Steve Jobs, the bril­liant entre­pre­neur and vision­ary who cofound­ed Apple at the age of twen­ty-one and lat­er res­cued it when it seemed on the brink of col­lapse, died today, the com­pa­ny announced. He was fifty-six.

“Apple has lost a vision­ary and cre­ative genius, and the world has lost an amaz­ing human being. Those of us who have been for­tu­nate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspir­ing men­tor. Steve leaves behind a com­pa­ny that only he could have built, and his spir­it will for­ev­er be the foun­da­tion of Apple,” read a state­ment on the com­pa­ny’s website.

Reac­tion to the sad news poured in quick­ly from around the world.

“Michelle and I are sad­dened to learn of the pass­ing of Steve Jobs,” said Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma. “Steve was among the great­est of Amer­i­can inno­va­tors — brave enough to think dif­fer­ent­ly, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and tal­ent­ed enough to do it. By build­ing one of the planet’s most suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies from his garage, he exem­pli­fied the spir­it of Amer­i­can ingenuity.

“By mak­ing com­put­ers per­son­al and putting the inter­net in our pock­ets, he made the infor­ma­tion rev­o­lu­tion not only acces­si­ble, but intu­itive and fun.”

“And by turn­ing his tal­ents to sto­ry­telling, he has brought joy to mil­lions of chil­dren and grownups alike. Steve was fond of say­ing that he lived every day like it was his last.  Because he did, he trans­formed our lives, rede­fined entire indus­tries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human his­to­ry: he changed the way each of us sees the world.

“The world has lost a vision­ary. And there may be no greater trib­ute to Steve’s suc­cess than the fact that much of the world learned of his pass­ing on a device he invent­ed. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife Lau­rene, his fam­i­ly, and all those who loved him.”

“Steve was such an ‘orig­i­nal,’ with a thor­ough­ly cre­ative, imag­i­na­tive mind that defined an era,” added Dis­ney CEO Bob Iger. “Despite all he accom­plished, it feels like he was just get­ting start­ed. With his pass­ing the world has lost a rare orig­i­nal, Dis­ney has lost a mem­ber of our fam­i­ly, and I have lost a great friend.”

“I send my deep­est con­do­lences to Steve Jobs’ fam­i­ly and friends on this dev­as­tat­ing loss,” said Sen­a­tor Bar­bara Box­er. “Steve Jobs was a Cal­i­for­nia icon who embod­ied Sil­i­con Val­ley’s entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it of cre­ativ­i­ty and opti­mism. By rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions, he touched the lives of bil­lions of peo­ple around the world. He will be sore­ly missed.”

“I’m tru­ly sad­dened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death,” said Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates. “Melin­da and I extend our sin­cere con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and friends, and to every­one Steve has touched through his work.”

“Steve and I first met near­ly 30 years ago, and have been col­leagues, com­peti­tors and friends over the course of more than half our lives. The world rarely sees some­one who has had the pro­found impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many gen­er­a­tions to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insane­ly great honor.”

“I will miss Steve immensely.”

Jobs is sur­vived by his wife and four chil­dren. The fam­i­ly released the fol­low­ing sep­a­rate state­ment to the press in response to their loss.

Steve died peace­ful­ly today sur­round­ed by his family.

In his pub­lic life, Steve was known as a vision­ary; in his pri­vate life, he cher­ished his fam­i­ly. We are thank­ful to the many peo­ple who have shared their wish­es and prayers dur­ing the last year of Steve’s ill­ness; a web­site will be pro­vid­ed for those who wish to offer trib­utes and memories.

We are grate­ful for the sup­port and kind­ness of those who share our feel­ings for Steve. We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our pri­va­cy dur­ing our time of grief.

In an email sent to Apple employ­ees, new CEO Tim Cook announced that the com­pa­ny would soon hold a cel­e­bra­tion of Jobs’ life, with fur­ther details to be revealed lat­er. Apple has already low­ered the flags at its Cuper­ti­no cam­pus to half-staff in hon­or of Jobs.