Founders: #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft

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What I learned from reading Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft by Paul Allen --- I was 21 years old and at loose ends (0:01) how Paul Allen works (4:09) coming up with the idea for Microsoft (4:48) admiring Bill Gates' bravado (7:56) advice from his father: do something you love (12:30) "Paul is an 'enthusiast' and when in the grip of an enthusiasm is almost totally irresponsible in other areas. How can one help such a student to see the error of his ways ? I don't know. He could even be more right than we, who knows ?" (18:30) Going deep on subjects that interested him (20:56) Paul's first jobs (24:14) Paul Allen and Bill Gates first business (26:44) New Mexico and the start of Microsoft (31:37) We were certain that the tech establishment was wrong and we were right (34:40) Unequal cofounders (37:29) Starting to grow Microsoft (39:00) Unequal cofounders part two (41:00) Early Microsoft culture: When I talk about the early days at Microsoft, it's hard to explain to people how much fun it was.( 46:43) Turning down a millions of dollars from Ross Perot (53:37) Unequal cofounders part 3 (56:54) The deal that led to Microsoft becoming the largest tech company of its day (

[00:00:00] As I walked toward Harvard Square on a December weekend afternoon in 1974, I had no inkling that my life was about to change. I was 21 years old and at loose ends. My girlfriend had left a few weeks earlier to return to our hometown of Seattle, 3,000 miles away. I had a dead-end job at Honeywell and a crummy apartment. The one constant in my life those days was a Harvard undergraduate named Bill Gates, my partner in crime since we'd met at Lakeside School when he was in eighth grade and I was in tenth. Bill and I learned how to dissect computer code together. We started one failed…

Founders: #44 A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft

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