computer science

Michael Dell

Michael Dell is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Michael Dell rather than just read about it. In short: Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965) 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.

Key takeaways

Michael Dell belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Michael Dell to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Michael Dell from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965) 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. As of May 2026, Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes estimate he's the 7th wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of about US $212.8 billion. As of October 2023, according to Forbes, net worth was derived from his 50% stake in Dell and 40% stake in VMware, with the rest being held by his family office DFO Management. In January 2013, it was announced that he had bid to take Dell Inc. private for $24.4 billion in the biggest management buyout since the Great Recession. Dell Inc. officially went private in October 2013. The company went public again in December 2018.

Early life and education Dell was born in 1965 in Houston to a Jewish family. His parents were Alexander Dell, an orthodontist, and Lorraine Charlotte (née Langfan), a stockbroker. Michael attended Herod Elementary School in Houston. In a bid to enter business early, he applied to take a high school equivalency exam at age eight. In his early teens, he invested his earnings from part-time jobs in stocks and precious metals. Dell attended Memorial High School in Houston, selling subscriptions to the Houston Post in the summer. 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. Dell continued learning to target specific populations for newspaper subscriptions rather than just making cold calls. He discovered that people who were most likely to get a subscription were newlyweds and people moving to a new home. After collecting the contact information of this population from public records, he sent direct mail appeals and earned $18,000 in one year. He 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.

Business career

While a freshman pre-med student at the University of Texas, Dell started an informal business putting together and selling upgrade kits for personal computers in Room 2713 of the Dobie Center residential building. He 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, Dell recognized that selling PCs directly to consumers could cut costs compared to traditional retail. He registered his company as "PC's Limited" and began operating from a condominium, selling between $50,000 and $80,000 worth of PC upgrades, kits, and add-on components. Dell's strategy was to manufacture computers after receiving orders. In May, Dell incorporated the company as "Dell Computer Corporation" and relocated to a business center in North Austin. The company 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". The venture's capitalization cost was $1,000. During the formative years of Dell Computer, Dell was mentored by Morton Meyerson. In 1992, aged 27, he became the youngest CEO of a company ranked in Fortune magazine's list of the top 500 corporations. In 1996, Dell started selling computers over the Web, the same year his company launched its first servers. By March 1997, Dell Inc. reported about $1 million in sales per day from dell.com. In the first quarter of 2001, Dell Inc. reached a world market share of 12.8 percent, surpassing Compaq to become the world's largest PC maker. The metric marked the first time the rankings had shifted over the previous seven years. The company's combined shipments of desktops, notebooks and servers grew 34.3 percent worldwide and 30.7 percent in the United States at a time when competitors' sales were shrinking. On March 4, 2004, Dell stepped down as CEO, but stayed as chairman of Dell Inc.'s board, while Kevin Rollins, then president and COO, became president and CEO. On January 31, 2007, Dell returned as CEO at the request of the board, succeeding Rollins. In 2013, Michael Dell with the help of Silver Lake Partners, Microsoft, and a consortium of lenders took Dell, Inc. private. The deal was reportedly worth $25 billion and faced difficulties during its execution. Notable resistance came from Carl Icahn, but after several months he stepped aside. Michael Dell received a 75% stake in the company. On October 12, 2015, Dell Inc. announced its intent to acquire the enterprise software and storage company EMC Corporation. At $67 billion, it has been labeled the "highest-valued tech acquisition in history". The acquisition was finalized September 7, 2016. In May 2024, Dell announced a partnership with Nvidia and ServiceNow to develop "AI factories", aiming to provide scalable AI infrastructure solutions to enterprise clients.

Accounting fraud In July 2010, 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 and former CEO Kevin Rollins agreed to pay $4 million each and former CFO James Schneider agreed to pay $3 million to settle the charges.

Accolades Accolades for Dell include "Entrepreneur of the Year" (at age 24) from Inc. magazine; "Top CEO in American Business" from Worth magazine; "CEO of the Year" from Financial World, IndustryWeek and Chief Executive magazines. Dell also received the 1998 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and the 2013 Franklin Institute's Bower Award for Business Leadership.

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

Wealth and philanthropy The centrepiece of the Kukio neighborhood in Hawaii is the 18,500-square-foot Raptor Residence, owned by Dell and valued at $64.7 million. With three lots and the widest waterfront view of any house in the neighborhood, Dell's house has seven bedrooms, seven full bathrooms, and five half bathrooms. Additionally, Dell owns a portion of Hualalai, which he purchased in 2006 through his private investment company. In 1998, Dell founded MSD Capital L.P., later renamed DFO Management, to manage his family's investments.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Michael Dell

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Michael Dell claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Michael Dell before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Michael Dell ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Michael Dell

In research: Michael Dell appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Michael Dell in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Michael Dell is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1965 births, 20th-century American businesspeople, 21st-century American Jews, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Michael Dell outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Michael Dell in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Michael Dell means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Michael Dell out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Michael Dell in simple terms?

Why does Michael Dell matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Michael Dell?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Michael Dell.