
Steve Jobs Worked on Apple Until His Last Day - ashishgandhi
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394927,00.asp#fbid=STqWIhLQlPv
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JeremyBanks
Alternate interpretation: Cook made up a cover story because Jobs' health
wasn't public knowledge.

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bcrescimanno
And I think your interpretation is far more likely. As much as I know everyone
wants to believe that Steve was involved until the very end; I've seen people
in the final week (and final minutes--my grandfather) of pancreatic cancer.
They're not "working" on much of anything other than taking their next breath.

It makes for one hell of a story; but, I think the better story is to think of
a man who spent his last 24 hours alive with those closest to him--his family.

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philwelch
This is kind of off topic, but isn't it a bit of an unchecked assumption that
Steve actually died of pancreatic cancer? He _had_ pancreatic cancer, seven
years ago, but it was operated on, and his more recent health problems
involved a liver transplant. How do we know that it was a reoccurrence of
pancreatic cancer (which wasn't supposed to happen, and which reportedly
didn't happen when Jobs had his earlier health issues) and not some other
problem caused by a side-effect or complication of the Whipple procedure or
something?

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asifjamil
Official Death Certificate: Respiratory arrest was listed as the immediate
cause of death, with 'metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor' listed as the
underlying cause

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philwelch
Citation? I didn't know death certificates in CA were public records, though
it is an obvious place to check.

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bcrescimanno
Simply google "steve jobs death certificate" and you'll find copies of it
everywhere.

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jayfuerstenberg
When you love what you do it's not called "work" anymore.

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happypeter
If I know steve, he is a buddist. If one know buddism, he should not work for
the world. If steve really worked till his last moment, he tried his best to
enjoy his own life, and his life is a nature harmony, a beautiful flower.

Being a flower is much more important than being great, and most of the time
works better than being charitable.

~~~
rebelidealist
He should not work for the world? Are you saying all the products he help made
is only for his own enjoyment?

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slowpoke
I know I will get downvoted for this, but _who the fuck gives a shit?_ These
recent Steve Jobs articles are getting more and more ridiculous.

~~~
kleiba
If you get downvoted then probably for the tone rather than the content of
your post. I do share your general feeling though: Jobs didn't know he would
die the next day. Apparently he was feeling well enough that day to talk to
Cook on the phone, so why wouldn't he? If he died two days later, no-one would
make such a big fuzz about it. But now all of a sudden this call is presented
as an almost heroic act. Strange.

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goatforce5
Spoke to someone at Apple the day after Jobs' death and he said he was
surprised as his team was getting product feedback from him on the Monday - 2
days prior.

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jritch
I think it shows how dedicated he was to his own cause, to create great
products for those who followed apple. Do I think he done it for the money?
Definitely not. As pointed out already he could have retired a rich man when
he first left apple, instead he went onto to create next & pixar and
eventually took apple from being what they were to one of the biggest
companies in the world. Despite the fact he was a billionaire he lived rather
modestly and never rested on his laurels.

The only thing I could say he gave in charity was his time, I know that after
diagnosed with cancer the last thing I would have done is keep working,
especially if i was in the same financial bracket as him. Regardless tho he
worked on until the day he died, that alone gets my respect regardless of the
great things he done prior to his death......RIP

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kstenerud
Regardless of whether this story is true or not, it's sad to see dedication to
work and devotion to the company over all else idolized to such a degree. The
only other place I've seen this is in Japan.

I'm pretty sure someone's taking the piss, but I won't be completely certain
until I start hearing reports to the effect that his last words were "I wish
I'd spent more time at the office".

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smutticus
Dennis Ritchie was working almost until he died as well. But I don't see HN
posts about him on the frontpage anymore.

I'm so tired of all these Steve Jobs posts. Please stop with them. Dennis
Ritchie did far more than Steve Jobs for hackers. And if this really was
Hacker News we would be talking about his contributions instead of Steve's.

Is it because Jobs was rich while Ritchie was just a researcher? Is that why
you folks care about him more? Is it because he was more visible and
presentable?

These aren't very Hackerish reasons in my opinion. But they probably explain
why this community is more interested in Jobs than in Ritchie.

~~~
jamesrom
I don't know why some people keep trying to compare Steve Jobs and Dennis
Ritchie. One created an extremely successful, ubiquitous, and powerful
programming language and OS. The other was a driven, successful, visionary,
leader, and businessman.

It's mainly people claiming that Dennis Ritchie did not get the attention he
deserved. But I have also seen Steve Jobs' fans defending the attention he got
because of the ways he changed the world.

To both parties: STOP TRYING TO CHEAPEN THE DEATH OF ONE OF THESE MEN BY
COMPARING THEM TO THE OTHER.

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rphlx
Look, it's an incremental update to a phone.

Will it be loved by millions? Probably. But, seriously, it's just a phone.

I guess I don't get it.

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nirvana
Steve Jobs could have retired when forced out of Apple in 1985. He had
$140million (or so, that's the figure I remember) in Apple stock. More than
enough to live very well for the rest of his life. He could have even blown
some of it on US festivals with Wozniak and still lived well.

Instead, he built NeXT, Pixar and then later, rebuilt Apple.

I think that his continuing to work is the most charitable act I've observed
in my lifetime. He touched billions of people and made their lives better.

Sure, he got richer doing it, but it seems he never did it for the money. (I
think he did it for the pleasure, personally, but the end result was massive
human good.)

This is why I honor Steve Job's life.

~~~
tobtoh
> I think that his continuing to work is the most charitable act I've observed
> in my lifetime.

Really? I doubt he did any of the stuff for our express benefit. Steve had a
personal drive to produce good products, to achieve his personal goals, and he
did that really well and is rightly admired for pursuing his internal drive
and making it such a success.

Was his drive mainly for altruistic reasons? For the benefit of mankind? Come
on - I'm all for admiring the guy, but let's not fawn over him. He's not a
saint. If he is, I guess all those mega-rich CEOs of the Samsungs, Ford,
General Electics of the world are also so admirable because they 'charitably'
continue to work when they financially don't need to.

~~~
delackner
Please, altruism as defined your way does not exist. Altruism is at its core
self-serving: We desire to feel better about ourselves, to feel we are good
human beings. People admire different things, so their vision of how best to
behave leads to different forms of self-satisfaction.

Rather than focus on whether Steve did great things because of his passion for
excellence, or because he wanted to have legions of fans, or for whatever
other supposedly saintlike or selfish reason, focus on what he accomplished:
bringing computing to the masses. That is an amazing thing.

~~~
vinutheraj
The way you define altruism, would be the correct way to describe what Jobs
did. Even though he was ousted from Apple he continued to work on his passion.
His actions were _at its core self-serving_. The side-effects were the good
things he added to humanity.

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reddit_clone
Everyone is gushing about him like he cured cancer, abolished hunger or
something.

He ran a successful computer company and led the teams that produced some
really nice gadgets.

Get some perspective people !

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dbbo
How was he "working" for the company after he had resigned?

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nirvana
He was still an Apple employee and Chairman of the board. He resigned the CEO
position, but hadn't left Apple.

~~~
dbbo
I actually wanted to know what he was really doing, since the article just
says he wanted to talk to Cook about the next product. Had I known a simple
question was grounds for reproof here I wouldn't have asked.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I think people took exception to the quotes around working which implied
disbelief.

