Apple Should Disclose What All Its Executives Weigh

Under Steve Jobs, Apple has always been one of the most innovative companies in the world. So it’s the perfect candidate for a new corporate reform: the executive weigh-in.

Stock analysts spend most of their time scrutinizing balance sheets and P-E ratios and other numerical arcana. Obviously they’ve been overlooking a key metric. For most of the last year, Apple stock rose or fell based on news about the iPhone or iPod or shipments of Macbooks. But a better indicator of Apple’s fortunes would have been the weight of the CEO.

[See why Apple is America's most fragile company.]

For months, Steve Jobs got thinner and thinner, while insisting everything was fine. Investors bought it. Then Jobs announced he was sick after all, with a hormone imbalance that affected his weight, but wouldn’t prevent him from fulfilling his Apple duties. Then he said that his problems were “more complex than I originally thought,” and that he’d be taking six months’ of medical leave.

Crunch. Apple shares promptly fell by more than 10 percent on the news of Jobs’s hiatus. If you’re wondering what value the market places on this one CEO, consider that Apple’s market capitalization has fallen by almost $9 billion.

Try to imagine another company whose value is so dependent on one person. At some companies, the stock would probably jump if the CEO announced six months’ of leave.

But Apple is as much a cult of personality as a public company. The name immediately conjures up images of co-founder Jobs, on stage in his signature black turtleneck, with some new gizmo in hand. Jobs and his fellow Apple directors have apparently decided it’s fine to have the fate of the company tied directly to one man with questionable health. Jobs is Apple, and vice versa. He’s so legendary that if bad health forced him to leave permanently, Apple might just have to leave the CEO role unfilled forever, as testament to his greatness.

So all the company officers should get on a scale, and disclose their weight in an SEC filing – downloadable to your iPhone, of course. The first filing would create a baseline, with regular addendums to Apple's quarterly earnings reports providing updates. Investors don’t need to know who’s fat and who’s thin, exactly, but if they know who’s weight is going up or down it could provide key insight into the fate of the company. Just like it would have if there had been sound disclosure of Jobs’s weight.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, for instance, is considered highly competent. But in a photo accompanying a recent New York Times story, he looks pretty skinny. If he’s always looked that way, then there’s nothing to worry about. But if he’s lost a few pounds, investors need to know: He’s considered one of the possible successors to Jobs, and he could be stressed out worrying that he’s not up to the job, and not eating well. Bad sign.

If marketing chief Phil Schiller’s weight moved up or down, it could signal a snag with an important product or worry that one of Apple’s monopolies might be in jeopardy. And if Jobs himself actually returns to Apple, as he’s promised, his weight will be scrutinized to the gram, whether he discloses it or not.

There’s never been a better time to institute executive weight reporting. Change is in the air, and current corporate disclosure rules obviously aren't working. And if Steve Jobs’s weight starts to go back up, just imagine how investors will benefit.