hi everybody I'm Nicola tangan and today

I'm here with one of the most incredible Tech entrepreneurs Of All Times who started off in his freshman dorm room and built his company to one of the largest technology companies in the world now

onethird of you will have a PC with his name on Michael D welcome thank

you so much great to be with you

normally Michael I would kind of start with the present but I think when it comes to you we have to go all the way back you know with the beginning

you were very young and you bought an IBM computer and most most people would kind of start to do computer things but you took it apart instead

what did you how did that happen

what did what did you see inside that computer

well you know you can't actually understand things unless you uh take them apart and know how they work

and uh yeah I was very interested in electronics and kind of what was inside right

and you know microprocessors memory chips and disc drives and power supplies and I kind of wanted to understand all this and

so um I was curious and I was interested

and one of the things that I found was that the the parts that were in this uh IBM PC you know was introduced in August of 1981 uh none of the parts were made by IBM

and I was I was upgrading computers

but you were what were you like 15 years old or something

I was 16 years old 16

and how could you how did you buy it I mean did you get some money from your parents or you've made your own money or

well I I I I had when I was 12 I worked in a Chinese restaurant and uh

had a bunch of different jobs I was like you know trading stocks and currency and when I was 14 and um

I got a job at uh at a newspaper not delivering the newspapers selling newspapers

and it just kind of had all the these little businesses right to to make money and it was fun right

when you took it apart the the IBM what where were you were you in your room or living room or

I was I was uh in my parents house you know where I lived in my room yeah

so you you get a screwdriver and you just screw it apart sure yeah

but what and what did you see inside what what was the how what did you learn when you open it

well back then you could actually learn a lot because you didn't have these large chips that we have today that are an amalgamation of lots of small chips yeah

and so you could literally uh get a book that would explain what each chip did and you could understand the circuits

and as I said I was upgrading computers to make them do more right you know more memory more storage uh make them go faster right

and so what I found in this IBM personal computer was that none of the parts were made by IBM M

and then I sort of discovered that that the uh cost that they were uh you know the price they were charging for the computer was roughly six times the cost of the parts right

and so it didn't really seem like it was fair to me that that it was that expensive

IBM was the most valuable company in the world at that stage

and you were 16y old

they they were the most valuable company in the world and they were about 80% of the value of the sector you know called technology at the time

so they were more dominant in their sector than any company maybe in any time in history

I mean are there any companies today that are 80% of one sector of the S&P 500

no not even close

so yeah they they were incredibly successful company

what did you think at the time when you did you have any longer term plans so was this uh uh what do you think

well when you're 16 years old you don't you don't have long-term plans right

and I didn't I I I I I was just having fun you know with computers and upgrading them and you know went through High School sort of doing that

and I was programming computers and I was tutoring other kids on how to use computers and very interested in the idea that the personal computer was very empowering

you know you could program it to do things

and some of the parents of the kids I was tutoring said well you know I'd like a computer can can you help me get one

like sure you I'll get you one I'll set it up for you and and I'll upgrade it for you and I'll you know uh do do all that

and so it kind of became a little bit of a of a business while I was going to high school upgrading these computers

and then um I went off to college I was uh Texas University of Texas I was a biology major

I was supposed to be a doctor

cuz your parents wanted you to study Premed

my parents wanted me to to be a doctor my father's a doctor my brother's a doctor many of my cousins are doctors

and so it was sort of the family business you know be a doctor

and uh strong en encouragement from the parents

so I'm not in in my parents house anymore I'm in the dorm room I've got a lot of time right

you know University of Texas is a big school some of the classes are enormous if if you show up or you don't show up they don't really notice all the time right

so you so you didn't always show up

so I'm kind of doing this computer thing and and it's getting bigger and bigger and um

my parents found out about it they got very upset they kind of made me stop

I stopped for 10 days and uh

and that's when I decided that actually this was something more

so how did it scale how quickly do you did you scale it cuz growth rates in the beginning were tremendous right

so um in early May of 1984 uh I the company was incorporated Del computer Corporation became a corporation uh

