The Surprise Millionaires

Provided by Vox

I was raised in a working-class neighborhood near Dallas by my mother, an immigrant from Vietnam. I attended the public schools nearby. We had metal detectors, drug searches using police dogs, a vice principal who was shot by a BB gun at a school assembly, and a teacher who was hospitalized after students put staples in her coffee — and that was just at my middle school.

I avoided the stress of dealing with drugs and gangs by routinely skipping classes. When I was 16, my high school principal told me that my spotty attendance was hurting the school’s funding, so she gave me an ultimatum: I could drop out, or I would be given a large truancy fine. Unable to afford the fine, later that week I became a high school dropout. (More accurately, I was a pushout).

I had to wait a few months until I turned…