Paul Gardner Allen (1953-2018) was an American investor and philanthropist recognized mainly as Microsoft Corporation’s cofounder.
Raised in Seattle, he formed a strong bond with Bill Gates at Lakeside School due to their shared passion for computers.
After dropping out from Washington State University, Allen worked as a programmer for Honeywell Inc. near Boston.
Together, Allen and Gates developed software for microcomputers by adapting the BASIC programming language.
They secured a significant contract with MITS to adapt BASIC for the Altair computer. The success led them to establish Micro-Soft, later Microsoft Corporation, in 1975.
Allen crucially secured a license for the DOS operating system and brokered rights to provide MS-DOS for IBM personal computers.
He resigned from Microsoft in 1983 but remained a board member. His other ventures included owning the Portland Trail Blazers, co-founding the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the Allen Institute for Brain Science and funding SpaceShipOne.
He also explored deep-sea, discovering historical shipwrecks and published a memoir titled “Idea Man” in 2011.
Let’s dive into some of the best quotes by Paul Allen.
Best Paul Allen Quotes
“I’m a very private person that prefers a low profile.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“Any crusade requires optimism and the ambition to aim high.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“You look at things you enjoy in your life, but much more important is what you can do to make the world a better place.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“What should exist? To me, that’s the most exciting question imaginable. What do we need that we don’t have? How can we realize our potential?” ~ (Paul Allen).
See also: Michael Dell Quotes
“I enjoy creating new ideas, working on new creative projects.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“The possible is constantly being redefined, and I care deeply about helping humanity move forward.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“When it comes to helping out, I don’t believe in doing it for the media attention. My goal is to support the organizations that need help.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“You’ve got to enjoy time with your family and friends, and if you’re involved in sports franchises, those peak moments in playoff games. You have to enjoy life.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“Technology is notorious for engrossing people so much that they don’t always focus on balance and enjoy life at the same time.” ~ (Paul Allen).
Top Paul Allen Quotes
“The best museums and museum exhibits about science or technology give you the feeling that, hey, this is interesting, but maybe I could do something here, too.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“In my own work, I’ve tried to anticipate what’s coming over the horizon, to hasten its arrival, and to apply it to people’s lives in a meaningful way.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“We’ve had some tough times, but we’ve hung in there.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“I grew up around books. When I first held the book and it was a substantive, tangible thing, and I thought of all the work that went into it, not just my work but everybody else’s and the research and so forth, there’s a sense of really have done something worthwhile.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“That would be such a life-changing thing, for us all to know that there are other beings out there who we could potentially communicate with, or maybe we are listening to a signal that they transmitted hundreds of millennia ago.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“Sometimes it’s very difficult to find fresh fruit on the road.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“For the most part, the best opportunities now lie where your competitors have yet to establish themselves, not where they’re already entrenched. Microsoft is struggling to adapt to that new reality.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“In a company where tech decisions were still ultra-centralized, the repercussions of a distracted CEO had to be damaging.” ~ (Paul Allen).
Famous Paul Allen Quotes
“As a species, we’ve always been discoverers and adventurers, and space and the deep ocean are some of the last frontiers.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“Traditionally, Seattle has been a great sports town and great football town. What the Huskies have achieved over the years has been pretty amazing. That’s how I got my first taste of football – when I went with my father to Husky Stadium.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success – if you are willing to learn from it.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“I am very excited to be supporting one of the world’s most visionary efforts to seek basic answers to some of the fundamental questions about our universe and what other civilisations may exist elsewhere.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“In the computer industry, you’ve got an interdisciplinary team of people who can come together, attack the problem, and work in a collaborative style. You knock down one problem after another, cobble things together, and then hopefully turn the crank at some point.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“I was in a town of about 10,000 people, and a shipping container with a rusty microscope was their medical clinic.” ~ (Paul Allen).
Popular Paul Allen Quotes
“The only regrets I have are rather prosaic – like I wish I went for a swim in the Pacific.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“I think it’s going to be great if people can buy a ticket to fly up and see black sky and the stars. I’d like to do it myself-but probably after it has flown a serious number of times first!” ~ (Paul Allen).
“Once you become an owner of a team, you get so much more into the sport and you can’t help it. So I really love NFL football now to the degree of following it much more than I did previously.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you.” ~ (Paul Allen).
“In global warming, I think everyone is scratching their heads – are there technological things that can be brought to bear that can make a difference?” ~ (Paul Allen).
“In the first eight or so years at Microsoft, we were always chained to our terminals, and after I got sick the first time, I decided that I was going to be more adventurous and explore more of the world.” ~ (Paul Allen).
