== Steve Jobs can never die = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Rumors of the superstar CEO's ill health make you think, does death really play favorites?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/20/notes062008.DTL&nl=fix
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/20/notes062008.DTL&type=printable

I have to admit, he didn't look all that good up there onstage introducing the new 3G iPhone at the 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference, more gaunt than usual, thinner, a bit skeletal and sunken, the trademark denim jeans riding a little too high and the even more trademark black mock turtleneck looking a size or two too large.

All of which caused the rabid Mac blogosphere and even the cold-hearted suits over at Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, et al, to frumple and frown and wonder about Steve Jobs' potential ill health, even though he's probably fine, even though it's been a few years since he beat a rare form of pancreatic cancer, as they all demanded to know if he's OK, and why is Apple only saying he's suffering from a "common bug," and, by the way, just how valuable is Jobs to the future of Apple, and the iPhone, and life, and breathing, and creation and God and the universe as we know it?

(Partial answer: Very. The viral YouTube vid of Jobs' WWDC presentation alone apparently caused Apple stock to dip by about $19 billion, merely because of how he looked).

Of course, to Forbes and its ilk, the story is far less about the man himself and far more about just how big of a hit Apple stock would take (30 percent? Fifty? More?) were the superstar CEO to suddenly exit this earthly realm to start selling iPods to the feathered choir. As any good capitalist will tell you, the true worth of any man is measured only by his ultimate effect on NASDAQ. ...