Reed Jobs's Yosemite closes $350 million fund to make cancer non-lethal

Jobs, the son of Steve Jobs, began working in cancer laboratories as a teenager when his father fell ill; Steve Jobs died in 2011. Yosemite was founded in 2023 after spinning out of Laurene Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective. Its first fund closed in 2024 at $263 million.

Jobs says he does not think cancer can be cured. “I don't think you'll cure cancer because we're human,” he said, noting that any human cell could become cancerous. He points to AIDS as a guide, saying it has become “a far less scary disease now in the United States because it's non-lethal,” and that a cocktail of drugs can prevent mortality. “That's what I want for cancer patients,” he said.

The new fund grew from a $200 million first close in January. Its LPs include Amgen, AbbVie, MIT, Memorial Sloan Kettering and venture capitalist John Doerr.

Yosemite combines traditional venture investing, with early stakes aimed at venture-scale returns, with philanthropic grants to scientists. “With philanthropy, we can fail really cheaply,” said Jobs. “What we've learned is that we can test new ideas really quickly and cheaply in universities with grants.”

Jobs said he does not think a company alone is going to make cancer non-lethal. He thinks it will be a consortium of things and a really long push, probably cancer by cancer, more likely than not.

Jobs said scientific advances over the past three years, including in GLP-1s, immunotherapy and vaccines, as well as advances against pancreatic cancer, have been, in his words, “titanic for the industry.” Asked what advice his father would offer, he said he thought his father would say to “stay on the path,” adding: “This is a long-term play that's going to take my whole life.”