More On Steve's Health

Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on July 23, 2008

John Markoff in today’s New York Times follows up on all the speculation regarding the health condition of Apple CEO Steve Jobs with some interesting new information.

Citing “people close to Mr. Jobs,” Markoff says Jobs is, as I said yesterday, cancer-free, but that earlier in the year underwent an unspecified surgical procedure to address a problem that has been causing his weight loss. Markoff further reports that Jobs had been running a fever in the week leading up to his appearance at the Worldwide Developers Conference and had been taking a course of antibiotics. Additionally, Jobs has been dealing with “nutritional problems” in the wake of the cancer surgery.

This information would go to corroborate the “common bug” line that has been Apple’s official line on the matter. It would also, to me, tend to lessen the tendency of speculators to assume the worst.

This issue has, over the years, really bothered people trying to figure out how to trade Apple stock based on non-public information related to his health. The Wall Street Journal relates a case from 2004 wherein hedge fund investors hired private investigator to tail Jobs’ visits to doctors offices and hospitals. They apparently didn’t do a very good job of it as he figured it out and became harder to track.

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