American multinational software company Adobe’s co-founder John Warnock has died aged 82, the company said in a statement.
The cause of his death was not disclosed. He is survived by his wife, graphic designer Marva Warnock, and his three children.
“It is a sad day for the Adobe community and the industry for which he has been an inspiration for decades,” Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said in an email sent to employees.
He said Warnock was “one of the greatest inventors in our generation with significant impact on how we communicate in words, images and videos,”
He later added, “My interactions with John over the past 25 years have been the highlight of my professional career.”
Warnock co-founded software company Adobe in 1982 with Charles Geschke. He retired as CEO in 2000 and was chairman of the board, a position he shared with Geschke, until 2017.
Marva Warnock designed the company’s original logo, and Adobe released its first program, the desktop publishing software Adobe PostScript, two years later.
Warnock served mostly as the company’s CEO until 2000 and was co-chairman of the board along with Geschke until 2017. Warnock remained on the company board of directors afterward.
Adobe is widely-associated with Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Photoshop, but the company has maintained an impressively broad portfolio of well-regarded staple applications in multiple industries.
During Warnock’s tenure as its CEO, Adobe created industry-standard software for business, graphic design, photography, video editing, audio recording, and more.
