This is one of the weirder ones. In public appearance after public appearance, hence in picture after picture, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, shrinks before our eyes. It’s the amazing Mr. Gaunt. His company—his public company—nevertheless continues to maintain an effective silence about what might be going on. Or, in the beginning, they frantically dissembled about what was so clearly visible. They’re careful not to do that anymore, merely saying they don’t comment on the boss’s health. More recently, they’ve an even added a more equivocal wrinkle: They won’t comment unless he can’t run the company.
If he were in tip-top condition, this would be simple as pie to dispel. Having not been dispelled, it’s reasonable to assume he’s not tip-top.
True, being the most charismatic CEO of his day, prone to odd behavior, a history of phobias, goofy diets, and an absolute determination to do whatever he wants to do in righteous fashion, Jobs gets some wiggle room.
It’s just, you know, Steve. Except that, at this point, it’s beyond even Steve. It would have to be an orchestrated hoax to make us think that Steve is really ailing.
There was the recent announcement that Jobs would not be participating in Macworld tradeshow, his yearly star turn. This was followed by yesterday’s report by Gizmodo that, in effect, the end is near.
Sickness and health, it is true, are not binary. It is possible that Jobs is struggling with something that might be difficult, but neither debilitating nor fatal.
Possible, except for the fact that the company is behaving so strangely. In some sense Apple is acting out—if not making a forthright announcement—of its existential condition.
The press is stumped on this one. Without an authoritative report the media must give the last word to Apple’s obvious, and increasingly forlorn, avoidance and stonewalling. My CNBC colleague Jim Goldman went into conniptions yesterday after the Gizmodo report, offering a list of his recent contacts with Apple and the company’s obfuscations and attempted denials. Goldman goes so far as to say that if Jobs is really sick, then the Apple executives coordinating this big lie ought to go to jail.
Obviously, threats of jail or not, something is wrong. It’s too off, glum, lingering, unresolved, stranger than fiction, caught in the headlights, not to be. We all know where this is going.
