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Paul Allen sure didn't have great foresight for post death. First Cinerama and now the computer museum. The current sentiment with seattle lifers is that he use

Paul Allen sure didn't have great foresight for post death. First Cinerama and now the computer museum. The current sentiment with seattle lifers is that he used Seattle as a playground and didn't actually care about the longevity. EMP now MoPop just keeps hanging on by a thread as well and has gone through lots of turmoil.

bpodgursky 2y ago
I think that's too harsh. A lot of people have a blind spot to their own mortality. He died at 65, far before most people have their affairs in order.
- xhkkffbf 2y ago
  But he was given a diagnosis of cancer. It's not like he was hit by a bus. He had several months.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    Even for someone like Allen a few minutes with Quicken Willmaker would have been able to setup a trust to keep any of these things going in perpetuity. He likely didn't like thinking about it.
  - JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
    He had cancer decades ago and it came back a few times, didn't he? He probably convinced himself into thinking he wasn't going to die until it was too late, and things like this probably drop down to fairly low priority at that point. Not trying to excuse him though; if he actually cared he should've been thinking about it when he was opening the museum.
  - WorldMaker 2y ago
    He was lucky enough to have several decades. (His original diagnosis with Hodgkin's Lymphoma was in 1983 according to Wikipedia. Most of the these projects in his life through 2018 were under the specter of that cancer. Even the complication of the additional non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2009 still gave him possibly luckily a few years to have handled some things.) Not that it makes it that much easier to deal with if you live that much time after a frightening diagnosis, especially because you likely can't know how much time you will actually have. But then again, none of us really know how much time we have. (How's your estate plan? Mine could use work.)
- AlbertCory 2y ago
  Not really. Anyone that rich has financial advisors who will certainly bug them about that.
walterbell 2y ago
Not just billionaires. Gov-funded Ontario Science Centre, which helped to motivate thousands of science museums globally since 1969, hosting 50 million visitors, is being shut down, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40752904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40752904
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  I'm guessing covid lockdowns crashed their visitor numbers?
  - foldor 2y ago
    Unfortunately not in this case. It's a kind of political issue right now with the current provincial government, and it's looking a lot like greed got in the way since it is in a prime location.
    - walterbell 2y ago
      > it is in a prime location Justifying the adjacent "Science Center" subway station, increasing real estate value of the science museum land. If the land was going to be auctioned to the highest bidder, a tech company consortium could have bid for the opportunity to protect this science student feeder of US/Canada university and industry tech talent. Instead of Ontario Science Center, why not Apple/Bell/Google/Rogers/Samsung/Shopify or even Toronto Science Center, if that would forestall destruction of a priceless historical landmark? Same principle for the Living Computer Museum, why not Amazon/Microsoft/Valve Living Computer Museum?
      - rvba 2y ago
        Because companies are there to make money, especially those owned mostly by nameless shareholders and run by committee. And this "brand building" that you describe here has basically zero return on investment. Of course some company - proablably a private one (not public), could invest into it, but if you want to burn money on something your CEO likes or the owners like, you can use other ideas like paying millions to put your logo on soccer tshirts for hundreds of millions. Or hosting a forum ;) On a side note, I worked in a company that paid a lot of money for golf sponsorships and couldnt figure out why this "marketing" does not work in countries where nobody plays golf. I think they still havent figured out that there are countries outside of USA.
dbish 2y ago
Sounds like he was onboard with shutting things down. It wasn’t a foresight thing, more that he wasn’t interested in it going on
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  Yeah, Foundations with Endowments need business people to run them and manage them and finding ones you trust and creating a corporate culture for them to last is hard. I can't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Paul Allen wasn't interested in establishing those sorts of legacy foundations for some of the same corporate politics reasons he was said to have struggled with Microsoft over the decades.

bpodgursky 2y ago

I think that's too harsh. A lot of people have a blind spot to their own mortality. He died at 65, far before most people have their affairs in order.

xhkkffbf 2y ago
But he was given a diagnosis of cancer. It's not like he was hit by a bus. He had several months.
- bombcar 2y ago
  Even for someone like Allen a few minutes with Quicken Willmaker would have been able to setup a trust to keep any of these things going in perpetuity. He likely didn't like thinking about it.
- JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
  He had cancer decades ago and it came back a few times, didn't he? He probably convinced himself into thinking he wasn't going to die until it was too late, and things like this probably drop down to fairly low priority at that point. Not trying to excuse him though; if he actually cared he should've been thinking about it when he was opening the museum.
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  He was lucky enough to have several decades. (His original diagnosis with Hodgkin's Lymphoma was in 1983 according to Wikipedia. Most of the these projects in his life through 2018 were under the specter of that cancer. Even the complication of the additional non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2009 still gave him possibly luckily a few years to have handled some things.) Not that it makes it that much easier to deal with if you live that much time after a frightening diagnosis, especially because you likely can't know how much time you will actually have. But then again, none of us really know how much time we have. (How's your estate plan? Mine could use work.)
AlbertCory 2y ago
Not really. Anyone that rich has financial advisors who will certainly bug them about that.

walterbell 2y ago

Not just billionaires. Gov-funded Ontario Science Centre, which helped to motivate thousands of science museums globally since 1969, hosting 50 million visitors, is being shut down, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40752904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40752904

RobotToaster 2y ago
I'm guessing covid lockdowns crashed their visitor numbers?
- foldor 2y ago
  Unfortunately not in this case. It's a kind of political issue right now with the current provincial government, and it's looking a lot like greed got in the way since it is in a prime location.
  - walterbell 2y ago
    > it is in a prime location Justifying the adjacent "Science Center" subway station, increasing real estate value of the science museum land. If the land was going to be auctioned to the highest bidder, a tech company consortium could have bid for the opportunity to protect this science student feeder of US/Canada university and industry tech talent. Instead of Ontario Science Center, why not Apple/Bell/Google/Rogers/Samsung/Shopify or even Toronto Science Center, if that would forestall destruction of a priceless historical landmark? Same principle for the Living Computer Museum, why not Amazon/Microsoft/Valve Living Computer Museum?
    - rvba 2y ago
      Because companies are there to make money, especially those owned mostly by nameless shareholders and run by committee. And this "brand building" that you describe here has basically zero return on investment. Of course some company - proablably a private one (not public), could invest into it, but if you want to burn money on something your CEO likes or the owners like, you can use other ideas like paying millions to put your logo on soccer tshirts for hundreds of millions. Or hosting a forum ;) On a side note, I worked in a company that paid a lot of money for golf sponsorships and couldnt figure out why this "marketing" does not work in countries where nobody plays golf. I think they still havent figured out that there are countries outside of USA.

dbish 2y ago

Sounds like he was onboard with shutting things down. It wasn’t a foresight thing, more that he wasn’t interested in it going on

WorldMaker 2y ago
Yeah, Foundations with Endowments need business people to run them and manage them and finding ones you trust and creating a corporate culture for them to last is hard. I can't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Paul Allen wasn't interested in establishing those sorts of legacy foundations for some of the same corporate politics reasons he was said to have struggled with Microsoft over the decades.