Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Steve Jobs Takes Medical Leave for 6 months?

It seems that a minor hormone problem may have been much more serious then he has led us to believe. 6 months of medical leave sounds like a bad deal to me.

Jobs, 53, said in a letter last week that he would remain at Apple's helm despite the hormone problem, and that he had already begun a "relatively simple and straightforward" treatment. But in an e-mail to employees Wednesday, Jobs backtracked.

"During the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought," he wrote.

Of course this tanked the stock after hours. All together the stock dropped almost 8 points for the entire day. I think he really needs to seriously think about his succession plan so that some of the uncertainty about the stock is cleared up. All this secrecy about his health is not good for shareholders. In the meantime we may see the stock settle into the high 60s or so since I have read that a healthy Jobs is worth about 30 points to the stock.

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