Over the last few months, a steady stream of visitors to Palo Alto, Calif., called an old friend’s home number and asked if he was well enough to entertain visitors, perhaps for the last time. 
 
 In February, Steven P. Jobs had learned that, after years of fighting cancer, his time was becoming shorter. He quietly told a few acquaintances, and they, in turn, whispered to others. And so a pilgrimage began. 
 
 The calls trickled in at first. Just a few, then dozens, and in recent weeks, a nearly endless stream of people who wanted a few moments to say goodbye, according to people close to Mr. Jobs. Most were intercepted by his wife, Laurene. She would apologetically explain that he was too tired to receive many visitors. In his final weeks, he became so weak that it was hard for him to walk up the stairs of his own home anymore, she confided to one caller. 
 
 Some asked if they might try again tomorrow. 
 
 Sorry, she replied. He had only so much energy for farewells. The man who valued his privacy almost as much as his ability to leave his mark on the world had decided whom he most needed to see before he left. 
 
 Mr. Jobs spent his final weeks — as he had spent most of his life — in tight control of his choices. He invited a close friend, the physician Dean Ornish, a preventive health advocate, to join him for sushi at one of his favorite restaurants, Jin Sho in Palo Alto. He said goodbye to longtime colleagues including the venture capitalist John Doerr, the Apple board member Bill Campbell and the Disney chief executive Robert A. Iger. He offered Apple’s executives advice on unveiling the iPhone 4S, which occurred on Tuesday. He spoke to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. He started a new drug regime, and told some friends that there was reason for hope. 
 
 But, mostly, he spent time with his wife and children — who will now oversee a fortune of at least $6.5 billion, and, in addition to their grief, take on responsibility for tending to the legacy of someone who was as much a symbol as a man. 
 
 “Steve made choices,” Dr. Ornish said. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ” 
 
 “But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left.” 
 
 In his final months, Mr. Jobs’s home — a large and comfortable but relatively modest brick house in a residential neighborhood — was surrounded by security guards. His driveway’s gate was flanked by two black S.U.V.’s. 
 
 On Thursday, as online eulogies multiplied and the walls of Apple stores in Taiwan, New York, Shanghai and Frankfurt were papered with hand-drawn cards, the S.U.V.’s were removed and the sidewalk at his home became a garland of bouquets, candles and a pile of apples, each with one bite carefully removed. 
 
 “Everyone always wanted a piece of Steve,” said one acquaintance who, in Mr. Jobs’s final weeks, was rebuffed when he sought an opportunity to say goodbye. “He created all these layers to protect himself from the fan boys and other peoples’ expectations and the distractions that have destroyed so many other companies. 
 
 “But once you’re gone, you belong to the world.” 
 
 Mr. Jobs’s biographer, Mr. Isaacson, whose book will be published in two weeks, asked him why so private a man had consented to the questions of someone writing a book. “I wanted my kids to know me,” Mr. Jobs replied, Mr. Isaacson wrote Thursday in an essay on Time.com. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.” 
 
 Because of that privacy, little is known yet of what Mr. Jobs’s heirs will do with his wealth. Unlike many prominent business people, he has never disclosed plans to give large amounts to charity. His shares in Disney, which Mr. Jobs acquired when the entertainment company purchased his animated film company, Pixar, are worth about $4.4 billion. That is double the $2.1 billion value of his shares in Apple, perhaps surprising given that he is best known for the computer company he founded. 
 
 Mr. Jobs’s emphasis on secrecy, say acquaintances, led him to shy away from large public donations. At one point, Mr. Jobs was asked by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates to give a majority of his wealth to philanthropy alongside a number of prominent executives like Mr. Gates and Warren E. Buffett. But Mr. Jobs declined, according to a person with direct knowledge of Mr. Jobs’s decision. 
 
 Now that Mr. Jobs is gone, many people expect that attention will focus on his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, who has largely avoided the spotlight, but is expected to oversee Mr. Jobs’s fortune. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Mrs. Powell Jobs worked in investment banking before founding a natural foods company. She then founded College Track, a program that pairs disadvantaged students with mentors who help them earn college degrees. That has led to some speculation in the philanthropic community that any large charitable contributions might go to education, though no one outside Mr. Jobs’s inner circle is thought to know of the plans. 
 
 Mr. Jobs himself never got a college degree. Despite leaving Reed College after six months, he was asked to give the 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. 
 
 In that address, delivered after Mr. Jobs was told he had cancer but before it was clear that it would ultimately claim his life, Mr. Jobs told his audience that “death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.” 
 
 The benefit of death, he said, is you know not to waste life living someone else’s choices. 
 
