The American dream usually doesn't involve dropping out of college or high school, coming to America as an immigrant, or being incredibly poor. However, people who dropped out of college or high school, came to America as immigrants, or were incredibly poor are some of the most successful and important people in American history. If icons like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk abandoned their ideas in favor of the American dream, which involves getting a college degree, being rich early on and being one hundred percent American, companies like Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, PayPal and SpaceX would not exist today. It would be difficult for the Smiths to research the real estate market in any trendy neighborhood without a Windows operating system or a Mac operating system and without a search engine like Google. If Changez from The Reluctant Fundamentalist or Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle were not limited by the idea of ​​the American dream, Changez might have stayed in America and found happiness, and Walls and her family would have been more successful at the start of their journey. . The American dream limits potential because it convinces people that success is black and white. Fortunately, many icons have not been convinced by the idea of ​​the American dream. If Gates, Jobs, and Musk had decided to pursue what the dream defines as success instead of pursuing something unique and different, as they all once did, then America and the world would not have never progressed logically. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Although it is widely believed that achieving the type of success promised by the American dream requires earning a college degree, this is not always the case. In some cases, the university may even hinder students' success by preventing them from accessing other opportunities. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, is worth billions. Bill Gates' success wasn't based on earning a college degree. Gates attended Harvard University, but for Gates, “Harvard was replaceable” (Dalglish). In 1974, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen visited Gates at Harvard when Gates was a sophomore. During this visit, “Allen urged him to leave the university so that they could form a partnership to develop software” (Dalglish). Allen believed that if he and Gates waited any longer, they would lose the chance to enter the software industry in its infancy. Gates agreed and promptly dropped out of the Ivy League university. For Gates, education was never the most important thing. For Gates, technology was the most important thing. Even in high school, “Bill began interrupting classes to hang out at all hours in the computer center at his private school” (Biography). In college, Gates still spent most of his time working in Harvard's computer center. The duo went on to create Microsoft, which is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Gates was a billionaire at 31. If Gates hadn't dropped out, there would be no Microsoft today. If it weren't for Microsoft today, personal computers probably wouldn't be where they are now. By 1992, Microsoft's MS-DOS computer operating system was "used in 90 percent of the world's personal computers" (Dalglish). Today, Windows operating system is the most popular operating systempopular and Microsoft offers other products besides operating systems, such as Microsoft Office and Xbox. The American Dream tells a success story that revolves around many different factors, including earning a college degree. However, Gates did not adhere to this mantra. Instead, Gates thought he could do without graduate school, and he was more than right. “Gates insists that he does not measure success in purely commercial terms” (Dalglish). For Bill Gates, success lies in having an intelligent peer tell him whether one of his ideas is good. Gates didn't follow the path set by the American dream and changed the world of technology with it. Coincidentally, Gates is not the only tech visionary whose success did not rely on a college education. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, dropped out of Reed College after just one semester. “After six months, I no longer saw the value in it,” Jobs said. “I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me get there. So I decided to give up and hope for the best” (Goodell). In addition to not graduating, Jobs was also the opposite of the clean-cut business executive people imagine when they imagine a Fortune 500 company. Jobs took LSD and smoked marijuana, while wearing tattered jeans and practicing Buddhism. Jobs' vision with Apple was largely based on his unique personality and resistance to the norm. Ironically, even Bill Gates “was intrigued by the fact that people wanted color computers” (Kahney 154). The American dream doesn't usually come in the form of a man taking LSD while starting a business in a garage. However, it has changed technology, including how it is designed and how users interact with it. If Jobs had followed the stereotypical idea of ​​the American dream, he would never have become the visionary behind Apple. Jobs did what everyone else didn't do. In “The Steve Nobody Knows,” Goodell noted, “At a time when software was the model, he was building hardware. At a time when everyone was focused on the macro, he was focused on the micro” (Goodell). In addition to being a college dropout and a hippie, his biological father is Syrian and he is adopted. He grew up partly in Silicon Valley where “there were no stifling traditions or cultural baggage. You could be what or whoever you wanted to be” (Goodell). For all the ways Jobs was the opposite of the American dream, he was worth more than $100 million when he was just 25 years old. If Jobs had stayed in school, Apple would not exist. There would be no art in the design of technology. Plus, cell phones wouldn't be where they are today. Shortly after the iPhone's June 2006 launch, Leander Kahney in Inside Steve's Brain noted that "the iPhone is already radically transforming the massive mobile phone industry, which experts say has already divided in two eras: pre-iPhone and post-iPhone” (Kahney 3). If Jobs hadn't taken an alternative approach, there wouldn't be a single vision that would change the way technology is created and how people use it, and teenage girls might not be able to put update their Instagram. Besides requiring a college education, the American dream ironically often does not include immigrants. The American dream generally involves a white family born and raised in the United States. However, the man who could shape American history is South African Elon Musk. Musk is the founder ofPayPal, Tesla and SpaceX. Musk is the “Steve Jobs of heavy industry” or the “Henry Ford of rockets” (Junod). Musk's main goal is to go to Mars with SpaceX, which is pretty crazy, but not for Musk. Musk was born in South Africa, but moved to America after graduating from high school. Although he was not born an American, “when he was very young, he gave up everything to become an American” (Junod). If Musk had believed that the story of the American dream was reserved for Americans only, there would be no PayPal, Tesla or SpaceX. PayPal has made it easier to buy goods online. Tesla made electric vehicles popular and desirable. SpaceX could change the course of human history with its attempts at space travel and access to Mars. All this exists thanks to a man who emigrated to America. It is important to note how crucial the space program is to American pride. The space program, particularly the Apollo 11 mission, constitutes the pinnacle of what the Americans have achieved. Today, an American immigrant is striving to surpass that peak. Musk is facing the next big goal in the space program, one of the most important parts of American history, and he's not even American. Musk is the kind of man who doesn't care about the norm, and in that sense he is very American. Generally, Americans seem to embrace conformity. However, the Americans who contributed to America's success eventually all embraced a little more individualism. Europeans came to America for the sake of individualism. Musk is certainly no exception to this model of individualism among historic Americans. For example, the Tesla Model S has a volume control that goes up to eleven o'clock. This minor detail sums up Musk well, along with the $100 million of his own money he invested in SpaceX and the many failed attempts with the Falcon 1 rocket. Musk did not get to where he is today by trying to appease norms; he got to where he is today by ignoring the common and striving toward the unimaginable. Musk's attitude doesn't fit the mediocre, risk-free style of the American dream, especially as an immigrant spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a goal he may never achieve. However, if he does, the effects of his work will be felt for centuries, if not longer, and this effect could not exist if Musk believed that the American dream was reserved for people born in America. Although the story of Elon Musk is real, a similar reality can be found in the fiction of Mohsin Hamid's Reluctant Fundamentalist. In the book, the protagonist Changez emigrates from Pakistan to America to attend Princeton University, where he majors in finance. Changez leaves Pakistan to come to America for better opportunities. After attending Princeton, Changez joined Underwood Samson, a consulting firm, as an analyst. Changez excelled at Underwood Samson, but Changez's life in America turned sour after the attacks of September 11, 2001. After those attacks, those who resembled the perpetrators were subjected to intense scrutiny, and Changez was no exception. The scrutiny Changez faces leads to Changez's dismissal from Underwood Samson, shunned by his superior, and an unhappy return to Pakistan. However, it was not this scrutiny that led to Changez losing his life in America. Changez's reaction to this scrutiny is what led Changez to lose sight of what is important. For Changez, the American dream is a question of life and death. In response to this scrutiny, Changez negatively amplifies his identity as a Muslim, sparking.