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Did you not read the next 1.5 sentences?

> but it depends on how soon it’s removed surgically. Steve caught his very early, and should have expected to survive much longer than a decade.

The author argues that Steve's expected survival time was actually much higher than the median, because his cancer was detected early--and that the delay in pursuing traditional treatment (surgery) may have been responsible for the poor outcome.

Basically, the article would have been clearer if the author had just left out the median in the first place, as he doesn't think it's relevant.

Given how young Steve Jobs was when he was initially diagnosed in 2003, how good his health was, his ability to pay for the best treatment, his large support network and his insatiable drive, I would have expected better than median survival.

Yes, though there's still a lot of chance involved.

Young age does not necessarily help with fighting cancer. Younger people have a faster metabolism, and that often allows the tumour to grow faster than in older people.