CHM Revolutionaries: Idea Man- Author Paul Allen with Jose Antonio Vargas

Paul Allen entrepreneur technologist investor business executive philanthropist and now that selling author his is a complex and fascinating story and he has now written much of it down in idea man which is the subject of tonight's event the publicity around this book so far has focused on his early history with Bill Gates their meeting as boys in Seattle their joint love of software and code their Co founding of Microsoft and of course what turns out to have been his stormy departure in 2000 but that history is interesting and personal as it maybe occupies only the first third or so of the Paul Allen story the balance is as the book title suggests about a relentless pursuit of and investment in ideas ideas in technology professional sports telecommunications brain science museums and much much more moving in parallel to that is his personal history of philanthropy most recently he's invested a hundred million dollars to map the human brain at a cellular level which has produced the Allen Brain atlas he's also just given another forty-one million dollars to do the same for the human spinal cord those are just two of hundreds of philanthropic efforts he's undertaken in the last 20 years many with his sister Jody in conversation with Paul tonight as Clark mentioned is Jose Antonio Vargas at the age of 23 Jose Antonio Vargas joined the Washington Post he worked his way up through the ranks and became the papers chief writer on new media social media and technology but as a writer Jose is nothing if not versatile still at the post in the aftermath of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007 Vargas contacted an eyewitness through Facebook his reporting with that witness won him a piece of the papers fueled surprise he also wrote a groundbreaking series on AIDS in DC which is the subject of a forthcoming documentary he now writes for the Huffington Post and for The New Yorker one of his most notable recent pieces was on Mark Zuckerberg including a report from our event with mark and David Kirkpatrick last summer among other pursuits he serves on the advisory board for the night baton award for innovation in journalism and I should add and he's very proud of this he is a local guy he is a 2000 graduate of Mountain View High School mm and a 2004 graduate of San Francisco State University so that gives you a little level set on where Jose is in the age spectrum compared to all the rest of us please join me in welcoming Jose Antonio Vargas and Paul Allen begin by saying sometimes you just can't really trust the media I'm saying this and I'm saying this is somebody who comes from the media I think we tend to kind of you know oversimplify you sensationalize I think we care more about we care more about kind of the tension and conflict and less about kind of depth and context and I'm saying this because I mean judging by like the excerpt on 60 minutes I mean the segments of 60 minutes that actor from about any fair some reviews some blogs you would think that you know that your book is like something out of like the social network and like in the 1980s or something like it's like a Bill Gates versus Paul Allen slam fest I think somebody said that you were the bitter billionaire and so I'm reading this stuff and then I finally actually read the book right and then I'm like wait up a second they they read the exact same book that I just read exactly and I mean I think the point that I'm trying to get at is this idea that I think in the book you you write us critically about yourself and about what you've done and some of the failures that you've had a successes and the failures just as critically as you've written about the future of Microsoft or the relationship with Bill Gates so I think that was really interesting and actually that's kind of where I wanted to start off is you know you've been Bigfoot on my Google Alert even like the past two months now and I'm in this promotional book tour and I'm just curious like what is surprised you the most about how people have reacted to the book what has been the biggest surprise well I think there's there's been a number of things I think in my life I've been fortunate to be involved with so many different things obviously my involve with Microsoft will always be the signature achievement although I have high hopes for what the brain Institute's doing now we'll talk about that later but but I've been involved in so many different things that you know if anybody tries to pigeonhole me into one area it's hard I think they struggle they struggle to do that and you've said this in the book and you also said in interviews that writing this book was one of the hardest things you've ever done why why why do you why do you say that well I mean it I'd been thinking about doing a book for years and then I got very very ill and and during that period I just decided I was you know now is the time to do the book because I wasn't sure I was gonna be around to see the book published so I would get up every day feeling very fatigued and from chemotherapy and everything and I worked on work on the book and then after after the you know the first drafts were finished then my you know my old heritage as a programmer kind of came back to the fore and I would meticulously go through and edit and change rephrase and especially the technical details you try to make them you know digestible you know for the for the lay public but yet but yet give them a sense could have everybody a sense of what it was like and I hope I and I hope I did that but I went through every word in the book eight times and I don't I don't need to read it again I mean in terms of was it hard dough I mean a lot of people I think have made the mistake of saying that you've been a recluse I think you've just been private I think there's a difference between the two words has it been hard being so public about some of this stuff you some of the stuff that you write in the book and of course I'm talking about some of attic those concerning Bill Gates or just downright like I mean I'm waiting for like the Hollywood version of how this is all gonna play out I mean is it is it tough to do that so publicly how does that well well when you write when you write an autobiography like this and I think you're faced with a choice are you gonna tell it as you experienced it and tell the highs and lows and the important parts of your life and I just chose to do that in a very unvarnished warts-and-all way because I think I thought that was what it that was really what it deserves and people deserved to hear and you know I feel like you know I made some some I had some signature successes and some some things that didn't work out as well but that a technology and other things that happens not everything you're not going to bad a thousand and anything in technology but but the reclusive thing I don't understand because I've yeah you know no no I worked amira cluesive is something that just stays in their house and yeah you know I've got you know tons of friends and you know I'm not shaking people's hands before sports events and you know travel the world I don't know I don't know I would I joked last week I was going to send out a tweet saying bitter billionaire bitter reclusive billionaire heads to Las Vegas to reenact the life of Howard Hughes but I I don't even like