The Celebrity Entrepreneurs
Those celebrities or famous people whose high IQ is most apparent are the billionaire entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg.
Elon Musk earned degrees in Economics and Physics and was enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Stanford before dropping out to co-found with his brother his first company Zip 2 that he sold at the age of 28 for $307 million. He subsequently founded or cofounded several companies including SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink
Jeff Bezos, identified as “gifted” in elementary school, was accepted at Princeton and subsequently graduated summa cum laude in electrical engineering and computer science. He went on to found Amazon and become one of the richest people in the world.
Bill Gates, with a reported IQ of 160, achieved a near perfect score of 1590 out of 1600 on his SATs and was accepted into Harvard where he studied law, mathematics, and computer science. He dropped out of Harvard to found Microsoft and has become a wealthy benefactor.
Following a stellar academic career, Larry Page pursued a Ph.D. in computer science. His thesis supervisor Terry Winograd suggested that he investigate how the articles on the World Wide Web were linked. Pursuing this suggestion, Page embarked on a project he called “BackRub” that would trace each page on the web back to its antecedents. Excited by the challenge of the BackRub project, fellow Ph.D. student Sergey Brin joined the project and the two massaged BackRub into what we know today as Google–a system for organizing the world’s information base that has been described as “the most empowering invention since Gutenberg’s printing press.”
Mark Zuckerberg, like Bezos, was identified as gifted early in his career and won prizes in mathematics, physics, and astronomy while attending the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. While a student at Harvard University, he developed the Facebook software that would become his signature creation and make him a billionaire at age 23.
Celebrities in the fields of Entertainment
There have also been some people in the fields of entertainment who are known for their high IQ.
Aston Kutcher who starred in the sitcom Two and a Half Men and That ‘70s Show is reputed to have an IQ of 160. Before entering acting, he studied biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa and was an entrepreneur.
Natalie Portman, with a reputed IQ of 140, graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology and went on to win starring roles in Star Wars and Black Swan (for which she received the Best-Actress Award in 2011 at age 29).
Steve Martin with a reported IQ of 142, is a comedian and actor who may be best known for his starring role in Father of the Bride and has been successful in a variety of venues.
Anthony Hopkins is respected as a multi-talented intellectual whose high IQ is evident across several fields of entertainment. He won the Best-Actor Academy Award in 1992 for his role in Silence of the Lambs and in 2021 (at age 83) for his role in The Father. He also composed several pieces of music that may qualify as the classical genre, including his orchestral piece, And the Waltz Goes On, that was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2011.
While many high-IQ people reach celebrity status, many more are involved in esoteric or arcane fields that never attain public recognition. The best of them are celebrities in their own domains, but only to those who share an understanding of that area of endeavor.
