- As Gen Z questions the value of higher education, Figma CEO Dylan Field has become the latest tech billionaire to make it big without a college degree, joining the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Bill Gates. Thanks to his company’s roaring IPO, his net worth has soared to $5 billion. And for the tech founder, the milestone is more than just a financial win—it’s a validation of his decision to drop out of an Ivy League university.
Figma burst onto the public markets last week, surging in share price by 333% and hitting a market cap of over $70 billion in just the first few days of trading.
For investors bullish on startups, last week was a rejuvenation after a sluggish stretch in the IPO market. But for Figma cofounder and CEO Dylan Field, last week not only helped propel his net worth to about $5 billion—it was also a validation that his decision to abandon an Ivy League education at Brown University was well worth it, a choice made possible by Peter Thiel.
In the early 2010s—with lines on his résumé detailing work at LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Flipboard—Field applied for the Thiel Fellowship, a program funded by the billionaire that gave $100,000 to young people who “want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom” (the prize has since doubled to $200,000). At the time, his parents admitted they were skeptical, with his mom telling CNBC that she feared Field would want a degree to fall back on later in life.
“I’m quite nervous, yeah,” Field’s father, Andy, said. “Most startups do fail. I think he has a good shot, but certainly not a sure thing by any means.”
After being awarded the fellowship, Field felt confident it was the right move—especially since he had once considered dropping out of high school owing to his struggles with structured education. In 2012, the same year Facebook went public (a company also created by a dropout enabled by Thiel), Field left school to build Figma. The rest is billion-dollar history.
Fortune reached out to Field for comment.
Billionaires who made it big after dropping out
Field is far from the first highly successful individual to have carved their own path in business without having walked across the stage to obtain a college diploma. In fact, many of the richest people on earth can call themselves college dropouts.
Mark Zuckerberg
Perhaps one of the most well-known college dropouts, Zuckerberg ditched his Harvard dorm in 2004 to move to California and dedicate his time to creating Facebook. Zuckerberg received an honorary doctorate from the school in 2017. His current net worth is about $272 billion.
Jack Dorsey
The cofounder of Twitter and Block, Jack Dorsey is a double dropout. After a brief stint at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, Dorsey called it quits before trying again at New York University. One semester before he would have graduated in 1999, Dorsey ditched school to focus on founding Twitter. After selling the social media platform to Elon Musk in 2022, he came home with a $268 million windfall. His current net worth is about $4.7 billion.
Sam Altman
Sam Altman dropped out of Stanford University in 2005 to work on his first startup: Loopt, a location-sharing app. By 2015, he had helped cofound OpenAI, the leading AI organization behind ChatGPT. His net worth is now about $2 billion.
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison, cofounder of Oracle, first attended the University of Illinois thinking he might one day become a doctor. After the death of his adoptive mother, he dropped out, then later attended the University of Chicago. While he never obtained a degree from either institution, his move to California opened doors into the tech industry. After jumping from job to job, he met Bob Miner and Ed Oates, and together they created the company that would later become Oracle. He is currently the second-richest person in the world, with a net worth of just over $300 billion.
Bill Gates
Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates enrolled at Harvard University in 1973 before leaving two years later to lead the computer company. While he admitted in the early years he wanted to return to school and finish his degree, he’s since become one of the most recognized names in the world. His net worth is about $123 billion.
Why Gen Zers are turning their backs on higher education
Being a college dropout is by no means the secret to becoming a billionaire—after all, many top business leaders have multiple degrees to their name, such as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
However, Gen Z is increasingly having doubts about whether the promise of a high-paying, secure job after spending four years on campus will be fulfilled; more than a third of graduates believe their degree was a “waste of money,” according to a recent survey by Indeed.
With millions of young people unable to find jobs in their desired industry, there may be some validity to their concerns. Zuckerberg suggested the disconnect may come from colleges being out of sync with today’s workforce needs.
“I’m not sure that college is preparing people for the jobs that they need to have today. I think that there’s a big issue on that, and all the student debt issues are … really big,” he said on This Past Weekend, a podcast with Theo Von.
“The fact that college is just so expensive for so many people, and then you graduate and you’re in debt.”
