Apple CEO Tim Cook offered a portion of his liver to Steve Jobs while the Apple co-founder was lying in bed in his Palo Alto home waiting for a donor for his liver transplant, claims a new Steve Jobs biography by authors Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli.
Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader is the second of two biographies written about the man who co-founded what is now the world's most valuable company.
Although the book is not set to be released until March 24, Fast Company was able to take a look at excerpts of the book via Amazon's "Look Inside" feature before Amazon cut out significant portions.
The authors - unlike Walter Isaacson who published a 2011 biography of Steve Jobs - were able to interview many of the people closest to Jobs, including Cook himself, Apple's head designer Jony Ive, top executive Eddy Cue, Pixar's John Lasseter, Disney's Bob Iger, and Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs.
The book provides plenty of new insights and surprising revelations about Jobs' life and works, the most striking of which was the fact that Cook, one day feeling upset about Jobs' deteriorating health condition, went to the hospital, had his blood tested, and found out that he had the same rare blood type as his mentor.
Upon doing his research, Cook learned that the liver is a regenerative organ: if Cook donated a portion of his liver to Jobs, the remaining part of his liver would grow back and the new part transplanted into Jobs would grow into a functional size. Cook said Jobs angrily turned down the offer.
"He cut me off at the legs, almost before the words were out of my mouth," Cook said. "'No,' he said. 'I'll never let you do that. I'll never do that.'"
Jobs was suffering from a gastroenterological condition called ascites, a side effect of pancreatic cancer that caused his belly to swell. In 2009, Jobs announced that he was taking a six-month leave at Apple to better focus on his health, assigning Cook, who was then head of worldwide sales and operations, to become acting CEO in Jobs' absence, although Jobs still continued to play a major role in Apple's strategic decision-making.
Jobs eventually underwent a liver transplant at the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, Tennessee, an operation that extended his life by two-and-a-half years before he succumbed to his illness on Oct. 5, 2011.
Below is a portion of the book, as gathered by Fast Company from Amazon's "Look Inside" feature:
One afternoon, Cook left the house feeling so upset that he had his own blood tested. He found out that he, like Steve, had a rare blood type, and guessed that it might be the same. He started doing research, and learned that it is possible to transfer a portion of a living person's liver to someone in need of a transplant. About 6,000 living-donor transplants are performed every year in the United States, and the rate of success for both donor and recipient is high. The liver is a regenerative organ. The portion transplanted into the recipient will grow to a functional size, and the portion of the liver that the donor gives up will also grow back.
"He cut me off at the legs, almost before the words were out of my mouth,' says Cook. ''No,' he said. 'I'll never let you do that. I'll never do that.'"
"Somebody that's selfish," Cook continues, "doesn't reply like that. I mean, here's a guy, he's dying, he's very close to death because of his liver issue, and here's someone healthy offering a way out. I said, 'Steve, I'm perfectly healthy, I've been checked out. I can do this and I'm not putting myself at risk. I'll be fine.' And he doesn't think about it. It was not 'Are you sure you want to do this?' It was not 'I'll think about it.' It was not 'Oh, the condition I'm in...' It was 'No, I'm not doing that!' He kind of popped up in bed and said that. And this was during a time when things were just terrible. Steve only yelled at me four or five times during the 13 years I knew him, and this was one of them."