Las Vegas so you didn't tweet that you have to tweet that that's too funny not to tweet maybe next week okay good follow you now so I will I will hold you up on that but what do you make them to people some of them like former Microsoft employees like when the when the extra which ones I don't think they're in the audience but some are like surprise the extra from about any fair saying why is he speaking out now and why you see acting like you know I mean what's the point of that like what's the point of airing out dirty laundry like that well I think that was a key moment in my life when I decided you know you're you're a founder of a company you decide to leave and the way that it happened at that time was you know stung and so I felt it was important to to tell that because it was a signature moment of my life so and give people an idea of that trajectory which went from a you know a hugely productive and innovative and fun partnership to the Lowe's there at the end and so I went on to you know to do many of the things since then but that was that was that was definitely an important chapter in my life well I mean it definitely is it definitely reads like anybody who's read the book it reads like a book in which somebody had nothing to lose you just kind of wrote it all out and I think in many ways that's a testament kind of to what you've done yeah and and and again I wrote I wrote a lot of it you know in those moments were always thinking I've got to get this down I've got it felt like it was and hopefully people will we'll get something out of when they really know did you give anybody like did you give Steve Ballmer now the current you know CEO of Microsoft Bill Gates did they get a did it get kind of a hey this is coming just so you know what do they say I have yet to talk to Bill about the book yeah I read that I am but I expect I'll have a very intense discussion with Bill Steve I've talked to and he basically says hey you know the book portrays you know the ball I know and and the you know the events that you recount there you know did happen so no one has challenged any facts no box oh no no one's going on record well not when you meet with Bill can we tape it or something what happens what channel is that WWF or something I'm just kidding I'm kidding I'm kidding not to get all Bill Gates about this but let me just ask you this question can you take us back you know at that moment when you what you were in a 10th grade he was in the 8th grade this was lakeside school I think what North Seattle yeah like what was it like to meet him for the walk why did you think you guys would click what was the thing that you thought that all right this guy's interesting well you know there's some pictures of Bill and me together over slaving over a hot a SR 33 teletype which which I think there there's some examples downstairs here in the museum yes but they're not hot and they're not clanking away I could probably be fixed I assume but yeah and and I just remember a bill used to wear saddle shoes and anyway and and sweater and he walks in very gangly young man and after a few weeks after this teletype terminal was at our high school they were just if there are a few of us that were just almost helping our way to get time on the terminal and Bill was one of them I was them and there were a few there were a few others and then at the end of the month they would post up kind of a horrifying list of how much money you'd run up on the time sharing service you know and Bill and I are always up there at the top and you think how am I going to explain to my parents $68 on time-sharing and so that was always anxiety provoking how about how about that day when you saw the article in Popular Mechanics what was that my teens laughing electronic pop electronic see you you're right you saw in Harvard Square so I actually that magazine if you check out check out the revolutionaries exhibit and this museum is basically the first 2,000 years of computing it's really interesting but yeah that magazine is like blown up downstairs and what was that what was that feeling like when you saw that magazine in you house it was a feeling of vindication because I've been telling bill for a long time we should be doing a basic interpreter basic language interpreter for microprocessor chip and first we'd actually built machine beep based on the 8008 microprocessor chip for a failed company that processed the data produced by traffic recorders you used to drive one of these rubber hoses in the street it would punch out a 16 channel BCD coated tape this audience I feel like I can get technical right everybody understand technical jargon it's okay all right so it so anyway so so to build that machine I remember one day bill and I I think we slept down to all Max Strom and we bought this 8008 because I was convinced that you could build we can basically build our own mini computer with a microprocessor chip we found a guy to to do the engineering and and so it came wrapped in this was it was it was stuck into this piece of insulating plastic and wrapped aluminum foil and it cost three hundred and sixty dollars and we're like wow this is a whole processor and it's you know whatever it's like an inch long or something and so that's how we got our start so we learned all about micro since then and under now I would say bill we should do basic for the eight thousand eight you'd say it's too slow and it's only got a 7 level stack and come on ball you never would sneeze never it's gonna be unusable so then the a dat came out I said the a new ad bill come on you'd say but we don't know anybody back in Boston to build another you know computer let's wait until somebody produces a computer with an eighty eighty in it and then I went down to City News in Harvard Square and saw it and plunked down my seventy five cents and ran back and show the magazine to bill the first sentence of that article and that magazine was the era of the computer and every home has arrived that was a very first sentence and I'm curious kind of in concrete terms when you spent what two lines kind of you know really I'll tear basic and figuring this out like what was that what did that feel like what did you what were you envisioning this going where was he going the way you were thinking about it around that time I mean you know we didn't we didn't know we had no idea what mitts was like and I talked later in the book about flying out to Albuquerque and and running that first version of basic we had no idea you know exactly how fast the rocket of you know home computers and personal computers was going to take off and how our software was going to become an amazing part of that change so we thought well geez if we're really successful maybe one day we'll have 35 employees I think Microsoft is over over 90,000 now yeah so so those were early day you have to remember back then there really were I mean there were no we were worried that there was competition but I mean we can I kept I just my my role is kind of look read every computer design like Fox News I just read everything and trying to see in a computer more computer world was more about these behemoths that you see downstairs you know 360s and you know VAX and everything else but I my job was to look out over the rice and see what could be coming and I didn't see anything about basics from anybody else so I thought we thought we had a