I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on the internet. But what seems more likely? That Steve Jobs is suffering from a "hormone imbalance" that has sent his weight plummeting and requires a leave of absence, or that his delay in treating his pancreatic cancer while he messed around with woo "alternative therapies" for nine months gave it time to metastize? Pancreatic cancer is nasty, nasty stuff. I don't think we're going to see another comeback this time.
Those are terrible words to write. And terrible news for Apple, which has never been able to prosper long without its founder. Apple's management works very well--obviously--but it's far too centered around one man. Steve Jobs has never managed--or from what I understand, even much tried--to build a robust corporate culture that could be self-sustaining without his presence.
There's a perennial debate in management theory over how much CEOs matter--whether the company would chug along much the same with almost anyone in charge. I suspect it depends a lot on the company. All CEOs make some difference, of course, but much of the success and failure we attribute to them is probably actually exogenous. Nonetheless, at a company like Apple it's very clear that fortunes generally rise and fall on Jobs, and the corporate culture is built around that fact. I don't think it's any accident that the help desks in Apple Stores are called "Genius Bar".
The problem is, there aren't that many geniuses of Steve Jobs' caliber around. Frankly I'm surprised that Apple's stock has fallen so little, just a couple of points on a price in the 80s.
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Actually, I do find it at least plausible that Jobs has something other than cancer wrong with him. I base this in the NYT quoting two people familiar with Jobs and his treatment, and the NYT's anonymous source policy, which basically stipulates that the paper must know these people, and they pretty much have to be direct sources to be quoted. Does this mean that Jobs is out of the woods? No, of course not. There might be cancer that his doctors haven't found yet causing this - that's always a possibility. Or, this hormone imbalance might end up being more complex than they think. But at this point, I think we can say his cancer hasn't returned as far as anybody knows.
Your eagerness to engage in morbid speculation about cancer patients' prognoses (not the first time you've done so) is unfortunate, and your snark about Jobs's claim about his weight loss being due to a "hormonal imbalance" is dated: he's since acknowledged that his health issues are "more complex" than that. Also, your fears for Apple's future prospects are overblown. Jobs's key contribution in his most recent tenure at Apple -- aside from being the company's chief pitchman -- seems to have been the brilliant strategic decision to transition the Apple from a niche hipster computer company into a mainstream hipster electronic gadget company. That direction has already been set. It's not as if Steve Jobs designed the iPhone from scratch by himself. Plus, Apple has $24.5 billion in cash and no debt. That kind of money can easily buy a talent infusion, if necessary, or, for that matter, a smaller competitor with innovative new products suitable for Apple's brand.
He has inspired many, we want him alive!
I trust him when he says he will come back ... I think you will get a message saying "The rumors about my death are ..." when he will return .
Long live to Mr Jobs.
I'm surprised you're so keen to speculate on somebody's health problems based on their weight, given your own history.
This story reminds me of Greg Page's retirement from The Wiggles two years ago. The guy puts together a kids' band and hits it big. Like Jobs, he follows his dream, does what he loves, and manages to become richer than God in the process. And then is brought down in his prime by cancer. Cancer is a bitch.
I've seen people come down with thyroid disorders very suddenly, lose shocking amounts of weight, and honestly look like they're about to depart this existence any second now.
Then they see a doctor who actually KNOWS SOMETHING about thyroid disease - a variety of hormone imbalance - and gets them onto the right medicines. Bam, within a week they're back in the land of the living, and while the weight doesn't come back overnight... it DOES come back.
So hey, maybe the public story is the truth.
The current speculation in the Mac community is that Steve is suffering from protein deficiencies caused by a lack of enzymes and/or hormones. This is a known problem for people who have had pancreatic problems, especially vegetarians and people on low-protein diets. Like people with anorexia, his body was so starved for protein that it stole it from his muscles.
Steve needs time to recover the muscle mass in his body without damaging his health further.
Before I say anything else I will admit that Apple was in steep decline during the first Steve Jobs absence from the company. Could it possibly be that the problem with Apple wasn't the loss of Steve Jobs, but rather bad management to replace him? You're jumping to conclusions to assume that the company won't be able to stay on it's current course without Steve. You are jumping on the investor band-wagon. The stigma that Apple needs Steve Jobs is a myth propagated by the likes of Kathryn Huberty. Perhaps Apple will suffer if they loose Steve Jobs, but I really expect better reporting from you Megan, instead of jumping on board the mass-media / paranoid-investor train.
While anything is possible, Megan is right in saying a return of cancer is the most likely scenario. I seriously doubt the cancer metastasized in 2003 he'd have been long dead by now. However, as Cathy Seip said, you never beat cancer. The most you can hope for is to put it in remission long enough that you die from something else.
