# Technology waves now reach scale faster than the internet did

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/technology-waves-now-reach-scale-faster-than-the-internet/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Michael Dell](https://realalpha.app/builders/michael-dell/) · Michael Dell is founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies. · Founded Dell Technologies and committed $6.25 billion to investment accounts for 25 million American children.
- Host: [David Senra](https://realalpha.app/people/david-senra/) · Host, Founders · Has read an entrepreneur's biography every week for Founders since 2016.
- Show: Founders
- Episode: [Michael Dell, Dell Technologies | David Senra](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/), Oct 12, 2025
- Moment: 33:40 to 39:07 of the episode (5 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/technology-waves-now-reach-scale-faster-than-the-internet/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2020

## Takeaways

1. The web-to-e-commerce boom took about a decade.
2. New waves build on existing connected infrastructure.
3. Treat unconventional ideas as possible, not certain.

## About this segment

E-commerce took roughly a decade to follow the web, while newer tools can spread five to ten times faster. Michael Dell keeps unconventional ideas in play because dismissing them can mean missing a shift.

From “Michael Dell, Dell Technologies | David Senra”, Oct 12, 2025. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[33:45](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2025) How many of these, like, huge shifts do you think you've navigated? Yeah, there's probably been six or seven of them. So if you've done that six or seven times and then I think in the book, you know, obviously you say we did really great on this one, not good on this one, but we've fixed that. You're not going to be perfect over that many decades. But do you see like – is there like an echo between all of these like that you can apply like certain ideas you can take away and like form a structure?

[34:10](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2050) It's like, oh, that's kind of similar to what we had to do when we had to reinvent for X. Yeah, there are, although the time frames that these things occur tend to be shrinking. Say more about that. So if you think about the internet, you know, when, you know, first you had the internet, you had the World Wide Web, right? And websites started popping up in the mid-90s. And then, but it took like a decade before there was really a boom in things like e-commerce.

[34:43](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2083) And I mean, it was going on in the late 90s and early 2000s, but it really didn't, it took a long, long time. So now maybe it's like five to 10 times faster if you look at the growth in the usage of these tools. And part of it is that each successive wave of technological improvement is built on the prior foundations, and so they're able to go faster. So, if you have 5 billion people connected with all kinds of devices, well, now they can use these tools, and that just goes way faster.

[35:23](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2123) I think you have to have this idea in your head that any new thing has some chance of succeeding, right? Say more about that. So there's a lot of wild ideas out there. And if you dismiss them all, you're going to miss some things. So, you kind of have to hold this idea in your head that any of these wild ideas has a chance of succeeding. And let's sort of understand what. What do all these things mean and figure out what is the point of intersection, right?

[36:05](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2165) You know, what should we be doing about this? And when is it actually relevant, interesting, valuable, and it sort of, you know, hits escape velocity. And if you're sort of stuck in a particular paradigm or you're like dismissing things, you're going to miss them. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, you need to be open-minded enough to consider all possibilities. But your ability to do that is so counter to human nature because we're habitual, like we're habitual creatures.

[36:45](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2205) You know, it's like, oh, I found what I want or I found like what I like to do and like this is the best. You know, like if you look at like what music people listen to, for example, it's like music you listen to when you're like high school and college and maybe you've added a couple. But, like, you're kind of, like, just stuck on that where you are just, like, completely open, maybe addicted to, you know, new technology and new ways to think about or new ways to solve, like, old problems.

[37:09](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2229) Yeah, I love the stuff. But how do you not squash new ideas? Like, you just said, like, you know, there's a great line. It's like any idea can work now. Everybody's connected, and they can grow faster than you can possibly imagine. So how do you, like, do you have a process for, like, how do you not, you know, new ideas are fragile? And, you know, they need some kind of protection and some time to grow, like, but most people just, like, kind of snuff them out or dismiss them immediately.

[37:33](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2253) Well, you know, sometimes it's a good idea, but it's the wrong time. Sometimes it's a good idea, but it's the wrong company. Sometimes it's just a bad idea, right? And so, but there's no absolutes here, right? You just have to be open-minded and consider the possibility that things are changing fast enough that some new thing comes along. If you took the top computer scientists and researchers in AI or just broadly five years ago and you said, OK, this is what's going to happen with LLMs in the next five years, probably 99 out of 100 would say, no, no, that's not going to happen, right?

[38:28](https://realalpha.app/v/9WSsLSq40Yw/?t=2308) And so that's a pretty good example in contemporary period here where you just need to be open to the possibility that things are going to change. And there's also this thing where about every 10 years or so, something comes along and just completely expands the opportunity set for the industry. And that's part of the fun, the excitement, the super interesting aspect of what we get to do every day.