Steve Jobs Opens Up
Last week Apple’s stock went down on the combination of news that this will be the last year they present at Macworld and that CEO Steve Jobs will not be giving the keynote. Speculation has been high over the last year that Jobs was ill and has led to poor stock performance (in addition to the issues the rest of the market is experiencing) as it probably should and this news added fuel to the fire. Jobs imprint is on every product the company puts out and one has to wonder how well Apple products would be designed if he wasn’t there to give them the final say.
Today the company released an open letter from Jobs explaining why he will not be giving the keynote. In the letter Jobs cites a hormonal imbalance he’s being treated for as the reason for his noticeable loss of weight over the last year which sparked the speculation. I applaud Jobs for being straight up enough to make a statement on the issue. It’s tough being in a position where your private life affects your public life and it can’t be easy to open one to the other.
The only thing thing that annoyed me about the statement itself was the last sentence. “So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.” As noted above I appreciate how troublesome it is to be in Jobs current position. But that last sentence sounds more like a principal talking to students or a parent disciplining a child than it does a CEO communicating with shareholders and customers. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt since the frustration of having to write a statement like that would push almost everyone over the edge.
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