Apple co-founder and former chief executive Steve Jobs has died. Jobs was 56 years old, had battled pancreatic cancer since 2003, and underwent a liver transplant in 2009.

The technology company issued a statement on its website late Wednesday, saying the company has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. The Apple statement said “those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor.”

The statement also said his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

Jobs' resigned as chief executive of the technology giant in August.

Jobs – a college dropout – was born February 24, 1955, growing up in a part of California that later became known as Silicon Valley, a center of the U.S. technology industry.

In 1974, Jobs left his position as a technician with a video game maker and traveled to India to find spiritual enlightenment. When he returned, he and friend Steve Wozniak began work in Jobs' garage, developing the first Apple computer.

The two founded the Apple computer company. At one point in his career, Jobs left Apple following a dispute with the company's other top executives. He returned in 1997, after the company had gone to the edge of collapse. It reinvented itself, introducing a new line of computers known as the iMacs.

Apples fortunes were transformed when it shifted its focus away from being a personal computer manufacturer into a company producing products like the iPhones, iPads and iPods. It is now one of the world's most valuable companies.

Jobs' death comes one day after Apple unveiled a highly anticipated new iPhone – this one with the ability to respond to spoken commands. The device is equipped with a higher-quality camera and the ability to synchronize information among different Apple devices, updating them all at once.