David Senra on Michael Dell: 'I cannot think of another comparable founder story' — $1,000 to $25B in 15 years

tech. But uh little tech right now. Gary Tan at the helm. Yep. One hand washing the other on this one. Yeah. Well, we are gonna be talking about David Center. It's coming on the show. Technology. Big Dell. Big Dell. We're the history of Michael Dell. The history of Dell Technologies. He asked pull up a post. Yes.

Um most historic runs for a founder. Dell. Are you looking at the revenue over time? Is that the one? Oh man. 1984 $6 million. This is the first $16. 1985, $33 million. 1986, $67 million. 1987, 159. 1988, 258. 1989, 388. Goes all the way up to 25 billion by 1999. Uh, and let's bring in. Um, what a run.

How you doing, David? What's up, brothers? What's up? You're looking great today. I like the suit. Of course, I I I texted you last time. I came on with a hoodie. It was completely unacceptable. So, would never happen again. Much better in a suit. You look fantastic. Everybody does.

Before we jump into Dell, which is a crazy story. Um, can we talk about the fact that Larry Ellison has now started following uh TPN say hello Larry? Hi. How you doing? Good to have you today. What I and what you guys called him. Do you remember the nickname you gave him? the big technology father.

Was that he's not he's not a tech bro. He's a tech father. Yeah. But I I think I texted you guys and then what I love is how fast like you are with it. You're like the original technology father like immediately basically created the data the database basically the main frame. Yeah.

I mean, what a fantastic fantastic what a what an incredible book the which you covered uh what is it the difference between God and Larry Ellison is that so so there's actually it's funny um because he I think he's going to be I I just did Michael Dell I'm working on the founder of Sony Akarita uh and I think I'm doing Larry Ellison again I've done three on Ellison but it's been like four or five years so there's three books about him the best one is probably Soft War Y um because he got This is so such a funny story.

Tell this please. So to get to to agree to cooperate with the author, he's like, "You can write whatever you want, but I must be able to answer on the same page and like have my like counterargument.

" And so at the bottom it's like Le E Wrights his initials and you I could almost do an entire episode like you might want to just read the whole book and just read Ellie Wrights. It's just it's hilarious. But um more books like that should exist.

somebody should go do that for, you know, all the major tech people today. Uh, with that style because on the one hand, it's like it's not what journalism is about like you're it's not it's not it's not going to drive the same narrative.

It's not objective because he's like putting his footnotes everywhere, but it's just an awesome format. I think more people should do that. Yeah. We go back and forth like actually no, I disagree with it. I was there. It this is what I think happens.

And then there's an even better uh so I think I'm going to do soft war uh you know cuz I think the founding story of oracles told best in that book. There's only you know shockingly only three books on him. But then he did a book called uh there's a book written about him called the billionaire and the mechanic.

And I think when I did that episode I was like yeah it's technically about Larry Ellison but it's about extreme winners.

And I think that's when I realized like, oh, uh, Larry Ellison has probably like more in common in ter terms of his competitive drive with like Michael Jordan than he does with like most other like founders. And I said something like, uh, you know, if uh, Michael Jordan sold enterprise software, he'd be Larry Ellison.

Like they're just ruthlessly competitive. And the there's a fantastic scene in the billionaire and the mechanic cuz Larry Ellison was best friends with Steve Jobs and he'd go on long walks.

And so I'm pretty sure the book opens or maybe I open the episode with it with them debating who the greatest person in history was and and Jaws went more more like Gandhi like peaceful and I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly Allison went like conqueror like Napoleon or something like that.

It's like all right here's your two personalities you know uh basically explained in this conversation you guys are having. So yeah, I hope you can uncover what what uh Ellison's longevity regimen is at some point.

I know I know it won't be the focus, but to live such an intense high stress, you know, lifestyle, you think it would take a take a toll on him, but it seemed like it hasn't at all. So this is actually interesting because I feel like every time we come on there, we talk about uh founder mode. Sure.

Um, and one thing that was like striking that missing from that essay is the fact like, you know, like it was like, well, there's a a manager runs a company one way and a founder runs a company one way. It's like, no, like the founder runs it based on the personality who they are.

