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Bill Gates Honors Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen: He 'Changed My Life' (people.com)
In an article published to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Bill Gates reflected on Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's life and the impact Allen had on him. Paul Allen passed away last Monday from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 65. People Magazine reports: "I met Paul Allen when I was in 7th grade, and it changed my life, Gates wrote in the Journal. "I looked up to him right away. He was two years ahead of me in school, really tall, and proved to be a genius with computers... Eventually, we were spending just about all our free time messing around with any machine we could get our hands on." The two would often sneak off during late hours to use the computers at the University of Washington, something Gates said he wouldn't have had the nerve to do without Allen by his side.
Back then, Allen was able to foresee how powerful and essential computers would one day become. When Allen came across an issue of Popular Electronics that featured a powerful computer that was going to be released, he convinced Gates to join him in placing all of their focus into getting in on the computer industry before it took off without them. "That moment marked the end of my college career and the beginning of our new company, Microsoft," Gates recalled, adding that Allen's talents largely helped to make Microsoft successful at its inception. "As the first person I ever partnered with, Paul set a standard that few other people could meet. He had a wide-ranging mind and a special talent for explaining complicated subjects in a simple way." In closing, Gates wrote: "Paul was cooler than I was. He was really into Jimi Hendrix, and I remember him playing 'Are You Experienced?' for me. I wasn't experienced at much of anything back then, and Paul wanted to share this amazing music with me. That's the kind of person he was. He loved life and the people around him, and it showed."
Back then, Allen was able to foresee how powerful and essential computers would one day become. When Allen came across an issue of Popular Electronics that featured a powerful computer that was going to be released, he convinced Gates to join him in placing all of their focus into getting in on the computer industry before it took off without them. "That moment marked the end of my college career and the beginning of our new company, Microsoft," Gates recalled, adding that Allen's talents largely helped to make Microsoft successful at its inception. "As the first person I ever partnered with, Paul set a standard that few other people could meet. He had a wide-ranging mind and a special talent for explaining complicated subjects in a simple way." In closing, Gates wrote: "Paul was cooler than I was. He was really into Jimi Hendrix, and I remember him playing 'Are You Experienced?' for me. I wasn't experienced at much of anything back then, and Paul wanted to share this amazing music with me. That's the kind of person he was. He loved life and the people around him, and it showed."
That's what I was thinking. Read this to see what Bill's true feelings towards Paul Allen was.
That happened to a great many tech companies. HP, for instance. At some point these companies become institutionalized internally; they no longer serve to bring about the vision and dreams of the founders, and the company becomes a goal unto itself. That always reminds me of the movie Tron, the founder of ENCOM lamenting to the CEO: "Sometimes I wish I was back in that garage...". Here's hoping that we'll never hear the same sentiment from guys like Elon Musk.
Perhaps the problem with these generic MBA "business fucks" is that they lack a grand vision, other than increasing profit and growing the company. They want to conquer the world rather than change it.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Not incredibly surprising.
Socially, we have an inherent predilection to speak kindly of the recently deceased.
Sociopathically, liking someone has never really been much of an obstacle for those most likely to rise to the top of billion dollar corporations.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I was at a Microsoft Christmas party in about 1990 (+/- a year). Bill Gates and Paul Allen were there talking to each other. Their body language was that they were old friends, not mortal enemies. This would have been seven years or so after the date mentioned in the cnet article. So, even if the article was true, which I doubt, then they had patched up their differences by then.