01h
•
Feature Story About The Person Of
The Week / TVI61 Paul
Allen Co-Founder
of Microsoft
Corporation.
Paul
Gardener Allen (born January 21,
1953) is an
entrepreneur,
investor and philanthropist who
first
established himself by
co-founding Microsoft Corporation
with Bill
Gates., a
leading developer of
personal-computer software
systems and applications.
•••
He is also
the 48th richest person in the
world along with Germán
Larrea Mota-Velasco (and family)
who ranks the same with an
estimated wealth of $14.2 billion
as of March 2012.
He is the founder and chairman of
Vulcan Inc., which manages his
business and philanthropic
efforts.
•••
Allen also
has a multi-billion dollar
investment portfolio which
includes technology companies,
real estate holdings, and stakes
in other technology, media, and
content companies, beside also
owning two professional sports
teams, the Seattle Seahawks of
the National Football League
(NFL), and the Portland Trail
Blazers of the National
Basketball Association (NBA).
Additionally, he is part-owner of
the Seattle Sounders FC, which
joined Major League Soccer (MLS)
in 2009. Allen's memoir Idea Man:
A Memoir by the Cofounder of
Microsoft was released on April
April 19, 2011.
•••
The Legal action alleges that the
Interval Licensing, among other
things, provided the initial
research funding for Google
co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry
Page, which "resulted in
Google."
•••
Interval Licensing alleges
infringement of patents issued
between 2000 and 2004, related to
Internet browser technology and
the display of information.
•••
Other named defendants in the
suit include EBay Inc., Netflix
Inc., OfficeMax Inc. and Staples
Inc.
•••
Interval Licensing asks for
unspecified damages and an
injunction preventing the
defendants from further
infringement or "a royalty for
post-judgment infringement."
•••
Allen, who publicly disclosed
that he'd been diagnosed with
non- Hodgkin's lymphoma late last
year, is the owner of the
Portland Trail Blazers basketball
team and the Seattle Seahawks
football team.
•••
He has remained a prolific
inventor in his post-Microsoft
years.
•••
In addition to his work with
Interval Licensing, Allen has
contributed to inventions
patented by Intellectual
Ventures, the intellectual
property firm run by former
Microsoft executive Nathan
Myhrvold.
•••
Intellectual Ventures has churned
out tens of thousands of patents
and has drawn criticism for its
focus on patenting inventions, as
opposed to making or selling
products based on those
inventions. Such "non-practicing"
entities are often blamed for the
rise in patent litigation, though
Intellectual Ventures has not
directly filed litigation over
its intellectual property. •
CLICK
FOR MORE Paul Allen Law Suit
STORY
02
TimeLine
/Paul
Allen •
1953
- Born on January 21, in Seattle,
Washington, to parents Kenneth
Samuel Allen, an associate
director of the University of
Washington libraries, and Edna
Faye (née Gardner). •
1967
- Attended Lakeside School, a
private school in Seattle, and
befriended Bill Gates, who was
almost three years younger and
shared a common enthusiasm for
computers. Allen and Gates and a
small group of other Lakeside
students begin programming in
BASIC, using a teletype terminal.
Allen went on to attend
Washington State University,
though he dropped out after two
years to pursue his and Gates'
dream of writing software
commercially for the new
"personal computers." •
1971
- After graduating from
Lakeside, enrolls at Washington
State University, where he was a
member of Phi Kappa Theta
Fraternity but dropped out after
two years in order to work as a
programmer for Honeywell in
Boston. Allen later convinced
Gates to drop out of Harvard
University in order to create
Microsoft. •
1972
- Allen and Gates purchased the
next generation of the chip, the
8008, for $360. It was the main
component of a special computer
they built to measure traffic
volumes for cities. Gates and
Allen formed the Traf-O-Data
company to sell the machines. The
venture was short-lived but gave
the duo important experience
running a business and writing a
special version of BASIC, a
simple, interactive •
1974
- Allen left Washington State
University to accept a job as a
programmer with Honeywell in
Boston. •
1975
- Allen and Gates write the
first microcomputer BASIC for the
Altair, a computer kit based on
Intel's new 8080 chip. They move
to Albuquerque, N.M., where
Altair's producer MITS makes
Allen its associate director of
software. Allen divides his time
between MITS and a new company he
and Gates have started to develop
and market microcomputer
languages: Micro Soft. •
1975
- Allen and Gates found
Microsoft initially "Micro Soft")
in Albuquerque, New Mexico and
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. •
1975
- Microsoft officially
established on April 4, 1975,
with Gates as the CEO. •
1977
- First Microsoft
international office in Japan.