And so I I was having private conversations about this and it was like, well, take take two competitors, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates. It's like Bill Gates was a grinder. Larry Ellison, by his own admission, is a sprinter.

He'll work excessively hard for like 3 weeks and then he'll disappear on his boat with some Italian model for a few weeks and he comes back. He literally says that he did that during co during co he sent an email like everyone in Oracle just saying like I'm on the island.

I'm on he's like yeah we're all going to work remotely. It's like yeah but you're working from an island that you own. An island that you own. He only owns 96% of it. But but the point the important part was like he was like that you know it's not really his island. Yeah. Decades ago. He was like that decades ago.

wasn't just now as like an 80-year-old man. So like, you know, he there's there's a lot of different personality types where Bill Gates was just like ripping his, you know, there's this great story that Michael Morates tells when he before he was a VC, he was a phenomenal writer. Still is a phenomenal writer.

Um I just finished reading his Don his hidden book on Don Valentine, which is remarkable. Um but Morris tells a story I think at Stamford. Uh you can see this on YouTube where he's like, "Oh, you want to know what focus is? like I'll tell you a story about focus. Like I'm riding with Bill Gates.

It's probably in the early ' 80s. And he's like, "Oh, somebody broke into your car and stole your radio. " And Bill Gates like, "What are you talking about? " He's like, "No, I had I took that out. " He's like, "Why'd you have it taken out? " He's like, "Well, it takes me 8 minutes to drive from my house to Microsoft.

And it takes me 11 minutes to drive from Microsoft to the airport. " And he does the math. He's like, "So, you know, if I had a radio, that means I would wouldn't be thinking about Microsoft for that those eight minutes or for those 11 minutes. And then I go to work every day.

So, that's like 40 minutes, whatever the time frame is. " like insane focus, insane level of grinding. That was not Ellison. By his own admission, it was not him. A lot founders podcast didn't exist back then. So, no kept the radio in there and just you've been hearing you over the airwaves. I uh so I talked about this.

We we were talking in uh our group chat that um I'm probably going to do an episode on Jangaskhan. Um and uh I said on there's a fantastic book on Bill Gates which everybody should read. It's really hard to find. Uh it's on it's a biography of the first 35 years of his life.

It's called Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire. I've done two episodes on it. And in that episode, I said a line that now like years later still gets spit back to me like every week. And they're like, uh, you realize the similarities between like Djangus Khan and Bill Gates.

I was like, "Oh, uh, Bill Gates is like Jenis Khan in a Mr. Rogers costume. " Like he's like dressed like Mr. Rogers, but he's unbelievably like ruthlessly competitive. would yell like when he lost a contract. Young Bill Gates lost a contract. Let's say, you know, uh, you lost us a $50,000 contract.

He's like, you didn't lose this $50,000 contract. It was $100,000 contract because we lost the $50,000 and our competitor got to 50,000.

There's this great I can't remember which one of his competitors was, but there's a great story that one of his competitors tells that Bill Gates wipes the floor with and and knocks the guy out of business where he sees Bill Gates sitting in the corner at a conference one day and he's sitting in like a foldable chair and he's looking at something in his hand.

He's like just really focused, kind of shut out the world, uh, shut everything around him out except what he's looking at. And so he walk, the competitor walks over to Bill to like say hi to him and talk to him. And what he realizes is that Bill is looking at a picture of his face. I love that. It's like that's amazing.

It's like if I come to the TP studio and like I walk in and there's pictures of other podcasters face that you guys are looking at. I think we have I think we actually have a picture of you up as the godfather of podcasting. Yeah, we're framed photo around here. Yeah, that's that's a that's a positive thing.

I No, I know some other people Yeah. Yeah. that you would have like bullse eyes on for sure. Uh yeah, just super competitive. What What do you think about the uh the posteconomic adventuring of the greatest founders?

Uh what I'm talking about is like you know uh there's a very I mean a lot of the there's like a lot of commonalities between what the founders do when they build their companies and how methodical they are about that. But once they're super rich and they're thinking about their legacy. Some of them start hospitals.

