American Podium: Paul Allen

[Music] thank you everyone for joining us and Paul I want to thank you for doing this with us tonight for being here and welcome home to Seattle thanks it's great to be in front of a local crowd I'd like to start with a question that I know is on the minds of almost every person in this room particularly given the events of the past few weeks and Paul it involves a relationship that I know is very important to you it's a relationship that's had many ups and downs over the years many triumphs and challenges and currently faces an uncertain future so I just want to get this question out of the way right off the bat is Matt Hasselbeck coming back to the Hawks next year well you ever think of something else that's a that's a very good question but you know obviously we're not we're kind of in no-man's land in the labor dispute right now so when that's when that's over I'm sure we'll talk to a madness' agent again but there's there's nothing resolved at this point that's great I didn't actually expect a serious answer that I hope I thought this was supposed to be serious I hope there's some sports reporters in the audience they got that Paul it at the end of idea man you described the book as one of the hardest things that you've done in your life which is actually a pretty remarkable statement what did you learn about yourself through the process of writing this book well was the interesting process I'd always intended to do a book at some point just going through my my career and technology and the amazing spectrum of opportunities I've had and things I've been able to pursue but when I got sick in November or October November of night of 2009 I just it really it was it was time to do it because I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish it so so I would working on the book I would get up each day and try to get down some of my thoughts and and it helped me get the process of doing that helped me get through each day and was you know stimulated my brain and but when you do something like this you know there there's a real revisiting of both the ups and downs of your life and you know there's definitely some peak moments and some and some you know moments of you know that where things happen that you know weren't necessarily what you hope for or we're tough or you had to make tough decisions and so some of those moments when you revisit them and especially you go back over them over and over again because another thing that happened is my background in computer programming in a certain way was realized in terms of the editing of the book I edited every word in the book eight times and I remember that I'm kind of a stickler for exactness and so when you go over those tough moments eight after eight times you just you just don't want to do it much more but but it was very rewarding it was very rewarding to do it this book received a lot of coverage in the media prior to its release in fact it's somewhat ironic I think one of the advantages of telling your own story usually is that you get to tell your own story but in in some ways that didn't happen in this case for those who are just getting the book who may have read some of the media coverage or the excerpts what messages do you hope they actually take away from the the real book and what you've written here well there's definitely you know a story of growing up here in Seattle and those those exciting days and and first getting exposed to computers and and music and then the period of entrepreneurship the started looking a little but before Microsoft and went through my departure in 1983 and then all the amazing things that have happened since then be involved with sports teams and obviously locally the the Seahawks and and just an amazing set of things and I felt like putting a chapter on in a chapter on adventures some of the adventures I have been able to experience so it's it's probably more wide-ranging in its nature than most autobiographical books that you're gonna read so I I thought that was an interesting aspect of it certainly those are the facts of the book and I think it's also fair to say that your life is more wide-ranging and the average person who might be writing an autobiography what is the message that you hope people come away with about your life and the general impression that they have about you after reading this book well I'm someone that I basically get very very excited about the creative process in creating things and having ideas and when you see those ideas realized it's it's just a wonderfully rewarding thing so obviously being fortunate to be involved in the in the birth of Microsoft and then recently things like the the brain Institute those are amazingly rewarding things that I that that that carry on carry on a certain legacy that I'm very I'm very proud of and then of course there's there's parts where things are more challenging and you make mistakes and so I hope people when they read the book can take away some lessons from from my mistakes and and ups and downs over the years too but but basically I hope they get a sense of me as a person who's creative and then maybe you can think about creative possibilities in your own life based on what's in the book yeah you went out of your way in the book to be candid almost to a fault not only about not only about the people you worked with and Bill Gates but it's admirable the level of candor and humility that you put into the end of the book what did your parents teach you as a kid that led you to feel that it was right to write a book this unvarnished and this true to life well I I think I think you mean you are faced with a decision when you do something like this are you going to make it unvarnished warts-and-all are you gonna tell things as best as you could recollect them and and that was the decision that that I made but it was an easy one based on Who I am and how I'd been brought up and that's just the that's just what that's just what you do so I wanted something of substance something that was accurate something was that was honest and I and I and I believe we we didn't we achieve something like that it has your candor about Bill Gates in the book