These inspiring billionaires made it big without a college degree

Self-learning has been a trend among entrepreneurs. And the list of billionaire dropouts is long. Halfway through, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to start Facebook. Michael Dell dropped out after his first year at the University of Texas. Larry Ellison too dropped out after his mother died and Bill Gates lasted only three years at Harvard.

Not everybody who drops out of college starts an amazing company the next day. Steve Jobs dropped out as college was too expensive. In fact, if the decision to drop out or not boils down to economics, all you need is comparing the company’s numbers with what you could do with the money you might be spending on tuition. Here is a list of dropout entrepreneurs:

Travis Kalanick, Uber: Dropped out at 21
In 1998, Kalanick dropped out of the University of California, Los Angeles with a couple of friends. Together they set up various search engines and file transfer software. In 2009, he founded Uber which is now worth $62 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook: Dropped out at 20
Zuckerberg, whi le st i l l in high school, developed Pandora. He then created ‘The Facebook’ while he was in his sophomore year at Harvard University and left college in 2004 to manage the company. Facebook today is worth $190 billion.

Jan Koum,WhatsApp: Dropped out at 21
Ukrainian Jan Koum came to America in 1992 with his mother at the age of 16. He then enrolled at San Jose State University in 1995, which he left to join Yahoo after he was offered a job. It was here that he met Brian Acton with whom he founded WhatsApp in 2004.

Larry Ellison, Oracle: Dropped out at 20
Larry Ellison dropped out of two universities: The University of Illinois and then the University of Chicago. In 1966, he moved to Northern California and worked at various jobs where he earned his computer skills. In 1977 set up Oracle.

Michael Dell, Dell: Dropped out at 19
Dell self-funded his first computer with $1,000 in 1984. He worked from his dorm room while he was studying at the University of Texas. He sold them to his classmates and the company earned $6 million.

John Mackey, Whole Foods: Dropped out at 22
Mackey was a student at University of Texas at Austin and Trinity University, but dropped out to pursue other interests. In 1978, he founded Safer Way, a health-food store, with $10,000 borrowed from his father and was able to raise another $35,000. The store evolved to become Whole Foods.

Bill Gates, Microsoft: Dropped out at 20
Gates was a law student at Harvard University, but his passion since childhood was computers. In 1976, he left Harvard to join Paul Allen at MITS, and then founded their own company creating software for different computer companies.

Evan Williams, Twitter: Dropped out at 20
Evan Williams dropped out of the University of Nebraska in 1990. A few years later he cofounded Blogger and in 2006 started The Obvious Collection which evolved into what we know today as Twitter.

Steve Jobs, Apple: Dropped out at 19
Steve Jobs enrolled at Reed University. Not sure of his decision, he dropped out in 1972. However, Jobs continued to attend creative classes at the university for the next 18 months.