Slashdot Mirror
Medical Health Disclosure vs. Steve Jobs' Privacy
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times is saying that Steve Jobs doesn't have cancer, but that he needs to disclose all the information about his medical condition so investors can decide. Gizmodo's strong rebuttal says that everyone has the right to keep medical records confidential. They argue that, if prominent US presidents legally kept their grave illnesses secret — even while the security of the country was at stake — a simple CEO should be able to do the same: 'Steve Jobs has the right to keep his medical records private for as long as he wants. Like FDR. Like JFK. Like any single person in this country and the world. It's our right, as humans, to do so.'"
And surely the public/investors in view of a lack of a full disclosure have the right to sack/not elect politicians/CEO's who will not disclose potentially pertinent information about their ability to work in their role.
'Steve Jobs has the right to keep his medical records private for as long as he wants. Like FDR. Like JFK. Like any single person in this country and the world. It's our right, as humans, to do so.
Sure, sounds great. Someone should tell the insurance companies and medical transcription outfits about that, though. They have no problem spreading our health information all over the goddamn planet.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Steve Jobs may or may not have cancer. He also may or may not get shot by a crazed Windows fanboy tomorrow. Make the investment in Apple with full knowledge that there is a risk, and estimate what the risk is. Or decide that the risk is too high and don't.
It's not up to Steve Jobs to make it easy for you!
[per president argument] the difference is that my money is invested in apple, not the usa.
Our money and our life. The Whitehouse's actions affect both our economy and our safety.
Table-ized A.I.
...When shareholder value is at stake.
No surprise. It's the Business section of a newspaper. All the writers are brainwashed into the cult of "maximize returns for the shareholders." Nothing else is allowed to matter.
This is why they say that investing involves risk. There are lots of things you don't know and pretty much have to bet on.
Let's see these investors disclose all the details about their internal operations first.
Besides, if Apple can't survive without Steve Jobs, then neither he nor the board is doing their job. Oh, wait, long-term investment... nobody does that any more. Right, sorry, my bad.
... health of a single individual, it's probably a bad investment.
Even if a CEO had cancel or some other health issue, it isn't necessarily going to be debilitating condition. Business and political leaders can be skating at the edge of death, but they can still be good leaders.
Given the amount of time Jobs has been back at Apple, and proof of his long term planning strategies (Think OSX86 since 2002 or so? someone remind me), shouldn't investors be looking at Apple for more such long term strategies already underway instead of simply basing their decision on Jobs alone?
I know Jobs is a victim of his own success, with everyone wanting to pry into his private life to see if the "second coming" of Apple will end with him or not. But surely anyone paying attention to what Apple has been doing can use that information to make smart investment decisions instead of basing it all on one man?
There are some very talented people at Apple from what I've seen (people I've met who work at corporate on iphone dev, macosx dev, , etc). I would be surprised if Jobs didnt put in place project leads and managers with vision to supplement or augment his own.
Remember this is not like when Jobs got kicked out because Apple needed to "grow up" and Jobs being ousted as the "not grown up enough" element in the company. He's proven himself very capable of getting very good people together to accomplish the projects and goals in mind.
Personally, I feel that if Jobs stepped down Apple could continue to do quite well. Several years ago, I wouldn't be so sure. I'd sure be interested in someone put some time into evaluating possible choices to take over Jobs job :)
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Gizmodo's strong rebuttal says that everyone has the right to keep medical records confidential.
While this may be true, it does not naturally follow that exercising a right should have no negative consequences, such as a fall in the price of a security. A "right" in this sense pertains to the force of law, not a public relations disaster within the investment community.
I mean, Steve is free to keep his personal secrets, and I'm free not to buy stock in his company. His business is his business, but my business is my business too, and if I'm investing in his company, our businesses overlap. How could this possibly be redressed? What possible legal remedy could compel me to invest in companies without (rather stupidly) taking possibly unhealthy CEOs into account? Tax breaks?
People don't understand what a right is. It doesn't mean nothing bad is legally allowed to happen if you make a choice you are entitled to make. A right circumscribes the limits of legislation. And no law is forcing Steve Jobs to expose his medical history, nor does any corporation or individual have the power to legally force him to release this information. Apple cannot cite stock price losses as damages. They are also not required to present his health information to any outside entity, in accordance with his legal rights to protect that information. But I don't see where they are. He's reacting to negative articles and political developments both inside and outside his company, and his legal rights have nothing to do with these things.
He does have an informal "right" to be sick without people reacting to his secrecy about it. But this is not a right in a legal sense, because violating it is not a criminal act any more than just being a jerk.
His inability to speak at the same level as intelligent people has nothing to do with his mental defects. His cornball accent and mannerisms are deliberate.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
But the stock holders also have the right to bail out due to rumors.
