2. Paul was born in 1954 in Seattle, Washington,
Paul Allen met fellow Lakeside School student
and computer enthusiast Bill Gates when Allen
was 14 and Gates was 12. Less than a decade
later, in 1975, college drop-outs Allen and Gates
founded Microsoft. Allen resigned after being
diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in 1983, and
today continues to pursue other business,
research, and philanthropic opportunities.
3. They began marketing a BASIC
programming language interpreter.
Allen came up with the original name
of "Micro-Soft," as recounted in a 1995
Fortune magazine article. In 1980,
after promising to deliver IBM a Disk
Operating System (DOS) they had not
yet developed for the Intel 8088-based
IBM PC, Allen spearheaded a deal for
Microsoft to purchase a Quick and
Dirty Operating System (QDOS)
written by Tim Paterson who, at the
time, was employed at Seattle
Computer Products. As a result of
this transaction, Microsoft was able to
secure a contract to supply the DOS
that would eventually run on IBM's
PC line. This contract with IBM was
the watershed in Microsoft history
that led to Allen and Gates' wealth
4. Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma
in 1982. His cancer was successfully treated by
several months of radiation therapy. However, he
did not return to Microsoft and began distancing
himself from the company.Allen officially
resigned from his position on the Microsoft board
in November 2000 but was asked to consult as a
senior strategy advisor to the company's
executives.He sold 68 million shares of Microsoft
stock that year,but still owns a reported 138
million shares.
5. His investments were diverse: America Online,
SureFind (an online classified ads service),
Teluscan (an online financial service), Starwave
(an online content provider), hardware, software,
and wireless communications. From 1994 to 1998,
Allen built an infrastructure of well over 30
different companies in pursuit of his "wired
world" strategy. With Vulcan's 1998 purchases of
Marcus Cable and more than 90% of Charter
Communications, Allen became the owner of the
nation's seventh largest cable company. In 1999,
he invested nearly $2 billion in the RCN
corporation, bringing his total holdings in the
cable and Internet businesses to over $25 billion.
6. Other personal and
Philanthropic interests include
sports(he owns the NBA's
Portland Trailblazers and
the NFL's Seattle Seahawks) and
music. On June 23, 2000, his Experience Music
Project (EMP), a $250 million interactive rock &
roll museum designed by the architect Frank O.
Gehry, will open in Seattle. Allen co-founded
EMP with his sister, Jody Allen Patton, who will
serve as the museum's executive director.
7. In April 2003, he announced he would be
spending $20 million to build the Science Fiction
Experience, which will open summer 2004. The
museum is billed as "entertaining and thought-
provoking exhibits and programs." Allen has also
established philanthropic foundations for the
causes of medical research, visual and performing
arts, community service, and forest preservation.
8. In 2007 and 2008, Time named Paul Allen, the
cofounder of Microsoft, one of the hundred most
influential people in the world. Since he made his
fortune, his impact has been felt in science,
technology, business, medicine, sports, music,
and philanthropy. His passion, curiosity, and
intellectual rigor-combined with the resources to
launch and support new initiatives-have
literally changed the world.
