Meet Steve Jobs’ 4 kids and widow, Laurene Powell Jobs: the late Apple billionaire is survived by his model daughter Eve, author Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the ‘quiet’ Erin Siena, and investor son Reed
Steve Jobs is arguably the most influential tech leader in the history of modern computing.
In 1976, after he dropped out of university, Jobs co-founded Apple with his high-school friend, Steve Wozniak, while they were still in their 20s, according to Steve Jobs, a biography by Walter Isaacson.
Jobs helped turn Apple from a makeshift computer manufacturer housed inside his parents’ garage to a global tech giant now worth more than US$2 trillion.
Jobs was also the father of four children. He had his oldest, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, with his high-school girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan. Later, he had Reed, Erin and Eve Jobs with his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs.
Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, and died eight years later at 56, ABC News reported, leaving most his fortune to Powell Jobs.
She does not plan to share her inheritance with her children. “I’m not interested in legacy wealth buildings,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. “Steve wasn’t interested in that,” she told the Times. “If I live long enough, it ends with me.”
While Jobs’ children have largely pursued careers outside tech, from modelling to writing, it’s likely their family name contributed to their success.
Meet Jobs’ four children and his widow Laurene, and see how his legacy helped his loved ones succeed.
Laurene Powell Jobs, 59
Laurene inherited most of Steve’s fortune when he died in 2011 – including his lucrative stakes in Apple and Disney.
Today, her net worth is estimated at US$12.8 billion, per Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
Laurene first met Steve when she was an MBA student at Stanford in 1989, according to Isaacson’s biography.
During their marriage, the couple had three children: Reed, Erin and Eve.
Since Steve’s death, Laurene has been active in philanthropy and founded Emerson Collective in 2004 as a “social change organisation”.
She has served on the boards of several non-profits, including Teach for America and Conservation International, and has made donations to members of the Democratic Party.
“I inherited my wealth from my husband, who didn’t care about the accumulation of wealth. I am doing this in honour of his work, and I’ve dedicated my life to doing the very best I can to distribute it effectively, in ways that lift up individuals and communities in a sustainable way,” she told The New York Times in 2020.
Lisa Brennan-Jobs, 45
Even though Lisa Brennan-Jobs received millions from her father, The New York Times reported, the black sheep of the Jobs family did not always benefit from her wealthy dad.
Lisa, now 45, is Steve’s first daughter. Her mother, Chrisann Brennan, who is a painter and memoirist, was Steve’s high-school sweetheart.
For years, Steve denied that he was Lisa’s father and provided little financial or emotional support to her and her mother when Apple took off, per The New York Times. As a result, Brennan went on welfare and cleaned houses to support her daughter, according to Vanity Fair.
Despite the initial neglect, Lisa moved in with Steve as a teenager so they could work on their relationship, according to the Times. Still, she said they didn’t spend much time together.
Lisa’s breakthrough as a writer came in 2018 when she published Small Fry, a memoir that dives deep into her tumultuous relationship with her father. In it, she writes about the times he treated her poorly, from initially denying that his Apple Lisa computer was named after her to saying that she smelled “like a toilet”.
Despite all the turmoil, Brennan-Jobs said that she is “grateful” for her upbringing, per the Times.
She is now married to Bill Morein, a Microsoft employee turned tech start-up founder. They have three kids – Morein’s two daughters from a previous relationship and a son they had together, according to the Times.
Reed Jobs, 31
Reed Jobs – named after the university his father attended before dropping out, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography – is the son of Steve and Laurene, born just months after the two got married.
Reed was exposed to his father’s business early on. When he was a senior in high school, his father took him to Hawaii so he could “be in the room with the best people in the world making really tough decisions”, like Apple executives and other high-level tech moguls, per Isaacson’s biography.
“I want you to be in every single one because you’ll learn more in those two days than you would in two years at business school,” Steve said, according to Isaacson.
In 2014, Reed got his bachelor’s degree in history and international security from Stanford University, then stayed for another year to get his master’s in history.
After receiving his master’s degree in 2015, Reed worked at the Emerson Collective – the philanthropic and impact investing organisation his mother founded – as a managing director, leading a team that invests money into cancer research.
In August, Reed announced he is leaving Emerson to start a venture capital fund named Yosemite, where he will continue to lead investments in new cancer treatments.
Erin Siena Jobs, 27
Erin Siena Jobs is the most private of Steve’s children.
The 27-year-old does not appear to have any public profiles on social media, though her younger sister, Eve, posted a picture of her on Instagram for her birthday in 2021.
In Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs, the writer described Erin as “quiet, introspective”.
Erin told Isaacson she sometimes wished she could have more of her father’s attention, but “he does his best to be both a father and the CEO of Apple, and he juggles those pretty well”.
Eve Jobs, 25
Eve Jobs, 25, the youngest of Steve Jobs’ children, is a model and an accomplished equestrian.
In 2020, she started her modelling career with a Glossier ad campaign alongside the Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney and the RuPaul’s Drag Race finalist Naomi Smalls, Vanity Fair reported. Last year, she signed with DNA Model Management – the same agency that represents Kaia Gerber and Emily Ratajkowski – and attended Paris Fashion Week, per Elle Magazine and Vogue.
Before launching a modelling career, Eve attended Stanford University – the same school her brother attended and where her mum got her MBA. She graduated in 2021 after studying science technology and society, Harper’s Bazaar reported.
During her university years, Eve was ranked No 5 on the list of the top 1,000 riders under 25 around the world by Horse Sport in 2019. A year later, she said in an interview with World of Showjumping that “being able to compete in the Olympics and World Equestrian Games would be a dream”.
She is one of many nepo babies to take up horseback riding – from Bill Gates’ daughter to Michael Dell’s. In 2016, her mother bought a US$15 million ranch in Wellington, Florida, where she frequently competes and trains with a top equestrian coach, Missy Clark, as previously reported.
Steve told Isaacson he envisioned his youngest daughter running Apple someday or even becoming president of the United States.
“She’s a pistol and has the strongest will of any kid I’ve ever met,” he told Isaacson.
This article originally appeared on Insider.