and it was about a week or two before my final exams of my freshman year

and so the first year we had $6 million in revenue and uh

the second year was about uh 33 million

and we we grew about 80% per year for the first eight years compounded

and then for the six years after that we grew about 60% per year

so you know if you put any number in there and you do that kind of compounding all of a sudden you've got tens of billions of dollars

and and so that's what happened

we we started um originally making upgrade kits for the IBM computers then designing our own computers and then uh expanding

geographically we expanded from desktop computers into notebook computers then into servers and storage and services and here we are today 40 years

how much how much did you work uh

what does it take all the time

I mean what else is there to do I mean if you're starting I mean uh

yeah when when you when you start a company and you're 19 years old that's all you do is you work it's fun it's your life right yeah

so so what is the entrepreneurial mindset what is it what is it that makes some people do these kind of things they're not many of them they're not many of you what do you think it is

for me it was curiosity and and just interest in technology

and uh the possibility that these machines you know could could enable people to do things

and I was interested in in business and also I saw that that uh you know wow when when people get these machines you know they can do amazing things with them and the technology is improving so much

and uh you know always looking to find a better way to do it you know can we can we beat the other guys right

can we can we can we build a machine that is more has more performance than our competitors

can we offer better value to our customers and you know grow grow the business and ultimately grow the impact of what we're able to do with with technology

why do you think there are more entrepreneurs in America than elsewhere

I think there's something in the in the culture that you know is is accepting uh risk even embracing risk in a good way right

um that says well okay if you try something and it doesn't quite work and you fail it's okay try something else right

and maybe that that is not as accepted everywhere

I think there's you know a combination of factors right it's this risk acceptance It's Capital that will invest behind that

there's a history of other entrepreneurs that you can look to that I look to and others look to and said well yeah they did it so maybe I could do it

did you think it would risk at the time did you did you have a hair no no

so if you have nothing nothing to lose right so uh

it didn't see like a big risk

I mean the risk for me was if it didn't work I go back to college so not that big of a risk

now obviously you know as the business grow grows you're like wow now I've got you know hundreds of people working for me I'm responsible for them

you know some of them have families and they have kids

and so every night when you sort of put your head down on the pillow you're thinking I've got a big responsibility now I better not screw this up right all these people are depending on me

but I think there's also a lot of opportunity that is unrealized because people aren't uh maybe as willing to take risks

but I never really thought about it as oh I'm taking this massive risk you

know you also uh changed the way uh people thought about supply chain

how was your thinking differently than what was normally at the time

so you know we um started the business as a a as a selling directly to the customer right

and you know when I say that there's a there's generally a perception that the customer is an individual consumer

it's true we sell to Consumers but actually the vast majority of our business has always been even from the beginning businesses uh governments institutions you know of all sizes large and small

and so we we had this direct model that's how that's how the company started

and uh if you contrast that to others where you had let's say retail stores and a and a series of people that were kind of in the middle between the manufacturer and the ultimate customer you have you know this kind of classical system of guessing what the demand is going to be and then putting inventory in these various locations

and so uh something interesting occurred with with uh the the the personal computer and still very much the case in this industry and many others there's always new technology right and the cost of the material is generally coming down yeah

and so if one company has you know let's say 90 days of collective inventory in its various stages going from the manufacturer to the ultimate customer and another company has let's say 5 days of inventory between the manufacturer and the customer and the material costs are coming down like this there's only one company that's going to win yeah right

because it has a structural cost Advantage

so that's what we had

it also had an way better return on Capital right because we didn't have to have all the capital employed there

so um how did we come about this

well one way we came about it is we didn't have any capital right

so so we had to invent something that was way more efficient

and we had this direct to the customer model which also gave us incredible Fidelity in the signal of the demand yeah right

because you know if somebody walks into a store well you have to have guessed before what it is they're going to buy

but if somebody calls us on the phone or now you know we have the internet right they go online they buy something we know exactly what they want right

because they're tell us yeah

and that signal can go back to our supplier you know in a nanc

and so you get this very efficient supply chain that you know is also very efficient in in in capital return

you mentioned it was important to have a role models and of course uh some people have football players and baseball players as their role models

