Submitted by Breaking news out of Cupertino: Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has announced he is taking a medical leave of absence, stepping down as CEO of Apple from now until June 2009. Steve Jobs announced this new turn of events in an email to all Apple employees today. Tim Cook will assume the CEO position for the time being.
Steve Jobs’ health situation has been the subject of many a rumour ever since he was diagnosed (and recovered from) pancreatic cancer. Only last week Jobs sent out an email telling the world he had a hormonal imbalance that caused him to look thin, and that the doctors said it would take a few months for him to recover. As it turns out, the situation is a little more dire than they anticipated.
Team,I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.
In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.
I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.
I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.
Steve
I mean, I hate to sound like an opportunistic bastard – but if you were thinking about buying some Apple stock, tomorrow might be a good time.
I have to assume the stock will take a pretty healthy hit as a result of this news bringing it to an artificial low ripe for purchase for anyone who was already considering it
Well, it will take a decent hit (I’m guessing here) because there are real concerns about whether this is the end of Steve Jobs at the helm. So, unless you think this is nothing and Jobs will be 100% healthy in a few months, I wouldn’t buy.
I know a lot of people think Apple would do just fine if Jobs wasn’t in charge, but that doesn’t seem like a safe bet considering the history of the company.
But would you have recommended that people bought beforehand while believing that the company’s success could never outlive Jobs? That’s is exactly the mentality that makes the stock market such a finicky shithole.
Personally, I’m guessing all the “armchair-trading” doomsayers will frantically start dumping their stock, causing it to possibly be downgraded by analysts…
Might be a good value opportunity for someone who has some money sitting around waiting for a good buy in this “depression” we’re already in. A savvy investor weighs the risks and knows what he can afford to lose.
Personally, I believe people tend to learn from their mistakes – I’m guessing there have been some internal changes to the company to ensure they won’t sell the farm again if Steve disappears.
Reminds me of the book “Good to Great” – where the greatest companies are those that have been groomed to successfully outlive their founders – producing the best value for their stockholders in the long run.
Why would I make a recommendation based on what would happen to the company in 10+ years (when Jobs retired normally)?
Furthermore, I don’t understand why people don’t get that (major concerns about the CEO’s health in what is probably the most CEO-centric corporation I’ve ever seen) == (lowered stock price). It’s not being finicky. It is estimating that Jobs is a huge part of Apple’s success.
Beside the point but, I would never recommend anyone buy Apple stock at any time because I think buying individual stocks in unnecessarily risky and foolish.
I think you have it backwards. Institutional investors and analysts sell/downgrade the stock causing normal people to dump it.
Let me put it this way. Almost any stock is a good buy right now. If you aren’t retiring any time soon, you should probably put most of your money in the stock market. Everything is somewhat undervalued. Why would you buy Apple which might not actually be a good buy when you could invest in literally thousands of other companies that are safer and will likely have very good returns over the next 5 years.
You must be crazy (or paied by Apple 😉 to buy this stock now. Almost everyone is sure that stock will plummet if Jobs leaves. And it will stay depressed until Apple proves that it can survive Jobs quitting.
If you want to invest a few bucks, you can consider buying stock a few weeks after Jobs leaves.
(BTW, I wish him good luck and I hope he will be fine so these discussions will never be tested).
You’re not getting “it.” June is WWDC 2009 and will give a full quarter plus more time for the staff to show you how deep and broad their bench of talent is to run Apple.
Steve built this team. When he was booted from Apple he wasn’t booted by a team he built to run the ship with him gone.
Give me $100k and I’ll immediately drop $75K on it today.
lol I’m glad that you don’t manage my money 😉
Seriously, I hope you’re right. But most analysts are not on your side. Plus, buying is a no-go: if Apple is lucky, stocks will hold.
This is not right time to buy. Maybe it’s not right time to sell either… but for sure it’s not time to buy. If anything happens (and I hope not, you know what I mean…), a drop will be unavoidable.
Then it’s up to Apple to prove that you’re right. Anyway, it will take time.
