保羅·艾倫去世了。他是微軟聯合創始人，也是一位投資人和慈善家，在新技術、醫學研究、高等教育和城市活動方面經常提前布局，享年65歲。10月15日下午，他的房地產公司Vulcan在西雅圖發布了訃告。。

Vulcan首席執行官比爾·希爾夫在聲明中說：“今天，曾有幸與保羅合作的人們都感到難以形容的悲痛。他具有非凡的智慧，對解決世界上一些最困難的問題充滿熱情，他堅信創造性思維和新做事方式可以產生深遠持久的影響。”

—— 比爾·希爾夫（2018年10月15日）

從聲明也能看出艾倫豐富多樣的興趣，因為發布方包括Vulcan、艾倫旗下兩家球隊：橄欖球隊西雅圖海鷹隊和籃球波特蘭開拓者隊；私營航天飛機公司Stratolaunch Systems；還有兩家非盈利組織，一是從事生物科學研究的艾倫研究所，二是艾倫人工智能研究所，主要為人工智能研究人員提供免費數據和工具。

艾倫是西雅圖人，一生大部分時間都住在西雅圖市內和附近，他一直對職業體育有著濃厚的個人愛好，很有興趣投資。作為籃球愛好者，1988年艾倫以7000萬美元的價格購買了開拓者隊，之后23次闖入季后賽，現在價值接近10億美元。1996年，西雅圖海鷹隊的大股東打算將球隊搬到加利福尼亞南部，艾倫介入并于第二年出資1.94億美元購買球隊，還為新球場投入1.3億美元。幾位消息人士稱，該球隊目前估值約為25億美元。艾倫還成為西雅圖海灣人足球俱樂部的小股東，這只職業足球大聯盟的足球隊2009年開始參加比賽。

雖然艾倫的個人簡介開頭永遠是“微軟聯合創始人”，但他在微軟的時間其實不算長。不過，比爾·蓋茨在哀悼艾倫去世的聲明中還是表示：“如果沒有他，個人計算機就不會存在。”

艾倫14歲時，在西雅圖預科學校遇到12歲的比爾蓋茨。僅僅四年之后，蓋茨跟艾倫，還有保羅·吉爾伯特共同創立了一家名為Traf-o-Data的公司，幫政府計算交通流量。1975年，蓋茨和艾倫輟學后搬到阿爾伯克基，成立了“Micro-Soft”，后來刪掉字母中間的連字符正式變成“微軟”。阿爾伯克基是MITS的總部，該公司制造的早期微型計算機Altair 8800引發了個人電腦革命。他們在阿爾伯克基沒待多久，1979年回到西雅圖地區。

1982年，艾倫接受了霍奇金病的診斷，他在回憶錄《我用微軟改變世界》中回憶稱，無意中聽到蓋茨和早期微軟員工史蒂夫·鮑爾默因他在治療期間缺乏貢獻討論他的所有權問題。他在書中寫到，曾找二人對質，之后蓋茨和鮑爾默道歉。1983年艾倫選擇離開微軟，雖然減少持有股份，但繼續在董事會任職多年。

艾倫去世時凈資產估計超過200億美元。他的投資經歷了兩個主要階段。從20世紀80年代初到21世紀初，艾倫在技術和行業方面經常很早進入尚未成熟的技術和行業，他退出后很多公司發展為行業巨頭。1994年的Wired和2003年的一本書都稱他為“意外的超級富翁。”他的戰績包括Starwave（1993），開發過一些最早的主要媒體網站，如ESPN.com，ABCNews.com和Outside Online。艾倫是美國在線的早期投資者，美國在線拒絕他提高持股比例后，1994年他拋售股票賺得1億美元的巨額利潤，但后來這些股份市值曾達到400億美元。1997年他控制了Metricom，該公司為整座城市提供類似Wi-Fi的無線數據，但在2001年倒閉。他還試圖控制有線電視公司Charter Communications和RCN，損失了數十億美元。

隨著千禧年到來，艾倫的命運也發生轉變，從職業體育到房地產再到早期投資，他經常收獲極高的回報率。他對娛樂公司夢工廠投資翻了一倍，低調收購的能源供應商和無線頻譜價值也大幅增長。

艾倫在西雅圖的投資堪稱最成功案例之一。在西雅圖市中心以北有一處建筑低矮的輕工業區，艾倫提出幫助建設巨大的城市公園，遭當地選民否決后，Vulcan收購了該地區大部分土地。經過十余年改建，該地區變為辦公大樓和研究實驗室。亞馬遜在西雅圖成立后使用了很多艾倫旗下的建筑，谷歌和Facebook等公司也在他的物業里迅速擴張。

艾倫一生中捐贈了近30億美元，主要給他資助的非營利組織，華盛頓大學的計算機科學系，還有今年早些時候在西雅圖救助無家可歸者和低收入人群的項目等。獲贈4000萬美元后，2017年3月威斯康星大學將計算機科學與工程學院以艾倫命名。

艾倫的妹妹喬迪·艾倫在Vulcan的聲明中代家人表示：“雖然大多數人都知道保羅·艾倫是技術專家和慈善家，但對我們來說，他是我們深愛的兄弟和叔叔，也是一位出色的朋友。保羅的家人和朋友都很幸運，親身感受過他的智慧、溫暖、慷慨和深切關懷。“

西雅圖市市長詹妮·德爾肯在一份聲明中說：“保羅是西雅圖真正的兒子，他讓自己心愛的城市，也讓我們生活的世界變得更美好也更有活力。后世數代人，不管是西雅圖人和地球上各個角落的人們，都會受到他的愿景、創新和慷慨幫助。他確實幫助創造了未來。”

20世紀80年代艾倫第一次患上癌癥，之后恢復健康，但2009年罹患非霍奇金氏淋巴瘤，這是一種更難治療的惡性腫瘤。治療后病情再次緩解，但2018年10月1日，他和公司宣布該病復發。他對治療結果一直保持樂觀態度。（財富中文網）

譯者：馮豐

Paul Allen has died. The co-founder of Microsoft, and an investor and philanthropist who bet often far in advance on new technology, medical research, higher education, and urban initiatives was 65. His real-estate venture, Vulcan, released news of his death the afternoon of Oct. 15 in Seattle.

