Illustrious drop-outs who became billionaires

LAHORE: The world is full of strange examples and precedents. For example, if you do not have a college or university degree, no problem! Some of the richest people in the world made huge fortunes without having these academic certifications, which are otherwise deemed to be the key to a successful career and comfortable life.

The “Financial Express,” owned by the Express Group of Newspapers in India, writes: “The path to success isn’t always paved through academia.”

Many richest individuals on the planet today had either chosen to leave college to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions, leveraging family businesses or starting from scratch to achieve billionaire status, or adverse circumstances had compelled them to do so.

Here follow a few precedents in this context from across the border, Pakistan and world over:

Globally-acclaimed Indian billionaires Mukesh Ambani ($113.7 billion), Azim Premjee ($12.1 billion), Gautam Adani (83.4 billion), Subhash Chandra ($2.5 billion) are all school or college drop-outs, reveal eminent media houses like Times Now, News 18, Financial Express and Economic Times etc.

While the Reliance Industries Chairman, Mukesh Ambani, abandoned his MBA at Stanford University in 1980 to return to India, the man behind the Wipro Corporation, Azim Premjee, had dropped out of Stanford University at age 21.

Similarly, Subhash Chandra of Zee News had left school after class 10 to support his family’s small-scale business, and Gautam Adani of Adani Group had departed Gujarat University during his Bachelor’s in Commerce to pursue his entrepreneurial aspirations.

Based on the recent “Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires,” here’s the top 10 richest individuals who dropped out of school or never attended college:

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates (financial worth of $135 billion) and Facebook (now Meta) founder, Mark Zuckerberg ($179.7 billion), had both dropped out of Harvard University, founder of Oracle software company, Larry Ellison ($176.6 billion), dropped out of University of Chicago and University of Illinois), and CEO of Dell Computers, Michael Dell ($108.4 billion), had left studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

According to a July 12, 2024 report of “Yahoo Finance, the CNN owner, Ted Turner ($2.5 billion), had dropped out of Brown University to work for his father’s company, eventually taking control of the business and the Virgin Atlantic Airways Chairman, Richard Branson ($2.7 billion), originally wanted to become a journalist or an editor but dropped out of school at 16 to start his first successful business, a Student magazine.

Famous media mogul and television host, Oprah Winfrey, having a net worth of $3 billion, had started studying at Tennessee State University, but dropped out at 19 after landing her first radio job.

Worth $4.2 billion in wallet, one of the founding members of Twitter (now X), Jack Dorsey, did not find a college degree necessary for his success.

Eminent fashion designer, Ralph Lauren, worked part-time in the garment industry as a teenager before establishing the fashion brand that bears his name. This college dropout now has a net worth of around $9.2 billion.

Another fashion icon, Giorgio Armani, worth $12 billion, is a medical school dropout. He served in the military before getting a job as a buyer and window dresser for a department store in Milan.

Renowned American filmmaker, Steven Spielberg, worth $4.8 billion, was denied entry into college on three occasions due to his mediocre grades. When he eventually managed to gain entry, he dropped out to focus on making a short film.

And last but not the least, the Pakistani-origin British billionaire, Sir Anwar Pervez, who founded the Bestway Group, used to drive a bus in Bradford.

On October 5, 2019, a Pakistani English daily, had published his interview, in which he had revealed that he had left his hometown of Rawalpindi in the 1950s for the UK where he landed a job as a bus conductor.

The newspaper had quoted Anwar Pervez (worth US$3.1 billion) as saying: “I had nothing in Pakistan. I did my matriculation, but my parents didn’t have money to send me to university. I used to work as a telephone operator for Rs96 a month and most of my salary would be spent on anti-malaria medication. It was a huge problem then.”

Knighted by the Queen of England in 1999, he opened a retail store in Britain in 1963 and then never looked back.

In 2019, his company was enjoying a reported 18 per cent market share in the UK wholesale sector, employing 4,500 people. Beyond wholesale — it continues to operate in cement, banking and pharmacy sectors.