Disney CEO tells how Steve Jobs revealed return of cancer minutes before Pixar deal

Disney chief executive Bob Iger kept Steve Jobs' cancer a secret - a new biography claims.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, right, shares a laugh with Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger during an Apple media event on September 12, 2006 in San Francisco.  Justin Sullivan /Getty Images / AFP
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Walt Disney chief executive Bob Iger knew early on that Steve Jobs’s cancer had returned and kept it a secret for three years before it became public knowledge, a new biography of Apple’s late chief executive reveals.

Mr Iger learnt about the illness less than an hour before Disney announced its 2006 agreement to buy Pixar, the computer-animation studio run by Jobs, according to Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, which was published on Tuesday.

The $7 billion deal made Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder and put him on the entertainment company’s board. Mr Iger told the authors he thought about the implications of keeping such a secret at a time when regulators were calling for more disclosure. Ultimately, Mr Iger decided Disney was assessing the transaction on the value of Pixar, not Jobs.

Mr Iger said he told Jobs: “You’re our largest shareholder, but I don’t think that makes this matter. You’re not material to this deal. We’re buying Pixar, we’re not buying you.”

The book is the latest to detail the life and career of Apple’s former chief executive, who died in October 2011 after fighting a rare form of pancreatic cancer. The account paints a more sympathetic picture than the biography by Walter Isaacson, who devoted several passages to Jobs’s messy personal life, mercurial temperament and reality distortion field.

Some of Jobs’s complicated relationships are included in the new biography, including his public spat with former Disney chief executive Michael Eisner that threatened to derail the relationship between Disney and Pixar. But after Mr Iger became Disney’s head in 2005, Jobs agreed to sell Pixar to Disney.

On January 24, 2006, the day the deal was officially announced, Mr Iger said he was at Pixar’s headquarters for the ceremony when Jobs asked to go for a private walk. On a secluded part of the Californian campus Jobs put his arm around Mr Iger’s shoulder and revealed his cancer was back. “Frankly, they tell me I’ve got a 50-50 chance of living five years,” the Disney CEO quoted Jobs as saying.

“So I look at my watch and we’ve got 30 minutes,” Iger recalled. “In 30 minutes, we’re going to make this announcement. And I’m thinking, ‘ he is going to be our largest shareholder and I’m now being asked to bury a secret’.”

Q&A

Tim Higgins offers more insights into Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, published yesterday:

So what was wrong with the biographer Walter Isaacson’s portrayal of Jobs?

Just ask Tim Cook, who took over as Apple’s chief executive following Jobs’ death. “I thought the [Walter] Isaacson book did him a tremendous disservice”, Cook is quoted as saying in the new book. “It was just a rehash of a bunch of stuff that had already been written. You get the feeling that [Steve’s] a greedy, selfish egomaniac. It didn’t capture the person.”

How does Cook disprove the “selfish” tag?

Cook reveals that he offered Jobs a piece of his liver after learning in January 2009 that Jobs needed a transplant. Jobs angrily refused, according to Cook, who said a selfish person “doesn’t reply like that”.

When did Jobs first become ill?

Jobs was first diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and had surgery to remove it the next year. The tumour returned and he had a liver transplant in 2009.

When he told Bob Iger the news of his cancer returning, who else knew at the time?

It was a secret that only Jobs, his wife and doctor knew before it was revealed to Mr Iger, according to the book. After Jobs revealed the news, the two CEOs walked back to announce the deal. Mr Iger said he pulled aside Alan Braverman, Disney’s top lawyer. Mr Braverman agreed Disney could go ahead with the acquisition. Three years later, in 2009, Jobs took a medical leave of absence.

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