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Paul Allen

Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft Hardcover – April 19, 2011

by Paul Allen (Author)

4.4 528 ratings

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By his early thirties, Paul Allen was a world-famous billionaire-and that was just the beginning.

In 2007 and 2008, Time named Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft, one of the hundred most influential people in the world. Since he made his fortune, his impact has been felt in science, technology, business, medicine, sports, music, and philanthropy. His passion, curiosity, and intellectual rigor-combined with the resources to launch and support new initiatives-have literally changed the world.

In 2009 Allen discovered that he had lymphoma, lending urgency to his desire to share his story for the first time. In this long-awaited memoir, Allen explains how he has solved problems, what he's learned from his many endeavors-both the triumphs and the failures-and his compelling vision for the future. He reflects candidly on an extraordinary life.

The book also features previously untold stories about everything from the true origins of Microsoft to Allen's role in the dawn of private space travel (with SpaceShipOne) and in discoveries at the frontiers of brain science. With honesty, humor, and insight, Allen tells the story of a life of ideas made real.

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Portfolio
Publication date

April 19, 2011
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.25 x 10 inches
ISBN-10

9781591843825
ISBN-13

978-1591843825
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Allen is the billionaire technologist and philanthropist who cofounded Microsoft with Bill Gates. He is the chairman of Vulcan Inc. and founder of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. He also owns the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers, and is co-owner of the Seattle Sounders pro soccer team. He lives on Mercer Island, Washington.

Visit www.paulallen.com

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1591843820
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio; First Edition (April 19, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781591843825
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1591843825
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.25 x 10 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #878,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,335 in Business Professional's Biographies
- #5,180 in Entrepreneurship (Books)
- #24,410 in Memoirs (Books)

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4.4 528 ratings

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4.4 out of 5

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Cooljonnorris

very interesting and pleasant read

Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2011

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A strange coincidence set the stage for my interest in this book, but more about that later.

I always approach autobiographies with trepidation - many are either boring, shallow attempts at whitewashing, or obnoxious rants. Fortunately, this autobiography is not among those.

As an Amiga fan turned Linux fan, I have some serious issues with Microsoft and its behavior. However, as I know a little bit about Allen and had been considerably impressed by a brief news clip of him playing Hendrix riffs, I was willing to suspend my prejudice and see what he had to say about himself. (Anyone who loves Hendrix that much deserves a serious hearing, IMHO.)

The book begins with some facts and stories about Allen's childhood and his meeting Bill Gates at a private school in the Seattle area. Intermixed with stories of his personal introduction to technology and computer programming, Allen also treats us to some history of the personal computer revolution and the march of technology in the last four decades. Being roughly the same age as Allen, his stories about the development of technology and music resonate very strongly with me, and lend that much more of an air of honesty to the book, at least for me.

He takes us through the ups and downs of his friendship and partnership with Gates, the ups and downs of Microsoft and his post-Microsoft business ventures, and his very personal battles with cancer and the loss of his father. He is not excessively detailed, nor overly shallow in his narrative, but manages a good balance between the two. Since this is an autobiography, to delve more deeply into social, political or technological issues would not be appropriate. Again, the book found me putting aside my own history and issues in those areas and simply relating to the author as a person. The book is well crafted to allow the reader to do just that.

While the sports related sections did not appeal to me (not interested in team sports - although when working in the cable TV industry, I did have occasion to manually insert commercials in many Trailblazer home games on the local cable system - thereby watching quite a few of them), the sections on programming and the "original" hacker mentality again resonated deeply with me, as did the section on the Spaceship One adventure. I remember most of the things he delineates in the history of personal computers and the electronic explosion of the 70s and 80s. (I still have my original subscription copy of the magazine where the Altair kit computer was introduced, for example.) His take on most of that closely matches my own memories and sense of what was really happening.

