Paul Allen Quotes

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 look at things you enjoy in your life, but much more important is what you can do to make the world a better place.

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.

Traditionally, Seattle has been a great sports town and great football town. What the Huskies have achieved over the years has been pretty amazing. That's how I got my first taste of football - when I went with my father to Husky Stadium.

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.

The possible is constantly being redefined, and I care deeply about helping humanity move forward.

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

In global warming, I think everyone is scratching their heads - are there technological things that can be brought to bear that can make a difference?

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.

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.

The best museums and museum exhibits about science or technology give you the feeling that, hey, this is interesting, but maybe I could do something here, too.

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.

I am very excited to be supporting one of the world's most visionary efforts to seek basic answers to some of the fundamental question about our universe and what other civilisations may exist elsewhere.

We've had some tough times, but we've hung in there.

The only regrets I have are rather prosaic - like I wish I went for a swim in the Pacific.

I think it's going to be great if people can buy a ticket to fly up and see black sky and the stars. I'd like to do it myself-but probably after it has flown a serious number of times first!

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.

I enjoy creating new ideas, working on new creative projects.

As a species, we've always been discoverers and adventurers, and space and the deep ocean are some of the last frontiers.

For the most part, the best opportunities now lie where your competitors have yet to establish themselves, not where they're already entrenched. Microsoft is struggling to adapt to that new reality.

I'm a very private person that prefers a low profile.

In a company where tech decisions were still ultracentralized, the repercussions of a distracted CEO had to be damaging.

Sometimes it's very difficult to find fresh fruit on the road.

I was in a town of about 10,000 people, and a shipping container with a rusty microscope was their medical clinic.

That would be such a life-changing thing, for us all to know that there are other beings out there who we could potentially communicate with, or maybe we are listening to a signal that they transmitted hundreds of millennia ago.

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.

Even before I helped to co-found Microsoft, I saw a connected future . . . I called that future The Wired World.

With documentary-film projects, you hope you highlight an area of concern people haven't thought about before. A lot of times, I'm asking myself - 'This seems to be a significant problem. What can be done that hasn't been done?

What is the best advice, business or otherwise, you've had and from whom? The best advice I've received came many years ago from my father. He told me that you should love whatever work you do, you should try to find something you truly enjoy. And I've been lucky through the years that the work I've been involved with has been challenging and for the most part, fun.