head start but we weren't sure well I'm curious and you probably know this but you know Microsoft was found in the same year that Gordon Moore the Intel co-founder came up with you know Moore's law right basically saying that the number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months did that did this matter do you then which is something you were thinking about then this idea of everything getting to be cheaper better and faster well you could see the trend because the first chip I was aware of was the 4000 for than the 8080 of course which we built that first machine on and that's actually in a museum in a Natural History Museum in in Albuquerque and and then the 8080 so you were you were aware that the chips were getting so much better and so much faster and cheaper and now of course every component of like a portable device or a computer every part of it gets cheaper and faster and better every year so it's been amazing I mean you knew that trend was happening you didn't know it as necessarily as Moore's Law at the time but it was obviously happening in that way and I swear this is my last Bill Gates question I'm not gonna Lesley Stahl my way composition don't worry it's gonna be but but you guys have your question cards so please feel free to write questions there and we're gonna gather some later but you know actually I thought the most interesting passage about Bill Gates in the book is when you wrote quote I left Microsoft a quarter century before Bill did and we both had our signal triumph since then but in certain respects neither of us has been quite as good alone us we were together so I'm reading this and I'm thinking to myself wait up so is he trying to say that what would have happened if you would have stayed in like yourself what would have happened you know in the past ten years that's been going on that Microsoft was falling by the wayside not the wayside but clearly isn't a sexiest Facebook or Twitter or Google like do you ever think about what would happen if you would have stayed oh I you know I I have thought about it I mean in technology I mean we were we just accomplished some amazing things and bill was an amazingly to use Microsoft language hard core business person that did and and the company did super well certainly in the years in a right era after I left I think it's it said more challenges recently we'll probably talk about that in a few minutes but but but yeah you just you know just think how you know I mean in retrospect you know how lucky was I to have a partner as capable as Bill Gates and then you know we we worked shoulder-to-shoulder right in that initial code and and you know I brought my ideas to the table so yeah of course I'd like to think that if I'd stayed there I could have affected the course of things but I I had when I left I had really wasn't planning on staying I wanted to start a new chapter in my life and do other things and actually tried to retire at age thirty which lasted for about 18 months what did you do you know I kicked back on the Riviera and traveled I mean traveled I wanted to see Europe I traveled a lot and tried to relax the problem is if you're a creative person technologist that only lasts for so long and then you wanted then you want to be involved in creating something again what do you think about the fact that throughout the history of the technology industry when you look at companies that have been founded by like two people there's always one who tends to kind of either become the outsize role within that right and all of the co-founders would see the other person we what does it say you think about the nature of friendships when you do these kind of startups and you have two people involved what's that say about that well you know I think it can it can definitely depend on the personalities and the dynamic between the two people I also think that you know some people are more technological or you know that's just their bent I was always I wasn't attracted to sales and marketing in the same way I was a try to following what the next makes microprocessor chip or the next product we should be doing was and those kinds of questions so over time is Bill you know was in those roles and the company was actually growing more in those areas yeah there became you know our roles became became different I was solely focused on technical things and Bill was focused on a whole slate of non-technical things and some technical things so it you know as these roles evolve over time so is the case with Microsoft and I'd have to say by the way I mean I think I think ever since the social network came out it's like everybody who's been using it a shorthand for like Silicon Valley culture have you seen the movie bud with I have I didn't I didn't see it until after the books I didn't want to influence or I don't know I just I just felt I just felt that might have some some effect maybe perhaps it wouldn't of it was really strange to see the echoes of some of the things that happened like to see there's a shot of Harvard Square yeah I got the magazine a beginning early in the movie wait a minute you know I was there in the 1974 so that was you know and then and then some of the other things that happened so so so was interesting I think was very well made it's funny by the way like in the book what you were talking about how you guys would sit down eat like you know pepperoni pizza or you know sliders and we'd be thinking about what if we could start a company someday when I interviewed Zuckerberg for The New Yorker I did the profile it was interesting he actually had the exact same we would be sitting in a pizza place thinking about all we could start the next this or the next fact so I guess it doesn't really change from some you know that kind of culture there's something in that pizza in Boston which actually probably something and I don't know what the equivalent what's the equivalent in Palo Alto sushi because you know like it's reviewer and hipper and more than verse we're cooler and hipper and more the verse that's why it's okay yes and which actually brings me to this point is you said that you've thought about they basically I'm retired by thirty right I mean I'm looking and of course that lasted eighteen months but I'm looking here in the valley of people like you know Jackie Dorsey or Zuckerberg that are leading their own companies like what advice would you give them you know as somebody who's gone through that process of starting help helping start something and like this is their life this is what they're doing would you like tell them to just take a break or like what would you tell them well I mean the other the other thing that influenced my departure of course was my yes was my health and I I didn't know you know I you know the doctors basically said they thought I was cured but at the age thirty but I didn't know that so that was also a big wake-up a big factor a big wake-up call but I mean if there's certain things that I don't think they're that mysterious but you have to be eternally vigilant about new platforms coming down the pike and if you think about Facebook and Twitter you know both of those could have been created earlier I mean there was mice used to be thing called myspace not that long ago yeah I was on it you were I was for like three weeks okay but you know you can if when a new platform comes along and evolves more rapidly