Steve Jobs sent the following email out to employees today:
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
We wish Steve well in his recovery. AAPL is down 8 points in after hours trading.
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oh dear
oh dear
My best wishes to Steve and
My best wishes to Steve and his family but would someone please grab control of the mothership by its balls in his absence and ditch these bloody GLOSSY/GLASS screens and return us to a world of sensible apple product designs and decisions!
Boom
I only wish Steve well. Tim Cook has been overseeing the day to day operations for some time so not much will change there. At least Steve will still be involved and the fact that there will be no more keynotes means we don't have to listen to another one by Phil Schiller. I was there, I felt for him, but on a charisma scale of 1-10, Phil was a 2.
I was there, I felt for him,
Only if Steve is a 5. I thought Phil was a much better keynote man than you're likely to get anywhere else.
It was just painful how there
It was just painful how there was hardly any laughter or applause.
Yeah. I think Schiller is no
Yeah. I think Schiller is no comedian, he tries too hard with his jokes.
The guy is more sick than he
The guy is more sick than he is letting on. While he may not have had a recurrence of cancer yet, it is likely that he will at some point. The type of pancreatic cancer he had is not as deadly as the more common form that has 5yr survival rates of less than ~5%, but it is still an awful disease wich people do die from. From the numbers I have seen his type of cancer has a fairly high likelihood of recurrence. Luckily it is treatable meaning you can live for a good long time before you succumb. Kind of like leukemia.
It is likely not terminal at this point, but it sounds like his health problems may be chronic from now on.
In all honestly his symptoms
In all honestly his symptoms lead me to believe he actually has another tumor. Also the length of his sick leave points to that direction as well. Hormonal imbalance, severe weight lose... Unfortunately doesn't look good. I honestly believe even if Steve gets better Apple will be looking at finding a new CEO.
All our best Steve - may your
All our best Steve - may your recovery be swift!
Agree. I hope he has a fast
Agree. I hope he has a fast recover and we don't have to wait to long for him to be back at the helm of Apple.
Oh no!
Get well, old boy! Heck, your health comes before your job, in my opinion. Apple will be around long after you're gone.
Oh no.
Oh no.
Too bad. I was hoping that
Too bad. I was hoping that he'd take a leave in order to help some otherwise failed American auto company reinvent itself into the best auto manufacturer in the world.
I'd imagine Jobs stepping into GM, saying "what the hell kind of products are you making???" and forcing GM management to care about the products they design and manufacture.
I'm not too scared for Apple - I think the board and the employees remember all too well about the horrid leadership during the Sculley years, and the board knows exactly the kind of leadership that Jobs brought to both Apple and Pixar. There will be failures (like the Apple boom box), but not of the likes of the Mac LC or Mac Classic (basically a 1990, 8 MHz replay of the Jobsian 8 MHz Mac of 1984.)