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Comment by ktsmith | Hacker News Reader

Jobs has been on medical leave since January and Tim Cook has been acting as CEO since then. Jobs just stepped aside completely in August by resigning.

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Not according to this PR on Jan 17, 2011: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/01/17Apple-Media-Adviso...

"At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company."

Right, he was on medical leave. He retained the title and was involved in all major strategic decisions. Tim Cook was left to handle daily operations and was essentially acting CEO. While I would be surprised if Jobs didn't know about a lost iPhone given his heavy involvement in the company I also don't see how this isn't a daily operations issue falling to Tim Cook.

He was still involved in the company, and for example, launched Lion in June. I find it hard to believe that Steve Jobs didn't know about another phone being lost. That's not the type of thing the acting CEO keeps from the CEO for fear of bothering him.

Sure, if any of this is true it's very likely that Jobs was kept aware of the situation or even advised on how to proceed. At the end of the day this happened under Cook because Cook was the acting CEO.

edit: I don't know of a better way to describe Cooks role during this period as he was responsible for daily operations while Jobs retained the title of CEO. Acting CEO may not be the correct description.

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