Steve Jobs does not have a terminal illness, the New York Times says, in an amazing story that Jobs refused to cooperate in the writing of — but actually did in his own singular way.
On Thursday afternoon, several hours after I’d gotten my final “Steve’s health is a private matter” and much to my amazement Mr. Jobs called me. “This is Steve Jobs,” he began. “You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.” After that rather arresting opening, he went on to say that he would give me some details about his recent health problems, but only if I would agree to keep them off the record. I tried to argue him out of it, but he said he wouldn’t talk if I insisted on an on-the-record conversation. So I agreed.
Because the conversation was off the record, I cannot disclose what Mr. Jobs told me. Suffice it to say that I didn’t hear anything that contradicted the reporting that John Markoff and I did this week. While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than “a common bug,” they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer. After he hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I had just been handed, by Mr. Jobs himself, the very information he was refusing to share with the shareholders who have entrusted him with their money.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
12 responses to “Steve Jobs Is Not Teminally Ill, Times Confirms Again”
After reading the Joe Nocera piece last night, I can concur, Joe is a slime bucket. The tone of his article is the epitome of the wall street slime bucket. He is obviously way more concerned about money than he is with a fellow human being’s health and privacy.
From the article:
“It would be horrible if Mr. Jobs had a recurrence of cancer. I hope it never happens. At 53, he is in the prime of his life, the father of a young family. And for the rest of us, it’s exhilarating watching him work his magic in the marketplace. Steve Jobs has created more value and driven more innovation than just about anybody in business. Who doesn’t want to see what he’ll come up with next?”
Isn’t it enough to hope someone, anyone, does not have cancer? Does it really matter how much “marketplace magic” they have made or how much “value” they have created? Slime Bucket.
Great Article! – I believe it is a private matter and all these arrogant f**ks out here are trying to make it a big issue!. I’m glad to hear it’s not life threatening (or not really hear?)
The actual evidence that his health is fine. Oops http://macenstein.com/default/…
What a GUY!
… That S. Jobs.
I stand by the best guess that I posited in response to Leigh’s post: Jobs isn’t ill, but the cancer surgery that rearranged his digestive system has probably left him with routine maintenance issues that most of the rest of don’t have (Philip Elmer DeWitt has deduced much the same in his Fortune column).
If I were Steve Jobs, I would not want to have to think about these things on a constant basis, much less discuss them with the press. Best not to open the door, because if you do so once, it never closes again. If I was Peter Oppenheimer and had to do the conference call every quarter, I would not want to open the door for discussion of these things either. It’s distracting and potentially alarmist to always be talking about what’s going on with the CEO’s innards.
I’m very impressed by Joe and his reporting. Especially the part about how he’s so cool that Steve Jobs personally called him to chat him up about his health. Not that us lowly readers are cool enough to actually get any details, though.
Memo to Joe: off-the-record interviews suck. You shouldn’t do them. And if you do get forced into an OTR conversation, how ’bout you just don’t mention it in your article. Does this “I’ve got a secret, but I can’t tell you what it is” game serve any purpose (other than to make you look like a name-dropper)?