Blog #2: Michael Dell

Michael Dell, is the CEO of the famous Dell computer company. Michael grew up in Texas, and came from a family of doctors. Michael was determined to study medicine as most of his family. Michael attended the University of Texas and originally enrolled as a biology major. Michael quickly realized that his interests was not medicine and started building computers for his friends in the dorm. Micheal's parents never pressured him to become a doctor, but they weren't okay with him dropping out of college either So, he dropped out without telling them and started his own computer business. Micheal sold computers directly to customers and soon became one of the biggest corporations in America.

Michael Dell's story is similar to chapter 3 in the book Outliers as it talks about prodigies and IQ's. The author talks about the professor at Stanford University named Lewis Terman, who was interested in intelligence testing, and became invested in the idea of seeking out young geniuses and tracking their lives, careers, and achievements. The children who did not meet his requirement,were not kept an eye on since he only wanted to study the "Geniuses". Some of the children who were not "Geniuses" became important people and some of the "Geniuses" did not become someone important. The "Geniuses" were known as the Termites. I saw this concept being applied to Michael, when he tried to drop out of college and his parents did not approve. Chapter 3, is similar to Michael, because the chapter talked about how the Termites were expected to grow up and become someone important because of their IQ and Michael had to study a career, even if it was not Medicine. At the end everything ended up turning out good for him. He became the CEO of Dell and supplies schools around the world with his product.