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Self-Made Billionaires who Dropped out of School

I want to say that I love the idea behind this article.I think that you've already understand from title that school is not necessary for success.These self-made billionaires suggest that talent, attitude, hard work, and lots of luck seem to be the vital ingredients of success.I also know a lot of stories that prove this, and I know that if you really want something you can get it without degrees.

This list was made by pennylicious.com and informations were extracted from Forbes 400 Richest Americans.Now let's see some self-made billionaires who dropped out of school, who are my favourites.


Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, is the richest man in the world. His current net worth is approximately $50 billion (at one point, before the Internet bubble burst, he was worth over $100 billion, making him the world’s first centibillionaire!) Bill Gates is probably also the world’s most famous college drop-out. Gates dropped out of Harvard to work on his start-up company, then called Micro-Soft in 1975, when he was just 19 years old. Under his shrewd (though other people may call it predatory and unlawful) business practices, Gates grew Microsoft into a behemoth (and depending on your point of view, hated) corporation. Gates left day-to-day operations at Microsoft to devote more time into philantrophic endeavor, namely the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is currently the second largest charitable foundation in the world.




Steve Jobs is synonymous with Apple, the computer company that he founded, lost, and then regained. The history (or drama, if you want to call it that) of Steve Jobs as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur is too long to list in details. (Okay, let’s list two: he built "blue boxes" or hacking devices that allowed people to get illegal free long distance phone calls which he then used to prank call the Pope and he once backpacked around India in search of philosophical enlightenment and came back with a bald head, and wearing traditional Indian clothing). Suffice it to say, this hacker turned billionaire did well for himself, despite having dropped out of Reed College in Portland, Oregon after only one semester. Steve Jobs’ wealth is valued at $4.4 billion.




At the age of 15, Michael Dell took a brand new Apple II computer apart and rebuilt it just to see if he could - this turned out to foreshadow how Dell made his billions: by building PCs. After high school (with a lackluster record, "he’ll never go anywhere in life," said one of his teachers), Dell attended the University of Texas at Austin. In his dorm, he started to custom-build and sell computers. Dell’s computer business actually was so successful that at the age of 19 he dropped out of college to run the business full-time. For not having a college degree, Dell did okay - his current net worth of $15.5 billion made him the 9th richest man in the United States.


Before he was a famous fashion designer, Ralph Lauren grew up in the Bronx and worked after school to earn money to buy stylish suits (he was trendy, even at a young age!) Actually, his story goes back earlier than that: Ralph was actually born as a son to a Jewish house painter. His birth name was Ralph Lifschitz. At 16, Ralph and his brothers changed their last names to Lauren - although some say that he was denying his Jewish heritage, Ralph considered it necessary for success. Ralph Lauren went to the City College of New York studying business, but dropped out after two years. After a stint in the Army, he worked for Brooks Brothers as a salesman and created the label Polo, then a necktie business. Ralph never attended fashion school, which didn’t hurt him any. He’s now worth $3.6 billion and that’s a lot of neckties.

These are 4 of my favourites, and I'm so glad to hear stories like these they gave me a lot of hope.If you enjoyed my short list, I invite you to see more, because there are 21 self-made billionaires who dropped out of school.