More than a Microsoft founder
Paul Allen, who died this week, was complex and kind
● When he met the person who would propel him to become one of the world’s richest people, Paul Allen was just 14. The Microsoft co-founder’s partnership with Bill Gates became one of the most formative in the history of US business.
But at the time there was no obvious sign that the pair would go on to build one of the world’s most powerful companies together.
“He had a scruffy-preppy look: pullover sweater, tan slacks, enormous saddle shoes. His blond hair went all over the place,” Allen recalled of his first meeting with Gates in his memoir. “You could tell three things about Bill Gates pretty quickly. He was really smart. He was really competitive; he wanted to show you how smart he was. And he was really, really persistent.”
Allen, on the other hand, was the shy son of librarians who liked to think of himself as an “ideas man”.
In 1975, when Gates was 19 and Allen was 22, they both dropped out of university to create Microsoft, a company that would transform the world and turn them into billionaires. Eight years later, Allen left the company — to recover from his first lymphoma diagnosis — and severed his close ties with Gates despite remaining on the board of the company.
For Allen, who died on Monday at 65, multimillion-dollar wealth opened up a lavish life of superyachts, star-studded parties and celebrities.
For 20 years Allen tried to stay out of the spotlight. His invitations to parties aboard “obscenely proportioned yachts” came with nondisclosure agreements. He owned spectacular homes including one in New York, a French villa and a house in London’s Holland Park.
His main house in Seattle is rumoured to have featured an art gallery stuffed with Impressionist masterpieces, a basketball court lined with Renoirs and Monets, and the chair used by Star Trek’s Captain Kirk.
He had an infamously huge collection of sports cars. He was romantically linked to Jerry Hall and tennis player Monica Seles. He had 15 planes in working order from World War 2 that he kept at Seattle Airport.
In his spare time, Allen was part of a band called Grown Men, which mainly covered Jimi Hendrix songs and released one album, in 1999. He played the guitar, and was friends with Eurythmics member David Stewart.
Although he rubbed shoulders with hundreds of celebrities for years, Allen was never a star in his own right. He was often described as socially awkward and out of place — even at the parties he hosted himself.
I now understood that life was too short to spend it unhappily
Paul Allen Microsoft co-founder
And, throughout this lavish period in his life, his trusted friend Gates was nowhere to be found. In 2011, Allen finally shed light on what really happened when he left Microsoft, offering a less-than-flattering portrayal of his business partner.
Allen said that as the business grew, Gates became obsessed with its success. Anybody who disagreed with Gates was told “that’s the stupidest f***ing thing I’ve ever heard”, he recalled. Their legendary loud arguments would last for hours.
In 1982, when Allen was diagnosed with lymphoma, he overheard a “heinous” discussion on ways to push him out of the business during his illness. “I now understood that life was too short to spend it unhappily,” he said.
When Allen quit, Gates offered to buy his company stock for $5 a share. He refused, and their relationship never recovered.
Allen, nicknamed the “accidental zillionaire”, certainly knew how to spend the money that came from his share of Microsoft. But he was also at the forefront of a now-popular movement for successful entrepreneurs to support worthy causes.
He founded and became the CEO of Vulcan, which oversees his philanthropic and commercial projects. These included fighting ebola, protecting endangered species and fighting climate change.
Through Vulcan, Allen was able to follow one of his passions: sport. He owned the Seattle Seahawks, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Seattle Sounders.
Last year, Allen gave a $100,000 donation to Republican congressional candidates, the second-largest campaign contribution from the tech world to the Republicans, surpassed only by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who contributed $101,700 to the Republican National Committee in July last year.
Allen played both sides of the fence, also making donations to certain Democrats.
This month Allen discovered that his lymphoma had returned. One of his last acts was to campaign for gun control, rallying support via his Twitter feed for a “reasonable and necessary” measure that he argued could improve safety in schools and communities. He donated $1m to the cause.
Allen was a man of great contradictions. He spent a lot, yet not enough to appease his critics; he was a family person devoted to his widowed mother and sister, yet was described as “lonely” for much of his life. He was much more than the co-founder of Microsoft.