Buby has already told you about why C students usually become more successful in life than A students. This time we decided to remember the most famous millionaires who did without any education at all. No, we don’t encourage you to quit your studies (extra knowledge never hurt anyone), but it’s still interesting to find out who these lucky people are!
Coco Chanel
Being an orphan, young Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel did not have the opportunity to receive a prestigious education and went to study to become a seamstress. Determined to find her place in life, she rejected the idea that fashion was based solely on femininity and boldly began using masculine fabrics and cuts. The girl was so purposeful that she managed to make a real revolution in the history of fashion! And she didn’t need any education.
The most famous and influential animator, Walt Disney, left school at age 16. But this did not stop him from achieving incredible success in life. At the age of 14, he worked as a newspaper delivery boy; during the First World War, Disney served for a year driving an ambulance. In 1920, he got a job as an artist in an advertising studio, and although he never studied this professionally, he began to conduct his experiments in the world of animation. The Walt Disney Company now has $30 billion in annual revenue!
The founder of the Ford Motor Company not only did not go to university, but did not even finish school. However, thanks to his persistence, Ford managed to be the first to use an industrial assembly line for mass production of cars. This allowed him to sell cars at a lower price. So, now Henry Ford is considered one of the most influential people of the twentieth century.
Mary Kay is an inspiring example that it is never too late to find yourself. Mary Kay Ash attended university for a while, but then got married and dropped out. She pursued a career in direct sales and retired in 1963. But Mary Kay always dreamed of her own company! And that same year, she opened a small Mary Kay Cosmetics office in Dallas with $5,000 that she had been saving for a long time. Now Mary Kay Inc. Ranked one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America and the 10 Best Companies for Women.
The famous Facebook founder is Forbes' youngest billionaire. Having entered Harvard and not graduated, Zuckerberg, together with his classmates and dorm neighbors, managed to create the most popular social network in the world!
The richest man in history didn't even graduate from high school! From the age of 16 he had to work, as he was the eldest son in the family. Rockefeller started with a small company that was engaged in transportation, and even then he showed his incredible ability to calculate everything in advance. What industries did John have to work in? Having accumulated money and experience, in 1870 he founded Standard Oil, the first multinational corporation, which then split into 34 companies. And today, almost all major American oil producing companies are “relatives” of Standard Oil.
Bill Gates, who did not graduate from university, was named the richest man in the world 27 times by Forbes magazine. He dropped out of Harvard in 1973 and founded his own company, Microsoft, with his classmate Paul Allen. However, in 2007, Bill Gates still received his doctorate from Harvard University.
James Cameron went to university, but soon married a waitress and dropped out. But one day, George Lucas’s “Star Wars” inspired Cameron to become a director, and he made a short science-fiction film “Xenogenesis” with his school friends, after which he was invited to work at the New World Pictures film studio. Cameron's first feature film was Piranha 2: The Spawning, a sequel to the famous horror film. But Cameron’s real fame comes, of course, from “The Terminator.” Later, he made one of the highest-grossing films in the history of cinema - “Titanic”, and then “Avatar”, the box office for which amounted to $2.8 billion... An absolute record in Cameron’s entire cinematic history!
Was last modified: May 20th, 2016 by Olga Kulygina
1.Leonid Mikhelson, co-owner of Novatek and Sibur (net worth: $14.4 billion). Graduated in 1977 Kuibyshev Civil Engineering Institute majoring in civil engineering.
I didn’t want to be a builder - I dreamed of becoming a pilot. They didn’t take it, it didn’t pass in terms of vision,” Mikhelson said in one interview. - Then I wanted to become a professional athlete, I was fond of volleyball. I almost went to Tashkent to play. But my parents asked me to get an education first - I entered the construction institute. I had to forget about my sports career after I received a severe shoulder injury. I was worried then, but now I understand that it’s for the best: few professional athletes after 40 years are in demand and find themselves in a different capacity.
2.Mikhail Fridman, the main owner of Alfa Group and LetterOne Holdings (net worth: $13.3 billion). Graduated MISiS in 1986 with a degree in alumina.
I chose the institute for one reason - it was a fairly fashionable building at that time with “legs”, in the center of Moscow, with a wonderful - as it was listed in the prospectus - House of Culture,” Friedman joked in one of his interviews.
