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  • Good afternoon.

  • On a Friday afternoon, look at this crowd,

  • that too before a long weekend, and I know all of you

  • have come here just to listen to me, right?

  • I know you didn't.

  • My name is Ravi Pendse.

  • I have the privilege and honor to serve

  • as Vice President and Chief Information Officer, which

  • means I actually work for all of you.

  • It's my pleasure to welcome you to our Distinguished Lecture

  • Series, Leadership in Technology,

  • and the goal of this series is really

  • to bring transformational technology leaders to Brown

  • campus to help engage with us in a dialogue to help and enhance

  • our amazing students-- and so many of you

  • are here today, that's great-- our wonderful faculty,

  • and our dedicated and innovative staff.

  • Did you use a smartphone today to perhaps

  • pay for that cup of coffee or to download music and listen

  • to music from Spotify or perhaps to do many different things,

  • and you're shaking your heads, right?

  • If you did, chances are some of the information

  • that you consume came from servers made by Dell.

  • Most businesses and universities, Brown included,

  • are exploring ways to mine and analyze data

  • and to derive insights from data.

  • Did you know that a lot of data analytics that

  • are powered at, say, Netflix or Hulu

  • and many other businesses, come from engines-- data analysis

  • engines-- actually made by Dell?

  • If you're thinking about information security

  • and privacy-- and I think about it every day--

  • one of the strongest and largest security profiles-- a company

  • and products-- come from Dell in the company

  • called SecureWorks, and did you know

  • they're right here in Providence, employing hundreds

  • of cyber security professionals?

  • And so great opportunities to engage and partner.

  • And oh, by the way, if I didn't mention,

  • Dell happens to also make some pretty good desktops

  • and nifty laptops.

  • So talk about imagining.

  • Imagine you are 19.

  • For me that imagination is not so easy, but for many of you,

  • you are already 19-- that age frame.

  • Imagine you're 19, sitting in your dorm room.

  • You have $1,000, and instead of going to your next vacation

  • you decide, you know what?

  • I'm going to start a PC company, and I'm

  • going to take on the likes of IBM.

  • That is the story if Michael Dell, our speaker today.

  • Michael Dell, who is the Chairman and CEO of Dell,

  • founded his company in 1984 in a dorm room

  • at University of Texas.

  • Michael's vision for technology fundamentally

  • changed that technology business.

  • He was the first one to establish a company that

  • was directly marketing to consumers over initially--

  • believe it or not-- over phone, and then later

  • on using the web.

  • That was the first company.

  • Only eight years after he started the company, in 1992,

  • Michael became the youngest CEO to be on the Fortune 500 list.

  • Michael and his wife, Susan, understand the importance

  • of giving back.

  • In 1998, they established Michael and Susan Dell

  • foundation to provide philanthropic support

  • to a variety of global causes.

  • To date, they have given-- donated over $1 billion,

  • and their generosity continues.

  • In June 2014, Michael was named the United Nations Foundations

  • first Global Advocate for Entrepreneurship.

  • He serves on many, many boards and committees

  • and too many to list here, but I wanted

  • to share some other facts that you may not be aware.

  • Michael tends to be incredibly competitive-- surprise,

  • surprise, right-- and sometimes impatient.

  • When he was in third grade, he applied for a GED.

  • Think about that.

  • Third grade.

  • I know.

  • He was an over-achiever.

  • What can I say?

  • He's incredibly competitive, as I told you,

  • and on a given day bikes to work for about 22 miles every day.

  • Very active on Fitbit as well, so typically leading

  • among his Fitbit friends.

  • I did a few miles this morning and decided to check out

  • how Michael was doing.

  • Bad idea.

  • I lost miserably.

  • Now, one area that I'm kind of competitive,

  • I'm coming close to Michael, is in the area

  • of Twitter followers.

  • We are only a million apart.

  • I have about 200 followers, and you can guess how many he has.

  • It is my pleasure and honor to introduce

  • Michael Dell, an amazing CEO, a caring and compassionate

  • leader, and a friend.

  • Michael.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • Thank you.

  • Thank you very much.

  • Thank you for the kind introduction, Ravi.

  • Welcome, Michael.

  • I know there are lot of institutions and organizations

  • which obviously want you to go and have a conversation,

  • so I'm so glad that you took time

  • to come to Brown University.

  • Thrilled to be here.

  • Thank you.

  • Thank you.

  • Just so you know, this is going to be an interactive event.

  • Michael and I are going to engage in some dialogue

  • initially.

  • Later, you will have an opportunity to, of course,

  • ask Michael questions.

  • There are microphones on both sides that you can use,

  • and I'll let you know when you can

  • start lining up so we can use your time

  • and Michael's time efficiently.

  • Please note, however, that this event is being live

  • streamed as well as recorded, just so you know.

  • So Michael, you want to get started?

  • Great.

  • All right.

  • So Michael, as we talked about the fact

  • that you started this company when you were barely

  • the age of many students here in our audience,

  • from your dorm room, so can you recap for us

  • how the journey began?

  • How did you go from being a pre-med student,

  • as we know, to suddenly deciding on starting a PC company

  • and taking on the likes of IBM?

  • Can you share some thoughts with us, please?

  • Sure.

  • Well, I could tell you I didn't have this in mind

  • when I started.

  • I didn't know that I would be here today

  • and that all this would happen.

  • What was happening in the early 1980s was,

  • it was sort of the dawn of the microprocessor age,

  • and I had been kind of fortunate in that when

  • I was in seventh grade I was in this math class,

  • and this is even before there was such

  • a thing as a personal computer.