 “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” 
 
 In his final months, Mr. Jobs became even more dedicated to such sentiments. “Steve’s concerns these last few weeks were for people who depended on him: the people who worked for him at Apple and his four children and his wife,” said Mona Simpson, Mr. Jobs’s sister. “His tone was tenderly apologetic at the end. He felt terrible that he would have to leave us.” 
 
 As news of the seriousness of his illness became more widely known, Mr. Jobs was asked to attend farewell dinners and to accept various awards. 
 
 He turned down the offers. On the days that he was well enough to go to Apple’s offices, all he wanted afterward was to return home and have dinner with his family. When one acquaintance became too insistent on trying to send a gift to thank Mr. Jobs for his friendship, he was asked to stop calling. Mr. Jobs had other things to do before time ran out. 
 
 “He was very human,” Dr. Ornish said. “He was so much more of a real person than most people know. That’s what made him so great.” ||||| Over the last few months, a steady stream of visitors to Palo Alto, Calif., called an old friend’s home number and asked if he was well enough to entertain visitors, perhaps for the last time. 
 
 In February, Steven P. Jobs had learned that, after years of fighting cancer, his time was becoming shorter. He quietly told a few acquaintances, and they, in turn, whispered to others. And so a pilgrimage began. 
 
 The calls trickled in at first. Just a few, then dozens, and in recent weeks, a nearly endless stream of people who wanted a few moments to say goodbye, according to people close to Mr. Jobs. Most were intercepted by his wife, Laurene. She would apologetically explain that he was too tired to receive many visitors. In his final weeks, he became so weak that it was hard for him to walk up the stairs of his own home anymore, she confided to one caller. 
 
 Some asked if they might try again tomorrow. 
 
 Sorry, she replied. He had only so much energy for farewells. The man who valued his privacy almost as much as his ability to leave his mark on the world had decided whom he most needed to see before he left. 
 
 Mr. Jobs spent his final weeks — as he had spent most of his life — in tight control of his choices. He invited a close friend, the physician Dean Ornish, a preventive health advocate, to join him for sushi at one of his favorite restaurants, Jin Sho in Palo Alto. He said goodbye to longtime colleagues including the venture capitalist John Doerr, the Apple board member Bill Campbell and the Disney chief executive Robert A. Iger. He offered Apple’s executives advice on unveiling the iPhone 4S, which occurred on Tuesday. He spoke to his biographer, Walter Isaacson. He started a new drug regime, and told some friends that there was reason for hope. 
 
 But, mostly, he spent time with his wife and children — who will now oversee a fortune of at least $6.5 billion, and, in addition to their grief, take on responsibility for tending to the legacy of someone who was as much a symbol as a man. 
 
 “Steve made choices,” Dr. Ornish said. “I once asked him if he was glad that he had kids, and he said, ‘It’s 10,000 times better than anything I’ve ever done.’ ” 
 
 “But for Steve, it was all about living life on his own terms and not wasting a moment with things he didn’t think were important. He was aware that his time on earth was limited. He wanted control of what he did with the choices that were left.” 
 
 In his final months, Mr. Jobs’s home — a large and comfortable but relatively modest brick house in a residential neighborhood — was surrounded by security guards. His driveway’s gate was flanked by two black S.U.V.’s. 
 
 On Thursday, as online eulogies multiplied and the walls of Apple stores in Taiwan, New York, Shanghai and Frankfurt were papered with hand-drawn cards, the S.U.V.’s were removed and the sidewalk at his home became a garland of bouquets, candles and a pile of apples, each with one bite carefully removed. 
 
 “Everyone always wanted a piece of Steve,” said one acquaintance who, in Mr. Jobs’s final weeks, was rebuffed when he sought an opportunity to say goodbye. “He created all these layers to protect himself from the fan boys and other peoples’ expectations and the distractions that have destroyed so many other companies. 
 
 “But once you’re gone, you belong to the world.” 
 
 Mr. Jobs’s biographer, Mr. Isaacson, whose book will be published in two weeks, asked him why so private a man had consented to the questions of someone writing a book. “I wanted my kids to know me,” Mr. Jobs replied, Mr. Isaacson wrote Thursday in an essay on Time.com. “I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.” 
 
 Because of that privacy, little is known yet of what Mr. Jobs’s heirs will do with his wealth. Unlike many prominent business people, he has never disclosed plans to give large amounts to charity. His shares in Disney, which Mr. Jobs acquired when the entertainment company purchased his animated film company, Pixar, are worth about $4.4 billion. That is double the $2.1 billion value of his shares in Apple, perhaps surprising given that he is best known for the computer company he founded. 
 
