By Meghna Anand
On October 15, 2018, Paul Allen, aged 65, passed away after a long struggle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer. He was treated with radiation therapy and a bone marrow transplant as early as 1982.
Paul Allen is most famous for co-founding Microsoft with Bill Gates when he was twenty-two years old in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1981, he and Gates created software for IBM that helped them move into making personal computers called the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS). Allen is also credited with inventing the two-button mouse. After he left, however, Microsoft grew more than perhaps he would have ever imagined- in the late 1990s, Microsoft programs ran on 90% of computers in the US. Allen was quoted saying “It makes you that much more focused on realising your dreams and hopes, because all of our times on this planet are limited.” about leaving the company in 1983. He had been working at Microsoft for eight years. He later resigned from the Board of Directors in 2000.
Paul Allen was born on January 21st to Kenneth and Faye Allen, who were librarians, and had one sister. He went to Lakeside school in Seattle and met Bill Gates at 14 years old. He attended Washington State University for two years before dropping out to work as a programmer in Boston for a company called Honeywell. He went on to become a well-known programmer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. In 2011, he published “Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft” which was, well, a memoir by the cofounder of Microsoft. Allen was also very private and a well-known recluse.
Though he left Microsoft early, Paul Allen later made an impact on the world through philanthropy. In 1986, he co-founded the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation with his sister, Jo Lynn, which, according to their website, “address[es] the threat of climate change, promote[s] biodiversity on land and in the seas, give[s] young people access to immersive experiences in art and strengthen education, address[es] the needs of vulnerable populations, and advance[s] scientific and technological breakthroughs around the world.” This organization gives a total of roughly 30 million USD per year to humanitarian and scientific projects. He and his sister also founded the Allen Institute of Brain Science, a non-profit medical research organization. He and David Liddle co-founded the Interval Research Corporation, a laboratory and technology incubator that made over 300 patents before it disbanded. In addition, Paul Allen was known for being the owner of the Seattle NFL team, the Seahawks. He signed the Giving Pledge early on, which encourages wealthy individuals to donate their money.
His generosity did not go unnoticed. In 2008, Allen was awarded an honor from the Seattle-King County Association of Realtors for his donations to non-profit organizations in the Pacific Northwest and total lifetime donation of around 1 billion US dollars. That same year, he also received the Herbie Hancock Humanitarian Award from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz for his contribution to the business world and for being a global philanthropist.
In conclusion, although Allen himself is no more, there is no doubt his memory and the impact he made upon the world will long outlive him.
