Apple and Steve Jobs. And some cancer.

Its more than just a well known fact that Steve Jobs IS Apple.right from when he and Woz founded Apple in their garage back in 1976, on April Fools day, Jobs has been the face of Apple.

When he was ousted 1985, the company started its nose-dive ( though the dive started much before he left ) and was on the verge of bankruptcy during the mid 90s. Apple picked up, once NeXt ( another Jobs venture) and brought back Jobs. After he took over as CEO, and with the launch of the iMacs, history assured a place for Apple.

Now, this is not meant as a history of Apple, or a dissertation on Steve Job's "Greatest Second Act in the history of business " - but at the striking pattern here. Is Apple Inc. tied to Steve Jobs? Will Jobs be able to distance himself from the company the way Bill Gates has done with Microsoft? Rumors of his cancer has surfaced and plagued Apple image, horrendously.

There are two questions that i want to ask here -

1)Why is Jobs the face of Apple?
For any company to grow up, you cannot just pin down success to any one reason, let alone a person! there are many complex factors and people. Why Steve Jobs? Why not Jonathan Ive? For all we know, he designed the iMac, the iPod and now the iPhone. So what is that drives Apple to fall back on Jobs? True he might just be the best salesman apple has or he might be the most important businessman of 2007 - but how can an entire $25 Billion work completely around one man?

Left, Dabaghian/Reuters; right, Avelar/Bloomberg New
2) Secondly and more importantly, Why on earth should he publish his medical reports? When Andy Grove was ill he informed the board at Intel, but not the investors ! he later published it in his, claiming that his illness in no way affected his running of the company . What indeed is a marvel is the fact that Wall Street is driven by the image of a once chubby Jobs looking lean and lanky.

I am for one who believes that my sperm count is my issue and not exactly international news. for the same reason, i am utterly speechless that Apple's stock seems to be proportional to Steve's "weight".