Surprising Facts About Some of the World's Most Successful Failures

1. The richest man in the world twelve years running, Bill Gates, with a net worth of $52 billion, is a dropout.
2. 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).
3. The world’s wealthiest high school dropout is Li Ka-shing.
4. 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).
5. America’s richest elementary school dropout, the late H.L. Hunt, was worth billions.
6. America’s richest high school dropout, J.R. Simplot, is worth $3.2 billion.
7. America’s richest college dropout is Bill Gates.
8. Asia’s richest resident, Li Ka-shing, is a high school dropout.
9. Argentina's sole billionaire, Gregorio Perez, worth $1.7 billion, is a high school dropout.
10. Spain’s richest resident, Amancio Ortega, worth $14.8 billion, is a high school dropout.
11. There are 68 billionaires who are dropouts and numerous millionaires.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. Titanic, the highest grossing movie of all time was directed by a dropout (James Cameron); and the two lead actors were dropouts (Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet)
15. A member of the all-time top selling band The Beatles, George Harrison, was a dropout.
16. Some of the highest-paid actors in the world (Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp and Leonardo Di Caprio) are all dropouts.
17. Some of the highest-paid actresses in the world (Cameron Diaz, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie and Drew Barrymore) are all dropouts.
18. 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.
19. “I have watched all the dropouts who made their own rules” is a line in Ozzy Osbourne’s song, “Crazy Train.” Ozzy is a high school dropout as is his daughter.
20. One of the top-grossing films of 2005, War of the Worlds was written by a dropout (H.G. Wells), was directed by a dropout (Steven Spielberg) and starred a dropout (Tom Cruise).
21. Madame C.J. Walker, the first African-American millionaire, was a dropout.
22. Elijah McCoy, who invented the ironing board as well as a lubrication system for steam engines, was a dropout. He attracted notice among his African-American contemporaries. Booker T. Washington in Story of the Negro (1909) recognized him as having produced more patents than any other African-American inventor up to that time.
23. America’s first millionaire, John Jacob Astor, was high school dropout.
24. America’s first billionaire, John D Rockefeller Sr., was high school dropout.