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Featured Event 2018 Death

October 15

Paul Allen Dies: Microsoft Co-Founder and Philanthropist

Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft at 22, then left it at 30 when lung cancer forced him to step back. He recovered and spent the rest of his life doing almost everything else: funding neuroscience research, oceanographic exploration, commercial spaceflight, and the Allen Telescope Array for SETI. He owned the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers. He restored a WWII aircraft carrier as a museum. He died in October 2018 at 65 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leaving behind a philanthropy portfolio of two billion dollars. His Microsoft stake, cashed out over decades, had made the philanthropy possible.

October 15, 2018

8 years ago

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