Paul Allen
Paul Allen, the Mormon entrepreneur, sometimes calls himself Paul Allen, the Lesser, because he is not Paul G. Allen, founder of Microsoft and world-class philanthropist. A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Paul Allen is an internet entrepreneur. He began his entrepreneurial efforts in 1990 as a co-founder of Infobases, which became a successful publisher of religious and educational CD-ROMs. The company hit the Fortune 500 in 1996.
With Dan Taggart (who also co-founded Infobases) Allen founded Ancestry.com in 1997. They launched the MyFamily.com website in 1997. Allen continued with the company in various capacities until 2002, then started 10x Marketing, which specializes in search engine and affiliate marketing. Allen managed the company for a year and then hired a CEO. In 2005 the company sold to Innuity.
Allen founded FundingUniverse in 2004. The company has gone on to be a significant enterprise that connects entrepreneurs with angel investor and other funding sources.
Allen enjoys blogging, teaching, lecturing and writing for Connect Magazine. He taught Internet Marketing at BYU for two years, and used to teach Business Formation at Utah Valley State College. Allen holds a B.A. in Russian from Brigham Young University, and began a master’s program in library science before dropping out to form Infobases. Allen hopes to create enterprises that will improve the world, and promote entrepreneurship and philanthropy.
On his website, Paul Allen states his beliefs about business and faith:
“I think entrepreneurship is a great way to create prosperity and improve the world at the same time, but I don’t ever want anyone to think that it is worth sacrificing their faith or family to have financial success.
“I respect good people everywhere and try to look for good in everyone.
“My heroes include Alexander Graham Bell, an amazing innovator with incredible breadth, Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab! for his relentless energy in starting companies, Jim Clark, for successfully founding multiple billion dollar companies, Pierre Omidyar, who will give most of his eBay fortune away for social entrepreneurship, Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google for providing the world with unprecendented access to knowledge and for trying to not be evil, and Warren Buffett, the world’s greatest investor, who believes in making only a few big investment decisions in life, and sticking with them. Most investors seem to want to get rich quick. Buffett’s philosophy is so different. And now, he has promised $31 billion to philanthropy via the Gates Foundation.
“More important than my business heroes are my heroes of faith, including ancient and modern prophets, and most of all, Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and believe wholeheartedly in this faith. Mormonism simply claims to be original Christianity restored to earth in modern times, though it is widely misunderstood.”
