Michael Dell Plans To Haunt His Company Even After He's Dead

Advertisement

michael dell 1989

Rebecca McEntee / AP Images

Even death isn't going to keep founder and CEO Michael Dell from his company, he jokes.

Advertisement

"When you found a company, you feel a deep sense of responsibility for it. I'll care about Dell even after I'm dead," Dell said in an interview with Inc. Magazine's Tom Foster. "And when you're doing what you love and it's working, you don't get tired working what other people might consider long hours or crazy schedules. It's just fun. It's energizing."

Dell has certainly been his life's work. He founded Dell in 1984 at the age of 19 and turned it into the No. 1 PC maker by the early 2000s.

He stepped down as CEO in 2004 but came back in 2007, and then spent nearly all of 2013 in a tug-of-war for control with activist investor Carl Icahn, eventually winning the battle and taking his company private in a $25 million deal.

When the battle was won, he burst into tears in front of his employees.

Advertisement

Now, it seems, he's so "energized" he thinks he'll haunt them after he's dead.