On Her Own: How Laurene Powell Jobs is Also Revolutionizing the World During every new Apple product unveiling, Laurene Powell Jobs was seen with her husband Steve Jobs, always supportive of his work as he was of hers. However, the one thing Powell has never done was use her husband’s popularity to increase her cause. She’s always been self-driven and ambitious in her endeavors. In September 1997, with Steve barely a year-returned to Apple and preparing to release the soft-colored iMacs, Powell was starting College Track with Carlos Watson, a businessman and future television host and journalist. The aim of College Track was simple — target students in under-resourced areas before high school and provide them with tutoring, and other educational resources to help them graduate high school and earn a college degree. And all of it is operated as a non-profit institution. Since its inception, the program has flourished. In over 17 years, it has helped over 2,000 students, with 93 percent of them gaining college acceptance at a 4-year college. It’s also helped low-income students achieve high-school graduation rates 2.5 times that of the national average. College Track is representative of her drive, of her philanthropic purpose. If there were words to describe those she wants to help the most, they would be “under-resourced,” “under-represented,” and, “underprivileged.” She has taken her money, estimated at $11.7 billion worth by Forbes, and funneled it into immigration reform startups. She’s pledged millions to FWD.us, an immigration reform movement spearheaded by Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Powell has also worked with filmmaker, David Guggenheim, to produce the film, “The Dream is Now,” a documentary on immigrants in the U.S. that faced obstacles towards citizenship despite their academic and personal success. She then took that film to Washington to show before Congress and to support The DREAM Act, and Congress listened.
She’s become a respected visitor, a revered voice on Capitol Hill. Throughout the years she has asked for appointments and meetings with members of Congress, such as Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Powell often seeks out Republicans because she knows that if she wants progress, she needs the people most opposed to the legislation to pledge support. Powell presents herself as straightforward and unabashed. While contact senators on both sides of party lines in Congress, she openly donates money to Ready for Hillary, a super PAC supporting a presidential run for Hillary Clinton. And although Powell is the top contributor, the super PAC has picked up steam, raising over $2 million in the three months preceding October 2014. If having her voice heard in Congress wasn’t enough, Powell has used her experience as a CEO to fund Ozy Magazine, an online magazine designed inversely to the mainstream media. It aims to cover news from the world and feed it objectively. In just two years, the magazine has competed for attention from other big sites such as BuzzFeed, Business Insider, the Huffington Post, and Fusion. In September of 2014, it announced another $20 million in financing. And she’s produced all of this without using her late-husband’s name to increase her visibility. Yes, while it’s true that her marriage and co-founding of Apple helped elevate her to her current position and granted her far more opportunities than others may have, it’s also true that it’s her mind, her independence, and her ambition that have commanded all of her endeavors.