Steve has to decide which is more important to him, privacy or stockholders.
If i had his bank account, i think id choose privacy.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Any charismatic CEO/founder is in effect 'the company' as far as public perception goes.
Its part of the curse.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Hell I would not tell my own wife or employer much less the public.
If you can't talk to your wife about your health I think you ought to reexamine your relationship.
Unless you're talking about a special kind of infection usually treated by antibiotics...
"Hell I would not tell my own wife or employer much less the public."
You wouldn't tell your own wife about your medical history? Not only is that whack on the face of it, what happens if you're overseas on vacation and require medical assist, the med professionals don't have access to your records, and give you improper meds, or something similar? Seems foolish to risk that kind of thing just to hide the fact that your nuts didn't descend until a year before you met her...
Well, I guess PR can occasionally be a two edged sword, and we're kinda seeing the back edge of it now.
Apple's PR machine is telling everyone that only Steve Jobs matters. X got finished only because The Great Man Steve Jobs yelled at the engineers to get it done already. (Apparently the lazy louts weren't getting anywhere without Him personally throwing tantrums;) Y was tested personally by The Great Man, and because He said where the buttons should go or how loud the volume should go. (Obviously, nobody else figured out usability around those parts;) Z happened only because The Great Man _didn't_ yell at the engineers for a change, and just scared them with his iciest stare. (No, seriously, apparently they weren't getting anywhere before that, and suddenly all was on track afterwards.) Etc.
The message the ouside world is fed, repeatedly, is that he's the big genius there and everything only happens because of him.
So, you know, I would worry too if (A) I'd actually believe that, and (B) had any Apple shares.
It's a bit, you know, like betting a bunch of money on the Sixtine Chapel back then, and then hearing half-way through that Michelangelo is terminally ill. Damn right you'd worry.
Or a bit as if the Catholic Church announced that God is fed up and everyone up there is moving to another universe as their next project. I'm sure the question would come, "well, without Him, what's the point of staying with this church any more?" ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
But seriously. a person's health is no-one else's business, ever, period.
WRONG! If I'm going to have a child with someone, you're damn sure I want to know if they have any STDs. And that's just the obvious disclosure. If I'm laying my not-yet-conceived child's entire future on the line, in the hands of someone else, I want to know what they know. Period. It's the least I can do for my child. The least...and that doesn't even consider the risks to my own health.
>I'm not sure I know what is or isn't owed to the public in the way of medical disclosure
I'm quite sure I know.
His medical information is private for the same reason yours is. It really is that simple: Either he has a right to this privacy or YOU DON'T.
But you do have that right. End of story. For a slashdot crowd, people sure do seem quick to want to abridge rights.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
If it is, and that person is the CEO, then there are bigger problems for the investor. If the CEO does not delegate and the company does not have a succession plan, there are definitely bigger problems.
What if the CEO dies suddenly in an accident? Do you really want to invest in a company that is so reliant upon one person that an accident would adversely impact its value?
No, Steve Jobs should not have to reveal any medical information about himself. Yes, Steve Jobs should make sure a succession plan is in place and the investor should be able to make informed decisions based upon that.
Or anyone else. Named officers in the 10-K are named because legally, they are 'significant' employees. I don't see Apple shipping thousands of jobs overseas while the stock is STILL below what it was 8 years ago and somehow hundreds of millions of dollars have been lavished by them on themselves. Whereas IBM middle managers are hard pressed to even grant merit or COLA increases year after year after year.
I wouldn't personally invest in a company that was that precariously positioned... I'm not entirely sure which it is, but surely a properly priced company isn't in such a precarious position where one individual getting hit by a bus would crush it the way that the NY Times is suggesting.
There are plenty of company's where the CEO's management warrants a premium P/E multiple. If Warren Buffet were to die tomorrow, Berkshire Hathaway's stock would suffer. If Bill Gates had died during the mid 90s, you can bet Microsoft's stock would have cratered. John Chambers (Cisco), Satoru Iwata (Nintendo), Laksmi Mittal (ArcelorMittal), Rupert Murdoch (News Corp.), these are just a few instances where the CEO is basically the franchise. If you want an example of what a bad CEO can do look at Carli Fiorina (HP), Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide), Jimmy Cayne (Bear Stearns), or Hector Ruiz (AMD).
A CEO (and management in general) is an asset to a company just like a manufacturing plant, cash, or inventory. However, unlike the aforementioned, the value of a company's management cannot be accurately reflected on a Balance Sheet. Instead a CEO's or management's (in)effectiveness if often reflected in the stock price, specifically the premium or discount to which the stock trades compared to its competitors.
For example, Apple's Forward P/E is currently 30 while Microsoft and Dell are trading at about 18 and 19 respectively. A good portion of that premium is due to the fact that Steve Balmer and Michael Dell are failing at leading their respective companies, while Steve Jobs has done a bang up job at spearheading Apple's product development.
