Bill Campbell, mentor to Steve Jobs, other tech CEOs, dies

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Bill Campbell, a former Ivy League football coach who became a management guru for Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and other Silicon Valley luminaries, has died.

After working in marketing and sales at Apple during the 1980s, Campbell joined the company's board in 1997, shortly after Jobs returned as the company's CEO.

Campbell frequently served as Jobs' sounding board during one of the most resounding corporate turnarounds in U.S. history as Apple first redesigned its Mac computer line and then rolled out the iPod, iPhone and iPad to emerge as the world most valuable company.

Prompted by Kleiner Perkins, Campbell worked with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and company co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to help them work out their early differences and eventually forge one of the most successful partnerships in corporate America.

Alphabet, Google's corporate parent, is now the world's second most valuable company, ranking only behind Apple.