Steve Jobs’ Humble Home

Everyone knows that the late Steve Jobs wasn’t driven by money. By most accounts, he shunned big purchases for himself (except for a bicycle). At this year’s AllThingsD conference, his best friend, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, said this about Jobs:

“He wasn’t trying to be rich. He wasn’t trying to be famous. He wasn’t trying to be powerful. He was obsessed with the creative process and building something that was beautiful.”

I’m reminded about Jobs’ unusual, simple lifestyle this week after a thief robbed his Palo Alto home while it was under construction. The thief had hopped a fence after the construction crew left, found a spare key, and stole some Apple gear, Jobs’ wallet, jewelry, a Ninja blender, Dr. Dre headphones, a soda maker and other stuff.

(Apple investigators and the police caught up with the thief after he connected some of the stolen Apple gear to his iTunes account and was identified.)

It’s not so much the things the thief took that got to me, rather it was the pictures of the Palo Alto home that news accounts ran with the story. Yes, this was the home of the richest, most powerful CEO in the world:

In comparison, check out Ellison’s Woodside Japanese-styled home and, second below, his Malibu home with a trolley (see red arrow).

For good measure, this week also saw Zynga CEO Mark Pincus purchase a $16 million Pacific Heights mansion, despite San Francisco-based Zynga’s stock tanking 70 percent since its IPO in December.

Here it is: