Jacob Pierce
March 1, 1983-May 19, 2023
Palo Alto, California

Jacob Rodgers Pierce, age 40, passed away unexpectedly on Friday, May 19, 2023. Jacob was born on March 1, 1983 in Redwood City to Carolyn and Steve Pierce. He was raised in Palo Alto alongside his three brothers: Nate, Zane, and Ezra.

A remarkably bright and creative person, Jacob was homeschooled until the age of 14 after which he attended the King’s Academy in Sunnyvale for high school. He graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara, with a B.A. in Sociology and began his career working in Corporate Development at Stanford University. He spent most of his adult life in Palo Alto, aside from a brief sojourn in London, during which he co-founded a successful technology start-up. In the last several years preceding his death, he materialized his longtime dream of becoming a vintner, leveraging locally grown grapes he cultivated himself.

A true polymath, Jacob was the person that friends and family would turn to first for advice on any number of subjects, whether that be baking bread, investing in the stock market, or writing an app. He was in turn a gourmet chef, horticulturist, chess instructor, archer, painter, and lover of all things beautiful. He was also intensely charismatic, wickedly humorous, and extremely generous and supportive towards others. Jacob cared deeply for people and actively contributed to many humanitarian causes, including providing school lunches for children in need, providing high-quality face masks for field workers who faced health threats from heavy wildfire smoke, and the development of bomb-removal robots for Ukraine. His passing leaves an enormous hole in the community of family and friends he left behind, all of whom cherish the time they spent with him.

Jacob is survived by his parents Steve and Carolyn Pierce of Palo Alto; Nate and Kori Pierce of Redwood City; Zane, Daisy, Blake, and Raina Pierce of Mountain View; Ezra Pierce of London; and Keri Gordon of San Francisco.