INTRO: We always heard about billionaires who dropped
out of college to launch companies and hit it big.
Everyone from Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to Steve Jobs and Michael Dell.
In fact, the billionaire’s list is disproportionately made up of college dropouts.
But, while these are insane success stories, the one similarity between all of these stories
is that they happened in western countries and more specifically America.
Not only does this make the journey itself easier given that there is more opportunity,
but more importantly, the consequences of failing are actually not that bad.
Worst-case scenario, you can just flip burgers at McDonald’s and live paycheck to paycheck.
In many Asian countries, however, if you don’t make it with your business and you don’t
have a degree, you could very well end up homeless given the extreme competition for
even entry-level jobs.
Despite this, an Indian man named Gautam Adani was not only willing to drop out of college
but also willing to drop out of high school to chase his dreams.
And, just last week, Gautam surpassed Mukesh Ambani to become Asia’s richest person.
So, here’s how a high school dropout became Asia’s richest man.
DROPOUT: Taking a look back, Gautam was born on June
24, 1962, in Ahmedabad, India.
His father was a local textile merchant which should’ve provided Gautam with a decent
upbringing financially.
But the problem was that Gautam had 7 siblings, so his father’s average income didn’t
stretch that far.
While his family wasn’t particularly rich, his father’s small business likely swayed
the core values of the family.
Generally, in India, college is thought of as the holy grail, and people who don’t
follow the traditional path are strongly stigmatized within society.
But, it looks like Gautam’s father’s business made the family more open to alternative paths.
And this was quite important given that Gautam hated school from the very beginning.
He had very little interest in academics and he didn’t feel that school could get him
to where he wanted to be anyway.
So, at age 16, he dropped out of high school and moved to Mumbai to give business a shot.
He only had a few hundred rupees in his pocket or less than a hundred dollars.
It’s not clear what exactly he tried to do in Mumbai, but it seems like it was a big
failure as Gautam would return home and enroll in Gujurat University which is known for having
extremely generous admissions.
They don’t post a formal acceptance rate, so it’s thought that anybody who applies
and meets the base criteria is accepted.
In other words, Gautam basically enrolled in a community college.
This didn’t matter much though as Gautam would drop out of here as well just two years
later at age 18.
He traveled to Mumbai once again with a few hundred more rupees, but this time he had
a plan.
Gautam went ahead and scored an entry-level job as a diamond sorter at an exporting company
called Mahendra Brothers, not to be confused with Mahindra Motors.
While this job didn’t pay much, it gave Gautam insight into the diamond business and
he would use this knowledge to start up a diamond flipping business.
This turned out to be quite successful and made Guatam a good amount of money.
It’s not like he could just retire or anything, but he no longer had to worry about making
ends meet.
In the meantime, one of his brothers who was also inclined towards business started up
a small plastics factory and asked Gautam to come join him.
Given that Gautam didn’t want to flip diamonds for the rest of his life, he took on the offer,
but he never went all-in on his brother’s business.
You see, the plastics business was rather cutthroat with small profit margins and significant
competition.
So, Gautam didn’t want to build a plastics company, but Gautam did quickly recognize
a greater opportunity within the industry.
One of the most important materials required for plastic production is PVC, and it seemed
to Gautam that all of their PVC suppliers were fairing much better than them.
So, Gautam traveled to South Korea to meet with PVC producers and make an importing deal.
And with that, Gautam launched Adani Exports limited in 1988.
THE ADANI GROUP: Gautam started the company with a total of
500,000 rupees, which at the time was equivalent to about $36,000.
Initially, the company imported PVC and sold it to local plastic factories, but it didn’t
take long for Gautam to expand outside this.
Beginning in 1991, the Indian government changed their attitude on business and started passing
legislation that was much more favorable to companies.
For example, they lightened licensing restrictions, lowered tariffs, and loosened banking policies.
This period has since become known as the economic liberalization of India.
All these policies led to an influx of capital into the Indian economy and allowed businesses
to expand faster than ever before, and this was perfect timing for Gautam.
Gautam went ahead and leveraged these policies to expand the company into trading metals,
textiles, and agricultural commodities.
A few years later, India opened up the Mundra shipping port to private companies, and in
1995, Gautum would win the contract.
Since then, the Mundra port has become the largest private port in India.
Gautam quickly followed up this success by opening up a power plant in 1996.
And by 1998, the Adani Group became India’s largest net foreign exchange earner.
Despite all this success, Gautam was yet to even enter his most successful industry which
was the coal industry.
The coal industry has historically had a high barrier to entry given the massive costs associated
with starting up and the monopolistic nature of the business.
However, on the flip side, if you are able to dethrone the current coal leader, you’d
likely be set for decades.
Gautam was well aware of this, so he didn’t enter this market until he was truly ready
which wasn’t till 1999.
Soon after, Gautam formed a partnership with a leading Singaporean company called the Wilmar
Group.
Together they launched a joint venture called Adani Wilmar, and this cemented Gautam’s
position within the big leagues.