For those of you criticizing "morbid speculation"... this isn't just some guy we all know socially. He's the CEO of a large company with many investors, suppliers, and customers. To the extent Apple's balance sheet is impacted by his health it's a public matter.
Just for the record: people *do* beat cancer. This dire speculation about Steve Jobs' health issues seems to be more of a problem for Apple than anything else. Many times, the time frame for the resolution of health issues, even non-terminal ones, is uncertain. Jobs indicated he had issues to deal with and stepped aside.
Thus, Apple, it's customers and stockholders, have to learn to deal with the fact that for whatever reason, Steve Jobs isn't going to always be there to lead the company. That's a healthy thing for any company to recognize and be prepared for.
It also is completely a separate thing from guessing the actual state and if applicable, prognosis, of Steve Jobs' health.
Steve's letter to his employees, reprinted in yesterday's NYT, stated his weight loss had been confirmed as a complication resulting from the surgery he underwent to remove cancerous pancreatic tissue, which evidently left his body impaired in its ability to make the necessary chemicals to metabolize proteins. This makes sense even to a cynic like me.
I agree with Ellen that just because Jobs has been central to Apple's success in the past doesn't mean he has to be forever. Don't most leaders peak and need to make way for fresh ideas? He's had an amazing run, so it behooves Apple to prepare to be less dependent on him no matter what his health.
Considering the bizarrely intermeshed digestive and endocrinal tissues in the pancreas, the type of surgical procedure Jobs is understood to have undergone, and his known dietary quirks, I think I would wait this one out before going to press on what might be occurring.
Somehow I missed this story when it came up the first time. Cancer is not something to put off treating, IMHO.
While vegetarianism and Buddhism aren't necessarily woo in and of themselves, they do suggest a certain kind of New Age mindset that is also liable to buy into CAM quackery.
I think this post is not really up to the standards of blog journalism. You start off with a dichotomy that goes beyond false to the absolutely stupid, and seem to ignore facts that are well available to the public. Your analysis of Apple's corporate culture does not mesh well with statements made by more-informed observers, but you don't provide any explanation for the discrepancy.
I think Apple's in for some real hurt with or without Jobs. In the computer business, at least, Apple is Tiffany's. That's worked well for them in good economic times, but how many people really need a $1500 notebook with a case carved out of a single block of aluminum (or whatever) when a $500 HP with a plastic case will do the job just fine for virtually all users? Ditto the MacBook air that Megan lusted after. They may not be lustworthy, but a $350 netbook fills the need. The music only iPods are no longer at the bleeding edge of cool, so the iPhone has to drive the growth. But I'd think the economic downturn has to be impacting the number of people willing to commit themselves to the data plan contract that goes along with an iPhone.
So maybe it's a good time for Jobs to take a sabbatical. His lieutenant gets the blame for the struggles and Jobs gets to ride back in on his white horse just as the economy is about to start picking back up ;)
My mother-in-law overcame a very grim pancreatic cancer diagnosis in September 2006. After lots of chemo and radiation, she had surgery (not sure if it was the Whipple, precisely, but something similar) in July 2007. Thankfully, she is apparently cancer free nearly 2.5 years later. Still, she struggles with what she can eat, she is probably 50 pounds lighter than pre-diagnosis, and wasn't a large person before. She occasionally has to have fluid pumped out of her abdomen. She is doing better, but six months after the surgery she looked much more gaunt and "unhealthy" than she ever did at the height of her chemo and radiation.
As long as we are going to engage in irresponsible speculation, I think it's much more likely that this is a complication of the surgery than evidence of metastasis caused by a delay in treatment nearly five years ago. Based on what I know about the aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer, such metastasis would have killed him years ago. And base on my family's experience, continuing difficulty keeping on weight seems perfectly plausible.
Slocum: And yet MacBooks sell very, very well.
Don't forget that there are more than enough non-bottom-end buyers to support companies that ... don't feed the bottom end market.
(And if you think a Netbook "fills the need" for a high powered ultraportable... you must be confusing "ultraportable" with "powerful ultraportable". The MBA was never intended to compete with things like the EEE or the Dell Mini 9. It's a prestige model meant to compete with other high-end ultraportables.
It's like saying that BMW is in trouble because a 330i costs more than an Accord - it completely misses the market being served.
Nobody who wants a $500 Dell was ever going to buy even a plain MacBook - and Apple's marketshare just keeps growing.
Also their profits, since the bottom-end machines have thin margins, compared to mid-range or top-end computers.)
This is probably the best summary post on the topic.
There are no IPods in the afterlife(if there is one). People just refuse to accept the finality of death, so they lose themselves in ever increasing materialism for the sake of it.
I am not a doctor.
You should have stopped there.
Who the hell are you, Megan McArdle?
