'I was fifteen and riveted': What Steve Jobs said that hooked a young Michael Dell

In 1980, at the age of fifteen, Michael Dell sat in a Houston meeting room and was captivated by a 25-year-old Steve Jobs. Dell, who was four years away from launching his own PC business out of a University of Texas dorm room with a mere thousand dollars and three friends armed with screwdrivers, watched Jobs speak at a user group meeting. Dell later reflected that Jobs was more compelling in person than in print, and when he entered the room, it felt as though the waters parted.

This encounter was a crucial moment in Dell's life, as he could not have anticipated that in five years, Jobs would become not only a colleague but a friend. Dell's fascination with computers had already begun a year earlier in 1979 when he begged his parents for an Apple II, a machine that cost around $1,298 at the time. Dell eagerly unboxed the Apple II, admired it, and immediately disassembled it to understand its inner workings, driven by a combination of curiosity and commerce.

Jobs, who was speaking at a time when Apple was about to go public and preparing to launch the Apple III, emphasized the revolutionary potential of personal computers. He likened the investment in a passenger train to the cost of acquiring a thousand Volkswagens and explained that computing would no longer be a queuing experience. Dell remembered Jobs' metaphor as a transport one, suggesting that personal computers would empower individuals to accomplish the unimaginable.

Over the next five years, the two men navigated a complex relationship marked by both fierce competition and deep friendship. Dell, who had started selling Houston Post subscriptions in high school to make $18,000 a year, did not initially see the potential in Jobs' vision for personal computers. However, as their paths crossed again in 1993 and 1997, they found common ground in their shared passion for innovation and technology.