Steve Jobs's health: A personal or public matter?

Reports this week of Steve Jobs's liver transplant in a Tennessee hospital raised questions about just how much information US corporations are obliged to release about their top executives. Do investors, analysts, and Apple employees, for that matter, have the right to know the private details of Jobs's health, or is prying into the medical lives of CEOs unwarranted? Jobs's health has been the subject of dogged curiosity among Silicon Valley insiders, technology reporters, and bloggers since he underwent surgery to treat pancreatic cancer in 2004. The interest grew even more intense when he began showing signs of weight loss and announced in January that he was taking a leave of absence from the Cupertino, Calif., company because of an undisclosed health issue.