Steve Jobs Dies After Battle with Cancer

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple, died today at the age of 56. Jobs will be remembered throughout the world as a visionary, the man who built the Apple company from a garage in Silicon Valley into the world’s leading tech company. Steve Jobs has been at the frontier of computer technology throughout his career, first by pioneering the use of the personal computer and its navigation, and more recently with the invention of such revolutionary tools as the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad tablet, changing the way we consume information in a digital age. There have been questions as to when or if Apple is having a memorial service for Steve Jobs. Apple is holding a memorial service for Jobs at 10 am next Wednesday October 19th at the outdoor theater on the Apple Campus.

Apple CEO, Tim Cook

Jobs’ death was not unexpected, though he will be sorely missed by the company and millions of loyal Apple fans worldwide. Jobs had battled cancer for years, and he stepped down in August of this year as CEO of the company because he could “no longer meet [his] duties and expectations.” The position was passed on to Tim Cook.

In an email announcement to Apple employees today, as well as publicly on the Apple website, Cook mourned the loss and offered this email address to share thoughts, memories, and condolences: rememberingsteve@apple.com.

“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.”

Though Jobs himself was a major driver behind the innovation of Apple, one of Apple’s most notable aspects, its signature design, remains in the hands of the company’s head designer, Jonathan Ive. Ive has led Apple’s world-class design team, often regarded as one of the world’s best, since 1996.

Apple is very well-known for its sleek and simplistic design, inspired by a calligraphy class Jobs audited at Oregon’s Reed College. Jobs said that his creative vision was shaped by his life’s experiences: he attended just one semester at Reed College before dropping out, and he quit one of his first jobs – designing video games for Atari – to backpack across India and take psychedelic drugs.

Born February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, Jobs was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. He refers to Paul and Clara as his only parents, though he made frequent efforts as a teenager to locate his biological parents, and met his biological sister, Mona Simpson, at the age of twenty-seven. He was close with his sister after that, often visiting her in her home in Manhattan and calling frequently. Mona is a novelist who, upon the time of their meeting, had recently written the novel A Regular Guy (1996) about a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Steve Jobs and his wife Laurene Powell

In the late 1970s Jobs dated San Francisco Bay Area painter, Chris-Ann Brennan, with whom he had one daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. Jobs at first denied paternity of Lisa, claiming sterility, but later acknowledged it and offered financial assistance to Chris-Ann. Lisa is a journalist and magazine writer, and her essays are published at lisabrennanjobs.net.

In 1991, Jobs married Laurene Powell in a Zen Buddhist ceremony in Yosemite National Park. Together they have a son, Reed, and two daughters, Erin and Eve. Laurene still lives in Palo Alto with her children.

Though the family lived in Palo Alto, California, in 1984, Steve purchased the land that held the historic 14-room, 17,250-square foot Jackling Mansion in California’s Woodside woods. For eight years, beginning in 2001, Jobs and attorneys fought for the right to raze the house in order to build a smaller, more contemporary home for his family. The house was erected in 1926 by one of the leading architects of the time, George Washington Smith. It was eligible for California’s historic register, and required an environmental assessment before it could be torn down. In February 2011, Jobs won the legal battle, and the abandoned house was demolished.

Though cut tragically short, the creative and inspiring life of Steve Jobs will not be soon forgotten. And, with Apple’s latest, iOS 5, just around the corner and creating a buzz in the media and among Apple fans, his legacy is sure to carry on.