Michael Saul Dell (born February 23, 1965) is an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and author. He is the founder and CEO of Dell Inc., one of the world’s leading sellers of personal computers. As of August 2016, he was ranked the 41st richest person in the world on the Forbes Billionaires List, with a net worth of $20.1 billion.
In 2011, his 243.35 million shares in Dell Inc. were valued at $3.5 billion, representing a 12% ownership stake. The remainder of his wealth, estimated at approximately $10 billion, was invested in other ventures and is managed by his private investment firm, MSD Capital, named after his initials. On January 5, 2013, it was announced that Michael Dell had made a bid to take Dell Inc. private in a $24.4 billion buyout—the largest management-led buyout since the Great Recession. The company officially went private on October 29, 2013.
Michael Dell was born in Houston, Texas, in 1965 to a Jewish family whose surname is an Anglicized version of the German/Yiddish word “Thal” (meaning “valley” or “dale”). His mother, Lorraine Charlotte (née Langfan), was a stockbroker, and his father, Alexander Dell, was an orthodontist. He attended Herod Elementary School in Houston.
Dell bought his first calculator at age seven. At 15, after experimenting with computers at Radio Shack, he purchased an Apple II, which he promptly dismantled to understand its inner workings. He later attended Memorial High School in Houston, where he spent his summers selling subscriptions to the Houston Post. He noticed that those most likely to buy subscriptions were individuals establishing permanent households, so he focused on this demographic by gathering names from marriage and mortgage applications. Dell earned $18,000 that summer—more than his history teacher’s annual salary.