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>He might have been aware of when his life would end, since he passed away just one year later," says Ohnishi. "Maybe that's why he chose not to write the whole

>He might have been aware of when his life would end, since he passed away just one year later," says Ohnishi. "Maybe that's why he chose not to write the whole sentence, and only the first three words." This isnt a popular opinion since HN (and media) tends to deify Jobs, but people forget he died an ignorant death at his own hand. Jobs was diagnosed with a curable cancer and against all reason, he decided eating fruit would fix the problem. The idea that Jobs had any deep philosophical ponderance of the human condition or introspection on his own mortality is comical.

vmception 5y ago
Not to be meta contrarian but I think everyone understands his pattern of arrogance got the best of him with that fruit based diet from a nutritionist scam. The people that deify him mostly forget that actually running a company like him means requiring a bailout from your primary competitor, which means failure. edit: ok he wasn't there during that time period. A better example would be other areas of arrogance and not uplifting behavior.
- mlyle 5y ago
  > The people that deify him mostly forget that actually running a company like him means requiring a bailout from your primary competitor, which means failure. There's plenty to criticize Jobs for, but this one doesn't make sense to me. Gates bailed out Apple in August 1997. Jobs departed Apple in 1985 and returned when the NeXT acquisition in February 1997. Do you think that the reason Apple sorely needed capital was primarily down to Jobs' decisions between February and August? Or was it some critical misstep in 1983-1984 manifesting 13 years later?
- pram 5y ago
  He wasn't even at Apple for the entire decade preceding that bailout. People probably 'forgot' because it's not true at all!
  - radicaldreamer 5y ago
    It's the exact opposite of the original comment... without Jobs and his engineering of the bailout from Gates, Apple would've definitely failed! He was fantastic as a founder and loyal to his original company when the path of least resistance would've been totally different.
  - maverick-iceman 5y ago
    > He wasn't even at Apple for the entire decade preceding that bailout. People probably 'forgot' because it's not true at all! Because he ran the company into the ground before and the board fired him Also people are right when they claim that Jobs rise to fame wouldn't have happened without the DOJ going after Microsoft because the powers that be were disturbed by Gates 160B wealth back in 1999. If the DOJ didn't go after Microsoft we now wouldn't have a 1400$ phone which you can't recharge while listening to music...Thank you Bill Clinton's DOJ! United States of Microsoft would have been a really cool place to live considering they are the only company which engineered wealth redistribution as a service. By not pursuing individual user piracy they found a way to have Fortune 500 companies subsidize the kids and the geeks of this world who know where to find cracked Windows and Office. EDIT: I will delete this comment when it reaches -5 score. Don't want to be shadowbanned, but the cult hivemind in here around people like Musk and Jobs is insufferable
mlyle 5y ago
> The idea that Jobs had any deep philosophical ponderance of the human condition or introspection on his own mortality is comical. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and goofed off avoiding treatment for several months. This visit was in 2010, years later, after knowing his cancer was probably terminal for quite some time. I think 7 years of thinking about it, including writing about how not properly treating his cancer early was a grave mistake, might be enough to give one some "introspection on [his] own mortality". Your sniping comment does not make much sense.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
AbrahamParangi 5y ago
Curable is a bit of a stretch. More like "possibly not a death sentence, unlike other pancreatic cancers"
fhsm 5y ago
I have heard variations on this many times but never a definitive expert assertion of its truth rooted in confirmed facts. Did he forego cure, or was he merely quirky and uncured as two independent truths? A bit of searching did not bring me complete clarity. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-cancer-treatment-regrets/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-j... - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4924574/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4924574/ - https://www.livescience.com/16551-steve-jobs-alternative-medicine-pancreatic-cancer-treatment.html https://www.livescience.com/16551-steve-jobs-alternative-med... The undisputed fact of his liver transplant in TN suggests a sophisticated deployment of his considerable means to me. Given this it seems to me that he may have been as described above at the time of diagnosis but he probably was not by the time of transplantation.