jeopardized your longtime friendship with him I don't think so but I I'm sure there are things in the book that bill wants to discuss and and he'll have a different slant about them and bill and I have had many intense discussions over the years and we haven't had a chance to talk about the book since it was published I gave him a copy months ahead of publication so we'd have a head start on it so that that discussion will be a very very intense and and he'll be very direct and as well I do you think you'll be able to move on from that and oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah obviously we've we've gone through so many things you know over the years and and you know my departure you know his his his leaving my Christian of Microsoft phase is retirement I'm so many different things over the years and we both tried to help Beach out in different ways over the years too as I talked about in the book when he came to visit me when I was sick yeah absolutely I would imagine that his primary complaint won't be accuracy but will be the question of why why did you feel it was important to to tell those stories about him what will you tell him if he asks you that well I mean there's certain things that happened that were key moments in my life the reasons that I left Microsoft know I felt like I I wouldn't be doing justice to my own story if I didn't tell them the way they happened yeah you traveled the globe and yet much of your focus is on the Pacific Northwest in terms of your investment in the community real estate philanthropy sports and you in fact you explained in the book that you prefer local investments and and that type of focus because you can see the impact what does this place in the world mean to you the Pacific Northwest well it's home I mean this is this is home and and you know my mother worked in a philanthropic thrift store pricing books you know when I was growing up we all we've always enjoyed the Arts here and the environment wanting to give back and help people so so it was just we when I first started talking about ways we could give back with my sister we you know we overwhelmingly felt that a local focus was was super important so that was our very initial focus and in philanthropy and I hope that some of the things like the work with the work with the brain Institute and some of that research because by nature it has a it has a global impact helping scientists all over the world with their research that we're doing things that have global impact as well yeah is there a risk on the other side that you might be too often looked to as the the savior in the local community in other words with things like the Seahawks people might say well you know we've got a huge problem let's call Paul you know is is that a risk in terms of focusing your investments so locally I just think you need to pick your spots and see what resonates with you and and what things you're excited to participate in I mean initially I was I was a bit surprised I was approached about about the Seahawks as I was already a major league sports team owner but but that's turned out to be a wonderful wonderful experience I'm very proud that it was a you know public-private partnership that enabled the building a quest field it's that's the that's the home for the Seahawks and the Sounders so so that that all turned out wonderfully but but we do we do think very carefully and analyze which which which local opportunities make sense and resonate with us and that we're excited about yeah about half the audience just sort of shoved a piece of paper into their pockets because they aren't going to be making their pitch to you afterwards I think but you recently went through a second bout with cancer mm-hmm and you write in the book that your illness the second time has made you simultaneously more patient and less patient can you explain for the audience and for us for the people who may not have read the book what you meant by that well I think you're more patient because you realize that you know whenever you go through one of these treatment regimens there's there's there are many things that are completely out of your control and you just have to be patient and and hope things work out for the best and be and be optimistic and take a positive a positive attitude on the other hand you realize that if there isn't a positive outcome that your time may be limited so it makes you that much more focused on on realizing your dreams and hopes because all of our times on this planet are limited so so it basically you're hit over the head with that idea when these things happen and it gives you an impetus to to accelerate the things you really care about so how has it changed how you plan to approach the remainder of your life will we see new things in your life as a result of that experience no I'm casting a bit of casting a wider net and I'm trying to move forward some of these things like the brain Institute and trying to make them more ambitious and more successful in their scope not just the Wright Institute with other things that we're working on and to try to realize those things more quickly and certainly in technology it's almost true that you can't move you can't move too quickly but things like research research on the brain that takes decades so you're you're trying to plan the course of an organization that's hopefully going to have an impact 10 20 30 50 years in the future so it's all those things and of course just you know on another very important note I mean you realize I realized when I was 30 and of course I realized again this time when I found out that I was unfortunately sick again that you know you're the support you get from your your family and friends is so key to getting through any of these kinds of illnesses you said you would cast a wider net I actually that bet surprised me in part because I would almost expect you to rain the net in and focus it on more specific areas where you could have a deeper impact why not do that oh I think you do but I think you know over the last few years there was a point where I was perhaps involved in too many things and I talked about a little bit in the book and you focus down because