Most Successful Tech Billionaires Who Never Graduated College : ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At a very early age, our parents keep on reminding us about the importance of studies and how much important it is to achieve qualified degrees in our life. Indeed, education is essential for every human being. But do you know there are certain tech-entrepreneurs who have racked up billions of dollars without even completing their college degrees. As said by Bill Gates “I studied everything but never topped, But today the toppers of the best universities are my employees.” Read yourself about the 10 successful tech-billionaires who never required college to achieve their goals in life as compiled by Business Insider. (1) Bill Gates- Net worth $81 billion -------------------------------------------------- Bill Gates is the former CEO and chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company along with Paul Allen who went to the same high school as Gates. Bill Gates started college at Harvard in 1973, but dropped out two years later to found Microsoft. In 2007, Gates received an honorary degree from Harvard, where he gave the inaugural speech. Gates continued to be Microsoft’s CEO until 2000 but then he relaxed on to chairman role. Presently, he serves as a technology advisor to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and he has shifted his focus on charity work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (2) Larry Ellison- Net Worth $51.1 billion ---------------------------------------------------------- Larry Ellison is the co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation, an enterprise software company. Ellison left the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after his second year as he was not able to write his final exams because his adoptive mother had just died. In 1977, he co-founded Software Development Labs, which was later renamed as Oracle. Ellison is the only person to have ever served as Oracle’s CEO. In 2014, Forbes listed him as the 3rd wealthiest man in America and as the 5th wealthiest person in the world, with a fortune of $51.1 billion. (3) Azim Premji- Net Worth $16.7 billion --------------------------------------------------------- Azim Premji is the chairman of Wipro Limited, guiding the company through four decades of diversification and growth to emerge as one of the Indian leaders in the software industry. In 1966, on the news of his fathers death, the then 21-year-old Azim Premji returned home from Stanford University, where he was studying engineering, to run Wipro, the IT outsourcing and Services Company. Premji later returned to Stanford at the age of 50 to finish his degree, because he grew tired of being called a ‘college dropout.’ Premji owns 75 percent of Wipro and a private equity fund, PremjiInvest, which manages his $1 billion personal portfolio (4) Mark Zuckerberg- Net Worth $34 billion -------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and chairman of Facebook, dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year to focus on running Facebook. In 2007, at the age of 23, Zuckerberg became a billionaire due to Facebooks success. Facebook went public in 2012 and is now worth over $200 billion. It had 1.32 billion monthly active users as of June 2014, and had over $7.8 billion in revenue last year. In the year 2010, a film was produced over Zuckerberg’s success story under the title “The Social Network.” (5) Michael Dell- Net Worth $18.8 billion Michael Dell is the founder and CEO of Dell, one of the world’s leading seller of personal computers. Michael Dell was a student at the University of Texas at Austin but he decided to drop out to pursue his career as an entrepreneur. In 1984, he founded Dell Computer and turned it into a multi-billion dollar empire over the next 30 years. He is recognized as one of the youngest CEOs of a company ever to make the Fortune 500 list in 1992. Dells 1999 book, “Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry” is an account of his early life, his companys founding, growth and missteps, as well as lessons learned. 6) Steve Jobs- Net Worth $7 billion -------------------------------------------------- Steve Jobs was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple. He is widely recognized as a charismatic and design-driven pioneer of the personal computer revolution. Jobs left Reed College to start Apple in his garage back in 1974. At the time of his death, Jobs estimated net worth was around $7 billion. Jobs received a number of honors and public recognition for his influence in the technology and music industries. He has been referred to as legendary, a futurist and a visionary, and has been described as the Father of the Digital Revolution. (7) Jan Koum- Net Worth $7.6 billion ----------------------------------------------------- Jan Koum is the CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging application. Koum was a math and computer science student at San Jose State University, before he dropped out to work at Yahoo. He worked at Yahoo for 9 years till 2007. Koum incorporated WhatsApp on his birthday in February 24, 2009, along with Brian Acton. He made $6.8 billion when Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. (8) Hiroshi Yamauchi- Net Worth $2.1 billion ---------------------------------------------------------------- Hiroshi Yamauchi was the third president of Nintendo, a Japanese multinational consumer electronics company.He dropped out of Waseda University to take over Nintendo, a family business his grandfather had found in 1889. He is widely recognized for transforming Nintendo from a small card-making company to a leading video game powerhouse in the modern world. (9) Evan Williams- $3.1 billion ------------------------------------------- Evan Williams is an American internet entrepreneur who has founded several Internet companies; he is the co-founder of the micro-blogging website, Twitter. He attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln for one and half year, but finally left the college to pursue his career as an entrepreneur. (10) Sean Parker- Net Worth $3.2 billion ---------------------------------------------------------- Sean parker is an American entrepreneur who cofounded the file-sharing computer service Napster and served as the first president of the social networking website Facebook. Parker never even went to college but still he is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. Parker was also involved in the founding of companies like Plaxo and Airtime. Presently, he’s a partner at Peter Thiel’s investment firm, The Founders Fund, and board members of Spotify and Yammer.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 06:36:40 +0000
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