Contrary to the "spin" on his statements about Gates in the book which I heard in the recent 60 Minutes interview, I found Allen's attitude about Gates as expressed in the book to be mostly positive, with a few remarks simply noting here and there where Gates' behavior as a friend was overwhelmed by his manic, overly aggressive, overly competitive business style. Again, this is a biography, not a business book, so analysis of this behavior in detail simply isn't warranted. He simply does not paint Gates as a greedy backstabber, regardless of the spin some people might attempt to put on his quite clear description of Gates' "management style." This is no "bitter billionaire" tell-all smear book. Sorry if you were hoping for that. (Of course, a little controversy always helps book sales....)

Despite an overall sense of honesty in the book (Allen is fairly blunt about his blunders and plain bad luck in business), I still get a feeling of something missing "between the lines." While no one ever "tells all," neither does this feel like an attempt to whitewash an evil life. It does, however, leave me with a feeling a sense of a more shallow look at Allen's feelings and deep internal life than I would have hoped for. This may just be a failing of my own, and digesting what I read over a longer period (I am writing this right after finishing the book in two sittings) may provide more insight than I have now.

The coincidence I mentioned earlier was the sudden and odd interest I experienced a few weeks ago after stumbling across Allen's yacht, Octopus, in a search on a totally unrelated topic. For some unexplainable reason, I became entranced by the boat, searching for all the pictures and information I could find about it on the net. While I have seen a few mega-yachts on various TV shows about them, I am hardly an aficionado of that arena. And yet, I find the boat beautiful and extremely well-designed, in both an aesthetic and functional sense, at least within the limitations of the pictures I have found. This was before I saw the 60 Minutes spot and became aware of the book.

While I draw no conclusions from this and the many other (too numerous to mention here) coincidental resonances between our lives (we did grow up in the Northwest with similar interests, in the same time frame, after all), I always try to pay attention to such things. Otherwise, I would probably not have been attracted to the book.

There is also a section of photos from various periods of Allen's life, which always make an autobiography more interesting.

The book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of personal computers, technology, and related fields, or anyone interested in people of great influence in society. It will also appeal to those who simply want Allen's side of the story. Among other great contributions Allen has made, musicians and Jimi Hendrix fans everywhere owe him a debt of gratitude for his work with Jimi's family and the Experience Music Project.

Recommended.

12 people found this helpful

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Richard of Connecticut

READ IT but Read it for the RIGHT REASONS - FIVE STARS !!!!!

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2011

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Paul Allen is one of the original founders of Microsoft and is probably the idea man behind the company which is why the title of this autobiography precisely matches the person behind it. You read a book like this to understand how man interacts with technology, and how much of success is luck versus controlled passion. You also read it to realize that a person like Allen is not that much different from the rest of us? He simply came through the funnel. The funnel is a term I never understood until one day I was walking through Harvard Yard and a Ph.D. friend of mine in biotechnology said to me, everybody talks about Bill Gates and Microsoft. There were 200 guys working on operating systems, he's simply the one that came through the funnel.

The more I thought about it, the more I realize my friend was right. The whole world knows Bill Gates, but Gates needed Paul Allen to get the job done, just as Steve Jobs needed Stephen Wozniak, and Michael Eisner at Disney needed Frank Wells. Nobody ever really does it alone, and whether you get it done is to some extent a matter of pure luck. After reading this book, I found I loved it. It was refreshingly honest. Allen needed to get this book out of him, out of his soul.

There were some things that he found needed to be said, and he sure said them. He goes after Gates in the book. He lets the reader know that Gates hurt him personally. Allen found Gates talking behind his back with Steve Ballmer current CEO of Microsoft about cutting back on the percentage of the company that Paul Allen owned. Gates and Ballmer were not aware that Allen could hear them discussing it.

Allen would survive Microsoft which had made him wealthy beyond all reason only to deal with life threatening illnesses which probably brought him wisdom that one could not find any other way. It is the first half of the book that I found absolutely compelling. This was the creation of the extraordinary software company that he and Gates co-founded. The risks they took were described in detail. Gates walking out of Harvard College to pursue the dream which Allen created, while Gates narrowed the dream down to something both manageable, and achievable. You could read the first half of this book in one seating because it is fast moving, compelling, and really interesting, especially if you are into technology.

