Entrepreneur academic stage data
This page collates available data on the last academic stage that startup entrepreneurs reached before they quit studies to move full-time into their startups.
Entrepreneur name | Known for | Last academic stage completed | More details |
---|---|---|---|
Mark Zuckerberg | Principal founder of Facebook | Two years as an undergraduate at Harvard University (left in 2004) | Facebook, which launched on February 4, 2004, had already reached about a million users in August 2004 when Zuckerberg decided not to return. In the period February-May 2004, while Facebook was still young, Zuckerberg was juggling working on Facebook with his academic course load. |
Dustin Moskovitz | Co-founder of Facebook, later co-founded Asana | Two years as an undergraduate at Harvard University (left in 2004) | Was involved in Facebook's backend code from shortly after Zuckerberg started it. Made the decision to drop out along with Zuckerberg. |
Bill Gates | Co-founder of Microsoft, one of the world's richest people | Two years (second year not complete?) as an undergraduate at Harvard University | Gates started his company after dropping out. However, he already had impressive accomplishments, including solving an unsolved problem on pancake sorting, and a lot of experience programming (at a time when personal computers didn't exist). Gates also had supportive wealthy parents. |
Further reading
- Entrepreneurship and college attendance by Jonah Sinick (wiki co-author). Content from there will eventually be incorporated in modified form here.