Steve Jobs' Hawaii Vacation

I've previously noted hints that Steve Jobs is a fan of the Aloha State, including shout-outs in the historic iPhone launch and an iPhone television ad. But it seems the Apple CEO is a bit more low-key when he's actually in the islands. Fortune magazine today released a great question-and-answer interview with Jobs (published on the heels of a separate piece titled 'The Trouble with Steve Jobs'), but notes in its setup that he "talked with Fortune senior editor Betsy Morris in February in Kona, Hawaii, where he was vacationing with his family."

I guess the rapidly growing population of paparazzi here was too busy chasing down the likes of Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson. Or perhaps Jobs is able to render himself invisible by merely wearing something other than a black turtleneck? Just as well, though. The guy deserves a break now and then.

Jobs has at least one other prominent memory anchored in the islands. In a January 1997 interview with the New York Times Magazine, Jobs recalls vacationing in Hawaii two years prior with Larry Ellison, co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation. Jobs (who had left Apple in 1985) and Ellison were mulling a takeover bid for Apple, and had amassed nearly $3 billion to do it. Jobs called it off, however. Apple bought Jobs' company, NeXT, in 1996, and the rest is history.