How does Laurene Powell Jobs spend her US$21.7 billion fortune? The wife of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs backed Joe Biden, owns a sprawling San Francisco home and holidays on a superyacht
- When Powell Jobs first met her future husband at Stanford, she had him mixed up with Bill Gates and said he wasn’t ‘that big of a deal’
- She worked on Wall Street for Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs; now she heads up Emerson Collective and is mum to Reed, Erin and Eve
Laurene Powell Jobs, the 57-year-old billionaire, is a formidable presence in investing circles with a net worth of US$21.7 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
Powell Jobs has used the fortune she inherited after the death of her husband, Steve Jobs, to expand her own businesses and philanthropies.
Here’s a look at the life of the businesswoman and philanthropist.
In the broadest sense, we want to use our knowledge and our network and our relationships to try to effect the greatest amount of good
Laurene Powell Jobs was born in West Milford, New Jersey, in 1963.
Her father, a pilot, died in a plane crash when she was three years old. Her mother later remarried.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, where she double-majored in political science and economics, she worked on Wall Street for Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.
According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs, Powell Jobs got dragged along to a campus event by a friend. It turned out to be a guest lecture by Jobs.
“I knew that Steve Jobs was the speaker, but the face I thought of was that of Bill Gates,” Powell Jobs told Isaacson. “I had them mixed up.”