at some point if you spread yourself too thin you're just not gonna have enough enough impact so you focus now but then if you have potentially resources but limited time to make those things to make things real you say okay is there something I'm missing should I be doing more and so there's so many areas you know in terms of whether it's global health initiatives recently contributed so money our family contributed some money to support animal health in the third world gave Washington State a very significant contribution to to build the facility to do that in a great way which which bill Bill Gates and Bill and Melinda Gates had also had funded given some funding previously so so you you start looking and thinking about the things you'd wanted to do for a long time try to actualize those and try to find a few key new things to add to your plate you're also very candid in the book about your feelings about your analysis of present-day Microsoft it's a great chapter in the book called hellhounds referring to the lineup of Facebook and Google and Apple and all the others that are eating Microsoft's lunch in some ways if if you were still if you were still around as chief technology officer for example what what would you do what would be your prescription for Microsoft today well I you know when these new platforms the PC was a new platform so when these new platforms come come into existence or come into existence in a very strong new way whether it's you know the iPhone coming on the scene or the iPad coming on the scene you have to recognize those and jump on the opportunity and and be competitive as fast as you can and I think you know I think Microsoft is trying its best to address those now but they're they're trying to creep up on the and and and match the competition there that's already got a very strong presence in an iPhone and Google's Android so these new platforms are are key and you just you just can't you have to have the agility you can't miss the opportunity and let others own that opportunity and and so I think Microsoft is pulling out all the stops now as far as I understand from talking to people there to try to recapture those opportunities yeah so a bit of a litmus test here do you carry an iPhone Windows Phone Android or Blackberry actually I'm a little bit old-school he's a blackberry except you know I my mother my mother god bless her forced me to take take touch-typing when I was sixteen so I might thumbs I got really fast thumbs on the BlackBerry keyboard not so much on my inside and I've seen quite a few emails every day so so but I'm sure at some point I'll convert to to a new platform what might that well what might that new platforms you evaluating I'm still I'm looking at all the alternatives and I try to I think it's important you know if you love technology to try the different alternatives to try the iPhone and and the new the new windows mobile phone is a is a great is a great platform so and Android so I've tried them all and and they're all different they're all interesting and but my whole my whole thing is to try to imagine where where technology's going to go 1 2 3 4 5 years from now and see where the you know how the chips that are in the products are developing and see how that's going to influence things and then see how the software that's coming along is going to influence the platforms so I think it's fast and this is kind of my I don't know yeah I consider my Forte's trying to understand where things are going I think you can do that without without trying all the different alternatives ok Mac Windows or Linux windows come on really Star Wars Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica Oh No alright okay in another setting I would press on that but I think you got some fans in the audience here on the subject of science fiction one of the things that you mentioned in the book is the the inspiration that this book played in your life rocket ship Galileo right in fact I was inspired to go find it on eBay as a result of your mention it's it's about teenage boys who build a rocket in the desert and blast off to the moon and you know the parallels to your own life are hard to miss what did science fiction mean to you as a kid how did it shape your life and how is it still part of your life today well I still read a fair bit of science fiction just just for fun I think back in those days the concepts of you know whether it's communication satellites or going to the moon I mean in this in the late 50s and 60s you know we used to go I I went to Ravenna school and North Clee Stoke wheel in the TV on a carton we'd watched the mercury and Gemini and Apollo you know launches in grade school I guess I guess by Apollo what you're talking about actually but junior high in high school but but so there was that love of I mean space space and space travel was in the air and I'll never forget you know my mother loves my parent my parents love love books my father worked University of Washington libraries uh as a top manager there and and so I grew up around books and my mother working in this thrift store she would always say you know and the problem was she would price books at the thrift store so every day she'd say uh-huh and then she'd come home with a sack of books and she'd say well how can you not buy a good book for 15 cents and so she the I should be supposed to be selling these book sheets so we I grew up all around so many books but one time she took me to to the library and in Wedgwood and I found in the scientific in the juvenile science fiction section I found rocketship Galileo and that was my entree to to science fiction and I just loved it and it I think it inspires your creativity and your ability to think out of the box and think that you know while the crazy ideas are possible and it's just amazes me that I've been able to to live and and see realized some of those while the crazy ideas like spaceship one speaking of spaceship one you obviously accomplished much they're in collaboration with your team it's an understatement why not continue with that and get into get into commercialization of space full bore and why leave that to guys like Richard Branson I mean does he