Megan, your utter boorishness, as demonstrated by your insistence on predicting Jobs' imminent demise, is exceeded only by your utter cluelessness regarding Apple's management team. Try Google, unless you'd prefer facts not get in the way of a good snark.
I see that posts here don't allow "....defamatory, or otherwise objectionable..." material. I submit then that it's not defamatory to tell you Megan that you're an idiot who doesn't understand that not all cancers metastize. As someone pointed this out above, you should have stopped after the first phrase.
... nor do I play one on the internet. ...
you just did....
"People just refuse to accept the finality of death, so they lose themselves in ever increasing materialism for the sake of it."
Coincidentally, I wrote a post today about a movie that deals with cancer, "accepting the finality of death", immortality, etc. -- Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. What prompted it was this reference to the movie by Nigel Andrews in his review of Aronofsky's new movie, The Wrestler, in the Financial Times:
Megan,
Unlike your esteemed colleague, Andrew Sullivan, you seem to have zero empathy - or class. Publicly progosticating so coldly about a man's health - certainly after you've disqualified yourself from doing so - will likely not be good for you in the long term. I hope there are far more compassionate people in your vicinity when your time of need arrives.
FM Paulson
--
"...Those are terrible words to write."
I would go farther to say they that they were boorish, callous under-informed and even malicious words to write. I'm amazed that The Atlantic let you publish them anywhere in the vicinity of its name. Even if you had any medical information to back up your assertions, which you admit you don't, your sanctimonious blame-the-victim standpoint would still be repulsive. Your editor must have been asleep at the wheel. i certainly hope you will be reprimanded at the very least.
This is the problem with the internet: any poser like megan mcadle can publish pandering pulp like this.
Looks like Megan and Michael Wolff are having a competition to see who can produce the most ill-considered, poorly thought-out, trashy, clueless and inept piece of crap on this subject.
Wow. This is rather pale.
There are many ways to stay relevant to current discourse than engaging in such pseudo-journalistic blather. Why this topic?
Possibilty 1: ill-thought and hastily published thoughts reflect poor taste and no consideration for the many medical complications facing post-Whipple patients
Possibility 2: the author is short-selling APPL.
Full disclosure, please.
I'll second drew's comment above. We have one data point for Apple without Jobs. I think it is very likley that it isn't so much that jobs is uniquely qualified to run Apple, it is that John Scully was totally incompentent at it.
Not only you deny you opening line "I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on the internet" but you also play a bad one. I am a doctor (but do not play one) and you should know that teh kind of pancreatic cancer Steve Jobs had is not a "nasty, nasty stuff". Neuroendocrine neoplasia are quite curable.
Beside that the rest of you post is also really bad. Why don't you stick with stuff you know something about?
Because then we'd have a blog about waffles and potato peelers.
Keep in mind that the pancreas not only makes enzymes used for digestion, but also a number of hormones, including insulin, which among other things influences weight. Pancreatic surgery has a large number of complications, many of which are not terribly life-threatening.
So I don't think that return of cancer is anywhere near the top of the list. More troubling is the "it's a minor problem"..."No it's a more serious problem requiring some time off" letters in relatively rapid sequence. This has me concerned that either he is getting poor medical advice, or else there is something unusual about his conditions that his doctors don't fully understand.
Megan, you're usually one of my favorite bloggers. But this?
As far as I can tell, you're saying that (1) Steve Jobs is dying and it's his own fault for dicking around with his cancer treatment, and (2) without him, Apple will wither and slide into crisis because, well, because it doesn't have a "robust corporate culture."
Item (1) is cold, but then you've been saying cold things about Auto Workers and investment bankers and lots of other people. If you're right, then he's been stupid (or, from his point of view, taken a calculated risk that's gone wrong). You don't give (or point to) any facts in your post, so you seem to just be asserting. By now, you've probably figured out that many people out there have taken a personal interest in his survival, and you've pissed them all off something fierce (probably more than those auto workers :), but that's a matter of style, not substance.
But the second? You may be right, of course; and if you're right about (1), we'll soon enough know whether you're right about (2), too. But nothing in your article even hints on you having any data or insight showing that Apple is lacking that "robust corporate culture" thing; and the entire tone of your post suggests rather strongly that you're simply regurgitating stereotypes. So why did you? What was the point of your post? If you do have information, insight, or a unique perspective in this matter, where did you put it?
Sorry for being a bit snarky here, but then your entire post is quite entirely snark... which is not what I've come to expect from your blog. Let's hope this was just a case of a really bad day getting to you.
Cheers
-- perry
Another one felled by the alternative medicine bandwagon! Even geniuses are not immune.
Somehow, though, I think that Wozniak would never have turned down good old empirically-driven mainstream medicine.
If you were a doctor (or someone who had ever had any contact with an actual cancer patient) or even someone who knew how to operate a dictionary, you'd know that the word is metastasize.
Your post goes downhill from there...