We’re not talking about faith here. We’re talking about results. Jobs has a great relevance because he PROVED to be good. I’m glad that you have faith in Apple though… 😉
It will be a buy when the faithful are in despair about its prospects, and when hedge fund interest in it has died, and when its trading volumes as a percent of outstanding stock are in the bottom 25% of stocks on the NASDAQ.
In short, a ways lower yet!
This sucks.
Indeed, I hope he recovers quickly. People on other news sites and blogs seem to be more concerned with Apple’s health than Steve’s, and even suggesting he’s getting what he “deserves”. No matter how anyone feels about him though, at the end of the day he’s as human as the rest of us and I personally wish him peace and long life.
I hope he recovers, it’s never nice being ill, nevermind suffering from complications. I hope he comes back, especially Apple is at the height of it’s powers and would be a shame to loose him now.
I am baffled by the whole mysticism surrounding his health…why doesn’t he just come out and say what the hell is really going on with his health? I understand trying to protect the company and all, but it’s going to come out at some point. Better to take the stock hit sooner than later rather than prolong it.
Because his health is no one’s business. Health is a very delicate subject and public exposition of it is no way benefitial. Just leave the man alone…
Because his health is nobody’s business.
Apple and Steve Jobs have ACTIVELY and WILLINGLY chosen to create and maintain the image that Jobs=Apple. That has worked out very good for them, but now that his health is failing, it is starting to backfire.
You see, Apple is a publically traded company, owned by its shareholders. Since Apple created and maintained the Apple=Jobs image, it is reasonable to assume that were Jobs to be incapacitated, Apple’s shares would take a hit.
As such, Jobs health IS a public matter. That’s a very simple consequence from the decisions Apple and Jobs willingly and knowingly made.
All I’m saying is that a person’s health and mortality deserves respect. This discussion is shameful.
I agree with you whole heartedly that his personal health issues deserve respect and it’s not polite or kind to speak ill of a man who is, well, ill. I am sure we all wish the best for him but there have been things that he has been lining up in secret for this day, and he knew it would come. Tim Cook has been being groomed to take over for a while now, likely due to job’s health. all i am saying is the severity, that it would seem was fairly well known, should have been disclosed to the proper channels. but again I wish nothing but the best for steve and apple.
I would love to disagree, but the parent is right. Apple has actively worked to make Jobs their messiah. As a result, people want and need to know this info. If Ballmer were sick, it would not be the same doom-and-gloom nonsense.
If people want to know, why not ask his doctor?
doctor patient confdentiality.
…and what is that confidentiality for if he supposedly owes us all his private health details due to his celebrity status?
“…and what is that confidentiality for if he supposedly owes us all his private health details due to his celebrity status?”
it means its not his doctors job to inform the public, it is the person who is ill. i think that would be obvious if you would stop to think about it for a moment.
Perhaps I should have gotten straight to the point. Mea culpa.
The confidentiality rule recognises the fact that the patient may not wish to provide private information. They can choose to, and in a business sense, they can choose not to give this information (and suffer the fiscal consequences), but ultimately the decision is made solely by the patient.
Basically, Steve is most certainly NOT obligated to disclose this information, and I do not believe there is a single court in any first world country where business interests legally trump patient confidentiality. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.
It’s an individual decision whether to stay in a key position at a company or to step-down from that position (temporarily or permanently).
A court could quite easily rule that business interests take priority over personal interests under these circumstances.
If someone is not in a suitable position to be a CEO role (physically or mentally) then they should not be CEO – it’s that simple. There’s a lot of legalese involved that a lot of people seem to think doesn’t apply to Apple.
Plenty of key people at other companies have had health issues and where required have had to make public their current situation – Apple employees should be no different.
However if Gates were sick you would hear it quite strongly IMHO.
He’s running a public company and has been the face of it for a very long time. Also, it has been over 4 years since he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – presumably ample time to put a succession in place.
I haven’t seen it but it really makes no difference to me but there are an awful lot of people holding Apple stock and if Steve’s health is going to impact their holdings, they deserve to know the RELEVANT info.
