Does YOUR boss have a right to know if YOU have a disease that could potentially "intersect with the operational interests of a whole corporation and their stock holders"?
Or is it the size of the financial risk that is an issue?
Maybe you're trying to catch me in something, but personally, I really don't see the problem here.
If there's a chance that I'm not going to be able to do the job that I was hired to do, I don't see why my employer shouldn't know about it.
The size of the financial risk is a significant factor too.
Maybe you're trying to catch me in something, but personally, I really don't see the problem here.
If there's a chance that I'm not going to be able to do the job that I was hired to do, I don't see why my employer shouldn't know about it.
The size of the financial risk is a significant factor too.
I agree. I would expect good employees to inform an employer if they are not or would not be able to perform their duties. However, the employer doesn't need to know specific medical reasons.
Every large company performs succession planning. Not just for the CEOs, but for all critical positions and not just those that are in the upper echelons. This is not something the stockholder participate in.
Regardless of the life event that results in Steve Jobs departing from Apple, one day it is going to happen. I hate to think of Apple without Steve Jobs, but Kentucky Fried Chicken went on after the Colonel died. And so too, Apple will survive a Steve-less future. The real test of a leader is what kind of organization you created during your reign so that it will flourish long after you are gone. Steven Jobs has instilled strong core values into Apple that will have a lasting affect .
I believe that Steven's diagnosis/health is a personal matter and know one is "entitled to know." The fact that he shared information about his condition with Apple's Board of Directors was the responsible thing to do. He fulfilled his obligation.
I have read the insightful story on Steve Jobs published by Fortune (The trouble with Steve Jobs: see http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/news...tune/index.htm) and I am left with the same uneasy feeling I had before I read it. How can the Apple board of directors be so blind to the shortcomings of Steve Jobs?
Steve Jobs behaviour with employees, board members, investors, friends and journalists can be summed up by a word: schizophrenia, and the need of schizophrenia patients to have an absolute control over the people around them in order to hide their true mental condition.
First of all, just like the President of the United States, a CEO's position is not an appointment for life, however good or popular a CEO happens to be. It is a temporary appointment with the understanding that the CEO will move on once he has accomplished what he came to do, or whenever it becomes impossible for him to accomplish the specific mandate he was given by the board of directors upon his appointment.
Second of all, Steve Jobs is a high school graduate who should never have been allowed to serve as the CEO of an international company listed on the NASDQ stock exchange. Steve Jobs didn't have the brains, mental health and self discipline required to undertake and complete a university degree, a common characteristic of schizophrenia patients with an overblown ego.
Steve Jobs has now served as Apple's CEO for more than 10 and a half years. When is he going to leave the company? When is he going to allow ambitious and talented people to take over the company? When is Steve Jobs going to allow fresh ideas to emerge?
Steve Jobs doesn't own 100% of the company and he souldn't treat Apple as his own company, naming directors to serve his whims. And Steve Jobs shouldn't be allowed by a puppet board of directors to select, modify and cancel products based on his whims.
There are serious omissions in Apple product offerings such as the absence of an office computer more than 30 years after the creation of Apple, and the absence of a licensing program for Mac OS X with quantified objectives which leads to a lukewarm support of the platform by the developper community.
There are also serious design flaws in Apple product offerings such as the absence of a user replaceable battery on the iPods and iPhones, the absence of an FM radio dialer on iPods and iPhones, the absence of dictation software on iPods and iPhones, the absence of 3G support on iPhones, the absence of intelligent fans, a desktop CPU and a user replaceable graphic card on iMacs, or the absence of a user replaceable graphic card on Apple portable computers, the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Form should follow, not precede function in good design. And why wasn't the MacBook Air just called a MacBook 2 which sounds much more professional to reflect its higher price?
Apple products are also overpriced, uncompetitive, reflecting only a higher profit margin. And the higher profits were used repeatedly by Steve Jobs to reward himself and obedient, servile, hand picked managers and directors through illegal, fraudulent, criminal stock option gauging.
The only talent of Steve Jobs lies in marketing. He has the talent and behaviour of a used car salesman. Steve Jobs excels in appropriating the ideas of others, passing off these ideas as his own vision, and selling flawed products like mad.