The company formed an agreement
with ASCII Magazine in Japan,
resulting in its first
international office, "ASCII
Microsoft" •
1979
- Microsoft moves from
Albuquerque to a new home in
Bellevue, Washington. •
1980
- Microsoft agrees to develop
and license DOS and BASIC to IBM
for its new personal computer.
Gates and Allen discuss graphical
user interfaces, planting the
seeds that will become
Windows. •
1980
- In the late 1980s, Allen
donated US$18 million to
build a new library at the
University of Washington, named
after his father, Kenneth S.
Allen . •
1982
- 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. •
1983
- Leaves Microsoft in 1983. •
1984
- Founded Asymetrix, a software
development company based in
Belleuve, Washington, to make
application development tools
that nonprogrammers can use.
Asymetrix later went on to become
Click2learn.com and yet later
merged with Docent to become Sum
Total System (2004). In the
1990's the company began to
specialize in software for
developing and delivering
computer-based learning. •
1986
- Vulcan Ventures is founded by
Paul Allen to manage his
investments. •
1992
- Allen started Starwave, a
producer of online content sites.
Starwave did such great work for
ESPN SportsZone and ABCNews.com
that Disney (NYSE: DIS) bought it
for a total of $350 million. •
1992
- Allen and David Liddle
cofounded Interval Research
Corporation, a Silicon
Valley-based laboratory and new
business incubator that was
dissolved in 2000 after
generating over 300 patents, four
of which were the subject of
Allen's August 2010 patent
infringement lawsuit against AOL,
Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google,
Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax,
Staples, Yahoo!, and YouTube. •
1993
- In 1993, Paul Allen invested
$243 million to acquire 80% of
Ticketmaster. Under his
ownership, Ticketmaster moved
into the Internet in two phases:
it started in June 1995 by
displaying a searchable database
of Ticketmaster's events; on
September 11, 1996, the first
transaction came in. The company
went public on 19 November 1996.
In 1997, David Geffen introduced
Barry Diller to Paul Allen, who
was increasingly frustrated at
Fred Rosen, Ticketmaster's CEO,
and was looking for a change at
the helm: in May, Home Shopping
Network acquired 47.5% of Allen's
stock for $209 million worth of
HSN stock •
1997
- Allen's foundation awarded
US$3.2 million for
prostatitis research in 1997. •
1998
- Allen buys Marcus Cable, the
nation's 10th largest cable
company, for $2.8 billion--his
biggest investment to date. Also
this year Allen grabbed a stake
of the Internet video-sales
market with his purchase of
Hollywood Entertainment. And he
took another software group
public, namely Asymetrix Learning
Systems, maker of products for
online classes. •
1999
- Washington State University
bestowed its highest honor, the
Regents' Distinguished Alumnus
Award, upon him. •
2000
- 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. •
2000
- Microsoft Corp. announced
that Paul Allen is assuming a new
role as senior strategy adviser
to top Microsoft executives. •
2000
- Interval Research
Corporation, a Silicon
Valley-based laboratory and new
business incubator (cofounded by
Allen and David Liddle) was
dissolved after generating over
300 patents, four of which were
the subject of Allen's August
2010 patent infringement lawsuit
against AOL, Apple, eBay,
Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office
Depot, OfficeMax, Staples,
Yahoo!, and YouTube. •
2002
- Paul G. Allen Family
Foundation
gives a
$1.0 million grant for
prostatitis research. •
2003
- Vulcan Ventures began funding
Project Halo, an attempt to apply
Artificial Intelligence
techniques to the problem of
producing a digital Aristotle
that might serve as a mentor,
providing comprehensive access to
the world's knowledge. •
2003
- With his sister, Jo Lynn Allen,
Paul Allen pledged
$100 million to found the
Allen Institute for Brain
Science, a nonprofit corporation
and medical research
organization. Founded the Allen
Institute of Brain Science. •
2003
- Donated US$5 million to
establish the Faye G. Allen
Center for Visual Arts, named
after his mother. •
2003
- In December 2003 he announced
that he was the sponsor behind
the SpaceShipOne private rocket
plane venture from Scaled
Composites, as part of the ANSARI
X PRIZE competition. •
2004
- In June 2004, SpaceShipOne
became the first successful
commercial spacecraft when it
passed the 100 kilometer
threshold of space. •
2004
- Opened the Science Fiction
Museum and Hall of Fame, located
at the Experience Music
Project.