really deserve to ride on your coattails with that well Richard Richard is super enthusiastic about private commercial space tourism and and more power to them and and they've licensed the technology using spaceship one for for their four spaceship two if you talk about getting to orbit you have to have a much bigger rocket you basically take seven to over seven times as much energy to get a pound of anything or a person into space so so that means a much bigger rocket a much more capable system so I'm very intrigued by the possibilities of doing something like that but but no announcement yet I did find the experience as a programmer of seeing a test pilot go straight up at Mach five and this rocket that's been built in a couple of years and with some brand new software in it I mean at Microsoft if you got a and you're developing something you got an error message you could say okay fine yeah let's start it again just debug it that's what I used to do something goes wrong in a rocket it's usually extreme Emily was an extremely bad outcome so so before the flights I would I would have a speech in my pocket basically saying I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen we've had a you know we've had a departure from normal flight and there's been a fatality or whatever so you had to be ready for that and that was very far from my from my experience so if if I do enter in something like that I'll have to be cognizant of those risks those test pilots are extremely brave individuals and skilled you mentioned earlier that the Allen Institute for brain science and the potential impact of the Allen Institute may be hard for non scientists understand can you paint a picture for us of what the world will be like someday how it will be different if the research that you're funding accomplishes what you hope well any brain research is a long trip first I'll say any any brain research is a long-term project because it's so amazingly complex and so mysterious and just bare we're just starting to understand the outlines of how things work I guess is how I would I would characterize it so there's two different aspects to the question one is understanding how the human brain or any brain the mouse brain is actually the the brain that we did first instead of brains we did first how could how do they work how do they function how do they react to their environment and and learn and react in novel ways process information it's so completely different the way a computer does and it's in some of the program computers that fascinates me I mean the brain is designed was designed by evolution so each part of it is optimized for what it does and so it's incredibly incredibly complex and I and I like to think recently about the idea of there's a complexity break that slows you down because you want the minute you get in these things you think okay I'm starting to understand this then you realize oh no it's ten or a hundred times more complex to fully understand that thing that that aspect of the brain that you thought so anyway there's the the whole set of things excuse me that has to do with understanding how the brain works so that's so that's completely fast that's completely fascinating is it you know just because we all want to understand really how to you know how do our blinds work you know why are we who we are all those all those amazing questions and ultimately we'll arrive at some you know decades from now understanding it will arrive at a better much better understanding of that then there's you know try to understand basically at at a chemical level at a biologic level how the different parts of the brain work and if you did and if you understood that and those aspects of the medical aspects of the brain then you could possibly bring forward treatments to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's which I wish my mother suffers from so so you so you so you're very hopeful when you do these things like who released our our data on the mouse brain which is which an important experimental animal and now our first set of human brains that that will bring forward and make happen earlier some some possible treatments for those diseases how optimistic are you know I'm very optimistic and the approach we've taken with these fairly unique not completely unique but it's like the Human Genome Project we are trying to put a database of information online that scientists around the world can access for free and that will accelerate all of their research so they don't they don't have to say okay genetics of the human brain I need to start slicing up some tissue look at that but that data is already online so they can say okay a gene that's kind of related to prozac what parts of the brain are affected by Prozac and then if you combine prozac with something else you have them you know any way you can tell you many many things and it can still write all potentially can accelerate all of their research so that to get to the core of the problem so we really understand something every all these side different scientists can benefit and and amazingly and wording Lee it's become kind of a it's become a standard tool for scientists the to use that care about the genetics of the brain already yeah speaking of the brain let's talk about music for a second this is a topic that I wanted to explore and based on some of the audience questions you do too so I'm going to mix a few of your questions in with mine my band is here tonight too but they're not playing say just I care about them I saw them downstairs they look like quite the group they are but I won't get into that in the book you write about the catharsis of playing music and you talk about how you're on a good riff and your shoulders just sink in what does music mean to you well I mean music music is a is another mysterious thing but it's a form of expression so you can play just nut of a blues tune and yet when you play a solo on that you can you can go to a creative place where you're just riffing in your own particular way with your own expression and it's just a wonderful it's a wonderful thing and being able to you know in the book I talked about meeting some of the amazing musicians