you can be obsoleted quickly so you got to be incredibly vigilant you have to hire the best people and retain them which in Silicon Valley the reason we didn't move Microsoft to Silicon Valley was because bill said but Paul in Silicon Valley but he changes jobs in 18 months is it is it still true that was in 1977 it's so true it's still true so we said yeah Seattle reign the wanna go outside said void of your terminal so anyway and of course our families our families were there so so there's sorry so there's you know hiring and retaining great people and and then and then there's the the blind-spot thing where you're you just don't see these these are their platforms but that could potentially obsolete you coming and you and companies like you know even Google and Apple they didn't really see the social network stuff coming yeah I like it and taking root like it has so of course you know Apple tried to launch pain and I'm not sure where pain has gone but clearly it was maybe a little too late it hasn't quite kind of caught on which actually brings me to this question you know Microsoft celebrated its what 36th birthday earlier this month thirty-six birthday I'm curious like where do you think Microsoft is now in relation to say Google Facebook Apple what you call by the way in the book guys what is it high-tech hellhoundz can you define that what why did you call them high-tech hell house those damned Hill House yeah yeah that's from an old actually got that phrases from a blue song but anyway tell Allison because hellhounds on my trail I think is the name of the song but yeah I mean Microsoft always had a lot of competition but the competition today is incredibly fierce from you know the companies we've already talked about and and so you know you they're trying to fight kind of a multi-front war and it's it's hard to innovate yet I mean to get people to change their habits the behavior the inertia is is it's pretty strong so if you want to change someone to a different search engine it has to be as good and better you know or a social network or a mobile phone platform so they're working in a number of those areas and I have friends over there and I certainly encourage them and try to give them an idea now and then but it's it's a big challenge as its as it is for for companies you know Apple trying to do paying or something it's a challenge to come from from not having a position to being a major influence there in that area so so it's that's just the the lay of the land right now is that saying in the Microsoft is behind all those three companies is that well we're just saying in some of these area I mean Enterprise there are other areas like the PC and enterprise software Microsoft has a great position as you know is superbly profitable and has some great people but competing in all those different areas that's another thing you got a picture sometimes you have to pick your spots and Microsoft fellows was in game platforms too where they have a halo halo is great tonight come on I'll connect yes that's right yes yeah but what I think is interesting is me let's not let it be said that you know Microsoft is definitely is still an influential incredible company that's been so woven into our lives I mean I grew up you know like you know like Microsoft Word PC right I think we kind of have forgotten that it's even there it's so woven into our lives but you've written in the book about what you called what you call this breathtaking fall from grace you rose I'm quoting it yourself it wasn't so long ago that Microsoft stood by the slogan that Bill and I followed at the start we set the standards but there's no one in Redmond speaking privately and candidly who would make that claim today well I think I was referring to new to new standards for platforms I mean Microsoft has a has an amazing position you know they have the leadership position on the PC but we're all carrying around you know there's mobile mobile different kinds of mobile devices and now tablets have taken the field too and people are trying to there's going to be an incredible battle between different tablet suppliers too so when these new platforms come down the pike it's incumbent on you to really internalize that and mount your you know your attacted to you know to keep your amazing engine going in these new areas and and Microsoft is has been lagging in some of these areas and I I'm very I'm very straightforward about that in the book I mean anything I mean you basically said that you know if Microsoft fails to catch up in mobile it's in for a long slow slide what is what do you think strategy wise can Microsoft do with Windows Mobile to kind of get it up in the same for example the market share is nowhere near where blackberry in terms of the software from the BlackBerry or the or the ice or the iPhone or the or even the Android like what do you think Microsoft can do well on any anytime you're challenged by when you're coming from behind on a platform you know like again you have to meet the capabilities and then have some things that are persuasive to get people to switch because people won't switch unless something is dramatically better I mean take you know look at the example of Google there was a time when there was I don't know there must have been five there was Yahoo and five other other search engines and then they came up with something better yeah so to really take back huge chunks of market share you've got a meat and beet and that's and that's and that requires you know shorter development cycles maybe your best people agility and focus a lot of focus I mean you've said that Steve Ballmer has one of the toughest jobs in the world right now if you could give them what advice like what would it be all I've given him a device such as well some way obviously some of those are a private conversation so oh but it's okay we're like friends I thought c-span was here no it's just it's just something else well yeah so what was the advice no no just the kinds of things we've been we've been talking about how can you you know what what area is to improve some of these products and if you start talking about tablets you know yeah where is Microsoft on the tablet where's that going uh you should talk to someone from Microsoft but they're I mean they're very they're very focused on that but I don't want to speak for Microsoft's product strategy well I mean I'm curious from from an investment perspective I was actually you know of course doing a some reading on you and a business reporter once wrote that you suffered from a sort of investors attention deficit disorder that there was there was one point that you invested in more than 100 in media and communications companies and you know the missteps miscalculations have been costly so I'm just curious like what has been in your mind from a from an investment standpoint and don't worry I'm gonna ask about the biggest success so I'm not just gonna that's a relief but I'm curious from your perspective what has been you think the biggest failure of the Muslims the cop most costly by far was Charter Communications I I felt that cable was a potentially a new platform because they're gonna have high-speed pipes into millions of millions of homes which which back then they didn't and now they now they do but the product cycle and cable is very slow compared to anything else just about so to put new set-top