•
2004
- Allen confirmed that he was the
sole investor behind Burt Rutan's
Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne
suborbital commercial spacecraft
on October 4, 2004. SpaceShipOne
climbed to an altitude of 377,591
feet (115,090 m) and was the
first privately funded effort to
successfully put a civilian in
suborbital space. It won the
Ansari X Prize competition and
received the $10 million
prize. •
2004
- As of this year he is ranked by
Forbes magazine as the fifth
richest, worth an estimated $21
billion, $5 billion of which is
in Microsoft stock. •
2004
- Allen is the owner of the
Portland Trail Blazers (an NBA
basketball team) and the Seattle
Seahawks of the National Football
League. He also owns Rose Garden
Arena, the home court of the NBA
Blazers team. Due to declining
attendance in 2002 and 2003, as
well as difficulties
renegotiating the terms of a 1993
loan, the Rose Garden corporation
filed for bankruptcy on February
27, 2004. •
2005
- Allen is known for throwing
huge, celebrity-studded parties
on his yacht, such as a 2005 New
Year's Eve party in which he and
his band played Johnny Cash songs
with R&B star Usher. His band
also played at another party he
hosted during the Cannes film
festival with keyboardist Dave
Stewart. •
2007
- South Lake Union. Allen was a
key developer and investor in the
development of the South Lake
Union neighborhood of Seattle as
a biotechnology hub and mixed-use
community. He was also the
largest private landowner in
South Lake Union and owns nearly
2,600,000 square feet
(240,000 m2) in the
neighborhood. The South Lake
Union redevelopment represents
one of the largest urban
revitalization projects in the
country. Allen has made
investments estimated at
US$200 million as of 2005,
and promoted for city funding of
the Seattle Streetcar line known
as South Lake Union Streetcar,
which runs from Seattle's
Westlake Center to the south end
of Lake Union.The Streetcar is a
public and private partnership
made possible because of a Local
Improvement District (LID)
supported by businesses and
residents along the line; it
officially started operation on
December 12, 2007. This
development has been criticized
as a city-supported real estate
investment for Vulcan Inc., and
concerns over the loss of
low-income housing have been
expressed. •
2007
- In 2007 and 2008, Allen was
listed among the Time 100 Most
Influential People in The
World. •
2007
- Paul Allen has received
awards and honorary degrees from
several universities. He received
a Docteur honoris causa from the
École Polytechnique
Fédérale de
Lausanne on March 31, 2007. •
2008
- He received the Vanguard Award
from the National Cable &
Telecommunications Association on
May 20, 2008. •
2008
- The Seattle-King County
Association of Realtors honored
Paul Allen for his "unwavering
commitment to nonprofit
organizations in the Pacific
Northwest and lifetime giving
approaching US$1 billion." •
2008
- On October 26, Paul Allen
was given the Herbie Hancock
Humanitarian Award from the
Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz
for his "visionary achievements
as a businessman and a global
philanthropist." •
2008
- On July 16, Allen launched
a $ 41 million online "Allen
Spinal Cord Atlas" mouse gene
map. Allan Jones, chief
scientific officer, said: "The
Allen Spinal Cord Atlas offers
profound potential for
researchers to unlock the
mysteries of the spinal cord and
how it is altered during disease
or injury." The spinal cord atlas
is set up like the Allen
Institute's earlier atlas of the
mouse brain. The Map could reveal
new treatments for human
neurological disorders. The map
points researchers toward places
where genes are active. •
2009
- Allen was diagnosed with
Non-Hodgkin
lymphoma. •
2009
- Jody Allen, Paul Allen's
sister and the CEO of Vulcan made
public that Paul had been
diagnosed with non-Hodgkin
lymphoma, a form of cancer in the
lymph system. As of October 2010,
he has been free of cancer. •
2009
- Paul Allen received a special
merit award from the Oregon
Sports Authority. •
2010
- It was announced that Paul
Allen had pledged
$26 million to his alma
mater, Washington State
University, for its School for
Global Animal Health. The gift
would be the largest received by
the university. •
2010
- Allen launched the Allen Human
Brain Atlas, a publicly available
online atlas charting genes at
work throughout the human brain.
