Anybody can confirm?

Seems to be all over the media. Looks to be due to cancer.

I don't think "Left" is the right word. He is going to be chairman.

He has pancreatic cancer, which is a particularly brutal cancer.

And the stock is down 19 points in aftermarket trading.

i don't see him leaving other than he doesn't have much time left. i have never seen anyone last more than 2 years with that type of cancer.

He will be chairman of course and he still requests to be an employee, which he will continue to get a huge paycheck and even a bigger bonus! Yea, cancer sucks man.

I guess you don't know much about Steve Jobs. He only receives $1 a year as a "huge paycheck" If anything right now he is losing money like crazy since the stock is dropping. Basically he gets paid in stocks, of which he has over 5 million Apple stocks.

Does anyone else find it odd that he was diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer in 2004, beat it, had his liver replaced in 2008, and now again has Pancreatic cancer? As crazy as it sounds I bet it's been Pancreatic cancer the whole time and he didn't want everyone to know.

I wonder what crazy experimental shit has kept him alive this long. I see a South Park episode coming. Cracking baby spines and drinking the marrow.

He can certainly afford the worlds best treatment, thats for sure. He's probably got cancer treatments being tried on him the rest of the world won't see for a decade.

iChemo?

Stock is down 2% which either means the market doesnt think it matters much or it's already been priced in. Even a 10% drop would be a minor shift with news like that. I think Apple will be a-okay without Steve and might even be in a better position to unlock a little bit of that closed end system. I doubt the culture or direction will change much.

Unlocking the closed end system makes them a less important version of microsoft. Staying closed is why they (and we as integrators) are successful. Controlling the user experience is key with any technology IMO.

I completely agree - but it failed them before when they were bounced around by Microsoft in the 90's. They have to be careful. It's easy to say that closed end works when you have the best products. But, things change and someone else steps up. They key for them is to keep giving customers what they want - a simplified product that looks cool, is fashionable and easy to to use. There is a reason why this stock is not climbing past 400 - it is the fear that the bag of tricks is running out.

This is definitely one of the reasons. In my opinion, a larger reason is the low number of shares keeping the price high. I think it needs a 10-1 stock split. You'd attract a few more institutional investors if people discovered they could own AAPL at $35 a share with a forward P/E of 9 and a 95% growth rate they will definitely be more excited than they are right now.

As a widely accepted general rule, you should be willing to pay two times the company's growth rate. This would put AAPL at a P/E of 100.

iQuit