But, when you start playing in the big leagues, you start dealing with the big problems.
DEATH’S DOOR: One of the biggest concerns for many billionaires
is being assassinated and/or being held for ransom.
This is why many CEOs and billionaires spend millions if not tens of millions every year
on security.
They also have many odd practices to reduce the likelihood of being assassinated.
Donald Trump, for example, is one of the most flamboyant billionaires out there.
You would think that he loves fine dining and fancy restaurants, but more times than
not, Trump actually prefers to eat at fast-food restaurants.
He feels that if he randomly shows up at a fast-food restaurant, there’s a much smaller
likelihood of getting poisoned than if he made a reservation at a fancy restaurant.
This is truly quite ironic, but it’s part of the price you often have to pay to get
to the top.
It’s not clear how much Gautam paid attention to such threats, but it quickly became clear
that he should’ve paid a lot more attention.
In 1998, as Gautam and one of his friends, Shantilal Patel, exited the Karnavati Club,
there were stopped at gunpoint by a group of men.
They forced the duo to board a van and they took them to an undisclosed location.
Fortunately, the group wasn’t looking to kill Gautam.
They just wanted his money, and as soon as he handed over $2 million, they were set free.
The kidnapping was eventually linked to two gangsters named Fazl-ur-Rehman and Bhogilal
Darji both of whom had extensive criminal histories.
I’m sure Gautam was a lot more cautious following this incident, but ten years later,
he would find himself in yet another close death encounter.
This time though, it wasn’t on the streets of India, it was in one of the most luxurious
and bougie places in India: The Taj Hotel.
On November 26, 2008, the Taj Hotel was one of the targets of a series of terrorist attacks.
A group of 10 terrorists invaded the Taj Hotel, killing dozens of people and taking the rest
of the hotel as hostage.
Unfortunately, Gautam was one of the people at the Taj Hotel when this attack took place,
and he says that he witnessed death from a distance of 15 feet.
Fortunately, though, the hotel staff heroically led the surviving victims of the attack to
the basement and eventually a chamber hall where to took refuge.
They stayed here for the next 2.5 days until India’s National Security Guards invaded
the Taj and took out the terrorists on November 29, 2008.
Evidently, this was the worst experience of Gautam’s life.
It did give him a new perspective on life though which he has carried with him ever
since.
CONTROVERSIAL HISTORY: So far, we’ve covered the bright side of
Gautam, but many would argue that Gautam also has a dark side.
Historically, Gautam has been notorious for leveraging his wealth and power to gain even
more wealth and power.
For example, you guys may be familiar with the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi.
Recently, he’s become one of the most influential figures in international politics.
But, Gautam has actually been supporting Modi since 2003.
So, there’s no doubt that Gautam is within the good graces of Modi, and many critics
have suggested that Gautam has used this connection to influence national politics and pass beneficial
legislation for himself.
Aside from strategic lobbying, by far the biggest criticism against Gautam is his environmental
impact.
Given that he made a lot of his money from coal, his business is naturally going to have
a negative environmental impact.
But, this is not actually what critics are talking about.
Critics generally point to instances in which Gautam outrightly defies environmental policies.
For example, in 2011, Gautam’s company approved an unseaworthy ship carrying coal for a voyage
across the ocean.
But, the ship ended up sinking which caused 60,000 metric tonnes of coal to be deposited
into the ocean.
Gautam never did anything to clean up the mess and simply paid a $975,000 fine.
Similarly, in 2010, his company caused a pollution disaster in Zambia that ended up poisoning
the Kafue River.
And in 2016, his company started work on their Hazira Port without government approval which
made it impossible for local families to fish.
On top of his environmental impact, many argue that Gautam is having a negative social impact
as well.
For example, he worked with the police to intimate people off their land, and he’s
accused of exploiting workers.
Many of his low-level miners and construction workers are paid less than $4 per day.
So, clearly, Gautam is by no means a saint, but he is trying to turn the tide.
REFORM: While Gautam is by no means shutting down
his coal operations, he has done significant good deeds in other sectors.
For example, he opened free schools across India which have provided education to 100,000
underprivileged children.
Recently, he has also been trying to combat his negative environmental impact.
Last summer, Gautam pledged to invest $10 billion into green energy within the next
three years.
And that’s just a fraction of his commitment to invest $70 billion into green energy by
2030.
This of course doesn’t negate all of his damage from the past, but it is nice to see
that Gautam is being sensitive to his environmental impact moving forward.
In terms of wealth, Gautam reached a peak net worth of $88.5 billion when he overtook
Mukesh.
Gautam has since fallen back slightly below Mukesh, but given that Gautam is up $10 billion
on the year and Mukesh is down $1 billion on the year, it looks like it’s just a matter
of time until Gautam decisively overtakes Mukesh, but that’s just what I think.
Do you guys think Gautam got lucky or do you think he can do it again today without a college
degree?
Comment that down below.
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