  • There were teletype terminals, and you could write a program

  • on the teletype terminal, you send it off

  • to a bigger computer and the answer would come back,

  • and I was just kind of fascinated by that

  • and enthralled by that, so I started learning

  • everything I could about this.

  • And when I was in high school, some people

  • would like to soup up their cars.

  • I was souping up computers, so I was playing around

  • with microprocessors and circuit boards

  • and trying to understand all that,

  • and one of the things I saw was that the way the products were

  • sold, it took a long time for the latest,

  • best technology to get to the actual user,

  • and it cost a significant multiple of the actual cost

  • of the components.

  • And to me it seemed kind of a criminal that it took so long,

  • and why does it cost-- if it's only $500

  • worth of parts, how come they're selling it for $3,000?

  • And so the initial business was really not necessarily in PCs.

  • It was in upgrade kits for PCs and then very shortly

  • thereafter, we started making our own PCs.

  • And just a little bit backwards, I

  • was a freshman at the University of Texas, and I was pre-med,

  • and I had organic chemistry, and this is really hard stuff,

  • and I'm thinking, there's got to be an easier way

  • to make a living than this stuff.

  • I'm sure a lot of Brown students who take

  • Orgo class can relate to you.

  • And I kind of saw this opportunity.

  • I said, you know, I'm going to take this business from my dorm

  • room and give it a go, and it worked out pretty well.

  • If anybody had checked his net worth today,

  • it has worked out really well, I would say.

  • So that's a great story.

  • But, as you indicated, you were a pre-med student,

  • and then I know you decided to start this company,

  • and I know you had come from a family

  • of medical practitioners.

  • How did that conversation go with your parents

  • when you made that phone call or face to face?

  • It was not pretty.

  • It did not go well.

  • My parents had been sort of the first in their families

  • to go to college and to them higher

  • education was an absolute must, and how could you possibly

  • compete in the world and do well without those skills

  • and give up those opportunities?

  • And so I had a pretty big disagreement with my parents

  • and did what most young people do when they

  • disagree with their parents.

  • I just did whatever I wanted to do.

  • So we kind of agreed to disagree.

  • The school I went to, you could take a semester off,

  • and so I started the company and work got off

  • to pretty good start and so I continued.

  • The business grew about 80% a year

  • for the first eight years in a row, compounded,

  • and then it grew about 60% a year

  • for the six years after that, compounded.

  • And if you are good at math, you know

  • that that's like $10 billion plus dollars, so--

  • Nice.

  • Not too shabby.

  • --we expanded quite fast in terms

  • of new geographies, new countries, new types

  • of customers, and certainly it was a very exciting time

  • and continues to be exciting.

  • Obviously the name Dell makes sense,

  • considering that's your last name,

  • but I have some interesting story--

  • heard about interesting stories about how

  • you came about the name Dell.

  • Can you share that story behind the name Dell

  • with our audience?

  • Sure.

  • Well, I had this customer who was a lawyer when

  • I was in college, and I was doing about $50,000 or $60,000

  • of business a month in my dorm room,

  • and this customer, who was a lawyer,

  • said you should probably-- you've

  • got to adjust for inflation too.

  • This was 1983, '84.

  • So the customer is a lawyer, and he says,

  • you should probably incorporate your business, and I said,

  • why do I want to do that?

  • And so he kind of goes through this pitch

  • and why you should incorporate, and afterwards I said,

  • what's this going to cost me?

  • And he said, well, I'll tell you what.

  • I need another hard drive for my little law practice

  • here, so why don't you install a hard drive for me

  • in my computer here, and I'll do the incorporation for you.

  • We'll make a trade.

  • I said, OK, that sounds pretty good.

  • So I had set up the company as a "doing business as,"

  • as a sole proprietor, and the name of the company

  • was PCs Limited, so it was Michael,

  • doing business as PCs Limited.

  • So I go to the lawyer's office, I'm installing the hard drive,

  • and he says, OK, I'm going to work on this.

  • Come back in the day or two, I'll have it all done.

  • So I come back and he's says, well, there's

  • a couple problems.

  • First is, we couldn't register the name PCs Limited

  • because it's too generic of a name,

  • so the lawyer names the company Dell Computer Corporation.

  • And then he says, a second problem

  • is you can't start a company in Texas unless you have $1,000,

  • so you need $1,000.

  • I said, well, you didn't tell me that.

  • I've got to go get $1,000, I've got to go sell some more stuff.

  • Give me a few days, I'll be back.

  • So I sold some more stuff, got $1,000, came back,

  • and so we're Dell Computer Corporation doing business

  • as PCs Limited--

  • I see.

  • --and for the first two or three years,

  • we were really known as PCs Limited,

  • even though the name of the company

  • was Dell Computer Corporation.

  • Fast forward to 1987, we hire a guy

  • to open our business in the UK.

  • So, remember, the company's three years old.

  • Now we're going for global domination.

  • So Canada, too close, too easy.

  • We'll go to the UK.

  • At least they speak a language we can sort of understand,

  • and so we go to the UK, we hire this guy.

  • He's off and running, and he's setting up the company.

  • Well, you can't be PCs Limited Limited, because that makes

  • no sense at all, and so he's calling back to headquarters,

  • and he says what should we name the company?

  • And we're like, we don't know, we're too busy.

  • Just leave us alone, we're too busy making computers.

  • And so the guy in the UK says, well, I

  • don't know what to call it, so I'm just

  • going to call it Dell Computer Corporation, because that's

  • actually the name of the company.

  • So we were Dell Computer Corporation in the UK,

  • and we were PCs Limited as our brand,

  • but actually Dell as the company name,

  • but nobody had known that name.

