Paul Allen: the genius who made Microsoft

Paul Allen, Bill Gates’ early business partner, has died, aged 65. He was the visionary and “ideas man” behind the firm that went on to rule the world

Phone screen with Microsoft logo
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Paul Allen, Bill Gates' early business partner, has died, aged 65. He was the visionary and "ideas man" behind the firm that went on to rule the world.

"I met Paul Allen when I was in seventh grade, and it changed my life," wrote Bill Gates in a Wall Street Journal tribute last week. "I looked up to him right away. He was two years ahead of me in school, really tall, and proved to be a genius with computers." But the Microsoft co-founder, who has died aged 65 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, turned out not to have much head forbusiness.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Explore More

Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.