 In 1946, the acerbic manager of the Dodgers, Leo the lip de Rocher, famously said of baseball great Mel Ott, who was player manager of the Giants at the time, you know what happens to nice guys? They finish in last place. The phrase nice guys finish last was born and became popular outside of baseball. Well, joining me today is someone who is a consummate gentleman and a nice guy who proves that idiom absolutely isn't true at all. He's also written a new book, Play Nice and Win. Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies. Welcome back to theCUBE. Thank you very much, Dave. Always great to be with you, wonderful to be on theCUBE, and thanks for your great coverage of Dell Technologies World. Yeah, very excited to be covering the virtual version this year. Next year we're back face to face, I'm sure, and we're going to talk about your book, but I want to start by asking you to comment on the past 12 months. How are you going to remember 2020? I'm going to remember it by the resiliency of the world and our team, the adaptability, the acceleration of digital transformation, which is pretty amazing around the world, the vital role that technology played in addressing some of the biggest challenges, whether it was the creation of vaccines or, you know, decoding the virus itself or just addressing all the challenges that the world had. You know, I think it's a game changer in terms of disease identification and how we prevent these kind of things going forward. You know, there's still a long way to go in terms of how do we get 7.5 billion people vaccinated and safe. I also think it exposed, you know, some of the fault lines in our society, and that's a great learning for all of us in terms of access to health care and education and, you know, the digital resources that power the world. And so, yeah, those are some of the things that really stand out for me. Well, and I think leaders like yourself in position of influence actually passionate about some of those changes that we see coming in society, so hopefully we'll have time to talk about that. But I wanted to get into the business. I think a lot of people, myself included, felt that 2020 was going to be a down year for big tech companies like yours and that relied heavily on selling products to data centers and central offices. But the remote work trend and the laptop boom offset some of those on-prem softnesses and headwinds combined with VMware. The financial performance of Dell Technologies was actually quite amazing. Why were you able to do so well last year? Well, first of all, you're right. We had record, you know, pretty much everything, record revenues, record operating income, record cash flow. And we also paid down, you know, a record amount of debt. And so I think the strength and resiliency of our supply chain as well as the broad diversified nature of what we provide our customers continued to serve us very well as they moved to this sort of do anything from anywhere world. And, you know, it continues, you know, in the first part of this year, you know, business is very strong. You know, a few weeks ago, of course, you officially announced the spinoff of Dell Technologies wasn't a huge surprise, but the 81% equity ownership of VMware. Are you worried about untethering VMware from Dell? Well, maybe you can share more on what this means for the future of your two companies and your customers. Right. So, you know, I think this will drive additional growth opportunities for both Dell Tech and VMware while it unlocks, you know, a lot of value for our stakeholders. What we've done is to formalize the commercial relationship into a series of agreements. And those are unique and differentiated and they provide lots of flexibility. And, you know, we've driven a tremendous amount of innovation together and that's going to continue. And it will, you know, one of the things we said back in 2015, you'll remember is our commitment to keep the VMware ecosystem open and independent and working across the whole industry. We've done that. You'll continue to see us innovate together with Edge Solutions, certainly all the great work we've done with VxRail, SD-WAN, you know, Tanzu creates this platform to modernize applications and VMware, cloud and Dell Technologies are the easy path to a multi-cloud architecture. And, you know, that continues to work super well and is not going to be slowed down at all. So, and of course, I'll continue to be chairman of both companies and, you know, we're not selling VMware. We're distributing our ownership to our shareholders. Well, of course, Dell is the largest channel, if you will, for VMware. So that's, you guys got a tight relationship. But I want to ask you about digital transformation. I mean, everybody talked about it pre-COVID, but nobody really knew exactly what it was. But COVID sort of brought that into focus very quickly. If you weren't a digital business, you were out of business. So, going forward, how do you see that whole digital transformation playing out? You know, I think the plot of any company is to figure out how it can use its data and turn that into insights and outcomes and better results and ultimately competitive advantage faster. And as you said, you know, if it's not able to do that, it's probably going to go out of business. And that agenda just got massively accelerated because it was kind of digital was sort of the only thing that worked during this past period. So, every organization has figured out that technology is not the IT department. It's actually the fulcrum of progress in the entire company. And so, we're seeing sort of across the board a dramatic acceleration in the investment in digital technologies. Edge is growing very fast. I think 5G just accelerates this. And you know, you're seeing it in all the demand trends. It's quite positive. And I think you'll see even a more rapid separation from those companies that are able to, you know, take advantage of this and quickly adjust their businesses, their organizations and those that aren't. You better hop on board, get left behind. You know, the edge, you mentioned the edge. It's a little bit like digital transformation, you know, kind of pre-COVID and even post-COVID. