam,
I applaud you for writing the editorial. I’d made a few similar points myself in earlier discussions but yours was very thorough.
And, after going through some of the replies, I can clearly see that very few people are reading the entire
editorial and few of those who do are reading it carefully.
Perhaps all future articles longer than a single paragraph should be written in point form
Wow. We’ve all been trolled by Adam. Me included since I had to point out that we’ve been trolled.
I don’t think it’s so much that he “trolled” us; he did what most news/blog editors will do occasionally and that is to post a controversial opinion piece to generate discussion. Should he have put this on his personal blog instead? Maybe; I know I don’t agree with most of what he said but I’ve tried not to get hot under the collar about it. My personal take on the Jobs situation is colored by my own battle with cancer 14 years ago; I’m a bit sympathetic to Steve and less so to those wanting him to give up the medical records and such.
Considering this discussion has under 30 posts when less inflammatory articles have generated twice that in less time, I’d say it is far from trollish.
Thanks for your post Morgan. For the record, in this rather off-the-cuff editorial, I do not call for jobs to release his medical records. Instead, I’m merely saying that I think it’s fair for people to discuss it, given the nature of Jobs role at this company. As a responsible leader, if he is in fact sick – and all evidence points to the likelihood that he is – he ought to either disclose it or hold a more public changing of the guard to ensure the continuing strength – even just perceived strength – of his company.
Sorry, I wasn’t directing that specifically at you but rather all the other folks who are saying he has no right to privacy regarding medical issues; the “Jobs situation” I spoke of.
Definitely. It definitely should have been on his personal blog.
It is good to see a news outlet with some personality, but this is going way over. It’s not even opinionated, it is just an opinion, in it’s purest form.
And has nothing to do with emergent computing technology trends.
I disagree completely ,
The question needed to be asked here , with the details that where provided too , in the format it was offered too.
Your contradicting yourself , opinion are opiniated …
You know there is a good case to be made here how some people lack the realism to realize that Management is just as important as technology and this in all sphere of business. Hence would the health of the most important manager at one company not be faire game , the answer then become yes.
Apple would be the perfect example of such disconnection from reality by people who see technology as more important then the leader and there undertsanding of the market , even do they had/have some of the best employee and developer , without vision and real management at the top , the product seem to go in too many directions and the company seem not to be able to please it’s customers.
I don’t even know what you said there, sorry.
Uh, no. Again, this time you don’t know what I’m saying.
What I’m saying is that Adam crossed the boundary between “editorial” and “personal ramblings”, and did so in a very charismatic and characteristic way. In short – full of himself.
Now, I like that sort of thing as much as anyone, but IMHO it does not belong on OSNews.
And you management enthusiasts (BallmerKnowsBest included) may well have your own place to brood all to yourselves, but it isn’t any place I’d want to be.
I got it , what part of I disagree completely , don’t you get ?
Editorial are there for this and I , again , disagree the tone and description was just the right tone. You have to understand that many people have a type of worship about Steve Jobs and Apple that you have to use certain tone and charisma in order to get them to even consider the worth of the idea you want to be discussing.
Your contradicitng yourself in the same phrase again , you have the right to not like it , you even have the privilege to say so , but where you cross the line ( believe me I do push the line a lot ) is when you say it as no place/belong here. If the editor wanted one sided opinion they would close the comments and just allow people who think like them to submit any news.
What I don’t get is your not offering a real rebutal or conunter opinion your just denying the right of the author to say it. Your also under the false impression that you being here or not is really an argument that as any real weight or worth.
What would be interesting is if you wrote a rebutal piece and submited it as a counter piece with why you think the question should not be asked , because the author and the way they wrote it is of no real consequence here , people write how they feel at the time and for how they perceive is the best way to adress it.
You seem to have the idea that management cannot be discussed , that people cant disagree with you , I am not really big on supporting stupid management , but when a really great management is about to loose a key piece that turned a failing but great company around , I think the discussion deserve a few thought and few words at minimum.
From seing other’s author/editorial article on the same subject , I know this one was a particulary good one.
If your this closed minded and are not open to discuss opinion/subject that differ’s from your’s and are outside your normal comfort zone , then I guess your never gonna grow as an individual , I also know that here is not a place your going to like a lot.
I guess we have to agree to disagree on this one.
I’m still not sure. I said “maybe” because while it is quite opinionated, it was presented from the start as an editorial. In printed newspapers, people expect and look forward to the editor giving his unabashed point of view. It seems that when an editor of an online news site does the same he is called a troll. I don’t personally know Adam and so I’m not sticking up for him as a friend or whatever; it’s the principle of the thing.
When it’s all said and done, we read the article, were moved one way or another, and some of us expressed our feelings and discussed them here. All of this increased page views and ad revenue for OSNews and gave us some entertainment for a couple of days. A win-win situation, no?
You obviously have no idea what the term “troll” means.
What was the point of this editorial and the subsequent flame war?
Advertising clicks?
It is sad this question even has to be asked.
Way I see it Jobs is a CEO but he’s also a clebrity as in a popstar might be a singer but is also…
Laws pertaining to celebrities are different.
