In the early days at Asymetrix, we were focusing on business automation.
— Paul Allen
I think, as an owner, you really want to do the team right, the fans right, and the community right and build a winning organization.
The Ebola virus is unlike any health crisis we have ever experienced and needs a response unlike anything we have ever seen.
The NFL, as compared to the NBA, it's so physical and so emotional almost every play.
I am generally fascinated by what are the big, challenging questions - that's behind my curiosity.
I just try to stuff my brain with everything that I can read on what is going on in science at a very high level, and sometimes I see connections of what might need to be done.
Go Seahawks! Go Blazers!
Microprocessors were instantly attractive to us because you could build something for a fraction of the cost of conventional electronics. That's essentially what we did with the Traf-O-Data computer - only it was too narrow and challenging an area to try to build a service business in.
You have a certain number of dreams in your life you want to fulfill.
At one point, I was the youngest owner in major league sports.
My mother, God bless her, forced me to take touch typing when I was 16.
The brain was designed by evolution, so each part of it is optimized for what it does, and it's incredibly, incredibly complex.
You could tell three things about Bill Gates pretty quickly. He was really smart. He was really competitive; he wanted to show you how smart he was. And he was really, really persistent.
Those fortunate to achieve great wealth should put it to work for the good of humanity.
While I sign off on trades or free agents, I've rarely overruled my basketball people's decisions. But I'm not shy about steering the discussion or pushing deeper if something doesn't make sense to me.
If you think about making a difference in the community, my family has always had a strong interest in the arts. I'm always interested in finding ways to innovate... It's a blend; it's not a point focus.
As a species, we've always been discoverers and adventurers, and space and the deep ocean are some of the last frontiers.
The definition of the good life is doing creative things, whether making music, trying to figure out how to do a particular piece of code, or putting together investments.
That darn luxury tax is pretty painful.
In Seattle, I've talked about how Pete Carroll is such... I'm kind of surprised at the variety of styles that successful coaches can have. Some are very communicative and positive and energized - like, Pete Carroll has all that in spades. Some of them are more cerebral; some are more directive.
General managers - I like to talk about the 'golden gut': general managers that not only can have a sense for the players that are going to perform beyond what people expect and get team chemistry right, but they also have to be able to make trades.
No one knows the complete function of sleep. Is it to reset the brain or give it more of a rest period? Is it for cleaning the brain of all the garbage protein? For me, talking about these things as a non-biologist is fascinating.
Computers are really, basically, computing elements and a lot of memory. They are pretty easy to understand, as compared to the brain, which was designed by evolution.
Our net worth is ultimately defined not by dollars but rather by how well we serve others.
We taught ourselves to simulate how microprocessors work using DEC computers so we could develop software even before our machine was built.
Somehow, I knew you had to have perfect eyesight to be a test pilot, and so that was it for my astronaut career.
I grew up watching games with my father at Washington Husky Stadium. When I moved out to Seattle, I had a friend who would take me to Seahawks games in the 1980s.
It turns out, if you go 1,000 feet down in the ocean, it's really dark, and the animals are really strange, but if you put on some Pink Floyd, it's fantastic.
Languages evolve; ideas blend together. In computer technology, we all stand on others' shoulders.
My high school in Seattle, Lakeside, seemed conservative on the surface, but it was educationally progressive.
To make real progress in A.I., we have to overcome the big challenges in the area of common sense.
Once you become an owner of a team, you get so much more into the sport and you can't help it. So I really love NFL football now to the degree of following it much more than I did previously.
In global warming, I think everyone is scratching their heads - are there technological things that can be brought to bear that can make a difference?
That would be such a life-changing thing, for us all to know that there are other beings out there who we could potentially communicate with, or maybe we are listening to a signal that they transmitted hundreds of millennia ago.
You want someone who will challenge you back; sometimes, that's the way the best decisions get made.
I think it's pretty unique to see a coach adjust to the talent he has and maximize the abilities of players he has and help them keep growing.
Any time you get to compete for the championship in a professional spot, it's just a magic thing.
Nobody really knows what it would take to create something that is self-aware or has a personality. I guess I could imagine a day when perhaps, if we can understand how it works in the human brain, which is unbelievably complicated, it could be possible.
It's always interesting to bring scientists together, because they typically have very polarized views.
As someone who was basically a software engineer for many years, I became fascinated with how the brain functions and is put together and works in such a different fashion than computers do.
I remember having pizza at Shakey's in Vancouver, Washington in 1973 and talking about the fact that eventually, everyone is going to be online and have access to newspapers and stuff, and wouldn't people be willing to pay for information on a computer terminal.
Even though Traf-O-Data wasn't a roaring success, it was seminal in preparing us to make Microsoft's first product a couple of years later.
If you have an analytical bent like I do, going back to my days as a programmer, you like to ask questions.
I was the center on our fraternity team, but I was a center-eligible, so I was known for my ability to go out, and I was pretty sure-handed catching a pass in the flat about ten yards down the field. My father played high school football and was pretty good. He also played center, so I always relished the idea that we both ended up playing center.
The biggest yacht that I have accommodates a submarine.
I was a programmer.
From my youth, I'd never stopped thinking in the future tense.
You look at things you enjoy in your life, but much more important is what you can do to make the world a better place.
Traditionally, Seattle has been a great sports town and great football town. What the Huskies have achieved over the years has been pretty amazing. That's how I got my first taste of football - when I went with my father to Husky Stadium.
With documentary-film projects, you hope you highlight an area of concern people haven't thought about before. A lot of times, I'm asking myself - 'This seems to be a significant problem. What can be done that hasn't been done?'