The Institute of Steel and Alloys, I must say, was a wonderful university in many respects. Firstly, stray refuseniks from the best universities in the country studied there. People who were extremely far from metallurgy also ended up there. For example, parodist Misha Grushevsky studied in my course.
3.Alisher Usmanov, the main shareholder of USM Holdings (net worth: $12.5 billion). Graduated MGIMO in 1976 with a degree in international law, and in 1997 from the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation with a degree in banking.
When I left to study in 1971 (Usmanov is originally from Uzbekistan. - Note by Life.), my grandfather did not understand why Moscow was needed when there was Tashkent, and I explained to him that I was going to study to become an ambassador - who enters MGIMO without this dream? - Usmanov recalled.
4.Vladimir Potanin, co-owner of MMC Norilsk Nickel (net worth: $12.1 billion). In 1983 he graduated from the Faculty of International Relations MGIMO.
In the 1970s, MGIMO was not just a place of nomenklatura. In principle, people were accepted there only through great connections. But I say without any complexes that I was a “thieves” because I worked off my cronyism,” Potanin later said.
The university, of course, is of great importance - the brand, the atmosphere. In this sense, MGIMO stimulated learning. Firstly, he left a lot of free time for independent studies. Secondly, it provided very good opportunities for learning the language - there was an excellent language laboratory there,” the billionaire concluded.
5.Gennady Timchenko, co-owner of Novatek, Sibur, Stroytransgaz group, Transoil (net worth: $11.4 billion). Graduated Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute in 1976. Specialty - electrical engineer.
I graduated from the Military Mechanical Institute in St. Petersburg. I won’t say that the choice was conscious - my dad was just a military man. Because of this, we moved often - at the age of six he took me from Armenia to the GDR, and I finished school in a small town near Odessa. After college, I was assigned to work at the Izhora plant near St. Petersburg. It was at that time that the Soviet Union placed emphasis on the construction of nuclear power plants, and Ryzhkov (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Nikolai Ryzhkov. - Note by Life.) I decided that young specialists in specialized production should be paid double salary. I, the shop foreman, was paid 280 rubles a month, a university professor then received 300 rubles. But I worked for almost two years in a terrible regime - four days in the morning, four in the evening and four at night, with a day and a half weekend between them. I had to sleep on the bus, holding on to the handrail: I had to travel from St. Petersburg with three transfers, Timchenko said in an interview.
6.Alexey Mordashov, co-owner of Severstal, Nord Gold, owner of Power Machines (net worth: $10.9 billion). Graduated in 1988 Leningrad Engineering and Economic Institute them. Tolyatti majoring in economics and engineering.
At the institute, Mordashov was an excellent student, a Lenin scholarship recipient and a Komsomol leader, according to his biography, which he personally edited. He started earning money while studying at university:
– I received my first income as a student, working at the department of student science. I was the chairman of the scientific student society of the institute and was involved in student science, and we were paid a little extra money for all sorts of scientific work that we did with our teachers. So I received my first money then,” he said.
7.Victor Vekselberg, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Renova, co-owner of UC Rusal, Oerlikon and Sulzer. Graduated in 1979 MIIT majoring in automated control systems.
Of course, I wanted to go to Moscow State University. Living in Drohobych (in Ukraine. - Note from Life.), I even studied at the correspondence school of Mechanics and Mathematics - they sent you problems, you solved them and sent them back. Exams for Mechanics and Mathematics, Physics and Technology and MEPhI were held earlier than all other universities, so you could try to get into them, and if it didn’t work out, go to a simpler university. But my teachers and senior comrades dissuaded me from this “exercise” and said: “If you don’t want to ruin your psyche and get very upset, go straight to MIIT,” he recalled in an interview.
8.Vladimir Lisin, co-owner of NLMK, owner of UCL Holding (net worth - $9.3 billion). Graduated in 1978 Siberian Metallurgical Institute majoring in metallurgical engineering. In 1990 he graduated from the Higher Commercial School at the Academy of Foreign Trade. In 1992 he graduated from the Academy of National Economy with a degree in economics and management.