  • So anyway, a bunch of the folks in the company came to me

  • and said, we should just change the name of the company

  • to Dell.

  • I was kind of reluctant, because I didn't really

  • want to name it after myself, but that's

  • what we ended up doing.

  • I see.

  • If you want suggestions for names for future companies,

  • Pendse is a good name.

  • Just wanted to let you know.

  • Yeah, I'll keep that in mind.

  • [INAUDIBLE] I thought I'd mentioned it.

  • So Brown, as you may know, has an open curriculum,

  • and it's very unique in the world,

  • and it attracts amazing, innovative, creative students

  • to Brown, and I have no doubt that through their innovation

  • and creativity that our young people are

  • going to change world and change world for better.

  • So I'm curious about the culture of innovation at Dell.

  • Can you talk to us about how innovation occurs at Dell

  • and how you nurture that culture?

  • We have a culture at Dell that is fast paced,

  • it's customer focused, it embraces

  • kind of smart risk taking.

  • We like to have experiments, and we

  • do lots of startups within Dell, and we like

  • to have big ears, listening.

  • If you think about all the things we do as a company,

  • you outline some of them today, well,

  • how did we get to doing all those things?

  • Well, we go and ask our customers,

  • what are the big unsolved problems that you have?

  • What are the opportunities that we haven't-- that

  • nobody's really addressed for you,

  • and then how do we build our business around that?

  • So it's a diverse culture.

  • We like to have fun.

  • This last year, we filed 28% more patents

  • than we did the year before.

  • We filed-- have been issued or filed almost 8,000 patents

  • in the company.

  • We have something in Dell we call Tell Dell,

  • and it's an anonymous and confidential survey

  • that we do once a year where we sort of ask people,

  • how do you like it?

  • How are we doing?

  • Are you getting what you need in your career?

  • Are your leaders helping you?

  • Do you think the company has the right tools and focus?

  • We track a couple things.

  • One thing we track is the participation rate.

  • If the participation rate is high, that's a good thing.

  • If we get the survey and we don't actually do anything

  • with it, then the participation rate

  • goes down, because people think it's like a Dilbert cartoon,

  • and they don't want to do it.

  • But if we get the survey, we actually do stuff,

  • then they go, this is real.

  • If somebody is not a good manager,

  • they don't have good Tell Dell scores,

  • they might no longer be a manager.

  • And so we listen to our people.

  • So we just completed our last survey in May of this year.

  • We had the highest participation rate ever.

  • We also had the highest scores ever in 15 years of history.

  • Wow.

  • Congratulations.

  • That's terrific.

  • So continuing our conversation, I

  • know you've been often quoted as saying, "technology

  • is about enabling human potential,"

  • and that's very powerful.

  • Can you talk about that a little bit more

  • and with some examples, if you can?

  • Technology enabling human potential.

  • Well, if you think about what are we doing,

  • we're making tools, we're making machines that help people,

  • and I think human capacity, whether mental,

  • physical, spiritual, I believe is generally far beyond what

  • people realize it is.

  • And if they push themselves and put themselves

  • in more challenging situations, I

  • think they often rise to the occasion.

  • What's interesting about the computer

  • is not to replace humans, but how

  • do you combine the unbelievable creativity, innovation, sort

  • of non-linear thinking that humans have

  • with the computational engine and ability

  • to reference and sequence enormous amounts of data?

  • So think about an architect designing

  • a brand-new structure.

  • How long does it take for the thoughts

  • from the architect to actually make it down

  • into an actual plan?

  • Well, it turns out, the interface

  • between the machine and the human,

  • there's opportunity to improve that.

  • Yes.

  • It's getting better, and I'm a big believer in human plus

  • machine instead of human versus machine,

  • and if you look at the last 30 years,

  • it's been pretty amazing what's happened.

  • You can be in a small country in the middle of nowhere,

  • and if you have about $50 you could

  • hold a device in your hand where you have more information

  • than the President of the United States had 25 years ago.

  • That's pretty dramatic.

  • There's enormous deflation in the cost

  • of getting information and tools and the availability of all

  • these resources.

  • It's pretty incredible.

  • And that's had a pretty fantastic effect

  • in lifting large numbers of people out of poverty.

  • Not all people, but there are certainly

  • challenges in the world-- we can talk about some of those--

  • but what I've seen is technology really driving

  • significant advancements in a number of developing countries.

  • Absolutely.

  • That's terrific.

  • Now, in terms of Dell, I know you took your company public

  • back in 1988-- if I recall correctly-- and then fast

  • forward 25 years, in 2013 you decided to take Dell private,

  • which is one of the largest leverage buy

  • outs in the history of the industry.

  • Can you talk about what inspired--

  • some people would call it-- unconventional move,

  • and how is it going?

  • Well, you've heard the expression go big or go home?

  • So we went big.

  • So around 2007, 2009, the pace of industry change

  • was accelerating.

  • Software was changing the value structure of the industry,

  • all kinds of new challenges were presenting themselves

  • in terms of cyber security that customers were dealing with.

  • We needed to evolve our business,

  • and so we started not only organically innovating,

  • but we were inorganically innovating with acquiring

  • new companies and bringing all sorts of new capabilities

  • into the company.

  • And in 2013, we decided to go private to really accelerate

  • the pace of those investments, so I mentioned the increase

  • in patents last year.

  • Right now, we're hiring thousands of salespeople

  • into our company, hiring thousands of folks

  • in research and development.

  • You mentioned we have our cyber security business, SecureWorks,

  • has an office here in Providence,

  • and if you want to work in cyber security,

  • we've got jobs available.