I believe you more had people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and so on uh how important is that

yeah well and and you met Steve Jobs when you were very young I did

and and you know you had you had uh you know people like Fred Smith who started FedEx and Charles Schwab and others

you know you could see entrepreneurs that were out there you know starting businesses you like that's pretty cool right what what what what they're doing

and um you know it it was never like I want to be exactly like that it's like well what can I learn from that

they did something really cool and interesting and yeah I think it's I think it's important to have those examp

it's interesting because um when I prepared for this I spoke to a lot of people who know you and and they all say you know what Michael Dell he's like a he's like a real businessman he loves business

I mean there are few like dieh hard businessmen and if it hadn't been computers it would have been something else

just why do you love business

I think I think it's fun be because you know uh it's it's an interesting puzzle right to to solve right

it's like why do certain businesses grow and succeed why do other fail

you know how do you position how do you create the right products how do you align the the people and the teams you know to to to drive success and ultimately progress in the world

my view is generally not from the government it's from it's from the private sector it's from individuals and businesses that are propelling uh Innovations and driving driving forward

and so you know to be a to be a part of that in the technology sector in the most exciting time in the world I don't know anything that would be more fun and interesting than that

just off the year 2000 you became the biggest brand in the world

did you celebrate that I mean are you are you a believer in celebration

you know we kind of have this uh phrase you know celebrate for a nanc

so we not we do some celebrations but not too big into that

we we mostly think about where are we going in the future how do we continue to grow and expand and provide more to our customers

and you know we're in a business where it's always changing there's always something new coming

what's been the biggest surprise for you in terms of Technology development so when you go back what has been like wow this is I never expected this to happen

it kind of happens in a bit a slow motion so it's not all that surprising um

I think certainly you know in the last two or three years the tremendous uh progress in in Ai and particularly large language models and the speed at which that's happened and how it's been diffused you know into open source and you know is I think really a revolution in a lot of areas

I was surprised by it um in in in the instant that that it started to to happen as I think a lot of people were

what is your take on the current state of AI development

I think we're in the the the first 10% of the scurve you know and uh

most of the uh world has not really figured out how to use all these tools although we have access you know very broadly

the tools that we have are pretty amazing but they're the worst they'll ever be right

they're going to get way way better in 5 years

and most of the data that exists in the world hasn't even been touched as it relates to uh these kinds of tools

and and and and there will also be compounding improvements that layer on top of the existing improvements

and yeah I think it's a it's a it's a revolution in terms of the productivity and efficiency that it unlocks inside existing businesses

more than that I think it's an opportunity for growth and for reimagining how a lot of things are done in the world that ultimately will uh Propel you know Humanity forward

so when you look at because you have insights into a lot of the Enterprises and what what are the most exciting uh changes and developments you're seeing there

I think we're I think we're still very much at the beginning of this

and what's happening is businesses Enterprises are realizing that they can fundamentally rethink a number of their processes and ultimately become much better at the things that are important to them

and uh automate a lot of things that are wrote or not as interesting you know for for humans to do

and you know we had this sort of uh shumer creative Destruction for a long time right

where some new technology or model comes along and and it you know replaces old ones

this is just that but turbocharged to an extreme

but is it slower than you had expected

is the uptake from normal companies slower

it doesn't feel very slow to to from from where I see it

because people people are slow when it comes to changing the way they work right

there there's definitely there's definitely a cultural element there right

you you have to you have to want to change and you have to have a culture that Embraces change

and that's not always the case in all organizations

but I think what's generally happening is you know you have again a kind of s-curve adoption where you have some early leaders in just about every industry that kind of say wow you know we can have 10 or 20% productivity Improvement not it's not very hard to get that

and there have been sightings of 30% or 40% we better go do that right and

if one firm does that and another firm in the same industry hears about that like well maybe we better do that too

if they don't you'll see firms more quickly separating themselves succeeding faster or failing faster which has generally been a trend for a long time right

the the pace of business cycle been been speeding up and

so uh I think we're I think we're starting to see that

and there there are tons of use cases that are obvious from software development you know enhancing the the the productivity of software developers making the code actually better

