Billionaire paths to success
Becoming a billionaire is an elite distinction. There are only 2,781 across the world, and 813 of them are in the U.S., according to the 2024 Forbes World’s Billionaires List. From film directing and sports ownership to medicine and food delivery service, billionaires’ riches come from a variety of industries. While not all of the billionaires on this list finished college, many of them connected with future collaborators and generated the ideas for their businesses while on campus. Check out where 18 of the most famous billionaires went to school.
Andy Fang
Birthplace: San Jose, California
College: Stanford University
Andy Fang, co-founder of the popular food delivery service DoorDash, graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science in 2014. He and three of his classmates, while students, started what would later become the tech company after talking to local restaurant owners and discovering that food delivery was an issue. Palo Alto Delivery eventually became DoorDash, which now operates in 25 countries and has revenue of $2.63 billion, the company reported on Aug. 1, 2024. His net worth is estimated at about $1.2 billion.
Brian Chesky
Birthplace: Niskayuna, New York
College: Rhode Island School of Design
After graduating college with a degree in industrial design, Airbnb rental service founder Brian Chesky, his roommate Joe Gebbia and their friend Nathan Blecharczyk formed the company. Previously known as Airbedandbreakfast.com, the short-term rental service has served more than 1.4 billion guests since its inception in 2008 and is worth more than $75 billion — despite this “Seinfeld” sitcom quote under his high school yearbook photo: “I’m sure I’ll amount to nothing.” His estimated net worth is nearly $10 billion.
Peggy Cherng
Birthplace: Myanmar, Southeast Asia
Colleges: Baker University (KS), Oregon State University, University of Missouri
Peggy Cherng, co-founder and co-CEO of the Asian dining chain Panda Restaurant Group, grew up in Hong Kong before moving to the U.S. to study at Baker University in Kansas in the 1960s. She transferred to Oregon State, earning a degree in mathematics. She later earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Missouri. She and her husband opened the first Panda Express in California mall food court in 1983 and expanded around the world, thanks partly to Cherng’s ability to technologically track customer preferences, food orders and inventory. Her net worth is estimated at more than $3 billion.
Michael Dell
Birthplace: Houston, Texas
College: University of Texas–Austin
Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell dropped out of the University of Texas at age 19 during the second half of his freshman year in 1984, by which point he had sold computers out of his dorm to the tune of $80,000. Dell became the youngest CEO to earn a ranking on the Fortune 500. He served as the United Nations Foundation’s first Global Advocate for Entrepreneurship, and his net worth is estimated at about $104 billion.
Robert F. Smith
Birthplace: Denver, Colorado
Colleges: Cornell University (NY), Columbia Business School (NY)
Robert F. Smith, founder and CEO of technology and software investment company Vista Equity Partners, graduated from Cornell with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1985. He earned an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1994 and holds four patents for coffee filtration systems. Smith made national news in 2019 when he paid off the college debt for the graduating senior class of Morehouse College in Georgia, a total of $34 million. His net worth is estimated at more than $9 billion.
Thai Lee
Birthplace: Bangkok, Thailand
Colleges: Amherst College (MA), Harvard Business School (MA)
Thai Lee, CEO of the IT company Shi International, earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and economics from Amherst and an MBA from Harvard Business School. The company has $14 billion in annual sales and 15,000 customers, including Boeing and AT&T. Forbes has regarded the company as the largest woman-owned company in America. It has 35 offices around the world and Lee’s net worth is about $6.8 billion.
Evan Spiegel
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
College: Stanford
Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, studied at Stanford and dropped out weeks before graduation. While there, he met fellow Kappa Sigma fraternity member and Snapchat CTO Bobby Murphy. Reggie Brown, another fraternity brother, expressed a desire for a way to send disappearing photos. In the summer of 2011, the three began working on the app as a business, with Spiegel serving as CEO and designer. He became a billionaire at the age of 25, and his net worth is estimated at about $2.6 billion.
Phil Knight
Birthplace: Portland, Oregon
Colleges: University of Oregon, Stanford University (CA)
Nike co-founder and chairman Phil Knight earned a business degree from the University of Oregon in 1959 and earned a graduate degree from Stanford’s business school. Knight found his true passion for business in a class where he argued that shoe production in Japan could outsell Germany. He traveled to Japan after graduation and struck a deal with a company to sell its shoes in the U.S. Knight formed the company Blue Ribbon Sports, which later became Nike, to sell the shoes. Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman helped design a performance-enhancing, waffle-sole athletic shoe that fueled Nike’s rise from local company to global powerhouse. Nike generated more than $51 billion in global revenue in the most recent fiscal year. Knight’s net worth is estimated at more than $40 billion.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong
Birthplace: Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Colleges: University of British Columbia, University of Witwatersrand
Medical researcher and businessman Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong received a bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia in Canada and a medical degree from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. In 1995, he created Abraxane, a groundbreaking drug that treats several types of cancer. Abraxane has been approved in multiple countries, generating $1 billion in sales annually. Soon-Shiong sold his Abraxis company and American Pharmaceutical Partners for $9.1 billion and owns the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune and part of the Los Angeles Lakers. His net worth is estimated at more than $5 billion.
MacKenzie Scott
Birthplace: San Francisco, California
College: Princeton University (NJ)
Philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott graduated from Princeton with a degree in English in 1992. She moved to New York and began working for a hedge fund, where she met and married future Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in September 1993. Bezos told Scott about his plan for an online bookstore, and both left the hedge fund, D.E. Shaw, in 1994 to start the business in their garage in Seattle, Washington. Scott was left with a 4% stake in the multinational tech company following the couple’s divorce in 2019. Estmates place her net worth at more than $30 billion.
