For billionaire Elon Musk, college doesn’t hold much value since a degree doesn’t guarantee success. Instead, real skills and abilities learned outside the classroom matter more.
With a net worth of $200 billion as of February 2021, consistently ranking among the world’s richest, Elon Musk is a hot topic for media and aspiring entrepreneurs. But surprisingly, he doesn’t care much about degrees or going to college.
“I think college is basically just for fun… not really for learning,” the Tesla founder said bluntly at a 2020 conference when asked what universities should do to give students more opportunities.
Musk believes young people don’t need college to get basic knowledge, especially now with free information widely available thanks to technology. He sees college as a burden full of annoying homework that rarely applies to real jobs later on.
According to Musk, the biggest value of college is the time to socialize and build connections with peers before entering the workforce and starting a career. Those relationships are the most valuable assets for future entrepreneurs.
“What matters is deep knowledge of AI and the ability to apply neural networks effectively. You don’t need a college degree, and I don’t care if you haven’t even finished high school, as long as you have the skills,” Musk said during an AI seminar.
In fact, Elon Musk has stated that Tesla’s hiring process does not require candidates to have a college degree because it makes no sense. Ironically, most of the jobs Tesla offers are in tech and engineering fields that usually require certain educational qualifications.
Musk’s dismissive view of college isn’t new. Back in 2014, he expressed admiration for Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Steve Jobs, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, all successful entrepreneurs who dropped out of college to start their own companies.
“College isn’t proof of exceptional ability. In fact, you can drop out and still do something great. Ideally, you drop out and do something. Take Bill Gates, he’s incredibly smart but dropped out. Steve Jobs was especially smart and also dropped out. Larry Ellison, a smart guy, dropped out too. Clearly, college isn’t necessary. Did Shakespeare go to college? Probably not,” Musk said.
Despite his criticism, Musk did spend two years at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where he earned degrees in physics and economics. He later dropped out of a PhD program at Stanford to launch his first startup, Zip2.
Part of Musk’s frustration with college might come from the $100,000 student debt he accumulated. Just two days after enrolling in Stanford’s PhD program, he quit to start Zip2, which he later sold to Compaq in 1999 for $22 million.
