Steve Jobs Can't Make It after Eight-year Battle with Pancreatic Cancer

At the time, the billionaire could barely walk and photographs of him looking gaunt and frail led to reports that he just had weeks to live. But he fought back and appeared to be relishing proving the doubters wrong by introducing the second-generation iPad and meeting up with President Obama to discuss the future of the tech industry.

Other than his well-rehearsed stage appearances to launch the latest Apple innovation, Jobs always treasured his privacy. He survived surgery to remove a cancerous pancreatic tumour in 2004 and a liver transplant in 2009.

As CEO he earned only $1 a year, but he held 5,426 million Apple shares as well as 138 million shares in Disney. His wealth is estimated at more than $5billion.

With his trademark jeans and casual jumper, he became synonymous with the company’s every innovation in recent years, from the iPod through to the iPhone and iPad.

Born in San Francisco, Mr Jobs, who was adopted, dropped out of university after one term and only took his first computer job to raise money to go on a spiritual retreat to India.

He returned a Buddhist with his head shaved and admitted experimenting with LSD, calling his drug-induced experiences ‘one of the two or three most important things’ he had done in his life.

He returned to northern California to work for computer firm Atari before founding Apple in his garage in 1976 with friends Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne and Mike Makkula.

After a power struggle in 1985, he left the company, only to return eleven years later to launch the company’s extraordinary growth over the past fourteen years. He leaves a wife, a son and two daughters.