Do you just call people and say and ask them about themselves? I guess this was like at that time people were perfectly happy to tell strangers personal details, right?

Yeah, and so I observed this, and what I figured out is that in Texas, when you, as this is true in many states, when you want to get a marriage license, you have to go to the county courthouse.

It turns out this is public information.

Right.

And among the information that you give to the county court... is the address that you want the license sent to.

So with this information, I devised a direct mail program where I sent letters to all of the people that had applied for marriage licenses in a 16-county area surrounding Harris County, which is where Houston, Texas is.

And I hired a bunch of my high school pals, you know, To go out to all these county courthouses and type the names into small Apple II computers.

Like the late 80s, what did you have in mind for the future? What were your ambitions for the company?

You're transferring these lessons now because companies are coming to you and saying, we want our own AI, which means we have to have our own AI infrastructure, right?

Yeah, companies want control of their data, their economics, their kind of privacy, their security.

So let's say you have 100 factories, you're a manufacturer.

you actually want to have the AI inside each factory, doing inference to help you be very effective.

And so, yes, we're building these out.

It took us eight quarters to have 3,200 customers building these Dell AI factories.

And in the last three quarters, we've added 3,300 customers.

Do you ever think of it in those terms where it's like we're going to give people ownership of this thing that could be disruptive and that is kind of a bridge to a future in which we maybe have fewer jobs or our economy is structured differently?

On the other, the likes of a Bill Gates who says, "This technology is the most dangerous thing the world's ever seen, and it needs to be safeguarded in a way that doesn't exist now." Where is Michael Dell in that debate?

You know, I think we've always had technology that can do great things and maybe do some not so great things, you know? So, you know, fire can heat your home.

It can also burn down your whole village, so that's not good.

So we have to have safeguards and controls.

I think the companies that are making the models are thinking about this quite a lot.

They're thinking about how they work together.

I think there's a role for government to play there.

Yeah.

[laughs]

You know? And, and, and like I said, nothing wrong with that, it's just, you know, s- that's the beauty of ham radio and podcasting.

You have niches in, within the genre.

You know, there's podcasts that are just strictly, you know, reading from a script, and there's podcasts that are, you know, morning zoo show.

There's, there's all the different genres in, in, and in ham radio there's different modes, there's different frequencies, there's different types of things people like to do.

There's contesters out there, they wanna see how many people they can talk to in 24 hours.

Or, you know, there's other things like, you know, packet radio, which is how I really got started.

Yeah.

How did this upbringing shape your ambition in that great household? Yeah,

I can't claim to have had a difficult childhood.

You know, my parents were, you know, intellectual and and and, you know, as you said, my father was an orthodontist.

My mother was kind of the financial brains of the operation.

And she Became a stockbroker as we got a little bit older and could sort of take care of ourselves as kids.

And we didn't really talk about sports at our house.

My parents were talking about economics and the price of oil in the 70s and the stock market and sort of what was going on in the world.

Can you talk, given the stuff you talked about on data, and I've looked at this program, I've spent time with Brad talking about it, What's your ambition? And frankly, from my standpoint, do you think this is a precursor for sort of more directed philanthropy on specific areas where you know you can see an outcome? What was your philosophy behind this fantastic program?

What do you think of the Adam Accords', uh, idea of cutting in the app developers on the ad spend if they deliver first party data?

data?Yeah, you know, you're, they're giving data.

They should get something in return for it.

But, uh, on the other hand, how much data do you actually need? Uh, you know, if I do an ad on somebody's podcast, I'm gonna measure it by how much did I sell because of that ad, not how many people listened to it or skipped over it or ignored it.

[laughs]

So, so, uh, you know, uh, Brendan reached out to me first, but I was real close to reaching out to him, and we said, "Hey, let's do a deal." So now as a, you know, if you're a hosting customer at Blueberry, you have a choice.

You can use PowerPress and do a WordPress site, or you can do, uh, a Podpage, and you get that, you know, get the free basic, uh, decent-looking page from Podpage just by having a Blueberry hosting account.

What is it that those new clients, 5,000 total, are actually building now different to one year ago? I think that's probably a good place to start.

I think the change we see is it's kind of moved from testing and evaluating into production, and we showed some great examples on stage, right, with Eli Lilly with 1,000 GPUs.

In the physical world.

It's Samsung, and these are not things that are on the screen, right? This is in the real world with the largest companies in the world, and so it's propagating broadly across all customers in every industry, in every country, and you see the improvement in all the models, and now we have the agenda capabilities, and so while it is exciting, there's been a tremendous amount of growth, I still think it's just the beginning of this wave, particularly when it comes to enterprise, which is really where we have an enormous opportunity.

In this new era, what everyone is trying to work out is aren't all the GPUs locked up at the hyperscalers? How is Michael Dell going to service those 1,000 new clients? with the GPUs to build their own on-prem local AI factory?

Well, the supply chain that Jensen has built, we've built together, is continuing to scale up.

And while it's true that there's more demand than supply, there's more supply that's being added, and customers are figuring out how they start to scale these systems up.

