Billionaire College Dropouts!

I recently came across an article which listed some of the billionaires (present and past) who had not completed formal education. I'll list out some of them first and then give my take on this topic.

Dhirubai Ambani:
Dropped out of school when he was 16. Went to Turkey and worked as a gas station attendant and later as a clerk in an oil company. 10 years later he returned to India, and started a business with a meager capital. Today Reliance Industries is one of the biggest, with both of his sons in the Top 10 richest men list with a net worth of $40 billion each!

Subhash Chandra:
Dropped out of school when he was 12. Started his own vegetable oils and rice trading unit at 19. Later he launched Zee Telefilms, India's first Hindi Satellite channel. He also pioneered new business - amusement parks Essel World. His personal wealth is estimated to be $2.3 billion.

Bill Gates:
Dropped out of Harvard when he was a junior there. Started his own company Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen. For long the world's richest man, till he was upstaged by legendary investor Warren Buffett recently, Bill Gates wears many a hat: computer whiz kid, entrepreneur extraordinaire, compassionate capitalist, top management thinker. . . His personal wealth is estimated to be over $50 billion.

Steve Jobs:
Dropped out of Reed College after just one semester there. In 1976, 21-year-old Jobs and 26-year-old Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer Co in the family garage. Jobs revolutionised the industry by popularising the concept of home computers. Introduced the Macintosh to the world. He had an influential role in the building of the World Wide Web. He is also the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. Today, with the iPod and the iPhone, Apple is bigger than ever. Incidentally, Jobs worked for several years at an annual salary of $1. It got him a listing in the Guinness Book as 'Lowest Paid CEO.' He was once gifted a $90 million jet by the company though. And his net worth? More than $5.4 billion.

Michael Dell:
Dropped out of University of Texas when he was 19. He started his own company Dell Computer Corporation. By 2003, Dell, Inc. was the world's most profitable PC manufacturer. His personal wealth is believed to be more than $16 billion.

Roman Abramovich:
Dropped out of school very early. Richest Russian alive, Roman is popularly known as the boss of Chelsea Football Club in which he has invested $500 million. His personal wealth is estimated to be over $23 billion.

Ralph Lauren:
Dropped out of City College of New York while studying business. He was in the army for a while and later went on to work as a sales man for Brooks Brothers. He started a necktie business under the label 'Polo' in 1967, and then went on to build a global reputation for himself as a fashion designer and a formidable businessman. His net worth is estimated to be around $3.8 billion.

Henry Ford:
Dropped out of school when he was 16. Worked as an apprentice machinist, married, tried a bit of farming, ran a sawmill, experimented with internal combustion engines and eventually formed the Detroit Automobile Company with a few other investors. When the company went bankrupt, he formed the Henry Ford Company, but was forced out by investors. He returned with the Ford Motor Company. And here's something everyone should thank Ford for. In 1926, he instituted the five-day, 40-hour work week. And the modern weekend was born.


To list some more:
Gautam Adani : Adani Groups.
Li Ka-shing : The chairman of Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong Holdings. Worth $18 billion
Carl Icahn : Leading shareholder in Yahoo. Worth $14billion
David Geffen : Founder of Dreamworks SKG. Worth $5 billion
Larry Ellison : Co-Founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation. Worth $25 billion
Richard Branson : Founder of Virgin Recording, Virgin Flights, Virgin Mobiles.
Francosis Pinault : Owns Christie's auction house, Samsonite luggage, Converse sneakers, Gucci, YSL, etc. Worth $15 billion

So what makes these achievers great. For one, most of them have achieved against all odds, even when the society around them did not permit. But is it because of the fact that they did not have a formal education? Let me explore this a little more.

There are many college and school dropouts who have amassed a huge amount wealth. But good education is never a waste of time, because there are millions of dropouts, but only a few of them go on to become billionaires.
But there is something in these people that makes me think that they would not have achieved what they have if they had got/continued their education. I feel that these people have learnt more from the experiences of life. These people did have education, the education that life teaches everyone of us, but only few can grasp it to become achievers.

The billionaire college dropouts list shows that a combination of qualities like vision, determination, hard work, business acumen, ability to spot an opportunity and turn it into a winning venture, leadership and motivational skills, etc is more important than a college degree.

Olympic Sports in India

I had a few thoughts on this topic. But before i jot them down, I would like to take a moment and applaud the efforts of all the athletes who represented India in Beijing. I would also like to congratulate the medal winners - Abhinav Bindra, Sushil Kumar, Vijender Kumar and all those people who might get added to this list by the end of Olympics.

This Olympics saw a lot of firsts for India. First Individual Gold, First time more than 2 medals, First time more than 1 medal in a day. So the natural questions that can be asked is - Is this enough (i.e are we going in the right path in the right speed) and has anything changed from the last time?

