Steve Jobs’s Obituary, As Run By Bloomberg

The Bloomberg financial newswire decided to update its 17-page Steve Jobs obituary today — and inadvertently published it in the process. Some investors were undoubtedly rattled to see, as our tipster did late this afternoon, the Apple CEO's obit cross the wire and then suddenly disappear. Jobs's battle with pancreatic cancer, and speculation over his health, jarred Wall Street earlier this year and continues to be the subject of speculation. The Times weighed in on the matter as recently as last month, when columnist Joe Nocera spoke with the secretive tech executive. But news organizations routinely prepare obituaries in advance, even for the healthy. And if Bloomberg readers had seen the internal story slug, "testjobs," their jitters might have abated. The obit, which we've obtained and reprinted after the jump, is a bit macabre to read but should not scare you out of your Apple shares. (UPDATE: Bloomberg has "retracted" its obituary, and the retraction is also after the jump.) More interesting are the accompanying notes for Bloomberg reporters!

The obituary contains nothing to indicate Bloomberg has new information on Jobs's health, at least in our quick skim.

But the reporting notes do reveal that near the top of Bloomberg's list of people to call in event of his death is Jobs's ex girlfriend Heidi Roizen (quite the Valley switchboard, apparently) and California attorney general and (like Jobs) cranky aging hippie Jerry Brown. Also, Bloomberg doesn't seem to have many people's cell phone numbers.

—Editor: Joe Winski, Cesca Antonelli

Apple I, 1976

Apple Computer was founded on April 1, 1976 by a small group headed by Jobs, engineer Steve Wozniak and industry vet Ronald Wayne, who was brought in to provide "adult supervision."

Priced at $666.66, Apple's first computer was little more than a circuit board. Once you bought one, you still had to hook up your own keyboard, monitor and power supply. As such, the Apple appealed mostly to the DIY hardware hackers of the day, who had these things on hand already.

Jobs' Greatest Jobs

Apple I, 1976

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and Pixar Animation addresses the 2005 Graduates of Stanford University. His structure – sharing three stories – each relating to the audience – with lightheartedness sprinkled throughout a heart-centered message.

He spoke candidly speaks about his life, rise to fame, and death…
Steve Jobs, on life’s experiences, “You have to trust that the dots will connect somewhere down the road…”

On creating Macintosh:
… Steve mentioned stumbling into a calligraphy class, learning about fonts, serif and sans serif … designing his first Macintosh computers, “And since Windows just copied the Mac…”

Philosophy on careers:
“You’ve got to find what you love. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet – keep looking – and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

Advice on Life:
“Your time is limited – so don’t waste it – living someone else’s life.”
“Don’t let the opinion of others drown out your own inner voice… and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly what to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Jobs had been teaching us to say goodbye to all that for decades — we just didn’t know it. Some of us said goodbye to typewriters in the 1980s when we finished term papers using MacWrite on a Macintosh Plus for the first time. Some of us said goodbye when we made PTA fliers and “Lost Dog” posters that were far and away better than their Sharpie-scrawled predecessors. Let it go, let it go: Take your CDs to Goodwill; give your books to the library sale.