It so happened that in our city the construction profession was fashionable, everyone was eager to study at the construction faculty. I went there too. As I remember now, the passing score was 21, and I scored 19.5 or something like that, up to 20. I didn’t pass. After this, the rector gathered everyone who did not get the points and offered them a choice of taking exams in three faculties: metallurgical, foundry and mining. My dad was a miner, he took me to the mine, and by the time I entered I already understood that I was not interested in this. From the metallurgical and foundry areas, I chose foundry: it seemed more interesting, a broader approach - not only to the metallurgical industry, but also to the mechanical engineering industry. And, in general, I was not mistaken,” said Lisin.
9.Vagit Alekperov, co-owner of Lukoil (net worth: $8.9 billion). Graduated in 1974 Azerbaijan Institute of Oil and Chemistry specialty: mining engineer in technology and integrated mechanization of oil and gas field development.
I've always been an oil man. All these years I have had no other specialty. And my son followed in my footsteps, he also graduated from the Moscow Gubkin Institute. He is currently working in fields in Western Siberia. I want him to go this route. And I am not preparing it as a replacement for myself. He may have a different fate. I devoted myself to one type of business, and he can devote himself to another. But he must go the distance, he must see how people work in the fields, Alekperov is convinced. - He was a worker, now he is a technologist. He will walk this path, and then let him choose his fate himself.
10.German Khan, co-owner of Alfa Group, A1, Rosvodokanal, LetterOne Holdings, Turkcell (net worth: $8.7 billion). In 1982 he graduated from the Industrial Pedagogical College, and in 1988 - MISiS.
It was easy and interesting for me to study at the technical school, and I graduated with honors, and then decided to enter MISiS. After technical school there were no problems with admission, and I started studying successfully. In Moscow, at first I lived with my aunt, and then my parents rented a room for me from an elderly woman, in the Novoslobodskaya metro area. The first year after studying at the technical school seemed very difficult to me. I had to study a lot, go to electives in order to catch up with my peers who entered MISiS immediately after finishing tenth grade. But I passed the first session with almost all A's, with only one B'. This was my first triumph, especially in the eyes of my father! They wrote about me in the institute newspaper, which I proudly brought with me when I arrived on vacation. It was then that I was already welcomed home as a folk hero.
I really liked student life; from the first year I was a prefect and was involved in social work. It was at the institute that I wanted to become the best and strived for this in every possible way. But at school, on the contrary, it was cooler to be the worst, which is probably why I behaved this way. In general, I always try to evaluate myself soberly, -
A billionaire without a college degree is not uncommon. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg - they all abandoned prestigious universities for business. However, among today's rich there are many who did not even finish school. Some were caught by the entrepreneurial fever already in adolescence, others had to go to work to feed their families, and still others chose sports over study. However, the lack of a high school diploma did not prevent them from succeeding...
Amancio Ortega
Founder of Inditex
Net worth: $57 billion
Place on Forbes list of billionaires: 3
Spanish entrepreneur Amancio Ortega is a member of the ranking of the richest people in the world according to Forbes. He became one of the three richest people on the planet after his fortune grew by $19.5 billion in 2013. The current owner of the Zara, Mussimo Dutti, and Oysho brands dropped out of school at the age of 13. His father worked on the railroad, his mother was a maid, and the family was sorely short of money.
At first, Ortega served as a messenger for a tailor, then he got a job in the La Maja haberdashery store. Gradually learning the basics of fashion, Ortega realized that the luxury clothing market was too small, and a simple guy from the slums was unlikely to be able to become a big player in it.
The future billionaire decided to rely on accessibility: he purchased inexpensive materials and sewed things that almost everyone could afford to buy. Entrepreneurial flair and hard work turned out to be more important than education: in 1975, Ortega and his wife opened the first Zara store - and soon their income began to grow rapidly.
Li Ka-shing
Head of Cheung Kong Group
Net worth: $31 billion
Forbes list of billionaires: 8
One of the richest people in Asia was born into a poor teacher's family. When Li Ka-shing was barely 14 years old, his father died of tuberculosis, and the boy had to leave school and find a job. At first he sold watch straps, and then got a job in a factory that produced plastic flowers.