Besides stiffling innovation at Apple and chanelling the profits to himself as if he owned 100% of the company, what has Steve Jobs accomplished for Apple in the last 10 and a half years?
a) He saved the company with Gil Amelio by cutting down its product matrix, unsold inventories and research expenditures;
b) He helped to launch the iMac, a rebranded consumer computer that had been in development at Apple for years;
c) He helped to launch new, cash cow products, the iPod and, later, the iPhone, once Apple bought small companies with talented engineers, innovative products and promising software;
d) He oversaw the adoption of Mac OS X which was originally developped for NeXT Computers, and the transition to Intel processors, standardizing on a family of processors adopted by every other major manufacturer of personal computers.
One could say that Steve Jobs has accomplished everything that he could ever do for Apple. As an orphan born out of wedlock in 1955, a child rejected by his biological mother and a Syrian father, a high school graduate raised in a blue collar family, Steve Jobs has accomplished more than could be expected from him. Staying on will only serve the need of Steve Jobs to control people and the company he created, showing an orphan insecurity, rather than freeing an adult company he should have served for the last 10 and a half years.
Given his pancreatic cancer, and an uncertain health prospect, one would hope that Steve Jobs would retire from Apple to enjoy his family, his 4 children, and the $5.5 billions he acquired through the sale of his founding shares in Apple, NeXT Computers, and Pixar.
And if Steve Jobs wants to keep busy in his retirement years, savour his fame, he can play an active role on the Disney board of directors. If he stays on with Apple, we will only see more episodes of employee and shareholder abuse. Not a dignified way to retire.
His health should be a concern to Steve Jobs. His legacy should not be one of shareholder abuse, criminal stock option gauging. It's time to take a hard look at Steve Jobs future, not past contributions, especially given a failing health. And its time for Steve Jobs to go when there is still a myth to preserve.
Second of all, Steve Jobs is a high school graduate who should never have been allowed to serve as the CEO of an international company listed on the NASDQ stock exchange. Steve Jobs didn't have the brains, mental health and self discipline required to undertake and complete a university degree, a common characteristic of schizophrenia patients with an overblown ego.
I am not sure where you came up with most of your post besides your own opinion but never confuse education with a degree or ability to attain one. I graduated with many idiots not fit for service in our field.
You say Steve should have never been allowed to serve as CEO because he didn't have the brains, yet he did have the brains and has accomplished a lot. Your schizophrenia references concern me the most.
I agree. I would expect good employees to inform an employer if they are not or would not be able to perform their duties. However, the employer doesn't need to know specific medical reasons.
I don't see what qualifies you to decide Steve Jobs is schizophrenic anyway - are you his psychologist? I would guess not.
You seem to think that because Steve Jobs doesn't have a university degree, he is somehow worthless as a person and it's fluke that he's in control of Apple. I'd like to remind you that he STARTED the company in the first place, along with Woz. It is not a requirement to have a university degree to be successful or run a large organisation.
To be perfectly frank, your entire post disturbs me. Your presumption to just decide that someone you've never even met has schizophrenia - a VERY SERIOUS mental problem - is an astounding arrogance I didn't think anyone capable of.
I doubt that. The board of directors would be negligent not to... I can't wait to see the lawsuits coming out of this!
All of which would very likely fail.
It seems the board did meet with outside lawyers and deliberated about the situation, so the short answer is that a court would likely hold as within the board's valid business judgment the decision not to disclose Jobs' cancer. Any shareholder derivative action likely wouldn't get past summary judgment.
Steve Jobs has the skills needed to start companies, take risks, motivate employees, and sell his products like a used car salesman, but he lacks the formal business university education that would have allowed him to preside over an existing company, manage investors money, and plan the further development and expansion of a company.
There are different types of personalities and a different set of qualities required to manage a company at every level of its development. The entrepreneur who created a successful company is never the person to manage it to the next level.
Steve Jobs successfully created 3 companies, Apple, NeXT and Pixar, but brought them to an impasse until he relinquished control over them. To put it another way, no one knows or does everything. Steve Jobs is human and has limits.
Given his financial success, the $5.5 billions he earned, given a failing health, Steve Jobs should retire and enjoy life while he can.
ISecond of all, Steve Jobs is a high school graduate who should never have been allowed to serve as the CEO of an international company listed on the NASDQ stock exchange. Steve Jobs didn't have the brains, mental health and self discipline required to undertake and complete a university degree, a common characteristic of schizophrenia patients with an overblown ego.
kiss my hairy ass
Quote:
Originally Posted by ouragan
Given his financial success, the $5.5 billions he earned, given a failing health, Steve Jobs should retire and enjoy life while he can.