Some of them uh get involved in politics. Larry Ellison is really into sailing. I guess Nathan Mervald at Microsoft. He owns more T-Rexes than anyone in the world. He owns the T-Rex skeletons and he's creative. Yeah. Yeah. So, he he actually put all of his money to go and find new T-Rex skeletons.

Uh and I used to bring them back. I mean, Jurassic World deck for a dinosaur fund like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and and uh you know, William Randph Hurst obviously built this like unmanageable castle that became a museum.

Uh, I I'm I'm kind of beating this drum about like we need our elites to go and do even crazier things just like build the world's tallest building, build the world's biggest house, build a castle, build a library, build a museum. Uh, and I'm not seeing it enough, but what do you think about that?

What interesting kind of like side projects have you seen from the greatest founders in history? I I it's interesting like what would be the most interesting uh one that's done? Honestly, I I prefer them to do like what Steve Jobs did. I I you know if Steve was alive today he'd be what 70? So still young.

The idea that he wouldn't be still working all the time at Apple to me is just unfathomable.

Like I think like he I'm all for charity and all that other kind of stuff, but like you know every biography is kind of written like that where it's like you know focuses on the early life and then the rise and then gets really boring once they're like super rich and like name like that's not relatable to other people.

It's like yeah I donated a wing to you know the hospital named after my mother or something like that. Yeah. Um, I'd prefer them to not have side quests. I'd prefer them to work on what they're working on until they're dead. You want you want Bezos to go back into Amazon now that Lena Khan's out and the heat's off.

Cool it with the Blue Origin. Cool it with the girls. But if you're gonna have a side No, that's actually a great example. If you're going to have a side quest like the Blue Origin, like then build like another company. Make it a company. Um, yeah. That clock, the Long Now Foundation. Have you heard about the clock?

Yeah, of course. Of course. Well, even even Allison did this. He he took his island and and turned it into a sensei season, which is Oh, yeah. like, you know, this amazing like hotel. It's not It's not a David might say it's not a man, but uh Larry uh when you hear this, I love Sensei.

I think your properties are phenomenal. Yeah, they're fantastic. I'm I'm sure they're excellent. I would expect nothing else. Interesting interesting lore. He he So, Larry has six homes on PCH. He's invested heavily in Malibu. More than that. Well, no. He's got like dozens of properties in Malibu. Okay.

That are and I think there's six that are just in a row on PCH and the I think the fires got to two of them. And at some point uh the firemen decided to make like the last stand and we're basically like the fire is not going past this point. And so a couple of them went down.

Uh I heard in the in the January fires, but uh four still standing. And I'm sure he's doing a ton to to kind of help with the recovery effort broadly in Malibu. So, no, I think this is a perfect like segue into what I actually want to talk to you guys about, which is Michael Dell. It's like he's 18.

He starts Dell when he's 18, 19 years old. He's 60 now, right? Um I talked, you had uh Zack Dell, his son, his uh co-founder on last week for for bass.

I talked to I talked to or yeah I talked to Zach uh for a while before I did the episode and you know he's like the idea that my dad is ever gonna stop is just never gonna happen.

He's just like he had so many opportunities like he didn't when when he took the company private when he came back public he didn't have to be the CEO he's like he he's just obsessed with it like you go to his house like he will he's working on his computer he wants to talk to you about the the company like he's completely uh in love with what he's doing and that's probably the the highest and best use of his time as opposed to like another side quest.

Um, so I I do like I the response for this episode has been really really nutty um in in terms of like everybody knows they've heard Dell, right? They know who he is.

They've heard of this company, but the feedback I'm getting is like they didn't understand his life story and just how I think I just tweeted out like I study uncommon people, uncommon life stories for a living and Michael Dell is uncommon amongst uncommon people. I'm almost 400 episodes in.

can't think of another single comparable founder story to his in the sense that like this guy was a money-making machine since he was like 13.

You guys I just heard if uh I don't know if you guys put up on the screen I heard you talking about it that that tweet that he has where he starts with you know $6 million the first year.

