Irwin Jacobs and his wife, Joan, blended right in. Nary a head turned as we made our way to our table at Donovan's Steak & Chop House in La Jolla. Here was the boss of arguably the most successful startup San Diego has ever seen, a $4-billion-a-year venture that has made thousands of employees and local residents millionaires and Jacobs a billionaire three times over—yet he was nearly invisible. Though their name is on the Irwin and Joan Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Radio Broadcast Center at the local PBS station, and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Theater at the Museum of Photographic Arts, the Jacobs themselves stirred barely a ripple of recognition.
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