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Steve Jobs refused transplant from Tim Cook

March 13, 2015

Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook, says he offered part of his liver as a transplant to the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs before he died, but was turned down. The claim has come to light in a new book about Jobs' life.

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Steve Jobs
Image: AP

The 54-year-old current head of the technology giant says he made the offer to his former boss in 2009, two years before Jobs died of pancreatic cancer.

According to the biography "Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart Into a Visionary Leader," Jobs quickly rebuffed the suggestion.

"He cut me off at the legs, almost before the words were out of my mouth," said Cook.

Cook said Jobs then remarked: "I'll never let you do that. I'll never do that."

Partial liver transplants from living donors can be successful, as the liver can regenerate itself.

Even though Cook had the same rare blood type as Jobs and would have been a compatible donor, Jobs refused to accept the offer. Cook told the book's authors he was surprised Jobs declined the offer, but that it showed how selfless a person he was to refuse the potentially life-saving bid.

"I said, 'Steve, I'm perfectly healthy, I've been checked out. Here's the medical report. I can do this and I'm not putting myself at risk.'

"Steve only yelled at me four or five times during the 13 years I knew him, and this was one of them," he said.

Jobs did go on to have a liver transplant from another donor that same year, but died in October 2011 at age 56.

He had stepped down as Apple's chief executive around two months earlier.

The extra time allowed him to design the iPad tablet and the iPhone 4, as well as have plans drawn up for Apple's California headquarters in Cupertino, which are currently under construction.

The book also reveals Jobs considered buying Internet company Yahoo together with head of the Walt Disney Company, and close friend, Bob Iger.

"We would stand at a whiteboard brainstorming," Iger said. "We talked about buying companies. We talked about buying Yahoo together."

Jobs repeatedly asked Iger to sit on Apple's board, but he was unable to due to fiduciary restraints.

Iger even turned down an offer to sit on the board of Google, because he knew Jobs would be jealous.

After Jobs' death Iger went on to become a director at Apple.

Excerpts from the book were published on Thursday in "Fast Company" magazine.

an/msh (dpa, AFP)