  • It's pretty cool stuff.

  • Right.

  • And it is really, really cool, some

  • of the things they are working on

  • that he shared with us today.

  • Yeah.

  • We can't talk about all those in here--

  • I know, we can't.

  • I know, I know.

  • --but we see about 150 billion events every day,

  • and we're protecting several thousand

  • of the largest organizations in the world

  • from all manner of cyber attacks,

  • whether they're state sponsored or criminal groups or hackers

  • or activists or other mischievous folks who

  • are trying to steal information, manipulate data, destroy

  • critical infrastructure.

  • The cyber challenge is an enormous one

  • that organizations are dealing with all the time.

  • I understand.

  • So in terms of public to private,

  • I'm sure you miss those analyst meetings and 90-day clocks.

  • I'm sure you miss that, don't you?

  • Don't miss that at all.

  • I think in many parts of society,

  • there is a bit of an over-orientation

  • toward short-termism, and you see it in politics,

  • you can see it in many fields.

  • Certainly finances is one, and so the opportunity

  • to change the focus and the time horizon to be more three years,

  • five years, 10 years oriented is really wonderful.

  • So we can invest in our business and take

  • on risks in a good way and innovations

  • that-- we think of the right things to be focused on.

  • That's terrific.

  • As we talked this afternoon, there

  • is lot of churn in the technology industry right now.

  • We hear about cloud, we hear about everything as service,

  • we hear about the Internet of Things.

  • In fact, at Brown we are building an Internet

  • of Things laboratory.

  • What's your view of the competitive landscape,

  • looking ahead to future, say, class

  • of 2020 when they graduate, what they might be thinking about?

  • I think it's a really interesting time.

  • IT used to be kind of in the back rooms

  • in large organizations and now you

  • can't do anything without IT, and it's everywhere.

  • It also used to be a lot about making the existing

  • process more efficient and, while there's

  • a lot of that that goes on, the pervasiveness

  • of digital technology and the cost of digital technology

  • has declined so fast, that now you

  • have things that are invented that are completely new,

  • like Airbnb, Uber and Nest.

  • There are many examples like that,

  • and so organizations are embracing this idea

  • of how do we transform ourselves digitally?

  • Some organizations may have a kind of digital fear,

  • because they're wondering are we changing fast enough?

  • What if these things come, and we're not quite ready?

  • And a way to think about it is you

  • have an explosion in the number of devices.

  • It used to be might have had one big computer at Brown

  • University, and then you have lots of midsize computers,

  • then you have PCs, then you have smartphones,

  • then you have tablets, then you have sensors and embedded,

  • and the number of devices-- we sell

  • to a lot of the big industrial companies.

  • They're embedding intelligence in their equipment.

  • Cars are becoming computers with wheels.

  • There's enormous amounts of telemetry data,

  • and so everything is getting smart,

  • and so an enormous number of devices

  • and then an explosion in the number of applications

  • that all of you use, and then the fine-grained nature

  • of the data.

  • We go from 1K to 2K to 4K video, we have 256-slice CT scans,

  • and so there's just an enormous amount--

  • you have thousands more devices, times thousands more

  • applications, times thousands more data,

  • so you have just this sea of information that doesn't really

  • help.

  • How do you turn the information into better results, better

  • outcomes, knowledge, and success,

  • whether it's in a school, a hospital,

  • in a commercial environment, and how do you do it in real time?

  • And the reality is that the vast majority of the data

  • isn't used that way today, so that's a big opportunity.

  • So I think in 2020, people will be thinking about,

  • how do we use all this information in real time

  • and get something useful out of it?

  • And, by the way, as we expand all these new nodes

  • and everything becomes smart and intelligent, mobile, agile,

  • we have to balance that with security,

  • because if everything's connected,

  • everything's also vulnerable, and the hackers can get in

  • and mess things up.

  • Absolutely.

  • That's fascinating.

  • And since you talked about all these globally connected

  • devices generating enormous amount of data,

  • a lot of Brown students are exploring

  • classes in the area of data sciences here at Brown now.

  • Do you have any advice for our students and faculty

  • in terms of your thoughts on that field,

  • the field of data sciences?

  • Well, kind of everywhere we go, we

  • don't find enough people that know how to do that,

  • so I think that's a very good field of study.

  • We'll hire you in any number of our businesses,

  • and I think you'll have no shortage of jobs there.

  • Again, just look at the sheer amount of data.

  • We were talking about the health care example.

  • Here's an example where you have the typical health care

  • practitioner is one to three doctors, and talk

  • about campfire behavior.

  • It's not a normalized process, and there really

  • isn't a lot of data.

  • How many of you have been to a doctor's office and they have

  • files?

  • I don't mean like digital files.

  • I'm talking like actual files.

  • It's like from another century.

  • And you might have more technology at the grocery

  • store, and so the opportunity to digitize and then turn

  • all this into useful insights and outcomes I think

  • is incredible.

  • For our industry, I'm convinced that it's

  • how our industry grows from about a 3

  • and 1/2 trillion dollar industry to its the next trillion,

  • but it's also how all of our customers

  • advance their objectives, whether they're

  • in higher education or health care

  • or whatever it is they're doing.

  • Thank you.

  • I just want to get to our audience here in a second.

  • I'll be coming for questions from you

  • in just a couple of minutes, so if you have questions

  • and if you want to start lining up, please go ahead

  • and do that.

  • But can you talk a little bit about how

  • you deal with adversity and challenging situations in life,

  • in business?

  • Oh, we never have any challenging situations.

  • I don't know.

