Although he first made his Hollywood name generally playing dimwitted characters, there’s a great deal more to Ashton Kutcher. Just how smart is he in reality?
The word “smart” has different meanings to different people but Ashton Kutcher is clearly an intuitive businessman. He enrolled in at the University of Iowa, majoring in Biochemical Engineering, but dropped out to pursue a career in showbusiness. He has found great success as a venture capitalist, making a number of highly rewarding investments.
For more on Ashton Kutcher’s experience at college and his successes away from the screen, read on.
Student Life
Kutcher attended Washington High School in his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in his freshman year. Shortly after, his family relocated to Homestead, Iowa, and he transferred to Amana High School.
Although he was a good student academically, he struggled with his home life, partly due to his twin brother Michael, already living with Cerebral Palsy, also being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.
Kutcher has said that he tried to keep out of the house and stay busy in order to avoid the stress of his home life, which was only exacerbated while he was 16 when his parents divorced.
He first discovered his passion for acting while in high school, perhaps finding a sense of escapism in it.
In his senior year, Kutcher and his cousin broke into Amana High to steal some money but were arrested leaving the scene. He was found guilty of third-degree burglary and given three years of probation and 180 hours of community service.
The experience apparently “straightened [Kutcher] out” but it also led to him losing any possibility of college scholarships, which he had been anticipating.
Despite the lack of scholarship money, Kutcher enrolled at the University of Iowa. He intended to major in biochemical engineering, in the hope of one day curing his brother’s heart disease.
Although his legal troubles had wisened Kutcher up in some respects, his college life was (not unusually) dedicated to partying, to the point that he was kicked out of his apartment. He also took a job working in the cereal department of his hometown General Mills plant, in order to pay his tuition fees.
He was discovered by a model scout at an Iowa City bar and entered a state modeling competition, which he won. Kutcher dropped out of college, using the money he had saved to instead relocate to Los Angeles and pursue an acting career.
Smart Investments
Even as he was somewhat typecast in his early career as playing slow-witted characters, Kutcher was looking to expand his personal resume. He started Katalyst Films alongside Jason Goldberg, producing his own series, “Punk’d”, as well as several reality shows.
He has talked about how his “father always had several irons in the fire” and that he always wanted to have contingency plans in place in case one project didn’t work out.
Along with Guy Oseary, the manager of Madonna and U2, and Ron Burkle, a supermarket billionaire, Kutcher co-founded “A-Grade Investments”, a venture capital firm, in 2010.
Together, the three men made an initial investment of about $30 million and, by 2016, had grown that amount to somewhere in the region of $250 million.
Kutcher is a keen investor in technology and talks about how he sees tech as making people’s lives happier and easier, thus it’s sensible to invest in.
He was an early investor in Uber, which grew at a staggering pace, as well as putting money into Spotify, Airbnb, Shazam, and several other household name brands.
Unlike many of his Hollywood peers who entrust their money to others, Kutcher takes an active role and only invests in companies he believes in.
While there are certainly many interpretations of the word “smart”, there can be no doubt that Ashton Kutcher has a keen eye for investment and the bravery to take a risk.