Kara Swisher: Ain't Nobody's Business If Steve Is Sick

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on July 29, 2008

The Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher makes a compelling case, for leaving the Steve Jobs health issue alone. Her main arguments 1) If Apple investors haven’t already factored the state of Jobs’ health into their investment strategies, they should.

2) Jobs is easily one of the most important CEOs at the head of any company. If you haven’t factored that into what you think the company is worth, you should. Any lack of involvement by him will hurt the stock.

3) Apple and Jobs are secretive, have always been secretive, and will always be secretive. If you’re not used to that by now, you haven’t been paying attention.

Kara’s piece is certainly worth the read, and she’s correct on many counts. What she doesn’t address is the simple fact that I’ve argued is central to this entire issue: Is Apple’s board of directors, specifically the compensation committee, doing its job as the representative of shareholder interests?

It’s hard to argue that Jobs’ health isn’t material, and that makes questions from shareholders about the matter legitimate. Since Jobs is an Apple employee, Apple has a legal requirement to safeguard his privacy in the same way it would that of any other employee. The board’s job is to balance those two concerns and find a way to thread this needle delicately.

As I said before: When the compensation committee performs its next CEO performance evaluation, which as you can read for yourself on page 5 of Apple’s Corporate Governance Guidelines it is required to do, they should ask, simply and directly if there is any reason, whether related to the state of his health or anything else, that would prevent the CEO from carrying out his duties. The answer need not be detailed, but in the course of routine disclosures, it should, like any other material fact, be made public.

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