10 Super Successful College Dropouts Who Made It Big in Life

School or College education matters the most, but if we say that there are a number of people who did not complete their studies and still did big in life. Yes, there are many, these people believed in themselves and tried to do good deeds for humanity. They are the legends who proved that with will and determination anything can be achieved. 

These successful entrepreneurs might not have attended college but did build iconic organizations which made the world a better place. The list includes several names, including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mukesh Ambani, and many others who we know very well. They created companies worth billions of dollars and showed everyone that being dropped out and not completing education has nothing to do with success.

So here is the list of those super successful college dropouts who made it big in life:

1. Bill Gates

The man needs no introduction! And has an estimated net worth of approx. $140 billion. But do you know that he was a college dropout? Yes! That’s true, the man behind Microsoft did not complete his college education and left Harvard University after attending 2 years. William Henry Gates was born on 28th October 1955 and had an interest in computers and technology since a very early age. 

He created a computerized version of the tic-tac-toe, which was his first software program at the mere at of 13. In the year 1975, Bill Gates joined his friend Paul Allen and developed the software for microcomputers. In this program, they adopted BASIC, a programming language, and with the success of this project, he left Harvard in his junior year along with Allen, thus forming Microsoft. The Harvard Crimson also describes him as one of the most successful college dropouts, thus becoming one of the richest people in the world.

2. Mark Zuckerberg

One of the most famous personalities and the owner of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg same as Bill Gates was a Harvard dropout. He is one of the richest people and has an estimated net worth of $66 billion, as of 2019. He started Facebook from his dorm room, with around 2.9 billion monthly active users it became the most popular social networking site of all time. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on 14th May 1984, raised in a normal family, and attended Philips Exeter Academy and in 2002, got enrolled in Harvard University. 

While studying there he launched theFacebook.com, on 4th February 2004, which became instant famous among the university students. In his first attempt, he created it as a directory, where Harvard students could upload their photos and information in the created template. In 2005, he renamed it Facebook, where people were able to make accounts with real names or email ids, thus making it different from other social networking sites. After the popularity of Facebook among different college students, he dropped out of Harvard (which was indeed a 5 minutes decision) and focused on making Facebook successful, and we all know that he did very well.

3. Mukesh Ambani

One of the biggest business tycoons, Mukesh Ambani is the managing director of Reliance Industries Limited. Originally started by his father Dhirubhai Ambani, and after his death in the year 2002, Mukesh along with his brother Anil Ambani took over the company in joint leadership. Born on 19th April 1957 Mukesh Ambani was one of the four children of Dhirubhai Ambani and came out to become one of the richest people in the world with a net worth of around $90.3 billion. 

Mukesh Ambani earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Mumbai and after that got enrolled in Stanford University to pursue a master’s degree in business administration. But rather than completing that he left the program in between and joined his family business in the year 1981. He diversified and ventured into several areas, including gas and oil, petrochemical, communications, etc. Due to his hard work, today Reliance is among the top industries in the world and Mukesh Ambani became the 2nd richest person in Asia and 9th richest person in the world in the year 2011.

4. Michael Dell

The founder and CEO of Dell Inc, Michael Dell started the company in the year 1984 with $1000 as start-up capital. Born on 23rd February 1965, Michael Dell started with upgrading old computers sold them for profit from his dorm room at the University of Texas. But during his first year, he started his computer business while studying at the university, which was then known as PC’s limited. He then dropped out of college at the age of 19 and invested full time in his company. 

By the year 1988, his company went public and was renamed Dell Computer Corporation and ultimately Dell Inc. By the age of 27 Dell made his place in the Fortune 500 list as the youngest CEO. He also wrote a book Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry (1999). In his book, he provided strategies for the development of a company which came out to be very useful for all the businesses.

5. Steve Jobs

A well-known personality and the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs was also a college dropout. Just after completing his first semester, he quit Reed College in Portland. Born on 24th February 1955, Steve Jobs had many different passions and was totally confused about which path to choose. He took his first job in Atari Corporation in 1974 as a video game designer.

 But he was not sure of the same and after saving enough money he went on a pilgrim tour to India in order to seek knowledge about Buddhism. Though it was not in destiny and after reuniting with his old high school friend Stephen Wozniak he started Apple from his garage and the company publicly came out in 1977 when Apple II gained his ultimate success. In the year 1983 company also made the quickest entrance into the list of Fortune 500 as America’s top companies.

6. Evan Williams

An American computer programmer who along with his partners Jack Dorsey and Biz stones founded the most popular micro-blogging company Twitter. Having quit the university of Nebraska just after attending three semesters he ended up collaborating on very big projects including Twitter and Medium. 

Born on 19th November 1972, Evan Williams had an interest in programming from a very early age. He along with his dad started the company in the mid-1990s in which they provided instructional material about World Wide Web. He co-founded many projects including Blogger.com which was purchased by Google, and in 2004 he also co-founded Odeo which was a podcasting company. Then in 2005, he was approached by Jack Dorsey one of the co-founders of Twitter where they together developed a prototype that the trio launched in 2006.

7. Azim Premji

A well-known name in the Indian and world market, Azim Premji is the chairman of Wipro who made recognized himself in the world with his hard work and dedication. Well, most of you might not know that the business tycoon is also a dropout from Stanford University, which he did not do by choice but due to circumstances, as he had to leave his degree in between because of his father’s death. Born on 24th July 1945, Azim Premji had been a guiding light for Wipro. He became the chairman of the company which was then named Vegetable Products Ltd. and only produced vanaspati. 

At the mere age of 21, he took it to heights and diversified the company into numerous fields including shoes, lightbulbs, soaps, also hydraulic cylinders. In the year 1977 Premji renamed the company Wipro and took forward it towards the computer business. From there Wipro became a reputed company by doing all the good work thus making him one of the richest people.

8. Jan Koum

We all would wanna thank this person for developing the best app that is WhatsApp, which made our life really easier. The co-founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum is the perfect example of turning from rags to riches. He came to America from Ukraine due to an anti-semitic condition with his mother. Jan was interested in programming from a very early age and enrolled in San Jose State University and got an opportunity to work in Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer, hence, he left his college studies. Working in Yahoo he met his co-founder of WhatsApp Brian Acton and both left the job in 2007. They started working on the messaging app which became the most popular messaging app in the world with around 2 billion active users.

9. Henry Ford

The owner of Ford Motors, Henry Ford left schooling a the age of 16 and went on to create the most successful motor company in the world. He is known for revolutionizing factory productions with amazing assembly-line methods. In his first attempt, he built a small farm locomotive tractor for his father’s farm. From that, he moved into innovating and creating several automobiles and established Ford automobiles in 1903. He started it with a mere $28000 and astonished everyone out there with his wonderful creation. Henry Ford touched everyone’s life with the automobiles he made and gave us a lavish lifestyle.

10. John Lennon

The leader of the British rock band Beatles, John Lennon has ruled our hearts for a long time. A bit different from this list of people who dropped out, John was expelled from Liverpool College of Arts just before his final year, changing his life completely. Born on 8th December 1980 and was taught to play banjo by his mother. At 16 he was involved with a group known as the skiffle band, which later evolved into the Beatles and became very famous during the 20th century. He was a rhythm guitarist and singer in the band and did various shows all around the world. And we are glad that his graduation was left in between, else we would not have got such amazing songs.

So this is the list of people who did really big in life without even completing their education. They brought a change in this world with their deeds and became most successful…!!