Upon his untimely passing last year to pancreatic cancer, it was no secret that Steve Jobs died a wealthy man. Depending on which source you read, his net worth was said to have been in the region of seven billion dollars. Yet, the former CEO of the world’s valuable company was never renowned for living lavishly. At keynote speeches, a bespectacled Jobs was seen in Levi Strauss 501 jeans, a polo neck, and New Balance trainers, so it may come as something of a surprise that he commissioned the building of a yacht in Amsterdam. As reported by Reuters today however, said yacht Steve Jobs has now been impounded in the Dutch capital, with designer Philippe Starck claiming he has not been paid all of his dues.
Starck’s legal team is reported to be seeking 3 million euros outstanding from the 9 million euro he was meant to be compensated with for his work on the yacht, and as of Wednesday evening, the yacht has been impounded. It will remain docked at an Amsterdam port until representatives of the late, great Jobs’ estate come up with the cash.
According to a lawyer involved in the case, the project has been in motion for over five years, and because most of the contract was verbal / trust-based, the contract is apparently not particularly detailed. Apparently, the boat itself is worth an eye-watering 105 million euros which, according to Google’s exchange rate calculator, is around $138 million.
Jobs, from what we learn of him in the Isaacson biography, seemed to grow out of his extravagant ways after experiencing wealth in his early twenties, so one has to wonder what his intentions were in respect to the yacht. Perhaps, after a long battle with the illness which eventually took his life, he planned to take things easy and enjoy a well-earned retirement.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be, and like so many millions of folks worldwide, he had his time cut short by the Big C. The fact that there are currently two movies in production about his life and achievements is a testament to just how significant he was in shaping the technology of today, and his legacy lives on in the products he helped design.
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