Reed Jobs, eldest son of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, is stepping into the spotlight. The 31-year-old is launching Yosemite, a venture capital firm to invest in new cancer treatments, New York Times' Dealbook reported. He was inspired by his father to start the fund after the Apple co-founder died from complications of pancreatic cancer in 2011, he told the outlet.
"My father got diagnosed with cancer when I was 12," Mr Jobs told DealBook in his first interview with a news organisation. This led him to begin focusing on oncology, starting with a summer internship at Stanford when he was 15, he revealed.
According to New York Times, so far, Yosemite - named after the national park where his parents got married - has raised $200 million dollars through investments from medical institutions like Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University, and M.I.T, as well as from venture capitalist John Doerr.
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Reed Jobs' latest business venture will build on his previous work as a managing director at the Emerson Collective, the mission-driven corporation founded by his mother.
The firm will incorporate a dual structure model of a for-profit business and a donor-advised fund, which will provide grants to scientists, who can then use the grants for their research and then go back to Yosemite for venture funding.
According to Times, Mr Jobs said that his new role at his firm will help scientists build and focus their research. "I had never ever wanted to be a venture capitalist," he said. "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 31-year-old added.