I've been able to play with over time those those experiences have you know because I I just consider myself a decent amateur guitar player some of these people are you know there's a reason you know a Mick Jagger or Bono or any of these people they are extremely talented at what they do I mean amaze and they can improvise and I mean it's it's extremely creative process they go through and create their amazing works of art so I just feel wonderful just feels wonderful to me to be able to to jam with my band and play some songs and then occasionally have these unbelievable experiences to you whether it's just witnessing others create or actually occasion very occasionally be able to play with them you tell this great story in the book about Bono convincing Mick Jagger to to play satisfaction to sing satisfaction as you play can you can you explain how albano pulled that one off well he's a clever one that bottle well we it was Mick a friend of mine was throwing a birthday party for her meg and I had brought a bunch of equipment that we could have kind of a an improvised jam and I asked Mick a couple times Mick you know you feel like playing and you just didn't seem into it it's like man act like that you know you know it's his birthday party or whatever so that I go so I go tomorrow I said I don't know what to do we Mick doesn't one it doesn't feel like playing but it might be fun he says I know what we'll do I'll sing his song really slowly and he'll he'll have to sing it I know he'll have to sing it so so so we start playing satisfaction and Manos singing it really slowly and Mick starts to look nervous like something is something has gone wrong in the universe that's my song this has to stop so he went and grabbed the microphone and he's and he's singing satisfaction I'm playing the main riff to satisfaction extremely nervously behind him and then when the song was over I looked over a bond on monocles told you so that was that that was that that was a fantastic little little interlude there what's your favorite guitar oh I play what's what's what Hendrix's favorite guitar is a Fender Stratocaster it's electric guitar and it's not that easy to play but if you can get you know your your technique you know halfway decent then you can make some amazing sounds and and feedback and everything else come come out of it I was fortunate to see Jimi play here in Seattle twice I think he came three times once at six stadium I think once at Key Arena and those you know my first concert actually was a Key Arena and that was that was a mind-blowing experience for oh I guess I was 17 17 something like that so so that was you know from one so I was another Seattle ID it was sign of at the feet of trying to learn you know some of Jimi's things and for years I would play along to records without any help try just housing how the heck does he do that and you know so year after year I would say you know I slave away cuz I probably as a teenager like at some point I thought well I could I could go into programming or music programming or music programming one but I never stopped playing and so I kept slowly shutting my way through Purple Haze year after year and so like after 25 years I could play a Hefty's in Purple Haze and it was funny to talk to his bass player no reading and I and I'd say what it was like we what was it like you know with Jimmy would come in he say oh he he'd come in like after you know one night and the next day come and he'd say here's the song called the wind cries Mary and you know I wrote it in about half an hour and here we go let's just let's let's record it you know like it took me 25 years so it's it's remarkable that a lot of engineers actually software engineers are musicians as well it's it's it's an interesting correlation and there's other similarities to you know you're sort of in a band of other programmers and so in some ways you actually you were part of the one of the greatest bands ever it was called Microsoft you know we had our hits we did so few in the top 10 there so on this topic how did you and Dan Aykroyd become friends dan was introduced to me by a mutual friend and Dan is just a wonderful a wonderful performer love's in hesitance cyclope acknowledged of the Blues what a creative mind all those you know I remember watching him on Saturday Night Live Lynette when Microsoft was in Albuquerque I'm just amazingly creative and talented writer or an actor and everything else so I he's I love him he's just a great he's just a great guy was funny when 60 minutes was shooting over on Mercer Island you know hey little Jam and Dan was good nice enough to come up and was playing harmonica and we're jamming along so afterwards lesley stahl goes but but paul you're not is demonstrative his dan Aykroyd and I'm going like but but he's like a he's a blues brother and he's been doing it you know he's been doing it for a long time I'm just I'm just a kid from North Seattle but but he's one he's Dan's just wonderful you explained in the book shifting back a little bit to business here you explained in the book that one of your abilities you're knacks is to see what's next to piece together different things that are coming up dating back to your early days reading you know the early hobbyist magazines and and piece them together into one big idea and recognize that that's the thing you need to pursue why haven't more of your ideas since Microsoft see more commercial success well sometimes you can be too early that's one possible there's many ways having the idea is not sufficient you have to have a great team of people you have to be able to execute and realize the idea you have to be able to convince people to to try out the idea and mark it and sell it and if you're involved in big companies there's financial aspects you have to be very very cognizant of to make sure everything's in good shape financially so I talk in the book very directly about all the different ways things can go wrong which there are a few so yeah so that's that's that's you know that's just but that's part of the you know if you're creative and you try things and you're a risk-taker some number of those things are gonna fail now if you read the book