Michael Dell biography -
Making PCs affordable and revolutionizing the industry

Michael Dell is one of the youngest men on Fortune's rich list with a net worth of several billion dollars. He was born on February 23, 1965 in Houston, Texas.

He started a company called PC's Limited in his dormitory room while attending the University of Texas in Austin. The business became so successful that he could drop out and go full-time. He was 19 at the time. The company changed its name and became Dell Computer Corporation.

The company also ranks well on Fortune's Most Admired Company list. The company started on this road by bypassing the middleman in selling direct to the customer custom-built computers. This allowed an immediate cost reduction in relation to competitors and Dell moved from a turnover of $6 million to $23.6 billion in only 15 years. Other ideas it used effectively is maintaining no finished-goods inventory, no component inventory and building only to order.

Another reason Dell, Inc. is so well admired is its efficient web presence. It has average online sales of $50 million per day, making it the largest online computer retailer in the world. They are also a Fortune 500 company as are many of their corporate customers.

Dell wrote a book in 1999 entitled Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry that tells the story of the rise of his business and his personal philosophy of business.

How many forty-somethings do you know whose net worth is in the US$ billions?