Sometimes the fate of your life is determined by what kind of friends you make.
Yesterday, Paul Allen, one of Microsoft co-founders, died of complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 65.
After the news was exposed, Bill Gates, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other industry bigwigs have sent tributes.
Maybe the country is not familiar with this IT big man, but his legendary life experience really makes Him admire it.
He was Bill Gates' best friend
They are each other's Bole and Maxima
Together, it has promoted the computer revolution and the progress of the times
He is one of the richest people in the world
He is the owner of the NBA Trail Blazers
He is the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band
He's a playboy who plays yachting, adventure, and space.
He is a man who has been suffering from cancer for thirty years and is still acting optimistically
He is what the British media claims to be "the most enviable person in the world"
Well, if you want to know what it would be like for a man to live the greatest breadth and depth in his life, it might be Paul Allen!
01
Geniuses are crazy
In the early years, foreign media commented on the 10 most talented and intelligent people in the world today, and Paul Allen ranked ninth in the world with an IQ level of 170 points.
He was a real genius.
I don't know if geniuses are crazy or not, but geniuses must be people who love to read.
In 1953, Paul Allen was born in Seattle, Washington.
His father was the deputy director of the University of Washington Library, which gave Allen a great opportunity to read the collection.
Young Ellen's passion for reading surprised his parents, and he spent his days in the library, frantically expanding his knowledge.
But he's not a nerd.
As a young man, Allen became obsessed with computer programming and has been out of control ever since.
He attended Lakeside Middle School, a prestigious private school in Seattle, where Bill Gates, who was two grades younger but equally obsessed with computers, attended.
As a result, 16-year-old Allen and 14-year-old Bill Gates became the best partners, they shouted "Long live the virgin" together, and proudly carved this word on the tablet for the students to "encourage".
Together, they monopolized the only microcomputer at Lakeshore Middle School.
In order to gain greater computing power, Allen and Gates sneak into the Computer Lab at the University of Washington... There they continued their endless passion for computer programs.
At the end of high school, Paul Allen easily scored a perfect score of 1600 on the SAT test, and then entered Washington State University.
But just two years later, he concluded that a college education would do him no good.
In order to realize his dream of writing commercial software, he left campus to work as a programmer in Boston.
In Boston, Allen meets again with Bill Gates, who has just attended nearby Harvard University.
Allen advised Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard university and co-start a software company.
So they began a great Microsoft journey in a small hotel room.
02
At the peak of his career, he was suffering from cancer
The two ventured into the IT landscape together.
Allen focuses on new technologies and ideas at Microsoft.
Gates is mainly commercial, with salesmen, technical leaders, lawyers, business negotiators and presidents all of them.
The two founders of Microsoft have tacitly cooperated in this way, setting off a software revolution that has not stopped so far.
According to a 1995 Fortune magazine article, Microsoft's earliest name, "Micro-Soft," was conceived by Allen.
In 1975, Allen and Gates began touting a BASIC programming language compiler they had developed.
After achieving a certain sales performance, they set their sights on a larger customer - IBM.
Two young men promised IBM in 1980 a software operating system for the IBM PC, but at the time of the commitment, they had not even developed it.
At this point, Allen demonstrated his exceptional business acumen.
Through Microsoft, he bought QDOS, an operating system developed by Tim Paterson, then an employee of seattle Computer Company, and eventually succeeded in delivering with IBM.
The success of the business partnership with IBM laid the foundation for Microsoft's next take-off.
By 1984, Microsoft had more than $100 million in sales.
However, at the beginning of his career, Allen was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1982, when he was not yet 30 years old.
However, he was not defeated by the disease, and after several months of chemotherapy, the condition was brought under control.
But Allen's career in Microsoft management came to an end.
In 2000, Allen formally resigned as a member of Microsoft's board of directors, but remained a senior strategic advisor to the company.
Until Nadella took the helm of Microsoft, Allen was a consulting partner for Microsoft's senior management from time to time.
03
The foresight to accidentally earn a billionaire
Allen's success was due to the fact that he chose Gates right.
But we can't help but admit that Allen himself has a superhuman intelligence.
Some people commented that if he did not seize the opportunity to start Microsoft, Allen might have been an engineer at Boeing or an employee of a software company.
Accidentally making a billionaire?
This is not something that everyone can do.
It's not so much that Allen founded Microsoft on a whim, but rather that he was visionary.
Gates recollected, "If it wasn't for the blueprint Allen painted that moved me, maybe I would have stayed in college."
Then, all the stories wouldn't have happened in the future, and I even wondered if I was too impulsive. ”
Allen was thinking about ten years later, and that was what his friends most praised.
For example, as early as 20 years ago, Allen said: "The information superhighway will be the next wave, and you can't always catch up with two waves of such a trend." ”
Alan was very humble, though.
He doesn't consider himself visionary, he considers himself "very fortunate to have appeared in the pioneering phase of the microcomputer era."