Celebs (and their fans) do have the strange custom to love media attention when they push something new and hate it when things go wrong – nothing new there.
The only new thing is that Jobs is a new species: Celeb-CEO – not really new but whatever.
But that doesn’t change the basic rules.
Celeb-CEO’s might not be such a good thing as was shown in the dotcom bust a couple of years ago.
I know those guys weren’t as celeb as Jobs but I think they are the first of the species.
You’re basically right about this – reap what you sow. Where the coverage gets out of line is some comments which one sees (not here fortunately) which are highly personal.
The issue is that Jobs is associated personally with two aspects of Apple that are key to shareholder valuation.
One is the product innovation. He is one of these rare guys who, given a good developer or team, comes up with the right product choices. Not always, and there are clunkers, but certainly often enough to way outweight the failures. So its quite reasonable for anyone who is buying Apple shares on the basis of ongoing revenue streams from continuing innovation to want more clarity than they have so far gotten on how long he will remain and be able to do that for the company.
The second is the lock-in culture. Its generally believed this is due to Jobs. For instance, the tinkering with iTunes to prevent it from working with Linux or Uninx. The locking of the OS to Apple hardware, and the continued legal attempts to stop people either installing or even telling others how to install on non-Apple hardware. The locking of the iPhone apps store.
Whether you think this is for Apple’s benefit or not, and whether you like it or not, its a key and central part of the marketing and business strategy. It would probably not survive Jobs’ departure. So its very reasonable for a shareholder to want to know clearly whether he’ll be staying, because this is a decisive question about whether the current closed system strategy will continue.
Finally, as Adam points out, there are the cult of personality aspects, and if you make your CEO into a celbrity, you invite scrutiny at a personal level and cannot then reasonably object when you get it. And part of the price is that scrutiny and adoration has a decidedly dark side: acolytes always look forward with part of their adulation to a deeply tragic but moving and inspiring ending. Which may if it happens be rather less fun for the object of their feelings!
Bottom line: there are real legitimate business reasons for people to want to know exactly what is going on, and there are less legitimate but understandable personal reasons why they will take a fierce interest. The subject has indeed become fair game.
One wishes it had not. And Apple would probably be better off right now if it were not so. But maybe it has been the price of the last 10 years success. Maybe however now the best thing would be from the company’s point of view for Jobs to move on, and allow it to relax from his own constrained business model, even if the price is the loss of his innovative drive, and become a more ordinary company.
Great. All Apple needs to do to succeed is to become an “ordinary company.” All the Corvette needs to do to become more popular is to emulate a Ford Taurus.
In case you or others of your ilk haven’t noticed, one of Steve Jobs’ greatest strengths has been assembling a tremendous engineering team, and an equally adept managment team. Apple didn’t become a major player due to one player, no matter how much some people wish to frame it in that manner.
Jonathan Ive has been recognized for his design and execution of products that have made millions for Apple for a decade. Their management team is second to none — in a time when brick-and-mortar stores became nearly obsolete in comparison to Internet-based stores, Apple set the standard for the rest of that market. They bring in more revenue per square foot than Tiffany, Bloomingdale, and Macy’s.
It often gets very frutrating to read posts or articles from people who don’t seem to have done any research about how Apple got to be 32-billiong dollar corporation that dominates the digital music market, that garners a great deal of revenue in the computer market despite the fact that they don’t cater to bargain-basement denizens, and that they continue to bring in new customers who are simply dissatisfied with all the other crap that’s out there.
There are many reasons why Apple is so successful at what they do. Steve Jobs is one of them. Trying to be or compete with an “ordinary company” is not one of them, and it never will be.
You can’t successfully do cult marketing to more than 5%, max 10% of the market. To raise share means breaking out of the niche that can be reached in this way. This is what becoming ordinary means – breaking out of the niche.
There are several changes they could make to break out. Now, making the decision to break out is not at all risk free. But neither is staying in it, when you have got to their present higher share. Its a very difficult one. But I suspect the price of staying in the niche, one aspect of which is cult marketing, that the present share will fall back again. So probably breaking out is the only way to capitalize on the current share.
This would mean ending not only cult marketing, but also the lock in culture and business strategy. Yes, it would mean letting OSX out of the ghetto, and going for 20-30% worldwide OS share through OEMs such as Dell. Yes, it would mean choruses of rage and fury from the faithful. Yes, it is only possible if Jobs has really moved on for good. But it probably is the only way to exploit the current PC success, and the only way to avoid the risk of another slump in share.
You can see their dilemma with the netbook segment. Its not now, its five years from now that you have to think about.
The dilemma is also clear from the OSX86 movement. They are increasingly in the domain of refusing to make what buyers want, and refusing to let anyone else make it either. And finding ways of stopping people using their stuff, rather than facilitating its use. As with the Linux iTunes ban, as with the bar on Hackintoshes, as with the apps store. Yes, all the Mac people defend all these things, as they will defend anything Apple does, and as they will defend all aspects of the niche and cult strategy. But looked at objectively, they are at the crest of a wave, and time is running out.