The founders of google were Stanford phd can students. I don’t know if they go their phds or not.

The founder of Microsoft was a Harvard math major that probably could have gotten into an r1 phd program if the stuck it out for what 1 more year?

The founder of Facebook was a Harvard cs major that could graduate if the stuck it out.

Dropping out early to start your business is very different than someone who never went to school or flunked out of their freshman year.

Well... I recognise that these companies have made a lot of money, but how? I remember the day of BeOS, it was technically 15 years ahead and Microsoft killed it (just as an example), the same company that years later tried to kill Linux and killed Nokia. Google with their motto "Don't be evil" ... sure, just collect personal data in every possible way and sell it against your will. Yes, they have also done many positive things like Golang or Android for example, but when they see that they are losing the grip (and monopoly) on the project, they switch to something else (Flutter ... Fuchsia). The real revolution (apart from the Internet) of the last decades has been open source, without it we wouldn't have *BSD, Mariadb, PostgresQL, Linux, Android, dozens of languages, databases, knowledge sharing. and with it freedom : freedom to choose, freedom to learn, to collaborate with other people around the globe for the benifits if not all, at least many. In my opinion, the open source philosophy has done more for human evolution than all the big companies put together (and their money stacked in foreing countries to not pay taxes).

My understanding, but maybe its fake news over here in the UK, is that Jobs dropped out, Zuckerberg dropped out, Gates dropped out, Brin and Page both dropped out. Cant comment on the other two MS blokes, or the other bloke who co founded Apple.

But getting a decent education here in the UK, where you dont get beaten up by teachers, in my experience is quite difficult. I even dropped out of one schools six form to enroll in another six form, perhaps demonstrating my willingness to learn, but even one of those courses was sabotaged.

To be honest I think the mentality of the british empire was and might still be pervasive with state school education, viewed more as an institution to contain people of a certain age than a place of learning.

Perhaps that is why law is not taught to everyone at school even in a TL;DR fashion?

My larger point is there is a very big difference between dropping out of an elite institution just before the finish line because you think you have a billion dollar company on your hands, and just dropping out. Even if MS, Facebook and Google all failed Brinn, Zuckerberg, and Gates would still have been able to walk get a job probably. They didn't drop out because they failed out, they willingly left to pursue their ideas, and were otherwise top notch students.

The founder of Microsoft, has wealthy connected parents and grandparents.

The founder of Facebook too

The founder of Google grew up in Academic family.

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All of them received financial support, reducing risks loosing living expenses. Risk of loosing livelyhood, significanly changes how a founder or an enegineer spends their time.

Connecting young people to networks of rich, influencial and generally experienced & smart people -- is a huge deal as well.

It improves their verbal skills, perception management, broadness their knowlege.

All of the above, can probably be easily found in many Stanford, Harvard, MIT graduates...

None of the are 'competitively obtained skills' due to 'hard work'.

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Additionally moral choices that favor lying, fudging facts and intentions -- may also be a characterstics of graduates from those types of schools... This an opinion.

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All of the above contributes to successfull financial outcomes.

None are particularly representative of person's merits compared to others...