Paul Allen

“With documentary-film projects, you hope you highlight an area of concern people haven't thought about before. A lot of times, I'm asking myself - 'This seems to be a significant problem. What can be done that hasn't been done?'”

“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.”

“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.”

“What people don't realize is the human body and the brain are so well designed to do - by millions of years of evolution - what we do.”

“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.”

“You have a certain number of dreams in your life you want to fulfill.”

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

“All of us who care about the world going forward would like to engage the government more.”

“Whenever you make the Super Bowl, so many things - you have to have the good general manager and the coach and the great players, and you have to have not too many injuries - everything, game plans and everything, has to fall very much your way for that to happen.”

“The unique thing about Stratolaunch - one of the unique things - is it doesn't require a fixed launchpad.”

“I am generally fascinated by what are the big, challenging questions - that's behind my curiosity.”

“Art fairs bring attention to up and coming artists and some amazing new works. They are a way to connect everyone with what's happening at the cutting edge of art, both new and historic.”

“At one point, I was the youngest owner in major league sports.”

“It turns out, if you go 1,000 feet down in the ocean, it's really dark, and the animals are really strange, but if you put on some Pink Floyd, it's fantastic.”

“Something that is characteristic of me is the breadth of my interests.”

“I think I've got such a diverse set of interests - movies, aviation, technology, sports teams.”

“In Portland, I am more involved in the details of trade discussions because I've been around that sport longer and can watch tape and can give some input to the drafting process. In football, not at all. It's so specialized.”

“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.”

“In the early days at Asymetrix, we were focusing on business automation.”

“There was a time when the government cut off funding to SETI, basically, and I thought it was something that should continue, and it was a very interesting scientific question.”