At Dell, He's No Second Fiddle; Michael Dell founded the computer maker and remains the visionary of a corporate icon. But Kevin Rollins is more than a right-hand man. Is this a model for the executive suite?

Publication: Newsweek

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Byline: Brad Stone

Earlier this month, the two executives who run Dell played a gag video for employees, pretending to audition for a spot on Donald Trump's hit TV show, "The Apprentice." In the video, Michael Dell, the 38-year-old founder and CEO, mugs for the camera and muses, "I wish I could have my name on lots of things." But it's Dell's partner, the guy who really runs the show at the Round Rock, Texas, computer maker, who steals it this time. President and COO Kevin Rollins, 52, assures Trump that he isn't only after 15 minutes of fame, joking that he already scratched that itch trying out for "American Idol." The video then cuts to a clip of the normally staid Rollins in full cowboy regalia, playing a fierce rendition of "Just One More Time" by the Derailers on the fiddle. At video's end, Trump appears, replying, "Well, Kevin, not a bad try, but we've found somebody who really fits the standards of 'The Apprentice'"--and holds up a photo of Dell's annoying former ad spokesman, the Dell "dude."

The video is an amusing snapshot of the highly unusual partnership behind one of the tech industry's most successful operations. Dell and Rollins have been running the $35 billion company for more than a decade, steering it through years of wickedly fast growth, then the bleak downturn of 2000-01, and, more recently, a string of profitable, if...

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