You break down doing how did he manage I haven't I've been so uh focused on TBPN this week I haven't been able to listen to the episode yet. I'm going to get to it this weekend. But how do you go from zero to netting 6 million uh or or grossing 6 million in the first year? Like what does that even look like?

It's even crazier than that where like he started a company with $1,000, no co-founder, no VCs. Okay, so like this is what I mean. Like uh I I I I've been getting a bunch of text messages and one of them was like, I don't think there's another like startup story like this ever. I forgot what the text said.

definitely an F-word in there and I posted it too. Um because I I just can't think of another like that successful that fast with so limited means and he's his head competitor was compact which was he's in Austin. He he launches Dell in his in his uh dorm room. Austin's or uh Dell Compact is in Houston.

They raised I think 25 million initially. So I think 25 million at the beginning and then in the first early years of Dell they had already raised like a hundred million in capital and he smokes them. um they wind up getting bought and then you know Dell still is thriving and and Compact no longer exists.

But the one of the things that um is obvious in in the story is like he a lot of this outside success is obviously like you ha you have to be the right person with the right set of skills at the right time and you know in ' 84 the personal computer his the first time the first very popular personal computer computer appliance is what Steve Jobs called it was the Apple 2.

That's the first computer that I think uh Dell was 14 years old when he buys. And there's a crazy stories about how big of a hustler he is and the businesses he was making. He was making more in high school than his teacher was. Like just a money-making machine from day one.

And he buys an Apple 2 with his own money, right? You'll love him, Kugan, because he buys a Porsche. He buys a BMW and then a Porsche. He gets arrested when he's like 19 for going like 92 and like a 55 and and a red 911. under the bus like that. I think both of us like this.

You'll love him because he was defended Marquez Brownley for speeding. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's fine. So, he's uh he's obsessed with uh with you know, beautiful cars uh and and going very very fast. Um but to answer your question, it's like a lot of this is because the market was pulling out.

So I I um I a long time ago I think it's episode 50. Have you guys ever read Mark Andre's blog archive? Most of it I think. Yeah. Do you remember like this is a long time ago? So a lot of young founders don't even know this. He was like a prolific blogger before he started A16Z. Pear. That's like the blog name. Exactly.

And uh I think you go to A16's website now and you can pull the archive and it's absolutely incredible.

And one of the most important things that that uh Mark says in that was very fascinating because he's like well you know a lot of people debate what what is the the biggest predictor of startup success is it like the product is it the the the the actual people the founders the team or is it market and he's like if I had to pick one my thing would be on the market and he's like in a great market with a lot of real customers the market has to be satisfied the market will pull product out of uh the market will pull product out of the company and it the market will be satisfied by the first viable competitor that comes along.

And so Dell kind of before he goes all in on it, he travels to England. He's making a ton of money essentially just buying IBM PCs, souping them up, and then selling them to rich architects, dentists, doctors, and stuff like that. Right. That's how it starts. Story of the bra of PC market of IBM PCs, AMG. Yeah. Yeah.

So, and so then he goes to England and he's like, "Wait a minute. I thought like all this like there was just like computer fever in Texas. He goes to England and he's like, "I'm in these stores. The the the product sucks. Uh the salespeople don't know anything. " And yet they can't keep the inventory in stock.

And that's when he realizes like, "Oh, I need to go all in on this. " He winds up dropping out at 19, telling his parents, "Hey, you know, if this doesn't work out, I'll go back to school. " He never goes back to school.

Was he technical at this time or was he just a hustler or was it No, he was he No, no, he was like a computer nerd, but I think he was much more like in in the sense of like a hardware. He liked his favorite thing to do is to take apart computers. So, let me give you example.

Another crazy stat that people don't understand. He starts a company in 84. 88 they go public. Mhm. Okay. Uh by the time he's 26, he's in the Fortune 500. 26 years old.

like what I'm telling you right now when you listen to this episode you're going to be like holy there's not another story like this so his favorite thing to do um he recruits this older guy because we can talk about the fact that they they he made a lot of money because you know people give him money they were paying on credit cards back then so the customer pays today and then I go buy the parts right um and then eventually he starts selling to governments and businesses and and schools and everything else so he needs to get credit and so this where he's like my bank won't give me credit I need to extend credit to governments and everything else pay credit card.

