The youngest self-made billionaire in the world has declared that dropping out of education is “absolutely” recommended because it “is not for everyone.”
Luminar Technologies was founded by Austin Russell, 28, who graduated from Stanford University in 2012 and received a $100,000 grant from the Peter Thiel Fellowship.
An astonishing $2.6 billion has been invested in Luminar Technologies, a tech business that creates hardware and software mostly for self-driving cars.
Austin made the right choice to leave school, as he went on to become the youngest self-made billionaire in history at the age of 25.
He has finally spoken up about his choice to discontinue his studies, admitting that grant or no grant, he would have left college.
If you’re wondering if I would have quit (without the grant), then the answer is yes. Absolutely. Nobody had any doubts, according to Austin. It was inevitable in any case.
When asked if he would advise other students to drop out of college, the 28-year-old entrepreneur responded, “Absolutely.”
Austin continued to CNBC Make It, “College is not for everyone. It’s just the traditional approach around what you do and what you’re supposed to do.”
For various reasons, ranging from debt to professional opportunities, many people decide against pursuing a degree.
Austin emphasized how the internet and technology have made materials previously exclusively available through universities widely accessible to everyone.
This information is now readily available online, according to the creator of Luminar Technologies. “This is something that is absolutely true now; it wasn’t true 50 years ago.”
Austin described how it saved him a ton of time in his early teens to be able to view “entire lecture sets” online.
“You can do all these things that were never possible,” he continued. If you watch it back-to-back, you can complete curricula and annual courses in weeks. There are numerous ways to teach knowledge to oneself.
Austin isn’t the first computer tycoon to have left school to concentrate on his businesses; Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates both did the same.
When Steve, who died in October 2011, was only 19 years old, he dropped out of Reed College, but Bill, now 67, attended Harvard for two years before leaving to found Microsoft.