It is also clear that there are things that Allen simply does not want to talk about or explore. He is a deft writer and for a first book, surprisingly well written. You will not be disappointed with the style. Perhaps he is so intellectual that the core of the man does not shine through this book, or perhaps Mr. Allen simply does not want to open himself up, which is okay, because in the end, it is his narrative.

I liked the second half of the book as well. I simply did not like it as much as the first half. Others may differ, and should. You are looking at 22 chapters spread over 331 pages. My favorite chapters were:

3) Lakeside

8) Partners

11) Borrowed Time

20) Searching

CONCLUSION:

Paul Allen's autobiography allows us to witness the inception and creation of one of the world's truly important companies from idea to billion dollar colossus. Yes you can change the world if you want to, and if your idea is big enough to do it. The evolution of this idea man who is still growing is a fascinating journey for any one of us to spend a few hours exploring, and I hope that you will take the time to do it, and thank you for reading this review.

Richard Stoyeck

7 people found this helpful

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Karen

Lend me Ten Pounds and I'll Buy You a Drink

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 18, 2012

Verified Purchase

Paul Allen. Nice bloke, really. Maybe a bit of an accidental billionaire, but it's hard to grudge him the cash. He pretty much changed the world, after all, even if he was, as he admits, merely standing and building on the shoulders of giants. Money isn't everything though, and this is another of those life stories where the music of Neil Sedaka plays in the background as a soundtrack: "I miss the hungry years, we never had a dime...."
I think you'll have to be a bit of a geek to be really gripped by the first half of this book as Allen and Gates struggle to code Microsoft to the top. The key watersheds in the history of the company are written about slightly dispassionately and you are given a flavour of the necessary ruthlessness that permeated the computer industry and obviously still does. Stuck for a good idea? Then go and steal one of your competitors'. (The current patent wars in technology are an indicator that copying is not a form of flattery.) Allen writes almost reluctantly, I felt, about his partner in crime, Bill Gates, and the picture painted isn't one that adds much warmth to one of the world's richest men. Allen, being the nice guy he seems to be, holds back about how he felt Gates stiffed him, dissed him and finally ignored him as Microsoft steamed towards world domination. The final assessment of Microsoft losing out to Apple, Google and the rest seem tinged with an element of glee. But it was Allen's baby too, so the affection is still there.
Halfway through the book and Allen is through with Microsoft, which somewhat surprised me. Was that it? Now as rich as Croesus, what should Allen do with his burgeoning cash pile? He likes basketball, so why not buy a team? And a football team. Build them a half billion dollar stadium on top, to play in. He could have become the ultimate sports mogul, but he's involved in every other project and distraction that comes his way. While Donald Trump wrote The Art of the Deal, Allen works hard on what seems to be the Fart of the Deal, and gamely recounts some of the exceedingly smelly and disastrous investments he made during the Internet years. One bad deal alone cost him $8 billion, while he admits in print that selling too quickly out of AOL cost him $40 billion. It must have been hard writing that sentence.
Allen lives in a different financial stratosphere to everyone except about a handful of individuals on the planet. He splurges cash everywhere. He sees his childhood cinema going to the dogs, so he just buys it and does it up. He liked Hendrix as a youth, so he basically buys everything from guitars to underpants that the man owned and then builds a museum to house them in. He builds a rocket to the moon. After a while, you really begin to think that Gates' philanthropy is an infinitely better deal. Eventually, and maybe inevitably, we get to his charitable work, but he skims over it really, in the same way he does with his battles with his health. The book leaves you with the feeling that Allen knows the clock is ticking and that he has so much to do. His wealth affords him boundless opportunities but, if you haven't got your health....
This was a very readable autobiography, a book of two halves maybe, but it always kept my interest.

6 people found this helpful

Rahul Rai

The forgotten genius

Reviewed in India on July 11, 2022

Verified Purchase

Read this book if you are interested in the history of computers. Read this if you want to know how a genius can be sidlined by his co-founder, illness and never reached the pinaclle of success which he deserved.

