{"id":14535,"date":"2026-08-04T01:12:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T01:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/?p=14535"},"modified":"2026-08-04T01:12:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T01:12:30","slug":"dell-founder-shows-how-a-100-billion-empire-started-42-years-ago-ceo-says-this-one-page-changed-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/?p=14535","title":{"rendered":"Dell founder shows how a $100 billion empire started 42 years ago \u2014  CEO says \u2018This one page changed my life\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-bottom:1em; color:#666; font-size:0.9em;\">\n<strong> Jowi Morales <\/strong><br \/>\n &bull;<br \/>\nAugust 1, 2026\n<\/div>\n<hr\/>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<article>\n<p>Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies Inc., shared his company\u2019s quarterly earnings report dated July 31, 1984, saying, \u201cThis one page changed my life.\u201d The billionaire said on his <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MichaelDell\/status\/2083164920435159425\">X<\/a> post that the numbers on that piece of paper convinced his parents that they didn\u2019t need to go back to college. He started the company in 1984, originally known as PC\u2019s Limited, in his dorm room at the University of Texas at Austin, upgrading PCs and building clones of IBM PCs from stock parts.<\/p>\n<div  class=\"fancy-box\">\n<div class=\"fancy_box-title\">Go deeper with TH Premium: AI and data centers<\/div>\n<div class=\"fancy_box_body\">\n<figure class=\"van-image-figure \"  >\n<div class='image-full-width-wrapper'>\n<div class='image-widthsetter' >\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"Vh4nY3pMCcmra2ymXah9S7\" name=\"Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin\" caption=\"\" alt=\"Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/Vh4nY3pMCcmra2ymXah9S7.jpg\" mos=\"\" link=\"\" align=\"\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"pinterest-pin-exclude\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\"\"><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: Microsoft)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"fancy-box__body-text\">\n<ul>\n<li><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/tech-industry\/photonics-and-high-speed-data-movement-is-the-next-big-ai-bottleneck-following-copper-power-dram-and-nand?utm_source=edit-links&#038;utm_medium=boxout&#038;utm_term=datacenter\" target=\"_blank\">Photonics and high-speed data movement is the next big AI bottleneck<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/pc-components\/cooling\/the-data-center-cooling-state-of-play-2025-liquid-cooling-is-on-the-rise-thermal-density-demands-skyrocket-in-ai-data-centers-and-tsmc-leads-with-direct-to-silicon-solutions?utm_source=edit-links&#038;utm_medium=boxout&#038;utm_term=datacenter\" target=\"_blank\">The data center cooling state of play<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/tech-industry\/artificial-intelligence\/massive-ai-data-center-buildouts-are-squeezing-energy-supplies-new-energy-methods-are-being-explored-as-power-demands-are-set-to-skyrocket?utm_source=edit-links&#038;utm_medium=boxout&#038;utm_term=datacenter\" target=\"_blank\">Massive AI data center buildouts are squeezing energy supplies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/networking\/ultra-ethernet-the-data-center-interconnection-of-tomorrow-detailed?utm_source=edit-links&#038;utm_medium=boxout&#038;utm_term=datacenter\" target=\"_blank\">Ultra Ethernet: The data center interconnection of tomorrow<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>As we see from his X post below, his venture seemed to be successful from the get-go, with Dell selling almost a million dollars\u2019 worth of parts and computers, which resulted in a net income of $134,762.75 for just one quarter \u2014 equal to $433,150.05 in 2026 dollars. This is an achievement for any startup not backed by millions of dollars, much less by a 19-year-old college freshman backed by just $1,000, with the investment returning 13,500% in less than a year.<\/p>\n<p>Dell went public four years after it was founded, but after a quarter of a century of being listed on the stock market, Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners decided to take the company private again in 2013 in a $24.9 billion deal as it struggled with the rise of smartphones and tablets. After five years without mandatory quarterly reports, Dell decided to go public again, and it currently has a market capitalization of around $261.92 billion.<\/p>\n<div class=\"see-more see-more--clipped\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet hawk-ignore\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This one page changed my life.42 years ago today, it convinced my parents I shouldn&#8217;t go back to college.I started by upgrading PCs from a dorm room.Today @Dell is helping build the infrastructure that powers AI, from the edge to some of the world&#8217;s largest AI factories.\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/OF3KTMrBeH<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/2083164920435159425\">July 31, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"see-more__filter\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The fledgling dorm-room startup has turned from a niche supplier of off-brand IBM-compatible computers into a massive tech giant. It owns iconic computer brands like Alienware and XPS, and has also jumped on the AI bandwagon, supplying servers to hyperscalers and data centers. Its latest income statement also lists total net revenue of $43 billion and a net income of $3.4 billion. Dell\u2019s risk in 1984 also paid handsomely for him. He\u2019s currently the fifth richest person on Forbes\u2019 real-time billionaires list, with a net worth of $229.2 billion. <\/p>\n<p>The computer company has also had its fair share of controversies. This includes an SEC investigation into improper accounting practices in 2005, a lawsuit and massive recall related to laptop batteries catching fire in 2007, and a security vulnerability in 2015 that could have exposed customer data to bad actors. Despite all that, the company continues to thrive today and release new products like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/laptops\/dell-xps-13-targets-macbook-neo-with-intels-wildcat-lake-usd699-starting-price-usd599-for-students\">the $699 XPS 13<\/a> and an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/monitors\/gaming-monitors\/alienware-aw3426dw-34-inch-qd-oled-gaming-monitor-review\">affordable OLED gaming monitor in the Alienware AW3426DW<\/a>. Dell has made a significant impact on PCs, laptops, and other systems for gaming, productivity, enterprise, and more.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n<p style=\"margin-top:1.5em;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/tech-industry\/dell-founder-shows-how-a-usd100-billion-empire-started-42-years-ago-ceo-says-this-one-page-changed-my-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read the full article &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jowi Morales &bull; August 1, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-hardware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}