And all he really wanted in the end was...
Posted on 11/10/2022 12:48:48 AM PST by zeestephen
The collection of Paul Allen, the late co-founder of Microsoft, was a treasure trove of masterpieces spanning 500 years...Several works sold for three or four times their estimates, with several artists setting new records at auction, including Vincent van Gogh, Edward Steichen and Gustav Klimt.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
It’s sort of hard to believe a couple of computer nerds ended up being as rich as they became.
You mean hard to believe without government agency money.
Yeah, I find that hard to believe as well.
They made the right bet on personal computers and executed better than competitors. Giants like IBM were asleep at the wheel. They also got lucky, but if they wouldn’t have then someone else would.
“hard to believe a couple of computer nerds...”
Your comment reminds me of that 80s film - “Revenge of the Nerds”
Well now computer nerds rule :)
“Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s art collection tops $1.5 billion at auction”
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And he didn’t take any of it with him.
IBM created their PC to counter the Apple on the desks of system operators of their customer’s main frames. IBM did not take the PC serious until it was almost too late. That’s how Bill and Paul got into the game, by supplying an OS for IBM’s PC.
Quote, “this is BS, I want bush” and “Pan down”, “we’ve got bush”, totally stupid movie but funny as heck.
rule 190
hear everything
believe nothing
Allen pledged half his fortune would go to charity.
I’m surprised he didn’t found a museum and leave his whole art collection to it like J. Paul Getty.
I wouldn’t mind a Klimt in the living room, maybe over the couch.
And all he really wanted in the end was...
“Charity”. And people actually believe it.
Art that sells for millions has got to involve money laundering. These are insane prices for something that can be copied and sold for $20 with a frame included.
Re: money laundering
That is an interesting idea.
I am so acclimated to huge art prices, I have never thought about that possibility before.
And he didn’t take any of it with him.
= = =
If you want to take it with you, get a tattoo.
That's largely how "modern art" got to be regarded as "a thing." It came out of the CIA's effort in the late 50s/early 60s to prove to the Rooskies that Americans were so intellectual and cosmopolitan that they could never hope to compete.
CIA gave million$ (under the table) to certain high-level art collectors (who could be counted on to keep their mouths shut) for them to use to buy Jackson Pollocks and Mark Rothkos and the like, basically paintings that were hard to tell from a pre-schooler's fingerpainting.
Which not only had the unintended consequence of "monetizing" abstract art in general, it also popularized the idea (among the well-to-do) that high-priced art effectively was a financial instrument where they could "park" their wealth, tax-free. Which is one reason someone was willing to pay $400 million for a painting that couldn't be confirmed to be a Da Vinci.
Gates was the driving force (and the ruthless business shark) who made M$ was it is, but he probably would never have been a part of the company if Allen hadn’t convinced him to drop out of college and form a partnership with him.
The two of them went all the way back to high school in Seattle, when they paired up to go dumpster diving outside of businesses they knew had computers, searching for discarded print-outs with code they could analyze and learn to program from.
You might think they’d be thick as thieves for life, but once the company got rolling, their friendship meant nothing to Gates. When Allen was being treated for Hodgkin lymphoma in the early 1980s, Gates approached M$ lawyers to see if there might not be a way they could cut Allen out of the company because he (Gates) didn’t think Allen was pulling his weight any more.
Gates net worth at the time was about $300 million.
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