boxes and take advantage of those capabilities took longer than I expected but the actual delivery of data into people's homes has been fantastically successful the table but the main problem with the Charter was just the amount of leverage which which which was too high sorry but in terms of the breadth of things yeah I mean like what ticket Matt I mean I mean of course that wasn't a well early sold to early price line many other things and started ESPN what's now espn.com sold that to Disney so many successes along the way but you know you invest you know if you invest in it and during the internet bubble or something you know bubbles a bubble so everyone's going to get you know gonna have some painful experiences during a bubble too so I've tried to do many many different things and had some great successes and and some signature tailors so and they're all on them I think they're pretty much the big ones the big bad ones and the big good ones they're mostly in the book yeah and by the way what would you consider the biggest successes investment-wise dreamworks was that would you consider that part no I know Hollywood is so dead I mean the Hollywood mentality and Microsoft we just to give you an example in Microsoft if we made if we made a mistake or miss the trend or when I was there we would just flagellate herself how did we miss that are we gonna catch up and Hollywood you say but this this movie it's it's not that great and then box-office was horrible and they said well I work but we've got another movie coming out and so there it's not you don't have the the post-analysis that you do in that I think a healthy post-analysis like you have in in technology could technology companies so I was I was a bit of a fish out of water in that world I try to I try to I tried to contribute a few things my like one of the few things I think I talked about in the book yeah that was now this is the level of affect I had I said hey Shrek when he walks the ground doesn't deform there's no dust and and and your brain is telling you something is wrong but you know but you don't know what it is and so in said okay we're gonna fix it cost a million dollars it's fine now so that's the kind of effect I'm sorry what was that a million dollars I think it was a million so I think that that's a lot for dust but you know so I mean I've done some documentary films that that we talked about earlier yeah one on psychology called this emotional life when on global health and one on evolution which I'm very very proud of our documentary work but documentaries in you know our you know our just philanthropic endeavor space yeah but I mean perspective what has been for you the best investment so far well I mean a few years ago I invested in some some I mean some people convinced me to invest in oil and gas pipelines yes okay go on turns out a lot of people leave oil and gas and and so I did very well on that investment but but it's not one of those things you know most in that the investments that I really enjoy that was super profitable WL since I really enjoy are the ones where you know you think you as a technology person you can add some value and that happens and it's really rewarding you early you see hey online services AOL it's going to do great then I thought it's doing great but Microsoft says they're gonna crush a it well so maybe time to sell so I sold them I made some money so I've had again just pure investing you know probably the oil and gas pure pure investing and not technology oil and gas thing I see some cards are still are being picked and picked up being picked up out there for me I mean I have - feel free to hit us with some questions after this question last year you've filed and re filed a lawsuit basically against the entire internet was abroad it was that broad basically all successful Yahoo Facebook Google AOL eBay am I missing somebody for copyright infringement so for patent I'm sorry yes yes and so working why did you do that why I can't talk about the details of lawsuit I think it's it's got a lot of notice because it's yes an individual involved and we I had a research company here in the valley years ago called interval research there might actually be some people here for a minute oh I don't know but around anymore yeah so it's not it's not around anymore but it was a wonderful experience but in terms of startup companies that came out of it directly very very very modest success but created some great I think some interesting IP and so anyway so there's there's the litigation that you mentioned and and again I think it's that attention has come about more because it's an it you know it's a well-known individual doing it because everybody knows that everybody every other big you know hellhound who's every other help as far as I can tell yes versus oh hell yeah but this one basically was like Paul Allen is suing the entire internet I mean that least that's what happened on Twitter listen people talked about and I'm an exhale but from your perspective I was just curious and it was it basically to say that you know do you think in many ways you've been - ahead well you can be you could be too early and so you yeah so if you're if you're early if you look around and say wait a minute nobody else is doing this sometimes there are some things inherent in whatever the technology might be or the management team might be a bunch of reasons that your early idea is not going to take root you're just way too early so you've got to be cognizant of those factors what tech companies right now by the way here in the valley would you invest on if you could the valuations are so crazily high yeah what would you invest on again I mean I I don't want to comment on any any known companies I think you just you do your best due diligence to make sure there's something really really new and defensible I mean I've had a few ideas in the last you know couple years and I'd say what if you did combine this with this there's a lot of you know my best ideas are a combination of you know basic in the microprocessor chip or whatever and I'd say what about that and then my staff would say well there's 20 companies doing that I'd say jeez okay well you know so it's very very it's very very crowded right now so you have to be super aware of the competitive landscape and whether somebody else has has momentum I mean I should point out by the way that when I was writing this up this idea of owning a football team right the Seattle Seahawks right basketball team the Portland Trailblazers what is the score by two and we were in the green room he was basically looking at the scores I think they were down five two dollars or something or something like that you've funded you've funded the first privately financed rocket to fly the edge of space you found in your own music museum your own you own the guitar that Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock and apparently you also own to share the Captain Kirk SATA and the Star Wars movies are true okay it's a modified office chair though so oh alright it's not as impressive as in person as it looks on that enterprise and then there's this and then there's this eight level 714 on 414 feet yacht and in addition to that I'm starting to feel bad no I'm just saying I'm sure as I'm writing all this stuff down I'm thinking of myself is there like anything you haven't but you wanted to do that you haven't