  • We just sort of sort through it and say what's the right thing

  • to do here for our customers?

  • We have some principles and some beliefs.

  • I think when you're-- you don't actually learn anything when

  • you're succeeding.

  • I think you learn a lot more when you fail.

  • Very true.

  • And what you don't want to do is have the same failure

  • over and over again and so you want

  • to have little failures where you learn,

  • collect information and then iterate.

  • And if you're in an industry that's changing very rapidly,

  • experience is not necessarily all that helpful,

  • because you can do some pattern recognition

  • and say, oh, I've seen something like this before,

  • but you need to be very creative,

  • and you need to be innovative because there's somebody out

  • there in a dorm room--

  • Might be time to disrupt.

  • --who's going to come at your business.

  • Absolutely.

  • The next Michael Dell, perhaps, might be disrupting.

  • I'm not the only one who started in a dorm room.

  • There are plenty of people started in dorms.

  • Some people had garages.

  • I didn't have a garage.

  • So we'll come back and have a conversation about the company

  • starting in a garage in a minute,

  • but I wanted to make sure, since people are lining up,

  • so we'll go this side first and we'll come here,

  • so go ahead please.

  • Ask your question.

  • Please identify yourself and again, reminder,

  • this is being live streamed and video taped.

  • My name's Matt, I'm a sophomore here,

  • and I'm working on a startup out of my dorm room.

  • There you go.

  • As I'm sure you know, one of the biggest issues

  • is trying to balance time between working on the startup

  • and working in school, so I was wondering

  • for how long you were balancing those two before you committed

  • full time to the business, and what your tricks were

  • for getting stuff done on your startup

  • while also being in school?

  • I don't have any great tricks there,

  • and I could get in a lot of trouble with your parents

  • with my answer.

  • Look, when I started my company, I can tell you it was a 24

  • by 7, 365 endeavour for the first couple of years,

  • and balance wasn't really something I was thinking about,

  • but I was having an enormous amount fun,

  • and adrenalin rush in doing it, so it didn't seem like

  • a problem or an inconvenience.

  • But I started-- our company was incorporated about a week

  • before my final exams of my freshman year,

  • so that wasn't the best approach,

  • but that's what happened.

  • Thank you.

  • Thank you, Matt, for your question.

  • Please.

  • I'm David Porter from University of Rhode Island.

  • Michael, I feel like we've grown up together almost.

  • In the early '90s, I was buying a lot of your PCs and watching

  • your company--

  • Thank you.

  • --spreading into Europe and whatnot.

  • One of the things about Dell as I've watched it over the years,

  • in my mind, you're one of the first

  • to do contract manufacturing, and tell me if this is true

  • or not.

  • I'm kind of curious as to how important it was,

  • but my perception was that you were

  • able to contract manufacture and focus on R and D and marketing.

  • Is that where the company really spent their efforts

  • in the early years, and was that the secret

  • of your success in terms of growth?

  • I'm not sure I would say it was the secret of our success.

  • What I can tell you is that from a supply chain standpoint

  • and industry ecosystem, we kind of looked at the business

  • in every aspect, and we said where

  • are we going to differentiate, and what's valuable,

  • and we don't want to reinvent things that we

  • can get from other people.

  • We want to go fast, we want to be capital light

  • so we're efficient, and so we didn't have a desire

  • to do everything ourselves.

  • So to give an example, when it came time

  • to go from text to graphics in personal computers,

  • the choices were to develop our own graphics chip

  • or to pick among four or five companies that were developing

  • graphics chips and pick the best one,

  • and we concluded that even if we hired whoever we thought

  • were the smartest engineers to develop the chips,

  • the likelihood that they would beat the four or five

  • independent companies every single time was not very high.

  • And so we took a different route than IBM and Compaq

  • at the time.

  • They then later ended up following us,

  • because it turned out we-- and we

  • were sort of forced into it because we

  • didn't have a lot of capital.

  • And so necessity is the mother of invention,

  • and we found a better, more efficient way

  • to do things because we had to, and we

  • had to deliver more value to customers

  • because they didn't necessarily know our name at the time.

  • Thank you for your question.

  • Please.

  • Hi.

  • I'm Jackie, and I'm a grad student

  • in the program in Innovation Management

  • and Entrepreneurship.

  • My question is, what is your two-to-three-year forecast

  • of PC and server sales, and what is the new corporation upgrade

  • cycle looking like?

  • Why I don't have a forecast.

  • What I can tell you is if you look at the PC sector,

  • and we have a little bit of an expansive definition of PCs,

  • we include things like the embedded computers.

  • Increasingly we are putting computers in other things,

  • so if you go get your genome sequenced

  • from life Technologies, there's a Dell inside.

  • If somebody you know goes to a hospital,

  • and they are treated for cancer with a machine from Varian,

  • there's a Dell inside.

  • We have thousands of examples like that

  • where our machines are inside all sorts of other machines.

  • So there are about 1.8 billion PCs and similar-type things

  • in the world.

  • About 600 million of them are more than four years old,

  • and so in some ways our job is to create a machine that's

  • better than the one we sold five years ago, enough to compel

  • the customer to say, you know, this is so light

  • and the screen is so incredible, the resolution, the battery

  • life, the performance, I have to replace this five,

  • six, seven-year-old thing.

  • It's actually not that hard.

  • We've been gaining share in that sector

  • for now 11 quarters in a row.

  • We gained 120 basis points a share

  • in the quarter ended the end of September.

  • And then in servers, every time there

  • are 50 new smartphones minted in the world,

  • a new server pops up, because when you get a smartphone

  • it has nothing on it.