He is probably planning just that - he put in an order for a very large boat (but not over-large and gauche - it will probably be the most perfect yacht ever made) for one thing.
He is probably planning just that - he put in an order for a very large boat (but not over-large and gauche - it will probably be the most perfect yacht ever made) for one thing.
OK, you're saying it's not "over large", but don't understand that. it's nearly 250ft! Even though it's half the length of those owned by certain other tycoons, that's still huge! It looks like the ones that compete in races are in the 60-90 ft range.
OK, you're saying it's not "over large", but don't understand that. it's nearly 250ft! Even though it's half the length of certain other tycoons, that's still huge!
It will be the 35th largest yacht in the world (but probably slip to 75th or so once it is done). But it is a little more than half the length of Larry Ellison's #2 yacht, and probably way less than half the total displacement.
Steve Jobs has the skills needed to start companies, take risks, motivate employees, and sell his products like a used car salesman, but he lacks the formal business university education that would have allowed him to preside over an existing company, manage investors money, and plan the further development and expansion of a company.
There are different types of personalities and a different set of qualities required to manage a company at every level of its development. The entrepreneur who created a successful company is never the person to manage it to the next level.
Steve Jobs successfully created 3 companies, Apple, NeXT and Pixar, but brought them to an impasse until he relinquished control over them. To put it another way, no one knows or does everything. Steve Jobs is human and has limits.
Given his financial success, the $5.5 billions he earned, given a failing health, Steve Jobs should retire and enjoy life while he can.
Oh I just love thoughts like these. 'Unless you have the right piece of paper, certificate, handshake or blessing from the right high priest, you are a complete incompetent and totally incapable of running a company.' The problem is that most of your most successful business were created and ran by people who stuck it to the establishment and thus became the new establishment. Remember it was all those people with the MBAs and the 'proper education' who nearly drove Apple into the ground. It sure wasn't Steve Jobs.
Oh I just love thoughts like these. 'Unless you have the right piece of paper, certificate, handshake or blessing from the right high priest, you are a complete incompetent and totally incapable of running a company.' The problem is that most of your most successful business were created and ran by people who stuck it to the establishment and thus became the new establishment. Remember it was all those people with the MBAs and the 'proper education' who nearly drove Apple into the ground. It sure wasn't Steve Jobs.
Comments
Does YOUR boss have a right to know if YOU have a disease that could potentially "intersect with the operational interests of a whole corporation and their stock holders"?
Or is it the size of the financial risk that is an issue?
Maybe you're trying to catch me in something, but personally, I really don't see the problem here.
If there's a chance that I'm not going to be able to do the job that I was hired to do, I don't see why my employer shouldn't know about it.
The size of the financial risk is a significant factor too.
Maybe you're trying to catch me in something, but personally, I really don't see the problem here.
If there's a chance that I'm not going to be able to do the job that I was hired to do, I don't see why my employer shouldn't know about it.
The size of the financial risk is a significant factor too.
I agree. I would expect good employees to inform an employer if they are not or would not be able to perform their duties. However, the employer doesn't need to know specific medical reasons.
Regardless of the life event that results in Steve Jobs departing from Apple, one day it is going to happen. I hate to think of Apple without Steve Jobs, but Kentucky Fried Chicken went on after the Colonel died. And so too, Apple will survive a Steve-less future. The real test of a leader is what kind of organization you created during your reign so that it will flourish long after you are gone. Steven Jobs has instilled strong core values into Apple that will have a lasting affect .
I believe that Steven's diagnosis/health is a personal matter and know one is "entitled to know." The fact that he shared information about his condition with Apple's Board of Directors was the responsible thing to do. He fulfilled his obligation.
Steve Jobs behaviour with employees, board members, investors, friends and journalists can be summed up by a word: schizophrenia, and the need of schizophrenia patients to have an absolute control over the people around them in order to hide their true mental condition.
First of all, just like the President of the United States, a CEO's position is not an appointment for life, however good or popular a CEO happens to be. It is a temporary appointment with the understanding that the CEO will move on once he has accomplished what he came to do, or whenever it becomes impossible for him to accomplish the specific mandate he was given by the board of directors upon his appointment.
Second of all, Steve Jobs is a high school graduate who should never have been allowed to serve as the CEO of an international company listed on the NASDQ stock exchange. Steve Jobs didn't have the brains, mental health and self discipline required to undertake and complete a university degree, a common characteristic of schizophrenia patients with an overblown ego.