Now, if you don't want to invest in companies that depend on a key man or group, that's you're prerogative. No risk, no reward. But there are people that do (and from the list above you can see it does pay off), and to them knowing Steve Job's health is an important concern.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
I'm a cancer survivor, two different cancers and a relapse, and I've survived a hemorrhage in my brain *and* a non cancerous tumor in my neck. And I understand Steve Jobs desire to keep things quiet.
I don't think that illnesses in anyone, even public officials, should be public knowledge.
In my opinion, Jobs' value to the company is pretty damn hard to measure... But like most risks in corporations, it's up to the management of the company to manage such risks. If there is a risk of Jobs' health removing him from the role, they should have appropriate key man insurance, and a plan, to mitigate that risk as much as possible.
While the value of Apple's corporate executives is seen (rightly or wrongly) as highly centralized around Jobs, many other companies have policies to mitigate risk between their management. When I ran a major photo sharing in the .COM bubble days, two of the top two folks at Kodak came to court us (well, at least pump us for information, it turned out.) They had to take separate Lear Jets to our city; they weren't allowed to fly on the same plane, in case of an incident. Many companies have similar policies that so many board members or senior management can't fly on the same plane.
I can understand investors' concern about Jobs. However, he doesn't seem that bad to me, and I'm sure top dollars are being put into every health concern he may have. I do have mixed feelings about the disclosure issue. In the case of most companies, where the perceived management talent is spread among several folks, the illness or death of one has less of an impact as compared to Apple, where the perceived management direction comes from one man.
And given how the company floundered without him, and regained its direction with his return, there might just be something to that. Perhaps because of this, Apple does owe some more details of Jobs personal status to its investors. As an investor, I would personally have a lot less confidence in Apple without Steve's strong vision at the helm.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Steve Jobs is the brand. This is not without good reason. He is in a position to make style and strategy decisions that bean counters wouldn't otherwise let a company make. Not that he's always right, he's just right often enough that many of the resulting products are cool enough to be hits. Let's face it, someone else might be able to yell at and fire engineers, but most of those guys or gals would be doing it because the engineers developed a product that wouldn't sell to other bean counters. Steve Jobs does it because he believes that his style requirements haven't been met.
In this case, it's a bit like Frank Stephenson yelling at one of his engineers for coming to him with a design that's not Ferrari enough. Not having Steve Jobs calling the shots at Apple means another turn with someone like John Sculley. You get textbook MBA-school generic product management. Naturally, one of the first moves would be to sell to "business" and become more like Dell or IBM. This would (and nearly did) ruin Apple. Steve Jobs has helped Apple carve out its own distinctive niche in the market of consumer electronics. Jonathan Ive may have been hired toward the end of Sculley's watch, but Jobs put him where he is today.
As you say, this has been a double-edged sword for Apple. Jobs drives great products out on to the market. Yet, Apple can expect hardship when Jobs retires or is unable to helm the company for whatever reason. Investors are rightly worried, as, in this case, one individual does make a huge difference, marketing or no marketing.
Personally, I suspect he did exactly what Steve Jobs wanted him to do. If you're truly keeping your health situation completely secret, and don't want any non-specific but somewhat calming details flittering out, you don't tell a reporter "oh sure, let's talk about it! Just don't print it!" You simply say "I'm sorry, that's personal and I'm not interested in discussing it." I'm sure he's said that a million times before to other people wondering about his health for whatever reasons.
This is a situation which benefits everybody: The reporter, clearly; Steve Jobs, by not actually having to disclose exactly what IS going on with him; and investors and other parties with a vested interest in his health, who get to find out that whatever's wrong isn't cancer and doesn't appear to be life-threatening.
Politicians do this with reporters all the time (and yeah, the reporters almost certainly know it)--I wouldn't be at all surprised if it's exactly what happened here.
I'm talking about 10's of thousands of jobs. As the larger companies turn themselves into outsourcers they will provide that service anywhere but here; India, Brazil, China.
whereas in the US, you don't have a specific regulation covering this situation, so Steve can get away without coming clean. So in the absence of a specific regulation, most of the chatter is trying to turn this into a moral issue - which it isn't. There's something that could materially affect the share price - and being so should be disclosed.
1) You make Jobs sound like a criminal and is "getting away" with being sick. Seriously?
2) This is not a "material contract" or "material obligation", it's someone's medical records. So basically, if the company decides that I'm a material asset, should my medical records be publicly disclosed in the 10k? What about that time I got caught smoking pot in '75? That could indicate that I have a serious drug problem and should probably be disclosed as well. This is stupid.
Seriously. I think you misrepresented the intention of your country's laws. If not, maybe the US isn't as screwed up as everyone claims it is.