I think what's also happening is companies are understanding that when they reimagine their workflows using this technology, they don't get 10 or 20 or 30% improvement, they get 10 times or 20 times or 100 times, and that is really the speed that matters to make a business successful.

In the physical world.

In Samsung, and th-these are not things that are on the screen, right? This is in the real world with the largest companies in the world.

And so it's propagating broadly across all customers in every industry, in every country.

And, you know, you see the improvement in all the models, and now we have the agentic capabilities.

And so while it is exciting, there's been a tremendous amount of growth, I still think it's just the beginning of this wave, particularly when it comes to enterprise, which is really where, you know, we have an enormous opportunity.

In this new era, what everyone is trying to work out is, aren't all the GPUs locked up at the hyperscalers? How is Michael Dell gonna service those one thousand new clients with the GPUs to build their own on-prem local AI factory?

Well, the supply chain that Jensen has built, we've built together, is continuing to scale up.

And while it's true that there's more demand than supply, there's more supply that's, that's being added and, you know, customers are figuring out how they start to scale these systems up.

What is it that those new clients, 5,000 total, are actually building now different to one year ago? I think that's probably a good place to start.

I think the change we see is it's kind of moved from testing and evaluating into production, and we showed some great examples on stage, right, with Eli Lilly with 1,000 GPUs.

In the physical world.

It's Samsung, and these are not things that are on the screen, right? This is in the real world with the largest companies in the world, and so it's propagating broadly across all customers in every industry, in every country, And, you know, you see the improvement in all the models, and now we have the agentic capabilities.

And so, while it is exciting, there's been a tremendous amount of growth, I still think it's just the beginning of this wave, particularly when it comes to enterprise, which is really where, you know, we have an enormous opportunity.

In this new era, what everyone is trying to work out is aren't all the GPUs locked up at the hyperscalers? How is Michael Dell going to service those 1,000 new clients? with the GPUs to build their own on-prem local AI factory?

Well, the supply chain that Jensen has built and we've built together is continuing to scale up.

And while it's true that there's more demand than supply, there's more supply that's being added.

Maybe you could talk a little bit about the data center boom that's going on in Texas that maybe people aren't paying attention to.

Sure, well, there's obviously been enormous build out of AI infrastructure, and that requires lots of new data centers, lots of power.

Texas has an enormous advantage there relative to other states.

Lot of power, lot of land.

and it's and and you can build stuff right so there's there's been a massive build out particularly in some of the cities in in towns in west texas where there's not a lot of population and so they're not really too opposed to having data centers out in the middle of nowhere where there's land and power and so uh yeah i mean the the the demand for tokens is enormous You know, we've been building these AI data centers, not just here in Texas, but around the world.

And, you know, the growth in that has been tremendous.

You know, we introduced the first H100 server.

Do you think that it's open source? Is it distributed on the edge? Where does the intelligence, where does the inference sit? And how does that really change or kind of re-architect the industry, do you think?

Why Austin? Why Texas? Why does it work here? And is it getting better, or has it just always worked?

You know, I think Texas has had a, uh, you know, low tax, pro-growth, uh, environment for a long time, and pro, you know, sort of progressive business climate.

And, you know, if, if you sort of look at the, the growth of the Texas economy relative to the rest of the United States without Texas, you know, Texas just kinda looks like a better version of the US economy.

And, uh, you know, you- now you've got, uh, Austin is sort of just about in the top 10 cities in, in the United States.

So you've got, uh...

When that happens, you'll have four of the ten largest cities in America in Texas.

One out of ten children born in the United States born in Texas.

Maybe you could talk a little bit about the data center boom that's going on in Texas that maybe people aren't paying attention to.

But what you've developed is such a powerhouse that I think your stock is outperforming the Big Magnificent Seven.

It has over the last five years, and there's only one stock that's performed better.

We know what that is.

It's NVIDIA.

But, uh, our business is doing really well.

You know, we had a 45% growth in EPS last quarter.

And, you know, last year, $64 billion in AI orders.

Your plan to give how many, how many families $1,000 when the... for their account by S&P?

What are the conclusions you've reached today?

You know, we're seeing...

In government, a number of the projects advance from the pilot phase to production phase.

And certainly, you know, Dario can speak to the ambitious initiatives.

But, you know, we are you know, we have built a platform for innovation.

open, scalable systems to enable all the great sciences occurring in the national labs and beyond.

Certainly, we have a fabulous example in the Doudna cluster that we're beginning to deploy.

What are you seeing right now on particular bottlenecks or where, you know, from a CapEx deployment standpoint, the priority really is?

How actively are you working on this?

Well, we have now hundreds of great companies that have committed to matching the government's contribution when a baby is born.

And this is a fantastic thing because if you get $1,000 from the government, you get $1,000 from the company, you get $2,000 when the baby is zero age.

And by the time they're 18 years old, it compounds in a significant way.

And of course, anybody can add to that account.

And my wife and I made the decision to add to the accounts for the kids that aren't in the government program that are between the ages of two and 10 that live in zip codes where the median income is $150,000 or less, 25 million of those kids to give them a small start in their financial future.

And we know that when, well, first of all, you know, the most important investment that a country can make is in its people and especially its children.

