Paul Allen

Our net worth is ultimately defined not by dollars but rather by how well we serve others.

I choose optimism. I hope to be a catalyst not only by providing financial resources but also by fostering a sense of possibility: encouraging top experts to collaborate across disciplines, challenge conventional thinking, and figure out ways to overcome some of the world's hardest problems.

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.

The brain has this amazing level of almost fractal complexity to it. When you start looking at any part of it in detail, you realize that it's much more complex than you thought.

Languages evolve; ideas blend together. In computer technology, we all stand on others' shoulders.

As more intelligent computer assistance comes into being, it will amplify human progress.

As quickly as it started, our business model evaporated. But while Traf-O-Data was technically a business failure, the understanding of microprocessors we absorbed was crucial to our future success.

Our dream is to one day uncover the essence of what makes us human.

There are so many intricacies to our brain that won't be understood unless we start to look at the system as a whole. All these different details don't operate in isolation.

Some people are motivated by a need for recognition, some by money, and some by a broad social goal. I start from a different place: from the love of ideas and the urge to put them into motion and see where they might lead.

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.

The promise of artificial intelligence and computer science generally vastly outweighs the impact it could have on some jobs in the same way that, while the invention of the airplane negatively affected the railroad industry, it opened a much wider door to human progress.

The brain is one of the richest green fields of science. There's so much yet to be discovered.

I got a taste when I was in Kenya a while ago of what medical care was in rural Africa. I was in a town of about 10,000 people, and a shipping container with a rusty microscope was their medical clinic.