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Silicon Valley 'Coach' Bill Campbell, Adviser to Jobs and Page, Dies

Silicon Valley veteran Bill Campbell, who advised tech leaders including Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, died Monday after a long battle with cancer.
Bill Campbell, chairman of the board and former CEO of Intuit Inc., speaks during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 in San Francisco
Bill Campbell, chairman of the board and former chief executive of Intuit Inc., smiles as he moderates a fireside chat with Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz during day one of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 event at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse in San Francisco, California September 10, 2012. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
/ Source: Reuters

Silicon Valley veteran Bill Campbell, who advised tech leaders including Apple's Steve Jobs and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, died on Monday after a long battle with cancer, his family said.

Bill Campbell, chairman of the board and former CEO of Intuit Inc., speaks during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 in San Francisco
Bill Campbell, chairman of the board and former chief executive of Intuit Inc., smiles as he moderates a fireside chat with Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz during day one of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012 event at the San Francisco Design Center Concourse in San Francisco, California September 10, 2012. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

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. 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.

Technology news website Re/code first reported the death.

"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.