This list of college dropouts is particularly interesting because every single person on the list has an estimated net-worth in the billions. Most of the people on the list are vested mainly in the technology space while the only guy I don’t immediately recognize deals largely in Las Vegas real estate and hotels/casinos.
“On the other hand, these examples prove that for the truly intelligent, motivated, and brave, there may be better ways to spend several youthful years than sitting in a classroom.”
In other words: There is hope for me yet.
3 Comments
A lot of the guys on that were smart enough to get accepted into a good school. Bill Gates went to Harvard. That alone implies that they are smarted than about 99% of the general population.
Also, the computer guys in the list (Gates, Allen, Jobs, Ellison, Dell) were all people who were involved at the dawn of the PC industry. Back then, it was an emerging market. I doubt you could start a new database company today (with no college education) and turn yourself into a billionaire.
Kirk Kerkorian is another example. He got in early, before Las Vegas was developed, and rode the property values.
If you want to be a billionaire drop-out, you need to find a new, untapped market and latch onto it. And it has to be a big market too (e.g. Personal Computers). You can probably make a good living of off something smaller, but you won’t be a billionaire.
Being in the right place at the right time is critical. So it recognizing the growth opportunities. You don’t need a college education for either one.
Myron: Is “doing nothing all day and playing video games” an emerging market? If it is, I’m latched.
LOL. Actually, some people are starting to make repectable incomes in MMORPGs. So, there may be hope.