Apple Increasingly Obsessed with Secrecy, New York Times Reports
Jun 29th, 2009 • Posted in: NewsLegal and ethical issues arise, as some claim that the firm is obscuring details of the health of its founder — information that could affect investments
SAN FRANCISCO
Apple may be one of the world’s coolest companies, reports the New York Times, but it steers clear of one “cool-company trend” — openness with the public.
Times reporters Brad Stone and Ashlee Vance write: “Few companies, indeed, are more secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those who dare violate the company’s rules on keeping tight control over information. Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers.”
But even by Apple’s standards, they report, the handling of news about its founder, Steve Jobs, who has been stricken with pancreatic cancer and recently received a liver transplant, has been extraordinary.
Apple representatives have refused to discuss Jobs’s health, saying only that he is due back to work at the end of June, according to the Times.
Ethical and legal questions surround the company’s handling of Jobs’s health status because some governance experts speculate that the level of secrecy deprives investors of important and necessary information and may violate laws governing what companies must disclose about the well-being of their CEOs.
Few companies are so closely linked with their founders, and observers say that the death or incapacitation of Jobs could significantly damage the firm’s standing.
Sources: New York Times, June 23.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 19 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, May 19, 2008.
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