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  According to his biography, he did initially try to cure his cancer by going fruitarian. Obviously, the cancer got worse instead of better, and he ended up needing a transplant. I suspect (and I have nothing to go off of other than his biography) that he didn't actually completely expect the fruit diet to work, and may have simply believed that if it was his time to go, it was his time to go, but his wife may have eventually talked some sense into him. In America, normal humans can only be on a transplant list for their home state, but a few states also accept out-of-state folks who can travel to the state within X hours. This was obviously designed for people who live right on the border in a neighboring state, but Jobs was able to use his private jet to argue that he should be on the transplant lists for basically every state that accepts out-of-state people. The main point is that it's possible he took an organ from someone in TN, because he himself let his own cancer progress beyond the point of salvaging the organ.
  - sixQuarks 5y ago
    Steve Jobs died from pancreatic cancer. He received a liver transplant, which is not related to that cancer.
    - 5y ago
basisword 5y ago
I’ve no idea whether or not it’s a popular opinion but seems wholly unnecessary to be posting it on this article unless you have some special insight on Jobs medical records other than public speculation.
NoahFancyson 5y ago
This is an extremely binary way of thinking You're saying it has to be one or the other: A) Against all reason, Jobs decided eating fruit would solve his curable cancer, or B) Jobs has some deep philosophical ponderance of the human condition or introspection on his own mortality Why can't it be both? Humans are notoriously inconsistent
fsckboy 5y ago
FTA: "Jobs' autograph now adorns the wall of Sushiiwa. It comes with a message: "All good things", a shortened version of the saying "All good things must come to an end."" > The idea that Jobs had any deep philosophical ponderance of the human condition or introspection on his own mortality is comical. seriously, tell it brother! He wrote "All good things." to a tasting menu in a restaurant, because he liked the sushi, not because he was even pondering the "all good things must come to an end", which btw is hackneyed and wouldn't indicate ponderous thoughts anyway. Elsewhere in an article it points out that in the middle of an omakase he asked to be served repeated toro's till he said "stop"... that is sooo removed from japanese culture or any sense of restraint or selflessness, as is his statement (FTA, my paraphrasal) on seeing a zen garden "I WANT THAT"
techrat 5y ago
Not only was the cancer he had easily treatable had he done what he needed to do when it was first discovered... He also bought his way onto the top of a transplant list by buying a home in Tennessee... despite also knowing by this point that his cancer would be terminal and proper treatment would be too late. It doesn't take much to see how Jobs was truly an astounding piece of shit.
andyjohnson0 5y ago
I'm no fan of Jobs. I think he achieved some notable but transient things, but I also think he was an egotist who treated many people badly. > he died an ignorant death at his own hand But I wonder why you say something so unkind? Is it not possible that he was, in the end, simply afraid and not able to fully face up to his mortality? As for him possessing philosophical insight, I think that is more likely to be something attributed to him by those who (as you put it) deify him.
- fundad 5y ago
  We deify any rich asshole who says anything, see also Musk, Trump, Reagan…
dlvktrsh 5y ago
why is it comical though? that man achieved a lot in his life and died on his own terms
- throwaway675309 5y ago
  Ridiculous - he absolutely did not die on his own terms. Once he was aware of his diagnosis there was no way for him to die on his own terms, he just died. The only way you could possibly achieve the idea of "dying on your own terms" would be if you were in perfect health and then willingly decided to commit suicide.
GuB-42 5y ago
I may be wrong but I don't think that HN deifies Steve Jobs. He has a reputation as a visionary but also as an asshole. He also is the anti-hacker and this is a website with "hacker" in its name. Apple makes perfect products, don't dare touch anything was the name of the game.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Hacker News absolutely deifies Steve Jobs. Maybe you're forgetting that YCombinator runs this whole gig.
  - simonh 5y ago
    Just read this page of comments, it’s pretty typical. Dozens of people saying he was a nutty asshole and dozens of people saying he was a complex visionary. That’s par for the course.
dang 5y ago
Please don't post name-calling or flamebait comments to HN, nor take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents, which we don't want here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