Li Ka-shing worked 16 hours a day and accumulated a small start-up capital in seven years. There was enough money to open a plastic production plant. Using the proceeds from it, Li Ka-shing began to buy real estate in Hong Kong that had fallen in price due to political instability. He soon entered the first echelon of Chinese businessmen. The charitable foundation founded by this Chinese donates millions of dollars to support educational institutions, although Li Ka-shing himself was able to become a billionaire without a formal education.
Francois Pinault
Head of Kering
Net worth: $15 billion
Forbes list of billionaires: 53
François Pinault once admitted that his only certificate of study was his driver's license. The French billionaire dropped out of school at the age of 16 and never thought about continuing his education.
Pinault's father, a poor timber merchant, was ready to part with his last franc if only his son would receive a diploma. However, Francois did not appreciate this sacrifice: firstly, he did not really like studying. Secondly, he suffered deeply from the ridicule of his classmates about his low origins. Thirdly, he already understood then that no school could instill in him an entrepreneurial spirit. Following his principles, Pinault became one of the most influential people in France.
Richard Branson
Owner of Virgin Group Corporation
Net worth: $4.6 billion
Forbes list of billionaires: 272
Richard Branson has so many shocking antics that the lack of a completed secondary education seems like a trifle against their background. He was expelled from school at the age of 16 for poor academic performance. Branson was inclined to attribute his poor grades not to laziness, but to dyslexia - a reading disorder. He made no effort to overcome this illness and was not particularly upset when the director admonished him with the words: “Farewell, Richard. You will either go to jail or become fabulously rich."
By that time, Branson already had some entrepreneurial experience: he tried to grow Christmas trees and breed budgies for sale. While his classmates were poring over textbooks, Branson was developing his first large-scale project - the youth magazine Student.
Joe Lewis
Founder of Tavistock Group
Net worth: $4.2 billion
Forbes list of billionaires: 308
Briton Joe Lewis grew up in east London, in a flat above a noisy pub. His father owned a small catering company and, when his son was 15 years old, decided to take him into business. So Joe Lewis ditched his books and put on his waiter's apron. Subsequently, having taken the reins into his own hands, the entrepreneur sold the family business and switched to foreign exchange transactions and investing.
Today Lewis has a stake in more than 150 companies, and is the owner of 135 restaurants and the Tottenham Hotspur football club. The lack of education does not prevent the rich man from having a great understanding of art: he has collected an impressive collection of paintings, which includes paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. According to experts, its cost is about a billion dollars.
Kirk Kerkorian
President of Tracinda Corporation
Net worth: $3.3 billion
Forbes list of billionaires: 412
Armenian-American Kirk Kerkorian dropped out of school when he was in eighth grade. At the encouragement of his older brother, he began to actively engage in boxing and seriously dreamed of becoming an athlete. However, Kerkorian did not have a long love affair with professional sports: on the eve of World War II, he became interested in aviation and enlisted in the Royal Air Force. There was no time for education then, and even more so after returning from the front.
The future billionaire bought a small airline and plunged headlong into entrepreneurship. Now Kirk Kerkorian is 96 years old, he bears the proud title of “King of Las Vegas” and is still interested in boxing – as a spectator.
David Murdoch
Head of Dole Food Company,
Net worth: $2.4 billion
Forbes list of billionaires: 613
Although David Murdoch heads the world's largest fruit and vegetable company, his first job was not in the food industry. After dropping out of school in the ninth grade, he went to work at a gas station, and in 1943 he enlisted in the US Army. When Murdoch decided to settle in Detroit, Ohio, after the war, he had neither a roof over his head nor a penny in his pocket.
The future billionaire could well have ended his life in a gutter if he had not met a good Samaritan who took pity on the front-line soldier and agreed to lend him some money. Murdoch bought a small diner, and 10 months later he sold it at a significantly more favorable price and confidently embarked on the path of real estate trading. He studied mathematics by calculating profits from a rapidly growing business.
Karl Lindner
Founder of American Financial Group, head of Uninted Dairy Farmers
Net worth: $1.7 billion (as of 2010)
Forbes list of billionaires: 582
Karl Lindner's childhood occurred at the height of the Great Depression in the United States. His parents owned a small dairy farm and thanks to this they were able to feed their family in such difficult conditions. However, they needed help, and fourteen-year-old Karl dropped out of school in order to transport tanks of milk.
