I agree. It was an asshole move to write such a story. There's no actual news here. And despite all their high-sounding justifications for writing it (which make up about half the text), it's pretty clear what their motives are.
Incidentally, according to the software I wrote to warn if the quality of stories on the front page goes down, this is the lowest scoring story ever to get this high on the front page.
Were I to design it, I would pagerank on users and their votes, or use a bayesian filter on article text with classification via some top users' votes. But I'm very curious to find out pg's solution.
I have a sneaking suspicion that "fromedome" is actually "Dan Frommer" from Alley Insider. The names are just too similar but I have no way of either proving or disproving it.
I assume that's who it is as well; given every submission is to a Dan Frommer article. Which is why I'm saying he's just a blog spammer. Well, that along with the fact that he's never even bothered to comment once here.
I totally agree that a story SPECULATING about Jobs having cancer is total crap. But on a slight tangent, I disagree (reluctantly) with his decision to keep it private if he DOES have cancer or if it comes back at a later date. I don't think he should have kept it private the first time, either.
If you're a CEO who can be easily replaced, this isn't as big of a deal (i.e. making it public or not public isn't going to rock the boat too much either way). But to a great portion of the general public, Steve Jobs and Apple are the same thing. He's largely credited with single-handedly bringing them back from the brink. If Jobs announced today that he was quitting Apple, the stock would almost surely tank. He's the CEO of a public company, and if his personal health has a signification effect on stock price, I think he has an obligation to disclose that. Billions of dollars are at stake to shareholders, and they have the right to make decisions with all the information that controls the price of that stock.
If you're a politician, you know your lifestyle is under the microscope and your morals and ethics are always in question. You know this going in. If you're a CEO of a public company, you know that you can personally have a large impact on the stock price. You know this going in. It's unfortunate that personal issues can impact the stock, but if they do, I think it needs to be disclosed.
While I find the article itself off-putting, I can't help but think of the loss of trust in Jobs when he didn't disclose it the first time. I think it sucks that he is in a position that he needs to dislose it, and I can't imagine going through that publicly if I was in his shoes. But is it really that surprising for people to be worried and talking about this when they're going to assume that he won't disclose the information if he does get sick again? Probably not a very popular position, but if you had a couple million in Apple stock (hypothetical -- I don't), would you be okay with it losing half its value in one day because Jobs didn't disclose in advance as possible and let you decide over time whether to take a chance and hang on or to sell on your own terms?
Either way, I don't envy the position the guy is in. I hope it really is just something he can quickly get over.
If he announced he had cancer, he would be unlikely to leave the company the same day (if at all). It's also not a guarantee that he would die (sorry to be morbid). There is a LOT of additional information that can be provided. He might beat it again.
The problem is that if he is not announcing when he has cancer, we're only going to hear about it if two things happen:
1. He knows he has beaten it.
2. He knows he cannot beat it.
He can also put a plan in place where he is grooming a successor that the public slowly becomes familiar with, and they can decide how comfortable they are with the replacement, letting the stock reflect that confidence accordingly.
By the way, what's with the "Answer that first. I doubt you can." comment? How about just asking a question letting me take a crack at answering it?
Comments
I agree. It was an asshole move to write such a story. There's no actual news here. And despite all their high-sounding justifications for writing it (which make up about half the text), it's pretty clear what their motives are.
Incidentally, according to the software I wrote to warn if the quality of stories on the front page goes down, this is the lowest scoring story ever to get this high on the front page.
Perhaps you could publish a list of similar stories that don't deserve front page status and display them to users when they create an account.
Or arm the top 100 users with a -1 button and let them offset the tendency to front page bad (or non) stories.
or perhaps only being able to downvote a story once it reaches X points, so it doesn't get downvoted to hell but doesn't stay up too long either
How does the software that rates the quality of stories work?
Were I to design it, I would pagerank on users and their votes, or use a bayesian filter on article text with classification via some top users' votes. But I'm very curious to find out pg's solution.
Lisp has AI built-in!
Personally, I think if you blocked fromedome's blog spamming, the overall quality of submissions would probably go up by a measurable amount.
I have a sneaking suspicion that "fromedome" is actually "Dan Frommer" from Alley Insider. The names are just too similar but I have no way of either proving or disproving it.
I assume that's who it is as well; given every submission is to a Dan Frommer article. Which is why I'm saying he's just a blog spammer. Well, that along with the fact that he's never even bothered to comment once here.
I totally agree that a story SPECULATING about Jobs having cancer is total crap. But on a slight tangent, I disagree (reluctantly) with his decision to keep it private if he DOES have cancer or if it comes back at a later date. I don't think he should have kept it private the first time, either.
If you're a CEO who can be easily replaced, this isn't as big of a deal (i.e. making it public or not public isn't going to rock the boat too much either way). But to a great portion of the general public, Steve Jobs and Apple are the same thing. He's largely credited with single-handedly bringing them back from the brink. If Jobs announced today that he was quitting Apple, the stock would almost surely tank. He's the CEO of a public company, and if his personal health has a signification effect on stock price, I think he has an obligation to disclose that. Billions of dollars are at stake to shareholders, and they have the right to make decisions with all the information that controls the price of that stock.
If you're a politician, you know your lifestyle is under the microscope and your morals and ethics are always in question. You know this going in. If you're a CEO of a public company, you know that you can personally have a large impact on the stock price. You know this going in. It's unfortunate that personal issues can impact the stock, but if they do, I think it needs to be disclosed.
While I find the article itself off-putting, I can't help but think of the loss of trust in Jobs when he didn't disclose it the first time. I think it sucks that he is in a position that he needs to dislose it, and I can't imagine going through that publicly if I was in his shoes. But is it really that surprising for people to be worried and talking about this when they're going to assume that he won't disclose the information if he does get sick again? Probably not a very popular position, but if you had a couple million in Apple stock (hypothetical -- I don't), would you be okay with it losing half its value in one day because Jobs didn't disclose in advance as possible and let you decide over time whether to take a chance and hang on or to sell on your own terms?
Either way, I don't envy the position the guy is in. I hope it really is just something he can quickly get over.
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If he announced he had cancer, he would be unlikely to leave the company the same day (if at all). It's also not a guarantee that he would die (sorry to be morbid). There is a LOT of additional information that can be provided. He might beat it again.
The problem is that if he is not announcing when he has cancer, we're only going to hear about it if two things happen:
1. He knows he has beaten it. 2. He knows he cannot beat it.
He can also put a plan in place where he is grooming a successor that the public slowly becomes familiar with, and they can decide how comfortable they are with the replacement, letting the stock reflect that confidence accordingly.
By the way, what's with the "Answer that first. I doubt you can." comment? How about just asking a question letting me take a crack at answering it?
it's also called cynicism