Where do you think we are right now?

Why is this the right act of philanthropy for you?

Well, you know, our foundation has been focused on children since the beginning.

And when this Invest America Act was passed earlier this year, you know, we saw it as a platform for companies and families and communities and philanthropists to contribute to these accounts.

And as you probably know, you know, the government is giving a thousand dollars to every newborn child.

in an account that will essentially go in the S&P 500 and compound over time.

And when the child's 18, it becomes like an IRA.

It could be used for education, to start a business, to start a family, for continued savings, to buy a home.

What do you think about a concern about an AI bubble and this really reaping rewards from a productivity perspective? Or are we in some sort of bubble or circular finance concern for you?

So tell us a little bit more, Michael, about how this is going to work.

Sure.

So as you probably know, the government is going to set up this program that was put in place by the Invest America Act that was passed on July 4th earlier this year.

And every newborn will get $1,000 starting for kids born in 2025 and going through to 2028.

And hopefully the government will continue with that.

What my wife and I have decided to do is for the kids that are under 10 years old that are not included in the government program, so the sort of two to 10 year olds that live in zip codes where the median income is less than $150,000, we'll be giving 25 million of those kids $250 to start their Invest America accounts.

And of course, these accounts can be used When the child turns 18, it becomes like an IRA.

And I do wonder if part of your after here is to win the hearts and minds of young Americans in favor of capitalism.

And I'd like to have you come up and say a couple of words and tell us what you have in mind, because what you have in mind is good.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

It's a great honor to be with you here in the White House.

The greatest investment that we could possibly make is in children, and we've been investing in children for... over 26 years with our foundation.

But if you don't do it, you go out of business.

Yeah, exactly.

So when ChatGPT came out in November of 22, or so looking at this and going, wow, this is a big deal.

This is pretty interesting.

And you started to see the rate of improvement in the LLMs.

And in technology, you can sort of look at the rate of improvement in the learning curve, and you can sort of plot, well, where's this thing going? Where's it going to be in a year or two years or three years? And you look at, OK, we're going to have agents and multi-agent systems.

And we're going to be able to reason over incredible amounts of information.

Can you explain how you stumbled upon the negative cash conversion cycle and why that was so powerful?

But if you don't do it, you go out of business.

Yeah, exactly.

So when ChatGPT came out in November of 22, or so looking at this and going, wow, this is a big deal.

This is pretty interesting.

And you started to see the rate of improvement in the LLMs.

And in technology, you can sort of look at the rate of improvement in the learning curve, and you can sort of plot, well, where's this thing going? Where's it going to be in a year or two years or three years? And you look at, OK, we're going to have agents and multi-agent systems.

And we're going to be able to reason over incredible amounts of information.

So can you explain how you stumbled upon the negative cash conversion cycle and why that was so powerful?

(laughs).

... drove this thing, uh, passionately for several years, and it's amazing that it got done.

I do think you'll see many companies provide, uh, matching contributions and, uh, you know, a number of companies have already said they're gonna do that.

Uh, and it'll be like a benefit, you know, come work at our company and- and, uh, have a kid (laughs) and y- your- your- your child will get this.

Uh, and it's just gonna be super easy for anyone to add to those accounts.

I think it's also a chance to teach every child about financial literacy and about, uh, capitalism and free markets, and, uh, you know, look up in 15 or 18 years and you've got 70 million kids with these accounts.

I also think you're gonna have philanthropists, uh, and, uh, Susan and I will- will definitely be a part of that, that we'll say, "Hey, you know, this is a really good way to get money directly to the next generation in a, uh, way that it's going to compound and have a difference in- in their life." Our foundation has studied it, this very carefully and we believe it's worthy of a significant contribution.

Wow.

Like, how did that come about? I mean, you describe in the book, but I'm asking the story.

So, you know, the...

Company through 2010, 2012 was really evolving itself in new ways.

And we were investing heavily in software and services and cloud and data center, all kinds of new capabilities.

And it was expensive, right? We were acquiring companies, we were building R&D.

And as we did that, you know, it, it depressed our earnings.

And we were thinking about the business, you know, a bit longer term, but the shareholders weren't.

And where do you see Dell's role, the company's role, in, let's say, the near future? What technological changes are you starting to have the foresight to think about that your company should be developing in the next phase of technology, whether it's, like you say, broadband all the time, everywhere you go, or there's going to be a lot more AI development employees or efficiencies generated by AI? What do you see as happening with technology in the near future and Dell's role in it?

What does it take to become the key partner of perhaps the most influential figure other than you in technology today?

Well, to be able to deliver the kinds of systems that are being talked about here at GTC, not only is there incredible engineering and a ton of innovation that's on display, but you need supply chains, right? You need services, you need the operational discipline and execution, and you need to be able to take it to all the enterprise customers.

This past year, we delivered the Dell AI factory to over 2,200 customers around the world.

And all of them sort of recognize that there's an opportunity to make their businesses more efficient, to help them grow, to innovate faster.

We added 100 new solutions.

I think we're just getting started.

I think we're in the kind of first a couple of percentages of the S-curve adoption of AI in the enterprise.

The office has to upgrade.