Paul Allen

"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."

"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."

"Continuity is important in sports."

"I believe in the power of shared data and technology to help build a better future."

"I first got interested in the brain through computers."

"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."

"I was only in second grade when the Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. The night of his launch - April 12, 1961 - I went out onto the front porch and stared up at the stars, trying to see his capsule passing overhead. Like millions of others, I was enthralled by the idea of space exploration and have been ever since."

"If it hadn't been for our Traf-O-Data venture, and if it hadn't been for all that time spent on UW computers, you could argue that Microsoft might not have happened."

"In order to be truly intelligent, computers must understand - that is probably the critical word."

"My quest to expand access to space began more than a decade ago, when I teamed up with Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites to build SpaceShipOne. This innovative air-launched vehicle was the world's first private spacecraft to carry an astronaut into sub-orbital space."

"Some people can vent their anger, take a breath, and let it go, but I wasn't one of them."

"Sports is such a cyclical thing; it's often feast or famine. But what you try and do as an owner is build a winning organization."

"Technology is notorious for engrossing people so much that they don't always focus on balance and enjoy life at the same time."

"The best museums and museum exhibits about science or technology give you the feeling that, hey, this is interesting, but maybe I could do something here, too."

"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."

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

"The human brain works in, so far, mysterious and wondrous ways that are completely different than the ways that computers calculate. Things like appetite or emotion, how do those function in the brain?"

"The thing you realize when you get into studying neuroscience, even a little bit, is that everything is connected to everything else. So it's as if the brain is trying to use everything at its disposal - what it is seeing, what it is hearing, what is the temperature, past experience."

"There's a whole different way to express yourself in music and the other arts, and it hopefully complements other things you do in technology."

"There's no enjoyment to losing money."

"We taught ourselves to simulate how microprocessors work using DEC computers so we could develop software even before our machine was built."

"Your dream, when you buy a sports franchise, is to win the championship, the Super Bowl."