John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe Systems with fellow Los Altos resident Chuck Geschke, died Saturday, surrounded by his family. Mr. Warnock was 82.
Mr. Warnock and Mr. Geschke co-founded Adobe in 1982 after meeting as colleagues at Xerox. Their first product was Adobe PostScript, groundbreaking technology that sparked the desktop publishing revolution. Mr. Warnock retired as CEO in 2000 and remained chairman of the board, a position he shared with Mr. Geschke, until 2017. Mr. Geschke died in 2021.
In recognition of their technical achievements, Mr. Warnock was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Barack Obama, the Computer Entrepreneur Award from the IEEE Computer Society, the American Electronics Association Medal of Achievement and the Marconi Prize for contributions to information science and communications.
Before co-founding Adobe, Mr. Warnock was a principal scientist at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He earned a doctorate in electrical engineering (computer science), a master’s degree in mathematics and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and philosophy from the University of Utah.
“John’s brilliance and technology innovations changed the world. It is a sad day for the Adobe community and the industry for which he has been an inspiration for decades,” said Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO and board chairman. “His vision and passion enabled Adobe to deliver groundbreaking innovations such as Illustrator, the ubiquitous PDF file format and Acrobat, Photoshop and Premiere Pro, defining the desktop era and unleashing creativity and opportunity for millions of people.”
Narayen praised Mr. Warnock for “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.”
On a personal note, Narayen cited conversations with Mr. Warnock on rare books, art, world history and politics “that gave me unique insight into John, who was truly a renaissance man (we also loved rooting jointly for the Warriors!). While he was my role model and mentor, I am most grateful to count him as a friend.”
Mr. Warnock is survived by his wife, Marva Warnock, and his three children.
