Statement from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on the passing of Paul Allen: pic.twitter.com/1iLDLenLKz
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) October 15, 2018
On Monday October 15, 2018, one of the most influential leaders of the last century passed away. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen lost his battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Allen, with a net worth of $20 billion, owned both the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers. He was also a well-known philanthropist. Longtime Seahawk Matt Hasselbeck said of Allen, “He saved that team. He saved that team from leaving Seattle and what that meant to that community… It was out of his civic love for Seattle that he saved the Seahawks.
The following are 20 Leadership Quotes From Paul Allen:
- “What we did was unprecedented, but what is less well understood is that we had no choice.”
- “You look at things you enjoy in your life, but much more important is what you can do to make the world a better place.”
- “Technology is notorious for engrossing people so much that they don’t always focus on balance and enjoy life at the same time.”
- “Any crusade requires optimism and the ambition to aim high.”
- “The possible is constantly being redefined, and I care deeply about helping humanity move forward.”
- “I enjoy creating new ideas, working on new creative projects.”
- “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.”
- “For the most part, the best opportunities now lie where your competitors have yet to establish themselves, not where they’re already entrenched.”
- “I’m a very private person that prefers a low profile.”
- “In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success–if you are willing to learn from it.”
- “In the computer industry, you’ve got an interdisciplinary team of people who can come together, attack the problem, and work in a collaborative style. You knock down one problem after another, cobble things together, and then hopefully turn the crank at some point.”
- “What should exist? To me, that’s the most exciting question imaginable. What do we need that we don’t have? How can we realize our potential?”
- “You’ve got to enjoy time with your family and friends, and if you’re involved in sports franchises, those peak moments in playoff games. You have to enjoy life.”
- “There are relatively few ideas that you can do just by yourself.”
- “I grew up around books. When I first held the book and it was a substantive, tangible thing, and I thought of all the work that went into it, not just my work but everybody else’s and the research and so forth, there’s a sense of really have done something worthwhile.”
- “In the first eight or so years at Microsoft, we were always chained to our terminals, and after I got sick the first time, I decided that I was going to be more adventurous and explore more of the world.”
- “If you think about making a difference in the community, my family has always had a strong interest in the arts. I’m always interested in finding ways to innovate… It’s a blend; it’s not a point focus.”
- “Once you become an owner of a team, you get so much more into the sport and you can’t help it. So I really love NFL football now to the degree of following it much more than I did previously.”
- “When it comes to helping out, I don’t believe in doing it for the media attention. My goal is to support the organizations that need help.”
- “Others might have found us eccentric, but I didn’t care. I had discovered my calling. I was a programmer.”
In conclusion, the following was the tweet provided by co-founder Bill Gates:
Paul deserved more time in life. He would have made the most of it. I will miss him tremendously. https://t.co/npPAjGCCsc
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) October 16, 2018
Special thanks goes to BrainyQuote and Indy100 for being an excellent resource in gathering these quotes.