Sam Sam Oldman told us that we should improve over productivity by 20% so that's the target we have

well there you go

I and I think that is a completely reasonable Target that's not a crazy Target at all given the tools that are out there now

I think it's it's easier for larger firms than smaller firms because there are way more people involved in the processes that go on inside larger firms yeah right

but they also have you know cultural inertia and you know things that can get in the way

but you know this is this is why leaders differentiate they're able to make changes that Propel organizations forward yeah

talking about tools who do you think will um will win the hardware race the chip race

clearly we we have one company you know Nvidia that has uh got an incredible early lead right

and and they're they're they're they're in a great position

uh lots of companies have entered the space

I don't think of it as as uh as you know one company wins everything

so you know first of all AI itself will occur anywhere where there is data right

so on your PC on your phone in your car every thing in the world is becoming more intelligent and more connected you know and is generating data

and so the AI is going to go to where the where the data is

and you know some of it will occur in big training you know data centers like the kind we're building and and uh you know talking about but most of it will actually occur in the real physical world

so I think there will be many companies that that succeed in in that space

certainly we have been you know probably the leading company in the world now building these large AI uh server farms for uh training and inference to to fuel these AI engines

some people think that uh eventually uh compute will be free

you think computer will be free eventually

sure you can have a free computer just doesn't do very much right

if you want the latest one that cost a little more than free right um

but I mean the cost you know of of a given unit of computing certainly is ASM totically approaching zero for sure

it's just that what you want to do that's interesting and valuable uses more computing power

moving into uh consumer PCS

so um a third of your income is from commercial PC um like the one I have on at my desk

what are the important Innovations taking place here now they look a bit like they don't change that much right

I mean they look a bit like the one I had last year and last year yeah

this is kind of the deceptive thing right

because if I said here's a PC right well you could have a PC from 40 years ago or 30 years ago you know 10 years ago still a PC right

well actually what the PC does is very very different than it used to do

and so we keep asking to do more and more things right

now the big thing that's that's you know going in the PC is AI

and you know we used to have the the CPU right then we had the GPU now we have something called the npu a neural processing unit

and it is a part of the processor that speeds up the AI activities that occur on the PC to an incredible degree

and pretty much all the soft software that you're using is being Rewritten so that anytime there's a prompt uh or some you know user interaction that is that experience is enhanced and made better using Ai

and most of that AI maybe 85 90% of it will run locally on your PC

and so we talk about the AI PC

and there are 1.5 billion PCS in the world rough and about 750 million of them are more than four years old

obviously they're not going to be able to do this even the ones from last year don't really do it

so all the new ones have these npu the this this ability to enhance AI software on them

and that's probably the biggest thing that's going on in addition to you know longer battery life

we have you know more than 24hour battery life you know super super bright dis super thin super light very secure

you know all the things that you'd want in a in a in a new machine to replace the one that's that's several years old

there's so we will continue to buy new ones basically yeah

I mean if you want to be in the in the future right you

we sell a product in in in the PC which is actually not our main business by by profits right uh that would be the cloud and the data center um

we sell a product that is a fine life Appliance okay

what that means is that when we create a new one that is significantly better than the old one you'll want to replace it

uh now if we don't create one that's that much better then you won't want to replace it so that's our job is to make it so compelling that you don't want your old one anymore

now moving on to um uh uh to the company so in you were listed on a so exchange for 25 years and then in 2013 you took Del private to get off the stock exchange correct

why why did you do that so

um you know around 2010 we started uh evolving the company in uh into new areas and we were making Acquisitions and we were building uh you know cloud data center networking storage capability

and kind of the more we did that the less the market liked it

at the same time something else was going on you had the the smartphone and the tablet right were sort of On The Rise

