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Steve Jobs Takes Leave of Absence From Apple

Posted by timothy on from the get-well-soon dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Network World: "A number of sites are reporting that Apple's CEO Steve Jobs is taking a leave of absence till June at least. Speculation over Jobs' possibly failing health has run rampant in the past few weeks. Prior to the recent MacWorld show, Jobs said he had a hormone deficiency that had caused him to dramatically lose weight. In a memo today Jobs told workers his health issues are more complex than he thought." Reader Bastian227 adds a link to this letter from Steve Jobs on Apple's website, which also says that Tim Cook will be responsible for daily operations, though Jobs will remain involved with major strategic decisions.

6 of 429 comments (clear)

  1. Nah. by jcr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If he was going for six months of chemo, he wouldn't be talking about returning in six months. More like a year. I think he's taking the leave between now and the next major event, which would be WWDC.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  2. Re:He shall return as iSteve by Phroggy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When he first came back to Apple in 1998, he was known as the iCEO, because for awhile it was thought that he would only be interim CEO until they could find a replacement.

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  3. Re:Sell quick by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not that I recall - the major theme that I recall is that millionaires tend to be the winners of a high risk bet - entrepreneurism. They're also people of normal taste and lifestyle, with a large difference between what they bring in and what they spend.

    My original point was that, on average, people don't value what they're given, just what they have to work for.

    --
    "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  4. Re:As always, amatuers like you fail at stocks by SerpentMage · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am in the market and write trading systems, and could not have said it better myself.

    The thing about Steve Jobs and these sorts of leaders is when to let go. Lou Gerstner brought back IBM from the dead. Then he let go. IBM is still alive and kicking.

    Nokia's past CEO made Nokia what it was and then he let go. Nokia is still alive and kicking.

    Microsoft is an example of how one half let's go and the other half does not. I am actually much more pessimistic with Microsoft than Apple.

    In the past Apple lacked execution. They had great ideas, but poor execution. Now Apple has execution, and it is NOT STEVE JOBS that did the execution. Think about it, how well did Apple execute with Steve Jobs previously? Or how about Next? NOT AT ALL! What was different this time is that Steve Jobs built a team...

    Ideas are a dime a dozen. The ability to execute on the idea is what makes the difference... And that Apple can do...

    --

    "You can't make a race horse of a pig"
    "No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
  5. Buy buy buy by Fished · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'm going to buck the trend, and say "buy buy buy". Let me put it this way: on the one hand, Steve Jobs is seriously ill, and may be out of the picture. On the other hand:
    1. Apple has got the best operating system available, stable, and for the moment feature complete.
    2. The iPhone has a nice lead over the competition. The BB Storm seems to be in the process of failing to be an iPhone killer, and while its too soon to say on the Palm Pre, I do notice that they are now selling iPhone's at Walmart. That says something important about demand.
    3. iTunes store just made a major step forward that gave them feature parity with their competition, at a time when they're still ahead in market share.
    4. Apple's brand still has a lot of "shiny gloss to it
    5. Jobs going might be a *good* thing, because it might open up the path for Apple to offer OSX to other manufacturers. In the short term, this is admittedly risky, since it could cannabilize hardware sales. But, if done right... software is awesome to sell, because the marginal cost approaches zero. And let's not forget that there are a number of other products (iLife, iWork, Final Cut, ProTools, etc.) that could benefit from OSX being more widely deployed.

    I just don't see that Jobs going changes the fundamentals of the company all that much. I think Apple at the current price is a great buy, and if it tanks tomorrow, it is a great buy. Time to take some money out of bonds :)

    --
    "He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
  6. you bullshit by Uberbah · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm kind of sick of facts

    Fixed that for you. Facts:

    1. Apple was the first to use a micro hard drive.
    2. Everything else was either a tiny flash memory player (64 megs) or used a heavy desktop drive.
    3. Apple used 400 Mbps Firewire when everyone else used 11 Mbps USB 1.1.
    4. They had a good hardware/software interface.

    As to point #4, I remember a nice Penny Arcade strip from way back (which unfortunately I can't find right now) where Jonathan asks Tycho how well Musicmatch staked up against iTunes. It went something like this:

    Tycho: Imagine iTunes as a fresh orange, glistening with morning dew...

    Johnathan: Okay...."
    Tycho: And Musicmatch is a bag filled with dog poop.
    Johnathan: Yuck! Dog poop isn't even food!
    Tycho: Exactly.