vmception 5y ago

Not to be meta contrarian but I think everyone understands his pattern of arrogance got the best of him with that fruit based diet from a nutritionist scam. The people that deify him mostly forget that actually running a company like him means requiring a bailout from your primary competitor, which means failure. edit: ok he wasn't there during that time period. A better example would be other areas of arrogance and not uplifting behavior.

mlyle 5y ago
> The people that deify him mostly forget that actually running a company like him means requiring a bailout from your primary competitor, which means failure. There's plenty to criticize Jobs for, but this one doesn't make sense to me. Gates bailed out Apple in August 1997. Jobs departed Apple in 1985 and returned when the NeXT acquisition in February 1997. Do you think that the reason Apple sorely needed capital was primarily down to Jobs' decisions between February and August? Or was it some critical misstep in 1983-1984 manifesting 13 years later?
pram 5y ago
He wasn't even at Apple for the entire decade preceding that bailout. People probably 'forgot' because it's not true at all!
- radicaldreamer 5y ago
  It's the exact opposite of the original comment... without Jobs and his engineering of the bailout from Gates, Apple would've definitely failed! He was fantastic as a founder and loyal to his original company when the path of least resistance would've been totally different.
- maverick-iceman 5y ago
  > He wasn't even at Apple for the entire decade preceding that bailout. People probably 'forgot' because it's not true at all! Because he ran the company into the ground before and the board fired him Also people are right when they claim that Jobs rise to fame wouldn't have happened without the DOJ going after Microsoft because the powers that be were disturbed by Gates 160B wealth back in 1999. If the DOJ didn't go after Microsoft we now wouldn't have a 1400$ phone which you can't recharge while listening to music...Thank you Bill Clinton's DOJ! United States of Microsoft would have been a really cool place to live considering they are the only company which engineered wealth redistribution as a service. By not pursuing individual user piracy they found a way to have Fortune 500 companies subsidize the kids and the geeks of this world who know where to find cracked Windows and Office. EDIT: I will delete this comment when it reaches -5 score. Don't want to be shadowbanned, but the cult hivemind in here around people like Musk and Jobs is insufferable

mlyle 5y ago

> The idea that Jobs had any deep philosophical ponderance of the human condition or introspection on his own mortality is comical. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and goofed off avoiding treatment for several months. This visit was in 2010, years later, after knowing his cancer was probably terminal for quite some time. I think 7 years of thinking about it, including writing about how not properly treating his cancer early was a grave mistake, might be enough to give one some "introspection on [his] own mortality". Your sniping comment does not make much sense.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

AbrahamParangi 5y ago

Curable is a bit of a stretch. More like "possibly not a death sentence, unlike other pancreatic cancers"

fhsm 5y ago

I have heard variations on this many times but never a definitive expert assertion of its truth rooted in confirmed facts. Did he forego cure, or was he merely quirky and uncured as two independent truths? A bit of searching did not bring me complete clarity. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-cancer-treatment-regrets/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2011/10/24/steve-j... - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4924574/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4924574/ - https://www.livescience.com/16551-steve-jobs-alternative-medicine-pancreatic-cancer-treatment.html https://www.livescience.com/16551-steve-jobs-alternative-med... The undisputed fact of his liver transplant in TN suggests a sophisticated deployment of his considerable means to me. Given this it seems to me that he may have been as described above at the time of diagnosis but he probably was not by the time of transplantation.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
According to his biography, he did initially try to cure his cancer by going fruitarian. Obviously, the cancer got worse instead of better, and he ended up needing a transplant. I suspect (and I have nothing to go off of other than his biography) that he didn't actually completely expect the fruit diet to work, and may have simply believed that if it was his time to go, it was his time to go, but his wife may have eventually talked some sense into him. In America, normal humans can only be on a transplant list for their home state, but a few states also accept out-of-state folks who can travel to the state within X hours. This was obviously designed for people who live right on the border in a neighboring state, but Jobs was able to use his private jet to argue that he should be on the transplant lists for basically every state that accepts out-of-state people. The main point is that it's possible he took an organ from someone in TN, because he himself let his own cancer progress beyond the point of salvaging the organ.
- sixQuarks 5y ago
  Steve Jobs died from pancreatic cancer. He received a liver transplant, which is not related to that cancer.
  - 5y ago

