Rich, Famous, Billionaire College Dropouts
These guys have dropped out of college. But that didn’t stop them from becoming rich, famous and billionaires. In fact, most of them quit college because it was getting in the way of their income generating activities.
Bill Gates. As of September 2011, this famous Harvard University dropout is worth $ 59 billion. Born in 1955 to an upper middle class family, his parents originally wanted him to embark on a career as a lawyer. Instead, he didn’t finish his college degree, founded Microsoft, and went on to become a billionaire. He now gives money to Harvard’s computer science department, libraries, and pilot high schools.
Mark Zuckerberg. Co-creator, Chief Executive and President of Facebook, this 27 year old has a net worth of $ 17.5 billion as of 2011, seven years after he launched Facebook from his dormitory room. Like Bill Gates, he is also a Harvard University dropout. His college education was geared towards psychology and computer science but he eventually moved to Palo Alto where a rented house served as the office for the fledgling venture. He has arranged to donate $ 100 million to Newark Public Schools and founded Start-up: Education Foundation.
Lawrence Ellison. He is the third wealthiest American citizen with a net worth of $ 33 billion as of 2011. He earned his fortune as the co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation, deemed to be one of the world’s leading enterprise software companies. His college education consisted of almost 2 years in University of Illinois and one term at University of Chicago. His charitable donation to Stanford University caused a buzz on the independence of two Stanford University professors who evaluated the merits of Oracle’s case and in June 2006, he refused to honor his pledge of $ 115 million to Harvard University because of the departure of Harvard’s president, Lawrence Summers.
Steve Jobs. His fourth grade teacher needed to bribe him to study. When he was in high school, he spent his free time at Hewlett-Packard and later found employment there. For his college education, he enrolled at Reed College where he dropped out after six months and spent the next eighteen months dropping in on creative classes. In 1974, he worked at Atari as a video game designer. But several months later he travelled to India where he sought spiritual enlightenment and experimented with psychedelic drugs. In 1976, he started Apple Computers by selling his Volkswagen Bus and working from his family’s garage. As CEO of Apple, he earns only $1 a year and quipped that he was being paid 50 cents for attending one meeting and the other 50 cents was for his performance. However, he held 5.426 million Apple shares and 138 million Disney shares. Forbes estimated his net wealth at 8.3 billion in 2010. Jobs said he does his charitable acts privately.
Michael Dell. He was a pre-med student trying to finish a college degree when he first started Dell Computer in his dorm room. Computers were something new then and he saw a market in directly selling to consumers. With $ 1,000 as initial capital, he started building and selling computers to people he knew in college. He had $ 6 million in sales after Dell’s first full year in business. He was the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company eight years after Dell was founded. By 2000, he was a billionaire and Dell Computer had offices in 34 countries and more than 35,000 employees work there. As of 2011, his net worth is $ 14.6 billion and is the 44th richest person in the world.
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