Michael Dell, who started Dell Computers from a dorm and has made it a $300 billion-plus company, has an advice for startup CEOs: It is never a good idea to tell anyone …
In a 2017 interview, Michael Dell said: “If you want to really make it big, you better come up with something unique. Despite being fascinated by computers and technology, Michael Dell took up pre-med at the University of Texas in 1983. As per reports, he made $18,000 in one year from that venture, which was even more than some of his high school teachers made. Dell started selling upgrade kits for personal computers to other students in his college dorm at the age of 19. When he started Dell Technologies, Michael Dell had only $1,000 to invest. By the age of 27, Michael Dell became the youngest CEO in the Fortune 500 in 1992. Dell became the world’s largest personal-computer maker by 2001.
“If you go and ask people if it’s a good idea, most of them will tell you no,” Dell told Fortune. His manufacturing team consisted of “three guys with screwdrivers sitting at six-foot tables,” Dell said in Direct From Dell. “You have to embrace risk, and you have to accept failure,” Dell told Fortune. Michael Dell once told Fortune risk-taking has been his greatest advantage in business, and a downfall for other major corporations. “Big companies generally [aren’t good at taking risks],” Dell told Fortune. His company, Dell says, does “all sorts of things internally to promote risk innovation,” including investing billions of dollars in research and development. “We’ve got hundreds of projects, and they’re not all going to work out,” Dell told Fortune.
Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies, has an advice for startup CEOs – do not go and ask people if your idea is good. It better be differentiated—that nobody else is doing. Stating people should trust their gut instincts on whether a new product or business idea will be successful in the long run, he advises people to not seek other’s opinion. “So don’t go ask. Long before he ran a business, Dell attended Memorial High School in Houston and sold subscriptions to the Houston Post (later acquired by the Houston Chronicle). The stint was highly successful for him in learning how to target specific populations instead of pursuing the classic cold-call sales technique. “If you talk about risk, they’ll talk about the risk reduction, and the risk committee, and the risk management, and all those say the risk is bad. Well, if you don’t have risk, you don’t have innovation. “That’s okay. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.