California, USA – John Warnock, one of the co-founders of global computer software company Adobe, has passed away at the age of 82, the company has publicly announced. Warnock was one of the company’s co-founders alongside Charles Geschke. Together they founded Adobe in 1982.
In a publicly-released letter by current Adobe chair and CEO Shantanu Narayen, he said that Warnock’s passing has been a sad day for the Adobe community and the industry for which he has been an inspiration for decades.
“While the impact that his innovations have had are countless, it is his indomitable spirit, passion and belief in building a company with strong values that has impacted all of us who have had the good fortune of working at Adobe. John was incredibly insightful on which technologies would delight customers as well as create business value,” he said.
He also added, “As I reflect on this loss that will leave a huge void in our lives, I think back to a few months ago when I saw John for the 30th anniversary of Acrobat. After the event, where we celebrated the impact of Acrobat and PDF on the world of communication, we talked about the potential of Firefly to transform the next generation of creative technology. With a twinkle in his eye, he said that he was amazed with the progress and as always had feedback on how we could make it better.”
When Warnock and Geschke founded the company, their first product was Adobe PostScript, which helped spark the desktop publishing revolution.
Warnock retired as CEO in 2000 and he was chairman of the board, a position he shared with Geschke until 2017. He was a member of the board of directors at Adobe since then.