Steve Jobs has now served as Apple's CEO for more than 10 and a half years. When is he going to leave the company? When is he going to allow ambitious and talented people to take over the company? When is Steve Jobs going to allow fresh ideas to emerge?
Steve Jobs doesn't own 100% of the company and he souldn't treat Apple as his own company, naming directors to serve his whims. And Steve Jobs shouldn't be allowed by a puppet board of directors to select, modify and cancel products based on his whims.
There are serious omissions in Apple product offerings such as the absence of an office computer more than 30 years after the creation of Apple, and the absence of a licensing program for Mac OS X with quantified objectives which leads to a lukewarm support of the platform by the developper community.
There are also serious design flaws in Apple product offerings such as the absence of a user replaceable battery on the iPods and iPhones, the absence of an FM radio dialer on iPods and iPhones, the absence of dictation software on iPods and iPhones, the absence of 3G support on iPhones, the absence of intelligent fans, a desktop CPU and a user replaceable graphic card on iMacs, or the absence of a user replaceable graphic card on Apple portable computers, the MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Form should follow, not precede function in good design. And why wasn't the MacBook Air just called a MacBook 2 which sounds much more professional to reflect its higher price?
Apple products are also overpriced, uncompetitive, reflecting only a higher profit margin. And the higher profits were used repeatedly by Steve Jobs to reward himself and obedient, servile, hand picked managers and directors through illegal, fraudulent, criminal stock option gauging.
The only talent of Steve Jobs lies in marketing. He has the talent and behaviour of a used car salesman. Steve Jobs excels in appropriating the ideas of others, passing off these ideas as his own vision, and selling flawed products like mad.
Besides stiffling innovation at Apple and chanelling the profits to himself as if he owned 100% of the company, what has Steve Jobs accomplished for Apple in the last 10 and a half years?
a) He saved the company with Gil Amelio by cutting down its product matrix, unsold inventories and research expenditures;
b) He helped to launch the iMac, a rebranded consumer computer that had been in development at Apple for years;
c) He helped to launch new, cash cow products, the iPod and, later, the iPhone, once Apple bought small companies with talented engineers, innovative products and promising software;
d) He oversaw the adoption of Mac OS X which was originally developped for NeXT Computers, and the transition to Intel processors, standardizing on a family of processors adopted by every other major manufacturer of personal computers.
One could say that Steve Jobs has accomplished everything that he could ever do for Apple. As an orphan born out of wedlock in 1955, a child rejected by his biological mother and a Syrian father, a high school graduate raised in a blue collar family, Steve Jobs has accomplished more than could be expected from him. Staying on will only serve the need of Steve Jobs to control people and the company he created, showing an orphan insecurity, rather than freeing an adult company he should have served for the last 10 and a half years.
Given his pancreatic cancer, and an uncertain health prospect, one would hope that Steve Jobs would retire from Apple to enjoy his family, his 4 children, and the $5.5 billions he acquired through the sale of his founding shares in Apple, NeXT Computers, and Pixar.
And if Steve Jobs wants to keep busy in his retirement years, savour his fame, he can play an active role on the Disney board of directors. If he stays on with Apple, we will only see more episodes of employee and shareholder abuse. Not a dignified way to retire.
His health should be a concern to Steve Jobs. His legacy should not be one of shareholder abuse, criminal stock option gauging. It's time to take a hard look at Steve Jobs future, not past contributions, especially given a failing health. And its time for Steve Jobs to go when there is still a myth to preserve.
Second of all, Steve Jobs is a high school graduate who should never have been allowed to serve as the CEO of an international company listed on the NASDQ stock exchange. Steve Jobs didn't have the brains, mental health and self discipline required to undertake and complete a university degree, a common characteristic of schizophrenia patients with an overblown ego.
I am not sure where you came up with most of your post besides your own opinion but never confuse education with a degree or ability to attain one. I graduated with many idiots not fit for service in our field.
You say Steve should have never been allowed to serve as CEO because he didn't have the brains, yet he did have the brains and has accomplished a lot. Your schizophrenia references concern me the most.
Signed,
I am Shiva, god of Death...
I agree. I would expect good employees to inform an employer if they are not or would not be able to perform their duties. However, the employer doesn't need to know specific medical reasons.
Well, yes, as long as it's not contagious.
