Though Microsoft began as a partnership of two friends, Bill Gates pressed Paul Allen for the larger share of the company. By Allen's account in his memoir, Gates first proposed a 60/40 split in his own favor — arguing he had done more of the programming and carried more of the load — and then, after the partners licensed their BASIC interpreter to NCR, pushed it to 64/36. Allen reluctantly agreed. 'Bill knew that I would balk at a two-to-one split, and that 64 percent was as far as he could go,' Allen later wrote, concluding that Gates's thinking was simply 'what's the most I can get?' The split, set in the partnership's earliest years, left Gates with the controlling stake as Microsoft grew into one of history's most valuable companies.