and so a lot of people looked at the smartphone and the tablet they said well that that's the new thing we don't need the PC anymore because we have we have these other things

and Dell even though it has all these other businesses it's kind of a PC company so the PC's dead so therefore Dell's dead right

so so the stock kept going down we're buying back the stock at one point the stock is like really low

and I'm thinking this is kind of crazy I this company's generating lots of free cash flow billions of dollars of free cash flow every year

it had generated $150 billion dollar of cash flow in in its lifetime

let's just do a huge buyback let's buy back all the shares okay and and and we'll accelerate the transformation of the company uh faster because we won't be thinking about the quarterly you know uh uh you know gyration

we'll be thinking more about the fiveyear and the 10year outcome so that's what we did

but you also bought so when it was Private you also bought EMC very big deal yeah

we so so when we when we when we took SP like 67 billion right

so biggest technology acquisition correct the world had ever seen right

so when when when we took Del private it was the largest take private ever in technology yeah

and then a private company uh bought a$ 67 billion public company and took it private too which was kind of fun

and um that significantly accelerated our transformation

now we kind of became uh like a public company then because we had a tracking stock associated with emc's ownership in VMware

and uh and then ultimately we we became a fully public company again at the end of 2018

so it's the most profitable private deal ever

I think that's what I'm told it it's worked it's worked out well could have been a lot worse but it worked out well

so you characterize it as as fun still

did you have any fear uh when you were doing that or not really

a little bit a little bit you know there there were certainly uh periods where there was uncertainty right

like okay how's all this going to work right

you know we're uh this is a fairly big company we're we're buying and combining with our company

and and you had some activist investors who didn't make life easier for you

we did we did yeah um

so there was there was there were definitely some moments but we worked through through all that

had a lot of great people helping me and you know we we had a we had a theory about how it would work

and uh it actually turned out better than we thought in in almost all areas not not everyone

and we were able to create you know a a much broader set of capabilities for customers that customers thought you know was very attractive

what was the one thing that went particularly much better than you had expected

well we we we we believe that if we went to our large Enterprise customers and we said well you know in the past you you would buy the servers from Dell and you would buy the storage from EMC and you would buy you know some software here and You' put all this stuff together

and that if we said well hey you know we're number one in all these areas including commercial PCS would you rather have fewer suppliers than more that they would like that

and we didn't really need heroic assumptions uh for for the the you know the combination with EMC to work

and so we didn't really have heroic assumptions but it turned out that it worked even better than we thought

and so there was you know $20 billion in organic Revenue growth uh in the first several years

and uh customers really liked what we were doing so we you know cranked up the Innovation engine we kept applying you know uh new capabilities and uh customers liked it

well congratulations it's incredible what are the positiv was a lot of fun still is yeah

I know I can see that

what um what are the positives and negatives of being a private being a public company are you having a stock market listing

you know I think I think you you could do it either way uh honestly

you know back in 2012 2013 we had kind of gotten ourselves into a into a bad situation really where we were overly short-term focused

and so you know going private was a was a great reset for us

and it allowed us to kind of reignite the entrepreneurial culture and reset the time Horizon to a longer one

and we've been able to maintain that you know even as we've come public again um

and so yeah I mean everybody understands the the kind of pluses and minuses um

but you know for us th those were those were the main things

and and you know how do you maintain a longer term orientation you know even as you're a public company

and you you you mentioned resetting Cora culture

what is the Cora culture at Dell how would you describe it

it's winning it's it's it's it's delivering value for our customers

it is understanding their requirements and solving them

it is uh a results orientation um

it is uh play nice but win yeah

so kind of brings brings us to the book you you wrote there yes play nice but win

what what what does it mean

it means that you know we we can be fair and ethical and honest in our approach and also win um

and um you know it's just it's something I learned from from my parents from my mother specifically um that she taught me and my my two brothers when we were when we were little kids

and kind of stuck with me and uh it's kind of uh in the book I talk a lot more about the less it's a great book

