Meet investor Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire widow of Steve Jobs who has reportedly become a close confidant for Kamala Harris

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on Wall Street for Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.

It turned out to be a guest lecture by Jobs.

“This was 1989,” Powell Jobs told Isaacson. “He was working at NeXT, and he was not that big of a deal to me. I wasn’t that enthused, but my friend was, so we went.”

Jobs ended up sitting next to his future wife: “I looked to my right, and there was a beautiful girl there, so we started chatting while I was waiting to be introduced,” he said in the biography.

Powell Jobs joked that she was sitting up front because she’d won a raffle and the prize included a dinner with Jobs.

Jobs finished the lecture and chased after his future wife, who had already walked out of the hall. He found Powell Jobs in the parking lot and asked her about the raffle. She agreed to go to dinner with him on that Saturday, and they exchanged numbers.

Other famous guests at the hotel over the years have included the late Queen Elizabeth II and former presidents John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.

Her stake in Disney initially made her the company’s largest individual shareholder, but in 2017, she reduced her ownership to 4%.

The pair sold Basmati rice platters and burritos with black bean dressing to white-collar workers in office parks. “We just wanted to offer a convenient way for them to eat healthy food,” Powell Jobs told the Chicago Tribune in 1992.

She later backed away from Terravera to focus on her volunteer work tutoring underprivileged students in East Palo Alto.

The Emerson Collective makes grants and investments that focus on immigration, environment, journalism, gun violence reduction, race and equity, and education, according to its website.

It’s a private company rather than a traditional nonprofit and has funded several startups. The Washington Post has described it as a “kind of Justice League of practical progressives.”

That venture aims to transform education by revamping how high schools approach curriculum. Powell Jobs is the chairwoman of XQ’s board of directors.

Powell Jobs has also served on the board of several other organizations, including Teach for America, Conservation International, and the New America Foundation.

She scrapped the venture when Wieseltier’s former colleagues at The New Republic came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against him in October 2017.

The Collective purchased television ads attacking former President Donald Trump’s decision to rescind DACA in 2017.

In 2003, she donated $500 to Harris’ first run for district attorney, and, for over the past 20 years, the two have reportedly cultivated a close relationship, The New York Times reported. Powell Jobs was one of about 60 people to attend Harris’ wedding to Douglas Emhoff in 2014, and later invited Harris to her son Reed’s wedding, according to the Times.

The two have also reportedly gone on personal trips together and have been spotted at various restaurants together including Nobu Malibu and Quince, located in San Francisco.

A spokesperson for Powell Jobs declined to comment on the NYT report when contacted by Business Insider.

She donated more than $600,000 to efforts to elect Biden.

However, following his disastrous June debate against former President Donald Trump, Powell Jobs reportedly expressed concern over whether Biden would be able to win the election. She, among others, reportedly offered guidance to Harris, who would eventually take Biden’s spot in the presidential race.

She met with then-President Donald Trump to discuss the topics in March 2017.

In 2018, she bought a $16.5 million home in San Francisco that boasts six bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, and incredible views of the city.

Over the years, she’s owned three other homes in the Bay Area, including a 5,768-square-foot house she shared with her late husband. She puts on elaborate Halloween shows in front of the houses each year that attract as many as 3,000 people. In 2019, the event was called “Fog Town” and featured a jack-o’-lantern tower and professional lighting, actors, and special effects.

In 2024, Powell Jobs spent $70 million on a home in San Francisco in an off-market deal, making it the most expensive ever purchased in the city, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the deal.

The yacht cost at least $110 million to build and was commissioned by Jobs but completed after he died.

It’s been spotted in places like Göcek, Turkey; Milos, Greece; and Brijuni, Croatia.

Besides sailing, some of Powell Jobs’ other hobbies include art collecting and beekeeping.

“I’m very aware of the fact that we’re all just passing through here,” Powell Jobs told The Washington Post in 2018. “I feel like I’m hitting my stride now … It is my goal to effectively deploy resources. If there’s nothing left when I die, that’s just fine.”

In an interview with The New York Times in 2020, she shared similar sentiments.

“I’m not interested in legacy wealth buildings, and my children know that,” Powell Jobs told The Times. “Steve wasn’t interested in that. If I live long enough, it ends with me.”