Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, has this advice for young people and engineers who look up to him: Parents aren’t always right, but they aren’t always wrong either. He added that people’s “mileage may vary depending on their parents.”
Dell, 59, shared this advice on a recent episode of his podcast “In Good Company.” Dell currently ranks 13th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and is valued at $115 billion. In the podcast, he mentioned that his parents wanted him to become a doctor and said they always urged him to put aside his passion for building computers. But he didn’t take their advice and followed his heart, which ultimately led him to found a company with $88 billion in revenue.
Despite her distaste for her parents’ wishes, Del recalled that the parenting advice stuck with her. He remembers his mother telling him and his two brothers when they were young to “play well and still win,” which became the guiding principle for his company and the title of his 2021 book. .
Dell also offered some general advice for young people. “Experiment, take risks, fail, find the hard problems, do what’s worthwhile, don’t be afraid. And, you know, be bold.”
While we strongly believe in putting in the time and working hard, we also emphasize the importance of downtime. “I learned a long time ago that the number of hours worked in a day is decreasing,” he said, stressing the importance of a balance between “work, play and relaxation.”
The personal computer pioneer further spoke about the importance of humor in the workplace. “If you can’t laugh, joke, or play pranks on people, you’re doing something wrong, right?” he said. “You have to be able to laugh at yourself.”
