Steve Jobs
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Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." In 2006, Steve Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalization rose above Dell's. The email read:
In 2005, Steve Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.
Health concerns
In mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very grim; Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. After initially resisting the idea of conventional medical intervention and embarking on a special diet to thwart the disease, Jobs underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or "Whipple procedure") in July 2004 that appeared to successfully remove the tumor. Jobs apparently did not require nor receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy. During Jobs' absence, Timothy D. Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.
In early August 2006, Jobs delivered the keynote for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. His "thin, almost gaunt" appearance and unusually "listless" delivery, together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and internet speculation about his health. In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report, WWDC attendees who saw Jobs in person said he
"looked fine"; following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that "Steve's health is robust."
Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs' 2008 WWDC keynote address; Apple officials stated Jobs was victim to a "common bug" and that he was taking antibiotics, while others surmised his cachectic appearance was due to the Whipple procedure. During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Steve Jobs' health by insisting that it was a "private matter." Others, however, opined that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs' hands-on approach to running his company. The New York Times published an article based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, noting that "while his health issues have amounted to a good deal more than 'a common bug,' they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer."
On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary of Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. (News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure's untimely death.) Although the error was promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on it, intensifying rumors concerning Jobs' health. Jobs responded at Apple's September 2008 Let's Rock keynote by quoting Mark Twain: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"; at a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading "110 / 70", referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health.