Speculation about Steve Jobs’ health situation has been a hot topic for a while now, and Bloomberg is jumping on the bandwagon as well – but you have to wonder if there’s a limit as to how far journalists should go in order to gain insight into Jobs’ health. While his position as CEO of a large publicly traded company puts him on a pedestal, I do believe there are limits to the hight of this pedestal. Bloomberg grossly crossed the line in my book, and Jobs seems to agree with me. “Why don’t you guys leave me alone?”
Bloomberg wrote an article January 16 this year, in which they state that “Steve Jobs is considering a liver transplant as a result of complications after treatment for pancreatic cancer in 2004, according to people who are monitoring his illness.” This sounds rather serious, but anyone who has been on the internet for longer than, say, three minutes will immediately have a little red flag going up when they read “according to people [etc]”.
The little red flag is completely justified in this case, as the “people” amount to Steven Brower, professor and chairman of surgery at the Mercer University School of Medicine in Savannah, Georgia. While I’m sure that Mr Brower is very competent at what he does, he has absolutely no relation to Jobs whatsoever. He has not treated Jobs, he has not seen any medical records, no nothing.
It is to be noted, however, that Bloomberg may have very well taken Brower’s remarks out of context – I can imagine Brower saying something along the lines of “it is sometimes necessary for pancreatic cancer survivors to undergo a liver transplant”, and Bloomberg turning that into the absolute statement that appeared in the final article. As you read further down the article, it appears that this is actually what happened: “One option doctors have in these cases is to perform a liver transplant,” Brower said, “It’s one of the tumors for which transplantation can be considered. It’s rare, but it’s sometimes done.”
When Bloomberg confronted Steve Jobs with these “findings” over the phone, Jobs replied in a direct tone and understandable manner: “Why don’t you guys leave me alone — why is this important?” Jobs said. Apple also declined to comment any further.
While I agree with Adam that the interest in Steve Jobs’ health is justified, with it being a direct consequence of Jobs’ and Apple’s own decisions and actions, I do believe that journalists should have certain ethics when it comes to these matters. I think that contacting a random doctor, who has not treated Jobs in any way, and ask him to make comments on Jobs’ possible health situation, and then grossly exaggerating these doctor’s findings for nothing but hits and clicks is far beyond my personal boundaries of what’s ethically acceptable and what isn’t. Pedestal or not.
I’m sure there are journalists out there thinking about taking this even a step further, by directly contacting the doctors who are treating Jobs. This is something that I find even more deplorable, because it puts doctors in the awkward position of having to invoke doctor-patient confidentiality. I personally have minor experience with this, as I studied “real-life” patients when I studied Psychology at University. I’ve read patient files of some pretty seriously ill people, some of which easily kept me awake at night. When friends and family asked me about what I was studying, I couldn’t tell them anything. While this is hardly comparable to ‘real’ doctors’ experiences, I do know what it’s like when people push you to reveal information you’re really not supposed to give out. It’s very unpleasant.
I hope our colleagues at other websites do not stoop this low, but I’m afraid that there’s little stopping them.
I agree with those (yes, people
say that a company has the duty to disclose information that investors would need to make informaed decisions before investing into a company. And in this very particular case, i.e. Apple, the issue of Jobs being there or not has proven to be a matter that can effectively translate into monetary consequences, thus I’d say in this case it is a public issue. Not the health issue per se, but the likelihood of hime returning or not, into what position and for how long. Just saying that the ceo takes a few months’ leave is a statement that can cause a lot of doubt which in itself can cause much trouble for a company in the short term.
why should a company be obliged to inform the public about the health of its ceo if it isn’t obliged to inform the public about slightly more interesting topics like say the products they are developing right now?
Edited 2009-01-19 16:42 UTC
Shareholders not the public, although of course the public would find out but that’s secondary. The reason is that as Jobs is so central to Apple his leaving can have a detrimental effect on share value, and the way rumours of his illness have affected the Apple stock price has proven this.
From a business standpoint. Real money is invested into a publicly traded company. And your CEO and Executive team is the force that directs the company into profitability. and the same translates to Steve Jobs. he ia an iconic figure and a major driving force in Apple’s profitability. If Steve cannot perform his duties for ANY reason, the investors HAVE THE RIGHT to know. Comments that come from sympathizers with Steve Jobs about “people leaving him alone” obviously didn’t buy stock in Apple.
See, you are absolutely correct, but knowing whether Jobs can perform his duties is not the same as knowing his exact medical condition. It should be sufficient for Apple to just say “Steve is OK.”