  • Everything that you put in your smartphone comes from a server.

  • Everything you put in your smartphone

  • probably goes back to a server, and as you consume

  • more information, and every time you

  • do anything on the internet, you go to a server.

  • So there are pretty good growth dynamics.

  • Certainly the industry's changing.

  • You have public clouds, you have private clouds being built.

  • There's a massive build out to be

  • able to support all these devices

  • that are being put all over the world,

  • so we're focused on how do we grow faster than the industry?

  • How do we gain share?

  • How do we serve our customers and address the challenges

  • that they have and increasingly learn

  • more about the vertical needs that they

  • have in their industry and help them grow and succeed in ways

  • that are important to them?

  • Thank you for the question.

  • Let's go here.

  • Hi, I'm Jason, and I'm an undergrad here at Brown.

  • My question is, do you think there's

  • room left in the tech industry for another behemoth like Dell

  • or Google or Apple to take hold, or is the future-- or is

  • it already set in stone that these big companies are

  • the only ones that can really exist to that level of size?

  • I think the evidence would suggest that there is always

  • room for new ones.

  • If you look-- first of all, the industry

  • is about 3 and 1/2 trillion dollars, as I said.

  • You have some new companies that have popped up

  • in the relatively recent time frame-- Alibaba, Facebook.

  • These are relatively new companies.

  • If you look in the $3.5 trillion,

  • nobody has 10% of the $3.5 trillion.

  • There are about 10 companies that have maybe more than 1%

  • of the $3.5.

  • We have about 2%-- and we'd just like 3% or 4%.

  • So total pie is growing.

  • I think you're going to see all kinds of new companies,

  • and you'll also see companies going away.

  • It's a tumultuous business, it's a change or die business.

  • You have to evolve and keep doing new things.

  • Let's go here.

  • Hi, I'm Angela, and I'm a sophomore here.

  • My question is, what was your biggest challenge in starting

  • and running Dell, and what did you

  • do to overcome that challenge?

  • The biggest challenge-- plenty of challenges,

  • made all kinds of mistakes.

  • I'd say, certainly in the early years,

  • attracting the kind of talent that we

  • needed to grow the business was pretty challenging.

  • I started when I was 19 and didn't really have any capital,

  • so the people who joined me were mercenaries.

  • And they might have been good at a particular thing.

  • The risk was really high, and the rewards

  • were potentially very high, but most people

  • knew about the risk, not the reward,

  • because it didn't look like it was going to be a $60 billion

  • global company.

  • It looked like a 19-year-old kid with $1,000,

  • and so yeah, that was the biggest challenge,

  • but we got through it.

  • As I said, made a lot of mistakes and experimented,

  • failed, and iterated quickly and learned.

  • Thank you.

  • And one thing that did help us is our competitors

  • really didn't understand what we were doing,

  • and they typically underestimated us.

  • That was very helpful.

  • Terrific.

  • Thank you.

  • Please.

  • Can everyone hear me?

  • We can hear you.

  • Sorry, I lost my voice earlier this week.

  • My name is Daniel.

  • I'm a freshman here, and I'd like to know

  • how did your background culture--

  • your Jewish background-- help you run your company?

  • Looking back, how did that help you run your company today?

  • We're you able to hear him?

  • I think the question was, how did my Jewish background help

  • me start the company or run the company from a culture

  • standpoint.

  • Yes.

  • Yeah.

  • Well, that's a-- you know, I usually

  • don't get new questions, because if you've been in a situation

  • where people ask you questions a lot, a lot of times

  • you get the same questions over and over again.

  • No offense to the prior questioners.

  • I've just raised the bar.

  • That's what is unique about Brown.

  • Yeah, that's a new-- I've never had that question before.

  • Not really sure I know the answer, but one thing I know

  • is that I don't take things for granted.

  • I still see myself as a challenger,

  • and I live in fear of failure, and I

  • want to do better, and I want to succeed, and pretty driven.

  • It's also a lot of fun, and I don't have any complaints.

  • I don't have any regrets, because it's gone quite well,

  • and so it's been a fantastic adventure,

  • and I feel like I'm just getting started.

  • But one thing I do know, having travelled all around the world,

  • I was very fortunate to have been born in the United States

  • of America, because as a 19-year-old person it would

  • have been very hard to start the company that I started in many

  • other places in the world that I've traveled to.

  • And I know through your foundation,

  • you're focusing on helping people

  • all over the world to succeed.

  • Yes, and one of things that I did this year and last

  • year was the United Nations asked

  • me to be their global advocate for entrepreneurship,

  • and as I've traveled around the world,

  • I've observed a couple things.

  • One is if you see a lot of young people that are unemployed,

  • bad things are happening, whether it's in an urban area

  • or in some particular part of the world,

  • and something struck me a few years ago.

  • You remember when the young man in Tunisia lit himself on fire?

  • Very, very sad, and he was in a way protesting the government

  • and a kind of underemployment, and he

  • didn't have opportunities.

  • That struck me very strongly, because about 15 years earlier,

  • I was sitting in a conference room

  • with some of my Dell colleagues, and we

  • were getting ready to decide if we were going to put a Dell

  • site in either Morocco or Tunisia,

  • and it was pretty close.

  • It was Morocco, Tunisia, Tunisia, Morocco.

  • We ultimately decided to put the site in Morocco,

  • and it had to do with a few factors

  • that the Moroccan government had done to make it a better place,

  • we thought, to put our site, and a couple years ago

  • I went to our site in Morocco, and it's amazing,

  • it's inspiring.

