Steve Jobs

By Tom Kirvan

The co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs was 36 years old when he was wed on March 18, 1991 to Laurene Powell in a Buddhist ceremony at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, California.

The couple first met two years earlier when Jobs was giving a lecture at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where Powell was pursuing an MBA. Jobs reportedly skipped out on a business meeting to take Powell on a dinner-date instead that eventually led to 20 years of marriage that abruptly ended when he died of pancreatic cancer in 2011 at the age of 56.

Jobs, who earned a reputation as one of the foremost visionaries in the tech world, framed his first date with Powell in simple terms.

“I was in the parking lot, with the key in the car, and I thought to myself, ‘If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting, or with this woman?’” Jobs said in his biography.

Steve Jobs*

The answer was clear, as was his role in building Apple into a powerhouse, as he led the development of such products as the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Apple is now the largest company in the world by market capitalization with a value of more than $3.5 trillion.

A pioneer of the personal computer revolution, Jobs helped launch the desktop publishing industry and often spoke about wanting to “put a ding in the universe.” His presentations, known as “Stevenotes,” were must-see Apple events.

Some of his memorable sayings:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of other opinions drown out your inner voice.”
“Older people sit down and ask, ‘What is it?’ but the boy asks, ‘What can I do with it?’”
“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”
“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”

*Matthew Yohe, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons