The narrative of the college dropout who became an insanely successful startup founder is one that’s entrepreneurial lore. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes all dropped out of undergrad, for example, and three of the four wound up building wildly successful companies. (Not too shabby.) But the reality is that for every founder who started a business in their college dorm room, there are more who finished up their degree and likely worked at low-level jobs for years before finding entrepreneurial success.
Related: Are College-Dropout Billionaire Entrepreneurs Really That Common?