It’s been almost 12 years since Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer at age 56. Now, his son Reed is launching a venture capital firm that will specialize in raising funds for cancer research.
The firm is named Yosemite, after the national park where Steve and Laurene Powell Jobs got married. It will be a branch of the Emerson Collective, a firm that Laurene founded in 2004 that invests in and lobbies for reforms in education, the environment, health and social justice causes. Reed Jobs already serves as the managing director for health at the Emerson Collective.
So far, the new firm has brought in $200 million in funding to research new cancer treatments.
“My dad succumbed to cancer when I was in college at Stanford,” Reed Jobs told the New York Times. “Just completely candidly, it was really difficult after he passed away.”
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Reed Jobs, who is now 31, was just 12 when his dad received the cancer diagnosis, and the news led him to pursue the study of oncology at Stanford.
“I was pre-med because I really wanted to be a doctor and cure people myself,” he told the publication.
Later, he changed his major to history and pursued other options, but eventually, he returned to his focus on health. In his role at the Emerson Collective, he has offered grants to research labs and invested in health-related companies.
“I had never ever wanted to be a venture capitalist,” Jobs told the New York Times. “But I realized that when you’re actually incubating something and putting it together, you can make a tremendous difference in what assets are part of that, what direction it’s going to take, and what the scientific focus is going to be.”
The firm will offer donor-funded grants to scientists as well as run a for-profit, venture capital business in the area of cancer research.
What a great way to honor his late father’s memory while making a tangible impact in the world!
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