How much is Paul Allen Worth? Paul Allen Net Worth in 2025

Paul Allen Net Worth: How rich is Paul Allen? & How much money is Paul Allen worth? Time to find out!

Paul Allen is an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist and his current net worth is $40.5 billion.

Born in Seattle, Washington as the son of Sam Allen and Edna Faye Allen, he attended Lakeside School.

While at the school, he met and befriended Bill Gates, three years younger, with whom he had in common the love for computers.

In order to develop their programming skills on a couple of time-sharing computer systems, they used Lakeside’s Teletype terminal.

During the same period they also used the laboratory of the Computer Science Department of the University of Washington. One time they were even banned from the laboratory because they abused their privileges.

Upon graduation, earning a perfect SAT score of 1600, he went to Washington State University. While there, he joined Phi Kappa Theta fraternity, but dropped out after two years.

After dropping out, he went to work as a programmer for Honeywell in Boston, near where his colleague Bill Gates ended up.

How did Paul Allen get famous?

Later, he convinced Gates to drop out of Harvard University to create Microsoft. Gates dropped out and together they started working on a BASIC programming language interpreter.

Allen came up with the original name of Micro-Soft. Thanks to him, Microsoft became apt to secure a contract to supply the DOS that would eventually run on IMB’s PC line, after he spearheaded a deal to purchase a Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS).

How does Paul Allen make money?

Because of that contract, both Gates and Allen’s fortunes grew as well as their success.

Allen left Microsoft in 1982 after a serious illness, and resigned from his position on the Microsoft board of directors in 2000.

He still consults as a senior strategy advisor to the company’s executives and holds 100 million shares.

Apart from Microsoft, Allen is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which manages his several business and philanthropic efforts.

But Allen is also a multibillion-dollar investor and has invested in many businesses including technology and media companies, real estate holdings, as well as stakes in other companies. He has been involved in Uber, DreamWorks, Plains All America, and Ticketmaster.

Allen also owns of two sports teams, the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL, and the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA. He is part-owner of the Seattle Sounders FC.

He is also the founder of Allen Institute for Brain Science, Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Institute of Cell Science, and Stratolaunch Systems.

As of June 2017, he the 46th richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $20.2 billion.

This wraps up our Paul Allen Net Worth profile!