Microsoft, a multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington, was founded by Bill Gates (1955-) and Paul Allen (1953-2018) in 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company moved to Bellevue, Washington in 1979 and incorporated in 1981. Paul Allen left Microsoft in 1983 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. In 1986, he founded Vulcan, Inc. with his sister Jody Allen to manage his business and philanthropic efforts. A basketball fan, Allen purchased the National Basketball Association team the Portland Trail Blazers in 1988, after determining the Seattle SuperSonics were unavailable.

Gates and Allen remained friends and this photo from 2003 shows them at a Seattle SuperSonics vs. Portland Trail Blazers basketball game, sitting under one of the baskets. Gates is on the left and appears to be eating popcorn, and Bill Gates's wife at the time, Melissa French Gates, sits to the right of Allen. In a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article about the game, the reporter wonders why "two of the four richest people in the world" are sitting under the basket, rather than courtside.

Caption information source: "Game in Review," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 12, 2003, p. D6; "Positively Paul," by Paul Andrews, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 27, 1992, p. C1.