So he he winds up partnering with this guy name Lee Walker who is like a 45-year-old very successful venture capitalist entrepreneur in in Austin and he was really played a really important role in the first like four years of Dell.

Um but one of the most uh fascinating things is that uh what Dell then does um they how would I like let me back back up real quick.

Lee Walker is the one that has the relationships with the bank to get the credit that Dell needs to start selling to uh all of these uh like to to to issue the credit like they're selling to like US government and Monsanto and and all these different um companies. He's also the one that helps Dell go p uh go public.

So Goldman Sachs uh does recommends they they use Goldman Sachs to do to to to uh take Dell public. They say, "Hey, let's do a private placement first. " Okay, the this is going to answer your question, Jordy.

So, the private placement, right, there's like a couple hundred private placements that are that are in the works on Black Friday, which is the stock market crash in 1987. Okay, which we talked about last time I was on here with Sam Walton. Lee Walker goes in and is telling a young Michael Dell, "We're screwed.

" Like, they're they're going to cancel our private placement. They the stock market drops in 23 I think it's 23% in a single day. Mhm. And he goes and to to Dell's office and he finds Dell to tell him this bad news. And what's Dell doing?

Dell's like, I was taking apart the the computers of my competitors to see how we could improve. So, I don't know if he was technical from a software perspective, but from a hardware perspective, he was he understood how they worked. He liked putting them together.

He liked taking them apart, putting them together, making them go faster and perform better. Yeah. The concept of a computer nerd almost like died off, right?

in some ways, not not died off, but it was just way more of a thing and then it became like, well, if I'm really into computers and I'm just gonna make software, he talks about now they're way too complicated.

You used to be able to take away the first Apple 2, the IBM 5150, which I think is the first uh one he gets, you could take it apart and actually understand what every single component was doing. Now, it's impossible to do that. Yeah. Can you can you compare uh Dell to Jobs?

Um, similar revenue ramp at Apple actually, although a little bit slower in the first year. Uh, I think Apple made uh under a million dollars the first year, but that was 1997. By 1984, Apple was doing over a billion dollars in revenue. So, Dell comes in with six million. The market's a little bit more established.

And then, if you look at what Dell's done today, they're selling servers for businesses. That's about $40 billion revenue. And then uh laptops for often computers, personal computers, but for business workers, another 40 billion or something in revenue.

Uh he seems much less focused on product design, brand, all the different things that Steve Jobs was known for. Um is he more of a private equity financial mastermind? Is that what makes him special? No, he he's de he's this is the weird thing too where again not really comparable to any other people.

He was obset he was a computer nerd. Like he'd get in trouble in high school because he'd just sit in the back of class and read like Bite magazine and like was just obsessed with computers.

But his parents were successful in business and so every single conversation they'd have when he was a kid like this dude was reading Fortune and Force magazine at 12 years old. And then we didn't even get to the point where like he does he takes Dell by the time they they they go off on this crazy run.

By the time uh they start hitting a lot of headwinds like 2005 by the time he gets 2012 2013 he's in real big trouble. And so he takes this huge risk of doing the le the the the uh the biggest technology leverage buyout in history with Silverlay partners. So they take Dell private in 2013. Okay.

The story gets even crazier. So he understands he he was actually preparing for the age of AI like 10 years ago. And so Jensen I talked about this in the um in the episode where I I found an interview with Jensen Wong and Michael Dell.

And Jensen's like, "Well, there's only one company in the world that can actually build these data centers at scale and give do every single thing from the storage to compute and everything else. " And that's Dell. And that's why they're such an important partner to us.

And Dell was like moving into storage and servers and stuff a long time ago, way before AI, like the prolifer proliferation of AI, I should say. And um the I the the most interesting is like so he does the largest technology that they buy out Dell all they take a private $24. 4 billion if I remember correctly. Okay.

two years later. Well, he's still a private company. He does the largest technology acquisition ever. The MC I I I was at dinner night and uh we were with our wives and I had to apologize. Uh you know, I was like, listen, I don't mean to be vulgar, but I have no other way to say this.