  • We have tons of young people, and they are learning,

  • they're excited, they are proud, they are soaking up knowledge,

  • and they're very, very happy, and they go back

  • to their families, and they explain

  • that they have a bright future, and they see opportunities.

  • If you have young people that are unemployed,

  • it doesn't matter if you give them a refugee camp,

  • it doesn't matter if you give them a new government,

  • it doesn't matter if you give them a temporary handout,

  • if you don't give them a job, if they don't have the ability

  • to be part of something where they believe

  • they have a bright future, you haven't really

  • addressed the fundamental problem.

  • So if you look at where do jobs come from,

  • actually they don't come from big companies-- 70% to 90%

  • of the jobs come from entrepreneurs,

  • from small businesses, medium-sized growing

  • businesses, and I think in these conflict zones,

  • a lot more thought should be given to how do we create jobs,

  • because if there aren't bright opportunities

  • for those young people, the same problems are

  • going to repeat themselves in some different form.

  • Appreciate that.

  • Your question.

  • Hello, sir.

  • My name is Brandon.

  • I'm a freshman at Brown.

  • I'm just curious on the intersection between technology

  • and government.

  • So many governments are challenged

  • by the way they handle and the way they manage

  • technology in their countries.

  • Some are fearful of it, some have harnessed it better

  • than others but all see it is a challenge, so I'm wondering,

  • what would you see the role of government

  • in managing, handling, or interacting with technology?

  • Well, you're right.

  • I think governments are trying to figure out, first of all,

  • how do they provide citizen facing services where

  • the citizen is used to "click" and something happens versus I

  • have to go stand in a line, fill out a form,

  • press hard four times.

  • What?

  • I don't understand.

  • So governments are trying to figure out how to adopt

  • and, of course, it's a whole lot easier for work and information

  • to flow across borders, so there are big issues for governments

  • to deal with there.

  • And the speed and pace of change of governments, in many cases,

  • has not been great, but they've never been the early adopters.

  • But more and more governments you see being pretty proactive

  • and focusing on, how do we educate our people?

  • How do we create modern cities?

  • How do we leap ahead and make sure

  • that our people, our society is winning in this digital age?

  • There aren't easy answers and just

  • like all legacy or traditional industries are disrupted,

  • governments are being disrupted too, and they have to respond.

  • Thank you for that question.

  • Please.

  • Hi.

  • My name is Ashley Conard.

  • I'm a first-year PhD student in the Computational Biology

  • Track, and I'm also a board member at the Anita Borg

  • Institute.

  • So my question is related to that.

  • What do you think are the next steps that we should be taking

  • as a society and more in tech to integrate more

  • women into technology and to computer science

  • as well as retain them?

  • There's a problem of retention, as you might now, through Dell.

  • It's a big problem worldwide, so what

  • do you think about that topic?

  • Yeah, it's definitely a challenge.

  • I think it's a challenge both in terms

  • of the pipeline of graduates that we

  • see in computer science.

  • At Dell our largest employee resource group is our women's

  • employee resource group, and it's

  • fantastic in terms of-- here's the challenge.

  • Let's say you're a computer scientist,

  • and you join a group at Dell, and you're in a team,

  • and there are no other people that are like you.

  • Well, you might feel like you don't belong,

  • but actually inside Dell there are

  • thousands and tens of thousands of people like you.

  • They just might not be in your group,

  • and so we use employee resource groups as one way to do that.

  • We have all kinds of programs that we've

  • created and supported inside and outside of our company

  • to help diverse communities, certainly including women,

  • in the STEM fields and in the IT sector.

  • Now, one of the things we've done at Dell

  • is I'm on the board of Catalyst, which is an organization that

  • supports the advancement of women in management roles,

  • and we have a program called MARC, which is Men Advocating

  • Real Change, and I think one of things that you realize as you

  • dig into this issue is the issue is not just the women,

  • it's the men, and do the men understand

  • what the challenges are for the women, and how do you

  • create an environment that allows anyone to succeed,

  • everyone to succeed?

  • And so we have been either the first,

  • or one of the first, large companies to really adopt that.

  • I chair our Global Diversity Council at Dell,

  • drive the issues.

  • We're not perfect.

  • There's lots of room for improvement,

  • but it remains a continuing focus and passion

  • to make progress.

  • That was a great question, by the way.

  • I know a lot of you are lined up,

  • but we only have about another four minutes or so,

  • so we'll try to get to as many of you,

  • but if we can't, I apologize in advance.

  • So let's go here.

  • OK.

  • Hello, Mr. Dell.

  • I'm [INAUDIBLE], a grad student in Computer Science,

  • and it's nice to meet you here.

  • I have two simple questions.

  • Firstly that, can you give any advice

  • to a young man like me who wants to be as successful as you?

  • My own answer is to be, first, have

  • a great ambition and, second, hard working as much as you

  • can, and that's what I've done.

  • So I want to listen to your--

  • I would say you need to be fearless.

  • Don't be afraid to fail.

  • If you're not afraid to fail, nothing can stop you.

  • Thanks.

  • Second question is that, what's the most important aspect

  • of you or your personality that makes you different from most

  • other people on earth?

  • Well, I'm not sure I know the answer to that,

  • but I do think curiosity is way underrated.

  • You mean curiosity?

  • Curiosity.

  • Only curiosity?

  • I think it's way underrated.

  • If I had to place my bet on one thing, I'd put it on curiosity.

  • Thanks.

  • Thanks very much.

  • Thank you for your question.

  • Let's go here.

  • I'm Daraj.

  • I'm a freshman who wants to concentrate in CS.

  • My question was about categorization of products.

