#8 Idea Man

Paul Allen, 2011

Inspirational Quote: "Any crusade requires optimism and the ambition to aim high." - Paul Allen

Paul Allen, known to be the co-founder of Microsoft has left his mark in various fields from aviation and science to rock ‘n’ roll, professional sports, and philanthropy. In 2007 and again in 2008, Time named him one of the hundred most influential people in the world.

In 1974, Paul Allen teamed up with childhood friend Bill Gates to create programming language for the first personal computer. They worked together since their teens on professional programming jobs, but believed they were the ones who could write the code that, at the time, engineers didn’t believe was possible. In his autobiography, Allen opens up about the founding of Microsoft as well as the happenings after he stepped down from the company.

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