Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs has always had a love-hate relationship with the media. Those feelings were evident Wednesday, when the tech giant founder reportedly worked a full day before resigning, sticking it in the eye of headlines suggesting he was near death.
The “sick Steve” versus “robust Steve” rumors were battling it out yesterday. At the same time Bloomberg was reporting Jobs had been house-bound for weeks, the publication said he spent a full workday at the company’s Cupertino, Calif. headquarters. This before resigning as CEO.
In his resignation letter, Jobs’ again poked fun at the health rumors, particularly those suggesting no internal plans were made for a post-Steve era. “I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple,” Jobs advised.
To bolster the image of Jobs as still robust, the Apple leader suggested he remain as chairman of the board, where he will still maintain a good measure of control. Additionally, Apple’s selective leaks included one that Steve intends to remain on the board of Disney, where he is the largest stockholder.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
