Michael Dell's Hyper-Growth

My name is michael dell I am forty-six years old I attended University of Texas and my company is dell So in thirty seconds tell me the elevator pitch for Dell computer what do you do Dell’s a company of a hundred thousand people and we serve the IT needs of organizations of all sizes from the largest corporations in the world to individuals small medium size businesses public organizations all over the world we listen to their needs and bring them IT solutions that enable their success now you started this I mean gi-normous globe spanning company in your dorm room in UT I started the company with a thousand dollars uh so you know it wasn’t a lot of startup capital uhm and when did you realize that that thousand dollars that you invested in it was gonna be a real business not just a college sideline when did you realize it was going to be real Well the company kind of grew like a rocket ship from the beginning uh it grew eighty percent a year for eight years in a row compounded yeah that’s a lot and then sixty percent a year for six years after that so you know it was pretty quickly apparent that the opportunity was enormous and uh you know the the growth was there not without challenges for sure but uh no question that the the growth was there when did you so you dropped out of UT after your freshmen year uhm all the students we’re going to be talking to are struggling with that same sort of decision as uhm their companies continue to grow I get a lot of that you know angry letters from parents about that so you guys are gonna get me in trouble here No no no when when when did you when was it clear that to grow Dell you would have to focus on it or you were pre-med right and pretty challenging time commitments on both well I I kind of made the decision that this opportunity was enormous and I had to go for it and uh fortunately at the university of Texas and you know you can go back later and so I decided to do that and I’ve I’ve been on my semester off ever since So in one word Michael Dell can you describe your executive style I’m curious I like to learn Excellent