To celebrate Forbes' 100th anniversary, the magazine released a list of the 100 greatest business minds living today, and Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen earned a spot in the portfolio that's laid out from A-Z at Forbes.com.
To compile the list, more than a dozen Forbes editors met dozens of times over two years, trimming what started as more than 300 names down to the 100 presented Tuesday.
"We sought people who either created something with a lasting impact on the world or innovated in a way that transcends their given field," writes Forbes.com.
Allen's leadership in the business world began when he co-founded Microsoft, spearheading the personal computing revolution. Since then Allen has dedicated much of his life to a myriad of philanthropic efforts, with his lifetime giving contributions exceeding $2 billion.
Forbes required its honorees to participate in the project, too, asking the world's greatest business minds to share a bit of wisdom for readers. Here's what Allen's personal essay had to say:
"We are about to enter the era of deep medicine, where we understand cell pathways and how to change them. I'm a two-time cancer survivor. First I had Hodgkin's, a young person's cancer. And then non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Right now they just hit you with everything they've got, like carpet bombing. And then my mother passed away of Alzheimer's. Those things are motivating experiences that make you want to understand things better and then make a difference. In maybe 20 or 30 years, we will use things like stem cells to change disease outcomes -- your own immune system, designed by evolution, to attack sick cells and things like that. It seems inconceivable now -- we have thousands of types of cells, so there are trillions of combinations -- but health care would be much more personal. And the costs will potentially decline."
The Seahawks celebrated Allen's 20 years of ownership leading up to this past Sunday's win over the San Francisco 49ers. The team used a series of broadcast, digital, and gameday entertainment elements to showcase how Allen laid the foundation for a winning culture in Seattle, brought a community of already passionate football fans closer together, and demonstrated leadership to keep the club at the forefront of competition.
Outside of Allen, Forbes' list includes names like fellow Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, superstar Oprah Winfrey, Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz, entrepreneur Elon Musk, hip-hop pioneer Russell Simmons, and fellow NFL owners Arthur Blank and Jerry Jones.
Forbes' full centennial story appears in the magazine's September 28 issue.
The Seahawks honored Paul Allen's 20 years as owner of the franchise during a pregame ceremony at CenturyLink Field ahead of Seattle's Week 2 game against the San Francisco 49ers.