And it is this "luck" that lays the foundation for his future worth.
04
Dreamer Alan
Microsoft is only one part of Allen's whole wonderful life, but he has an extremely rich life and inner world after a lifetime of unmarried and reclusive life.
Musical dreams
"Of course I love programming, but it's still not comparable to music."
Allen is a huge music fan, and his unique ability to play guitar with one hand is amazing.
He formed two rock bands of his own and released his debut album in 2000.
In admiration for his idol, rock star Jimmy Hendricks, Allen spent $240 million to build the Seattle Music Experience Center.
In the center, more than 80,000 items from rock stars are on display, including Elvis Presley's black leather jacket, Janice Choprin's embroidered flared pants, and Jimmy Hendricks' guitar.
Science fiction dreams
Allen's favorite science fiction novel as a child was Robert Helene's Galileo Rocket, in which the protagonist was a scientist who personally participated in the construction and aviation program of the moon rocket.
Allen's interest in science fiction also continued into his middle age.
In 2004, Allen spent more than $20 million to build the world's first "science fiction museum."
The 1,200-square-meter museum has four galleries: History of Science Fiction, Interstellar Journey, Futurama and Aliens, which house more than 500 treasures that Allen has treasured over the years.
In addition, Allen donated $11.5 million to the search for aliens to build the world's newest multifunctional radio telescope array, the Allen Telescope Array.
Space dreams
As a teenager, he fantasized about flying in space on a space rocket.
"My cousin and I tried to make a small rocket out of the chair leg of an aluminum armchair,"
Allen recalls his experience when he was 12 years old, "Our rocket made a huge sound and then melted away. ”
Over the years, Allen has never given up on the dream of going to the universe, "in my mind, there is always a desire for space, and one day I will realize my dream."
In 2004, Allen's SpaceShipOne small artificial rocket set a record for the world's first private flying device to climb 112 kilometers above the ground.
Allen invested $25 million in this.
Allen says his dream of space is to usher in a new era of low-cost private space travel.
Sailing dreams
Allen built the Octopus yacht simply to be able to decide "where to wake up in the morning and what to see when you wake up."
The yacht features two helipads, a swimming pool, a baseball field, a hospital, a garage, a cinema and a Recording Studio, Allen's favorite.
In the middle of the yacht are also equipped with 14 dinghies.
This includes a custom-built submarine that can carry 10 people underwater for two weeks.
Arena dreams
Allen is a sports fan.
His favorites are basketball and rugby.
So in 1997, Allen became the owner of the NFL Seattle Seahawks for $200 million.
In 1998, he bought the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers for $70 million.
Allen and Bill Gates watching the Trail Blazers game together
In the 2000-2001 season, Allen's Trail Blazers set a league record:
Six All-Star players joined, and the total salary of the whole team was as high as $86.5 million, ranking first in the league.
Unfortunately, the Blazers have had bad luck over the years, and in the end they have not been able to realize the boss's dream of a championship.
05
Investment & Philanthropy
After making a fortune from Microsoft's commercial success, Paul Allen used his fortune to inject capital into Vulcan Capital.
In addition, Allen founded the Paul Allen Family Foundation, dedicated to the giving of its philanthropic causes.
During his lifetime, he has donated more than $2 billion in science, technology, education, wildlife conservation, the arts, health care, community services and more.
In 2014, when the Ebola virus was raging in West Africa, Allen pledged at least $100 million to control the spread of the virus, making it the largest private donation during the Ebola crisis at the time.
When it comes to education, Washington State University is the main beneficiary.
In 1989, Allen invested $2 million in the construction of a library at the University of Washington.
In 2002, he donated $14 million to the school to build a computer science center.
In 2010, he announced a $26 million donation to his alma mater, Washington State University, for the construction of the College of Veterinary Medicine;
Invested another $40 million in 2017 for the renovation of the School of Computer Science;
Before his death, he had promised to donate all his wealth to charity after his death, leaving not a single inheritance for future generations.
06
Be friends with great people
It seems that Paul Allen has been hiding under bill Gates' aura.
People only know that he and Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, but forget that it was he who introduced Bill Gates to the software industry.
There is a saying in the Jewish classic Talmud that you can only learn to howl by living with wolves.
Get in touch with good people and you'll be well influenced.
According to this reasoning, if two excellent people can walk together and influence each other, it will be a feat.
Undoubtedly, Paul Allen and Bill Gates confirm this statement best.
Some say that without Paul Allen, Microsoft might not have appeared.
But if it weren't for Torgate's blessing, Allen might not have even been able to pay for his "mistakes."
It's no accident that Bill Gates once said: Sometimes the fate of your life is determined by what kind of friends you make.
In other words, in a way, the person you associate with may be your future.
That's how Paul Allen and Bill Gates decide each other's future.
Remember: with good people, excellence will become a habit.