Dropouts are doing well, it seems!

I was recently introduced to a Web site called ‘Millionaire Dropouts‘, giving details of just how many of the rich among us weren’t academically inclined. In a section called ‘Dropout Trivia‘, a large number of interesting facts are listed, including the following:

• The richest man in the world twelve years running, Bill Gates, with a net worth of $52 billion, is a dropout.
• Four of the ten richest people in the world are dropouts (number 1, Bill Gates; number 6, Sheldon Adelson, worth $26 billion; number 8, Amancio Ortega, worth $24 billion, Li Ka-shing, worth 23 billion).
• The world’s wealthiest high school dropout is Li Ka-shing.
• Four out of five of America’s richest people are dropouts (number 1, Bill Gates; number 3, Sheldon Adelson; number 4, Lawrence Ellison, $19.5 billion; number 5, Paul Allen, 16 billion).
• America’s richest elementary school dropout, the late H.L. Hunt, was worth billions.
• America’s richest high school dropout, J.R. Simplot, is worth $3.2 billion.
• America’s richest college dropout is Bill Gates.
• Many of the world’s greatest inventions were developed by dropouts, including television, radio, airplanes, cars, motion pictures, the incandescent light bulb, the car stereo tape deck, the gas mask, the traffic signal, earmuffs, the game of basketball, the sewing machine—and many more.
• Some of history’s greatest companies were founded by dropouts, including Kodak, Polaroid, Famous Amos, Disney, Ford, Learjet, Bank of America, Motown Records, Whole Foods, Domino’s, Apple Computer, Netscape, Microsoft, Polo, Jet Blue, Dunkin’ Donuts, NBC, KFC, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Holiday Inn and Rolling Stone Magazine.
• The U.S. penny and quarter-dollar coins, as well as the one, five, twenty, one hundred and thousand-dollar bills all have images of dropouts.

There are many more such facts at the link. It’s worth a look.

The Web site is trying to sell a series of books. I must emphasize I’m not endorsing them, and I haven’t read any of them. I merely found the facts presented to be very interesting.

Peter