Jan Koum
Birthplace: Kiev, Ukraine
College: San Jose State University (CA)
WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum lived in Ukraine during his youth and migrated with his mother to Mount View, California following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Koum left San Jose State after his freshman year and met his future business partner, Brian Acton, while working at Yahoo. Following a year-long trip to South America, the two came up with an idea to create a messaging app that makes texts and phone calls more accessible across platforms. WhatsApp launched in 2009 and is valued at $105.6 billion. Estimates place Koum’s net worth at around $16 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg
Birthplace: White Plains, New York
College: Harvard University (MA)
Mark Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University in 2002, and two years later launched the first iteration of Facebook.com. The social networking platform allowed Harvard students to stay connected by uploading their photos and other information into a template that Zuckerberg created. With the help of two of classmates, additional features were added to allow the website to be used by students at other schools. After receiving money from venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Zuckerberg left school to concentrate on his company, which later made him the youngest self-made billionaire ever at age 23. The Meta chairman and CEO’s estimated worth is more than $180 billion.
Tiger Woods
Birthplace: Cypress, California
College: Stanford
Golfing legend Tiger Woods enrolled at Stanford in 1994, and left to turn pro in 1996 after winning the collegiate title the same year. Woods went on to become the face of the sport during the late Nineties and early 2000s, winning four of his five Masters titles during that period. He is second to Jack Nicklaus with the most Masters wins and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019. His net worth is estimated at just over $1 billion.
Oprah Winfrey
Birthplace: Kosciusko, Mississippi
College: Tennessee State University
Television and movie star Oprah Winfrey enrolled at Tennessee State in 1971, studying speech communications and performing arts before leaving to work at the Nashville local CBS affiliate station. Winfrey later returned to TSU in 1986 and finished her degree. By then, she had already worked as a local news anchor and reporter, and become host of a nationally syndicated, award-winning television show in Chicago. The philanthropist and former Miss Black Tennessee USA founded women’s cable network Oxygen Media in 1998, “O, The Oprah Magazine” in 2000, and launched the Oprah Winfrey Network in 2011, helping her net worth reach an estimated $3 billion.
Donald Trump
Birthplace: New York, New York
Colleges: Fordham University, University of Pennsylvania
Former U.S. President Donald Trump attended Fordham in New York before switching to Penn’s Wharton School, where he earned a bachelor’s in economics. The Queens native started his empire with a $1 million loan from his father, who had a profitable residential real estate company. The younger Trump invested in buildings across New York and turned them into luxury housing, eventually developing golf courses, hotels and other properties around the world and licensing his name for use. Trump became more widely known when his reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” debuted on NBC in 2004. He and John F. Kennedy are the only two billionaires to serve as president. Estimates put his net worth somewhere between $4.5 and $6.5 billion.
Steven Spielberg
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio
College: California State University–Long Beach
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg studied film at Cal State, earning his degree in 2002. After enrolling in 1968, the producer and director began working on several films. His 1975 summer blockbuster thriller “Jaws” made him a household name. Spielberg is one of the most respected names in cinema, with hits such as “Jurassic Park,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Indiana Jones,” “E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “The Color Purple,” “Schindler’s List” and “Maestro.” The three-time Academy Award winner holds the record for the most “Best Picture” Oscar nominations for an individual producer — 13. Forbes estimates his net worth at about $4.8 billion.
Steve Ballmer
Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan
Colleges: Harvard, Stanford
Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer earned bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and economics from Harvard in 1977. He worked as a product manager at Procter & Gamble for two years before enrolling in Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Ballmer eventually left to work as Bill Gates’ business manager at Microsoft, becoming president in 1998, and then CEO in 2000 after Gates stepped down to become chairman. Ballmer left the company in 2014 and purchased the Los Angeles Clippers for $2 billion. His net worth is estimated at upward of $140 billion.
Elon Musk
Birthplace: Pretoria, South Africa
College: University of Pennsylvania
Elon Musk, widely believed to be the world’s wealthiest individual with a net worth estimated at around $240 billion, earned bachelor’s degrees in physics and economics from Penn in 1987. He decided to attend Stanford University to earn a graduate degree in physics but left days into the program. Musk co-founded the electronic payment company PayPal and in 2002 founded SpaceX, a company known for its rockets and spacecraft. Musk may be best known as an early funder of the electric car company Tesla, becoming its CEO in 2008. He also founded the Neuralink neurotechnology company in 2016 and bought popular social media platform Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, renaming it X.
Where 18 billionaires went to college
— Andy Fang: Stanford University
— Brian Chesky: Rhode Island School of Design
— Peggy Cherng: Baker University, Oregon State University, University of Missouri
— Michael Dell: University of Texas–Austin
— Robert F. Smith: Cornell University, Columbia Business School
— Thai Lee: Amherst College, Harvard University
— Evan Spiegel: Stanford
— Phil Knight: University of Oregon, Stanford
— Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong: University of British Columbia, University of Witwatersrand
— MacKenzie Scott: Princeton University
— Jan Koum: San Jose State University
— Mark Zuckerberg: Harvard
— Tiger Woods: Stanford
— Oprah Winfrey: Tennessee State University
— Donald Trump: Fordham University, University of Pennsylvania
— Steven Spielberg: California State University–Long Beach
— Steve Ballmer: Harvard, Stanford
— Elon Musk: University of Pennsylvania
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Where 18 Famous Billionaires Went to College originally appeared on usnews.com