I don't see what qualifies you to decide Steve Jobs is schizophrenic anyway - are you his psychologist? I would guess not.
You seem to think that because Steve Jobs doesn't have a university degree, he is somehow worthless as a person and it's fluke that he's in control of Apple. I'd like to remind you that he STARTED the company in the first place, along with Woz. It is not a requirement to have a university degree to be successful or run a large organisation.
To be perfectly frank, your entire post disturbs me. Your presumption to just decide that someone you've never even met has schizophrenia - a VERY SERIOUS mental problem - is an astounding arrogance I didn't think anyone capable of.
I doubt that. The board of directors would be negligent not to... I can't wait to see the lawsuits coming out of this!
All of which would very likely fail.
It seems the board did meet with outside lawyers and deliberated about the situation, so the short answer is that a court would likely hold as within the board's valid business judgment the decision not to disclose Jobs' cancer. Any shareholder derivative action likely wouldn't get past summary judgment.
There are different types of personalities and a different set of qualities required to manage a company at every level of its development. The entrepreneur who created a successful company is never the person to manage it to the next level.
Steve Jobs successfully created 3 companies, Apple, NeXT and Pixar, but brought them to an impasse until he relinquished control over them. To put it another way, no one knows or does everything. Steve Jobs is human and has limits.
Given his financial success, the $5.5 billions he earned, given a failing health, Steve Jobs should retire and enjoy life while he can.
ISecond of all, Steve Jobs is a high school graduate who should never have been allowed to serve as the CEO of an international company listed on the NASDQ stock exchange. Steve Jobs didn't have the brains, mental health and self discipline required to undertake and complete a university degree, a common characteristic of schizophrenia patients with an overblown ego.
kiss my hairy ass
Given his financial success, the $5.5 billions he earned, given a failing health, Steve Jobs should retire and enjoy life while he can.
He is probably planning just that - he put in an order for a very large boat (but not over-large and gauche - it will probably be the most perfect yacht ever made) for one thing.
http://www.macscoop.com/articles/200...cht-steve-jobs
He is probably planning just that - he put in an order for a very large boat (but not over-large and gauche - it will probably be the most perfect yacht ever made) for one thing.
http://www.macscoop.com/articles/200...cht-steve-jobs
OK, you're saying it's not "over large", but don't understand that. it's nearly 250ft! Even though it's half the length of those owned by certain other tycoons, that's still huge! It looks like the ones that compete in races are in the 60-90 ft range.
OK, you're saying it's not "over large", but don't understand that. it's nearly 250ft! Even though it's half the length of certain other tycoons, that's still huge!
It will be the 35th largest yacht in the world (but probably slip to 75th or so once it is done). But it is a little more than half the length of Larry Ellison's #2 yacht, and probably way less than half the total displacement.
http://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/me...ht-rising-sun/
Compared to Larry and Paul Allen, he was very restrained, and looks like less of a rich bozo as a result (particularly when compared to Allen).
Steve Jobs has the skills needed to start companies, take risks, motivate employees, and sell his products like a used car salesman, but he lacks the formal business university education that would have allowed him to preside over an existing company, manage investors money, and plan the further development and expansion of a company.
There are different types of personalities and a different set of qualities required to manage a company at every level of its development. The entrepreneur who created a successful company is never the person to manage it to the next level.
Steve Jobs successfully created 3 companies, Apple, NeXT and Pixar, but brought them to an impasse until he relinquished control over them. To put it another way, no one knows or does everything. Steve Jobs is human and has limits.
Given his financial success, the $5.5 billions he earned, given a failing health, Steve Jobs should retire and enjoy life while he can.
Oh I just love thoughts like these. 'Unless you have the right piece of paper, certificate, handshake or blessing from the right high priest, you are a complete incompetent and totally incapable of running a company.' The problem is that most of your most successful business were created and ran by people who stuck it to the establishment and thus became the new establishment. Remember it was all those people with the MBAs and the 'proper education' who nearly drove Apple into the ground. It sure wasn't Steve Jobs.
Oh I just love thoughts like these. 'Unless you have the right piece of paper, certificate, handshake or blessing from the right high priest, you are a complete incompetent and totally incapable of running a company.' The problem is that most of your most successful business were created and ran by people who stuck it to the establishment and thus became the new establishment. Remember it was all those people with the MBAs and the 'proper education' who nearly drove Apple into the ground. It sure wasn't Steve Jobs.
Hear hear!
I agree entirely.