Author: Paul Allen
Description:
"The entire conversation took five minutes. When it was over, Bill
and I looked at each other. It was one thing to talk about writing a
language for a microprocessor and another to get the job done . . . If
we'd been older or known better, Bill and I might have been put off by
the task in front of us. But we were young and green enough to believe
that we just might pull it off." Paul Allen, best known as the
cofounder of Microsoft, has left his mark on numerous fields, from
aviation and science to rock 'n' roll, professional sports, and
philanthropy. His passions and curiosity have transformed the way we
live. In 2007 and again in 2008, Time named him one of the hundred most
influential people in the world. It all started on a snowy day in
December 1974, when he was twenty-one years old. After buying the new
issue of Popular Electronics in Harvard Square, Allen ran to show it to
his best friend from Seattle, Bill Gates, then a Harvard undergrad. The
magazine's cover story featured the Altair 8800, the first true
personal computer; Allen knew that he and Gates had the skills to code
a programming language for it. When Gates agreed to collaborate on
BASIC for the Altair, one of the most influential partnerships of the
digital era was up and running. While much has been written about
Microsoft's early years, Allen has never before told the story from his
point of view. Nor has he previously talked about the details of his
complex relationship with Gates or his behind-closed- doors perspective
on how a struggling startup became the most powerful technology company
in the world. Idea Man is the candid and long-awaited memoir of an
intensely private person, a tale of triumphant highs and terrifying
lows. After becoming seriously ill with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1982,
Allen began scaling back his involvement with Microsoft. He recovered
and started using his fortune-and his ideas-for a life of adventure and
discovery, from the first privately funded spacecraft (SpaceShipOne) to
a landmark breakthrough in neuroscience (the Allen Brain Atlas). His
eclectic ventures all start with the same simple question: What should
exist? As Allen has written: To me, that's the most exciting question
imaginable. . . . From technology to science to music to art, I'm
inspired by those who've blurred the boundaries, who've looked at the
possibilities, and said, "What if...?" 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. . . . The varied
possibilities of the universe have dazzled me since I was a child, and
they continue to drive my work, my investments, and my philanthropy.
Idea Man is an astonishing true story of ideas made real.
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