  • So in the past we used to have smartphones, tablets, PCs,

  • and laptops, but with new announcements from Microsoft

  • about the Surface Book, we've seen

  • a merging of the smartphone with the PC and the PC

  • with the tablet--

  • Right, right.

  • --and Dell also has computers that

  • have touch screen, so I was wondering

  • what you were thinking about the market heading

  • towards more merged products versus discrete ones.

  • I think you're right.

  • Our industry tends to get into the semantics

  • of this is this product or this is this product.

  • If you look at a tablet, a lot of people with a tablet

  • have a keyboard for their tablet.

  • If you have a tablet and a keyboard, that's a notebook,

  • so get over it.

  • And I think smartphone-- it's a PC, but it's really small.

  • It's a smartphone.

  • So I think the ingredients, you're right,

  • they're very, very common.

  • I think there are going to be different form factors.

  • Some of them you'll wear, some you hold in your hand,

  • you put it in your pocket, you carry them around,

  • they're physically mounted.

  • The net of it is that for every human on the planet,

  • there are going to be more than 10 of them

  • and so they're all over the place.

  • And the number of them are multiplying,

  • and as the cost comes down-- technology

  • is kind of like a gas.

  • It expands to fit the space available as the cost comes

  • down, and the uses-- not all the uses are great, and cat videos.

  • I don't know how much that helps the world,

  • but if it doesn't cost anything to have cat videos,

  • you're going to have a lot of them.

  • As the cost of technology comes down, you get way more usage.

  • Let's go here.

  • Thank you.

  • Hi.

  • I'm Cliff Weitzman.

  • I'm a senior studying renewable energy.

  • I run a tech company that I'm going to go work on full time

  • after I graduate.

  • Initially, I was going to ask you

  • about the growth of your company,

  • how you dealt with the new people that were coming

  • into your company and how you adapted,

  • but you brought up a more important topic

  • regarding Tunisia.

  • So there's a lot of unemployment in the world,

  • there's a lot of people who are underemployed,

  • and I feel-- or not I feel-- according to economics,

  • creation of value comes from a combination of labor

  • and of capital, and running Dell,

  • like you said before, you deal with a lot of the capital that

  • really allows the productivity.

  • What are some systems that you see in the world

  • or think should be implemented that could

  • employ as many people as possible

  • and minimize the amount of capital that goes in

  • to maximize the amount of output so we could put more

  • people in productive work, to make people really more

  • satisfied?

  • I think the best thing you could do

  • is help make it easier for people

  • to start new small businesses, and that is by far and away

  • I think the best thing.

  • If you look at these places where

  • there are large numbers of unemployed people,

  • it's pretty hard to start a small business.

  • Now, in many cases there are skills issues.

  • Do they have requisite needed skills?

  • But still, you see big differential outcomes

  • in places that are very close to each other where

  • certain things were done to make it easier,

  • and the results are much better.

  • It's interesting.

  • If you look at China and India, there's

  • been a pretty nice economic result over the last 20 or 30

  • years in those countries, the first and second most populous

  • countries in the world.

  • Imagine if those governments had made it much more

  • difficult to create businesses.

  • You could have a lot of problems.

  • There are big challenges.

  • Some countries export unemployment.

  • They subsidize things.

  • But if I had to bet on one thing,

  • I would bet on making it easier to be an entrepreneur

  • and to start new businesses, and a lot of businesses

  • you don't need tons of capital.

  • So those are generally systematic issues

  • that need to be solved.

  • As an entrepreneur, what are individual things

  • that you can do or individual sectors

  • you would recommend looking into particularly

  • or individual pieces of technology that you think

  • have a lot of potential to allow for that creation of value

  • with a maximum amount of labor?

  • I haven't really thought about it that way.

  • I think you're kind of limited by your imagination there.

  • I tend to understand industries related to technology

  • and really interested in some of the bio-sciences,

  • the intersection with technology.

  • I think those are really interesting areas,

  • but if you look at the number of people doing

  • productive work and the amount of productive work,

  • there's been an enormous rise but not everywhere

  • in the world.

  • And so I still go back to the best job

  • creation engine in the world are small businesses,

  • and so if I were in one of these countries that

  • had high unemployment, I would go out

  • of my way to try to get new businesses started,

  • and some of the countries are doing a reasonable job at that.

  • I think that's really the only way

  • you're going to employ large numbers of people.

  • There are also big issues.

  • Manufacturing is becoming much, much less labor intensive.

  • We can make 10 times more things now

  • with the same number of people that we

  • could have six or seven years ago,

  • so if you think manufacturing is going to consume all the labor,

  • you don't understand what's going on with productivity

  • and technology.

  • And I'm sorry to interrupt, but unfortunately we have literally

  • run out of time, and Michael has a very, very tight schedule,

  • so I apologize.

  • I can't take any of your questions.

  • Very, very sorry about that.

  • I do want to acknowledge our events staff.

  • You guys did amazing things, so thank you for all your help.

  • Ron Dunleavy and your team-- media

  • team-- you guys did an amazing.

  • Thank you for your help.

  • Giovi and your team.

  • Thank you, thank you, and our DPS, Department of Public

  • Safety, and Mark Porter.

  • You guys did amazing things.

  • Thank you so much for all your help.

  • Michael, I can't thank you enough for your assistance

  • in coming here and sharing your wisdom with us.

  • This was wonderful.

  • We do have something small for you

  • to take back so that you'll think of Brown on your way

  • back, so--

  • Thank you--

  • Thank you so much.

  • --very much, Ravi.

  • This was a great honor for me.

  • Thank you so much.

  • Thank you.

  • [APPLAUSE]

Good afternoon.

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