30 Fascinating Things Everyone Should Know About Laurene Powell Jobs

27 February 2019, 8:24 pm EST By Ruby Karnick

Laurene Powell Jobs, the founder of Emerson Collective, immensely popular for her philanthropic acts, is known to have a very kind heart and down to earth nature. She is the widow of co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs. Here are some really interesting things to know about the American businesswoman:

She is the second largest shareholder of Monumental Sports & Entertainment that includes the NBA's Washington Wizards, NHL's Washington Capitals, and Capital One Arena, only after chairman Ted Leonsis.
Since 2013, she has been constantly listed as one among the "Most Powerful Woman in the World," by Forbes magazine.
She founded the Emerson Collective, an organization that spearheads several social and advocacy projects, including campaigns that support DACA and Dreamers.
She co-founded Terravera, a natural foods company, with a focus on developing organic raw materials such as grains and oilseeds that were sold to retailers throughout Northern California, in the early 1990s, but had to step down from her position, in order to raise her family.
She and her family was ranked at #40 in the Forbes' annual list of the world's billionaires, as of 2018, and Powell Jobs was named as the richest woman in the technology industry, in the same list.
She served on the board of directors of Achieva that created online tools to help students study and be more effective at standardized testing.
Powell Jobs, along with Carlos Watson co-founded College Track, a nonprofit organization, which focuses on improving high school graduation, college enrollment, and college graduation rates for "underserved" students.
She launched a $50 million project, XQ: The Super School Project,, with the aim to create high schools with new approaches to education in September 2015.
She also serves as one of the board of directors of College Track, Conservation International, and Stanford University.
She, alongside Michael Bloomberg and Ray Dalio, is also a founding member of the Climate Leadership Council, a public policy think tank, founded by the American public speaker Ted Halstead.

Laurene Powell was born on November 6, 1963 in West Milford, New Jersey. Her father was a pilot, who died in a plane collision, when she was just three years old.
Following her father's death, her mother reportedly remarried. She has two siblings - Brad Powell and Tracy Powell.
She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences, while simultaneously earning a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the year 1985.
She attended Stanford Graduate School of Business, graduating with a M.B.A. in the year 1991.
Before getting her M.B.A., Powell Jobs worked for Merrill Lynch Asset Management. She later joined as a fixed income trading strategist at Goldman Sachs, serving for three years till 1988.
It was during her time at Stanford, that she met Steve Jobs, in a “View From the Top” lecture in October 1989. She has reportedly snuck to the front of the lecture and started conversing with the man next to her, who was Jobs, the guest lecturer.
The same day, was their first date, as Jobs skipped an important business dinner to take Powell out for dinner, and have reportedly been together since then.
According to Jobs’s biography, he asked her out for dinner in the parking lot of Stanford, after thinking "If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman?"
Two years later, the duo married on March 18, 1991 at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, with Kobun Chino Otogaw, a Zen Buddhist monk presiding over the wedding ceremony.
The duo have three children - a son Reed - born in September 1991, two daughters - Erin in 1995 and Eve in 1998. She is also the stepmother of Lisa Brennan-Jobs born in 1978, through Jobs's previous relationship with Chrisann Brennan.

Following Steve Jobs's death on October 5, 2011, due to complications from a relapse of his previously treated islet-cell neuroendocrine pancreatic cancer, she inherited the Steven P. Jobs Trust that comprised of a 7.3% stake in The Walt Disney Company and 38.5 million shares of Apple Inc.
With the 64.3 million shares of Disney, which she inherited after her husband's death, Powell Jobs was the company's largest single shareholder until early 2017, when she reduced her shares by half.
She is currently said to be involved in a romantic relationship with former Washington, D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty, since August 2013, whom she met when he joined the board of College Track.
She owns a $100 million, 265-foot yacht named Venus, which was commissioned by Steve Jobs in 2008, but wasn’t finished until 2012. She recently took it Croatia, with her boyfriend Adrian Fenty.
She and her organization Emerson Collective were reportedly planning a partnership with writer Leon Wieseltier, for a new magazine Idea, but Powell Jobs ended the partnership prematurely, after learning of Wieseltier's "past inappropriate work conduct."
She bought a three-acre Malibu estate for $44 million in June 2015, from entrepreneur Jack Ryan, who reportedly tore down the main house to build a Colonial-style mansion, but unfortunately didn't finish it.
She has also reportedly submitted a proposal in March 2016 to build the dream house her late husband in Woodside, California, who tore down the Jackling House, but died before he could submit plans and begin construction.
Her organization Emerson Collective reportedly acquired a majority of ownership of The Atlantic, an American magazine, on July 28, 2017.
She also serves as one of the members of the chairman's advisory board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
She is said to have been partnering with Concordia Studio to create documentaries with Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning filmmaker.