Has Steve already pegged it?
Reading the trade press and watching the share price, you might think the poor guy is dead already.
Why is everyone so twitchy all the time over Apple computer. It seems more column inches are typed every day about Apple than the troubles in Darfur (or another troubled region taken at random).
If Steve is poorly, then I feel sorry for him and his family, but did the Apple investors and press really think he was going to go on as CEO forever.
The board are lucky he is still around. Pancreatic cancer is normally a death sentence. It was pure fortune that the type he had was operable, however the Whipple procedure is agressive and removes large parts of the organs related to the absorption of nutrients from food so one of the (more minor) complications of Whipple is that you lose weight.
The USC page about Whipple has this to say:
Some of the long-term consequences of the Whipple operation include the following:
- Mal-absorption: The pancreas produces enzymes required for digestion of food. In some patients removal of part of the pancreas during the Whipple operation can lead to a diminished production of these enzymes. Patients complain of bulky diarrhea type of stool that is very oily. Long-term treatment with oral pancreatic enzyme supplementation usually provides relief from this problem.
- Alteration in diet: After the Whipple operation we generally recommend that the patients ingest smaller meals and snack between meals to allow better absorption of the food and to minimize symptoms of feeling of being bloated or getting too full.
- Loss of weight: It is common for patients to lose up to 5 to 10% of their body weight compared to their weight prior to their illness. The weight loss usually stabilizes very rapidly and most patients after a small amount of initial weight loss are able to maintain their weight and do well.
Not nice.
The bottom line is that we shouldn’t obsess about this, the guy has been through the worst of times and may again be ill, but lets not write him or the company off before the (now not so) fat lady sings.