Bill Gates Said He'd Drop out of College for These 3 Jobs Today

Harvard's most famous dropout, Bill Gates, ditched university in 1975 to found Microsoft, which later lead to him becoming the world’s wealthiest man. He dropped out after only two years of school to start the multinational technology company with his childhood friend, Paul Allen. And it wasn't until 2007, more than three decades later, that he'd finally received his honorary doctorate from his alma mater.

He's called himself a "bad influence" when speaking to students at graduation ceremonies before but, when speaking at Columbia University on Friday, he told the crowd of roughly 1,000 that he may have dropped out again for jobs in certain fields.

While the billionaire admitted that, if he were to drop out of college today there's a limited chance he'd have ended up so successful (after all, the No. 1 priority of his foundation is investing in education), he did admit that some fields seem more promising to him than others, according to Forbes.

Artificial intelligence has the most potential, he said. He called the current research being done "profound," noting that we're on the verge of making new breakthroughs. "The ability for artificial agents to read and understand material is going to be phenomenal," he said. "Anything connected with that would be an exciting lifetime career."