In his best-selling biography Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson writes that the visionary’s youngest daughter, Eve, is the apple that fell closest to the tree—a “strong-willed, funny firecracker” who used to call her father’s assistant to make sure she was on his calendar.

“I have zero recollection of that,” Jobs tells me over lunch. “I’m so sorry to let you down there. I have a recollection of going to work with him and drawing on this one whiteboard in his office that I believe stands there to this day, with all my little doodles on it. I would just subconsciously soak in all the beauty and gorgeous design around me.”

I note that there’s an iPhone resting on the table between us and recording our interview. “It’s a beautiful reminder for me every day,” she says, looking down at it fondly. “All day, every day. It really is. It makes me feel warm.”

Even if Jobs can’t remember negotiating with her dad’s assistant, I can attest that Isaacson got the strong-willed, funny firecracker part right. We’d first crossed paths at a cocktail party at Los Angeles’s Academy Museum, during which she was quick-witted and wickedly observant, and grilled our tablemates with questions.

“I’m a little weird,” Jobs says now. “Some people get a little taken aback by me: I don’t know where to place her. But humor makes you feel like you are living.” I tell her it’s clear that she doesn’t suffer fools. “Sometimes one will slip through the cracks,” she tells me. “But it’s a rarity.”

The 24-year-old world-class equestrian and Stanford graduate traded Silicon Valley for New York City in the fall of 2021 after making her runway debut for Coperni in Paris. Jobs has since signed a deal to be a face of Louis Vuitton and will star in a digital campaign later this year. For our meeting, her agent has chosen a restaurant in Chelsea near the High Line, and Jobs arrives early in a crisp white smock and flowing trousers. The only sign that she’s actually a 20-something are the Nike Jordan 1s on her feet. “I live in a very basketball-heavy household.”

Jobs is a self-proclaimed “horse girl” who used to bring carrots to her sister’s barn and began taking proper pony lessons at the age of six. Her parents encouraged her to prioritize school but allowed her to travel for show jumping competitions during summers and spring breaks. “I wanted to see how far I could take this,” Jobs says. “It’s a hard sport to do, mostly because you only get two minutes in the ring and you’re working with something, an animal, that’s inherently unreliable.” She was in contention for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but had to bow out after they were postponed a year because of COVID. After graduating from Stanford, she says, “I was at this turning point. I had done everything I wanted to achieve in the sport, and I just felt at peace.”

Modeling, Jobs discovered quickly, is not entirely unlike show jumping: It’s all about turning it on for two minutes at a time. “I was more grateful than nervous,” she says. “I never foresaw modeling, and on a whim, I was like, ‘Why not?’ It drew upon things I knew, igniting the part of me that competing always did.”

Jobs is well aware how charmed her life has been, notwithstanding the untimely loss of her father to cancer when she was 13. She considers her mom, business executive and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, a guiding light. “As my life unfolds a bit, I’m going to find my avenue to impact the most people in the best way possible,” she says. “I want to take my time and get it right and find something I love, just as I see my mom finding ways in which to reach people.”

With Fashion Week nearly upon us again, Jobs hopes to be walking many major catwalks. At home, meanwhile, she keeps things casual. She has started a collection of vintage Apple T-shirts, one of which holds tremendous personal value: It appears to be a one-of-a-kind prototype from the Computer 1 era, likely made by her dad when Apple was still based out of his garage. On the front, the T-shirt alludes to a certain biblical icon: “Eve had the right idea,” it reads. On the back, the text continues: “She picked an Apple.”

“It means so much to me,” Jobs says. “I smile every time I wear it.”

Throughout: hair products by Oribe; makeup products by Clé de Peau Beauté; nail products by Minx. Hair, Takuya Yamaguchi; makeup, Benjamin Puckey; nails, Yuko Tsuchihashi; set design, Viki Rutsch. Produced on location by Viewfinders. For details, go to VF.com/credits.