Paul Allen

2011-07-12T01:39:00.000-07:00

In full Paul Gardner Allen ( 1953 - )

Co-Founder, Microsoft

In my own work, I've tried to anticipate what's coming over the horizon, to hasten its arrival, and to apply it to people's lives in a meaningful way. -Paul Allen

Paul Gardner Allen, born January 21, 1953, is an American investor and philanthropist who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates and is one of the wealthiest people in the world with a personal wealth of US$13.5 billion as of 2010. He is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which manages his business and philanthropic efforts.

Paul Allen was born in Seattle, Washington, to parents Kenneth S. Allen, an associate director of the University of Washington libraries. Allen attended Lakeside School, a private school in Seattle, and befriended Bill Gates, who was almost three years his junior but shared a common enthusiasm for computers. They used Lakeside's teletype terminal to develop their programming skills on several time-sharing computer systems.

After graduation, Allen attended Washington State University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Theta Fraternity but dropped out after two years in order to work as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston, placing him near his old friend again. Allen later convinced Gates to drop out of Harvard University in order to create Microsoft.

Paul Allen has made contributions to organizations related to health and human services, and toward the advancement of science and technology. The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation was established in 1986 to administer most of his contributions. Through the Foundation, Allen awards approximately $30 million in grants annually. Roughly 60% of the Foundation's money goes to non-profit organizations in Seattle and the state of Washington, and 12% to Portland, Oregon. The remaining 28% is distributed to other cities within the Pacific Northwest and internationally.

Allen founded the museum in 2000. The award was presented as part of a gala benefit for EMP. The finale was a four-song set with all the evening's musicians on stage, including Allen and Robertson on guitar.

Paul Allen is also a founding member of The International SeaKeepers Society and hosts its proprietary SeaKeeper 1000TM oceanographic and atmospheric monitoring system on all three of his megayachts.

With his sister, Jo Lynn Allen, Paul Allen pledged $100 million in 2003 to found the Allen Institute for Brain Science, a nonprofit corporation (501(c) (3)) and medical research organization. Utilizing the mouse model system (given its great similarity to human DNA), 20,000 genes in the adult mouse brain were mapped to a cellular level for the Allen Brain Atlas. The data generated from this effort is contained in the free and publicly available Allen Brain Atlas application.

In 2008, the Institute also launched the Allen Spinal Cord Atlas project. All of these scientific findings will prove invaluable to international researchers working on cures for neurological and nervous system illnesses and injuries.

On November 15, 2009, Jody Allen, Paul Allen's sister and the CEO of Vulcan made public that Paul had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of blood cancer. As of October 2010, he has been free of cancer.

Allen has donated more than $1 billion of his money, as of 2010. That includes charitable projects known as "venture philanthropy". The most famous of these projects are the Experience Music Project, Seattle Cinerama Theatre, the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, the Flying Heritage Collection (airworthy vintage military aircraft) and the Allen Telescope Array (ATA).

Article : Penh Sothavy

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Reference :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen

http://www.biography.com

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/paul_allen.html

Bill Gates

2011-06-16T21:16:00.000-07:00

In full William Henry Gates III ( 1955 – )

Co-Founder & Chairman, Microsoft

“In this business, by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.” -Bill Gates

Entrepreneur. William H. Gates, III, was born October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington. The son of William H. Gates II, a Seattle attorney, and the late Mary Gates, a former schoolteacher, University of Washington regent and chairwoman of United Way International, Gates’ fascination with computers began at an early age.

After attending a public elementary school. Gates attended the private Lakedise School, where his career in computers would begin to manifest itself. A math whiz, Gates was already on the road to programming – tic-tac-toe games – and scrounging for programming remnants outside a computer company, with classmate Paul Allen.

Gates went off to Harvard University with the original intention of becoming a math professor. It was during his Harvard days that he and Allen developed Basic, the programming language for the MITS Altair (the first microcomputer). Incidentally, Gates lived down the hall form the present CEO of Microsoft and fellow Harvard student, Steve Ballmer.

Gates never made it to graduation, as he had bigger and better plans. He opted to focus his energy on his and Paul Allen’s company – a then small Microsoft. Gates and Allen were driven by the belief that in a matter of time, every home and office would need a personal computer, and thus the company was born.

Microsoft’s road to success began after Gates and Allen struck a deal with IBM to install the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) in their computers. After Microsoft developed more software applications, the company eventually became the standard in the PC market.

The IBM/Microsoft relationship started after Big Blue asked Microsoft to develop an operating system for its PCs...and the rest is history.

CEO and President of the biggest software company in the world – to say the least – until November 2000, Bill Gates passed the throne to Steve Ballmer. Presently Chairman of the corporation, Bill Gates holds the title of Chief Software Architect, where he remains an active force at Microsoft.

Involved in management and strategic decisions, Gates is an important part of the technical development of the company, and devotes his time to customer service (the millions of customers, might we add) and employee relations.

Venturing into the world of publishing, Gates followed up his 1995 book, The Road Ahead, with the bestseller, Business @ the Speed of Thought. Released in 1999 and co-written by Collins Hemingway, the book was published in 25 languages and aims at showing the ways digital processes can solve business problems.

Not only have the proceeds of both books been donated to non-profit organizations supporting the use of technology in education, but Gates’ charitable nature has paved the way to organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, aimed at improving the standard of living for underprivileged people.

Gates has also greatly contributed to the Global Fund for Children’s Vaccines with $750 million in grants, and launched the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, awarding scholarship to low-income children. He has also donated $200 million in computers and Internet access to low-income public libraries.

He may be the name people will forever associate with Microsoft, but at home he is husband to Melinda French Gates, a former Microsoft employee. Married on New Years Day, 1994, the couple resides in Seattle with their two children, Jennifer Katharine and Rory John.

A billionaire at 31, and presently one of the wealthiest men in the world (his estimated worth stands at approximately $70 billion, as of November 2000), Bill Gates is a 20th century visionary who proved to the world that it’s the software that makes the computer, not the machine.

Article : Penh Sothavy

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Reference :

- CHUM Sam Veasna, Businessman Celebrity, Angkor Thom, Phnom Penh, 2004.

- http://www.biography.com/articles/Bill-Gates-9307520

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

BIOGRAPHY

Paul Allen

Bill Gates