 Mr. Jobs’s emphasis on secrecy, say acquaintances, led him to shy away from large public donations. At one point, Mr. Jobs was asked by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates to give a majority of his wealth to philanthropy alongside a number of prominent executives like Mr. Gates and Warren E. Buffett. But Mr. Jobs declined, according to a person with direct knowledge of Mr. Jobs’s decision. ||||| Larry Ellison described what it was like watching his close friend Steve Jobs die in an interview with Charlie Rose on CBS. 
 
 CBS passed along a transcript of Ellison's comments: 
 
 CHARLIE ROSE: Did you watch him die? 
 
 LARRY ELLISON: Oh, close. Was I there at the last moments? 
 
 CHARLIE ROSE: No, did you watch him go through this? 
 
 LARRY ELLISON: You know, I-- I-- I'd go over there all the time. And the walks-- we'd always go for walks. We'd always go for walks. And the walks just kept getting shorter. Until near the end we'd kind of walk around the block or maybe-- maybe four blocks, something like that. And you just watched him getting weaker. And this is the strongest guy I knew. This was absolutely the strongest, most willful person I have ever met. And after seven years, the cancer even wore him out. And that's was what it was. He was just tired of fighting. Tired of the pain. And he decided, shocked Lorraine, shocked everybody that the medication was gonna stop. He just pulled off the meds-- I think on a Saturday or a Sunday. And by the following Wednesday he-- he was gone. 
 
 CHARLIE ROSE: If you love someone it's hard to see them do that, though it's their choice. 
 
 LARRY ELLISON: Yeah, it had reached the point where he was definitely suffering. It's just so much pain. 
 
 CHARLIE ROSE: There is no other Steve Jobs? 
 
 LARRY ELLISON: No. My eulogy began, you know, I guess we're all told that no one's irreplaceable. I don't believe that. I just don't. 
 
 CHARLIE ROSE: Well said. ||||| Larry Ellison. Flickr/Oracle_Photos_Screenshots Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will appear on CBS "This Morning" tomorrow with Charlie Rose to talk about the NSA and other tech topics. 
 
 In the pre-recorded interview, Rose asked Ellison how he thinks Apple will fare without Steve Jobs. 
 
 Ellison appears to say Apple won't do well without Jobs, although not in so many words. Here's a snippet from the interview's transcript: 
 
 CHARLIE ROSE: Let's talk about Steve Jobs. What is it about him? You — we recognize the fact that he loved Apple and he wanted to make Apple great and he did. But what was it about him that enabled him to do it, other than he worked hard? 
 
 LARRY ELLISON: He was — he was brilliant. I mean, our Edison. He was our Picasso. He was an incredible inventor. 
 
 CHARLIE ROSE: So what happens to Apple without Steve? 
 
 LARRY ELLISON: Well, we already know. CHARLIE ROSE: What? LARRY ELLISON: We saw — we conducted the experiment. I mean, it's been done. We saw Apple with Steve Jobs. We saw Apple without Steve Jobs. We saw Apple with Steve Jobs. Now, we're gonna see Apple without Steve Jobs. 
 
 That's some pretty vague language, so what the heck does that mean? 
 
 It sounds like Ellison is referring to the last time Jobs was away from Apple, following his ouster in 1985. That was the beginning of Apple's great decline in the late 80s and early 90s. It wasn't until Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 that things started to turn around again. 
 
 Ellison and Jobs were close friends. If anyone has insight into the way Jobs worked at Apple, it's him. 
 
 You can watch the clip here.
– One bigwig in the tech industry is making headlines this morning for dissing another. Oracle CEO didn't mention Apple's Tim Cook, but he made clear in an interview with CBS that he thinks Apple will flounder without Steve Jobs. Asked by Charlie Rose about the post-Jobs era, Ellison said "we already know" how it will turn out because of Jobs' history with the company: "We saw Apple with Steve Jobs." (Finger in the air.) "We saw Apple without Steve Jobs." (Lowers finger.) "We saw Apple with Steve Jobs." (Finger back up.) "Now, we're gonna see Apple without Steve Jobs." (Finger swoops low.) Ellison and Jobs were close friends, notes CNET, so he may be biased. On the other hand, "if anyone has insight into the way Jobs worked at Apple, it's him," writes Steve Kovach at Business Insider. Ellison also offered up insight into Jobs' final days, notes a separate Business Insider post: "We'd always go for walks. And the walks just kept getting shorter. Until near the end we'd kind of walk around the block or maybe—maybe four blocks. And you just watched him getting weaker. And this ... was absolutely the strongest, most willful person I have ever met. And after seven years, the cancer even wore him out. He was just tired of fighting. And he decided—shocked Lorraine, shocked everybody—that the medication was gonna stop. He just pulled off the meds, I think on a Saturday or a Sunday. And by the following Wednesday he—he was gone.