28 Facts About Michael Dell

Michael Saul Dell was born on February 23,1965 and is an American billionaire businessman and investor.

Michael Dell is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies, one of the world's largest technology infrastructure companies.

Michael Dell is the 10th-richest person in the world as of December 2024, according to Forbes Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a net worth of $130 billion.

Michael Dell was born in 1965 in Houston to a Jewish family.

Michael Dell's parents were Lorraine Charlotte, a stockbroker, and Alexander Dell, an orthodontist.

Michael Dell purchased his first calculator at age seven and encountered an early teletype terminal in junior high.

Michael Dell attended Memorial High School in Houston, selling subscriptions to the Houston Post in the summer.

Michael Dell's parents wanted him to be a doctor and in order to please them, he took up pre-med at the University of Texas in 1983.

Michael Dell continued learning to target specific populations for newspaper subscriptions rather than just making cold calls.

Michael Dell discovered that people who were most likely to get a subscription were newlyweds and people moving to a new home.

Michael Dell hired several employees, and after earning a gross profit of nearly $200,000 in his first year of business, Dell dropped out of the University of Texas at age 19.

Michael Dell then applied for a vendor license to bid on contracts for the State of Texas, winning bids by not having the overhead of a computer store.

In January 1984, Michael Dell believed that the potential cost savings of a manufacturer selling PCs directly had enormous advantages over the conventional indirect retail channel.

In January 1984, Michael Dell registered his company as "PC's Limited".

Michael Dell's strategy was to sell directly to customers by manufacturing computers only after they were ordered.

Michael Dell employed a few people as order takers, a few more to fill the orders, and, as Dell recalled, a manufacturing staff consisting of "three guys with screwdrivers sitting at six-foot tables".

In 1996, Michael Dell started selling computers over the Web, the same year his company launched its first servers.

On March 4,2004, Michael Dell stepped down as CEO, but stayed as chairman of Michael Dell Inc.

On January 31,2007, Michael Dell returned as CEO at the request of the board, succeeding Rollins.

On October 12,2015, Michael Dell Inc announced its intent to acquire the enterprise software and storage company EMC Corporation.

In July 2010, Michael Dell Inc agreed to pay a $100 million penalty to settle SEC charges of disclosure and accounting fraud in relation to undisclosed payments from Intel Corporation.

Michael Dell received the 1998 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and the 2013 Franklin Institute's Bower Award for Business Leadership.

Michael Dell serves on the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, the executive committee of the International Business Council, the US Business Council.

Michael Dell previously served as a member of the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Michael Dell serves as an advisor on the COVID-19 Technology Task Force, a technology industry coalition founded in March 2020 collaborating on solutions to respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Michael Dell's 1999 book, Direct from Michael Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry, is an account of his early life, his company's founding, growth and missteps, as well as lessons learned.

Michael Dell's second book, Play Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader, is a story of inside battles that defined him as a leader.

Michael Dell married Susan Lieberman on October 28,1989, in Austin, Texas; the couple reside there with their four children.