Michael Dell Built a Computer Empire by Taking Things Apart
What started with household gadgets became his way to read machines chip by chip, and to love the work.
David Senra · Michael Dell, Dell Technologies | David SenraIt was Black Friday during the private placement for his company's stock market debut, and there might be some trouble in the capital markets. Lee Walker, Dell's business partner, walked into Michael Dell's office to say so. Dell, the founder of the computer company that bears his name, was taking apart another computer.
The moment captured the habit that shaped his career, a lifelong need to pull things apart to see how they worked.
As a boy, Dell took apart things around the house to understand them, and his parents grew frustrated. Dell later put it simply: "how can you understand something if you don't take it apart?" Of those early objects, Dell said, "Sometimes I'd put them together. Sometimes they would still work."
When he was about 12, he saved up for an Apple II, an early home computer. His parents expected him to set it up and start using it. Instead, he immediately took it apart. He wanted to know what was inside, how the parts fit together, and why its makers had chosen these components instead of those.
Growing up in Houston during an oil boom, Dell read about entrepreneurs who were building companies then, men like brokerage founder Charles Schwab, FedEx founder Fred Smith, and Walmart founder Sam Walton. Dell later said, "I never imagined myself doing anything else other than starting a business." He added that "the idea just was in my consciousness from a very early age."
That same habit followed him to work. Dell used the same habit at work, taking apart computers and noting the numbers stamped on the chips inside. One reading could place a part in a particular week of a particular year. In an account of Walker's recollection, others at the young company were losing sleep and fraying under pressure while Dell arrived each morning joyful and energized. The point, as Walker saw it, was that Dell had created a kind of company that fit him.
Decades later, the compulsion has not faded. Dell's son Zach, who fields his father's late night thinking, said Dell will call at 5 a.m. with an idea for a product or an acquisition. When Zach was asked what would get his father to stop, he said, "You have to kill him."
Questions people ask
What do chip date codes actually tell you?
Chip makers stamp parts with codes for the year and week they were made, so an opened machine reveals when its components were produced. An older code means the computer sat in a warehouse or on a store shelf for months.
Why was Dell taking apart computers during his IPO?
The disassembly was not part of the financing. It was simply what Dell did under stress, returning to the hands-on habit he had since childhood. Walker walked in expecting a finance discussion and found Dell focused on hardware.
Who was Lee Walker?
Walker was an experienced businessman who joined Dell in its earliest days and helped organize operations and persuade banks to extend credit based on customer orders. He stayed about four years and later wrote about the experience.