How Much Was Dell Making at Age 21?

At 21, Michael Dell was already running a company making about $60 million a year. Guy Raz says that was just the beginning for Dell Computers. A college freshman turned a dorm room side hustle into one of the biggest computer makers in the world. While he was supposed to be in college, the dorm room business was already thriving: he bought computers, souped them up with more capability, and resold them. He advertised and bid on state contracts, and he does not really remember how he figured the work out.

Back in the 1980s, before people used the word startup and before founders such as Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, or Katrina Lake, the dorm room story people knew was Michael Dell's. Today the company is enormous, at a scale of billions of dollars. Dell has sold more than 650 million computers since Michael Dell founded it in 1984.

The surprising part is Michael Dell himself. He is not a back-slapping sales guy. He does not come across as particularly charismatic. He is on the quiet side, maybe even a little shy.