It's like Dell's got balls the size of watermelons. Like the guy is a private company. He buys EMC VMware, right? 67 billion with like4 billion of equity. Yeah. So, it's like there was like a special dividend or something like that, but they wind up borrowing like 50 billion $50 billion.

He's like, "Hey, I'm going to take this risk. I'm going to go $50 billion into debt to buy this company. " There's a great story I talk about in the podcast. It's also in the book where EMC is, I think, a Boston company. Uh the board of directors a little older, a little different.

And so, Dell's coming there saying he's pitching this as a, you know, merger, not an acquisition, but you know, it's more of an acquisition, I would say, but merger, acquisition, whatever you want to call it. And uh he brings Jamie Diamond with him, right?

And there's a great story in the book where the board he's talking about what his vision for EMC, what he wants to do and and everything else. And then they're like, "Okay. " And they lean forward. This old guy on the board, he's like, "But Michael, we're talking about a lot of money here. Do you have the money?

" And Michael is about to answer and Dell goes or and Jamie De goes, "They have the money. " It's like, it's like the guy running the most valuable bank in the world is telling him he has the money. we got the money, we will get you the money. Um, so yeah, and then what happens? He buys that for 67 billion.

They spin out VMware. Uh, this will go back to your question is like he techn he's obviously technology. He's also really gifted at business. He understands finance and everything else. So he buys uh EMC VMware for 67 billion. I think in 2022 they spin out and they sell VMware by itself for 61 billion. That's insane.

Wow. Like that's insane. And then EMC, I forgot the dividends. It's in the book. they were making like six or seven billion a year in cash flow anyways every single year.

So, it was like the the it's one of the most successful acquisitions of all time as well and the foundation for all the uh like building all the AI and everything they're doing now. Um I again I just I've never I'm almost eight year nine years into this project 400 biographies written.

I just cannot think of another comparable to Dell. Um, now if you want me to contra contrast him with Jobs, yeah, Jobs was much more interested in, you know, the the there's a great uh there's a great clip that just went viral on Twitter the other day where it's like Steve Jobs back in 97 sitting there with Tim.

I think you want to mute could share. Yeah. And his whole thing was like, no, no, I like I'm not worried about market share. I'm worried about building products that I could be proud of. So, yeah. Completely different. Uh, much less inquisitive.

I mean, Apple's never really done that opportunistic acquisition thing generally, and it seems like it's still in the DNA of the company now. They buy some IP, they buy some foundational technologies, but if but they're not just going to go buy a VR headset. They're going to build their own.

And then if you look, I've been told by people that know way more about finance than I do that Dell's family office is the most financially successful family office in history. He's actually built it into a firm and like some of the things they've done around that.

So, it's like every single thing this guy does, he's just an extreme winner. Yeah. Um and and he just owned I think when they went public he owned like 73% of Dell the first time. When they went private and then went public again he wind up owning like something like 45% personally. So huge uh ownership.

And then I think he personally profited from a friend of ours that I can't mention who that knows a lot about finance told me this uh where it's like you have to also look that when he sold VMware to Broadcom he took a a ton in stock. And if you look at the acquisition date and Broadcom stock it's up like 3x.

So Broadcom buys VMware for 61 billion and then the stock is up like 3x from that since then and a lot of that was his own personal money from what I understand. So it's just like when just the guy the guy just can't help but win. It's it's crazy. What uh what's the backstory on his broadcasting company?

Did you did you follow that at all? He started OTAA broadcasting in 2011 which seems like maybe kind of a No, the so the the book has actually a weird structure. So I read he I read his first kind of autobiography. It's called Direct from Dallas. published in 1999. Then he publishes um during co uh play nice but win.

So play nice but win is is the one I wanted to focus on because I think it's actually like and uh he like reads the audio book. It has a very interesting structure because the the first chapter is him fighting with Carl icon who's trying to steal steal his company from him and it's about to take private Dell.

Then every chapter alternates right between the fight to take his company private to the the startup of Dell. It's a very interesting structure for an autobiography.