In 1940, when the United States was almost out of the economic crisis, Lindner, along with his two brothers and sister, took out a loan for $1,200 and opened a tiny shop selling homemade ice cream. The humble beginning grew into the United Dairy Farmers network; today it has about two hundred grocery stores throughout the country. And although Lindbergh made most of his fortune through investments, it was the family business that provided the impetus for his career.
Ahmet Nazif Zorlu
Owner of Zorlu holding company
Net worth: $1.4 billion
Forbes list of billionaires: 1031
Turkish entrepreneur Ahmet Nazif Zorlu left school when he was 15 years old. Brother Zeki suggested that Zorl take up a more useful and profitable business. After consulting, the brothers decided to try to get rich in textile production and opened a small factory in the city of Denizli.
A few years later they moved to Istanbul, and by the early 1990s the company, led by Ahmet Nazif Zorlu, had become one of the largest players in the global polyester fiber market. Today, the textile tycoon builds wind farms in Palestine, travels in his own custom-designed helicopter, and has no regrets about choosing entrepreneurship over study.
James Clark
Founder of Netscape Communications
Net worth: $1.1 billion
Forbes list of billionaires: 1268
The American James Clark did not have a good relationship with the school due to troubles in the family: his parents came together and then diverged, and the children were actually left to their own devices. As a result, young Jim was first suspended from school and then expelled altogether. However, unlike most ignorant billionaires, Clark did not give up on the principle.
When he joined the Navy, he found himself surrounded by people who, at 25, didn’t know what two were. The young man quickly enrolled in evening courses at the private Tulane University, and was later able to enroll at the University of New Orleans. The university management accommodated the talented student, despite the fact that he did not have a high school diploma. Later, Clark even received a degree and became a legend in Silicon Valley.
: https://www.softmixer.com/2013/09/blog-post_1332.html#more
What are the richest and most successful businessmen without higher education? Why did they end up going to college or dropping out? What is the importance of a diploma in achieving business success?
Higher education. How necessary is it to become a successful and wealthy entrepreneur? Discussions regarding this issue periodically flare up on Internet forums and in the minds of novice businessmen.
On the one hand, knowledge of economic theory, finance, the fundamentals of management and strategic management, marketing, international economics, the theory of transnational corporations, etc. could clearly be useful for creating a future billion-dollar company.
But on the other hand, you can always hire highly specialized experts who will work for the benefit of the company. What is higher education after all - wasted 5 years or a reasonable investment in your knowledge and competence? In our opinion, there is no clear answer to this question. Everyone decides for himself whether to get a diploma or immediately go into business. However, a college degree is not a prerequisite for business success. This is evidenced by the experience of the 25 most successful entrepreneurs listed below.
Henry Ford ran away from home at the age of 16 and founded his own company, the Ford Motor Company, in 1903. His great success came in 1908 with the release of the legendary Model T. In 1913, Henry Ford began introducing such an innovation as the assembly line, which literally changed the world of industry. If Ford were still alive, he would be “worth” $199 billion. Ford did not have a higher education, but he had a passion for inventing and creating cars.
Bill Gates enrolled at Harvard in the fall of 1973, only to drop out after two years. Instead of higher education, Bill chose to found Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen. Gates demonstrated excellent entrepreneurial flair and was one of the first to recognize the possibility of widespread distribution of computers, and as a result, the opening of a free market niche for operating systems for home PCs. Subsequently, giving advice for achieving success, he repeatedly emphasized the need to start as early as possible. This is understandable - it takes years of hard work to found and put a company on its feet.
The third richest man in the United States (after Bill Gates and Warren Buffett) has a college education of two years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a semester at the University of Chicago. The development of database management systems brought Larry Ellison a fortune of more than $40 billion.
The richest man in Spain, Amancio Ortega, became the richest man in the world in 2015. Forbes experts estimated his assets at $79.7 billion. The founder of the Zara chain of stores not only did not graduate from university, he does not even have a secondary education. Due to the poverty of his family, Amancio worked as a messenger in a store from the age of 13. However, this did not become an obstacle for the enterprising Spaniard and future fashion industry tycoon.
