Ted Turner, founder of CNN and owner of the Atalanta Braves, among many other companies, was worth $9 billion at his peak in the mid 1990s.
When he was young he went to the military-oriented McCallie School where he did not do well as a student. He was always breaking the rules and earned the nickname “Terrible Ted” from his fellow classmates and teachers. The school had a demerit system where when you did something wrong you earned a demerit point and had to walk a quarter mile as punishment. Turner ended up gaining over 1,000 demerit points.
Turner was always a ‘C’ student and never excelled at school – but he went on to become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in recent history.
It got me to thinking is Turner the exception to the rule where he was able to overcome the poor academic grades and build a successful company?
There are many stories of entrepreneurs who drop out of school and launch tremendous companies – but there are even more who drop out and never accomplish their dreams of building a successful business.
Is there a correlation between doing well in school and being a great entrepreneur or do schools simply prepare you to get a job?
Evan Carmichael
