Quotes from Michael Dell

One of the interesting things about the Dell-EMC combination is that we don't have a lot of overlap.

There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don't like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don't spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.

Don't spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity, that you miss the right opportunity.

Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.

If you want to sustain excellence over a long time, you'd better come up with a system that works well. Anyone can sprint for a little while, but you can't sprint for forty years.

You have to do stuff that you're actually incredibly passionate and excited about and you know something about. The 'oppor-tuneurs' don't do as well as the entrepreneurs.

The whole idea behind virtual integration is that it lets you meet customers' needs faster and more efficiently than any other model. With vertical integration, you can be an efficient producer - as long as the world isn't changing very much.

There are many different kinds of PCs. You have fixed, virtual, tablets, notebooks, ultrabooks, desktops, workstations. What you find in commercial PCs, business PCs, is that there's a really long tail of usage on client devices.

You don't have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.

Each day that you're moving toward your dreams without compromising who you are, you're winning

The very thing you fear could be the best thing to ever happen to you

Ideas are a commodity. Execution of them is not.

Our business is about technology, yes. But it's also about operations and customer relationships.

The interesting thing is when we design and architect a server, we don't design it for Windows or Linux, we design it for both. We don't really care, as long as we're selling the one the customer wants.

Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.

growth covers up a lot of sins.

I don't know why people aren't more curious, and why curiosity isn't considered a more important leadership trait. A journalist once asked me if I was ever bored as a kid. I only had to think about it for a second: I never was, not even for a minute, because I was so curious. Every day I'd wake up excited by all the new things there were to learn about.

If you want to sustain excellence over a long time, you'd better come up with a system that works well. Anyone can sprint for a little while, but you can't sprint for forty years.

Sometimes it's better not to ask-or to listen-when tell you something can't be done. I didn't ask for permission or approval. I just went ahead and did it.

People have often told us that what we wanted to do couldn't be done. Our success is due, in part, to not just an ability but a willingness to look at things differently. I believe opportunity is part instinct and part immersion—in an industry, a subject, or an area of expertise. Dell is proof that people can learn to recognize and take advantage of opportunities that others are convinced don't exist.

It's not enough to hire to fill a job. It's not even enough to hire on the basis of one's talents. You have to hire based upon a candidate's potential to grow and develop.

You have almost no chance to succeed, even in a meritocracy, if you don't have access to good schools or health insurance, cannot afford nutritious meals, fear for your physical safety, or lack broadband connectivity or devices for doing homework or participating in the economy.

The way I describe this when talking with businesspeople is that the domain of technology is no longer in the IT department; the whole company is technology. I'm talking about all companies. If you're trying to make cars or medical devices or any kind of product at all, and you want to have new customers, technology is the fulcrum of progress in everything you're doing.

Real transformations of major tech companies are extremely rare: I think because companies develop a particular capability, and a set of customers, and change is hard. You can't take the stripes off a tiger. If you're born a dog, you don't die a cat.