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Comment by spoondan | Hacker News Reader

Bury this. Jobs's medical condition, whatever it is or was, is a private matter about which he has elected to not speak. He's met all reasonable obligations by announcing when he was going to be out and when he expected to return. The rest is small-minded gossip.

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Jobs is a figure of mythic proportions who is of keen interest to technologists, entrepreneurs, and the general public. He's been featured in movies; books have been written about him; he's granted the media many levels of access, from photos through interviews, to boost his products.

That attention can't be turned off like a spigot. Even if Jobs weren't still actively involved in Apple, people would be deeply interested (and concerned!) about his health, making it a legitimate area for reporters (and biographers!) to report about, as long as the information is obtained in a honest manner.

I believe it's a valid story (for both the WSJ and here) because we care about Jobs, we care about his creative output (including Apple), and we often best learn about things in life -- including dealing with health challenges -- by seeing how they affect prominent people.

True enough, but this particular article is completely unsourced. It is very little more than gossip at this point.

The WSJ doesn't run "unsourced" news; they had confirmation of the key details from multiple sources (even if the exact sources aren't named) before running the story.

I understand if you hold the WSJ in very high regard, as do many people, myself included. But they have not published in which way they've obtained the information, not even in vague terms. As far as we know, it is completely unsourced.

How does Jobs being well-known imply that we don't have to respect his desire for privacy? I simply cannot see how our interest legitimates our prying.

And make no mistake: This is prying. You said that attention can't be turned off like a spigot, which may be true but isn't apropos. Water flows effortlessly from the spigot. Gossip like this is dug up and mongered at effort.

Well, as the saying goes: "If you invite the press for the wedding they will also cover the divorce"

Steve Jobs invited the press to the wedding.

I am guessing it would also be reasonable to say it has a material affect on Apple as a publicly traded company, at least in the short term. And certainly the stock price.

But I wish him the best, it seems too soon for him to be leaving this, and I am sure he has more he wants to do.

Yeah, we know it has a material effect... but that's not why this is here. Apple's stock isn't interesting Hacker News.

This is here because it's really fun talking about Steve Jobs, love him or hate him, and because the man's the archetypal startup founder along with Woz. That's totally fine but let's not kid ourselves.

yeah I wasn't really thinking about HN relevance, more the "privacy" issue.

I think Steve is important enough to be relevant to HN.

I would say that John Sculley confirms that :-)

Out of curiousity, what are your examples of Jobs inviting people into his private life? From where I stand, he's always been very demanding about the need to keep his private life private.

Apple does not rely on Jobs' public profile for success. Yes, they do rely on his ability as a driver of innovation, but if Jobs were never to say a word in public again, it wouldn't seem to hurt Apple (at least, that's my opinion, having watched the last keynote without him). As such, I don't think Jobs has traded on publicity for his success, and can consequently reasonably request that we leave his private life alone.

Meh.

I wouldn't say Jobs has been "inviting people into his private life". He has remained fairly private.

I did say "he's granted the media many levels of access, from photos through interviews, to boost his products." Just look at all the magazine covers he's had. The accompanying stories always mix a little of the personal biography -- the arc of his life -- with the product/business news of the day.

But also, consider the 2005 commencement speech he gave -- which I wouldn't attribute to simple PR machinations for Apple, but because a distinguished public person was invited to talk, and wanted to share his insights with the future. He talked about the circumstances of his birth and adoption as a baby; his college years; his exile from Apple; his pancreatic cancer diagnosis and surgery. That is, his life story, as it could help elucidate life choices for others.

The story continues; we're still curious. While it's wrong to pry illegally into private records, and it's wrong to hound him (or his non-public family) about these things, it's natural and keeping with the usual and fair treatment of a public figure to relay major new developments in his life story.

I am sure Apple would survive if Jobs retired as a company spokesman as long as he kept showing up for his very competent job as innovation driver.

I am not sure someone would be able to step in his shoes when he decides to retire.

I agree. The fact that this took two months to come out tells me that Jobs does not want it to be public information. I think that his privacy should be respected.

Your "opinion" is wrong. Apple's stock price is extremely correlated to Jobs' public profile.

e.g. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10057521-37.html e.g. http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/so-apple-lied-about-st...

Correlation on it’s own doesn’t mean anything. I’m sure we could just as easily dig up counter-examples where there are no correlations.

Steve Jobs is a public figure and is perceived as the creative driving force behind Apple's success, and Apple is a publicly-traded company.

His health, thus, is of concern to Apple users and shareholders. And competitors too, but in a different, probably evil, way.

His health worries me too - and I am neither a heavy Apple user nor a shareholder, but I am deeply concerned about innovation in this market if he ever retires. Who would lead? Microsoft? Ewww.

And there is also the human factor. I wish him well for no other reason than him being a human being.

Put yourself in Jobs's shoes; would you so blithely assume that it's OK for the public to dig into your medical history? The only reasonable obligation on Jobs is to announce that he won't be performing his duties for some period. He did that.

You should care as much about his wishes for privacy as you do for his well-being because they are one and the same. There are a multitude of reasons someone might want to keep their health challenges private, including concerns over how young children will be able to deal with scary-sounding information (especially once it gets filtered through the rumor mill). There's no morality in rumor-mongering.

"Who would lead?"

Jon Rubenstein? I think the Palm Pre is of the same calibre in terms of innovation and ease of use as any Apple product. I'd like to see what Palm could do with Jon at the helm, and the same resources as Apple.

Joel Rubinstein came from Apple. IIRC, Palm's founders too.

My first Palm even matched Newton's colors...

Seriously: Palm right now has its fortune hanging on a smartphone that cannot be used anyplace other than the US.

As much as I wish them well (I really do) I am not confident Joel could lead the whole PC industry anywhere. He has his hands full.

I would consider hiring back Wozniak. The guy has some serious street cred.

"If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity"

this is a private matter for steve jobs, and it felt like the community was supportive of giving him his privacy. i'm surprised this is still alive tbh.

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