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Michael Dell
Founder & Chairman, Dell Inc.
Around Thanksgiving of 1983, my parents kind of made me commit that I wasn't going to do this computer business anymore. I was only going to focus on my studies. So that lasted about ten days. It was during that time that I decided that I was going to start a company. So actually, my parents telling me to stop doing it is probably what caused the company to get created. If they hadn't done that it might've just been a hobby. But what I kind of reflected on in those ten days is that I really love this, and it was enormously exciting, tremendously fun. So like any other 18-year-old who wants to do what their parents don't want them to do, you just don't tell them. So that's what I did. I kind of went about the path to start the company without really telling my parents.
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Michael Dell
Founder & Chairman, Dell Inc.
If you look at our story, at any point in the process you could've gone to conventional experts. In fact, I remember -- I won't name the person, 'cause he's still an extremely well-known author of famous business books, teaches at a very prominent university -- I showed up at a conference when the company was three or four years old, and he was sort of critiquing our business. And he said, "Oh, this will never work." And it was a common experience. When we launched our business in the United Kingdom, we had about 22 journalists show up. And it was sort of funny, because about three or four weeks before we launched, we started actually selling. And the thing was just going like crazy. It was just growing so, so fast, which is a good thing, because when we had the launch, about 21 of the 22 journalists said, "Oh, this is a horrible idea. Never work in the U.K. It's a completely American idea. Don't even think about coming here. You should just pack your bags and go home." Lucky for me we'd already started. "Hey guys, love to entertain some more questions but I got to go back to the office, 'cause we're busy taking orders and making computers."
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Michael Dell
Founder & Chairman, Dell Inc.
We had real challenges in how fast can you build factories and how fast can you hire people and put up new buildings. Hyper-growth sounds really fun and exciting, but, I learned the hard way, there is such a thing as growing too fast, where the wheels sort of come off and you have to take a time out and say, "Wait a second here, let's prioritize." I was absolutely to blame. We were going and doing so many things at one time, 'cause we were really excited. We were like, "Okay, we're going to go in this business, we're going to go in that business, we're going to go to this country and this new product and this new service " It was just too much of a good thing. We had to really sort of hone it back.
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Joan Didion
National Book Award
I did see myself as a novelist, even though I was having trouble finishing this first novel. After it was published, it was only read by about ten people, but they happened to be ten people who gave it to ten other people and eventually -- you know, not only was it not a commercial success, it wasn't by any means, I don't think, a success on its own terms. I didn't know how to do it, and it ended up, because I didn't know how to do it -- I wanted to have a shattered narrative, but I didn't have a clue how to do that, and so it was confusing. So the publisher pressed me to straighten out the chronology, so it became just a simple novel with a flashback, which wasn't my intention at all. But anyway, enough people read it so that I was offered a contract for a second novel.
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Sam Donaldson
ABC News Correspondent
I threw everything I owned into a car and I went to New York City, because I just knew that New York was ready for me, and that they would welcome me. "Here he comes! Boy, how great! Where have you been all our lives?" Well, you know the rest of that story. They laughed at me, I couldn't get a job. I went and I made the rounds. I met every news director. I mean, it was awful. And they thought I was awful, or at least not anyone they should pay attention to. But I'd also applied at a station in Washington, D.C. And so, about the time my last dollar was about to leave me, they called me in Washington and they said, "Come on down, we want to take a look at you." And they did, and they hired me.
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Sam Donaldson
ABC News Correspondent
I got to Washington, I got in the news business, then I devoted myself single-handedly, single-mindedly to it. I mean, I lived, and breathed, and ate it. I worked 24 hours a day. That's an overstatement, obviously, but almost. I wasn't married then, and I devoted myself to it. And I tell people today, if you're going to succeed, yes, you have to prepare yourself. You have to have some background, you have to have some education, you have to have those kinds of obvious things without which, even though you have drive and ambition, you can't really get far, because the playing field will not be level for you. But once you have those things, the way to succeed is just do it the way the old Horatio Alger says it. You have to work harder than the next person. You have to take the dirty jobs. You have to work for less money than you can live on, or certainly than you want, and certainly than you think you're worth. You have to work on the weekends, you have to work nights, you have to get up at 2 o'clock in the morning. You have to skip your birthday, your anniversary, the kid's birthday.
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