And then the next chapter will go back to the fight and then it'll and then the next chapter after that will go okay now we're in 90 you know we're in ' 84 we're now in 87 it weirdly stops in like 90 I think maybe 99 or 2001 he talks about the troubles they were having in 2005 2007 2011 the first chapter of the book but no I don't even think that's in the book if I if I remember correctly yeah that makes sense um it's crazy to see where Dell uh imagining uh if he was still running the the company today it it trades that uh 2/3 of their like the the value today the market cap is like twothirds of their revenue last year.

Wow. So which is just $60 billion company and it billion in revenue. Yeah. What was it last year though? Uh well they did like $95 billion in revenue last year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it was it was the market was over 100 Yeah. 100 billion, right? What was it? Uh or two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It was the stock was at 118, stocks at 84 today, down 30% over the last year. So yeah, they were around 100 billion uh uh last year. Um and it's pretty it's pretty fascinating comping them to Apple like they Dell was significantly bigger than Apple for like a decade. Like 1999 Dell's doing 25 billion in revenue.

Apple's doing seven. 1998 Dell's doing 55 billion in revenue. Apple's doing six billion in revenue. Apple had a like also had went through like this really rough period of transition in the late 90s early 2000s before having the breakout success that they've had now.

Now they're up in like the 300 billion revenue and of course traded a much they also invented they also invented the most successful consumer product of all time and and then also built a services about and then they also built a very very high margin services business around that and that's something Dell has never been able to do build like this high margin locked in monopoly on top of the technology in the software.

I remember I remember um in the early days of the making the podcast um just how disorienting like the success the outside success of the iPhone was cuz I think in one of the first episodes I did on Steve Jobs and I've done like 10 or 15 or something and they made the point that like Apple makes more from the iPhone if they just had the iPhone and nothing else than like Disney does from every single thing they've ever like they they everything all their theme parks all their movies everything else just like that one single product.

Uh yeah. So I mean Larry Ellison is 80. Dell is 60. He's got another 20 years in him. It's not he's not he's not stepping him down or anything. So uh I mean Larry Ellison is in the conversation to buy Tik Tok now. Uh you think Dell's got like a second, third, fourth, fifth act coming up? Yes. I got a great text message.

Uh, somebody Yeah. Uh, they said, "Dude, when you said he's only 60, I had to Google it real quick because he's so young. There's going to be another edition of the book for sure. He has another era of domination coming for sure. " Uh, yeah. I think there's going to be for sure.

Like I Okay, so we've talked about this last time I was on here. It's like, "Oh, people say if you love what you do, like you'll do it for free. " And I was like, "No, there's actually another step to that. It's like if you love what you do, people couldn't pay you to. " No, people couldn't pay you to stop. Yeah.

Yeah, he Dell takes it another level in the book where during 2012 uh when he's fighting to take the company private, they're like, "Why are you doing this? " Like, it was very painful. He could have lost control of the company with his name on it. They're like, "You've already made so much money.

Like, just go retire to Hawaii or why don't you start a new company? " And he goes, "I don't want to retire. I don't want to start a new company. I want this one with my name on it. " And then he takes it to another level. He goes, "I will care about this company after I'm dead. " legend founder. No. And then hold on.

I I do have to say one. I do have to say one even and and again uh a lot of the people I cover on the podcast are kind of cautionary tales. They're like obsessed to the point where they destroy everything around them. No, Dell seems great. I think he seems like he had a great life. I I I think it's really important.

First of all, it's a much longer episode than I normally do. Um, it's really important to get to the last few minutes of the podcast because like I save what I think is the most important lesson for the very end.

I'm not trying to like hide it in the fact that like when I talked to Zach and the way he talked about the way his kids think about him and how they look at their father, you know, they they're they're he's a hero to them.

Uh he was talking about like you know Dell's running one of the most complicated largest companies in the world and yet anytime his son calls him or any his kids call him is like he'll drop everything for them.

He's legitimately great dad still married to the same wife like this what I mean he's just uncommon amongst uncommon people. I cannot think of another single like comparable to him. It's fantastic. Absolute legend. I think you kind of compare to him actually. I often think of you as like the Michael Dell of podcasting.

Uh, no. One thing I will say, he's got excellent um, excellent