That’s just it. Apple did that… and it turned out to be WRONG. We can speculate for years whether Jobs was trying to downplay his condition to his fellow board-mates or whether the board was trying to downplay his condition to the stockholders, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. At least some people knew that things weren’t right with Jobs (see Gizmodo article from a while ago), so it stands to reason that people at Apple did as well.
Reality distortion field aside, how can any shareholder not look at Apple and feel at least slightly betrayed by Apple’s handling of the mess?
Then again, had Apple said something back in December that Jobs was seeking treatment for an “unspecified condition,” the interwebs would have been in even more of a fury than they are now, but it would have blown over by now.
They redacted that immediately. It makes no sense for a publicly traded company to alarm their shareholders when they do no know the real problem.
They admitted publically and even said jobs is on leave of absence for 6 months. Do you have proof that Jobs and Apple were lying when they claimed he was OK?
Why do you think jobs would then take 6 months off? He doesn’t think he is well enough to run Apple and he put up a temporary replacement. Isn’t that what everyone wants to know anyway?
STOP THE PRESS!!!
Steve Jobs takes a LEAVE OF ABSENCE due to health issues.
…
Oh, you mean that’s not new information? Damn!! With some of the comments I’ve been reading on some web sites I thought people mustn’t have known…
Agree that the poor guy should be left alone, but in today’s world this is not going to happen.
I.M.O, we in the west spend too much time worrying about the *rights* and *freedoms* of the press, and not enough time worrying about their *responsibilities*.
Responsibility? Lets talk about responsibility. How about the responsibility of the CEO of a publicly traded company to provide good leadership. How about the responsibility of the CEO to tell the truth and be honest about their ability and limitations. Jobs knew what being a CEO meant when he took the position. If he wanted privacy, he should have stepped down when he first got sick. Then he could have all the privacy in the world. I have much personal sympathy for anyone going through what he is going through. But lets be honest. Some things in life come with a cost. And the cost of being a famous CEO is lack of privacy when life turns to shit on you.
Jobs has already informed the public about his health pretty honestly twice now. Looks like he was surprised about the latest news and immediately informed the public and went on leave of absence.
That’s all shareholders need to know. They have till June to decide if Jobs means that much to Apple’s bottom line.
The press is now trying to determine specifics about the ailment and that is “out of line”. Medical records are private for a reason and Doctor patient confidentiality exists for a reason too. That’s why the patient has to authorize release of his/her records to a new doctor on the first visit.
By law a person’s health is a private matter. It doesn’t matter is Jobs is a CEO. Does Bloomberg care about every CEO’s health? Do they really care if Eric Schmidt or Larry Ellison are sick? No. So the theory that the public has the right to know is not valid.
Well the SEC says otherwise. However, there is absolutely NO LAW against speculating about his health condition. (providing you arent violating SEC policy) Let the media speculate. Or do you expect people to actually NOT talk about something with this big of effects.
Just because there’s “NO LAW” against something, doesn’t make it right or desirable to do that thing. If everyone in a society took this view, the government would have to micro-legislate every aspect of our lives, and I think you’ll agree this is not a pleasant prospect.
What I’m saying is that a responsible media outlet should balance the rights / feelings of the subject (Mr. Jobs in this case) against “the public interest”. For example, if this situation were to continue as-is for the next year, there could be an argument for running an intrusive investigation and publishing the results due to damage to a public company caused by excessive uncertainty. Not so in this case, Bloomberg were simply trying to make a quick buck by putting out a story with “Apple” and “Steve Jobs” tags on it so that the whole Apple fanclub will swing by and generate some ad revenue.
The SEC has no specific guidelines for CEO health disclosures. Please point to the specific rules pertinent to the topic at hand.
http://www.madison.com/tct/business/432824
”
Though he declined to discuss Apple specifically, a Securities and Exchange Commission spokesman said there was no explicit requirement that companies disclose their executives’ health problems. “But if a health issue is material, the company could have a disclosure obligation,” John Nester said.
There is no established legal precedent for the issue. “You can start a healthy debate among securities law practitioners on the topic of disclosure related to CEO health,” Stanford University law professor Joe Grundfest said.”
It seems the SEC agrees with me.
Edited 2009-01-19 21:51 UTC
Realistically, “stockholders” are not Jobs boss… the Apple board of directors (elected by the stockholders) is Jobs boss. I situations like this it’s important to remember that. His duty is to keep the board informed. Not the reporters, not the general public.. The board’s duty is to decide if they want to accept his “leave” or replace him because it’s hopeless and he’s not coming back. Complain to the Apple Board, not to random newspapers, his actual health is nobody’s business, in so far that his boss is the board of directors, not the general shareholders or even any one big share holder.