According to me, or for that matter any lay man, nothing has changed wrt to the infrastructure or the monetary benefits to the budding athletes. But there is some change in the confidence shown by our athletes. They now have a feeling that they belong to that stage, and compete with the rest of the world. It might also have something to do with the growth and recognition of India and Indians in areas other than sports. What ever might be the reason, its nice to see Indians competing with self confidence.

As for the other question - is this the right path and pace. Yes it is the right path, but I still can't come to terms with the pace of the growth. If you see the growth of China in the last 24 years (after its re-entry into modern Olympics), I feel disappointed. There is a lot to be done. Hopefully the CWG in 2010 to be held in Delhi will inspire the Indian athletes as Beijing 2008 has done to the Chinese.

I also have some thoughts on the sports we should concentrate more on. I would like to see Indians build specialization in certain sports like the US in swimming, Cuba in boxing, Jamaica in Track&Field etc.. As we have won a lot of medals in Shooting, that should take the top priority. Not only because we have a Olympic champion there, but the fact that the number of medals to be won in Shooting is too huge to take it for granted. Many of them can compete in more than 2 events, and with rifles, pistols, shotguns , and the difference in distances, and also the team events, there are many medals to bag. This also goes for Archery. This sport does not require great infrastructure (which Shooting needs), but what is necessary is a excellent coach and well paid and content athletes.

Next comes events like Weightlifting, Boxing and Wrestling. The important thing to notice in these events (apart from the fact that we have individual medalists), is the fact that there are lot of categories. Which boils down to lot of medals. The weight classification is one of the key areas that we need to concentrate and get the medals. Finally a gold in Hockey is same value on paper as a Gold in Flyweight Boxing. And I feel that our country is looking more for Individual heroes rather than Teams.

Some other events that can bag us a lot of medals are Badminton, Table Tennis(have to figure out a way to beat the Chinese).

One event which we should minimize our investment in is the Track & Field. We have to accept the fact that, we are genetically disabled compared to the people from Africa and the Americas. We might get a surprise winner in that sport, but it is definitely one sport which we can't dominate.

PS: I do not intend any disrespect for any of the athletes who have represented India. Nor do I intend any disrespect for their sport.

Much needed break

After a week long deliberation and discussions, Anirudh, Sathish, Madhu K V and myself decided that we needed to take that much needed and deserved break. But the planning was not a smooth ride. We had half of our college gang dropping out of the trip for different reasons (but the most ridiculous one was given by Adi). Then we had the rains. Unfortunately for us it started pelting down that week, and in course flooding most of the Karnataka rivers. But none of this mattered for us, as we were determined to have a blast!

We decided to go to Kemmangundi, which is a hill station in the Western Ghats. We had booked the Horticulture department cottages by phone. Even though the weather forecasts showed torrential downpour near Kemmangundi, we decided to try our luck. So the jaunt started on 14th August (all of us had applied leave except Sathish). Everyone assembled at my home at 6:15 AM. We filled the tank of my Swift and loaded our bags and were on road by 6:40 AM. We took the NICE corridor road till Nelamangala (this 40 km distance took 30 mins to cover). From there we took the Tumkur road. The road was awesome, even with the intermittent rain. We had our breakfast at the Kamat restaurant just before Tumkur. After Tumkur we took the Bangalore-Honnavar road which is narrower (single lane - which takes a couple of turns to get adjusted to) and of inferior quality. We constantly clocked around 70km/hr.


Our first pit-stop came after the town of Gubbi (famous for the theater artists). We stopped near a field where farmers were sowing paddy. It was a nice experience to watch it, marred only by Sathish's obsessive nature to take individual pics. We continued our journey towards Kemmangundi, with a second pit-stop in front of a sunflower field. After this there was a scary moment on the road. I decided to overtake a Scorpio, who was much slower than me, but not letting me go through. I saw a lorry from the opposite side, but calculated that I could overtake the Scorpio. But that person, seeing me overtaking suddenly increased his speed. The result was that I went pretty close to the lorry. But the scarier thing was that a Tata Sumo was trying to overtake the lorry from the opposite side. It was a pretty close shave.

We reached the town of Birur which is 230kms from Bangalore. There we took a deviation to the left to a small village called Lingadahalli(16kms from Birur). The road started to get worse from here. Due to the constant downpour and also bad quality of roads, there were more pits than tarred road. Reaching Lingadahalli, we saw a deviation board (about 1km) towards Kemmangundi. This road was even worse, but it prepared us for the next 20kms upward climb to Kemmangundi. We stopped on the way (this was where Sathish called office to tell he wasn't coming) to take in the magnificent view of the hills. There was a cool breeze. I remember mentioning atleast a couple of times that I wished I had my office desk there.




Next stop was the Kalhatti falls or the Kallhatgiri falls. It is a stepped falls. So even though it falls from a height of 160 feet, there are a lot of places where one can get under the falls. The falls is more famous for its temple. There was some kind of big pooja going on there. So we had to be content at having the darshan from a distance. We started to trek to the top of the falls. We found a secluded place, where only 4 of us could enjoy the water. I think the temperature of water was below 10 degree. With my first step in the water, my feet went numb dude to the chill water. It was the best waterfall I had ever been to. I wished we could have stayed in the water a bit longer, but we were hungry and it was already 2:00 PM. We were hoping that we would get a nice hot meal in Kemmangundi.








