https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/16/17984892/bill-gates-paul-allen-blog-post

Bill Gates has published his personal reflections on the life of Paul Allen, who died on October 15th of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 65. Gates describes Allen as “one of my oldest friends and the first business partner I ever had.” The two co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and forever changed the world of technology. Allen was also widely praised as a giant of business, sports, and philanthropy in the Pacific Northwest in the decades after departing Microsoft in 1983.

“I met Paul when I was in 7th grade, and it changed my life,” Gates wrote. “I looked up to him right away. He was two years ahead of me in school, really tall, and proved to be a genius with computers. (Later, he also had a very cool beard, which I could never pull off.)”