The memoir by Paul Allen titled Paul Allen Idea Man, Penguin, 2011 is a the very interesting life Mr. Allen has since cofounding Microsoft. After Mr. Allen left day to day responsibilities what was he to do with his life and money? Fortunately for Mr. Allen he has been interested in many subjects or considers himself a generalist, but he has his passions. One passion is basketball and he wanted to be an NBA owner. That is great when the team wins, no so great when the team loses. The problems of ticket sales, arena and competing as well as being a fan come forth. Being wealthy lead to becoming an owner of the NFL Football team, the team was for sale and unless somebody bought it, the team would be moved. Mr. Allen bought it and the Seahawks are a very successful franchise. As a fan, you may know about the noise in the stadium, there are 11 players on the field and the hometown fans are the 12th man. The Seahawks fans are loud, passionate and community minded, for example, the 12th man has a flag and when Seattle makes the playoffs many flags are to be seen. The Seahawks planted the 12th Man flag on top of Mount Rainer as people raise money for the United Way.

The passion for sports plus asking what kind of content would people want most from a broadband network lead to Starwave now known as ESPN.com. One of the interesting story was when were people accessing the service? Turns out not at home, but at work – Monday mornings, noon (lunch hour) and before they went home. Those numbers change because of smart phones and tablets at home, because many people did not have computers at home, but they used them for work.

Mr. Allen has a passion for music and besides a concert hall at the University of Washington, he also created the EMP or Experience Music Project in Seattle. In order to be sustainable, besides having a wealthy backer, people must come and visit  which leads to programming which leads to other activities.

Not everything Mr. Allen invested in made money, he invested in Charter Communications in order to bring a broadband network to the major cities, except for Charter was not in the major cities, ending up losing a lot of money and needed to go through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Part of the problem was the competition is very tough and it was underestimated; another problem was the solutions being offered were ahead of times, not many people were buying into the future. At the present time your TV can act as your home computer and there is a number of people who want to do both at the same time. In 2000 there were very few. As time went on the solutions being offered are accepted and become normal but there is a lag time.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when a company is performing on a consistent basis earning profits, the new people will not be as passionate as the founder. The founder lived and died the company, the new people were hired to do a good job, but there maybe some passion missing. It is important to see that the management lives and dies the company and are passionate about it and its effects on the economy. How does it do the extra mile when conditions change? a flood happens? the lights go out? how does it turn the lights on again? What passions drives the company?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.