There’s nothing shameful in that.
Actually, Wall Street has embraced this image. Apple leveraged how enamored Wall Street is with his keynotes to the fullest.
It’s smart business.
as a CEO of a publicly traded company, its the sareholders bussiness, the board of directors business, and the consumers bussiness. and this is frmo a legal stand point.
only if it gets in the way of his job performance and he continues on.
It interfered, he decided that rather than tell anyone what is wrong, he would remain private about it and take a leave of absence.
Absolutely incorrect, his health is Apple stockholder’s business. I talked to a few of my friends in the securities/stocks industry and they are all in agreement that this is a horrible way for Apple to go about releasing this information…I trust them, they are the experts.
Even if he says what’s happening in extreme detail, it doesn’t matter. Rumours affect the company far more than truth.
It’s not really much different than what happened with crude oil, is it? People guess at what’s happening, ignoring truth, and the price goes up. Here, they’re guessing at Jobs’ health, and driving the stock price down.
He’s a force in the industry but he’s hardly a deity.
Would you share with the world major health problems? Some people wouldn’t care, but it is a very personal thing.
Personally, he doesn’t have to say squat. It’s unfortunate that the stock will take a hit, but I don’t think Apple is in the same position as last time and will recover.
The last time he was forced out and the company was blindsided by his leaving and a bunch of idiot execs drove the company into the ground. I think now he’s been able to pick and groom his successor(s) and the company should be in much better shape if / when he leaves permanently.
Because Apple are one of the most secretively paranoid companies around, and the vast majority of that comes from the top down. This is complete bull:
The treatment for a hormone imbalance should be fairly straightforward, especially considering his clarification memo not long ago.
Edited 2009-01-15 10:53 UTC
As time passes Gizmodo (who broke the new health story) looks to be more and more accurate. I really don’t believe the spin Steve is liable to put on things.
/sarcasm
Medical leave?! that seems strage, as everyone knows form watching the mac world live feed steve jobs is dead. they must have got the story mixed up 😛
/end sarcasm
all joking asside i wish him the best in his recovery.
now back to the share holder side of me. I find it deceptive and wrong that the sevarity of his medical condition was not properly disclosed as this has clearly been going on for some time. and as the CEO of a publicly traded company keeping this information hidden or denoincing its relivence, its a big no no. there is no way that it went “oh wow, in the last few weeks we realized this could be serious.”
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.” I say this as someone who used to think like this as part of my job (that i no longer do thank god, to many factors to always consider, that and the moral aspect).
but again, I do with steve the best, my thoughts go out ot him and his family.
Something tells me you don’t have any medical training. Having a diagnosis change severity is a very regular occurrence with human disease, not to mention no doctor would claim to be able to know what did, didn’t or will happen with the very limited information which has been made public.
Every kid has an iPod, who will grow to be an adult.
Every cell company will try to compete with the iPhone, but won’t succeed.
Basic marketing: people stick with the first brand in a new niche. Apple has already won.
Apple has become far too engraved in people’s minds to start slowing down. It’s only good things for Apple in the future.
Edited 2009-01-14 23:45 UTC
Google might succeed with Android.
Google doesn’t make cellphones they make an OS that goes on a cellphone.
Right. And what makes a smart phone is the OS on it and the ecosystem around that OS.
Blackberry, popular because it has a great OS and a great ecosystem around it.
iPhone, popular because it has a great OS and a great ecosystem around it.
Soon to come will be android phones. The HTC Dream is almost a great handset. It should have done a few small things differently, but the OS is great and a great ecosystem is developing around it. All a handset maker needs to do is choose android as its OS and the phone will have access to a vibrant ecosystem for free!
Palm might with webOS. It can copy and paste! (wow you know Apple needs to get back to basics when the competition beats it on user interface)
As much as I want to see Apple continue its upward climb, your logic is somewhat flawed. According to your theory, it should be Atari and not Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo leading the console gaming world.