you'll know some ways to avoid those things and the failure so I hope I'm just I'm just joking nobody kind of you did help to create one of the most successful startups in the history of the world what have you learned through that experience and through your more recent experiences about the most important ingredients for creating successful businesses well again I mean the first thing you start with to start with is the idea and to get to the idea my approach has always been just it's may seem a little random but it's just to stuff your your brain with as many ideas much information about in this case computer chips and software kind of as your brain can stand and then I'm just lucky enough to every once in a while I'll see a connection between two things like microprocessor chips and software and in this case the basic language is just what Microsoft's first product was so you have to have the idea then you have to find the team and I was lucky you know to meet Bill in high school and we met another guy at Harvard that could write the math part of the basic and so we had a team there that turned out that first basic in under two months and then I flew out to Albuquerque with it so that so that so that the yet to have the right team and then you have to you know there is definitely some luck of you know microprocessors the marketplace the altar computer was there and and we had a customer and the next thing you know we were off and running and then everybody wanted our basic so all of those factors come into play yeah since leaving Microsoft your primary focus in Business and Technology has been as an investor did you ever consider or would you even consider today picking one of your ideas and making a comeback as a day-to-day chief technology officer no I really leave I really leave the development of programs and those things to to people that are familiar with how to implement things these days my knowledge of of implementation although like I could get back in there and ask some really tough questions but it's which I do yeah that's one of the things I do is ask I try to ask the best possible questions I can but chief CTO no but I do look at user interfaces so that was I've always felt that was a really interesting way to add value so I do look at those things and people and different organizations that that I've spent time with will tell you that you know just the craft of Technology if you follow it through the years this is something is a place you can add you can add value have you ever pitched Bill Gates on the idea of starting a new company from scratch no bill was when I first left Microsoft and I started my first company post Microsoft Bill talked about investing in that which I mentioned in the book but no I think you know Bill was very very once he decided to retire he was very very focused on on philanthropy and what he was going to do there and I and I really loved everything he's done there with global health and then what he didn't Warren have done together the scale and the ambition there is truly breathtaking and I and I root for all those efforts to succeed you know to eradicate different diseases and so forth and we've collaborated on a few things in in some of those areas film right yeah we did a documentary I did a document on Global Health that bill funded we were you know and and so forth but I you know it's I think it's hard to go back to those halcyon days when you're you know you're in your early 20s and and you know I'd come into work and bill would be sleeping on the floor with his feet sticking out the door of his office and I have a lot of nostalgia for those days I've gone back to Albuquerque and revisited those places and if you do go back to Albuquerque there's a wonderful exhibit we helped to put together in the Natural History Museum they're called start up about those early days yeah you and Bill this is an audience question you and Bill started at a time when the microprocessor was being revolutionized into the next generation what do you see is the next evolution or revolution and it doesn't specify a subject area but is there something along those lines coming up that you see is equivalent to the revolution of the microprocessor well equivalent to the microprocessor no that that was a radical change both both well basically in in the performance you got for a very low price suddenly I mean all of a sudden people could can buy a computer that could do something for $1000 and they did so so that was amazing I think when I looked at the future now I think of both these new platforms that I already mentioned the smartphone platform and the tablet platform but I think if we're where software can be 10 15 20 years from now and how we can build more artificial intelligence and things like that I think recently people have seen with with Watson that one you know one beat human players on Jeopardy that's an example but not the only one of the way forward we have another project that we're doing at Vulcan called halo which is which is trying to encode the knowledge and a biology textbook into into software so you can ask questions it's it's it's very very challenging to do some of those things so you can't things that ambitious you have to you look at a very long time frame to to actualize them but there's there's so many exciting areas I mean just look looking the written last five six seven years social networks came from nowhere you're on Twitter what do you think of Twitter and Facebook and all that well I was thinking the other day I was thinking you know I should I should send out some some tweet like as kind of a joke saying bitter billionaire retires this is my last tweet look out Howard Hughes coming to going to Vegas today no but nice but yes I just don't like Ice Station zebra that much I can't see mine that was that was his favorite movie he just sit there watching it over him anyway I just can't see it you can't see it no no but I think anything were where you can follow you know people that are sending I think the most interesting thing about Twitter for example is people will send you links to things they find interesting articles and so now they're starting to appear some things that