Steve Jobs was one of the greatest minds of our time who played a pivotal role in shaping the landscape of the tech world as we know it. There are countless interesting stories from Jobs’ relatively short life and many of them are beautifully captured in his autobiography by Walter Isaacson. This particular plane is about a private plane that transported the star of the world of technology to different parts of the world until his last days. It was 1997 when Steve Jobs was asked to return to Apple after being unceremoniously fired in 1985 from the company he co-founded. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy and Jobs was given an unimaginable task to save it from eminent collapse. Jobs became the architect of one of the greatest corporate turnarounds in history. In less than three years, he not only managed to save the sinking ship, but turned it into an entity that was destined to become the largest brand in the world.
In 1997, Jobs returned to Apple as a temporary CEO with a nominal salary of $ 1 per year. Within two years, the company had already returned to the path of profitability. By the time the world entered the new millennium, Apple had already set new sales records by shipping an unprecedented number of computers. The board was clearly grateful and wanted to reward Jobs handsomely for engineering this amazing turnaround. He officially became CEO of the company in January 2000.
While he continued to receive a salary of $1 per year as president of Apple, he was rewarded with 10 million stock options and a new $45 million private jet (total cost to Apple: $88 million). An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2009 revealed that it was a requirement that Jobs had made himself. The report cites Larry Ellison, “He pitched the idea: ‘What I really need is a plane where I can take my family to Hawaii on vacation, go to the East Coast. ‘ And the board agreed.” Larry reportedly responded to the request by saying, “With what he’s done, We should give him five planes!”
The business jet Steve Jobs received as a reward for his contributions was the Gulfstream GV.
It is a long-range, full-size jet, produced by Gulfstream Aerospace between 1997 and 2002, before being replaced by the improved G600. The aircraft has a range of 6,500 nm (about 7,500 miles), a top speed of Mach 0.885 (about 60 mph), and a flight of up to 51,000 feet. Reports indicate that Jobs spent more than a year customizing the aircraft’s interior, with the help of Apple’s chief design officer Jony Ive, who is best known for crafting the designs of some of Apple’s most iconic products. Isaacson’s biography indicates that Jobs used Ellison’s Gulfstream as a starting point and made a number of improvements. “I looked at his plane and mine, and everything he’d changed was better,” Ellison said.
The goal of Gulfstream GV was to help Jobs juggle his two jobs (CEO of Apple and Pixar Inc.) and his family. He used the plane extensively to line up major deals. According to a report before Forbes, the plane came to his rescue when he had to cut short his vacation in Hawaii and return to California to handle a botched iPhone 4 launch. Apple agreed to reimburse Jobs for his plane’s operating expenses when using the plane. Attending business related to the company. According to SEC filings, the tech giant paid him $202,000 in 2006, $776,000 in 2007, $871,000 in 2008, $4,000 in 2009, and $248,000 in 2010. He was beaten in that year and was on extended medical leave, which drastically curtailed company-funded travel.
Jony Ive bought the plane for a fraction of the price
If you thought Elon Musk was the only billionaire bothered by live tracking of his private jet, you’d be wrong. Jobs had officially banned public tracking of his aircraft by the Federal Aviation Administration. Not much information is available about the Gulfstream GV after his death, but there is a report that it was purchased at a deep discount by Jony Ive from Laurene Powell Jobs. Johnny reportedly joked to a friend that “at least I don’t have to redesign anything”. It is also believed that the British designer kept the live tracking block in place. However, according to the aircraft’s registration documents, the twin-engine aircraft was purchased by a Bank of Utah trustee in 2011 and she still owns it. The serial number of the aircraft was also changed in 2014. However, it is a piece of history that must be preserved.