That said, I think the board is probably really gun-shy after the last time an Apple board kicked out Steve Jobs… the company went in the toilet for 5 years. In this case, the time is ripe for transition… will Steve see it and plan a graceful transition or make a mess.
No the problem is its non-existent independence.
I think we call all agree that Steve is a bright man. So bright in fact that I, being a share holder, still feel 100% comfortable in the company knowing that Steve will more than likely be stepping down as CEO, not due to health issues, but because they guy probably wants to retire and enjoy it’s benefits, i.e. not reading about your health on the internet.
My point? As I said before he is a bright man and bright men pick bright people to take over when they leave. Knowing this I, again, feel 100% confident that his successor will hit the ground running.
Steve is an awesome CEO don’t get me wrong, but like anything else there will always be something better down the road, or in this case someone.
While everybody would like to know what is going on with Steve’s health, it is not their right to know. There is nothing in HIPAA or other US health related laws that says “everyone except CEOs”.
With regard to the investor argument, there is nothing about the heath status of Steve Jobs that prevents investors from investing or not investing. If the investors are nervous about investing in Apple due to the health status of Jobs, then don’t invest. If investors with money already invested in Apple are nervous, they can sell their stock.
While I agree that Steve Jobs can keep his health status a secret, he can’t lie about it. Jobs either has to keep quiet about his health or tell the truth. Investors can’t be mislead. I suspect that if Jobs lies about his health, the SEC will probably investigate. Only time will tell.
Regarding the Boomberg story, time will tell us if they were right. However, I am suspicious of the story. If the story doesn’t pan out, I hope Bloomberg is punished for it. If their story is incorrect, they have mislead investors and possibly hurt Apple stock. They would be no better than what investors are accusing Apple of.
Aside from the body of the story, did anyone notice the typo in the title? I believe it’s supposed to read “Steve’s Health vs Investors” rather than “Heath.”
Oops. You are right, I meant “Health” instead of “Heath”.
And very strongly about his privacy being private.
But then, though not in the same health approach, doesn’t Apple sometimes go too far in terms of controlling their own customers (and even other things like the hackingtosh incident)?
I don’t mean that it’s an excuse to go snooping on SJ’s health issues… but then I think that Apple should be a little more “loose” on some issues as well.
Steve Jobs is under the magnifying glass whether he wants to be or not by virtue of being the CEO of a publicly traded company. In the particular case of Apple, the CEO’s condition is of even more importance than that of CEO’s of most other large corporations because Steve is a one man show when it comes to setting the pace and charting the course for Apple. In the meantime, a lot of people have a lot of money invested in Apple stock, and they are definitely interested in Steve’s condition for good reason. If Steve wants the scrutiny to stop, Apple should buy up all outstanding shares and take the company private.
“Jobs is a one-man show…”
Since when? He’s the front man, but he’s not the whole show.
If you want to invest in AAPL, do so, but know that you’re not investing in SJOB.
The health of AAPL is different from the health of Steve Jobs. Or are you saying Steve figures out how to cut aluminum, that Steve figures out how to pack battery technology in and around computing chipsets, that Steve writes the code to sync the iPhone with your computer and with the stores? That he inspires people to do more than they thought possible is important, but he’s been doing this for 11 years with a stable management team — 11 years builds culture, which transcends individuals.
Come on now. Steve is THE idea guy at Apple. Remember how Apple floundered around before they brought Steve back in? Steve is responsible for the iPod, the iPhone and a number of other products that put Apple back on the map and made boatloads of money for the company. Its easy to cut sheet metal and write code – everyone out there is doing it. Its not so easy to have brilliant product and marketing ideas and actually pull them off to make money from them. That’s what Steve brings to the table, and without Steve I don’t see a lot positive for Apple. By the way, I have never and will never buy an Apple product, and I don’t hold any of their stock. And I would advise anyone considering buying to hold off. But what about those who already hold large positions? If I were in that boat, I would be trying to get in touch with his doctor ;-).
Wasn’t Bloomberg the website that jumped the gun and “accidentally” published Jobs’ obituary last year with lots of details only to remove it later and blame it on the poor employee that keeps the content on their CMS?
Sadly, Apple are one of the most paranoid and secretive companies around who are more than willing to try anything to cork the genie back in after it has long since escaped. That comes from the top down.
The vast majority of normal people and companies would have made an announcement of what really is going on “Yes, I have cancer”, all this speculation would never have happened, everyone would have been extremely supportive and that might actually make the difference.
Why the paranoia about secrecy Steve and Apple? Really, you’re not that special, thousands of people learn that they have cancer or a serious illness every day, they can’t afford the treatments that are open to you, you’re in the public eye and you decided to be head of a company where you are perceived to be the most important person in it. When there is that much pressure, that much at stake and seemingly much to be made from any solid breaking news then yes, people are going to try and contact people in the know directly. Whether people perceive that to be morally wrong is neither here nor there really.