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people. But the telecoms transformation and 5G, they're certainly real. How do you see the edge? You know, the edge is, think of it as actually the real world, right? It's not a data center sitting in the center of the universe somewhere. And look, today, you know, only 10% of data is processed outside of a data center. But you know, it's estimated by 2025, you got 75% of enterprise data will be processed outside of a traditional data center or a cloud. And so as everything becomes intelligent, connected, 5G accelerates that it's going to be a huge acceleration of this whole process of digital transformation. And, you know, again, think about this. I mean, the cost of making something intelligent used to be really expensive. Now it's asymptotically approaching zero. And of course, all those things are connected. They're talking to each other. And exactly what does this mean for every industry? Nobody's really quite sure. And not everything is going to work, but you know, we're seeing it in manufacturing, in retail, in healthcare, and the growth on the edge is really accelerating in a meaningful way. It's not so much about, you know, people talking to people with machines, we know how to do that. Now it's about the things, right? And you know, you've got like 200 billion arm processors, you know, out there in the last couple of years, all those things talking to the other things, generating data, it happens in the real world. That's what the edge is. Yeah, as you know, we're big fans of the arm model and I think it just presents huge opportunities for companies like Dell. I wanted to ask you about cloud. And I had to say, I think, you know, companies like Dell have been maybe a little bit defensive over the last several years when it comes to cloud, but I think you're starting to see the cloud as a gift with all that CAPEX that's being built out by these hyperscalers. You know, thank you, it seems to me you can build on top of that. How are you thinking about the cloud as an opportunity for you and your customers, especially as the definition of cloud evolves? Well, first, you know, what we see is, and the edge is kind of the third place or the third premise, right? You've got clouds in the public form, you've got the colo, which is really growing fast and you know, the private hybrid clouds, and now you've got the edge. And so you've got infrastructure all over the place with edge being the fastest growing. You know, one of the big things we see is that customers want a consistent way to operate and execute across that whole platform. And one of the other things that we've been focused on at Dell Technologies is how can we move our business to more of a service and subscription on demand and provide customers that flexibility to pay as they consume. And to some extent, this is an evolution of products, to services, to managed services, to everything as a service. And so, you know, look at our balance sheet, you'll see over $40 billion in remaining performance obligations as we move the business to that kind of model. And it's been growing double digits for several quarters in a row. And so, you know, we're embracing cloud and on demand and as a service. And obviously here at Dell Technologies World, we're talking a lot about Apex and our continuing initiatives to move our whole business in that direction. Yeah, Apex is a real accelerator for that model. I want to switch topics a little bit. I got a long list of things. I want to talk about ESG, sustainability, inclusion, you know, is another topic that I'm interested in. And I said before, people like yourself that in a position of influence to influence public policy and obviously the employees and your ecosystem, why is it not just the right thing to do? Why is, why are those things good business, Michael? Well, it's good business because people want to be part of something that is important and purposeful. You know, it's not just make a profit and earn a living, right? You know, people want to be inspired and feel that they're part of something special. And look, I think if you look at the positive changes that have occurred in the world, certainly you could turn on the news and see the horrible things that happened in the last 24 hours or something like that. But if you step back and think about the amazing progress that's happened in the last several decades, you know, a lot of it's been driven by technology and by businesses that have stepped up and made a difference and made commitments. And, you know, we're one of those companies that has made a series of commitments. You know, 10 years ago, we set out with our 2020 goals, we accomplished significant majority of those, retired those. Now we set out our Progress Made Real 2030 goals all around the ESG themes. And it's not only the right thing to do, but it is good for business. It inspires our team members, our customers. And I think initiatives like Progress Made