Also, Apple was not the first brand of MP3 players; that distinction belongs to either Diamond Multimedia or Saehan, depending on your perspective. Notice that neither company has made a dent in the market in the ten years since. In fact it was Compaq, not Apple, that started putting small hard drives in MP3 players in lieu of flash memory back in 1998; the iPod was released three years after.
Fact is, Apple has enjoyed a steadily upward climb — and will for the foreseeable future — not because they are first to market but because their products are a class above the rest in most cases. They’ve had a few flops throughout the years but for the most part they create gadgets and computers that make the consumer cry “Wow! I want that!”
My point is that kids head out to the store to buy an ‘iPod’, whether it be Apple, Sony, etc. The niche has been named and Apple will lead it until a new device revolutionizes the industry.
Again, mobile companies scramble to build touch screen phones, but everything will always be compared to the iPhone. Again, the industry will have to be revolutionized before iPhone isn’t a/the leader.
Apple will not be hurting any time soon.
I think we both agree: Apple is here to stay. I won’t argue that when the average consumer thinks “MP3 Player” they say “iPod”, I just think it has more to do with Apple’s higher quality devices and genius marketing than with being first to market.
That may be where they head first – until they see the price, and turn to a $40 Sansa instead (speaking from experience
a 40 dollar sansa that does not lock you into a particular application to use for your music.
And neither does the iPod. What’s your point?
Really? You don’t need iTunes to load music on your iPod? So… I can sync it with WMP? I can drag and drop audio through the file system?
“Basic marketing: people stick with the first brand in a new niche. Apple has already won. ”
Hehe, I think you fail at basic marketing
Historically, it is known that more often than not, the first company to open up a niche is the first casualty, only for other entities to pick up where the niche was and succeed.
Well this is sad news because it most likely means he isn’t very well at all. Here’s to a full recovery and a long life ahead.
I very strongly doubt that Steve Jobs will ever return to work. Apple has always grossly understated the severity his health issues. The reality is he almost certainly has a terminal medical condition and probably only has weeks or months to live.
Apple is primarily a marketing factory driven by Jobs ego. It always has been. Without him at the helm it quickly floundered to the brink of collapse. Apple in inflation adjusted capitalisation and market share is a weaker company than it was 25 years ago.
There are a lot of posts that start with “I hate to say it/sound like/be…”
Instead of saying “I hate to…” why not say nothing at all. Or instead say “I knew I was right all along!” “I love sounding like a prophet of doom” or “I love being the one to shoot you all down?”
It’s not as bad here as on other news sites like Engadget and Digg. Granted, those two in particular are infamous for their childish communities, but the insensitivity to his personal life in particular is mind boggling. I understand there will be the inevitable practical discussions about the health of the company being linked to Jobs’ physical health, but some people can be particularly hateful and spiteful.
I personally know what he’s going through to a degree; I survived cancer 14 years ago, by the skin of my teeth. I was told I was dying by two of my doctors; I proved them wrong, but while recovering I wanted to die rather than face the pain and disability I was suffering. I clawed my way out of that deep depression and fought to live, and here I am today with only a few faint scars to remind me of my ordeal.
So, I don’t hate to say anything, and I sincerely hope he beats this new illness. As for Apple, well as I said in another post I think they will be just fine whether he stays with the company or not.
The operation he had in 2004 has a high success rate of survival at the 10 year mark. It’s been five years. The nature of the statistic is that the same operation must not be so successful a percentage of the time well before the 10 year mark.
I do believe Mr. Jobs will fall into that ‘death prior to 10 years’ range of patients.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the worst. The ‘treatable’ kind can buy patients up to ten years — in some cases it won’t.
I wish his family the best, even if he does recover, it won’t be an easy row to hoe for the next few months.
If you look at Apple carefully you will realise it’s capitalisation has barely doubled in 25 years adjusted for inflation.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=AAPL&a=08&b=7&c=1984&d=00&e=15&f=20…
A high performing company would have had an absolute minimum 10x capitalisation increase in 25 years.
