[samwillis]

There was a really good post with significant background earlier this year:

> Is the Living Computer Museum Dead?

https://www.pcjs.org/blog/2023/02/16/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34831880 (238 comments)

> At the time, Vulcan CEO Bill Hilf framed the closure both as an unavoidable consequence of COVID-19 and as a difficult decision that was actually in keeping with Paul Allen’s wishes – that how Paul wanted his money to be spent after he was gone was very different from when he was alive.

> Yet it’s almost impossible to square the idea that Paul Allen, after investing so much time, energy, and money in the Living Computer Museum and its people – not to mention his express hope that efforts like his would not be “lost to time” – would have also left instructions that could somehow be interpreted to justify completely shutting down LCM after his death.

[ndiddy]

Allen's will gave his entire estate over to a living trust. The trust documents are private, so nobody but the beneficiaries truly know what his wishes were. However, as far as I'm aware from reading press coverage of his estate, the instructions were basically to sell everything and give the money to certain specified charities rather than putting entities in place to continue operating his projects.

[RIMR]

So we can expect that MoPop (Formerly The Experience Music Project) has no safety net at this point also I suppose...

It's hard for me to imagine building Museums and other cultural organizations during your lifetime with the expectation that it would be dismantled after your death.

If these really were his wishes, that's very disappointing.