Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc., died Wednesday at the age of 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, according to an announcement on the company website. As the former CEO of Apple, he became the force behind  —  and the face of  —  its transformation into a trend-setting, pop-culture phenomenon.

News of his death was greeted with an immediate outpouring of grief and tribute from countless world and industry leaders as well as fans on the Internet. Several tech-related sites paid tribute to his memory through comments and images featured on their front page.

Jobs, a Bay Area native and Palo Alto resident, was long a familiar presence within the Stanford community. His and Apple’s close ties with the University have been forged through millions of dollars in donations and several collaborations, including the popular iTunes U site, where Stanford content recently hit 40 million downloads. Jobs was a patient at the Stanford Cancer Center.

His commencement address to the Class of 2005, which he gave just over a year after he was first diagnosed with cancer, has frequently been revisited by the media since he stepped down from the company in August. In it, he explored the topic of death, encouraging students to remember their mortality in order to inspire them to focus on what they found most important. The prescient remarks, which Jobs himself seemed to follow in the ensuing years, have been quoted extensively.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” Jobs said. “Because almost everything  —  all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure  —  these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

— Ivy Nguyen