People remember Bill Gates but they have forgotton Paul Alen who was equally brilliant.

Read this if you want to know how the world never remembers the no. 2. All it cares about is the no.1.

"richard26260"

Essential reading if you're into the history of computing, but fades after half way...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

I was a young teenager in the early 1980s and grew up through the micro revolution. In the 90s I started programming Windows Desktop Applications and have been doing so ever since.

So for me, this book was mainly of interest because of Paul Allen's involvement in the early days of the personal computer.

The first few obligatory chapters about early years and parents were Ok reading, but when it got to his first encounters with Bill was where the book became fascinating. The next 8 or 9 chapters about the formation and success of Microsoft were literally thrilling reading, I could hardly put the book down.

However after Paul left Microsoft the story (for me) trails off. You go from reading about inside information about Microsoft, IBM, Xerox et. al. to an entire chapter about Basketball which bored me to tears. Then there's an entire chapter about American football which I largely skipped. There are a few interesting chapters after that about the X-Prize (I learned a lot of stuff from that), and there's a few chapters about Paul's failed efforts to get into the internet business.

So overall - 4 stars because the Microsoft years were absolutely enthralling. But the rest of it just felt like the ramblings of an unsatisfied multi-billionnaire. I'd have preferred a whole book about the softwar side of Paul and the Microsoft story in more depth.

4 people found this helpful

crocodile200

An interesting book based on a very interesting subject

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 4, 2020

Verified Purchase

An interesting book based on a very interesting subject. Paul Allen comes across as a good person with a need to explore technical innovation and a diverse array of interests / Contributions of society. The start of the book focuses on his early life, formation of Microsoft and Friendship with Bill Gates. How a shared obsessive hobby turned into a world shaping company. It also provides a snapshot of the advert of personal computer technology and the environment that it flourished in (The best bit). There is some insight into his symbiotic and shifting friendship with Bill Gates. The ultimate impression I got on that was how much they seemed to be a positive influence on each other. About two thirds of the book covers Allen’s time in Microsoft with the rest being devoted to hobbies and other business / philanthropic interests. I enjoyed the chapter on Jimi Hendrix and the creation of the EMP museum / AI and Neuroscience.
One point stood out to me during the Covid lockdown as I write. He writes about the construction of the Paul G Allen school for Global Animal Health with an important part of the school’s mission to build up Africa’s capabilities in responding to animal based diseases. Now that’s vision. Anyway it’s things like that make this book a very worthwhile read.
Incidentally Bill Gates did a TED talk about how unprepared the world is for an animal based decease a few years ago.

One person found this helpful

Paul

Should have been an absolutely compelling read and it isn't

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 11, 2011

Verified Purchase

There are a number of fascinating stories that Paul Allen could have told. He could write a whole book on the acquisition, development and delivery of MS/DOS to IBM and then to other PC makers. Paul Allen devotes only a couple of pages to this topic - indeed just enough to support his claim that it was his idea to use Tom Patterson's 86-DOS after Jack Sams, an IBM employee suggested to Microsoft that they supply an OS. It seems that at the beginning, neither Sams, Gates nor Allen really appreciated the value of owning and controlling the operating system.

Allen also claims to be the idea man behind MS Windows having seen the original Xerox Star computer with its GUI bitmapped display at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. The development of MS Windows, the rivalry with Apple, the development of the MAC and then the MS Windows versions of Word and Excel would be another fascinating story. All we are told is that Allen was instrumental in the hiring of Charles Simonyi from Xerox - their expert in WYSIWYG word processor.

There is a great deal of detail about the £8 billion invested in Cable networks that Allen wrote off, but the reader is still left wondering how and why this all happened. Even for Allen $8B is quite a big chunk of cash.

I was originally going to give this book 3 stars, because it could, indeed should, have been an absolutely compelling read and it isn't. Nevertheless, Allen does relate snippets of the history of the Personal Computer Industry that are interesting enough to justify 5 stars at a pinch.

Note to Publisher: The table of contents in my edition says the index appears on page 347. There is no page 347 and there is no index which is a pity.

6 people found this helpful

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