Take away all the hype and you will realise that Apple is just another very mediocre business and Jobs is a very average CEO.
So what other company in the same segments of the same industry are you comparing them to? And if you’re commenting about Job’s ability as CEO shouldn’t you be looking at the growth results from when he reassumed the helm? Or is he somehow responsible for the performance of those who ran Apple into the ground in his absence?
Its easy to mislead people with figures presented purely to support your standpoint.
Investors compare companies with the overall market not just companies in the same sector. By this standard Apple is an extremely poor performer.
It was Jobs that got Apple into trouble in the first place and why he was ousted by the board. The Lisa was an unmitigated disaster. Apple market share halved after the Macintosh was introduced.
In fact Apple thrived for most of the time Jobs was absent. The share price actually rose consistently after Jobs left. It wasn’t until 1997 that Apple’s stock prices fell below the 1984 level.
Apple is now basically a marketing company with three main products – a range of generic x86 PCs, a music player and smartphone.
Thats the whole point. When they started out, they did great. When jobs left, they tanked for years. When jobs came back, they started doing great again.
Ah, a real business genius..
Aside from your fangirl frustration, the brand value of Apple has massively flourished for the past years and the company managed a difficult turn-around in a monopolised market. Of course you only need some ape at the helmet for entering a crowded market like smart phones and be successful. Or change the rules of the digital music market.
Oh, of course, that was easy. YOU could have done that, too.
I***T
Apple has doubled it’s market share from 4% to 8% in the past 2 years of all consumer units sold.
They are thriving.
for now…for now.
Love him or hate him he has given the computing industry a much needed kick up the behind and restarted a push in computers.
A lot of people say they want their computers to have functionality without a care for aesthetics. Now i agree with functionality who wouldn’t, however we are living in the 21st century, i want my computers to look good and provide good looking visual feedback on the tasks i am completing on it. This is why i am such a big fan of Apple, aswell as the computers and devices doing their jobs they also do it looking good.
Obviously steve doesn’t design the products himself however he provided much needed focus to the company aswell as being a charismatic speaker. It’s a well known joke in the computing circles of his reality distortion field, however this just proves how much energy rubs off on the audience, he is simply a great public speaker.
I wish him a speedy recovery as the world would be a sadder place without him.
Anybody here noticed that the Apple logo here on OSnews has suddenly turned black?
You just weren’t paying attention, it turned black quite a while ago.
Okay, that’s all I wanted to know
Its extreme blackness just jumped into my eye today… must have been selective perception
I understand all the concern for Steve Jobs from the standpoint that he’s sort of a celebrity of the Tech world, and his wellbeing is a public curiosity. On the other hand, his personal health issues are ultimately private and should have no bearing on Apple as a company. Discussions of how Steve Jobs personal troubles are affecting Apple’s shares and what not is indeed shameful and selfish. Steve Jobs may have pulled Apple from the doldrums once upon a time but it’s because he’s so charismatic and a great showman; not because he invented anything. iPhones and PowerBooks will still flow from Apple in the event of Steve Jobs’ untimely demise. They probably won’t come with as much flash and glamor as in days past. And just maybe the cultural obsession with Apple’s products will wear off and better products will rise to the top as they rightfully should.
I’d hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…
Communications like this sound exactly like the ‘whistfully ignorant’ or ‘purposefully arrogant’ statements made by dying cancer patients that refuse to grasp and reconcile with reality.
He should take time off. He should leave work, and he should spend his last days with his family.
Just like Mr. Jobs himself, we’re all going to have to come to grips with the reality that his is not well, apparently is dying, and probably doesn’t have much time left in this world. I hope the best for him and his family.
I do not expect Mr. Jobs to return to Apple. I’m not happy to say this, he’s been a bit of a ‘hero’ in my mind for many, many years.
I find it amazing how in the beginnings of his apparent end, with his strength apparently fading and frailty setting in the Reality Distortion Field continues to run at max power. Now -that’-s ballsy. You go, Steve. You go.