actually done it well III know I think you know we haven't talked about the brain yet but there's absolutely I mean I think you start talking about scientists scientific problems or challenges I mean the fact that spaceship one succeeded nobody knew that what a problem why do you X PRIZE nobody knew that was gonna happen when we restarted so sometimes you know by being ambitious and trying to accomplish some of those these things sometimes you don't you fail sometimes you know that you never succeed to win a prize or or get you know the product not a success in the marketplace but it's but it's you know it's the ambition the try that's there you know you have a great team of people that's just you know enthralling so so there are many many challenges out there I'm you know especially excited about anything related to the brain with the brain institute's doing and then in an artificial intelligence I still have always had a had a nagging interest in and we're starting to get some traction there so but I think you're talking about more things that are more related to personal life in terms of everything well if we're talking about sure fun yeah I mean I was just an Antarctica a couple months ago and that's fascinating you slowly cruise up on a sleeping whale or something it's wonderful or but then you go with the scientists and they say here's the bay that you're in and here's what it looked like 20 years ago and it was full of ice there's no ice it's almost gone I mean so the global warming stuff that's that's right so you can see it you can see it so in terms of adventures there's a chapter in the book about adventures you know I've and some of that some of the thinking there was in fired by you know seeing Jacques Cousteau movies as a kid I don't know I've I've I've had just wonderful experiences trying to explore the fun side and I think the fun side of life and I think it's incumbent on all of us that are in technology to think how do we balance our lives between the siren of like I can fix that last bug versus no maybe I should go home and spend some more time with my family before well whatever it might be or go bowling whatever that the other thing that other things that calls do you are music for me is a big fashion yeah and actually back to the brain to some trees because there was some reporter just came out about the landmark map of the human brain right why was it so groundbreaking this is of course from from the Allen Institute for brain science why was that so groundbreaking well we're doing things in industrial scales so we basically get get human brains in slice them up and then look at the gene expression for all 25,000 plus genes in the human brain and put the data online for scientists around the world to use in their and their research and so it's no individual lab could do it to the level I think of thoroughness and quality and multiple brains it takes an industrial type approach like was used in the human genome project yeah so we started with the mouse brain now we're doing human developing human we did some work on autistic brains so it's just it's endlessly fascinating to me because the way the brain works is is we're just we're just starting to see the outlines of it or we're starting to get a sketchy idea of it and there's so much work to be done and each part since each part was designed by evolution it's optimized for what it does in particular so it's the opposite of computer which is basically pretty much a regular structure the brain every little bit of it is optimized to do its to do its job so it's endlessly fascinating compelling and mind-boggling I actually have a question here I think I'm probably get some more questions now from the audience but we have a question here from Edie Feigenbaum who apparently is the guru of artificial intelligence who's who's actually here tonight and the question is Paul in my view Vulcan which is the company that that you own is supporting and managing one of the best artificial intelligence projects in the world can you tell the audience a little bit about it and what motivated you to set it up well on the one hand you're trying to I mean it's a finish off from the brain you're trying to understand how does the brain I mean ultimately we all love to know how does the brain work does the brain work and then if there are treatments for our neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's which my mother has how can you make those treatments happen earlier so so I'm fascinated by all that work on the brain which works totally differently then you've got artificial intelligence where you know programmers sit there with blank sheets of paper and say okay you don't know how the brain works but we want to do something similar so I have a team in Seattle trying to encode initially it's a biology textbook and put all that knowledge in software you know it's a will trodden path but it's super hard to do knowledge representation as I'm sure mr. mr. Feigenbaum would could elaborate and a better length that I can it's super hard to do that in in software because real-life reasoning involves probabilities and things that aren't are still research areas for artificial intelligence so we're we're moving down that path and you can see 10 20 30 years down the road maybe we'll have something really really significant there and some some more breakthroughs but in the meantime we're concentrating on getting a biology text inside computer software in a way that you can ask you could ask a student can ask questions and they'll get a coherent answer from the software so it's really it's really some groundbreaking work and Mark Greaves and a team in Seattle or are managing it we actually have worked on it at SR I and many other places too before would that work would you say that right now project halo which is AI and also the Institute those are two projects are you most excited about right now yeah I mean I think I have a couple of little Internet things that are incubating but but I mean the brain and AI those two things alone you could spend many lifetimes trying to figure out a way to figure out ways to accelerate excuse-me accelerate progress so I'm just excited to be involved in those areas and I'm looking out for other areas and other things that you know any philanthropy you know I should stop for a second I mean philanthropy is a wonderful thing to be involved in to be able to give back because if you have signature success I think it's incumbent on you to give back and you know and you pledge lots of July right yeah I always intended to give ya the majority of my assets to philanthropy and Bill called me up and said would you join and and he's done so many I mean he's taken on some very very tough problems within global health and malaria and education those are huge problems but I think in if you're going your own philanthropy you have to say okay what what you know what appeals to me what makes it work and I make a difference in terms of the solution of this problem so I'm really focused on on the brain right now okay I'm going to ask some questions from the audience and local philanthropy yeah I mean Pacific I mean the Pacific Northwest is benefited I think was it nearly a billion dollars I think an investment and in philanthropy in that area so who was your mentor is it important to have one question well I mean I think through your life you have a series