Steve Jobs Holding an IPhone
Trying to address concerns about his health, Steve Jobs, Apple Inc.’s top honcho, announced that he had hormonal imbalance that caused him to lose a significant amount of weight.
Since June last year, people have been speculating that Jobs has cancer, after he appeared at Apple’s developer conference looking sickly and having lost weight. The weight loss continued throughout the rest of the year, fueling the cancer rumor even more.
The rumors certainly hit its stride after Apple announced that MacWorld Conference 2009 would be the last. Jobs also did not give his keynote speech at the conference. Take into consideration the fact that Jobs did have cancer only a little more than five years ago.
Why is this important? The truth is, Apple shareholders care what happens to Jobs. After Jobs’ current announcement about his hormonal imbalance, Apple shares rose more than 5 points after being humdrum for so long while people thought Jobs had cancer. It seems that Apple does not have a solid successor to Jobs’ throne, nobody to fill in his shoes should he decide to leave the helm. It is indicative that the company has a long way to go in two respects. One is that they should come up with a solid and acceptable succession plan. They should make somebody else (other than Jobs) become more visible, and more credible. There has to be somebody that the company’s shareholders and other company watchers could accept as a worthy replacement for Jobs. It is going to be a tall order to step into Jobs’ shoes, but that somebody has to surface anytime soon.
Another thing that Apple should address is its handling of Jobs’ illness. It may be a “private matter” as the company has said a number of times before, and it may be just a hormonal imbalance – nothing big like cancer. However, it has taken Jobs and the company more than six months to come up with an announcement that sufficiently alleviated shareholders’ doubts. They could have come up with that in July or August. Surely, Jobs would not take the possibility of having cancer again lightly, and would have sought medical help long before “a few weeks ago,” which was the time frame mentioned by Jobs as when he found out about his illness. They were lucky. The timing could have been more damaging, as it raises more speculations that Jobs and his company are hiding something.
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