I'm sorry, but I can't get around it any more. Over the weekend, we had a story in the reputable Wall Street Journal that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago in a hospital in Tennessee. This story got all over the Apple media - obviously - and was later confirmed by the hospital in question. All the usual questions arose about privacy, Warren Buffet had a remark about it, and so on. Let's get all these stories out of the way in one go.
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Member since:2005-07-13
As a publicly traded company, who's CEO's very well being is causes for (and has shown) drastic stock upturn or down turn, it is very much against the law to hide this kind of information. I am glad he is doing better, but someone really needs to hold apple to the laws that every other company has to follow. Regaurdless that Tim Cook was CEO at the time of the opperation, the operation was only needed due to the pre existing issue that Jobs was facing. The fact that he needed said opperation means he was infact much worse off that was debriefed to the press/public/shareholders. that makes it illigal.
that aside, welcome back steve. Look at him, strutting around apple headquarters with his fancy new liver like he owns the place... oh wait.
Edited 2009-06-24 22:48 UTC
Member since:2005-07-18
"...it is very much against the law to hide this kind of information."
The legal provisions regarding Protected Health Information (PHI) in HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) would squarely oppose that statement.
Under HIPAA, PHI is confidential, personal, identifiable health information about individuals that is created or received by a health plan, provider, or health care clearinghouse and is transmitted or maintained in any form. "Identifiable" means that a person reading this information could reasonably use it to identify an individual.
"Steve Jobs"+"Liver Transplant" = PHI. Ergo, it's PRIVATE, regardless of what your corporate investors might want to know...or any other prying eyes for their capital interests.
Member since:2005-11-15
I have no idea if the original poster is a shareholder in Apple, but I AM!
My answer, it is none of my f****g business. Yes Jobs is the CEO, and yes the CEO has the duty to keep things running. And he did by putting in another CEO who he thought would do a good job.
Let's imagine if this were any other company. Nobody would care. But people care because it is Apple and Steve Jobs. It is our fascination with having to know everything about everybody. Yet if the same light were shown on us we would claim privacy.
The key point here is if Jobs put somebody inferior as a CEO. My answer, nope I don't think he did. So BACK OFF!! My votes are for privacy and if you don't have shares in Apple BACK OFF! After all Apple is a private company and if the shareholders have no problem then nobody here should care.
Member since:
2007-03-26
I don't see how this is a surprise to anyone. Apple are terrible for censoring information from their own customers.
* They close down sites that public information relating to using their products in ways that are legal, yet unauthorised by Apple (IIRC one such recent incident was reported on OSNews)
* They withhold information from unofficial Apple sites - places you'd expect them to exploit for all the free advertising as well as forums for their biggest fans (thus such sites are reduced to speculation and hearsay)
* They remove important OS X security advice from their own website because it contradicts the BS PR officially release (remember how quickly the virus scanner advice was removed?)
* They wont even talk to their own 3rd party developers at the recent conference (of which I forget the name, but again it was reported on here)
I understand that companies have an image to uphold and it's counter-productive to advertise ones flaws, but Apple take this principle to the extreme.