it open. In a few years, he had spent $ 50 million. In 1988, he funded the production of Tin Toy, one of the company’ s earliest computer animated films. According to Young and Simon,“ It was a pivotal moment in Pixar’ s history.” 47 Tin Toy would go on to win an Oscar for the best animated short film and would be the inspiration for Pixar’ s first full-length movie, Toy Story. But those successes were still in the future.
Ups and Downs at Home
Steve’ s personal life was also having its ups and downs. In 1986, his mother Clara Jobs died of cancer. His father had died years earlier. His mother’ s death hit Steve hard. He found that working helped him deal with his grief.
At the same time, new people were entering his life. He had accepted his daughter Lisa into his life and was on amiable terms with Chris-Ann. His long-term search for his birth parents led him to Joanne Simpson, his birth mother, and his sister Mona Simpson, with whom he became quite close.
In 1989, he met Laurene Powell at a lecture he gave at Stanford University, where she was a graduate student studying business administration. Jobs was immediately struck by Powell’ s beauty and made a point of speaking to her. He found that she was as intelligent as she was attractive, and she was a vegetarian, like Jobs. The two hit it off immediately.“ We walked into town,” Jobs explains describing their first date.“ And we’ ve been together ever since.” 48
The couple was married in a Buddhist ceremony in Yosemite National Park on March 18, 1991. The wedding was like Jobs, unconventional and informal. The couple’ s first child, Reed, a son named after Reed College, was born in September 1991. Two daughters followed, Erin in 1995 and Eve in 1998. Jobs had finally become a traditional family man, and he loved it. He could often be seen in-line skating with Lisa, playing ball with Reed, or pushing a baby carriage around the home in Palo Alto where the Jobs family lived.
Down but Not Out 65