Jobs hid cancer diagnosis for 9 months
If the CEO is sick, do the shareholders have a right to know?
That's the question raised, but not exactly answered, by a Fortune profile of Apple CEO Steve Jobs released Tuesday, the day of Apple's annual shareholder meeting. The story reveals that after learning he had a rare form of pancreatic cancer in October 2003, Jobs kept his diagnosis secret for nine months--outside a small group of confidantes--while he attempted to seek alternative methods of treatment for a tumor.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs learned he had cancer in October 2003, but didn't tell the world until August 2004, according to Fortune.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)Fortune says Jobs and Apple's inner circle debated whether they had to reveal news of his diagnosis to shareholders, but decided they were not obligated to do so after consulting with outside lawyers. Jobs eventually decided to undergo surgery to remove the tumor, and Apple released an e-mail from Jobs to employees announcing he had received treatment the next day, August 1, 2004.
Did Jobs and Apple mislead shareholders by failing to disclose his diagnosis for so long? There's no hard-and-fast rule for this situation--some companies decide to disclose an executive's illness as soon as they learn of it; others decide to wait so long as the executive remains in day-to-day control of the company. Still, two corporate governance experts interviewed for the article say Apple should have disclosed Jobs was about to undergo surgery: "How would the shareholders have felt if they said he died on the operating table?" wondered Ralph Whitworth, a former director of Waste Management who was chairman of the board when its CEO was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Waste Management issued a statement just before John Drury was to undergo surgery on his brain, which is what Whitworth feels Apple should have done with Jobs. But Drury had a seizure three weeks before he had surgery, as Fortune reported in 1999; should Waste Management have disclosed anything at that point?
This is an extremely difficult situation to second-guess. If doctors are optimistic about the patient's prognosis, and the executive remains outwardly healthy and alert, does anyone need to know? Obviously, nobody wants to see a repeat of Woodrow Wilson's second term, when the president's extremely poor condition following a stroke was kept a secret from the public, and even his own cabinet officials.
But that's not what we're talking about here. No one disputes that Jobs was totally in control of Apple up to the day he received surgery. No one has suggested that his ability to lead the company was affected by his decision to seek alternative treatment methods for his cancer, which he shelved in favor of surgery after discovering the tumor had grown, according to Fortune.
CEOs--even ones as public as Jobs--have a right to keep their health a private matter so long as they aren't hurting their company. That's what a board of directors is for, to decide at what point a CEO's effectiveness has diminished for whatever reason. Clearly, Apple and Jobs didn't encounter problems then--and have done pretty well since--so does it really matter when he learned of his illness?
I do think, however, that Apple's obsession with secrecy will come back to haunt it at some point. Some analysts estimate that Jobs is worth as much as $16 billion in market capitalization to Apple, and if he suffers some sort of relapse, the company's stock will definitely suffer. Speculation has circled about Jobs' health since 2004, and Apple has to be very careful how it will handle the issue in the future.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
about you being wrong.
and when the writer "couldn't get the goods" it turned into this
cancer story. Lame.
http://valleywag.com/363816/fortunes-cover-story-steve-jobs-
hid-cancer-for-nine-months
else's business, whether they're the CEO of a major corporation
or your next door neighbor. Just because you are the boss of a
public company doesn't mean your private affairs need to be
paraded before the public. No amount of prurient interest
painted over with lame excuses can change that. One day Steve
Jobs will no longer be running Apple. The day that happens, for
whatever reason, the Board has the duty to inform Apple
shareholders who the new boss will be. That is the extent of
their obligation and of the public's so-called right to know.
one really knows exactly what to do. The CEO and the board of
directors all want to do the "right thing" for their shareholders,
employees and customers. But as in this case they know that
regardless of the outcome, they will be criticized for their
decision.
I know because 28 years ago I was COO of a listed corporation
when the CEO had to undergo a heart valve replacement. We
decided not to announce the surgery in advance. Five days later
he died in the post-op ICU. I was already on the board and was
immediately elevated to CEO. The company did not suffer in any
material way. However, the entire board, including me, were
severely criticized by outsiders.
We thought we were doing the "right thing" - but were we?
Know one ever knows exactly what is right in this circumstance.
If job's was incapacitated as so many people have irreverently stated (shame on you for being so blatantly crass and insensitive) maybe the company wouldn't have gone down but in a new and better direction? Like for example, maybe we would see iPod's with FM Tuners or mid-range macs, and MacOSX run on non apple branded PC's.
The real story here is, what is such a company's line of succession, how does it plan on dealing with a world post-Jobs, and the man doesn't have to die, what if he retires, you morbid cretins. The article should be more about how they are going to deal with transition as any company should regardless of the stature of their CEO.
- Mr. Jobs
- by BSinton March 5, 2008 10:17 PM PST
- The thing being discussed is whether Mr.Jobs health should be a public matter.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(17 Comments)Unfortunately , some of you have rapidly descended to abusing and insulting others who vary from your view.
My view is that I am not a Lawyer and would not know what I was talking about. However it seems from the article , that it was not a legal requirement (they did take legal advice) then people should mind their own business.