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Comment by ristretto | Hacker News Reader

This hints it's probably about health reasons, which is the saddest part.

Probably also the reason why the book is scheduled to be released sooner? [come on, which author ever beats a writing-deadline by 3+ months?]

I think that probably has more to do with hitting bookshelves in time for the lucrative holiday season.

Why in the world would he care about lucre? He's a dying billionaire who remade the technology world in his own vision. Twice.

The author and the publisher are primary stakeholders in the success of the book, not Jobs.

Hinting is rather unnecessary. Why else would he leave?

I 'd prefer that he would leave to "build a new pixar" or sth.

Because he's 56 years old and wants to start living a well deserved retirement?

He's already on leave. So it isn't like there's a great strain on his health now. I would think no more than there will be when he remains on as chairman of the board. Which is the real point.

If health were forcing him to step down he wouldn't be staying on as Chairman. There are significant duties to being Chairman of the Board. You have to appear in public, you have to go to official functions, and so on. You can't hide a serious illness and still be chairman of the board.

Mark my words: This is all about Tim Cook (Which, if I might toot my own horn, I predicted here: http://tomstechblog.com/post/Ie28099m-Not-Sure-Steve-Jobs-Is...)

I think health is the only reason that would force Steve Jobs to quit, he likes what he's doing.

Being a Chairman of the board is a message to stockholders: "Don't panic, I'm still available", if he stepped down without an orderly transition Apple stock would probably really take a beating.

The chairman of the board is fairly invisible from a public point of view.

He's actually been on a leave of absence so he could focus on his health. This is after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (whose 5 year survival rate is sub-20%-- 6% if you count all stages). And toss a liver transplant on top of all of that.

Of course it's about his health.

I wish you were right, but Steve Jobs is clearly not a well man, and he seems to have been getting worse for some time.

On the offchance that he did stage a miraculous recovery and decide "Well shit, now I'm all better I think I'm gonna go buy a large tropical island!" he would have mentioned his miraculous recovery in his letter, since his health problems are well known.

Sure, everyone knows that he's been having health problems, but he could have made this decision just because "it was the right time" not because his health problems had worsened. Like he could have gone on, but felt that everything was in place for a smooth transition.

However, "I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO" is not just that.

That is what almost everyone says in these notes. "could no longer meet my duties" could easily mean "because I want to go on vacations with my wife and kids every day of the week for the rest of my life".

No, most say that they want to spend more time with family.

"Could no longer meet my duties" + pancreatic cancer = a strong chance that the doctors gave him a number of how long he had left to live, and it wasn't it years.

(That doesn't mean that Jobs can't beat the odds, of course!)

That would hardly qualify as "Unfortunately"

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