I I love the book thank you

I had a lot of fun writing the book too I did that during during Co

but what's the key to winning I mean how do you win in this industry

it's a complicated uh mixture of things right

it's part strategy it's part uh engaging and understanding you know new customer requirements

I mean at one level what we do is we solve problems that customers have that are valuable and important to them now and in the future

and if we do that successfully they give us more business and we grow and we Thrive as a as a business

and if we don't we you know we're gone right just the way it works

and so our job is to listen with big ears and understand the customer requirements what are those challenges are uh now there's more to it than that right

we have to also understand and what are the molecular ingredients of technology that are coming around the corner uh and all the Innovations in science that are going to enable uh the the new capabilities that that can be built in software hardware and everything else

and so how do you have the biggest impact on the company now

I spend my time on on strategy on uh products on customers on you know de developing uh our our team and and our leaders um

you know and and certainly a big part of strategy is where are we going to focus our our resources

and uh what is our path to continuing to win and create value

when you speak to other CEOs do you see a difference between the founders the people who have founded and St CEOs and other CEOs

not always um but certainly you know it is personal right

when you when you found when you found a company and you it's been your life's work right

and you you've been doing doing it uh for all of your adult conscious life

uh yeah I think there's something different there

but but I I've seen plenty of non-founders who who are also incredibly passionate about what they're doing

uh so I don't think there's a hard and fast rule about that

do people dare to disagree with you

well if they don't disagree with me then I get very worried right

and so you know we we we we we try to create an environment that we make sure uh that we have active debate and discussion

first of all I don't try to make all the decisions myself that would be disastrous would slow the company down

but to your point you need you need a a team that's able to have a a rigorous debate

and you know I mean I'm often very uh unsure about a lot of things right

because things are moving around all the time things are changing and

so you know we we often have this notion of uh okay we've got an idea and a belief but they could change right

new information new data new facts uh something different happened we change our mind

so uh this friend of mine he went to a conference at a hotel in uh in Texas and there was his notepad on the table and you there's a quote from you at the bottom of the notepad and it says try never to be the smartest person in the room and if you are I suggest you invite smarter people or find a different room

yeah I mean you you you want to surround yourself with really smart people that that can help Propel whatever it is you're doing forward

and uh I I believe that

and what is it that keep you hungry now I mean you are you you have this incredbly successful company you're one of the richest people in the world just what makes you excited

you know uh we just we you know last week was the superc Computing 24 show right

we showed off this rack where we can put 50 trillion transistors in one rack okay

and if you if you step back and you think about that amount of computing power and what can be done in uh drug Discovery as it relates to cancer or in solving all the unsolved problems in the world uh that is what excites me

what excites me is the impact that technology has on the world in a in a very positive way

and what is it that keep you hungry now I mean you are you you have this incredbly successful company you're one of the richest people in the world just what makes you excited

you know uh we just we you know last week was the superc Computing 24 show right

we showed off this rack where we can put 50 trillion transistors in one rack okay

and if you if you step back and you think about that amount of computing power and what can be done in uh drug Discovery as it relates to cancer or in solving all the unsolved problems in the world uh that is what excites me

what excites me is the impact that technology has on the world in a in a very positive way

and that's what we do

any particular areas you excited about I mean I know your philanthropy for instance goes into health education yeah

definitely I definitely I think health is is an area where technology has yet to make the impact that it could

and we're starting to see some signs that you know it it can have an enormous impact in in the next decade or so

and uh you know that's incredibly exciting

I think education you know this idea of an infinitely patient tutor that can help you know a student learn exactly the thing that they need to learn to to advance

and ultimately you know technology has always been about enabling human potential

and the last you know uh 40 years have been incredibly exciting but I think it's just a pregame show

I think we're we're just getting to the the more interesting part where technology is is going to have a much bigger role in progressing the world forward

and so you know we're not doing everything there's a lot of we have to work with a lot of other companies to make all this happen

but to be a part of that is incredibly exciting fascinating interesting and fun at the same time

as you have done uh built the technology company you also have built MSD Capital which is well which was in a way a family office but has become much bigger right

um and one of the most successful investment boutiques on Wall Street

you hire Greg lmow from Goldman is a an extremely accomplished investment bankers

you merged it with uh BDT and other a very strong firm how do you see this going forward

