Fortune has learned that Apple CEO Steve Jobs spent part of 2009 at a hospital in Basel, Switzerland seeking treatment for neuroendocrine cancer, which he had surgically treated in 2004.
By Doron Levin, contributor
Steve Jobs
In early 2009, the tech and investing worlds were trying to untangle a puzzle about Apple. The company was putting out incredible devices, but it was unclear why the legendary leader wasn't there. As Fortune reported [See: "The Trouble with Steve Jobs"], Jobs had surgery for pancreatic cancer in 2004, taking a leave of absence to recover. He had returned, only to disappear a few years later, a second medical absence for roughly six months in 2009. How sick was he? And what did he have? It wasn't until June 20th, two months after the fact, that the Wall Street Journal uncovered the fact that Jobs had undergone a secret liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. However, during that absence, Fortune can report, Jobs also took an unpublicized flight to Switzerland to undergo an unusual radiological treatment at the University of Basel for neuroendocrine cancer, according to Jerry York, the Apple (AAPL) director who died in March 2010. More
Steve Jobs names Ronald Sugar, former Northrop Grumman CEO, to his board of directors
Photo: Getty Images
With the death of Jerry York in March and the forced departure of Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt in August 2009, Apple (AAPL) found itself with a couple empty seats in its board room.
On Wednesday it announced that it had reached into the aerospace industry to fill one of them.
Dr. Ronald D. Sugar, 61, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 17, 2010 10:46 AM ET
Apple nearly lost a director over Steve Jobs' lack of candor, according to the Journal
Photo: Apple Inc.
The biggest revelation in the Wall Street Journal story Thursday about the lack of independent voices on Apple's (AAPL) board of directors is what the late Jerry York told them -- presumably off the record -- about the way Steve Jobs handled the news about his health problems.
Jobs issued a statement last week MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 25, 2010 6:34 AM ET
A former CFO at IBM and Chrysler and an adviser to billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorkian
Photo: Apple Inc.
Apple (AAPL) announced Thursday that Jerome B. York, who served on the company's board of directors for more than a dozen years, has died. He was 71.
York was hospitalized Tuesday night after suffering a massive cerebral hemorrhage in his Detroit home.
He was born in Memphis, Tenn., in 1938 and trained as an engineer. MORE
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