SEATTLE (AP) — Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with his childhood friend Bill Gates, has died. He was 65.
Allen’s company Vulcan Inc. said in a statement that he died Monday. Earlier this month Allen said the cancer he was treated for in 2009, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, had returned.
Allen, who was an avid sports fan, owned the Portland Trail Blazers and the Seattle Seahawks
Allen and Gates founded Microsoft Corp. in 1975. Microsoft’s big break came in 1980, when IBM Corp. decided to move into personal computers. IBM asked Microsoft to provide the operating system.
The decision thrust Microsoft onto the throne of technology and the two Seattle-natives became billionaires. Both later dedicated themselves to philanthropy.
Over the course several decades, Allen gave more than $2 billion to a wide range of interests, including ocean health, homelessness and advancing scientific research.
For those of us in this age group, reading a headline like this is always jolting. We always hope the odds are with us and we’ll have those statistical 79 years. At least his family knows he had the best health care money could buy.
As a resident of Portland, I can say that is going to hurt. Paul was the sports figure of this city.
I keep thinking they mean Peter Allen.
So sad…RIP Mr. Allen
When I see someone like Allen pass, I think of history. Putting the OS wars aside, he was a primary in creating something that I speculate most of us use daily. It was a pioneering moment. I feel the same way about Jobs. Love him, hate him, we can see the changes directly that these people made in the world.