Harbus

Issue date: 10/14/08 Section: News

Michael Dell

Michael Dell is interviewed by Professor David Yoffie in Spangler Auditorium.

Michael Dell rolled into Spangler Auditorium on Thursday October 2 with affability and poise. He has no doubt long since perfected the art of entering a room. Billionaires arguably aren't short on confidence. They are perhaps short on time. The hour-long interview of the famous CEO by Professor David Yoffie was conducted between the hour hand as precisely as an HBS class. With nearly every answer, Mr. Dell managed to elicit laughter from the audience, proving that you do not have to take yourself too seriously just because you're serious about your business.

Early in the interview Mr. Dell was asked to look back. To reflect on the time as Chairman that he had to fire his CEO. Would he have done anything differently? "Sure." After a pregnant pause he told the crowd that for ten years they were growing at 10x, "After some time, even though we were doing well on some metrics - it was time to reflect… big companies don't change instantly. It takes time to move the ship." Professor Yoffie then prodded him further, asking if Dell was guilty of getting caught in the competency trap. "That's very fair. When we were doing much better than our competitors they went back into the cave and came out with a better plan."

The "cave" was evidently a good place for some of those competitors, namely Apple - which was brought up by the interviewer. Professor Yoffie reminded Mr. Dell that ten years ago, the best advice he had to offer Steve Jobs was to close up shop and give money back to the shareholders. Back then, Apple commanded a fraction of Dell's sales. Now their market capitalization is some three times Dell's. "Let's go back to that remark." Unshaken, Mr. Dell tells the audience the story behind the maligned quote. He takes us back to the setting: he was at a symposium for enterprise IT professionals. At the symposium he was asked what he would do if he was the CEO of Apple. "I am not the CEO of Apple (next question)." He was asked again. At that point, he was annoyed. He was asked a third time. At that point, he gave the flip response. Perhaps like the video of Coach Bobby Knight's chair throwing episode, we see evidence of fact out of context. Mr. Dell offered praise for Steve Jobs for the audience's benefit: "Apple has raised the bar in industrial design. The elegant simplicity of thoughtful design."

Continued...

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