Biographer tells of Steve Jobs's regrets from delaying cancer treatment
Walter Isaacson, the author of the forthcoming biography of Steve Jobs, will appear in an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, and in a brief preview he discusses how Jobs regretted his decision to delay cancer treatment in 2004.
Isaacson reveals in his interview with CBS that Jobs refused to allow surgeons to perform surgery that could have saved his life from pancreatic cancer. Instead, Jobs decided to try alternative therapies and put off the operation because he felt it was too invasive -- something that he later regretted.
Isaacson, speaking with Steve Kroft, talks about the more than 40 interviews he conducted with Jobs. The special, set to air on Sunday, will include recorded words from Jobs himself.
Jobs reportedly said he didn't want his body to be "violated in that way," so he instead waited nine months while his wife and others urged him to go through with the surgery.
"I think he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want it to exist, you can have magical thinking... we talked about this a lot," Isaacson said. "He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it... I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner."
The author also revealed that Jobs met his biological father before knowing who he was, gives his thoughts about death and the afterlife, and how he vowed to never let his wealth change him. The special airs this Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time.
Isaacson is a Pulitzer Prize nominee who has previously written biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. The book, entitled "Steve Jobs, will be available in a hardcover edition, as well as digitally through Amazon Kindle and Apple's iBooks.
Following the death of Jobs, publisher Simon & Schuster pushed up the debut of the book to next week, Oct. 24, ahead of its previously planned November publication. Jobs placed no restrictions on what Isaacson could write and waived the right to read it before it was published.
Details of the book have continued to trickle out ahead of its impending release. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Jobs agreed to do the biography so his children could know him better. The Apple co-founder admitted he "wasn't always there for them," but he "wanted them to know and understand" what he did.
Apple's main page of its website served as a tribute to Jobs for two weeks after his death. The tribute image was removed on Thursday, a day after the company held a celebration of its founder at Apple's Cupertino, Calif., campus.
Isaacson reveals in his interview with CBS that Jobs refused to allow surgeons to perform surgery that could have saved his life from pancreatic cancer. Instead, Jobs decided to try alternative therapies and put off the operation because he felt it was too invasive -- something that he later regretted.
Isaacson, speaking with Steve Kroft, talks about the more than 40 interviews he conducted with Jobs. The special, set to air on Sunday, will include recorded words from Jobs himself.
Jobs reportedly said he didn't want his body to be "violated in that way," so he instead waited nine months while his wife and others urged him to go through with the surgery.
"I think he kind of felt that if you ignore something, if you don't want it to exist, you can have magical thinking... we talked about this a lot," Isaacson said. "He wanted to talk about it, how he regretted it... I think he felt he should have been operated on sooner."
The author also revealed that Jobs met his biological father before knowing who he was, gives his thoughts about death and the afterlife, and how he vowed to never let his wealth change him. The special airs this Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time.
Isaacson is a Pulitzer Prize nominee who has previously written biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. The book, entitled "Steve Jobs, will be available in a hardcover edition, as well as digitally through Amazon Kindle and Apple's iBooks.
Following the death of Jobs, publisher Simon & Schuster pushed up the debut of the book to next week, Oct. 24, ahead of its previously planned November publication. Jobs placed no restrictions on what Isaacson could write and waived the right to read it before it was published.
Details of the book have continued to trickle out ahead of its impending release. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Jobs agreed to do the biography so his children could know him better. The Apple co-founder admitted he "wasn't always there for them," but he "wanted them to know and understand" what he did.
Apple's main page of its website served as a tribute to Jobs for two weeks after his death. The tribute image was removed on Thursday, a day after the company held a celebration of its founder at Apple's Cupertino, Calif., campus.
Comments
RIP
Having said that, I know and understand his reasoning, and have felt the same way at one time, but never again. I was lucky.
Regardless, he's no longer here so it is pointless to second guess. What is done is done.
It's not about second guessing by other people. The article states that Jobs himself regretted putting off the surgery.
Such a smart man with so much going for him and still he thought in a stupid (and selfish) manner. One might argue that it is not selfish thinking but it is. One needs to think about how their life touches everyone else in their life when making a decision about how to go about treating a terminal illness.
Having said that, I know and understand his reasoning, and have felt the same way at one time, but never again. I was lucky.
Expecting someone to change his personal life for the desire of others, sounds selfish.
Walter Isaacson, the author of the forthcoming biography of Steve Jobs, will appear in an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, and in a brief preview he discusses how Jobs regretted his decision to delay cancer treatment in 2004.
In 2004, Steve was busy negotiating Pixar's film distribution deal with Michael Eisner. He sold the company to Disney shortly thereafter for $7,400,000,000.00.
Expecting someone to change his personal life for the desire of others, sounds selfish.
he didn't say to change, he merely pointed out that a person who is so influential should at least give some thoughts to people around him.
you may say giving some thoughts to others in and of itself is a change but if you really say that, I will just shut up.
Expecting someone to change his personal life for the desire of others, sounds selfish.
When one believes in unproven medicine or treatment, or worse yet, ignores or postpones treatment, a selfish choice has been made.
For someone I've never met, the passing of Steve Jobs still has me feeling totally bummed-out. I know Steve is the kind of guy that marched by the beating of his own drums, but if he was good at surrounding himself with good people while running Apple, he should have considered the same when receiving advice from medical professionals.
Just the thought that Steve could have still been with us, blessing all of us with his continued wisdom and insights if he had gotten the proper treatment to begin with just has me shaking my head in sadness.
I hope SJ's biography really gets into his insights during his sickness. I still tend to think that we'll never really truly know what he was thinking during those years.
That's really a shame.
Expecting someone to change his personal life for the desire of others, sounds selfish.
Bull. Not when you have kids, loved ones, a corporation and millions of fans out there. It probably was his arrogant self serving self assurance - which was an instrumental part of his driving force and which made him great - that also prevented him from taking sensible advice and instead only listen to himself. Stupidly. Sadly. Not to pass judgement but to call his survival 'the desire of others' is ridiculous.
When one believes in unproven medicine or treatment, or worse yet, ignores or postpones treatment, a selfish choice has made.
So far, no medical treatment has proven to cure Cancer.
Governments the world over need to do much, much more to clamp down on so called alternative medicine. It's at best a scam, but sadly often far, far worse.
So far, no medical treatment has proven to cure Cancer.
True, which makes me dang curious what happened to THIS.
Of course he regretted not doing all he could as early as possible, but that's only natural and probably wouldn't have made much difference to the outcome.