It is often said that it s extremely difficult to get a job without going to college. Even though the statistics are true, it seems people are thinking about this in all the wrong ways. Maybe the trick isn’t to graduate college, maybe it just matters that you’re there. Here are five people who made millions, and some billions, starting up their businesses and giving life to their ideas while they were still in college. A few of them even dropped out after they made it big.
1. Sergey Brin and Larry Page
These two guys met at Stanford while getting their Ph.D and turned their search engine project into a multi-billion dollar company known as Google. In 1996, when they were in their early twenties, they were already developing a website that would change the Internet forever. This left them with a net worth of $28 billion each. And to think this all started as some school project. Maybe this will encourage us all to try harder when the time comes for our next group project.
2. Mark Zuckerburg
This famous internet entrepreneur started Facebook out of his Harvard dorm room just for fun. Not only was he a sophomore when he developed Facebook, he was also Greek, a brother in Alpha Epsilon Pi. At this rate it seems like studying computer science is the way to go, and with Zuckerburg banking at $16.8 billion there’s no better reason to switch your major now.
3. Frederick Smith
This lesser known college graduate was the founder of FedEx. He first came up with the idea after writing an economics paper about a made up delivery service. It is even said that he received a grade of C on this paper, but you know what they say,“C's get degrees”! His idea landed him a net worth of $2.1 billion. He was also Greek, as a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon at Yale University.
4. Briton Hadden and Henry Luce
This duo created TIME magazine while at Yale. After working on the school newspaper, they developed TIME magazine, the first weekly news magazine, ever. The magazine that these fraternity men, in Delta Kappa Epsilon and Alpha Delta Phi, respectively, created reaches 25 million readers and is part of one of the largest media companies in the world, Time Warner.
5. Bill Gates
This computer scientist/businessman and his friend Paul Allen created Microsoft in a poker room while at Harvard University. With a net worth of an insane $72 billion, Gates has more money than he knows what to do with. This lead him to become an extraordinary philanthropist and he has given over $28 million dollars to charity, thus far, which barely dented his wallet. We all know that crazy things can happen at college, but starting a company that makes you the richest man in world is incomparable to any of my stories.
If you haven’t invented anything or started your own company just yet there's no need to fret. Lucky for you, you go Florida State and if our awesome alumni are any indication of how we will be doing in the future, you’ll be just fine. Some notable FSU businessmen and women are Sara Blakely- founder of Spanx, Bob Bowman is Michael Phelps’ mentor, and Meg Crofton- the CEO of Walt Disney World Resort. We can also claim a few famous actors and musicians including actor Paul Gleason, John Driskell Hopkins of Zac Brown Band, Jim Morrison of The Doors, singer Jake Owen, and fitness expert and jazzercizing expert Richard Simmons.
Our alumni currently hold seven seats in the Florida senate and 21 seats in the Florida house of representatives. I would continue, but I don’t want to brag too much.
College is the best place to start planning your future. We’re in the midst of out most creative times and there’s no better place to learn and discover than a university. Whether developing a website, inventing the next mega product or at least figuring out what you want to do for the rest of your life, college is the first step to success.