Real at Dell and thousands of other companies, ultimately those are the things that are going to drive progress forward. I believe, you know, more so than government edicts or regulation, those can play a role. But I think companies voluntarily driving things like the circular economy and how we include everyone in our business and provide opportunities for everyone to succeed, no matter where they come from. I think those are the things that are really going to drive the world forward. Well, I want to ask you about public policy because as you say, it's not just the government, but of course, sometimes the government can get in the way. You're seeing a lot of vitriol around, but I'll break up big tech, but at the same time you're seeing the US government and the EU very willing to help out with the semiconductor competitiveness and the like. I know you were tapped with the new administration, President Biden, tapping, you know, the best minds in tech and you were asked to participate, give feedback. What can you tell us about, you know, your advice to the US government? Well, you know, lots of great discussion with the new administration and it's a delight to see that they're focused on semiconductors and sort of the industries of the future. This is a big deal. I mean, you know, we've got some big global competitors out there, other nations that are with a deterministic strategy very focused on the industries of the future. The US, you know, if you think about the atomic age and, you know, the Apollo missions that created the whole semiconductor industry, ARPANET and ultimately the internet and that kind of stopped, right? You know, there wasn't as much government investment in some of those big R&D initiatives that really drove an enormous creation of industries and success for the United States and its citizens. And so I think focusing on semiconductors and how you build the infrastructure of the future really important for the United States to continue to be a leader in that. You know, we were, you know, producing at one point about 37% of the world's semiconductors. It's now down to 12% and dropping and really important that more investments are made in that area. It's a combination of capital, talent, you know, education knowledge and also, you know, the policies that promote the development of these kind of businesses. Yeah, well, Pat's got a very big challenge ahead of him and so that's what we've said. Intel's too strategic to fail in our view, but I wanted to plug your book a little bit. My former boss, you and I have talked about this, he was also a gentleman who proved Leo DeRosha wrong. He was a very nice guy, but also a winner. Play nice, but win. Why did you decide to write another book? Well, you know, Dave, a lot has happened in the last 20 years and especially the last nine or so years since we went private and, you know, merged with EMC and VMware and went public again. And, you know, I'd say, first of all, you know, when I wrote the first book in 1998, I wasn't comfortable disclosing a lot and I wasn't vulnerable enough and didn't feel, you know, able to do that. No, I do, you know, I'm older, hopefully a little wiser. And so I think everybody's gonna like hearing some of the fun stories about not only my childhood, but, you know, the dorm room and, you know, beyond and leading up to, you know, the pivotal changes that have occurred in the last decade, my alligator wrestling with Carl Icahn and other, you know, there's lots of fun stories in there. I got arrested one time. It was only for speeding tickets, don't worry. But, you know, lots of fun. I'm really looking forward to the book coming out and being able to talk about it. I can't wait. I've said many times that anybody who could beat the great icon is interesting to me. I wanted to ask you, I mentioned my old boss, Pat McGovern, I used to say to him all the time, Pat, how come you don't buy more companies? And he'd say, Dave, you know, the vast majority of acquisitions and mergers, they fail to meet their objectives. Did you ever imagine, I mean, did the EMC acquisition, how could it not have exceeded your expectations? I wonder if you could give us your final thoughts on that. You know, I talk about this a lot in the book. I mean, these are kind of the ultimate considered decisions. And in the case of the EMC combination, it was something that we had thought about going back to 2008, 2009. And then, you know, started thinking about it in 2014, worked on it for a full year before it got announced in 2015 and finally closed in 2016. But yeah, I mean, you know, we thought it would be great. It turned out to be even better than we thought. The revenue synergies were far greater. The teams were quite energized. Customers liked what we were providing. And, you know, it's, and of course, the markets were supportive, right? You know, we were paying close attention to interest rates and how we could structure the merger in an attractive way. And, you know, thank goodness, lots of hard work, lots of determination, you know, it's worked out quite well. And great commitment from the Dell team as well. Congratulations on that. Go ahead, please. And the adventure continues, right? It's, it's... I can't wait to see the next chapter. And I can't wait to get the book. Congratulations on that. All your tremendous success. You are a winner and a gentleman and a friend of theCUBE. Michael Dell, thanks so much. Thank you so much, Dave. And thank you for watching. This is theCUBE's continuous coverage of Dell Tech World 2021, the virtual edition. Keep it right there, right back.