Steve Jobs died in October 2011, so the question what is Steve Jobs networth refers to what he held at the time of his death and what that wealth became. Forbes estimated that at his death he was worth about seven billion dollars, a figure that has been widely cited ever since.
What is Steve Jobs networth? The surprise is it was not mostly Apple
Many people assume most of his fortune came from his Apple shares. In fact, the largest portion came from the Walt Disney Company. When Disney bought Pixar in 2006 in a deal valued at around 7.4 billion dollars in stock, Jobs, who was Pixar’s majority shareholder, received roughly 7 percent of Disney, which made him its largest individual shareholder. That stake was worth more than his Apple shares for years.
His Apple holdings
After returning to Apple in 1997, when Apple bought his company NeXT, he took a salary of one dollar a year. Instead of cash pay he held a modest number of Apple shares, a bit over five million, which was a small percentage of the company, and he received stock options in later years. Even a small stake in Apple became very valuable as the company grew with the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
Pixar
He bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm in 1986 for 5 million dollars and put in a further 5 million to turn it into Pixar. After Toy Story in 1995 and the company’s IPO the same year, the value grew sharply. That is what eventually gave him the Disney shares.
What happened to the wealth
His widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, inherited the bulk of his estate, and she has become a prominent philanthropist and investor. She founded the Emerson Collective, a social impact organization, and she holds a large stake in Disney and other assets. Forbes has listed her on its billionaire ranking in recent years with a fortune in the tens of billions of dollars.
Why the number is still discussed
A fortune of about seven billion at death is small compared with some of today’s tech founders, but he accomplished it with comparatively little stock in Apple. It shows how a founder who takes a symbolic salary can still end up wealthy through equity in the right companies.
Common misunderstandings
He was not paid millions in salary
Public records show his salary was one dollar, although he received an aircraft and large stock grants over time.
Apple did not make him a billionaire alone
Pixar and the Disney shares were the larger share.
The seven billion was an estimate
Forbes arrived at it from public filings and valuations, not from private accounts.
How to cite it
Write: “Forbes estimated Steve Jobs’s net worth at about seven billion dollars at the time of his death in 2011.” It is short, sourced and dated.
Questions people ask
How did he become rich so early?
He became wealthy when Apple went public in 1980 at a young age, long before he was forced out in 1985.
Did he donate a lot?
He was less publicly associated with philanthropy than some contemporaries, but his widow has been active since.
Who owns his Apple shares now?
Information on specific holdings is in public filings and has changed since his death.
What his fortune says about equity
The Jobs story is often told as proof of the power of ownership. A person who accepts a token salary and holds shares can end up far better off than a person who negotiates a huge paycheck, provided the company succeeds. That is not advice to anyone, because it only works when the business works, and many founders never see that outcome. But it explains why economists distinguish between income and wealth. His annual income on paper was tiny. His wealth was in the billions, because the shares he held in two businesses rose in value over many years. When you describe his net worth, it is more accurate to say that it was built by equity in Pixar and Apple, and then converted to Disney shares, than to say that he earned it by working at Apple.
Where to check for updates
Apple’s old proxy statements and Disney’s filings from 2006 and after show the share counts, and Forbes’ 2011 reporting explains how it reached the seven billion figure. Those are better than copying a number from a general website.
*For information only, not financial advice. Figures are estimates.*
More like this: browse our Celebrity Net Worth section. For background, see the Wikipedia entry.
