Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen dead at 65 from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

Marco della Cava and Elizabeth Weise USA TODAY

Published 7:57 PM EDT Oct 15, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO – Paul Allen, a technology pioneer who helped launch the personal computer revolution as co-founder of Microsoft, has died, according to his company, Vulcan Inc.

The cause was complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a condition that surfaced in 2009 and returned just a few weeks ago. Allen was 65.

On Oct. 1, Allen wrote a short but optimistic note on his personal website, noting that "I’ve begun treatment & my doctors are optimistic that I will see a good result. Appreciate the support I’ve received & count on it as I fight this challenge."

Washington Gov. Paul Inslee on Monday called Allen "a giant in Washington history."

Allen helped found Microsoft in 1975 when he was 22, joining his longtime Seattle-area computer pal Bill Gates in a venture that transformed society.

While Gates went on to run Microsoft for decades, finally leaving to focus on his philanthropic efforts, Allen left the company in 1982 because of an illness, and never returned full-time.

Instead, Allen, who was worth around $20 billion, quickly pivoted to a range of technology investments as well as a passion for cultural ventures such as the Experience Music Project in Seattle.

Allen also was known as the owner of numerous mega-yachts and sports franchises, including the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers and the NFL's Seattle Seahawks.

Vulcan CEO Bill Hilt, speaking for his company as well as the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers, Stratolaunch Systems, the Allen Institute and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, said in a statement that "Paul’s life was diverse and lived with gusto.

"It reflected his myriad interests in technology, music and the arts, biosciences and artificial intelligence, conservation and in the power of shared experience – in a stadium or a neighborhood – to transform individual lives and whole communities," Hilf said.

Allen’s sister, Jody Allen, said on the Vulcan site that her brother was a remarkable individual “on every level. While most knew Paul Allen as a technologist and philanthropist, for us he was a much loved brother and uncle, and an exceptional friend.

More: Seahawks, Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen dies of cancer at 65

"Paul’s family and friends were blessed to experience his wit, warmth, his generosity and deep concern," she wrote. "For all the demands on his schedule, there was always time for family and friends.”

The non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that took Allen's life is a type of cancer that develops in the body’s white blood cells and lymph nodes, which are part of the immune system. It most often strikes adults, though children can also get it.

There are two types, indolent, which is slow growing and aggressive, which can spread rapidly. It is typically treated with chemotherapy or immunotherapy and is considered highly treatable especially if discovered early.

Other tributes to Allen poured in Monday, including those from current and former Microsoft leaders.

CEO Satya Nadella wrote on his LinkedIn page that Allen’s "contributions to our company, our industry and to our community are indispensable. As co-founder of Microsoft, in his own quiet and persistent way, he created magical products, experiences and institutions, and in doing so, he changed the world."

More: Sports figures mourn Paul Allen after Seahawks, Trail Blazers owner's death

Past CEO Steve Ballmer tweeted that "Paul was a truly wonderful, bright and inspiring person—- and a great friend. I will miss him."

Music producer Quincy Jones tweeted "RIP to my dear friend (& killer guitar player) Paul Allen. Your genius & generosity has & will forever be felt by mankind."

Earlier this year, Jones regaled New York magazine's Vulture blog with tales of sailing as a guest on one of Allen's yachts, noting that Allen could play and sing "just like (Jimi) Hendrix," another Seattle-area legend whose guitars Allen collected.

The story of Allen and Gates founding Microsoft is in some ways even more incredible than the tale of how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple. While the latter duo met as young adults, Allen and Gates started their friendship as teens.

Allen and Gates met when they were both students at Lakeside, an elite private school in Seattle that begins in fifth grade and continues through high school. They first met in 1967 when Allen was 14 and Gates was 12.

Nearly a decade later, Allen showed Gates an article in the magazine Popular Electronics about the Altair 8800, a build-it-yourself computer kit that needed a programming language. The duo intuitively realized there was a possible business in building software for these newly popular home computers.

In 1975, the friends opened a small office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from which they began to sell their software, a computer language product dubbed Mircosoft. At the time, Allen worked at Honeywell as a programmer. Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard, where he was a student.

Allen is also credited with naming the company, which he did by combining microcomputer and software. At the time many computers were room-filling behemoths and the type of computer they were targeting were called microcomputers, or the precursor to the modern PC.

In 1979, Allen and Gates moved their company back home, to Bellevue, Washington, just across Lake Washington from Seattle. Microsoft quickly cemented the Pacific Northwest city as a high-tech magnet, rivaled only by their Apple rivals down south in Cupertino, Calif.

But where Apple's fortunes fluctuated as Jobs used his marketing prowess to push against the almost unrivaled hegemony of Microsoft's products, Microsoft's exponential growth minted countless millionaires and even billionaires.

Microsoft's biggest speed bump came at the turn of the Millennium as a result of a Department of Justice anti-monopoly suit.

But by that point, Allen had been long gone from the company he had helped create, dabbling instead in everything from space exploration to collecting famous rock guitars to owning big league teams.

Allen, like others tech leaders including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, was fascinated by space travel.

He was the sole investor in SpaceShipOne, the first privately-funded ship to put a civilian into suborbital space around the Earth. That effort, led by Burt Rutan, won the Ansari X Prize of $10 million in 2004.

Allen went on to found Vulcan Aerospace in 2011, which is building space plane for private low Earth orbit launches.

But it wasn't just science fiction that attracted Allen's billions. The investor also put his money toward medical research. In a 2012 interview with Seattle-area TV station KING 5, Allen talked about donating $300 million to brain research and reflected modestly on his role in the technological revolution that unfolded in his lifetime.

"If you think back when Bill Gates and I started out, nobody had personal computers," Allen said. "Now people have multiples one and a smartphone that's one. So I've just been fortunate enough to see some of these changes happen, and maybe help make some of them happen."

Follow USA TODAY Nation writers @marcodellacava and @eweise

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