The billionaire college dropouts list shows that a combination of qualities like vision, determination, hard work, business acumen, ability to spot an opportunity and turn it into a winning venture, leadership and motivational skills, etc is more important than a college degree.
Here are some college dropouts who went on to become billionaires. . .
Dhirubhai Ambani
Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani (1932-2002) was born into a modest family of a schoolteacher. When he was 16, he dropped out of school and went to Aden to work as a gas-station attendant and then later as a clerk in an oil company.
He returned to India 10 years later and started a business with a meagre capital. By the time of his demise, his company -- Reliance Industries Ltd -- had grown into a mammoth business empire! He was one of India's greatest ever entrepreneurs.
Dhirubhai is credited with having single-handedly breathed life into the Indian stock markets and bringing in thousands of investors to the bourses. In the process he became one of the world's richest men.
His modern way of thinking brought into play his second achievement: the idea that Indian manufacturing could and should be world class.
His sons, Mukesh and Anil are among the top 10 richest persons in the world, each of them worth over $40 billion.
Gautam Adani
Gautam Adani (1962-) is chairman of the Adani Group, that is one of India's largest export and trading houses.
He is one of India's richest businessmen with an estimated personal net worth of $6.7 billion.
The Adani Group, despite a humble beginning in 1988, is one of the fastest growing enterprises in India. The flagship company, Adani Enterprises Ltd. (formerly known as Adani Exports Ltd.), was established by Gautam Adani in 1988 as a partnership firm with a seed capital of Rs 500,000.
Gautam Adani dropped out of college at the age of 18 and went on to work in Mumbai at a diamond store. He later set up his own diamond firm.
Born in a family of modest means in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Gautam was one of the seven children of Shantilal and Shantaben Adani.
Later, along with his elder brother Mansukhbhai, he entered into import of raw materials used for manufacturing plastics. When import duties on the materials they imported were cut, following liberalisation, their profits multiplied.
Today, Gautam Adani owns two private jets.
Subhash Chandra
Subhash Chandra, founder of Zee TV and the Essel Group, dropped out of school when he was only 12.
He started his own vegetable oils and rice trading unit at 19 in Hissar, Haryana.
He launched Zee Telefilms in October 1992 as a content supplier for Zee TV -- India's first Hindi satellite channel.
He pioneered new businesses: amusement park (Esselworld), laminated tubes (Essel Tubes,) satellite television (Zee TV). He has also set up world class facilities that made quality products at competitive prices.
His personal wealth is estimated at $2.3 billion.
Bill Gates
For long the world's richest man, till he was upstaged by legendary investor Warren Buffett recently, Bill Gates wears many a hat: computer whiz kid, entrepreneur extraordinaire, compassionate capitalist, top management thinker. . .
Born on October 28, 1955, William H Gates III grew up in Seattle with his two sisters.
Their father, William H Gates II, is a Seattle attorney. Their late mother, Mary, was a schoolteacher, University of Washington regent, and chairwoman of United Way International.
Gates attended public elementary school and the private Lakeside School. There, he discovered his interest in software and began programming computers at age 13.
In 1973, Gates entered Harvard University as a freshman, where he lived down the hall from Steve Ballmer, now Microsoft's chief executive officer. While at Harvard, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer - the MITS Altair.
In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Microsoft, a company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen.
Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in January, 2000; remained as chairman and created the position of chief software architect. Gates's last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as a part-time, non-executive chairman.
Gates married Melinda French from Dallas, Texas on January 1, 1994. They have three children: Jennifer Katharine Gates (1996), Rory John Gates (1999) and Phoebe Adele Gates (2002).
Li Ka-shing
Li Ka-Shing, whose net worth is estimated at $18.8 billion, is one of the richest men in Asia.
The chairman of Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong Holdings was only 12-years-old when his family fled from China after the Japanese invaded the country.
They arrived in Hong Kong looking to make a life for themselves. However, when Li was only 15, his father passed away forcing him to drop out of school and support the family.
He started off working at his uncle's shop, selling watches. When he was 21, he established his own plastic manufacturing company that dealt in high-quality plastic flowers. He also ventured into real estate development, retail, ports, and power, electronics, and telecommunications.
