Woz stonewalls on Steve Jobs’ health worries

May 27, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments | |

While yakking it up with reporters at this week’s All Things D technology business conference, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said the other Steve from Apple “doesn’t sound like he’s sick.” But Woz also claimed that he has never directly asked Jobs about his health.

If Woz weren’t such a notorious wonk and a bad liar, I wouldn’t believe him. I do, but most people won’t.

It doesn’t help at all that Jobs has delegated his keynote presentation for Apple-crazed software developers at the June 8th WWDC conference in San Francisco to Phil Schiller. Schiller, who traditionally plays the fool to Jobs’ straight man at these events, is a natural comic onstage. But what does it say when Apple sends a marketing guy to kick off an engineer’s convention?

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About the Author, Paul Boutin

Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Jordan Dea-Mattson
    "But what does it say when Apple sends a marketing guy to kick off an engineer’s convention?"

    And what exactly is Jobs? I would saying one of the greatest marketers of our generation...
  • Who knows whether Jobs is going to return and in what role (my guess is a wind down from CEO by end of year), but I will say this.

    At a time when we struggle to find inspiring products, companies and leaders, Apple is not just a good marketing story or the cult of one guy (Steve Jobs); they are a breakout successful business who, win, lose or draw, have to be respected for (consistently) swinging for the fences.

    Their performance in a crappy recession, coupled with a decision to remain on offense, speaks volumes about their still vibrant DNA, something I blogged about in:

    Apple is a Great American Company Worth Celebrating
    http://bit.ly/lGqRS

    Net-net: Fingers-crossed that whatever personal outcome SJ aspires to, the gods can carry him aloft.

    Check out the post if interested.

    Cheers,

    Mark