of people that that have a positive influence and give you a chance to succeed on obviously my parents and I talk about a lot in the basically you know my father was librarian and my mother was a schoolteacher so I spent so much time you know around books and in the stacks at the University of Washington library and just tried to absorb everything I could so that so that so and then then I got to high school obviously we kind of were self-taught except there were there a bunch of X MIT and staffer people at the computer center that was giving away free time that we got hooked up with and I don't whew Steve Russell here at night did you make it anyway Steve Russell who did space war for the pdp-1 you know bill and I would literally dive in dumpsters to get these listings of coffee-stained listings and I can smell that coffee today and then we pour through these these listings of CO and we go oh my gosh I don't know what it's doing but it's beautiful so so you so you kind of absorb some of that through through osmosis you know as you go along the way but but so active mentoring you know and then the teachers you have in school too they get you excited about other things like like Shakespeare or whatever I mean it's a it's so important I mean I've enjoyed having a well-rounded life or I'm interested in so many different things I mean that's I try to convey it a little bit in the book but you know if you think you did if if there's so many things that are unbelievably fascinating in the world whether it's literature or art or you know the oceans I don't you could keep going on music you could go on and on forever so any of those worlds you can get drawn into if you've got somebody that that shows you the way is excited about it or the experience music project Museum in Seattle we deliberately tried like I think this museum is doing to show young people that you know hey you can play you know try playing a guitar and if you can make a couple notes maybe you want to learn how to play guitar and you can do the same thing I think with hopefully do more things here to get young people interesting program another question what do you see is the next big thing and why mm-hmm that's a hard one I mean I think eventually some of these AI type systems then recently we saw Watson win in jeopardy some of those things eventually those things are going to be you know so much better or speech understanding will be so much better but in terms of you know things happening in the cloud or or whatever I am I can I can't say any particular there this is a really a great question Paul at an early age you achieve fabulous wealth which enabled you to recreate your life in any way you wanted to was that liberating or horrified to have everything you ever wanted to do well no it gives you so many more possibilities and options and but then you're then you are a steward of those assets so if we have reversals or or whatever a big reversal you just feel awful so you have to be you have to be very very careful and and you know I mean all of the you know the resources that I have by far the lion's share of those are going to go to philanthropy when I pass so so there is there is that realization that you have to keep that in mind so one really really tucky question here please describe internally please describe please describe interactions with IBM late 70s as the PC merged so basically Microsoft and your guys said we're not going to wear ties like IBM people wear ties right what was a famous story how bill goes to the first meeting in in Boca and he forgot to bring a tie so they had to buy a tie at the last at the last second for him but by the time you know we're working on the IBM PC in Seattle you know it was just it was just really you know I was just on pins and needles because the the basic that we were doing was gonna go on read-only memory and I was just so afraid that there was gonna there were gonna be bugs in it which there were just a couple there were a couple of bugs in there so I put these little hooks in so I could replace in RAM any any bad areas of the ROM code and those turned out to be invaluable but you know basic thing about IBM is they didn't like what we were doing das there's this there's a story in the in the book for bill and I are arguing about the fact that das das 2.0 was delayed and and I I thought this thing called three structured directories and path names should be you know in dos 2.0 and I be em wanted partitions and so to get three structured directories which III can't claim me credit for they were they were part of UNIX back in the day you know the IBM guys were like well we're happy with partitions I'm going like no no respect respect to directories and then and then of course the product got delayed and there was a bunch of back and forth about that but I mean they were basically you know they basically came to us and said you know we want to do a PC we want to buy all your software you know where we get an operating system you're like we just seemed great you know and anyway the rest the rest is history but but so we were really you know as kids in our late 20s kids I mean young men are late 20s you know we knew it was going to be big but we had no idea how big that opportunity is going to be turned out to be because everybody wanted to make a copy the IBM PC we have a space question what do you expect from spaceship one a true commercial spaceflight company maybe in an early Boeing or Lockheed well what's your Branson he's already taken the the patents and we'll do take a license for the spaceship one technology and I think in in not too long I don't fits a year or two years they'll start flying people flying paying passengers in the space and it basically you should go straight up and you come straight back down in a period of about half an hour and it's an amazing ride you're floating weightless in space for about five minutes so that's so that's going to be exciting but when I was watching these flights I was even I was you know I was used to well something goes wrong I'll get an error message in rocketry if something goes wrong oh shoot it's with was a human being inside it's really bad and like one another naive question I have a history of occasionally asking questions that in retrospect appear humorous I said Hawaiian but not this one really because I said well you know there there had to be three seats in spaceship one so that when the XPrize she had to be able to be capable of flying three people into space and I said well why are our test flights only one person and they said in case something goes wrong Paul yeah so so when those flights were happening I was so nervous and just so happy when they got back on the ground please speak a little bit about judgement day intelligent design that was a that was a documentary that we did following up on the evolution documentary we talked about you know a lot of court case that happened about textbooks and every I reckon I know it's interesting I recommend people see it but basically there's this theory and intelligent design that they're you know people that just try to justify intelligent design say there aren't these intermediate forms if you have a flood gel on a bacteria or something like that there's no way it could have been created other than by designer and and yet biologist you know you put biologists in the witness stand they say wait a minute