downloaded . By 2008 it had become the largest retailer of music in the United States . Moreover , it permanently changed the way music is sold and distributed . Once again Jobs ’ s vision of the future seemed to be just what the public wanted .
Facing Death
It looked like Jobs ’ s life could not get any better . He had a wonderful family who he adored . Pixar was doing well . And , he had turned things around at Apple . In 2000 , he had finally agreed to become the CEO of Apple , accepting ten million shares of the company ’ s stock , which was worth over $ 800 million .
Then in 2004 , his seemingly perfect life came crashing down . Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer , a disease from which 90 percent of patients die within a year . At the time , the doctor told Jobs that the disease was incurable and usually carried a life expectancy of less than one year . But later in that day , the doctor performed a procedure , which involved retrieving a sample of cancer cells , in order to study the cancerous tumor more carefully . Jobs had an extremely rare slow-growing form of pancreatic cancer that , in some cases , surgery can cure . At first , Jobs resisted having surgery , believing he could cure the disease by eating a special diet . When that did not work , he had the surgery , which left him cancer free . Jobs recalls what happened :
I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning , and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas . I didn ’ t even know what a pancreas was . The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months . My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order , which is doctor ’ s code for prepare to die . . . . I lived with that diagnosis all day . Later that evening , I had a biopsy , where they stuck an endoscope down my throat , through my stomach and into my intestines , put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor . . . . it turned out to be a rare form of pancreatic
78 Steve Jobs