Idea Man By Paul Allen

Idea Man by Paul Allen was a good book published in 2011 by Portfolio publishing. The book goes through Allen’s life from his early year’s right up to when the book was published in 2011. The book talks both about Allen’s business life and personal life and really paints a picture of the kind of thinker he is and innovator.

The book starts off talking about Paul Allen’s younger years and his great family. He then talks about his college education and meeting a friend Bill Gates. Paul Allen gets into his love of computers and his love of working with then friend Bill Gates and how they spend hours a day programming. Paul Allen goes into talking about starting a business as two young kids to then changing into Microsoft.

Paul Allen talks about Microsoft going from writing programming languages to DOS then to Windows. He then goes into his fall outs with Bill Gates and how he decided to leave Microsoft after everything he had contributed to the company.

Paul Allen does dive into his health issues and his struggle with cancer and how he overcame the illness. I found that very inspiring. He goes into his love of music and Jimmy Hendrix his musical ideal. Allen takes us into the struggles of owning his own basketball team and how he dealt with financing the team and there arena.

Paul Allen then speaks about how he launch a plane into space and how he loved space and never got a chance to every fly into space but was proud to be a part of the entire thing.  He talks about passions of his and contributions to the medical industry. Allen gives is feelings about the current state of Microsoft and where he would go with the company.

I gave the book 3 stars. I think the book was more a memorandum of an extraordinary man’s life then anything I expected more information on business and technology. I am not saying it was a bad book it was well written and entertaining. Being a tech person I expected more than just a few chapters on Microsoft and the SpaceShipOne. Good book with a lot of firsts that will be important history.