Historical Figure
Michael Dell
b. 1965
American businessman (born 1965)
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Biography
Michael Saul Dell is an American billionaire businessman and investor. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies, one of the world's largest technology infrastructure companies.
Timeline
The story of Michael Dell, told in moments.
Drops out of the University of Texas at Austin as a freshman. He's been upgrading and selling PCs from his dorm room. Registers the company as Dell Computer Corporation. His idea: sell directly to consumers, skip the middlemen. He's 19.
Dell goes public and becomes the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company at 27. Revenue is $890 million. The direct-to-consumer model that critics called unsustainable is crushing Compaq and IBM on margins. He builds to order, carries no inventory.
Takes Dell private in a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout, the largest technology buyout in history. Wall Street said the PC was dead. He disagrees. He pivots to enterprise servers, storage, and cloud infrastructure. Dell's revenue doubles within five years.
In Their Own Words (7)
Every technology creates good and bad. You can sit here and say, "AI is really bad, we shouldn't have AI" - that's nonsense. We have to figure out how to use it in a responsible way, that's our job.
ZDNet: "AI shouldn't be held back by scaremongering: Michael Dell" (02 May 2018), 2018
We have a long history here of integrating the technologies closer together. This is what customers have been asking us to do. It is what we are doing. It is working extremely well. There is much, much more to come here.
CRN: "Michael Dell: 'Much, Much More To Come' On Dell EMC VMware Integration" (11 June 2018), 2018
I love this idea of human-machine partnerships because in my mind it’s always been very clear. It’s not about humans or machines, it’s about humans and machines.
SDxCentral: "Michael Dell Says Robopocalypse Is Fake News, Future Is Software Defined" (30 April 2018), 2018
I do think a founder has special permission to make sweeping changes across an organization.
Forbes: "A Private Conversation with Michael Dell, 'The Man In The Arena'" (30 October 2013), 2013
You don't have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.
Entrepreneur: Michael Dell (13 October 2012), 2012
Artifacts (15)
the world's most eloquent witness to the Holocaust,
o continue the story. The corroborating article from Eli Rubenstein, who was in attendance that day described that even "the world's most eloquent witness to the Holocaust," was not able to convey the...
We were convinced that antisemitism perished here. Antisemitism did not perish h...
Living, Elie Wiesel addressed the participants at Auschwitz about his concerns about antisemitism. He stated, "We were convinced that antisemitism perished here. Antisemitism did not perish here; its...
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfe...
nd races. In his acceptance speech he delivered a message "of peace, atonement, and human dignity". He explained his feelings: "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must...
Wherever minorities are being persecuted, we must raise our voices to protest .....
ure, law and music. In July 2009, Wiesel announced his support to the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka. He said that, "Wherever minorities are being persecuted, we must raise our voices to protest ... The...
one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when violence, ...
Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against violence, repression, and racism. The Norwegian Nobel Committee described Wiesel as "one of the most important spiritual leaders and guides in an age when...
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