By Stephen Council Aug 1, 2023 (SFGate.com)
FILE: Reed Jobs and his mother, Laurene Powell Jobs, greet former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Stanford University on March 23, 2016.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Reed Jobs, the 31-year-old son of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, is leading a new venture capital firm in San Francisco that will focus on investing in cancer treatments.
The North Beach-based company, called Yosemite, has already raised more than $200 million, according to a news release. Yosemite is a spinoff from the advocacy and philanthropy company Emerson Collective, founded and run by Powell Jobs and based in Palo Alto. Reed Jobs has worked at Emerson for eight years and is bringing three members of the firm’s health investments team to Yosemite, according to a May filing reported by The Information. Jobs’ father died of complications from pancreatic cancer in 2011 at the age of 56.
Reed Jobs told the New York Times that Yosemite will both run a for-profit investment business and a science grant fund that manages benefactors’ gifts. Jobs told the paper he “never ever wanted to be a venture capitalist,” but joined his mother’s company after graduating from Stanford in 2015 and ended up leading the health care division as it invested in health technology startups and provided grants.
Steve Jobs had three children with Powell Jobs — the couple got married at Yosemite National Park’s Ahwahnee Hotel in 1991. The technologist left the bulk of his fortune to Powell Jobs, whose net worth is estimated at about $10 billion.
Yosemite, the firm, raised money from billionaire Bay Area investor John Doerr, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among others, the New York Times reported. The company will work out of a headquarters at 901 Battery St.
In a statement, Jobs said, “We believe this first close demonstrates investor confidence in Yosemite’s strategy of building new companies, trust in our extensive grantee and institutional network, and value in our combined experience in shepherding new transformational cancer treatments.”
Hear of anything happening at Yosemite? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
Stephen Council is the tech reporter at SFGATE. He has covered technology and business for The Information, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and CalMatters, where his reporting won a San Francisco Press Club award. Signal: 628-204-5452 Email: stephen.council@sfgate.com
