Allen’s company Vulcan said in a statement that he died Monday. Earlier this month Allen said the cancer he was treated for in 2009, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, had returned.
Allen, who was an avid sports fan, owned the Portland Trail Blazers and the Seattle Seahawks.
Allen and Gates founded Microsoft in 1975. Microsoft’s big break came in 1980, when IBM decided to move into personal computers. IBM asked Microsoft to provide the operating system.
The decision thrust Microsoft on to the throne of technology and the two Seattle natives became billionaires. Both later dedicated themselves to philanthropy.
Over the course several decades, Allen gave more than $2bn to a wide range of interests, including ocean health, homelessness and advancing scientific research.
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