You might probably have no or little idea what the richest people in the world studied in school, this article lists what each of the ten richest men on earth studied in college/university:
Bill Gates
Founder of Microsoft, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CEO of Cascade Investment
Age: 59
Net worth: $82.1 Billion
Major: Pre-law – drop out
Programmer-turned business tycoon, Gates, started at Harvard as a pre-law major in 1973, but soon shifted focus, quickly ran through “the university’s most rigorous mathematics and graduate level computer science courses,” says NPR, then dropped out and founded Microsoft.
Carlos Slim Helu
Chairman & CEO of Telmex, América Móvil and Grupo Carso
Age: 74
Net worth: $79.9 Billion
Major: Civil engineering
Mexican business magnate, Slim Helu, studied civil engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico School of Engineering, where he also taught Algebra and Linear Programming at the same time. He’s known as the “Warren Buffett of Mexico,” apparently, and his fortune comes from interests in such things as communications, real estate, airlines, media, technology, retailing, and finance.
Amancio Ortega
Co-founder of the Intidex group
Age: 78
Net worth: $57.7 Billion
Major: Nothing
Fashion mogul, Ortega, didn’t pursue higher education. As a young teen he started working as a shop hand for a shirtmaker in his hometown of La Coruna. He then started a business making and selling bathrobes before opening his first Zara store in 1975.
Warren Buffett
CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
Age: 84
Net worth: $70.4 Billion
Major: Business administration, economics
In 1947, at age 16, Buffett – a.k.a. The Oracle of Omaha – enrolled at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as a business major. After two years he transferred to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln where at age 20 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in business administration. He then earned a Master of Science in economics at Columbia Business School.
Larry Ellison
Age: 70
CEO and founder of Oracle Corporation
Net worth: $50.3 Billion
Major: Science? – drop out
I can’t find exactly what software big shot Larry Ellison majored in, but have read that he attended the University of Illinois in the 1960s with a plan to become a doctor and that he “was named science student of the year” – maybe ironically, since the first source says he failed to maintain a C average. So, the major was probably some kind of science. He dropped out after two years and then went to the University of Chicago, “intending to pursue a degree in physics and mathematics,” but dropped out after one semester. In 1966 he moved to southern California where he eventually founded Oracle.
