Michael Dell, Founder of Dell — How to Play Nice But Win | The Tim Ferriss Show

Michael Dell walks Tim Ferriss through the high-stakes saga of taking Dell private in 2012-2013, including a tense face-to-face dinner with corporate raider Carl Icahn. He shares his origin story, from selling newspaper subscriptions as a teenager by mining marriage-license records to founding Dell with $1,000. The conversation digs into early failures like the 'Olympics' product and a near-fatal memory-chip supply chain mistake that ultimately forged Dell's just-in-time supply chain expertise. Dell also reflects on being a deep introvert, why he became more comfortable with vulnerability, the power of the direct-to-consumer information advantage, and his belief that failure is a key ingredient of success.

• Dell confronted Carl Icahn face to face at Icahn's home over dinner during the go-private and concluded Icahn had no actual plan for the company.
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• At age 17 Dell made a reported $18,000 selling newspaper subscriptions, using free trials for new residents and county marriage-license records to find prospects.
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• In the late 80s the overly ambitious 'Olympics' product with multiple microprocessors failed, teaching Dell to be more pragmatic and focused in innovation.
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• A memory-chip transition mistake left Dell stuck with the wrong design and nearly put the fledgling company out of business, becoming the basis for its just-in-time supply chain.
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• During the go-private, the board asked Dell, the CEO, not to talk to any members of his own management team for a short period.
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• Dell explains the go-private logic: with the stock depressed, the 'capitalist' in him saw a chance to buy back stock cheaply and accelerate transformation away from the quarterly earnings shot clock.
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• After the biggest tech take-private ever, Dell did the biggest tech merger ever, acquiring EMC and VMware in a roughly $67 billion deal to create the largest cloud IT infrastructure company.
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• Jamie Dimon vouched for Dell's financing at the EMC board meeting, simply saying 'yeah, they have the money' when the board questioned the $67 billion deal.
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• Dell describes Carl Icahn as a famous financier, corporate raider, and greenmailer who never owned any Dell stock yet found a way into the deal.
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• The book's title comes from what Dell's parents told him and his two brothers before playing ball in the street: 'play nice but win.'
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• Dell reveals he was arrested as a young man after accumulating too many traffic tickets while driving fast cars, and was fingerprinted at an Austin police station.
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• Dell describes hitting the wall by growing from $890 million to $2.1 billion in revenue in a single year, when systems, processes, people, and capital were not ready.
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• Dell, a self-described deep introvert, recharges through sleep, exercise, and long walks in the woods, and says his on-stage persona is 'all an act.'
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• Dell explains the tracking stock created in the EMC/VMware deal tracked a portion of EMC's 81% interest in VMware but traded at a substantial discount to the underlying shares.
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• Dell calls the $1,000 he invested to start the company his all-time best investment.
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• Dell's mother got him a speech coach in second or third grade for a bad stuttering problem, which resolved after about six months.
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• Dell argues you learn far more from your customers than from competition, which can set the wrong benchmarks if it isn't very good.
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• Dell hopes readers take more risk, believing much human potential is left unrealized because people are afraid to fail.
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