Who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates?
Quick answer
Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates on April 4, 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The two had been friends since school in Seattle. Allen came up with the name “Micro-Soft” (from microcomputer software) and helped steer the company’s early success.
Key facts
- Founded
- April 4, 1975, Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Founders
- Bill Gates and Paul Allen
- Headquarters today
- Redmond, Washington
- Paul Allen
- January 21, 1953 – October 15, 2018
How it started
Gates and Allen met at Lakeside School in Seattle, where they spent hours programming on a school terminal. In late 1974, Allen saw the Altair 8800, one of the first personal computers, on the cover of Popular Electronics. He and Gates wrote a version of the BASIC programming language for it and sold it to the maker, MITS, in Albuquerque. That deal launched Microsoft.
Key moments
- 1975Microsoft is founded
- 1979The company moves to the Seattle area
- 1980Microsoft agrees to supply an operating system for IBM’s PC, which becomes MS-DOS
- 1983Allen leaves day-to-day work after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma
- 1985Windows 1.0 is released
- 1986Microsoft goes public, eventually making both founders billionaires
Paul Allen beyond Microsoft
| Area | Activities |
|---|---|
| Sports | Owned the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers |
| Science | Founded the Allen Institute for brain science, cell science and AI |
| Space | Funded SpaceShipOne, the first private crewed spacecraft to reach space (2004) |
| Culture | Created the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in Seattle; a keen rock guitarist |
| Exploration | Funded expeditions that found historic shipwrecks, including the USS Indianapolis |
He pledged to give most of his fortune to charity. Allen died in 2018 of complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Microsoft today
Microsoft is one of the world’s most valuable companies, known for Windows, Office, Azure cloud services, Xbox and its AI assistant Copilot. For a rival tech giant, see who owns Google.
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