[noarchy]

A lot of the people on that list at least went to college. It was a lot easier to get away with this back then, whereas today no one will even look at you unless you have a diploma of some kind (in most fields, at least). I am far more impressed with the ones who never even started, or who never even finished the equivalent of high school.

A good number of people on the list are entrepreneurs, too. Even today, you can get away with having far less formal education if you strike out on your own.

[Locke1689]

Agreed. The very fact that Bill Gates and Paul Allen both attended Harvard meant that they got some of the benefit. They certainly weren't complete autodidacts -- they got some of the best secondary education in the country beforehand.