Four Career Tips From Billionaires Who Never Graduated

A college diploma is not a prerequisite for obtaining an absurd amount of wealth. Out of the 400 richest people in the U.S., 63 entrepreneurs don’t have one–more than 15% of the list. With total U.S. With no cash for college and unemployment pushing hard budding entrepreneur might be tempted to skip university and instead enroll in the school of hard knocks.

Author Michael Ellsberg spent two years interviewing business titans who did just that for his book The Education of Millionaires. Here are a few lessons gleaned from four billionaires who learned from life experience, not lecture halls. Inspired? Great. If not, you can always plop down six figures and head to campus.

SKIP COLLEGE; GOOGLE YOUR EDUCATION

When these incredible tools of knowledge and learning are available to the whole world, formal education becomes less and less important. We should expect to see the emergence of a new kind of entrepreneur who has acquired most of their knowledge through self- exploration.

YOU CAN ALWAYS GO BACK

Take Facebook for example billionaire Dustin Moskovitz left college to join Mark Zuckerberg, he said, “I could have gone back to Harvard anytime. My friends might not be there anymore. I might have to start over socially. That was a risk. But it was a pretty small risk compared to the opportunity at the time.”

LOOK OUT FOR NO. 1

Billionaire Phillip Ruffin’s last duty as someone else’s employee was to repossess a monkey. He quit and founded a chain of stores, and later, hotels and casinos. “The advice I would give to young people? Quit your job. Don’t work for anybody. You really can’t make any money working for someone else.”

GET THICK-SKINNED

The Navy vet slept in an ancient Rolls- Royce on Sunset Strip as he slung shampoo door-to-door before making it big with Paul Mitchell. “I learned sales and marketing from knocking on a hundred doors a day. You quickly discover that you’ll get 99 slammed in your face before you make a sale.”