Paul G Allen

Co-founder of Microsoft and philanthropist

Paul Gardner Allen, business magnate and philanthropist. Born: 21 January 1953 in Seattle, Washington, United States. Died: 15 October 2018 in Seattle, Washington, aged 65.

Paul G Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft who helped usher in the personal computing revolution and then channeled his enormous fortune into transforming Seattle into a cultural destination, died on Monday in Seattle. He was 65.

The cause was complications of non-hodgkin lymphoma, his family said. The disease recurred recently after having been in remission for years. He left Microsoft in the early 1980s, after the cancer first appeared, and, using his enormous wealth, went on to make a powerful impact on Seattle life via philanthropy.

Allen was a force at Microsoft during its first seven years, along with his co-founder, Bill Gates, as the personal computer was moving from a hobbyist curiosity to a mainstream technology, used by both businesses and consumers. When the company was founded in 1975, the machines were known as microcomputers, to distinguish the desktop computers from the hulking machines of the day. Allen came up with the name Microsoft, an apt one for a firm that made software for small computers. The term “personal computer” would become commonplace later.

The company’s first product was a much-compressed version of the Basic programming language, designed to suit those underpowered machines. Yet the company’s big move came when it promised computer giant IBM that it would deliver the operating system software for IBM’S entry into the personal computer business. Gates and Allen committed to supplying that software in 1980. It was a promise without a product. But Allen was instrumental in putting together a deal to buy an early operating system from a programmer in Seattle. He and Gates tweaked and massaged the code, and it became the operating system that guided the IBM personal computer, introduced in 1981.

That product, called Microsoft Disk Operating System, or MS-DOS, was a watershed for the company. Later would come Microsoft’s immensely popular Windows operating system, designed to be used with a computer mouse and onscreen icons – point-and-click computing rather than typed commands. The company would also produce the Office productivity programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.

“In his own quiet and persistent way, he created magical products, experiences and institutions, and in doing so, he changed the world,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s current chief executive, said.

Allen’s partnership with Gates began as teenagers at a private school in Seattle. It was there that they got their start in computing, working from a school Teletype terminal that was linked to a far-away mainframe computer under a times-haring computer system, in which operators paid for the computing time they used. Funds for the system were originally supplied by proceeds from a school bake sale.

Allen went on to Washington State University, but after two years dropped out to work as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston. Gates was nearby, attending Harvard University.

When an early microcomputer was introduced, appearing on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine, Allen persuaded Gates to drop out of Harvard and move to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a startup called MITS had built a machine that has been credited as the first personal computer. The machine lacked software, and Allen and Gates, showing up at the MITS offices, promised that they could supply it. Their first offering was Microsoft BASIC. Both Gates and Allen were skilled code creators, but Gates was more the hard-charging, volatile businessman, while Allen played the peacemaker and negotiator in those early days.

Within a few years, Microsoft moved from New Mexico to suburban Seattle. Though Allen stepped away from daily duties at Microsoft in the early 1980s, partly because of a deteriorating relationship with Gates, he remained on the Microsoft board until 2000.

Allen left Microsoft after he learned he had Hodgkin lymphoma. But tensions had also flared with both Gates and Steve Ballmer, a close lieutenant who eventually succeeded Gates as chief executive. In his 2011 memoir, Idea Man, Allen recalled overhearing the two talk about reducing his stake in the company. “They were bemoaning my recent lack of production and discussing how they might dilute my Microsoft equity by issuing options to themselves and other shareholders,” Allen wrote. But Allen held his ground and his shares.

Gates said this week: “From our early days together at Lakeside School, through our partnership in the creation of Microsoft, to some of our joint philanthropic projects over the years, Paul was a true partner and dear friend. Personal computing would not have existed without him.”

As Microsoft became the dominant personal computer software company, Allen, as well as Gates, who was the face of the company, became immensely wealthy, with a net worth of $26.1 billion.

Allen donated more than $2bn toward non-profit groups dedicated to the advancement of science, technology, education, the environment and the arts. Among the scientific research organisations he funded were the Allen Institute for Brain Science in 2003 and Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in 2014. And while some of his philanthropy was global, like a passion for ending elephant poaching, much of his work centered on Seattle, where he became a transformative force behind many of the city’s leading cultural institutions.

Three years ago, on Microsoft’s 40th anniversary, Allen posted on Twitter a bit of the code for the company’s first software product. At the top, it said, “Copyright 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.” “It’s weird to look at bits of code you wrote 40 years ago and think, ‘That led to where Microsoft is today’,” Allen said. He sounded genuinely amazed.

STEVE LOHR