Jobs told Isaacson that he was either going to be one of the first “to outrun a cancer like this” or be among the last “to die from it”

9to5 Staff | Oct 21 2011 - 5:28 am PT

Details from the upcoming Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson continue trickling in as big media got an early copy of the book. Both the Associated Press and the New York Times have published excerpts that offer a unique insight into the life of the famously private Silicon Valley luminary. According to a New York Times article from yesterday, after attempting to combat a cancerous tumor on his pancreas with a special vegan diet, Jobs then turned to the latest in modern medicine, which included an experimental gene therapy:

According to Mr. Isaacson, Mr. Jobs was one of 20 people in the world to have all the genes of his cancer tumor and his normal DNA sequenced. The price tag at the time: $100,000. The DNA sequencing that Mr. Jobs ultimately went through was done by a collaboration of teams at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Harvard and the Broad Institute of MIT. The sequencing, Mr. Isaacson writes, allowed doctors to tailor drugs and target them to the defective molecular pathways. A doctor told Mr. Jobs that the pioneering treatments of the kind he was undergoing would soon make most types of cancer a manageable chronic disease. Later, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson that he was either going to be one of the first “to outrun a cancer like this” or be among the last “to die from it.

A 60 Minutes preview with Walter Isaacson also touched on Jobs’ cancer treatment, with the biographer revealing that Apple’s late CEO in hindsight was regretful for going with a special diet rather than chose to operate on it sooner. Another interesting tidbit from the New York Times article: Apple’s co-founder began designing his own luxury yacht back in 2009. This is a surprise since Jobs was many things, but not the kind of guy who would display his wealth:

The book also offers some tidbits about Mr. Jobs’s legendary attention to detail, which, according to Mr. Isaacson, extended to a luxury yacht that he began designing in 2009. The design is sleek and minimalist, with 40-foot-long glass walls. It is being built in the Netherlands by the custom yacht firm Feadship, the book says.

The people Jobs wanted to see before he died, the book has it, include co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates who visited Apple’s boss in his Palo Alto, California home in May. Jobs told his biographer was “happier than he had ever seen him” due to his involvement in the Bill and Melinda Gates charitable foundation. This story is just a tip of the iceberg as interesting anecdotes continue coming out in bits and pieces ahead of its release this coming Monday. Here are several excerpts we told you about so far. The Associated Press published an interesting excerpt on Android, where Steve Jobs pledges to drop the hammer on Google’s software “because it’s a stolen product”, saying “I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this”. The Huffington Post pulled some words that Steve had for President Obama over the nation’s inability to compete effectively with Asian companies. Jobs told the President he was “headed for a one-term presidency” because the United States can’t build factories due to “regulations and unnecessary costs”. Apple’s co-founder also had some harsh words for Bill Gates and his biological father, a Syrian-born 80-year old named Abdulfattah John Jandali who is vice president of a casino in Reno, Nevada. Publisher Simon & Schuster’s book will also cover behind-the-scene details concerning Jobs’ resignation as the CEO of Apple. Fortune will also publish an exclusive excerpt from the book in the October 24 issue that covers Jobs’ relationship with Bill Gates.