The co-founder of the most popular social network in the world entered Harvard in 2002 to study psychology, where he studied until 2004. Obsessed with the idea of creating a network for communication and sharing photos, he abandoned his studies and plunged headlong into writing program code. His calculation turned out to be correct. At the moment, Mark Zuckerberg's capital exceeds $30 billion.
Asia's largest entrepreneur, with a fortune of more than $30 billion, was forced to go to work in a factory at age 15 after his father died of tuberculosis. The lack of education was more than compensated for by the tenacity with which Lee climbed to the top of wealth. Having accumulated a small start-up capital, he quit the factory and began selling flowers, gradually gaining momentum and expanding his business. It is curious that in business circles Li Ka-shing is called superman.
The owner of a number of casinos and other real estate (including in Las Vegas), Sheldon Adelson grew up in a poor family of Jewish origin. He earned his first money at the age of 12 as a street newspaper seller. According to 2014 data, his fortune is estimated at approximately $38 billion.
The Google co-founder, whose fortune is estimated at almost $30 billion, graduated from the University of Michigan. And he ended up on this list because he quit his doctorate and focused on working at Google.
I literally became infected with entrepreneurship as a student at the University of Texas at Austin. In fact, the beginning of Dell Inc. was placed in the dorm room where Michael began selling computer components. At the age of 19, he gave up higher education and plunged headlong into business. The rest was history.
Microsoft co-founder, sports fanatic, and owner of his own, Paul Allen, dropped out of college in 1974 and took a job at Honywell. The very next year, he and Bill Gates founded Micro-Soft (the hyphen in the name was later removed). In 2015, Forbes ranked Allen as the 51st richest person in the world with a net worth of $17.5 billion.
Azim Hashim Premji is often called the Indian Bill Gates because... he heads Wipro Limited, India's largest software company. Azim studied electrical engineering at Stanford University, but dropped out at the age of 21 and took over the family business due to the death of his father.
One of the founders of Las Vegas, who came from a family of Armenian immigrants, Kirk Kerkorian left school after 8th grade to work as an auto mechanic and practice boxing.
The co-founder of Apple, NeXT and Pixar dropped out of college after the first semester, which came as a real shock to his adoptive parents, because higher education in the United States is not cheap. Jobs later collected and returned bottles and cans to earn money and make ends meet.
After two years at Harvard, he moved with Mark Zuckerberg to Palo Alto to focus on working on Facebook. Forbes named Moskowitz the world's youngest billionaire in 2010.
Leslie Wexner is known for the fact that over many years of his entrepreneurial activity he created and promoted a number of brands in the field of clothing and fashion - Abercrombie & Fitch, Lane Bryant, Limited Too, Exprexx. He is also the owner of the Victoria Secret brand.
American entrepreneur of Ukrainian origin (born in Kiev, then lived in Fastov) Jan Koum earned 6.8 billion dollars from the sale of the mobile messenger WhatsApp to Facebook for 19 billion. He does not have a higher education (he entered San Jose State University, but then he quit and went to work at Yahoo).
The Knight of the Legion of Honor and one of the richest people in the world studied for some time at the Talmudic Academy in New York, but after two years of study he left it and joined the army. Ralph Lauren is the founder of the famous Polo brand.
Hyper-aggressive and assertive, David Geffen was never particularly keen on university lectures. He never graduated from any of the colleges he attended—Santa Monica College, Brooklyn College, and the University of Texas at Austin. But a career in the music industry (as a producer) allowed Geffen to enter the list of the 400 richest people in America.
One of the most influential animators of all time did not have a higher specialized education, but this did not stop him from making a career in animation and founding a company whose annual revenue averages $30 billion.
The founder of the Hobby Lobby retail chain, David Greene, is known for his religiosity and philanthropic activities. He didn't go to college. Opened his first store with a $600 loan.
As a child, Branson had dyslexia, so he had difficulty studying at school. It is not surprising that after graduation, he did not even think about going to university, but started his own business. Over the decades, about 400 companies emerged under the common Virgin brand.
One of the most influential female entrepreneurs in the United States dropped out of university at 19 to found a biotech company that would become Theranos. At the age of 30, she entered the list of the 400 youngest female billionaires.
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