Did You Know: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Are Quitters

Posted on October 23rd, 2007

Early last month, I talked about the value of a college education and how people who graduated from university are much more likely, on average, to earn more than their non-graduate counterparts. That’s a general trend, but there are certain exceptions to that rule. Perhaps the two best known exceptions are none other than Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple Computer.

Bill Gates always did well in school with a particular knack for mathematics. Fortunately or unfortunately, he had very little interest in formal schooling, instead finding himself in front of a computer for hours on end, working on his hobby and other interests. He got accepted into the very elite Harvard University, starting out with a pursuit as a pre-law student. Again, he found himself disinterested in classes and eventually dropped out of Harvard, founding Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975.

Steve Jobs had a more modest route to fame, but the path was much the same. Instead of attending an Ivy League school, Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Whereas Gates managed to stay in school for a period of time, Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College after just one semester! He continued to audit courses there, but he was not formally enrolled. He went on to form Apple Computer with Steve Wozniak in 1976, just one year after Microsoft was created.

In some ways, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can both be thought of as quitters. They dropped out of school when they realized that there were greener (in many senses of the word) pastures elsewhere. There’s a saying that winners never quit and quitters never win. I think that we can all agree that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are pretty big winners, even though they may have “quit” school.