Vulcan CEO Bill Hilf said in a statement, “All of us who had the honor of working with Paul feel inexpressible loss today. He possessed a remarkable intellect and a passion to solve some of the world’s most difficult problems, with the conviction that creative thinking and new approaches could make profound and lasting impact.”

——Paul Allen?October 15, 2018

The statement showed the diversity of Allen’s interests, as it was made on behalf of Vulcan as well as Allen’s two sports teams, the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers; Stratolaunch Systems, a firm designing an air-based space-launch system; and two non-profits: the Allen Institute, a bioscience research organization, and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which focuses on providing free data and tools to AI researchers.

A Seattle native who spent most of his life in and near the city, Allen had long had a deep personal and financial interest in professional sports. A fan of basketball, he purchased the Trail Blazers for $70 million in 1988. They have since made the playoffs 23 times, and are now worth nearly $1 billion. The Seattle Seahawks’s majority owner was on the verge of moving the team to southern California in 1996, when Allen stepped in and purchased the team the following year for $194 million plus a commitment of $130 million for a new stadium. Several sources value the team at about $2.5 billion today. Allen also became a minority owner of the Seattle Sounders, a Major League Soccer team that started playing in 2009.

While Allen’s biographical sketches always begin “co-founder of Microsoft,” his involvement in the company was relatively brief. Regardless, in a statement about Allen’s death, Bill Gates said “Personal computing would not have existed without him.”

Allen was 14 when he met Bill Gates, then 12, at a Seattle prep school. Just four years later, he and Allen, along with with Paul Gilbert, co-founded a traffic-counting company for governments called Traf-o-Data. In 1975, both Gates and Allen dropped out of college, moved to Albuquerque and started “Micro-Soft,” later losing the hyphen. That city was the headquarters of MITS, which made the Altair 8800, an early microcomputer that sparked the PC revolution. They didn’t stay long, returning to the Seattle area by 1979.

In 1982, Allen received a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Disease, and, in his book Idea Man, recounted that he overheard Gates and early Microsoft employee Steve Ballmer, discussing diluting his ownership because of his lack of productivity during treatment. He confronted them, he wrote, and they apologized. Allen opted to leave Microsoft in 1983, though he continued to serve on its board for many years as he decreased his ownership in company stock.

At his death, Allen’s net worth was estimated at over $20 billion. His investments went through two major phases. From the early 1980s to the early 2000s, Allen frequently bet early on technologies and industries that hadn’t yet matured, though many later became big winners after his exit. He was termed in 1994 by Wired and in the title of a 2003 book, the “accidental zillionaire.” His hiccups included Starwave (1993), which developed some of the earliest major media sites, like ESPN.com, ABCNews.com, and Outside Online. Allen was an early investor in America Online, though he dumped the shares in 1994 for $100 million at a large profit after AOL rebuffed him purchasing more—missing gains that would have later valued his holdings at $40 billion. He took control of Metricom in 1997, a firm that offered Wi-Fi-like wireless data across entire cities, but it shut down in 2001. He also lost billions in trying to gain control of cable companies Charter Communications and RCN.

But Allen’s fortunes turned as the millennium rolled over, and from professional sports to real estate to early-stage investment, he frequently reaped a high rate of return. HIs investment in the entertainment studio DreamWorks doubled, while he more quietly saw big rises in energy providers and wireless spectrum purchases.

Allen’s investment in Seattle are among his biggest wins. Vulcan bought up a large portion of a low-height light-industrial district north of downtown after a massive city park Allen proposed to help build there was rejected by voters. The area transformed over a decade into office towers and research labs. Amazon, founded in Seattle, expanded heavily into Allen-controlled buildings, and companies like Google and Facebook established large outposts in properties he controlled.

Allen gave away nearly $3 billion during his lifetime, to nonprofits he endowed, the computer-science department at the University of Washington, and to efforts like a project to house homeless and low-income people in Seattle earlier this year. UW renamed its computer science and engineering school for Allen in March 2017 after a $40 million gift.

Allen’s sister, Jody Allen, said in statement provided by Vulcan and on behalf of his family, “While most knew Paul Allen as a technologist and philanthropist, for us he was a much-loved brother and uncle, and an exceptional friend. Paul’s family and friends were blessed to experience his wit, warmth, his generosity and deep concern.”

Seattle’s Mayor, Jenny Durkan, said in a statement, “Paul was a true son of Seattle who made his beloved city—and our world—a better, more vibrant place. For generations to come, Seattleites and people across our planet will benefit from his vision, innovation, and generosity. He quite literally helped invent the future.”

After Allen’s recovery from his first encounter with cancer in the 1980s, he was hit with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2009, a more virulent form that’s harder to treat. He again went into remission, but on Oct. 1, 2018, he and his firm posted a new diagnosis of the same disease. He had been optimistic about the outcome.