More than 20% of self-made billionaires never completed college

I have to disagree with you here.

I dropped out of college, where I was a poor student, to do back breaking labor and found my first startup living on the cheap in India. I have since tanked startups repeatedly. During my second startup I labored on building a 4000 sq foot house at $12 an hour while working part-time on my prototype. None of that required a parental safety net, just personal hardship.

Ironically, its been the best thing that could have happened to me. I'm an independent learner and so I was ill suited for college. In startups, I get to develop highly marketable, cutting-edge skills using technologies not taught in college or used in a corporate environment. I then apply these through consulting as the market catches up and get a big fat raise from the skills I develop at each startup.

Although some money from the startups would be nice, too :) Working on that.

It's not a question of being able to "afford" dropping out to work on a startup, so much as it's a question of what you're willing to give up to do it.

My parents made less than $30k combined when I entered college in the late 90s. I dropped out after my freshman year, worked as a restaurant cashier and temp for about six months, then managed to land an entry-level media production job at a startup. Since then, I've slowly clawed my way up to a decent development gig at a major systems player in Silicon Valley, all without the benefit of a college degree, or any major financial support other than my own earnings.

Even several years after I first "broke in" to the industry, however, I've had entire years where I made only a few thousand dollars. If you're willing to live in shared housing, eat a lot of cheap stir-fry and soup, and occasionally suck it up and ask a friend or family member for a couple of hundred bucks to make rent that month, you can weather some pretty drastic changes in your income.

Regardless, after a decade or so of working as a developer, I've found that the lack of a college degree matters less and less. Am I less likely to be on the short list of folks to get promoted to upper management? Almost certainly. Does that bother me? Not really. I like writing code, and am happy to continue doing so until something else seems more interesting.

Completely agree with you modoc, I worked for JUST over minimum wage in a family owned business when I was 17-23 before interviewing for an entry level support position with my current company. I was a run of the mill PC tech who got paid hardly anything at the time (had two kids & wife to support as well) and I never felt I was having a hard time "making it", dare I say, I was happy.

I worked hard, picked up programming, and spent nights/spare time working on a program for our branch office, with the intention that I wanted to move up to corporate and be a full time programmer.

I busted my tail working, stayed motivated, gained experience, and when the app I wrote for our branch made it into the right hands (this was also planned, just had to wait for the timing to be right) they 'apprenticed me' into a .NET position, on the notion that I showed the right character to be a good employee and worked hard. That was several raises ago, and I'm still moving and improving, and getting serious real world experience in the field I want to make a career out of.

I grew up watching my Dad work 10-12 hour days at a company we owned, I was fortunate enough to have parents who always pushed us to achieve anything we wanted (and modest enough to never make us feel like we were anything more than middle class, there was money there, but instead of taking it for our pleasure, my father would reward employees and let it stay as profits for the business).

When I left the nest, I severed all financial ties with them to make it on my own, with my own independence. So I wasn't driving a car paid by them, or using a cell phone paid by them, or any of that.

The reason I got the first PC tech job even though I had a recreational tech history of computers and 5+ years of graphic/web design experience? Because I interviewed well and my former boss saw potential.

The world is full of opportunities for everyone, just look at the examples here. Such a wide range of people with different stories and experiences.

College is great, but I don't regret not going. I learned growing up how to teach myself through reading, research and practice, and I learn things faster that way.

That's not that surprising, if you take into consideration that the percentage is still higher than the average in the population. It's only interesting if you assume that going to college is a must for any success in life, but that position is so ridiculous that you don't need any real data to refute it.

Warren Buffet observed the correlation between access and wealth. If you figure what the "rate of genius" is, meaning if genius happens let's say 1 in a 1000, then it would stand to reason that there's more successful people in China and India by the numbers. But if we look at the list of billionaires by nationality* we see the U.S. has the overwhelming majority of them - 359 compared to 28/24.

Genius does not equal wealth or even success perhaps, but I think there can be parallels drawn between them. Mr. Buffet himself said he would not have been the success he is if he were born in some place like Peru or something.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_billionaires_by_nationa...