will show you all the articles directly of things that you know that that kind of tastemakers and people that follow technology I mean if you look on on my Twitter account you're gonna see you know people everywhere from comedy to technology to science it's a pretty broad range of different things so I think that's a great way of helping you aggregate stimulating knowledge and trends and things like that and then you have things like then you have Facebook and the other sites like that that are more about staying in touch with your friends and and you know we're such social animals that it's amazing if you think about why wasn't why wasn't something like like Facebook done years earlier it could have been and there was nothing stopping that from occurring it just you have to have the idea so there's always things that come down the pike that you don't expect that suddenly affect all of our lives in a great way and I think that's one of the wonderful aspects of Technology yeah you talk in great detail in the book about interval research your lab in Silicon Valley in the 1990s and that's been in the news of late as well why is it important for the industry why is it important to you for the industry to recognize intervals work now and for you to be compensated for its intellectual property well I think I mean the things that happened recently you know we're basically we basically looked of different ways to license some patents that we had from the times that I invested interval and I think there's some very interesting ones there too number different companies but he almost always get involved in litigation and there's a little guy think today didn't Samsung sue was it Apple both Apple sued Samsung's yeah everybody so it's just I think it's just a little little unusual for an individual maybe but these these lawsuits are are extremely commonplace so that's really all that's happening do you feel there's a risk of damaging your legacy by coming back now and suing all of these I mean it the list of companies not to play Lesley Stahl here but the whole his elite list of companies is Google and Apple and I mean it's a long list of very prominent companies things right I think that has more to do with the applicability of the patents but you know it's all in litigation so I'm not gonna say anymore okay fair enough some of the audience questions focus on an interesting topic here for the local community and that's South Lake Union where volcans development has completely transformed the neighborhood it's been really remarkable and and to see amazon.com move in as the anchor tenant and the question here from the audience's after South Lake Union what is yours and Vulcans next real estate venture Wow that was pretty unique because because we I was very excited to support the Seattle Commons initiative and alone low manage of the money to acquire a lot of those parcels and unfortunately it failed and so the property came back to me and we just felt there was a future in in biotech and many other bergen areas to revitalize South Lake Union and you know it's wonderful to have not only you know biotech and the University of Washington Medical School and an Amazon and many others that that area of Seattle has really come come to life and is doing well so that's a very rewarding thing for us and it's also obviously turned out to be a good investment so a lot of times the best things you do in investing is you know have a good outcome we're not it's not just the investment but there's also benefit for the community and I and I feel like that's what's happening in South like Union do you ever get a chance to walk through it ride the trolley through it I haven't ridden the trolley yet you haven't ridden the trolley no no do you recommend it well I mean I mean it's a trolley I was always more of a monorail guy myself but that's right it's very you know in the endings you know the I'm happy that the experience music project is down in that area - that's that was an amazingly interesting and rewarding thing we just opened our Nirvana exhibit recently and why you can give it up for [Music] so III love EMP I mean people not everybody liked the architecture initially but but I hope it's I hope it's growing on people I don't I consider Frank Gehry to be one of the true original architectural geniuses and my and my and my sister really pushed his selection and and she was right and he I kind of prodded him like like guitar body's really swoopy and wonderful and what an amazing job you did I think yeah one of the audience questions I have no idea what it means but it's just intriguing enough that I feel that obligated to ask it thank you for the remix of The Last Waltz what's your favorite song from the show can you explain this to me well the Last Waltz is a movie that Scorsese shot of the band performing their goodbye performances right and one of my friends Robbie Robertson was the is the guitar player for the man and that in that movie so it was remixed at one of my studios and so I think I think it's a reference yeah I think the shape I'm in is the one is one of the songs take your favorite so I sweats up there yeah yeah okay good I took a date to see it in 1977 Macbeth I think that dates me a little bit what sorry I was playing back in my own mind where I was at that point it gets a bit foggy back there doesn't it speaking of dates you actually mentioned probably the first love of your life in the book Rita she's here tonight and I believe Rita's husband is sitting next to her tell us about Rita Paul well there's obviously talk about some of the wonderful times arena and I had in the book and and and one funny incident which I guess has gotten surprising amount of attention but was unusual at the time Rita cooked a very nice dinner of I think it was baked chicken and Bill attacked his chicken with a spoon and after dinner Rita came came to me and said can you believe he ate it with a spoon and I said I was surprised too but it was great chicken so you stayed in touch we do yeah yeah we have we have a meal a couple times a year and it's wonderful to stay in contact with with your old friends and acquaintances tell us about your yachts theirs they're