Paul Allen biography

Paul Gardner Allen (born January 21, 1953) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. Allen regularly appears on lists of the richest people in the world. As of September 2007, Forbes ranks him as the eleventh richest American, worth an estimated $16.8 billion.[2]

He is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which is his private asset management company, and is chairman of Charter Communications. Allen also has a multibillion dollar investment portfolio which includes large stakes in DreamWorks Animation SKG, Digeo, real estate holdings, and more than 40 other technology, media, and content companies. Allen also owns three professional sports teams: the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League, the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association, and the Seattle Sounders FC franchise in Major League Soccer that will begin playing in the 2009 season.[3][4][5]

Paul Gardner Allen was born in Seattle, Washington, to parents Kenneth S. Allen, an associate director of the University of Washington libraries, and Faye G. Allen, in January 21, 1953.[6] Allen attended Lakeside School, a private school in Seattle, and befriended Bill Gates, who was two years his junior but shared a common enthusiasm for computers.[7] They used Lakeside's teletype terminal to develop their programming skills on several time-sharing computer systems.[8] After graduation Allen attended Washington State University and was an active member in Phi Kappa Theta Fraternity.[8] He dropped out after two years in order to work as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston, which placed him near his old friend again.[8] Allen later convinced Gates to drop out of Harvard University in order to create Microsoft.[7]