basisword 5y ago

I’ve no idea whether or not it’s a popular opinion but seems wholly unnecessary to be posting it on this article unless you have some special insight on Jobs medical records other than public speculation.

NoahFancyson 5y ago

This is an extremely binary way of thinking You're saying it has to be one or the other: A) Against all reason, Jobs decided eating fruit would solve his curable cancer, or B) Jobs has some deep philosophical ponderance of the human condition or introspection on his own mortality Why can't it be both? Humans are notoriously inconsistent

fsckboy 5y ago

FTA: "Jobs' autograph now adorns the wall of Sushiiwa. It comes with a message: "All good things", a shortened version of the saying "All good things must come to an end."" > The idea that Jobs had any deep philosophical ponderance of the human condition or introspection on his own mortality is comical. seriously, tell it brother! He wrote "All good things." to a tasting menu in a restaurant, because he liked the sushi, not because he was even pondering the "all good things must come to an end", which btw is hackneyed and wouldn't indicate ponderous thoughts anyway. Elsewhere in an article it points out that in the middle of an omakase he asked to be served repeated toro's till he said "stop"... that is sooo removed from japanese culture or any sense of restraint or selflessness, as is his statement (FTA, my paraphrasal) on seeing a zen garden "I WANT THAT"

techrat 5y ago

Not only was the cancer he had easily treatable had he done what he needed to do when it was first discovered... He also bought his way onto the top of a transplant list by buying a home in Tennessee... despite also knowing by this point that his cancer would be terminal and proper treatment would be too late. It doesn't take much to see how Jobs was truly an astounding piece of shit.

andyjohnson0 5y ago

I'm no fan of Jobs. I think he achieved some notable but transient things, but I also think he was an egotist who treated many people badly. > he died an ignorant death at his own hand But I wonder why you say something so unkind? Is it not possible that he was, in the end, simply afraid and not able to fully face up to his mortality? As for him possessing philosophical insight, I think that is more likely to be something attributed to him by those who (as you put it) deify him.

fundad 5y ago
We deify any rich asshole who says anything, see also Musk, Trump, Reagan…

dlvktrsh 5y ago

why is it comical though? that man achieved a lot in his life and died on his own terms

throwaway675309 5y ago
Ridiculous - he absolutely did not die on his own terms. Once he was aware of his diagnosis there was no way for him to die on his own terms, he just died. The only way you could possibly achieve the idea of "dying on your own terms" would be if you were in perfect health and then willingly decided to commit suicide.

GuB-42 5y ago

I may be wrong but I don't think that HN deifies Steve Jobs. He has a reputation as a visionary but also as an asshole. He also is the anti-hacker and this is a website with "hacker" in its name. Apple makes perfect products, don't dare touch anything was the name of the game.

smoldesu 5y ago
Hacker News absolutely deifies Steve Jobs. Maybe you're forgetting that YCombinator runs this whole gig.
- simonh 5y ago
  Just read this page of comments, it’s pretty typical. Dozens of people saying he was a nutty asshole and dozens of people saying he was a complex visionary. That’s par for the course.

dang 5y ago

Please don't post name-calling or flamebait comments to HN, nor take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents, which we don't want here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html