no there's there's like five intermediate forms and then the argument kind of devolves down into well what about between those forums and then you go wait it well we found this one well they're still you know so it's but basically there are the intermediate forms for all these things exist in some way so in my in my opinion so so that's what it's about we have a question asking for advice for programmers creative trends what's the future of programming you know I feel a bit bad because I used to just and there was a new programming language I would just you know get a manual now you just of course you just go online look at a PDF or something I would read the manual I'd say well that's that's really cool but that's like that other stuff over there that's like worse than the other language I've ever seen so you know so there's so many new languages that come down the pike and you know object I mean since I was programming and last time I programmed Josh was like 1980 I don't know and and six no I'm just saying you're already forgotten no no I was I'm saying for context kidding and I and I was the only person in the company that knew how to write assembler code so I got write some assembler code that they could call with it with the C++ routine or something so so so III I don't know I just if I was a programmer today I would study you know it's it's it's it's fun just to pick the right language if your employer lets you pick the language and you know you've seen companies like like Google or still trying to innovate in languages and so but in the end I mean all these tools are you can do anything you want in these tools it's just a matter of how fast can you get there and sometimes you get so caught up in the tool itself and picking the right tool that you know you lose three months on your schedule but I'm just kidding but so but it but programming is is great and and but I have to say I get fun sometimes when I'll be talking to one of my my project team is they'll say you know we have like this few years of legacy code so we refactored it and then you we used to say rewrote it but now it's everything gets we factored it sounds a lot better I'm not sure but I'm not sure it is that much better you know I got actually four questions here all about what was like to face your mortality and I actually think I wanted to bring up the fact in the book you actually think two doctors right because he basically you were diagnosed and recovered from cancer twice was it nearly 30 years was the tiny difference when doctor same doctor I'm curious what was the difference he's good I mean you said when you when you were first diagnosed the first time you said that it was a wake-up call late turns out the alarm can go off in late 2009 and you got diagnosed for the second time like what went through your head well I mean the first time when you have when I had Hodgkin's disease they actually developed the treatment that I had here at Stanford in fact I was just in the Stanford book I loved bookstores I was in the Stanford bookstore today and there was a book about this doctor I think was dr. Henry Kaplan that developed the treatment for radiation treatment for Hodgkin's disease and so so they tell you when you get this radiation look we're giving you the amount of radiation basically if the body can stand and that at some period of time maybe 20 or 30 years there may be repercussions of having that radiation but you know when you're a 30 and you get and you have a life-threatening illness it's it's an it's just a shock you can't believe it and then takes a while to realize you're going to be you have the chance to be okay at least at least I had that chance this last this last situation I just knew I was really really sick and it had advanced it was an advanced case so right Stage four so but they had a they had a the kind of the standard I mean it was like one of those things where they they call you up and they say just kind of you know weird echo when I was first sick they they called me up and they said okay you've got we found some bad cells and that's just that moment where your blood runs cold and then then the NAT then you meet with the oncologist he says well actually it's this they call the garden-variety large b-cell lymphoma whatever and they said it's actually the good news you know the bad news is it's progressed that the good news is it's it's curable so I consider myself very lucky I'm gonna ask one more question from the audience and then my last question um how does your attitude towards living life reflect your two battles with mortality well again I'll get back to the balance point I think I think you have to think about you know all the things you do you know to enjoy you know work and creating things but there's so many other parts of life that you need to do justice to and explore and so to find that balance is such an important thing and when these things happen you realize the importance of you know key friends and family and then you ask yourself and if I only have limited time what do I focus on so you do go through that soul-searching process lastly I kind of wanted to go back to like lakeside school when you and what you were in tenth grade he was in eighth grade and you were dumped what dumpster-diving looking for codes right if that would happen like now in 2011 in this age of you know apps and mobile devices and Facebook and Twitter and Google and Bing and everything else what do you think would an 8th grader and a 10th grader be looking for in that dumpster and what would they built I'm not sure how many listings people make anymore much less coffee stain one coffee stained at least in Seattle I'm sure there's still coffee stain but you know I think today the rate at which young people adopt new technology is breathtaking yeah and we were talking earlier about how do you how do you get them excited about about becoming programmers or developing things I was never there's so many kids today they're excited to spend hours online you know playing this this role-playing thing or this first-person shooter whatever I was interested in how those things how anything worked inside internally and how does it do graphics that look that great and those are the engineers in the future so we really have to put on our thinking caps and try to figure out I get you know kids today excited about being the creators of tomorrow I think I'm gonna invite John up here I should say by the way you know I I grew up here I went to Mountain High School I grew up like a few blocks from here and what's interesting is going through the museum downstairs and again the first 2,000 history 2,000 years of computer for me like you were there during the birth of the personal computer revolution I am somebody who was directly benefited from that revolution it was being able to basically create like a life for myself because the internet and computing was the way to go so I just wanted to personally thank you for the thank you thank you so much

Channel: Computer History Museum

Views: 28,041

Rating: 4.84375 out of 5

Keywords: Computer, History, Museum, Paul, Allen, Microsoft, Idea, Man, Bill, Gates, Steve, Ballmer, Entrepreneur, Business, Technology, Investing, Vulcan, SpaceShipOne, Space, Travel, Seattle, Seahawks, Portland, Trail, Blazers

Id: ho7cBrFlVqY

Length: 64min 59sec (3899 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 27 2011