Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to open Silicon Valley office for tech-based investments

By Trevor Mogg April 2, 2013

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is moving some of his investment operations to Silicon Valley, so if you’re part of a tech company in need of some cash, your options are about to increase. According to a Reuters report Monday, billionaire Allen is set to open an office in the tech hub in the coming weeks.

The new Palo Alto office will conduct its business as Vulcan Capital (the private investment group of Allen’s Vulcan Inc. business) and will concentrate its investment efforts on up-and-coming Internet companies as well as emerging software and technology firms. It’ll also concern itself with middle- and late-stage venture capital investments as well as pre-IPO deals.

Commenting on the business move, Vulcan Capital chief investment officer Paul Ghaffari told Reuters, “We are going to expand our footprint in broad tech investments. We’d like to get more resources, people on the ground there (Silicon Valley).”

It’s not known who will head up the Silicon Valley operation, though an announcement is expected in the coming days.

The likes of AOL, Ticketmaster, and DreamWorks have all received investment from Allen over the years, along with a slew of other companies. More recent tech-related investments include Web-based real estate agent Redfin and shopping adviser Decide.com.

As Reuters says in its report, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of reception Allen’s new Palo Alto operation gets when it opens for business – in 2010, Allen took the decision to sue a long list of Silicon Valley-based tech giants – including Apple and Google – claiming they had infringed patents held by Interval Research, a company he owned but shut down in 2000. The case is said to be moving through the courts “slowly”.

Allen founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975 though departed in the early 1980s after being diagnosed with cancer. Building his fortune through his stake in the computer giant and a string of savvy sport, real estate, and tech investments, Allen also spends much of his time giving a lot of it away to organizations concerned with science, technology, and medical research.

[Image: Pincasso / Shutterstock]

Editors' Recommendations

Microsoft co-founder’s megayacht sails onto the market for a cool $330M

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Computing

Get up to $900 off the Dell XPS 15 and Dell XPS 17 today

A Dell XPS 15 laptop on an office desk next to a monitor.

It’s all change at Dell this year with the Dell XPS 16 replacing the Dell XPS 17 and the Dell XPS 15 gradually seeing fewer updates. That means if you’re still keen to snag a Dell XPS 15 or 17, your chance to do so is running out. That’s why it’s great to see some excellent laptop deals for both models with up to $900 to be saved at the moment. If you’re looking for a new laptop, read on while we guide you through what each laptop has to offer.
Dell XPS 17 -- $1,949, was $2,849

The Dell XPS 17 remains a good option for anyone seeking a powerful laptop that works well as a desktop replacement. It has a 13th-generation Intel Core i7-13700H processor with a massive 32GB of memory so it’s ideal for all kinds of productivity-based tasks such as if you need to manage many spreadsheets at once or if you just prefer to have a lot of windows open at once. It also has 1TB of SSD storage while it can handle plenty of gaming too thanks to its Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 graphics card. Its display is a 17-inch full HD+ model with 1920 x 1200 resolution, anti-glare properties, and 500 nits of brightness so it looks great. Other quality of life improvements include plenty of USB-C ports, up to 14 hours of battery life, a great cooling system, and a form factor that means it squeezes a 17-inch display into a 15-inch form size. It also has a large edge-to-edge backlit keyboard, comfortable touchpad, and large keycaps so it feels good to work on as you’d expect from the makers of some of the best laptops.

Computing

This Dell gaming laptop with an RTX 3050 is discounted to $700

Dell G15 gaming laptop on a table.

You don't need to spend thousands of dollars to be able to get a decent gaming laptop, as there are budget-friendly options like the Dell G15 with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card. It's currently even cheaper at just $700, following a $200 discount on its original price of $900. We're not sure how much time is remaining on this offer though, so if you think this is the perfect gaming laptop for you, stop hesitating and proceed with the purchase immediately to make sure that you don't miss out on the savings.

Why you should buy the Dell G15 gaming laptop
The Dell G15 is highlighted in our list of the best gaming laptops as the best budget gaming laptop under $1,000, as it provides dependable performance while staying affordable for most gamers. It's equipped with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card, which is perfect for budget gaming, and pairs it with the 13th-generation Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM. These specifications are more than enough to be able to play the best PC games, though you may have to dial down the settings for the more demanding titles.

Computing

Intel’s big bet on efficient GPUs might actually work

An Intel Meteor Lake processor socketed in a motherboard.

Intel has a lot riding on its next-gen Battlemage graphics architecture, and a very early benchmark shows some promising signs for performance. An Intel Lunar Lake CPU packing a low-power integrated Battlemage GPU was reportedly spotted in the SiSoftware benchmark database. It boasts not only higher performance than Intel's Meteor Lake chips, but also much better efficiency.

User @miktdt on X (formerly Twitter) spotted the result, which appears to come from an early qualification sample of the HP Spectre x360 14. The benchmark picked up that the laptop was using a Lunar Lake CPU, which is said to come with the Xe2-LPG architecture, a lower-power version of Battlemage.