Apple CEO Tim Cook offered Steve Jobs his liver in 2009

An upcoming biography of Steve Jobs, Apple’s late founder who passed away in 2011, provides in insight into just how close Jobs and current Apple CEO Tim Cook were.

Apple-s-late-CEO-Steve-Jobs

An upcoming biography of Steve Jobs, Apple's late founder who passed away in 2011, provides in insight into just how close Jobs and current Apple CEO Tim Cook were.

The biography, titled Becoming Steve Jobs and written by technology reporters Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, says that Tim Cook offered Jobs a portion of his liver when Jobs was suffering from a condition called ascites, a gastroenterological side effect of cancer, in early 2009.

Cook got so upset at seeing Jobs' condition that he had his own blood tested and discovered that he would, in fact, be able to donate a part of his liver to Jobs without suffering any side effects himself. "I'll never let you do that," Jobs is said have replied to Cook's offer. Here's an excerpt from the book:

'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. Here's the medical report. 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.'

The biography also offers never-before-known information about Jobs, such as his secret plan to buy Yahoo, a move that would allow Apple to enter the search business to compete better with Google. There are also more tidbits about Jobs' thoughts on Apple TV and the future of television.

Becoming Steve Jobs will be released on March 24.