Seriously. Grow up Steve.
Did it ever occur to you that Jobs and his doctors don’t really know what is wrong with him?
They first claimed hormone imbalance and that he would be OK, then immediately made a statement that things are worse than they had thought. Why would Jobs make two contrary announcements within a few weeks of each other? Seems like they are being as open as they can be.
Oh the amount of media hype and speculation and the three articles on the home page of OSAlert proves that Apple/Jobs are very special. If they weren’t no one would care.
Edited 2009-01-19 18:47 UTC
If you were in charge of critical data at your work, and were doing your job just fine, in spite of having cancer, would you like your health issues to be publically discussed?, or worse, have a friend, doctor, co worker disclose this info….*for the sake of the bottom-line for the company*?
Common sense demands respect for privacy for all. It’s a large company…as wonderful as Steve Jobs is…he delegates.
Steve Jobs seems to almost be a special case for some unknown reason.
1. Since Jobs works for Apple he should let Apple know he is ill. – Done
2. The company should probably let the team know that Jobs will be stepping down for some time to sort out personal issues. – Done
3. Because Jobs seems to be a public figure, Apple should probably announce that Jobs will be stepping down for a some time to sort out personal issues. – Done
For this point onwards its up to Steve on how much he gives away or not. Some people like to keep things public http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/ and some don’t.
Having an illness is nothing new and the less fuss is made the better.
Edited 2009-01-19 18:51 UTC
…not because of Apple, but because I wouldn’t wish ill health on anyone.
Although I’m not particularly interested in Mr. Job’s health, I think Apple and Mr. Job’s can’t really complain.
Apple built a cult of personality around Steve Jobs as a marketing tool. When doing so they have to take the good with the bad. I don’t believe it works only one direction.
I’m curious as to how exactly Apple purposefully built the image of Jobs being integral to the health of the company. AFAIK there are only two things that indicate this:
1 – He does good key notes. – OK, so in other words, he’s a good salesman. And??
2 – When you configure mail.app you get [email protected] as an example. – OK a bit egotistical but hey.
I guess my question is; how did Apple promote the idea that Steve Jobs is integral to the success of Apple?
Having been avid follower of Apple since about 1983, my views is that the apple community (and by that I mean the users and developers) as well as the media are the ones who made the connection, not Apple themselves.
What exactly did Apple do to promote that image? If the lynch pin of the argument is that Steve should get this attention because it was Apple’s strategy to tie itself to the Steve persona, I don’t see how specifically they did this.
Feel free to point out the obvious if i’m missing something!
Herein lies the big problem.
Admittedly, Bloomberg goes over the line with their sensational hook “Steve Jobs is considering a liver transplant.” But… I actually felt the article was very enlightening. It explained exactly what is known about Jobs’ illness, and pointed out that Jobs’ prospects are actually very good.
For me at least, it cleared up some of my own misconceptions and concerns surrounding Jobs’ health. That’s not a bad thing.
There seems to be this perception that journalists may uncover the truth of the matter and reveal it to be worse than anyone expects. Thus saving investors from ignorance.
In reality, if Jobs is out of action for six months, the market is probably behaving as if he were already dead. The only revelation would be if it turned out he was alright.
In that context, there seems no justification for hounding the poor man. Journalists always overestimate their own importance. There is little they can achieve here.
Yes, Bloomberg did cross the line. But I don’t put the blame squarely on Bloomberg. Some doctor or medical facility broke a confidentially agreement that leaked it to Bloomberg.
Investors have the right to know which direction the company is headed, but they have no right to know the specific health issue that is plaguing Steve Jobs. There are regulations in place against that like HIPAA unless Steve himself makes it public. I hope the doctor/medical facility and Bloomberg get heavily fined for this.
Now there’s an oxymoron. If you find any, please let us know because it is more rare than diamonds.
“Bloomberg grossly crossed the line in my book”
Unfortunately, your book means squat.. It’s the book(s) which the Law follows that have a value… So we should waste less time here as nothing wrong has been done.
… yes, sure, there is this thing called privacy. But hey, Jobs is a prominent and public figure. It’s wishful thinking that “they” leave him alone. It won’t happen. I guess that’s the price for being in the open and being a prominent citizen.
If Jobs is seriously sick, then the stockholders need to know. Because this will determine their actions. They don’t need a detailed medical report, it’s enough to tell them that Jobs is seriously ill. But that’s exactly what Apple seems NOT tell them.
And -I can’t help it – to me the company is hiding something. I might be wrong, but that’s how it looks like.