The data provided represent the
most extensive and detailed body
of information about gene
activity in the human brain to
date, documenting which genes are
expressed, or "turned on"
where. •
2010
- Filed patent infringement
lawsuit against AOL, Apple, eBay,
Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office
Depot, OfficeMax, Staples,
Yahoo!, and YouTube. •
2011
- Allen's yacht is 12th in the
list of motor yachts by length.
The yacht is equipped with two
helicopters, two submarines, a
swimming pool, a music studio and
a basketball court. Allen also
owns Tatoosh, one of the world's
100 largest yachts. •
2011
- Announced Stratolaunch Systems.
Stratolaunch is a proposed
orbital launch system consisting
of a dual-bodied, 6 engine jet
aircraft, capable of carrying a
rocket to high altitude; the
rocket would then separate from
its carrier aircraft and fire its
own engines to complete its climb
into orbit. The carrier aircraft
would utilize carbon composites
as well as 747 jet engines and
parts. If successful, this
project would be the first wholly
privately funded space transport
system •
2011
- Paul and Jo Lynn Allen are
the owners and executive
producers of Vulcan Productions,
a filmmaking company
headquartered in Seattle. Vulcan
Productions' mission is to
initiate, develop and finance
independent film projects of
substance and enduring
significance. Their projects
support the passionate vision of
the artist, while challenging and
celebrating the world of ideas
and human values. Their films
have received prestigious
recognition, ranging from a
Peabody to Independent Spirit
Awards to Golden Globes, Emmys
and Grammys, and have also been
nominated for Academy Awards,
among many others. •
2011
- Vulcan Productions' Web-based
project, Success at the Core, is
providing a comprehensive
professional toolkit that helps
middle school leadership teams
and teachers elevate classroom
instruction for significantly
improved student success. •
2011
- Vulcan Productions' This
Emotional Life won three
medals at the 2011 New York
Festival Television and Film
Awards. They include: Gold
Medal for Film Production;
Gold Medal for
Health/Medical Information;
Silver World Medal for
Direction ("Facing Our Fears"
episode). •
2012
- A report in February, 2012,
named Allen as the most
charitable living American in
2011. Allen's donations, totaling
$372.6 million, were beat out by
only two others, both of them are
deceased. •
2012
- Allen continues the funding
of the Allen Institute for Brain
Science with a contribution of
$300 million to look at how we
see. •
2018 - He died
of septic shock related to the
cancer on October 15, 2018, at
the age of 65. Allen was
previously diagnosed with
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2009.
03.
Special
Feature
/ Paul
Allen Lifetime Achievement &
His Endowment Fund •
OVER
TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO, that's
when a Honeywell engineer living
in Boston was browsing through
the January issue of Popular
Electronics, when he noticed a
story about the MITS Altair 8800,
the first well-publicized
personal computer.
-----He
went to a high school friend,
then attending Harvard, and
suggested they port a version of
the BASIC language that they had
written in high school to this
new machine.
-----The
two men were Paul Allen and Bill
Gates, and the rest, of course,
is history. The company they
created to sell that software was
Microsoft, undoubtedly the most
influential force in the history
of personal computing.
-----Even
when others were focusing on
hardware, Gates and Allen had a
vision of software as a force of
crucial importance in the
computer industry and as a
potentially huge business. Soon,
the company was selling BASIC and
other languages on many different
platforms. In 1980, IBM hired
Microsoft to produce PC-DOS, an
OS that Microsoft resold as
MS-DOS.
-----From
there, Microsoft's successes have
been legendary. It was one of the
first companies to aggressively
develop Macintosh software,
giving it an entry into the
design of products for
environments with a graphical
user interface. A]ong the
way, the company broadenedits
line to include everything from
operating systems to
entertainment software.
-----Not
everything was successful
immediately, but Microsoft gained
a deserved reputation as an
extremely tough and aggressive
company that would try and try
again.
-----Perhaps
its greatest success has been in
moving the entire PC industry
from the character-oriented world
of DOS to the graphical world of
Windows. which first shipped ten
years ago. Despite limited
initial success and competition
from other graphical systems,
Microsoft continued developing
Windows. Its runaway success
began with Windows 3.0 released
in May 1990, and it has reached
new heights in the Windows 95
juggernaut we saw this year.
