Paul Allen
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By Tom Kirvan
One of the pioneers of the personal computer revolution, Paul Allen gained fame as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, teaming with his childhood friend Bill Gates to launch the technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Wash.
Born January 21, 1953 in Seattle, Allen attended Washington State University in Pullman for two years before dropping out to work for Honeywell in Boston near Harvard University, where Gates was enrolled as a computer science student. It was a short time later that Allen reportedly convinced Gates to drop out of the Ivy League school to pursue their Microsoft dream.
Allen left Microsoft in early 1983 after he was diagnosed with lymphoma, a disease that would claim his life in 2018. In the intervening years, Allen invested heavily in technology and media companies, amassing wealth that placed him among the richest people in the world with an estimated net worth of $20 billion at the time of his death. An avid sports fan, Allen owned the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League and the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association. The Seahawks made three Super Bowl appearances during Allen’s time as owner, winning the NFL championship in 2014.
In addition to his many business ventures, Allen also was a philanthropist, giving billions of dollars to various education, wildlife, environmental, arts, and health care causes. He also enjoyed sharing his life lessons, periodically reminding audiences, "In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success – if you are willing to learn from it.”
Other Allen gems:
*Miles Harris, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons