Many of us grow up believing that to make anything of ourselves and to be successful we need to stay in education and go to college or university. But with around a quarter of billionaires having dropped out of school, it seems that belief is a myth. Read on to meet the people who've made big money without a degree. All dollar values in US dollars and net worths as estimated by Forbes.

Having co-founded digital publishing companies Blogger, Twitter and Medium, Williams is a self-made billionaire. He grew up working on his family's soybean and corn farm before going to the University of Nebraska. After dropping out, he learned to write computer code and created blogging platform Blogger with two friends. Selling the platform to Google, Williams spent two years working for the company himself before joining Twitter. He’s now worth $2.2 billion (£1.7bn).

Ted Turner dropped out of Brown University to work for his father's company Turner Advertising. He took control of the business after his father took his own life. The company was rebranded as Turner Broadcasting and grew into a billion-dollar enterprise. Today, Turner has a net worth of $2.3 billion (£1.7bn). He is a dedicated philanthropist committed to restoring America's natural environments. 

As Facebook’s founding president, Parker is a successful serial entrepreneur who also co-founded music sharing service Napster. He went to Chantilly High School but never attended college. Parker was also involved in setting up companies including Plaxo and Airtime. He is worth $2.8 billion (£2.1bn).

Kalanick dropped out of college to focus on his tech start-ups Scour and RedSwoosh. He’s best known for co-founding Uber in 2009. Kalanick stepped down as CEO of Uber in 2017 and left the board in 2019. He is now the CEO of holding company City Storage Systems. In 2019 Kalanick sold his 4% stake in Uber for billions. His net worth is $2.8 billion (£2.1bn).

Steven Spielberg was denied entry into college on three occasions due to his mediocre grades. When he eventually did gain entry he dropped out to focus on making a short film which earned him a job with Universal. Spielberg co-founded DreamWorks Studios in 1994 along with Jeffrey Katzenberg and fellow dropout and billionaire David Geffen. His net worth is $3.7 billion (£2.8bn).

Like Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Newell is also a Harvard dropout. He is now worth $3.9 billion (£2.95bn) after co-founding Valve Corporation in 1998. He runs the company, which plays a big role in PC game sales though its Steam digital game store. In April 2016 the private company released Vive, a virtual reality headset developed with Chinese consumer electronics company HTC.

Worth $3.9 billion (£2.95bn), Branson founded the Virgin brand and its 360 companies including the famous Virgin Atlantic Airways. He wanted to become a journalist or an editor and dropped out of school at 16 to start his first successful business, Student magazine. By 24 he had bought his own 79-acre Caribbean island and he was knighted in 1999.

Having dropped out of college, Diller went on to establish the Fox Broadcasting Company. He is the chairman of Expedia and used to be the chief executive officer of Inter Active Corp, which includes the Home Shopping Network (HSN) and Ticketmaster. Today, Diller is worth about $5.1 billion (£3.9bn). 

A medical school dropout, Armani became a billionaire after founding the fashion brand that bears his name. He served in the military before getting a job as a buyer and window dresser for a department store in Milan. Armani launched his own line in the mid-1970s and now the brand sells accessories, perfumes, make-up, jeans, sportswear and couture. Armani has a net worth of $7.2 billion (£5.4bn).

Born in the Bronx to Russian Jewish immigrants, Ralph Lauren worked part time in the garment industry as a teenager before founding the fashion brand that bears his name. The college dropout now has a net worth of $7.3 billion (£5.5bn). Lauren stepped down as chief executive officer in 2015 but remains chairman of the company.

WhatsApp's co-founder sold the world’s biggest mobile messaging service to Facebook in 2014 for about $22 billion in cash and stock. The San Jose State University dropout worked for Yahoo for nine years until 2007 and now sits on the Facebook board. Between February and May 2016, Koum donated more than six million Facebook shares to an undisclosed recipient. He is worth $10.6 billion (£8bn).

The sudden death of his father led Premji to drop out of Stanford at 21 years old to run Wipro, an IT outsourcing and services company. However, tired of being called a college dropout, at 50 he returned to Stanford to complete his degree. Dubbed India’s richest tech tycoon, Premji is worth $10.8 billion (£8.2bn).

A college degree wasn’t necessary for this founding member of Twitter and founder and chief executive officer of payments company Square (now Block). Having gone to Missouri University of Science and Technology before transferring to NYU, Dorsey dropped out to pursue developing Twitter into what it is today. He is worth about $10.9 billion (£8.2bn).

The controversial US investor dropped out of medical school to join the army and is now worth $15.8 billion (£11.9bn). He founded his own firm in 1968. Icahn became infamous through a series of takeovers and attempted takeovers of some of the biggest companies in America, including Texaco, TWA and American Airlines.

The billionaire that helped launch Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg from their Harvard dorm is worth $21.1 billion (£15.9bn). After dropping out of university and leaving Facebook, Moskovitz co-founded workflow software company Asana. The majority of his net worth comes from his 2% stake in Facebook.

Australia’s richest citizen took her late father Lang Hancock’s bankrupted estate and rebuilt it to have multibillion-dollar assets. The University of Sydney dropout is worth $22 billion (£16.6bn), with the biggest piece of her fortune sourced from Hope Downs, a joint mine venture she has with Rio Tinto. The other is the Roy Hill project, an iron-ore mine in Western Australia that started shipments to Asia in 2015.

A rags to riches story, Ka-shing fled to Hong King with his family in 1940 after the Japanese invaded China. He left school at 15 to work at a plastic factory after his father died of tuberculosis. Ka-shing went on to open his own plastic factory and branched out to real estate before buying Hutchison Whampoa, a conglomerate with interests in container ports around the world. His empire spans from retail to tech which brings him a net worth of $29.8 billion (£22.5bn).

The Frenchman quit high school in 1947 to work for his father’s lumber mill. Pinault and his family now own high-end design houses Gucci, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Yves Saint Laurent. He and his family also own auction house Christie's. His net worth is $51.1 billion (£38.6bn).

Dell started his computer company in his University of Texas dorm room and later dropped out of college to focus all his efforts on the business. Dell Computers Inc is now the most profitable PC manufacturer in the world. Dell has a net worth of $58.2 billion (£44bn).

Amancio Ortega is the founder of fashion empire Inditex, which includes Zara, Massimo Dutti and Pull&Bear. Ortega left school at 14 to run errands for shirt stores. He stepped down as Inditex chairman in 2011 but still rakes in millions annually. He is the richest man in Spain with a net worth of $74.2 billion (£56.1bn).

The Indian business tycoon quit Gujarat University in his second year and moved to Mumbai with just a few rupees before he started working in the diamond business and setting up his own company. As the chairman of Adani Group he is involved in coal trading, coal mining, oil and gas exploration, ports, multi-modal logistics, power generation and transmission, and gas distribution. He is now worth $81.2 billion (£61.4bn).

Considered the world’s most famous investor, Buffett bought his first stock at 11 years old and started a pinball machine business in high school. His $103.1 billion (£77.9bn) net worth was earned through the development of Berkshire Hathaway, which bought assets in media (the Washington Post), insurance (GEICO) and oil (Exxon). Buffett became a director of Coca-Cola from 1989-2006 after Berkshire Hathaway's significant investment in the company. Buffett has promised to donate 99% of his wealth to charity during his lifetime. 

The Facebook (now Meta) co-founder and chief executive officer is worth $118.3 billion (£89.4bn). Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard University after his sophomore year to concentrate on the social networking site.

After dropping out of college twice and being told by his adopted father that he wouldn’t amount to anything, Ellison developed the world’s second largest software company and became a multibillionaire. Ellison founded Oracle in 1977 and is the executive chairman and chief technology officer of the company. He is now worth $121.7 billion (£92bn).

The co-founder of the world’s largest software company Microsoft, Gates left Harvard University to focus on building his empire. He is worth $138.4 billion (£104.6bn) and previously held the title of world’s richest person for 13 consecutive years. Gates and former wife Melinda are using their fortune to eliminate polio, attack malaria and expand childhood vaccinations. 

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