-----Microsoft
leveraged its successes into
other areas as well, combining
its Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and
Access products into the
awesomely successful Microsoft
Office applications suite. It has
also created a huge line of
consumer titles.
-----Gates
bas headed the company throughout
its life, providing both business
and technical leadership. Allen
left the company in 1983 but has
remained on the board of
directors. Since then, he has
founded or been a major investor
in a variety of innovative and
successful computer ventures,
including Asymetrix Corp., c/net:
the computer network, Interval
Research Corp., and Starwave
Corp. With their technical
leadership and vision going back
20 years, Bill Gates and Paul
Allen have made an immeasurable
contribution to the PC
industry.
Paul
G. Allen family Fund -----Dramatic
natural beauty, open spaces, and
a distinctive history lend the
Pacific Northwest a special
sensibility. Open-mindedness,
individualism, a willingness to
take risks - these are our
natural resources too. Having
made the region our home for many
years, the Allen family has a
deep commitment to improving the
quality of life here, and we do
so in a way that reflects that
Northwestern spirit.
-----
We
decided that supporting nonprofit
organizations already conducting
good work would be the smartest,
swiftest method to achieve
results. That long-ago decision
has been an enduring one; funding
effective organizations remains
the premise from which our
foundation operates.
-----When
we opened Vulcan's offices in
1986, our first order of business
was to establish a charitable
foundation that would address
some of the needs we saw in our
community. Despite our
enthusiasm, we knew we couldn't
take on all the work
ourselves.
-----
But
recent changes in the national
economy have harshly impacted
America's nonprofit
organizations, making
philanthropy more critical to
their survival than ever before.
To make the most of our resources
and give the most effective
support to nonprofits in our
region, we now take a more
comprehensive and systematic
approach to our charitable
giving.
-----
We
weigh the risks against the
potential for a good return. We
consider the leadership and track
record of the organizations we
support. And we offer our
collaborative counsel as they
plan their strategies for
success. We undertake these
tactics because we have a vested
interest in the outcome: our
grantees' success means progress
towards an improved quality of
life.
-----This
emphasis on measurable success
brought changes to our
Foundation's program structure
this year. Much of our funding
will still embrace areas we have
always supported, but our new
configuration aligns them into
four priority areas
including:
Nurturing
the arts and cultural
endeavors;
Engaging
children more deeply in the
learning process;
Responding
to the needs of vulnerable
populations; and
Advancing
scientific and technological
discoveries that expand our
understanding of the
universe.-----
-----
We
believe these priorities are
fundamental to building healthy
communities and advancing social
progress. In addition, our intent
is to transcend existing
boundaries of knowledge and
inspire new ways of
thinking.
-----We
think the Foundation's newly
targeted approach and alignment
will have a profound impact on
the work our grantees can
accomplish translating into
opportunities for personal and
artistic inquiry, academic
achievement, community
development, scientific
breakthroughs, and
more.
-----For
nearly fifteen years, our
Foundation has acted as a
catalyst for learning, discovery
and achievement in the Pacific
Northwest. In the new century, we
hope our work will extend beyond
this time and place improving the
lives of generations to come. Paul G. Allen
Chairman,
Vulcan Northwest (2003 No. 11 /
2005 )
aul
Allen & His SpaceShipOne
Investment Microsoft
co-founder Paul Allen, center,
shakes hands with test pilot
Brian Binnie as Burt Rutan,
founder of Scaled Composites,
looks on at right
MOJAVE, California (AP) -- A
rocket plane broke the sound
barrier during its first powered
flight, but the achievement was
marred by a partial landing gear
collapse that caused it to veer
off a desert runway. SpaceShipOne
test pilot Brian Binnie was not
injured, and the builder, Scaled
Composites LLC, said damage to
the craft will be easily
repaired. The company said the
test on Wednesday was a milestone
because it marked the first
manned supersonic flight by an
aircraft developed by a small
company's private,
non-governmental effort.
•••
The
craft is being developed by famed
aviation designer Burt Rutan for
flights to altitudes of 62 miles
above Earth. The flights would be
suborbital: high enough to be in
space but not fast enough to be
in orbit.