After enjoying the euphoria, we headed upwards. Slowly but steadily the fog grew thicker. At first we started encountering running water on the road. It was actually fun to see that. But after some time we saw a couple of uprooted trees and some landslides. It was a scary drive to the top. But once we reached the top the view was spectacular. It made us get rid of all the tensions in our mind.

We reached the cottages and we were in for a shock. The rooms(or so called rooms) were the most disappointing part of the trip. It was no more cleaner than a godown. More over there was no power in entire Kemmangundi. We somehow digested this fact and felt it was our destiny to stay in this place and went for lunch. Comparing the canteen to the room, the room seemed to be heaven. This canteen seemed like a place where they feed criminals in jail. I haven't been there or tasted that food, but I guess nothing can be better than what was served to us!

Around this time it started raining. Only people who have been to these places know what rain really means. In the Malnad region, when it rains, it pours. And it pours for hours together. Unfortunately for us, the weather forecast for once proved to be right. But the bad room, pathetic food or the rain was not enough to deter our enthusiasm. We ventured out in the rain for a trek to a tourist spot called Z-point. Half way through the trip we realized that there were other creatures that was living on our blood. We had leeches all over our shoes and socks. We made a hasty retreat to the godown. We were wet, cold, and all our warm clothes were wet now. Some of them did not even have a dry pair of socks. We were occupied through out the evening with removing leeches from our shoes. It was a fun exercise in retrospect. Sathish acting like a girl. KV acting like a child. Me and Ani trying to teach them that a leech bite would not kill them. I am disappointed to say that we failed miserably. Sathish at one point used the torch as a focus light to put a foot down!

We settled on the beds(as it seemed to be the only safe point). We had lot of caching up to do. Some of them had moved on a lot in the last few months, and it was time to share all the experiences. We had lays and biscuit for dinner, as we decided we would not eat at that god forbidden place ever again. We slept pretty early, as we had plans for early next morning.

We got up at 6:00AM the next morning, and started climbing down by 7:00AM. Me and Ani had hot tea during the downward journey. It was still raining when we had started our journey, and we expected more landslides because of the rain. But we were lucky and we hit Lingadahalli by 8:00AM. We took a right deviation near Lingadahalli towards Chickmagalur. The road was of top quality. Especially the ghat section roads were a real surprise after the roads of Kemmangundi. We had breakfast in Chickmagalur.

From there we went to Belur(50kms). There is a temple in Belur of Sri Channakeshava which is famous for the stone carvings on the temple's outer wall. The road was pretty decent and the journey was smooth. Although I have been to Belur several times now, it was the first time for KV and Sathish. But every time I go there, I feel dumbstruck. When you first see the carvings on the stone, the architecture, and the imagination sculpturer, and the fact that it was done in 10th century, with such under developed tools, makes one feel that God has done this in the hands of man. Those who have never been to Belur will never get to know what stone sculptures really are. From the top the temple is seen as a 8 rayed star. The pillars inside the temple are all of different design. Its like every sculpturer is trying to better another one. The outside of the temple has carvings that depict a story. The Mahabaratha, Ramayana, Sri Bhagavath have all been depicted in stone carvings.























From here we went towards Hassan(60kms). Again, it was an awesome road. We had our lunch in Hassan and continued towards Bangalore. On the way, we decided to visit Shravanabelagola. It is a place of worship of the Jain's. But for us, it is the place of the largest monolithic stone statue in the world. Shravanabelagola can be reached by taking a deviation to the right on the Mangalore-Bangalore highway after the town of Channarayapatna. We have to take the State Highway for around 20kms. We have to climb a hill on steps to have a glimpse of this mammoth
yet beautiful statue of Bahubali. It is said that the dimensions of each part of the statue if reduced to that of a 6 foot man, would result in the perfect features for a man. At the top there is matap, where we rested for some time. The weather was really good, and we ate some of the things that we had carried to the top.

We left Shravanabelagola at around 3:30PM, and continued our journey towards Bangalore. We reached Bangalore at around 6:00 PM. We had covered 620Kms in the entire journey. In all it was a real fun trip, with lot of adventures, beautiful places, and most important of all with amazing friends.

Cheers guys,
We Rock!

Truly Inspirational!

I was reading another blog and came across this story of a Naga Naresh Karaturi. Everybody has to read this story. For those who think they are in deep shit, this will show you a way out. And for those who think are leading a great life, this will show how to be humble all the while. And finally for those who are in between these two categories like me, it will give you that little doze of inspiration, which I hope will make us achieve great stuff, and more importantly will give a new sense of how important it is to be happy in life. Please leave all your work for 10 minutes and read this story.

http://battakiran.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/from-banks-of-godavari-to-google-on-wheel-chair/