MSD BDT right so you know it really started out as investing you know for our foundation and for our family

and then you know I had a bunch of friends that said well you know hey looks like you're uh doing this pretty well can we come and take a look sure yeah come and take a look

and then and they said we want to build the same thing you know okay fine great go build the same thing

and uh they came back a couple years later and said well we we tried it's it's hard

uh can we invest with you said no no we don't want to do that

uh they came back a you know few times and a couple years later we said okay fine

so so we we sort of set up a firm to help other Founders usually and some some families

and uh and then merging with BDT now we have something much greater which essentially provides you know aligned advice and aligned capital and uh aligned investment Solutions uh not just for our family but for lots of families

and and um as I said I love business I love investing it's all very interesting and fun

what what is your role in this

I am mostly still running Delta Technologies as the chairman CEO uh

but I'm you know chairman of The Advisory Board of the firm and I help the firm you know in areas where I you know maybe know a little bit more than than some other areas

and you know Greg and Byron Trot are doing a great job leading the firm they don't really need my help that much

but you know I'll pitch in from time to time when I when I can help you

mentioned uh fun uh a few times and clearly you are more fun than most cosos that's uh that's a very that's very clear

what what place does humor play in your company

I think Humber is is very important yeah

I mean if you can't laugh joke around uh play tricks on people you know you're doing it wrong right

so you you have you have to be able to laugh at yourself and you know and uh and humor is incredibly important

do you look for it when you hire do you hire fun people are people in in Dell more fun than than anywhere else

I don't know about that um um me personally I have not spent a lot of time in recent years um hiring from the outside

most of the the work that I've done in the company has been developing and training the next generation of leaders inside the company

yeah I'm spending time developing uh our team figuring out you know who who who who speaks up right

who has a different perspective who can see around corners and who has new interesting ideas and who's not afraid to challenge the way we did it before

uh those are the people that I want to have more responsibility

how' you relax uh

well I learned a long time ago that there's a diminishing return to the number of hours worked in any given day right

and if you're going to do something for a long time you better find the right sort of you know balance it's maybe not exactly the right word but but uh what's the right mixture right of working and playing and relaxing

I go to sleep pretty early you know like when when do you go uh like 8:30 9:00

I get up I you know like to work out exercise

when did you get up four something maybe five something

and you work out every day yeah pretty much yeah

so you go to gym at home yeah

you won't find me at the night cap um I'll be asleep

do barbecue you fromat you were from Texas I would have expected you to be a big barbecue

I I I eat barbecue um I believe in the theory of labor specialization so I personally am not cooking a lot of barbecue but I definitely eating barbecue

and what's your favorite cut uh

well in in Austin we have a a great place called Terry blacks and they have these incredible ribs that are just amazing so I recommend that um

when did you get up four something maybe five something

and you work out every day yeah pretty much yeah

so you go to gym at home yeah

you won't find me at the night cap um I'll be asleep

do barbecue you fromat you were from Texas I would have expected you to be a big barbecue

I I I eat barbecue um I believe in the theory of labor specialization so I personally am not cooking a lot of barbecue but I definitely eating barbecue

and what's your favorite cut uh

well in in Austin we have a a great place called Terry blacks and they have these incredible ribs that are just amazing so I recommend that um

now we got a TENS of of thousands of young people listening to this

what is your advice to young people uh

experiment take risks fail find difficult problems do something valuable Don't Be Afraid uh and uh you know be be bold and don't listen to your parents because if you had you wouldn't have been there today

well yeah your your your parents aren't always right uh but they're not always wrong either so um yeah I your mileage may vary on on the parents

well Michael what an incredible journey it's been wonderful to have you on the podcast a big thanks thanks thank you great to be with you

thank you great to be with you