According to Reuters, Silicon Valley veteran Bill Campbell, who advised tech leaders including Apple’s Steve Jobs and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, passed on yesterday after a long battle with cancer, his family said.
Campbell was chief executive of tax software maker Intuit Inc from 1994 to 1998 and again for a few months until January 2000. He retired in January this year as the company’s chairman, a post he had held since 1998.
He has served on a number of boards, including Apple Inc. Campbell, known as “The Coach”, had served on Apple’s board for 17 years, before stepping down in 2014.
A statement from his family said he passed away in his sleep.
“He helped us build Google and in countless ways made our success possible,” Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc, said in a post.
“His contribution to the success of Google and now Alphabet is incalculable,” Schmidt said.
“Just hearing the news about Bill Campbell. Horrible. Called me on my last day at Twitter & had both the funniest & most insightful comments,” former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo tweeted.
Just hearing the news about Bill Campbell. Horrible. Called me on my last day at Twitter & had both the funniest & most insightful comments
— dick costolo (@dickc) April 18, 2016
