Billionaires without a diploma

A diploma certainly offers many advantages for your career. However, a number of billionaires prove that you can go far without one. MASTERS lists several examples of successful entrepreneurs who chose to leave school early and pursue their ambitions instead.

Of course, having a piece of paper in your pocket offers many advantages for your career. However, a number of billionaires prove that you can go quite far without it... MASTERS lists a number of (school) examples of successful entrepreneurs who decided to give up early and stop their education.

1. Amancio Ortega 

As a result of his father's work as a railway worker, Ortega dropped out of school at the age of fourteen and moved to A Coruña, Spain. Here he started working as an errand boy for local clothing stores in the city. In 1963, the entrepreneur started his own business for the manufacture and sale of bathrobes called Confecciones Goa. Years later, the Spaniard founded the Zara store chain; the affordable fashion was an immediate hit and the company grew into a popular retail chain. Brands such as Zara, Stradivarius, Massimo Dutti and Bershka now fall under Inditex. Today he owns 59% of its shares and his fortune is estimated at €65 billion.

2.Richard Branson

Richard Branson dropped out of high school because his dyslexia prevented him from keeping up with his studies. In an interview, the entrepreneur indicates that education is generally seen as a gateway to more money and opportunities. But according to him, this is not the only path to success. He thinks it's a shame that people stop with their good ideas because they are afraid of being inferior to people who are better educated than they are. In his opinion, entrepreneurship always wins over a good education. This credo certainly applies to Branson; at the age of twenty he did business under the company name Virgin his entry into the music industry. Virgin Group now consists of 200 very diverse companies and Branson's fortune is estimated at € 3.3 billion.

3 Steve Jobs

The entrepreneur was born in San Francisco and grew up in an adoptive family. During a summer job at a computer company, he met the young hacker Steve Wozniak. After graduating from high school, Jobs went to college in Oregon, but after a short semester he dropped out. In 1976 he founded the company together with Wozniak and Ronald Wayne Apple Computers Inc. on. The rest is history…

Here's an interesting insight into the life of the late Steve Jobs.

4. Bill Gates 

The son of a lawyer and teacher, Gates began studying law at Harvard University in 1973. However, after two years he stopped doing this to develop a program for the Altair 8800, the predecessor of the PC. The program was so popular with producer MITS that a collaboration was initiated; MITS produces and Gates and Allen supply the software. In 1975, Microsoft – a portmanteau of the words microcomputer and software – was founded. 

5. Michael Dell 

With an estimated net worth of approximately €49 billion, Dell is the 23rd most wealthy person in the world. The son of an orthodontist, he grew up in Houston, Texas. Despite his interest in computers, the entrepreneur went to study medicine at the University of Texas. In his student room he started his own company called PC's Limited. When he already had his first hundred in the bank at the age of 19, he decided to quit his studies. With a loan from his grandparents, he was able to develop and produce computers on a larger scale. And with success; in 1988 the company underwent a name change. Michael's PC's Limited expectant Dell Computer Corporation. From that moment on, the company grew into one of the largest PC manufacturers in the world.