Carl Icahn
Carl Icahn, a corporate raider and a private equity investor, was educated at Princeton University and New York University School of Medicine, but left prior to graduation.
Not becoming a doctor turned out for the good for Icahn, who is a billionaire financier with an estimated net worth of $14 billion.
Icahn calls himself an activist investor and is leading a shareholder revolt at Yahoo hoping that the Internet giant will sell out to Microsoft. He has launched a proxy fight to unseat Yahoo's board.
Roman Abramovich
Billionaire Russian businessman Roman Abramovich is best known for owning the United Kingdom's Chelsea Football Club.
He started his business in the late 1980s after the then Russian President Michael Gorbachev set in motion a few economic reforms.
Abramovich has invested around $500 million into Chelsea Football Club since buying it in 2003 and transformed the fortunes of the London team in just two years.
He also owns the private investment company Millhouse Capital, and with a net worth of $23.5 billion, is one of the richest persons alive.
He invested around $500 million since taking over the football club in 2003 and transformed the fortunes of the London team in just two years.
Ralph Lauren
Ralph Lauren was born in a Jewish family in the Bronx. He was so enamoured of fashion that even as a schoolboy he would work after school to make money to buy suits.
He went to the City College of New York to study business but soon dropped out. He joined the army for a while and then began to work for Brooks Brothers as a salesman.
He started a necktie business under the label 'Polo' in 1967, and then went on to build a global reputation for himself as a fashion designer and a formidable businessman.
His net worth is estimated to be around $3.8 billion.
David GeffenDavid Geffen is the founder of Geffen Records and Dreamworks SKG.
He was born in New York and studied at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn before going to University of Texas in Austin. However, he soon dropped out.
He began his entertainment career in the mailroom working in a talent agency. In 1971, at the age of 28, which singed on noted artistes such as Bob Dylan, The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne. His company was acquired by Warner and merged with Elektra Records in 1972, but Geffen remained in-charge of the business till 1975. In 1975, he become the vice chairman of Warner Brothers.
In 1980, he set up Geffen Records. His net worth is estimated at $4.4 billion.
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (1955-) and Apple Computer are names that have long gone together.
Born in the United States to an unknown Egyptian-Arab father, Jobs was adopted soon after birth. After graduating high school, he enrolled in Reed College, dropping out after one semester.
In 1976, 21-year-old Jobs and 26-year-old Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer Co in the family garage. Jobs revolutionised the industry by popularising the concept of home computers.
By 1984, the Macintosh was introduced. He had an influential role in the building of the World Wide Web. He is also the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.
Today, with the iPod and the iPhone, Apple is bigger than ever. Incidentally, Jobs worked for several years at an annual salary of $1. It got him a listing in the Guinness Book as 'Lowest Paid CEO.' He was once gifted a $90 million jet by the company though. And his net worth? More than $5.4 billion.
Larry EllisonLawrence Joseph Ellison (1944-), co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, founded his company in 1977 with a sum of $2,000.
Once a school dropout, he is now one of the richest people in America with a net worth of around $25 billion.
As a young man, Ellison worked for the Ampex Corporation, where one of his projects was a database for the CIA. He called it Oracle, a name he was to reuse years later for the company that made him famous.
Ellison is quite a colourful man, and has long dabbled in all kinds of things. Want to learn more? Try his biography, The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison
Andrew Carnegie
Industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) is better known, today, as the steel tycoon who started over 2,800 libraries. His rags-to-riches tale is also among the most famous in American history.
After moving to Pennsylvania from Scotland, at the age of 13 he worked as a bobbin boy in a textile mill. He invested his money wisely and, within a span of four decades, managed to gain control of a number of manufacturing plants that grew to become the Carnegie Steel Company.
He is equally -- if not more -- famous for his donations of over $350 million to further public education: an ironic gesture coming from a dropout.
The author Dale Carnegie was a distant relative, gaining fame for his 1937 bestseller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And here's another titbit to chew on: During the American Civil War, Andrew Carnegie avoided the battlefield by paying a replacement the sum of $850.
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