•••
SpaceShipOne
was developed in secret for two
years before it was unveiled in
April.Microsoft co-founder Paul
Allen told The Associated Press
Wednesday that he is backing the
project. He put the size of his
investment in the "tens of
millions" of dollars.
•••
"It's
just an amazing thing," Allen
said. "It shows what private
technology can do when you've got
really creative people trying to
push the boundaries of what's
possible."
•••
SpaceShipOne
was carried by a specially
designed jet aircraft to an
altitude of 48,000 feet Wednesday
morning before being
released.
-•••
The
craft was traveling near Mach 1.2
when the rocket shut down after
firing for a total of 15 seconds.
Binnie then put the craft into a
vertical climb that topped out at
68,000 feet, the company said
Binnie reconfigured the craft to
its conventional shape and glided
to touchdown when the left
landing gear collapsed.
•••
Success
could bring Rutan a $10 million
prize pledged to the first
privately funded manned space
flight. His cutting-edge designs
include the first plane to make a
nonstop, unrefueled flight around
the world.
•
Paul
Allen,
born, January 21,
1953
,
•
Net Worth: 2007 $21 bil
•
Country of
citizenship: United
States
•
Residence: Mercer Island,
WA, United States
•
Web Address:
www.paulallen.com
•
Industry: Software
•
Marital Status: single
Paul
Allen knows what he likes, and he
buys it. A
150-ft. yacht, an Impressionist
art collection, the Seattle
Seahawks. But when it comes to
tech, Allen's particular taste
really gets him places. After
co-founding Microsoft in 1975 and
engineering such breakthrough
products as MS-DOS and Word,
Allen left the company in 1983 to
battle Hodgkin's disease. Since
then he has practiced an
investment strategy based on his
vision of a "wired world,"
linking entertainment with
technology.
-----
1998
POWER PLAY These days, like
Gates, Allen is betting on the
potential of cable in the years
ahead. In April he gobbled up
Marcus Cable, the nation's 10th
largest cable company, for $2.8
billion--his biggest investment
to date. Also this year Allen
grabbed a stake of the Internet
video-sales market with his
purchase of Hollywood
Entertainment. And he took
another software group public.
This time it's Asymetrix Learning
Systems, maker of products for
online classes. -----
PLACE
YOUR BETS You can't invest in
Vulcan Northwest, but you can
invest in Allen's ideas. His
investment strategies are already
proving as prescient as his work
on a little program called
Windows back in 1983. Get your
own stake in some of his picks
such as reel.com, U.S. Satellite
Broadcasting and
wireless-networking company
Metricom. -----
Images
Paul Allen (left) and Burt Rutan
discuss results of a recent test
flight of SpaceShipOne.Business
end of SpaceShipOne includes
hybrid rocket motor, along with a
novel tail section. -----
CREDIT:
Scaled Composites Pilot Mike
Melvill controls SpaceShipOne
during sixth glide to a desert
landing strip. -----
CREDIT:
Scaled CompositesMojave Airport
is headed for spaceport status.
Image Courtesy: Mojave
AirportJust after landing Space
ShipOne on May 13 flight. -----
Pilot
Mike Melvill describes the
experience while Scaled
Composites chief Burt Rutan and
crew chief Steve Losey listen.
Note color stripes on leading
edge of wing to measure
aerodynamic heating on the
craft's thermal protection
system. Scaled
Composites
More Media
Investor and philanthropist Paul
G. Allen creates and
advances world-class projects and
high-impact initiatives that
change and improve the way people
live, learn, work and experience
the world through arts,
education, entertainment, sports,
business and technology.
-----
He
co-founded Microsoft with Bill
Gates in 1976, remained the
company's chief technologist
until he left Microsoft in 1983,
and is the founder and chairman
of Vulcan Inc. and chairman of
Charter Communications (a
broadband communications
company).
-----
In
addition, Allen's multibillion
dollar investment portfolio
includes large stakes in
DreamWorks SKG, Oxygen Media and
more than 40 other technology,
media and content companies.
Allen also owns the Seattle
Seahawks NFL and Portland Trail
Blazers NBA
franchises.
-----Named
one of the top 10 philanthropists
in America, Allen gives back to
the community through the Paul G.
Allen Family Foundation, whose
mission is to transform lives and
strengthen communities by
fostering innovation, creating
knowledge and promoting social
progress.
