Entrepreneur Stories
Entrepreneurs Who Started Off As College Dropouts
An idea is all it takes for something great to happen, right? Right. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Walt Disney and Oprah Winfrey all have one thing in common: they worked on their idea without thinking about the risks or repercussions. Here are a few entrepreneurs who started off as college dropouts and went on to establish some really successful companies very early in life!
1. Bill Gates
Founder of Microsoft and a college dropout, Bill Gates is one of the richest billionaires with a total net worth of $ 80 billion! Working on his entrepreneurial journey early in life by building computers for his friends in university, he quickly realised there was a lot of commercial and engineering value in exploring new software for computers. When Paul Allen and Bill Gates met on common ground at Harvard University, they realised their dreams were not just the same, but easily achievable if they worked together! Looking at the quick success of their baby, BASIC, the two realised they had in their hands (and minds) the key to unfathomable success. Allen and Gates officially created Micro-Soft in the year 1975 and a year later, when the hyphen dropped, the doors to a new world opened!
2. Steve Jobs
When Steve Jobs started working at Atari, he was a dropout from Reed College! With a zeal for reforming the world of computers and technology, Jobs very soon, realised where his true passion lay! Moving up from Atari to Apple, Jobs created the first macintosh, Apple I and after that, there was no turning back for the man who dared to dream. Despite being kicked off from his own company, he was hired back as the CEO and ended up revolutionizing Apple’s path. When he passed away, Jobs valuation lay at a whopping $ 11 billion!
3. Mark Zuckerberg
When Mark Zuckerberg started tinkering around with a new social media platform for people to interact with on a large scale basis, he realised he could not make it big while still in college. When he started the initial ground work for Facebook in college, little did he know that he was on the precipice of making history. Despite dropping out of college, the man created something so unique, his personal wealth is now valued at a cool $ 35 billion!
4. John Mackey
They say the way to a man’s heart is through food and John Mackey believed in that logic to the letter. He dropped out of college not once, but several times. In and out for over 6 years, the last time when he went to college was when he met the love of his life! At 25, he rejoined college to study religion and philosophy. Still not satisfied, he joined a vegetarian co op and finally discovered where his dreams lay. Food was his one true love and the recreation of this love resulted in the creation of the now really famous Whole Foods! Through the years, Whole Foods grew so quickly that at the end of the last quarter, its annual turnover stood at $ 14 billion!
5. Oprah Winfrey
Going through more than her fair share of ups and downs, Oprah Winfrey is perhaps one of the few women from the black community to have made it big on her own. From growing up in multiple homes over the years to almost completing college, Oprah became the voice of the nation through The Oprah Winfrey Show! With a personal valuation standing at $ 2.9 billion, Oprah’s life has been an inspiration to people all over the world.
Entrepreneurs are not just made overnight, showing us college degrees are not as much a necessity as passion. If you could drop out of college and follow your dream, what would you do?
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