Laurene Powell Jobs (néePowell; born November 6, 1963)[1][2] is an American billionaire businesswoman executive and philanthropist.[3] She is the widow of Steve Jobs, who was the co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc., and she manages the Steve Jobs Trust.[4][5] She is the founder and chair of Emerson Collective[3] and XQ Institute.[6] She is a major donor to Democratic Party politicians.[7][8][9]
On October 5, 2011, at the age of 56, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, died due to complications from a relapse of islet cell neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer.[15][16] Powell Jobs inherited the Steven P. Jobs Trust, which as of May 2013 had a 7.3% stake in The Walt Disney Company worth about $12.1 billion, and 38.5 million shares of Apple Inc.[5][10][12]
As of July 2020[update], Powell Jobs and her family were ranked 59th in the Forbes' annual list of the world's billionaires[17][18] and 30th in the Forbes 400.[19] According to the same list, she is the wealthiest woman in the technology industry.
In 2004, Powell Jobs founded the Emerson Collective, a private company structured as a Limited Liability Company[22] that supports social entrepreneurs and organizations working in education and immigration reform, social justice, media, and journalism and conservation through partnerships, grants, and investments.[3][23] Through Emerson, Powell Jobs owns The Atlantic and a stake in Axios.[24][25]
In 2013, Powell Jobs was an early investor in,[26] and board member of, Ozy.[27] In addition, Ozy credited her as a "contributor."[28]
In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Powell Jobs donated $2 million to Hillary Clinton and raised a further $4 million for her.[29][30]
Also in 2017, she backed the founding of the political organization ACRONYM,[33] which raised ethical questions for Powell Jobs for its creation of Courier Newsroom.[34]
In 2018, she stated that the book Small Fry by her stepdaughter Lisa Brennan contains false information about Steve Jobs as a father.[35]
In 1997, Powell Jobs and Carlos Watson co-founded College Track, a nonprofit organization in East Palo Alto to improve high school graduation, college enrollment, and college graduation rates for "underserved" students.[37][38][39][40]
Of College Track's high school graduates, many of whom are first-generation college students, about 90 percent attend four-year colleges, and 70 percent finish college in six years, whereas the national average for first-generation college students is 24 percent.[39] College Track has facilities in East Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, Watts, Boyle Heights, New Orleans, Aurora, Colorado, Denver, and the Washington, D.C., area.[38][39][41][42] "We have a wait list of five cities where we'd like to open up centers," Powell Jobs has said. "We want to keep our standards high, though, and are reluctant to grow through franchising or through dissemination of our curriculum and training."[39]
In September 2015, Powell Jobs launched a $50 million project to create high schools with new approaches to education. Called XQ: The Super School Project, the initiative aims to inspire teams of educators, students, and community leaders to create and implement new plans for high schools. Efforts include altering school schedules, curriculums and technologies in order to replace the country's century-old high school education model. Funding for XQ comes from Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective. Following an initial $50 million financial contribution,[43][44] XQ announced an additional contribution, awarding ten schools $10 million each, for a total financial contribution of $100 million.[45][46][47] The schools were chosen from approximately 700 submissions nationwide.[48][49] Powell Jobs's team of advisors is led by Russlynn H. Ali.[43][44]
Powell Jobs's philanthropy has been described as of limited "transparency and accountability."[54] In 2019, Powell Jobs was designated the "Least Transparent Mega-Giver" by Inside Philanthropy.[55][56][57]
Powell Jobs resides in Palo Alto, California.[14] In 2024, she purchased the most expensive residential property in San Francisco worth $70 million.[62] She and Steve Jobs had three children together: son Reed (born September 1991) and daughters Erin (born 1995) and Eve (born 1998). Laurene is also the stepmother of Lisa Brennan-Jobs (born 1978), Steve's daughter from a previous relationship.
References
^Isaacson, Walter (2011). "Family Man". Steve Jobs (First ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 269. ISBN978-1-4516-4853-9. Lauren Powell had been born in New Jersey in 1963 and learned to be self-sufficient at an early age.
^Schleifer, Theodore (September 29, 2021). "Laurene Powell Jobs' Bizarre Week in the Headlines". Puck.news. Retrieved October 5, 2021. Powell Jobs has been close with Ozy C.E.O. Carlos Watson for decades—the two co-founded College Track, her first philanthropic initiative, back in East Palo Alto in 1997
^Bessie King (January 1, 2008). "Get to know Carlos Watson". Blast. Retrieved October 5, 2021. College Track, a program he co-founded to aid students in East Palo Alto
^Theodore Schleifer (February 28, 2020). "Laurene Powell Jobs's charitable group is going to give away almost all of its money". Vox. Retrieved September 5, 2020. As an LLC, Emerson also invests in for-profit companies, meaning that it may be hard for Emerson to ever wind down completely and entirely. (After all, if she died tomorrow, Emerson might still own a majority stake in the Atlantic.)
^"Ozy Media raises $5.3M in seed round". Venture Capital Post. December 28, 2013. Retrieved July 16, 2020. Laurene Powell, the widow of former Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, backed the startup
^"Ozy - Tribe". Ozy Media. Retrieved October 5, 2021. As an investor, contributor and member of OZY's Board of Directors, Laurene Powell Jobs[dead link]
^Megan Henney (February 27, 2020). "Steve Jobs' widow vows Apple co-founder's fortune will be given away". Fox Business. Retrieved September 5, 2020. In 2016, she backed Hillary Clinton, donating $2 million to her super PAC via her nonprofit and hosting a $200,000-a-plate fundraiser that raised more than $4 million
^Jim Rutenberg; Matthew Rosenberg (March 30, 2020). "Trump Won the Internet. Democrats Are Scrambling to Take It Back". The New York Times. Retrieved August 31, 2020. Another initiative went more smoothly, at least at first. It was called Acronym; among its backers were the Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin, Mr. Hoffman and Ms. Powell Jobs.
^Thompson, Alex (July 14, 2020). "Newsroom or PAC? Liberal group muddies online information wars". Politico. Retrieved September 5, 2020. Acronym – a sprawling digital organization whose programs include millions of dollars in traditional political advertising and voter engagement efforts, with financing from some of the deepest pockets in progressive politics, such as liberal billionaires Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and Laurene Powell Jobs, the majority owner of The Atlantic – has stirred outrage and provoked debate about the ethics of such political tactics