-----
Allen is
also the sponsor of SpaceShipOne,
the first civilian effort to
successfully put man in
suborbital space; founder of
Experience Music Project,
Seattle's critically acclaimed
interactive music museum; the
Science Fiction Museum and Hall
of Fame; the $100 million Allen
Institute for Brain Science and
its cutting-edge Allen Brain
Atlas initiative, and Vulcan
Productions, the independent film
production company behind Todd
Haynes' Far From Heaven,
the Evolution series on
PBS, and the award-winning film
series, The Blues,
executive produced by Martin
Scorsese in conjunction with
Allen and Jody
Patton.
•
04
ByLines:TVI
Bylines
/About
Paul Allen and the Bill Gates /
Microsoft Link When
Allen teamed up with Gates that
Microsoft was created.
-----
Allen
Paul Allen (14 years old) met
Bill Gates (12 years old) at
Lakeside prep school in Seattle
when they were both students
attending the school. Lakeside
prep had recently decided to
acquaint its students with the
world of computers, but, since
computers were extremely
expensive, had a fundraiser to
purchase computer time on a DEC
PDP-10 owned by General Electric.
-----
It
was on this computer that Gates,
Allen, and a few other Lakeside
students discovered computing,
and, soon thereafter,
programming. The young boys used
up all the computing time the
school had purchased and began
falling behind in their
classes.
-----Luckily
for the boys, Computer Center
Corporation opened and struck a
deal with Lakeside prep so that
the school could use their
computer at discounted prices.
Gates and Allen quickly became
hackers: causing the system to
crash, breaking the computer's
security system, and even
altering files that recorded the
amount of computer time they were
using.
-----
Once
discovered, the boys were banned
from the Computer Center
Corporation for several weeks.
This, however, turned out to be a
blessing for both the Computer
Center and the boys. When the
Center began having problems with
their computers and business was
beginning to suffer, the company,
impressed with their abilities,
decided to hire the boys to find
bugs and expose weaknesses in the
system. In turn the boys would
receive unlimited computer time
use.
-----After
a few years and a handful of
small business ventures, Gates
and Allen decided to start their
own company: Traf-O-Data. They
built a small computer that was
used to help measure traffic
flow; they grossed about $20,000
from this project.
-----
Allen
enrolled in Washington State
University, and Traf-O-Data
lasted until Gates moved back
east to attend Harvard. The two
young men stayed in close contact
and, eventually, Allen moved
closer to Gates in order to act
on some of their ideas.
-----
Allen
encouraged Gates to open a
software company with him, but
Gates remained unsure until Allen
came to him with an issue of
Popular Electronics. On the cover
of the magazine was a picture of
the Altair 8080 with a headline
the read, "World's First
Microcomputer Kit to Rival
Commercial
Models."
-----Gates
and Allen recognized this as
their opportunity because they
knew that the home computer
market would soon explode. Within
a few days Gates contacted the
makers of the Altair, Micro
Instrumentation and Telemetry
Systems (MITS), and convinced the
company that he and Allen had
developed a BASIC that could be
used on the Altair.
-----
Although
they had done nothing of the
sort, MITS believed them, and the
young men set to work on
producing what they had promised.
Neither Allen nor Gates had ever
even seen an Altair, but,
nevertheless, in eight weeks, the
men took their program to MITS.
-----
The
first time that they tested their
BASIC would be during their
presentation to the company; if
something in the code was faulty,
now would be the time they
discovered it. Luckily, the
program worked and MITS
immediately purchased the rights
to their BASIC. Allen and Gates
knew that the software market had
been born, and, within a year,
Gates had dropped out of Harvard
and he and Allen had founded
Microsoft.
-----Allen
contributed to the company from
the beginning and was still
around to discuss graphical user
interfaces, and thus plant the
seeds of what would eventually
become Windows. However, he was
forced to leave Microsoft in
1983, after developing Hodgkin's
disease. Allen has been awarded
the Life-Time Achievement Award
by PC Magazine, and was recently
inducted into the Computer museum
Hall of Fame.
--
Yes90
tviNews S90
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October Paul Allen
SMART90.com/charlierose.htm
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Convergence - 41st Week of 2012
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Television
With No
Borders
Paul
Gardener Allen (born January 21,
1953) is an
entrepreneur,
investor and philanthropist who
first
established himself by
co-founding Microsoft Corporation
with Bill
Gates., a
leading developer of
personal-computer software
systems and applications.