too big and there are too many of them what do I need do I need to do I need to say anything else no no I mean III think that advant you know I grew up you know seeing films like silent world which is his Jacques Cousteau movie about his diving his wonderful diving saucer and all these adventures they had underwater so the biggest yacht that I have basically accommodates a submarine and what they do but these guys do with these captains they'll say Polly we know you want to build a bigger boat and here's a model it's about this big and the submarine goes in the back here and it's gonna be it's gonna be pretty good-sized and and then and then they start building and you go to Germany you seen you go oh my gosh that's really big no no it's enormous and but but we've we've been able to have adventures we recently did trip to Antarctica which was fabulous although it it's it's disappointing to see it turns out that the poles are disproportionately affected by global warming so the scientists are happy to show you here's what the ice just in the bay that you're you're anchored and looked like twenty years ago and here's how half of that ice is gone completely in twenty years so for all those that say there is no no effects of global warming or it's just seasonal variation or whatever you go to the poles you can fly over not come with jar or whatever it's it's happening it's happening but anyway we've had wonderful adventures on the yacht's and i'd love to scuba dive and you know if if you have the crazy success and some of these things that you know i've been fortunate to enjoy you think about trying to realize some of those dreams and and I guess the yachts are one example of that and then some of my friends they just rent the yachts they don't own them so but if you own them there you know there are a lot of fun and and I had great times on the odds in the submarine yeah it's gets really you know it turns out if you go a thousand feet down in the ocean it's really dark and there's the animals are really strange and but if you put on some Pink Floyd it's fantastic [Applause] I don't know quite how to follow that up I you mentioned if go a different direction away from the odds you mentioned climate change and and that is one of the subjects of the audience questions what ideas do you have and what money underscore money will you target at climate and energy problems that is a really I've been asking myself that question for probably the last certainly for the last five years if not the last decade and we've done a few things too we've done we've done a few things in solar and some other areas it's a very hard problem that the problem is so huge and if you if you go talk to if you go to China and talk to the guy in charge of Chinese research reactors you say yeah we're building you know we're gonna build a tree actors than 16 and 32 and that's gonna be a lot so that you know that'll you know help us slow down the growth of our carbon footprint but we're also building like 50 and then a hundred coal-fired plants and you just go oh my gosh how can you stop that now some people have radical solutions of Virginia engineering to try to GU engineer the planet to stop global warming we're but we have to get much more serious about this I wish I had a magic bullet but you but it's incumbent on on us all to think about you know how we can try to slow and stop global warming otherwise the planets gonna fry so if you did something what would it be well I think you have to look at creating clean it you have to look at creating clean energy because clean energy you know the energy demand goes up every year and PN you know for us too unless we change our lifestyles dramatically it's gonna go up by percentages every year and you have countries like China and India just to name a few that are that are industrializing so fast and their energy demands are growing so fast that it has to it has to be addressed otherwise we're just on a slippery slope - you know this real deterioration in in global climate actually Rita is a an expert on this area so afterwards you could you might want to ask her a few questions you mean it probably knows more about the different initiatives even than I do another audience question you're Allen telescopic array is searching for extraterrestrial life during Stephen Hawking's lecture on life in the universe he said the chance of finding other life forms was infinitely greater than finding intelligent life forms in the universe what are you that now that's a that's optimism what are your realistic expectations of what might be found no I years ago just very in a very unusual way I was approached by Carl Sagan because the government was cutting up cutting off funding for listening to radio signals from outside the solar system possibly of of extraterrestrial origin and so at that point it was like you know are we gonna keep trying to listen and I thought it was a very worthy thing to try to keep listening I mean it is the is it a million to one shot a billion to one shot that we actually billions and billions the billions and billions that was good yeah it's it's a very very long shot and if they do hear something they're supposed to call me but my blackberry nothing no bite it's not even vibrating so no no I but I it would be imagine how our all of our lives would would be stimulated and changed if there were if there were other societies out there beyond our solar system but it's a very very long shot but I thought it was worth it and the telescope array is used for conventional radio astronomy actually more than it's used for for SETI so it's a new it's a it's a very inexpensive way of doing a large radio telescope so I think technologically it was interesting - we're getting into some of the audience questions that I would characterize as wacky but let's go for it if you saw a penny on the ground would you stop and pick it up what year I might I have to say I might leave it for the next person to pick up [Music] [Music]

Channel: Seattle Channel

Views: 5,519

Rating: 4.7037039 out of 5

Keywords: Seattle Channel, Seattle

Id: 8JGJ6neUrmU

Length: 58min 49sec (3529 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 17 2018